8TH SST Lesson 3

 

MOTHER MIRACLE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL

Notes of Ch 3 Ruling the Countryside| Class 8th History

 

The Company Becomes the Diwan
• On 12 August 1765, the Mughal emperor appointed the East India Company as the Diwan of Bengal.

• As Diwan, the Company became the chief financial administrator of the territory under its control.

Revenue for the Company
• The company made effort was to increase the revenue as much as it could and buy fine cotton and silk cloth as cheaply as possible.
• Within five years the value of goods bought by the Company in Bengal doubled.

→ Now the revenue collected in Bengal could finance the purchase of goods for export.
• Bengal economy was facing a deep crisis because artisans were deserting villages since they were being forced to sell their goods to the Company at low prices.
→ Agricultural cultivation showed signs of collapse.

• In 1770 a terrible famine killed ten million people in Bengal.

The need to improve agriculture
• Most Company officials began to feel that investment in land had to be encouraged and agriculture had to be improved.
• In 1793, the Company finally introduced the Permanent Settlement.

→ By the terms of the settlement, the rajas and taluqdars were recognised as zamindars.
• They were asked to collect rent from the peasants and pay revenue to the Company which was fixed permanently.
• This would ensure a regular flow of revenue to the Company’and at the same time encourage the zamindars to invest in improving the land.

The problem
• The zamindars were not investing in improving the quality of land.
• The revenue fixed was too high for the zamindars.

• As long as the zamindars could earn by giving out their land to tenants, they were not interested in improving the land.
• On the other hand, in the villages, the cultivator found the system extremely oppressive.

A new system is devised

• By the early nineteenth century, many of the Company officials were convinced that the system of revenue had to be changed again to meet the growing expenses.

Mahalwari settlement

• The collectors went from village to village to estimate the land revenue that each village (mahal) had to pay.
• The charge of collecting the revenue and paying it to the Company was given to the village headman, rather than the zamindar.

• This system came to be known as the mahalwari settlement.

The Munro system

• The new system that was devised came to be known as the ryotwar (or ryotwari).
• It was tried on a small scale by Captain Alexander Read.
• It was subsequently developed by Thomas Munro, which was gradually extended all over south India.

Ryotwari system and its problem

• The settlement had to be made directly with the cultivators ( ryots ) who had tilled the land for generations.
• British should act as paternal father figures protecting the ryots under their charge.
• To increase the income from land, revenue officials fixed too high a revenue demand.
• Peasants were unable to pay, ryots fled the countryside, and villages became deserted in many regions.

Crops for Europe
• The British persuaded or forced cultivators in various parts of India to produce other commercial crops:
→ jute in Bengal
→ tea in Assam
→ sugarcane in the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh)
→ wheat in Punjab
→ cotton in Maharashtra and Punjab

→ rice in Madras.

• The British used a variety of methods for increasing cultivation of crops that they needed.
• One such crop was Indigo, which had a great worldwide demand.

Why the demand for Indian indigo?
• By the thirteenth century, Indian indigo was being used by cloth manufacturers in Italy, France and Britain to dye cloth.
→ But the price of indigo was very high.
• European cloth manufacturers, therefore, had to depend on another plant called woad to make violet and blue dyes which were pale and dull.
→ Therefore, cloth dyers, however, preferred indigo as a dye.

• The French began cultivating indigo in St Domingue in the Caribbean islands, the Portuguese in Brazil, the English in Jamaica, and the Spanish in Venezuela.

• Between 1783 and 1789 the production of indigo in the world fell by half.
• Cloth dyers in Britain started looking for new sources of indigo supply.

Britain turns to India
• The Company in India looked for ways to expand the area under indigo cultivation.
• By 1810, 95 percent of the indigo imported into Britain was from India.
• Many Company officials left their jobs and numerous Scotsmen and Englishmen came to India and became planters attracted by the prospect of high profits.

How was indigo cultivated?
• There were two main systems of indigo cultivation –  nij and ryoti.

Nij cultivation and problems
• The planter produced indigo in lands that he directly controlled.
• The planters found it difficult to expand the area under nij cultivation.
• Indigo could be cultivated only on fertile lands which were all already densely populated.
• A large plantation required large number of labour at a time when peasants were usually busy with their rice cultivation.
• It also required many ploughs and bullocks.
• Till the late nineteenth century, planters were therefore reluctant to expand the area under  nij cultivation.

