Punjab Agricultural College and Research Institute, Lyallpur (1906-1947): Generating Knowledge for Colonial Enrichment
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Indian Journal of History of Science, 53.2 (2018) 205-223 DOI: 10.16943/ijhs/2018/v53i2/49425 Punjab Agricultural College and Research Institute, Lyallpur (1906-1947): Generating Knowledge for Colonial Enrichment Kamlesh Mohan* (Received 06 October 2017; revised 04 April 2018) Abstract The paper discusses the colonial state’s aims and objectives of establishing the Punjab Agricultural College and Research Institute, Lyallpur (1906-1947). It argues that the project of diffusion of scientific knowledge and technological change in agriculture, guided by imperialist interests, was half-hearted and aimed mainly to fulfil the colonial goals, e.g. political stability, military recruitment, financial profit and government solvency. In the course of transfer and diffusion of knowledge, the differentiated identities of colonial and Indian experts/colleagues were produced and strengthened. Key words: Agricultural colonization, Agrarian economy, Scientific agriculture, Socio-scientific laboratory, State capitalism, Underdevelopment. 1. INTRODUCTION socio-scientific laboratory for testing the ideologies and institutions which were emerging Throughout the entire career of imperialist in Britain. Information-generation through state- rule in India, the British administrators adopted sponsored scientific and technical projects, in an interventionist approach for rendering the which colonial bureaucrats, their entourage and colony governable and economically profitable. indigenous workers participated, was an integral India was the first unit of the empire where the part of the knowledge-making process in India. British made a conscious effort to take help of Transfer of indigenous botanical varieties and applied science and technology as an their acclimatization was the first step in administrative tool and instrument knowledge for experimentation in agricultural sciences for solving the practical problems of the empire. Its dealing with virulent famines and their major problems included mapping the huge prevention.1 territories under its possession and integrating them, reducing its heterogeneous population It is in this context that the colonial state (characterized by multiple castes/tribes and constantly tried to strike a balance between its two religions) into neat categories, exploiting India’s contradictory objectives. Its first objective was to human and natural resources for economic gain extract the maximum land revenue from and military control. Botanical-cum-agricultural agriculture with almost no investment for wealth was to be utilized for industrial and transforming agrarian production and the related experimentation purposes. Both under the labour systems as well as social and economic Company and the Crown rule, India became a conditions of the majority of cultivators. This aim * Professor-Emeritus, Department of History, Panjab University, Chandigarh. Mailing Address: 367 Sector-44A Chandigarh- 160047 Email: [email protected] 1 For a detailed discussion on these associations under the Company rule see Edward W. Ellsworth, Science and Social Science Research in British India, 1780-1880: The Role of Anglo-Indian Associations and Government (Greenwood Press, New York, Westport, Connecticut, London, 1991), pp.115-130. 206 INDIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY OF SCIENCE in Marxist view led to the ‘development of under hearted. It was geared for fulfilling colonial goals, development’ in India. The second objective was e.g. political stability, military recruitment and ‘development of agrarian economy’ to enrich the financial profit and government solvency. In this rāj through increased agricultural and industrial context the discussion has been restricted to three production. It required a radical change in Indian areas: (I) State as the landlord, and its ideological production and labour systems through huge underpinning in scientific agriculture, (II) Objective capital investment by the colonial state. Thus, state of the establishment of Punjab Agricultural capitalism sought to achieve agricultural College and Research Institute as a part of British development (later industrial development) of agricultural policies, and (III) Conclusion. India.2 It may be noted that both objectives 2. STATE AS THE LANDLORD coexisted depending on which one carried a In his brilliant book The English Utili- greater value and wieghtage in terms of political tarians and India (1959, 1982), Eric Stokes has gain and economic profit during a particular period discussed the influence of utilitarian ideas on the or in a particular region. Both these objectives connection between the regularities of natural remained relevant in different phases of the British