RULING THE COUNTRYSIDE

 

CLASS- VIII    OUR PASTS -III

 

03.    RULING THE COUNTRYSIDE

The Company Becomes the Diwan:

·       On 12 August 1765, the Mughal emperor appointed the East India Company as the Diwan of Bengal- took place in Robert Clive’s tent

·       As Diwan, the Company became the chief financial administrator of the territory under its control- it could buy the products it needed and sell what it wanted.

·       Company needed to pacify those who in the past had ruled the countryside, and enjoyed authority and prestige.

·       Those who had held local power had to be controlled but they could not be entirely eliminated.

Revenue for the Company:

·       Company wanted a large revenue assessment and collection system.

·       Increase the revenue as much as it could and buy fine cotton and silk cloth as cheaply as possible.

·       In five years, the value of goods bought by the Company in Bengal doubled.

·       Before 1865, the Company had purchased goods in India by importing gold and silver from Britain and now the revenue collected in Bengal could finance the purchase of goods for export.

·       Peasants were unable to pay the dues that were being demanded from them. Artisanal production was in decline, and agricultural cultivation showed signs of collapse.

·       Then in 1770 a terrible famine killed ten million people in Bengal. About one-third of the population was wiped out.

Improve agriculture:

·       After 20 years, new concept came up.

·       Cornwallis introduced the Permanent Settlement in 1793.

·       By the terms of the settlement, the rajas and taluqdars were recognised as zamindars. They were asked to collect rent from the peasants and pay revenue to the Company. The amount to be paid was fixed permanently, that is, it was not to be increased ever in future.

·       Regular income for company and encourage Zamindars to invest in land.

·       The problem

·       The zamindars were not investing in the improvement of land.

·       The revenue that had been fixed was so high that the zamindars found it difficult to pay.

·       Anyone who failed to pay the revenue lost his zamindari.

·       Numerous zamindaris were sold off at auctions organised by the Company.

·       By the first decade of the nineteenth century- the prices in the market rose and cultivation slowly expanded. This meant an increase in the income of the zamindars but no gain for the Company

·       On the other hand, in the villages, the cultivator found the system extremely oppressive. The rent he paid to the zamindar was high and his right on the land was insecure.

·       To pay the rent he had to often take a loan from the moneylender, and when he failed to pay the rent he was evicted from the land he had cultivated for generations.

A new system is devised:

·       In the North Western Provinces of the Bengal Presidency (most of this area is now in Uttar Pradesh), an Englishman called Holt Mackenzie devised the new system which came into effect in 1822.

·       He felt that the village was an important social institution in north Indian society and needed to be preserved.

·       Under his directions, collectors went from village to village, inspecting the land, measuring the fields, and recording the customs and rights of different groups.

·       Estimated revenue of each plot within a village was added up to calculate the revenue that each village (mahal) had to pay- this was to be revised periodically, not permanently fixed.

·       MahalwariSettlement- 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 MahalwariSettlement.

The Munro system

·       The new system that was devised camein the south to be known as the ryotwar (or ryotwari ).

·       It was tried on a small scale by Captain Alexander Read in some of the areas that were taken over by the Company after the wars with Tipu Sultan.

·       Subsequently developed by Thomas Munro, this system was gradually extended all over south India.

·       Read and Munro felt that in the south there were no traditional zamindars.

·       The settlement, they argued, had to be made directly with the cultivators (ryots) who had tilled the land for generations.

·       British should act as paternal father figures protecting the ryots under their charge.

Crops for Europe:

·       The British realised that the countryside is not meant only for revenue, but grow the crops that Europe required.

·       By the late eighteenth century the Company was trying its best to expand the cultivation of opium and indigo.

·       In the century and a half that followed, the British persuaded or forced cultivators in various parts of India to produce other crops: jute in Bengal, tea in Assam, sugarcane in the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh), wheat in Punjab, cotton in Maharashtra and Punjab, rice in Madras.

·       Indigo: The blue dye used in the Morris prints in nineteenth-century Britain was manufactured from indigo plants cultivated in India and India was the biggest supplier of indigo in the world at that time.

Demand for Indian indigo:

·       The indigo plant grows primarily in the tropics.

·       Used in cloth manufacturers in Italy, France and Britain by 13^th century- small amounts of reached the European market with high price.

·       European depended on another plant called woad (temperate crop in northern Italy, southern France and in parts of Germany and Britain.) to make violet and blue dyes.

·       Woad cultivators were afraid of competition by  indigo- woad producers in Europe pressurised their governments to ban the import of indigo.

·       Cloth dyers preferred indigo due to  rich blue colour, whereas the dye from woad was pale and dull.

·       The French began cultivating indigo in St Domingue in the Caribbean islands, the Portuguese in Brazil, the English in Jamaica, and the Spanish in Venezuela.

