You have already read in the previous chapter that establishment of East India Company’s in India was a long journey full of confrontations, struggles, battles, wars and diplomatic moves. The English came as traders and became our masters. Slowly, they conquered India from South to East and then headed towards the North, Gradually they emerged as the supreme power in India.
There was hardly any aspect of Indian economy which was not affected by the British. Unlike the earlier rulers and invaders, the English totally shattered the traditional self-sufficient rural economy. The economic exploitation of india by the British ruined the peasantry, uprooted the tribals and destroyed Indian trade and handicrafts.
COLONIAL AGRARIAN POLICY AND ITS IMPACT
Before the advent of the East India Company, the rural life in India was simple and self-sufficient. The British brought many changes in the field of land revenue system, agriculture, trade, industry and administration to guard their own interests. Therefore, the East India Company devised various methods to ensure the collection of revenue from Indian territories, annexed and controlled by them.
As the British empire expanded, the amount of revenue also increased. So much so that land revenue became the biggest source of income for the Company. At this stage, Land Revenue Settlements were introduced with an aim to legitimize the practice of economic exploitation. Therefore, the Zamindari System under the Permanent Settlement was introduced in Bengal in 1793 by Lord Cornwallis, Large parts of South and West India were put under the Ryotwari System, whereas Punjab, North-West Provinces and Awadh came under Mahalwari System.
Zamindari System (The Permanent Revenue System)
Zamindari System was made a hereditary right of the zamindars under the Permanent Settlement the Zamindari Bandobast in 1793. They were made the owners of the land and were forced to pay 89% of the total revenue to the British government. Their own share was 11%.
The system gave birth to a new class of landlords consisting of the rojas and taluqdars called the Zamindars who had the power to evict any cultivator of the soil due to non-payment of revenue. As such, they used oppressive methods to collect the taxes. The peasants were compelled to take loans from the moneylenders to pay unpaid rent, which made their life miserable. On the other hand, maximum benefit went to the zamindars.
As the Company could not claim on the increased income of zamindars as they had feed it permanently they decided not to implement this system in the newly conquered territories.
Ryotwari System
Do you know?
- Under the Ryotwari System, the tax was not based on the produce, but on the potential of soil.
- The ryots were forced to pay revenue even when there were no crops due to floods, droughts or any ellter natural calamity
The system of land revenue was introduced in South India by Thomas Munro in 1820 Later it came into effect in the Bombay area also. This system established a direct settlement between the government and the ryots, i.e. the cultivators. The revenue was directly collected from the cultivator and it was quite high.
Mahalwari System
The Mahalwari System was a modified version of the Zamindari System introduced by Holt Mackenzie. It was introduced in 1822 in Gangetic Valley, North West provinces, Central India and Punjab. In this system, a collective settlement was made with a group of villages called mahal. Since the land, the forests and the pastures belonged to the village community, the villages were jointly responsible for the payment of land revenue. It was levied on the produce of a mahal.
The Mahalwari System proved to be a curse for the peasants in the form of impoverishment, eviction from land and exploitation at the hands of the moneylenders. The widespread resentment among the farmers of North India between 1830 to 1840 was one of the causes of the Revolt of 1857.