Colonial rule in India by its inherent nature worked for
benefit of England and in turn impoverished India. Agriculture was the main
source of livelihood for most of the people of India. However, agrarian relations i.e relations between the peasant and the state changed
drastically under the British. Earlier system of Jagirdari prevalent under the Mughals was done away with. In this
system, the King, the jagirdar and peasant had different rights on land and
although there were some instances of land being sold or bought this was not
the usual practice. The British introduced three types of land settlements, Permanent, Ryotwari and Mahalwari. In the first revenue
settlement was made with the Zamindars, in
the second directly with the peasants and in the third with the village
communities. In the zamindari system, zamindar was recognized as the owner of the land and left free to extract
maximum revenue from the cultivators leaving the peasantry impoverished and at
the mercy of the zamindar. In other cases, the absence of zamindars did not
bring any relief to the peasantry as revenue was fixed at exorbitant rates
leaving the peasants in very deprived state.
Second impact of colonial policies was commercialization
of agriculture in some areas where the peasants grew cash crops primarily
cotton, jute, tobacco, sugarcane, indigo etc most of which served as raw
material for British industries. However, commercialisation proved
beneficial only for the rich peasants and the moneylenders. It paved the way
for usury and the poorer peasants depended heavily on the local moneylender for
advance of credit, marketing of crops, loans during the lean seasons and paying
land revenue. The moneylender who was usually the village merchant also acted
as the agent for buying the produce of the peasant and for introducing and
selling western manufactured goods like Manchester cloth. Poorer peasants
virtually hypothecated their produce in advance to the moneylender. A large
number of them remained in debt throughout their lives and many of them lost
their lands. This resulted in de-peasanting
in which a number of peasants lost their lands and were forced to become
landless labourers.
Commercialization of agriculture meant that some land
which was used earlier for growing food grains was now being used to grow cash
crops. This required that food grain production in remaining areas should have
increased to meet the demands of the country. However, no attention was paid to
this aspect. The production of food grains either declined or did not grow to
keep pace with the growth of population. During the period 1891-1947 population
increase was .67% per annum while food grain production was .11% per annum.
Primary reason for this was that the Government did not make any effort to
improve agriculture. This task was left to the peasantry, who being in an
impoverished state was not able to do much. The normal rate of production was
already at subsistence level and whenever an area was affected with droughts
and crop failure, it resulted in famine. There were about thirty four famines
during the period 1898 to 1908 in which total loss of life was about 1.5
crores.
If the condition of agriculture in the colonial rule was
bad, the condition of industry was worse. The country suffered what has been
termed as de-industrialization. When
the British came to India, India was manufacturing all the goods it needed and
Britain had almost nothing which it could export to India. On the other hand Indian
goods were valuable items of commerce having a reasonable market in England.
Hence India had a favourable
balance of trade. At that time, the East India Company was facing competition
from other trading companies of Europe particularly the French and the Dutch as
well as the Indian merchants. This placed the craftsmen in a better bargaining
position. However, the Company soon eliminated this competition and acquired a
monopoly in trading of these goods. Now the artisans and craftsmen had no
option but to sell their goods to the Company and its servants at lower rates. Apart
from hardships to the artisans, this also reduced the possibility of capital
accumulation and improvement in technology. On the other hand capital
accumulation took place in England where it was used to power the Industrial
Revolution. Industrial revolution ended
the British market for Indian products as it was not possible for artisans to
compete with economic large scale factory production. Soon these industrial
products found their way to India and the Indian market for artisans was
destroyed as well.
R.C.Dutt and Madan Mohan Malviya in their note of dissent
to the Indian Industrial Commission pointed out that export of finished
industrial products greatly increased in the British rule; for example value of
import of Manchester cloth increased from 96 lakh sterling in 1860 to 27 crore
sterling in 1900.This increase could have been possible only due to wiping out
of indigenous weaver’s cloth. The census figures also pointed out to the
decline in industrial activities. As per the census figures, the male work
force in agriculture increased from 65% in 1881 to 72% in 1931 while the
proportion in industry declined from 16% to 9%.
The theory of de-industrialization
has got a mixed response from European authors. Some imperial apologists
like Lord John Maynard Keynes have accepted that India was de-industrialized
but have stated that this was in the interest of both Britain and India in
which Britain focused on production of industrial goods while India focused on
agricultural products. This view was in keeping with the international division
of labour in which the metropolis
was to produce industrial and high value goods while the colony was to produce agricultural and low value goods. Obviously
this was discriminatory and unfavourable to
the colony.
However some other writers have contested the fact the
India suffered deindustrialization. For example Morris David Morris attributes
the increase in import of Manchester cloth to the increase in population and
changed consumption habits and also states that this increase did not displace
indigenous weaver’s cloth. Similarly Daniel Thorner, after analyzing the data
of census from 1881 to 1931 points out that the deindustrialization was nominal. According to him increase in agriculture
and related activities for the said period was about 2% and decline in industry
and trade was about 3%. However, even Thorner does not deny the fact that the
Indian industry has already suffered substantial damage by 1881 when the first
reliable all India census was conducted.
Despite all the odds Indian industry found ways to
establish itself though in a very small way. The Indian trading class which had
accumulated some capital made efforts to venture in the industrial field.
Initial attempts were in cotton textiles and the first Indian textile mill “The
Bombay Spinning Mill” was set up in Bombay in 1854 (a textile mill was set up
earlier at Fort Gloster near Kolkata in 1818 but it was a failure). However
since then up to the time of First World War, the growth of Indian industry was
extremely slow. The Government relaxed some control during war period due to
its war time requirements. The fledgling industry took advantage of the
situation and made rapid progress during the two world wars and in the inter
war period. However, despite all these efforts the growth was very slow even in
the last years of the colonial rule. As per an estimate, ratio of industrial
sector’s share to the net domestic product was 12.7% in 1900-04, 13.6% in
1915-19 and 16.7% in 1940-44. Thus India remained predominantly agrarian.
During all this period Britain profited from this de-industrialization of
India. This was evident in the per capita income of two countries. In 1860s
Dadabhai Naroji calculated India’s per capita income to be Rs.20 per annum. In
England in 1870, the per capita income was 24.4 sterling which was equivalent
to Rs.568/-.
All over the world, Industrial revolution ended the role
of individual artisans. However, in England and other European countries the
loss of craftsmen was compensated by the growth of industry and factory system.
In India, the colonial policies did not allow the industry to grow freely and
hence India could not become a fully industrialized country. It did not remain
pre-capitalist as its artisan based mode of industrial production shattered and
neither could it become industrialised. It
became something in between; subordinate and heavily dependent on the British
economy.
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