·       Indigo plantations also came up in many parts of North America.

·       By the end of the eighteenth century, the demand for Indian indigo grew further. Britain began to industrialise, and its cotton production expanded dramatically.

·       While the demand for indigo increased, its existing supplies from the West Indies and America collapsed for a variety of reasons.

·       From last decade of 18^th century- indigo plantation started in Bengal (1788-30% indigo export from India increased to 95% in 1810)

·       Company began investing in indigo production.

·       Over the years many Company officials left their jobs to look after their indigo business. Attracted by the prospect of high profits, numerous Scotsmen and Englishmen came to India and became planters.

·       Company was giving loan to produce indigo.

Indigo Cultivation:

Two main systems of indigo cultivation – nij and ryoti .

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.

·       Indigo can be cultivated only on fertile lands, and these were all already densely populated- only small plots could be acquired.

·       They attempted to lease in the land around the indigo factory, and evict the peasants from the area. But this always led to conflicts and tension.

·       Mobilising labor was not easy.

·       peasants were interested in rice cultivation.

·       One bigha of indigo cultivation required two ploughs- investing on purchase and maintenance of ploughs was a big problem.

·       Till the late 19th century, planters were reluctant to expand the area under nij cultivation.

·       Less than 25 per cent of the land was under this system.

Ryoti Cultivation –

·       Cultivation on planter’s own land.

·       Planters forced the ryots to sign a contract, an agreement ( satta ).

·       At times they pressurised the village headmen to sign the contract on behalf of the ryots .

·       Those who signed the contract got cash advances from the planters at low rates of interest to produce indigo.

·       But the loan committed the ryot to cultivating indigo on at least 25 per cent of the area under his holding.

·       The planter provided the seed and the drill, while the cultivators prepared the soil, sowed the seed and looked after the crop.

·       When the crop was delivered to the planter after the harvest, a new loan was given to the ryot, and the cycle started all over again.

·       After an indigo harvest the land could not be sown with rice.

Manufacturing of Indigo:

·       Taken to vat or fermenting vessel

·       Vat beater had to remain in waist deep water for 8 hours

·       1^st vat: Leaves stripped off the indigo plant were first soaked in warm water

·       When the plants fermented, the liquid began to boil and bubble. Now the rotten leaves were taken out and the liquid drained into another vat that was placed just below the first vat.

·       2^nd vat: (beater vat) the solution was continuously stirred and beaten with paddles. When the liquid gradually turned green and then blue, lime water was added to the vat.

·       Gradually the indigo separated out in flakes, a muddy sediment settled at the bottom of the vat and a clear liquid rose to the surface.

·       The liquid was drained off and the sediment – the indigo pulp – transferred to another vat (known as the settling vat), and then pressed and dried for sale.

The “Blue Rebellion” and After:

·       In March 1859 ryots in Bengal refused to grow indigo- didn’t pay rents to the planters, and attacked indigo factories

·       Women turned up to fight with pots, pans and kitchen implements.

·       Those who worked for the planters were socially boycotted, and the gomasthas – agents of planters – who came to collect rent were beaten up.

·       Ryots swore they would no longer take advances to sow indigo nor be bullied by the planters’ lathiyals – the lathi-wielding strongmen maintained by the planters. The indigo system was oppressive.

·       In 1859, the indigo ryots felt that they had the support of the local zamindars and village headmen in their rebellion against the planters.

·       In many villages, headmen who had been forced to sign indigo contracts, mobilised the indigo peasants and fought pitched battles with the lathiyals

·       In other places even the zamindars went around villages urging the ryots to resist the planters. These zamindars were unhappy with the increasing power of the planters and angry at being forced by the planters to give them land on long leases.

·       The indigo peasants also imagined that the British government would support them in their struggle against the planters.

·       After the Revolt of 1857 the British government was particularly worried about the possibility of another popular rebellion.

·       When the news spread of a simmering revolt in the indigo districts, the Lieutenant Governor toured the region in the winter of 1859.

·       The ryots saw the tour as a sign of government sympathy for their plight.

·       When in Barasat, the magistrate Ashley Eden issued a notice stating that ryots would not be compelled to accept indigo contracts, word went around that Queen Victoria had declared that indigo need not be sown. Eden action came as support for the rebellion.

·       Government brought in the military to protect the condition. The Commission held the planters guilty, and criticised them for the coercive methods they used with indigo cultivators. It declared that indigo production was not profitable for ryots. Commission held planters guilty and declared that indigo production was not profitable for ryots- they were asked to continue the existing contract but can refuse for future.

·       After the revolt, indigo production collapsed in Bengal- planters now shifted their operation to Bihar.

·       With the discovery of synthetic dyes in the late nineteenth century their business was severely affected,

·       Mahatma Gandhi’s visit in 1917 marked the beginning of the Champaran movement against the indigo planters.

……...the end………