With strong footholds in South India, Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, the East India Company wanted to collect maximum taxes to meet their military and administrative expenses. They also wanted to gain maximum profit. So, the company started using coercive methods to procure goods which were in great demand in Europe. The agricultural raw material was purchased at very low rates and sent to England. The finished goods were brought back to India and sold at high prices to earn more profits. The Company forced the farmers to grow cash crops like indigo, cotton, oplum, pepper, tea, sugarcane, etc., and compelled them to raise silkworms for the production of raw silk.
The Britishers wanted to smuggle and sell opium to China so that they could earn huge profits. Similarly, Indigo, called neel in Hindi, was in great demand in the textile industries of Britain. The peasants were forced to cultivate indigo plants to extract blue dye. They led miserable lives as it fetched very low prices of indigo.
The rising demand of sugar in the West, attracted many Europeans to set-up sugar plantations in India. The farmers, who produced gur (jaggery) for local requirement, were now forced to produce thickened sugarcane juice for the sugar factories and sell their produce at a very low price. The British industries flourished at the cost of Indian industries.
Condition of the Farmers
Already suffering from natural calamities like flood, drought and famine, Indian farmers were further over-burdened with high taxes, repayment of loans, debts and high rate of interest. They were leading a life of misery, poverty and frustration. As a result, many peasants, who failed to pay the land revenue, lost their land and became landless labourers. They were forced to work at very low wages.
Revolts by Farmers
Whenever atrocities, repression and exploitation reached beyond a certain limit, there was a mass outburst in the form of revolt or rebellion. There was a long list of injustices meted out to the farmers at various times during the British rule. Some of these were as follows:
- Land Revenue Settlements and their administration.
- Economic exploitation, especially, of the rural masses.
- Long standing loans and indebtedness.
- Eviction of peasants from land led them to become landless labourers.
These causes resulted in revolts, outbreaks and rebellions even before the First War of Independence in 1857. It was only in 1930 that the organisation of Kisan Sabhas started supporting the cause of the peasants.
Do You Know?
- The Ryots of Bengal refused to grow indigo and a rebellion broke out in 1859 known as Blue Rebel
- Moplahs of South India revolted against the increasing burden of taxation in the 1860s and 1870s.
- The Deccan riots turned violent in 1875 due to rural indebtedness.
- The Peasant Movement of Champaran in north-west Bihar started in 1860 and went on till the 1920s. The peasants opposed cultivation of indigo and high taxes.
- Pratapgarh, Rae Bareli, Sultanpur and Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh witnessed opposition by the farmers against high revenue.
- The Oudh Kisan Sabha was formed under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru in 1920
- Increase in revenue was opposed by farmers of Tanjore in 1923-24.
- The first Ryots Association was organised by N.G. Ranga in 1923.
- The Kisan movement in Uttar Pradesh demanded the abolition of the Zamindari system.
- In 1927 at Bardoll, Sardar Patel opposed the increase in revenue by the Bombay Presidency.
- Satyagraha forced the government to revise the revenue.