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A Study on the Cultivation of Jute in Colonial Assam and the Immigration from East-Bengal

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A Study on the Cultivation of Jute in Colonial Assam and the Immigration from East-Bengal International Journal of Grid and Distributed Computing Vol. 13, No. 2, (2020), pp. 1716-1729 A study on the cultivation of jute in Colonial Assam And the Immigration from East-Bengal. KRISHNA KALITA Research Scholar Department of History Dibrugarh University Abstract Jute was one of the important and profitable crop in colonial Assam. Due to the lack of historical evidences it is difficult to ascertain the history of the jute cultivation in Assam but, jute cultivation had taken place enormously only in the colonial Assam by the East-Bengali immigrants. The colonial government encouraged immigration from East Bengal and reclamation of waste land to cultivate jute as the crop was highly labour intensive and lack of knowledge of the indigenous people about the cultivation of jute. So in this article, the author will deal with a study on the cultivation of jute in colonial Assam and the immigration from East-Bengal. Key-words – Colonial Assam, Jute , East- Bengali immigration, Brahmaputra valley. Introduction The plains of the Brahmaputra valley of Assam provide a fertile ground for the cultivation of various crops and various types fibre crops were being cultivated in Assam so far. However, certain crop like jute was not considered as an important crop to be cultivated in Assam even in the early part of the 20th century. It is difficult to ascertain the history jute cultivation of Assam due to the lack of historical evidences. But, historical evidences suggest that the jute cultivation in Assam had taken place enormously only in the colonial period by the east Bengal immigrants. Since the early part of the 20th century, the colonial British government brought the riverine tracts of the Brahmaputra valley under rapid land reclamation which not only influenced the cultivation of jute in the valley but also factory production of jute in Bengal. By the end of the 19th century, with the effort of colonial government of Assam it became clear that the char areas of the Brahmaputra Valley located in Nagoan, Lakhimpur , Darrang , the eastern duars of Goalpara and the Barpeta subdivision of Kamrup, are suitable for the jute cultivation. Hence, the colonial British government started to colonize the enormous alluvial flat wasteland of Assam through settlement of the cultivators of Bengal in different times, so that these immigrants could raise the raw jute for export to England to feed up jute mills set up there. Methodology The methodology used in preparing this paper is based on secondary sources, collected from various published works, such as, books, journals, e-resources etc. Objective In this paper, an attempt has been made to study the cultivation of jute in colonial Assam and how jute cultivation encouraged the East-Bengali immigration into Assam. Discussion Like the other fibre crops, jute was one of the important cash crops mainly in the lower Brahmaputra valley in colonial period. Although agro-climatic conditions of Assam were favourable for production of jute, but, its cultivation was not known to the people of Assam upto the 12th century (Choudhury, 1960) and even not a popular crop in the pre-colonial Assam. The Brahmaputra valley was found suitable for both types of cultivation of jute; one in high and dry tracts and other was in alluvial lands. The second type of jute could be grown the chapori areas on the Brahmaputra valley. However, an important report on the jute cultivation of Assam came in 1898 when E.J. Monahan, Assistant Director of the Assam Land Records and Agriculture Department, stated that 1730 ISSN: 2005-4262 IJGDC Copyrightⓒ2020 SERSC International Journal of Grid and Distributed Computing Vol. 13, No. 2, (2020), pp. 1716-1729 the peasants from the neighbouring East Bengal could be encouraged to reclaim some lands from the western part of the valley for the jute cultivation as Assam peasants would not expand their jute acreage. The report provided by E.J. Monahan was supported by Henry Cotton, the chief commissioner of Assam. At the same time, the pressure was mounting from the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and jute industrialists to open up low-lying tracts in the western and central parts of the valley to jute cultivation. It is to note that jute was basically a labour intensive crop and required huge expenditure for its cultivation. Thus the capitalist as well as the colonial government did not pay much interest for the jute cultivation due to the non- availability of cheap labour in Assam that is why the government paid much interest in tea industry. In colonial period, the administration’s efforts to popularize jute cultivation among the indigenous peasants in the riverine plains of the Brahmaputra of Assam were unsuccessful (Das and Saikia, 2011). So, they