sciences and efficient conduct of human society. rule. The first objective of ‘development of under- In his view, the utilitarians had propounded and development’ dominated the thinking of the East elaborated their ideas on this issue. In the course India Company from 1750s to 1858 and the first of this exercise, they were led from the application two decades of the Crown rule; the second of social theory to the application of science and objective of ‘development of agriculture (and technology to the construction of an efficient state industry)’ through state investment became highly machinery and profitable economic system visible under the imperialist policy up to 1940s. (Stokes, 1959). The utilitarians namely, James Mill The practical implication of the co-existence of and Jeremy Bentham regarded India as a potential two contradictory objectives was that different and valuable laboratory for testing their political, systems of agriculture in India, called the ‘national social and economic concepts. One such concept industry’,3 and labour grew during the entire span was the state as landlord (Stokes, 1959, p. 92).4 of the ‘imperial embrace’ in Paul Scott’s phrase Acceptance of this concept in the case of India (Scott, 1966, p.9). The British Punjab (central made it different from Britain (where theory of Punjab and the Canal colonies) provided an laissez-faire was in vogue) and armed the eloquent example of the co-existence of two company with a justification for undertaking state- imperialist objectives already discussed. funded scientific and technical projects for improving its vast landed estate (Dionne and In this essay, my focus is on the project of MacLeod, 2007, p.112). diffusion of scientific knowledge and technological change in agriculture, which was Being primarily a commercial Company, guided by imperialist interests and was half- it pursued its objective of extracting maximum 2 I have borrowed this theoretical formulation from Richard G Fox, Lions of the Punjab, and Culture in the Making (Archives Publishers, New Delhi, 1987). 3 Report of the Indian Famine Commission 1880, Vol. I, Part I, p.2, Headed by Richard Strachey, the Commission investigated government administration relating to famines, land tenures, relief operations, communications, irrigation (a separate commis- sion was constituted for irrigation), agricultural statistics and improvement. The Commission called agriculture as the ‘national industry’. 4 This concept was to some extent an inheritance from the Mughal Empire which the Company had seized. The Company used this argument for its revenue-collecting activities. PUNJAB AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE AND RESEARCH INSTITUTE, LYALLPUR (1906-1947) 207 profit in the form of land revenue, assessed through Despite their awareness of the social systematic surveys in the territories under its origins of famines, as pointed out in the Report possession. Until 1850s, it managed to do so on the Improvement of Indian Agriculture (1883) without making almost no financial investment on by the agricultural chemist John August Voelckar, the improvement of land except renovation of the British Government made no effort in this existing canals called ‘protective’. After the direction. Appointed by the Secretary of State for cataclysm of 1857, the Crown and the British India to explore the scope of further improvement Parliament took over all the powers of controlling and to evaluate the implementation of and ruling over the Indian subcontinent. Despite recommendations of Famine Commission, the transfer of power and authority over the Voelcker emphasized, “that in many parts, there empire, the concept of state as landlord remained is a little or nothing that can be improved and that relevant and intact. With its persistent belief in its what was necessary was better facilities” role as an improving landlord, the Government of (Voelcker, 1893, p. vi). In the context of the Report, India under the Crown showed more zeal in the Russell Dionne and MacLeod have interpreted application of newly developed life-sciences for ‘better facilities’ as social and economic conditions enhancing agricultural productivity and and lack of knowledge about modern cultivation technology for modernizing methods of cultivation methods (Dionne and MacLeod, 2007, p.177). and irrigation. The expansion of state activism in Dubbing his suggestion as impractical and this area was further accelerated owing to the problematic, the Government chose to ignore it British Government’s anxiety over frequent and and focus upon technical solutions to the problems wide-spread famines throughout India. In response of Indian agriculture and famines. to the Famine Commission Report 1880s which The new Viceroy Lord George Curzon’s emphasized the duty of the British Government arrival had coincided with the aftermath of virulent as