Indigo on the land of ryots
• Under the ryoti system, the planters pressurised the village headmen to sign the contract on behalf of the ryots.
→ Those who signed the contract got cash advances from the planters at low rates of interest to produce indigo.
→ But the ryot to had to cultivate indigo on at least 25 percent of the area under his holding.

• When the crop was delivered to the planter after the harvest, a new loan was given to the ryot, and the cycle started all over again.

• The price provided to the peasants for the indigo they produced was very low and the cycle of loans never ended.

• Indigo also exhaust the soil rapidly.
→ After an indigo harvest the land could not be sown with rice.

The “Blue Rebellion” and After

• In 1859, the indigo ryots felt that they had the support of the local zamindars and village headmen in their rebellion against the planters.

• As the rebellion spread, intellectuals rushed to the indigo districts and wrote of the misery of the ryots, the tyranny of the planters, and the horrors of the indigo system.

• The government set up the Indigo Commission to enquire into the system of indigo production.
→ The Commission held the planters guilty, and criticised them for the coercive methods they used with indigo cultivators.

• After the revolt, indigo production now shifted their operation to Bihar.

• Mahatma Gandhi’s visit in 1917 marked the beginning of the Champaran movement against the indigo planters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SOLUTIONS
1. Match the following:
Answer

ryot	peasant
mahal	village
nij	cultivation on planter’s own land
ryoti	cultivation on ryot’s lands

2. Fill in the blanks:
(a)Growers of woad in Europe saw indigo as a crop which would provide competition to their earnings.

(b)The demand for indigo increased in the late-eighteenth-century Britain because of the expansion of cotton production as a result of industrialization, which in turn created an enormous demand for cloth dyes.

(c)The international demand for indigo was affected by the discovery of synthetic dyes.

(d)The Champaran movement was against indigo planters.

Let's Discuss

3. Describe the main features of the Permanent Settlement.

Answer
In order to get a stable revenue income, most of the East India Company’s officials believed that investment in land had to be encouraged and agriculture had to be improved. This led to introduction of permanent settlement in 1793
→ By the terms of the settlement the rajas and taluqdars were recognized as zamindars.
→ They were asked to collect rent from the peasants and pay revenue to the company.

→ The amount to be paid was fixed permanently.
→ It was felt that this would ensure a regular flow of revenue into the company’s coffers and at the same time encourages the zamindars to invest is improving the land.
→ If the zamindars failed to pay the revenue, which they usually did as the fixed revenue was very high, they lost their zamindari.

4. How was the mahalwari system different from the Permanent Settlement?

Answer

Mahalwari Settlement	Permanent Settlement
The mahalwari system, devised by Holt Mackenzie, came into effect in 1822, in the North Western provinces of the Bengal Presidency.	The Permanent Settlement was introduced in 1793 by Lord Cornwallis.
It was devised as an alternative to the Permanent Settlement.	It was aimed at ensuring stable revenue for the East India Company.
The village headmen were in charge of collecting revenue.	The rajas and taluqdars were in charge of collecting revenue.
The revenue amount was not fixed, and was to be revised periodically. The estimated revenue of each plot within a village was added up to calculate the revenue that each village or mahal had to pay.	The revenue amount was fixed and was never to be increased in the future.

5. Give two problems which arose with the new Munro system of fixing revenue.

Answer

Two problems which arose with the new Munro system of fixing revenue were:
→ Driven by the desire to increase the income from land, revenue officials fixed too high a revenue demand.

→Peasants were unable to pay ryats fled the countryside and villages became deserted in many regions.

6. Why were ryots reluctant to grow indigo?

Answer

The ryots reluctant to grow indigo because:
→ The planters paid a very low price for indigo.

→ The ryots was not in a position to even recover his cost, earning a profit was a far-fetched idea. This meant that the ryot was always under debt.

→ The planters insisted that the peasants cultivate indigo on the most fertile parts of their land, but the peasants preferred growing rice on the best soils as after an indigo harvest, the land could not be used for sowing rice.

7. What were the circumstances which led to the eventual collapse of indigo production in Bengal?

Answer

The ryots began to refuse to grow indigo. They were supported by the village headmen and some zamindars in their fight. The scale of protest was so much that the government had to intervene. The Indigo Commission of set up to enquire into the problems. The Commission accepted the faults of the planters and allowed the ryots to grow whatever they wished. This led to eventual collapse of indigo production in Bengal.