CLASS
VIII -HISTORY
CHAPTER
– 3, RULING COUNTRYSIDE
The Company Become the Diwan
The East India Company became the Diwan
of Bengal, on 12 August 1765. As Diwan, the Company became the chief financial
administrator of the territory under its control. The Company needed to
administer the land and organize its revenue resources. It needed to be done in
a way that could yield enough revenue to meet the growing expenses of the
company.
Revenue
for the Company
The Company’s aim was to increase the
revenue to buy fine cotton and silk cloth as cheaply as possible. Within a span
of five years, the value of goods bought by the Company in Bengal doubled.
Before 1765, Company purchased goods in
India by importing gold and silver from Britain. Now it was financed by the
revenue collected in Bengal.
Bengal's economy was facing a deep crisis1770s. Artisanal production was in decline, and
agricultural cultivation showed signs of collapse. Then in 1770, a terrible
famine killed ten million people in Bengal. British didn’t give attention to
this as their main task was to make money
by trade.
The
need to improve agriculture
In 1793, the Company introduced the Permanent Settlement, under the reign of Lord Cornwallis.
By the terms of the settlement, the rajas
and taluqdars were recognized as zamindars, who were asked to collect rent from
the peasants and pay revenue to the Company.
The amount to be paid was fixed
permanently. This settlement would ensure a regular flow of revenue into the company’s coffers and at the same time encourage the zamindars to invest in
improving the land.
The
problem
Zamindars did not pay attention to the condition of the land
and tried to keep more and more money left after collection.
In the villages, the cultivators found
the system extremely oppressive. The rent they paid to the zamindar was high so
they took a loan from the moneylender, and when they failed to pay the rent
they were evicted from the land.
Because of the less revenue collection, British
tried some other new method of revenue generation such as Mahalwari system and
Ryotwari system
A
new system was devised
Holt Mackenzie devised the new system
which came into effect in 1822. This
was introduced in North India and came to be known as Mahalwari settlement.
Under his directions, collectors went
from village to village, inspecting the land, measuring the fields, and
recording the customs and rights of different groups. The estimated revenue of
each plot within a village was added up to calculate the revenue that each
village (mahal) had to pay.
This demand was to be revised
periodically, not permanently fixed.
The charge of collecting the revenue and
paying it to the Company was given to the village headman, rather than the
zamindar. This system came to be known as the Mahalwari settlement.
The
Munro system
In the British territories in the south,
a new system was devised known as the ryotwar (or ryotwari).
Ryotwari was initiated by Captain Alexander Read and Thomas
Munro. This system was extended all over south India.
The settlement had to be made directly
with the cultivators (ryots). Their fields had to be carefully and separately
surveyed before the revenue assessment was made.
British officials were appointed to collect the revenue and used coercive methods for revenue collection.
All
was not well
In order to increase the income from
land, revenue officials fixed high revenue demand. Peasants were unable to pay,
ryots fled the countryside, and villages became deserted in many regions.
Crops for Europe
By the late eighteenth century, the
Company tried to expand the cultivation of opium and indigo. The Company forced
cultivators in various parts of India to produce jute, tea, sugarcane, wheat, cotton and rice in various
parts of India
.
Does
colour have a history?
The rich blue colour was produced from a
plant called indigo. it was on high demand in
Europe as it was used for dyeing purpose
The blue dye used in the Morris prints in
nineteenth-century Britain was manufactured from indigo plants cultivated in India.
India was the biggest supplier of indigo
in the world at that time.
Why
the demand for Indian indigo?
Small amounts of Indian indigo reached
the European market and its price was very high. Therefore, European cloth
manufacturers had to depend on another plant called woad to make violet and
blue dyes.
Indigo produced a rich blue colour, whereas
the dye from woad was pale and dull.
By the end of the eighteenth century, the
demand for Indian indigo grew further because of the industrialization in Britain
and fall in the supply from the West Indies and America collapsed for a variety
of reasons.
Britain
turns to India
In Europe, the demand for indigo was
high, the British used their colonies India and Africa to cultivate Indigo.
Commercial agents and officials of the
Company began investing in indigo production. The Company officials were
attracted by the prospect of high profits and came to India to become indigo
planters.
How
was indigo cultivated?
There were two main systems of indigo
cultivation –
Nij and ryoti.
Nij cultivation - Within the system of
nij cultivation, the planter produced indigo in lands that he directly
controlled.
He either bought the land or rented it
from other zamindars and produced indigo by directly employing hired labourers.
The problem with nij cultivation
This cultivation needed fertile and big lands
and it was difficult to get big areas as they were already highly populated. For
this, the planter had to evict farmers which led to conflicts. The planters found it difficult to
expand the area.
Nij cultivation on a large scale also required many ploughs
and bullocks. At the same time, its
cultivation, the cultivation of rice also took place that is why ploughs
were not available on rent too.
Indigo on the land of ryots
In Ryoti system, the planters forced the ryots to sign a
contract an agreement (satta).
Those who signed the contract got cash advances from
planters at low rates of interest to produce indigo.
The peasants got a very low prices for the indigo they
produced and the cycle of loans never ended.
After an indigo harvest, the land could
not be sown with rice, as indigo production reduced the fertility of the soil
The
“Blue Rebellion” and After
In March 1859 thousands of ryots in Bengal refused to grow
indigo.
As the rebellion spread, ryots refused to pay rents to the
planters and attacked indigo factories.
The Gomasthas – agents of planters – who
came to collect rent were beaten up. The Bengal ryots had the support of the
local zamindars and village headmen in their rebellion against the planters.
The indigo peasants believed that the
British government would support them in their struggle against the planters.
After the Revolt of 1857, the British
government was worried about the possibility of another popular rebellion.
The government set up the Indigo
Commission to enquire into the system of indigo production. The Commission
asked the ryots to fulfill their existing contracts but also told them that they
could refuse to produce indigo in the future.
Indigo production collapsed in Bengal, after the revolt. The planters now shifted their operations to
Bihar.
When Mahatma Gandhi returned from South
Africa, a peasant from Bihar persuaded him to visit Champaran and see the
plight of the indigo cultivators. In 1917, he visited which marked the
beginning of the Champaran movement against the indigo planters.