encouraged immigration and reclamation of waste land to cultivate jute and provided jute seeds to the immigrants through the district agencies. Assamese cultivators only came to know of jute cultivation through the immigrant cultivators who changed the fellow chapori lands into productive jute land. Thus cultivation of jute area extended in Assam and the crop become one of the important commercial crops in the trading list of Assam in the later part of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century. Extension of its cultivation to Assam was a direct impact of large-scale immigration of land hungry peasants from the neighbouring over crowded districts of the then East Bengal now Bangladesh, viz., Mymensing, Pabha, Rangpur and Sylhet in the second half of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century (Barman, 1985). Apart from this it is said that the government of India advocated that the valley needed the ‘stout and fanatical Mohamedan’ of East Bengal for the cultivation of jute. The officials also supported the Bengali farmers as the future settlers in the valley which helped the emigrants to immigrate into the valley. Generally, three varieties of jute were cultivated in the Brahmaputra valley, which were such as Deshal, tusha and Mesta. Jute cultivation was extended into uncultivated low laying riverine areas and grazing reserves in the beginning of the 20th century. By the first two decades of the 20th century jute was enormously cultivated in the Kamrup and Nowgaon and Goalpara district of Assam. Gradually it spread to the other districts of the province. The total jute acreage exceeded one lakh acres by 1930-31 and to two lakh acres by 1961. Jute was proven to be one of the profitable exported commodity for India in the early 20th century. This encouraged the colonial government to look for more land to grow jute and in the meantime, jute land in Bengal was saturating (Baruah, 1980). Hence. The government considered Assam to be most suitable region for the jute cultivation. There was plenty of land in Nagaon, Lakhimpur, eastern part of Darrang, eastern Duars region of Goalpara and Barpeta sub-division of Kamrup district that was found to be ideal for jute cultivation (Das and Saikia, 2011). In Goalpara, the Zamindars had been encouraging peasants from East Bengal to settle and cultivate jute in char areas. Thus, Assam became the third largest jute producer of the country by the Second World War (Das and Saikia, 2011). As jute was not a food crop, the market was the only medium through which peasants could obtain means of subsistence. Thus, extraction of surplus value was increasingly mediated through exchange relations. The peasants needed an initial investment to set up establishment in the land and the credit market therefore expanded. The Marwari merchants were the main creditors. Marwari traders and even Assamese money lenders of Barpeta provided a substantial part of the necessary finance to enable the immigrant peasants to bring virgin soil under the plough (Guha, 2006). The interest rates were very high and varied depending on the value of the collateral. It is to note that the interest rates were different for the migrant and Assamese peasants. The area under jute production gradually increased in Assam after partition of India. Since the partition of India in 1947, the major jute growing regions having gone to East Pakistan, Assam has made rapid progress in the cultivation of jute. The Muslim immigrants who migrated to other districts of Assam helped in the growth of jute cultivation in Assam (Das, 1995). Jute cultivation is mainly concentrated in the four districts viz. Goalpara, Kamrup, Darrang 1731 ISSN: 2005-4262 IJGDC Copyrightⓒ2020 SERSC International Journal of Grid and Distributed Computing Vol. 13, No. 2, (2020), pp. 1716-1729 and Nagaon. These four districts taken together accounts for more than 90 percent of the total area under jute which has form the nucleus of jute belt in Assam (Das, 1995). It is noteworthy that there were clashes between the Muslim tenants and their Hindu landlords in East Bengal, which compelled Muslim tenants to migrate to uplands in search of arable lands (Maksud, S.A, 1994)). The Brahmaputra Valley shared a similar ecology with its neighbor north-east Bengal which encouraged the immigrants. Another factor was that the railway routes and the riverine also made the peasants easier for immigration. However, the land reclamation policy quickly commercialized the Assamese agrarian economy. This also created localized clashes between the Assamese peasants and the East Bengali immigrants. Again, the land reclamation policy was supported by the Colonial Government support and therefore, a railway network along the north bank of Brahmaputra was put in place to connect the jute production areas with Bengal (Saikia, A, 2014). But, the jute prices had began to fall from 1933 and it continued to decline under the adverse impact of the Great Depression on the jute markets.
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