Unit 25 Resources

UNIT 25 RESOURCES Structure 25.1 Introduction 25.2 Land Revenue and the Colonial State 25.2.1 Permanent Settlement 25.2.2 Ryotwari Settlement 25.2.3 Mahalwari Settlement 25.2.4 The Common Resources: Social Groups and the Colonial State 25.3 Commercialisation of Agriculture in Relation to Revenue Demand 25.4 Changing Composition of the Revenue Sources of the Colonial State 25.5 Natural and Human Resources 25.5.1 Forest Resources and the Colonial Forest Policy 25.5.2 Water Resources and Irrigation 25.5.3 Mineral Resources 25.5.4 Labour Under Colonialism 25.6 Trade, Finance and the Colonial Interests 25.7 Summary 25.8 Glossary 25.9 Exercises 25.1 INTRODUCTION As soon as the East India Company acquired the Diwani or revenue collection rights in Bengal and Jagirs in the Northern Sirkars, it started financing its trade through land-revenue. This, in fact, completely reversed the balance of trade in England's favour. No more English gold or silver was required to buy raw materials from India. So, in a way, the source ofthe conqueror's profit lay in the maximum collection of land-revenue. The appropriation of land-revenue or agrarian surplus thus remained the basic pillar of colonialism. However, gradually the British Colonialism differed fiom pre-colonial regimes who depended largely on the extraction and collection of land-revenue for fulfilling their fiscal obligations. In certain areas under the British system the basis of assessment was what and how much land ought to produce and what crop it actually produced. They introduced surveys and settlements and in some cases resumed revenue-free lands granted by the pre-colonial regimes. At the same time they introduced a more efficient bureaucracy to collect revenue. Some of the changes in the agrarian economy like increasing commercialisation were partly in response to the high assessment of revenue by the colonial state. Apart from becoming the chief landlord in India, the colonial state also systematically expanded its control over the other natural resources (especially forest, water, mineral) and human resources. It also made use of trade and finance as tools for maintaining colonial authority. This Unit gives you an idea of how India's resources were exploited by the : colonial regime. 25.2 LAND REVENUE A,ND THE COLONIAL STATE In the pre-colonial regimes, the land revenue was used to maintain the administrative machinery of the state and meet the consumption needs of those Colonisation (part11) directly or indirectly connected with the state. The, late Mughal state and the successor regimes that followed it often leased out land revenue collection rights by auction to the highest bidder, Warren Hastings used the method of revenue farming or ijaradari in Bengal to collect the revenues. The system contained many abuses associated with speculative profit making and revenue collections fluctuated widely causing uncertainties (financial). The colonial state needed a steady flow of income from revenues to finance and plan its trading operations as well as to raise troops to conquer new territories. A number of questions surfaced in the process of devising new methods of revenue collection. These related to the question of conferring ownership or proprietorship, ,entrusting of responsibilities of collectiori of the state's share in agricultural produce, etc. These questions were resolved differently in different times and areas - thus creating variants of land-revenue settlements. A common feature of the British land revenue settlement was that they introduced in India the notion of private property in land. Such kind of land- proprietorship meant that its holders were granted ownership rights. Although, in the pre-colonial times, a massive and pyramidal structure of leasing and sub- leasing of revenues hnctioned and cultivators also enjoyed certain rights in land according to local customs, yet, there were no well-defined proprietary rights. The British invested such rights in certain groups in accordance with the local conditions. Thus they favoured certain groups of landed magnates who were I integrated into the colonial agrarian structure. Naturally, such groups were to I become the powerful allies of the British. Another characteristic of British land revenue policy, especially during the early decades, was the attempt to maximise the land-revenue demand. Revenue demands on land were fixed in cash rather than on a proportion of produce, or kind and the assessments were generally exorbitant. The burden probably weighed more heavily, as the prices of agricultural commodities dropped. The assessments were particularly severe in the settlements introduced by Pringle (1824-28) and by Wingate (1 835-36) in the Bombay Presidency. As a result of exorbitant land-revenue demands, peasants borrowed money fiom rural creditors and grain dealers in order to avoid defaults. Sale and auction of land tended to increase as cultivators usually borrowed money on the security of their newly acquired proprietary rights in land. They were forced to transfer their lands when they failed to meet their obligations to moneylenders. This created agrarian tensions. Moreover, the vast majority of the cultivators were left with little resources to act as the buyers of manufactured goods now pouring in from British industries. So in order to maintain social stability and their markets in India, the colonial state was forced to ease revenue demands after 1850s. In the revised setilements the revenue rates were brought down. But ctid this benefit the actual cultivators remained an open question. 25.2.1 Permanent Settlement In Bengal, proprietary rights in land were granted to Zamindars. These included a group of people who had enjoyed revenue collection rights under the Nawabs of Bengal as well ,as some who had acquired such rights through revenue farming or ijaradari under the Company rule. They constituted a powerhl social group and the British administrators confused them with the British type landlords. Under the Permanent Settlement of Bengal (1793) that was subsequently also extended to coastal Madras and certain parts of North-Western Provinces, Zamindars were given proprietary rights provided they paid a fixed land-revenue to the East India Company. The Zamindars, thus, became the sole Resources proprietors of the soil and the peasants were left to their mercy. The right of ownership was made hereditary and transferable. The privilege of disposing off land by sale or mortgage was also derived from this basic proprietary right given to the Zamindars. The composition of this Zamindar class had already changed since 1760s. This was a result of entry of speculators and merchants due to the practice of revenue farming. Initially, Zamindars were to give 1011 1" of the assessed rental to the colonial state and keep 111 lthof the rental for themselves. However, the sums to be paid by them as land-revenue were fixed in perpetuity. If the rental of a Zamindar's estate increased due to the expansion of cultivable area or rise in agricultural productivity or simply due to his capacity to extract morg from the tenants, he was entitled to keep the entire amount of the increase. This would constitute a kind of unearned increment of his income. As a result of this settlement, most of the tenants including the pre-existing Khud-khast tenants enjoying occupancy rights in their lands were reduced to the status of mere tenants-at-will of the Zamindars who could easily evict them and enhance their rents. Many customary rights of the peasants such as access to the pasture and forest lands, use of village ponds for fishing and revenue free homestead plots for growing vegetables etc. were abrogated. However, the settlement provided the much needed financial security and stability to the colonial state and there was no need to create any elaborate machinery of revenue collection. It brought into being a category called Zamindars who would be compelled by their economic-interests to support colonialism. The land-revenue assessment was, however, initially set so high that extensive default and sale of Zamindaris followed. The Zamindars were also deprived of their traditional social role incorporating hnctions such as the maintenance of law and order and bridges etc. Although there was a certain degree of restructuring of the composition and hnctions of Zamindars, there was a great deal of continuity of the older indigenous power-structure. Support of the big Zamindars was the principal prop of Bengal polity (pre-colonial) and they were assigned certain judicial and administrative duties associated with their revenue- collecting rights. However, unlike the Marathas in the Deccan, the Poligars in the South and the Sikhs and the Jats in the North, they did not have any significant military capabilities despite large rental incomes and patronage which they could distribute. This made the task of domination over the colony by the colonial state much easier. The colonial state, while divesting them of their traditional role rearmed them with certain extra-economic coercive powers like right to arrest and lock up tenants and auction their goods and cattle for arrears of rent through Regulations VII of 1799. It also allowed them to enjoy illegal Abwabs (cesses) of many types. 25.2.2 Ryotwari Settlement The type of revenue settlement where the cultivator individually acquired ownership rights in land was known as ryotwari. The colonial administrators like Thomas Munro and Alexander Read opposed the existence of intermediaries between cultivators and the state. They favoured a direct settlement of land- revenue with the cultivator or raiyat (The Arabic word raiyat, often used for peasants in pre-British sources, actually meant 'subjects'). The Utilitarian doctrine which was the dominant ideology prevailing in the Company's administrative circles at this juncture was based on the principle of appropriating Colonisation (Part 11) could be calculated if the peasant's cost of production was known.

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