INTRODUCTION
The British came to India as traders initially but soon turned conquerors and occupied large part of India.
The East India Company established its firm control over administration. They formulated policies to look after the teritories. The policies were made in the interest of the Britishers. The welfare of the common people was never given any importance.
Indian villages were self-sufficient when the British rule was established in India. The villagers mostly produced things for their use. The farmers owned the land they cultivated. A small part of their produce was paid to the king as tax. They were assured by the king of exemption and help when the crops failed due to natural calamities. With the advent of the British, the situation changed. The tax was collected by the Company's agents. The amount was fixed and it was mandatory for farmers to pay in cash. There was no concession or consideration even at the time of failure of crops. This created an additional burden on the peasants as they had to pay to the landlords (zamindars) as well as the British.
DUAL SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT
Before 1765, East India Company had purchased Indian goods by importing gold and silver from England.
The Company was appointed as the Diwan, but it was ignorant of the Indian customs and traditions. Between 1765 and 1793, the Company experimented with new methods to collect land revenue. The aim was to make maximum profits. During this period, the Company did not have the responsibility of administration, but collected revenue. The nawab who had responsibility of administration, had no financial control.
Under such conditions, both the peasants and the artisans suffered. Artisans were forced to sell their goods at a low rate. Peasants were unable to pay the revenue, that was demanded from them. So the production in both the areas showed a downward trend. In 1770 the worst famine occurred in Bengal, which wiped away 1/3 of the population.
Since, the collection of tax was a vital requirement of the company, they introduced three new systems to collect revenue. These were the Permanent Settlement, the Mahalwari system and the Ryotwari system.
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Permanent Settlement
The economy of Bengal was in shambles. How would it get revenue for its various expenses?. The Company finally introduced the Permanent Settlement of Bengal in 1793 It was introduced by Lord Cornwallis. According to this settlement, the rajas and talukdars were made the zamindars. They became hereditary owners of land. They had to collect the rent from the peasants and deposit the revenue with the Company. The amount to be paid was fixed permanently, it could not be increased in the future.
The effects of the Permanent Settlement are:
- The zamindars became the hereditary owners of the land. They could sell or lease their land. Initially, the revenue demands was so high, that they had to borrow money from the moneylenders, at a high rate of interest to pay land revenue. In case, they could not return the loan, the land was taken by the moneylender.
- There was an increase in the revenue of the Company, as it was fixed permanently.
- In many cases, the moneylender had replaced the traditional zamindars. They had no interest in the land, except the revenue that they got from the land. They leased it to the tenants and got rent payable by the peasant. It led to rural indebtedness.
Mahalwari System
It was introduced in the Gangetic Valley, North-West Provinces, the Punjab and parts of Central India. Under this system 'Mahals (groups of villages) were created as community blocks. They were held responsible for the collection of land revenue from their respective Mahals or blocks. The rulers resented the annexation of their territories. The nobility was angered by the loss of their zamindaris. The lot of the peasants became miserable under the exploitative system of land revenue collection. The craftsmen suffered under the new trade policies whereby they had to face unfair competition with foreign goods. All these different sections of society expressed their anger and hatred for the British rule through protests and revolts.
Ryotwari System
Villages in south India did not have the tradition of zamindars. Hence the Company officials felt that in south Indian villages, a direct connection had to be established with the cultivators. The cultivator was known as a ryot, which gave the name ryotwari system. Ryots had to pay the land revenue directly to officials appointed by the Company. The revenue was fixed. This system was developed by Thomas Munro in the villages of South India. This is also known as Munro system.
GROWTH OF COMMERCIAL CROPS
During the 1830s, there was a shift towards commercialisation of agriculture. Some European investors began to take interest in the cultivations of commercial crops like indigo, jute, tea, coffee, poppy, cotton, sugarcane, oil seeds and cinchona as these cash crops would fetch them more money, These planters owned huge tracts of land, called plantations. As cheap labour was readily available, cost of production was low, and yields were high. Therefore, highly profitable plantation agriculture developed at a fast pace. Production of food crops suffered resultantly.
It created a scarcity of foodgrains which adversely affected the peasantry as well as the entire country.
DEMAND FOR INDIAN INDIGO
The indigo plant mainly grew in the tropics By the thirteenth century, Indian indigo was in use by cloth manufacturers in Italy, France and Britain to dye clothes.
But very small amount of Indian indigo was able to go to the European market, due to its high demand and less supply making it expensiveFinding no alternative, the Europeans depended on another plant called woad which was used in place of indigo to dye cloth, to make violet and blue dyes Woad was more easily available in Europe and was grown in northern Italy, southern France and parts of Germany and Britain, The producers of woad got worried and forced their government to ban the import of indigo in their country.
But cloth dyers gave preference to indigo as a dye due to its rich blue colour whereas the dye from woad was pale and dull. By 17th century, European producers forced their governments, to remove the ban on indigo import The French started cultivation of indigo in St. Domingue in the Caribbean Islands, the Portuguese in Brazil, the English in Jamaica and the Spanish in Venezuela.
Towards the end of the eighteenth century, the demand for Indian indigo grew. Britain also began its cotton industry and needed dye for its cloth. The demand for indigo increased, but its supply from the West Indies and America reduced. Between 1783 and 1789, the production of indigo in the world fell dramatically by half. Cloth dyers in Britain now looked for new sources of indigo supply and the option was India.
INDIGO CULTIVATION
There were two main systems of indigo cultivation nij and ryoti. Within the system of nij cultivation, the planter produced indigo in lands that he directly controlled. He either bought the land or rented it from other zamindars and produced indigo by directly employing hired labourers.
The problem with nij cultivation
The planters found it difficult to expand the area under nij cultivation. Indigo could be cultivated only on fertile lands, and these were all already densely populated. Only small plots scattered over the landscape could be acquired. Planters needed large areas in compact blocks to cultivate indigo in plantations. Where could they get such land from? They attempted to lease in the land around the indigo factory, and evict the peasants from the area. But this always led to conflicts and tension. Nor was labour easy to mobilise. A large plantation required a vast number of hands to operate. And labour was needed precisely at a time when peasants were usually busy with their rice cultivation.
Indigo on the land of ryots
Under the ryoti system, the planters forced the ryots to sign a contract, an agreement (satta). At times they 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 loan committed the ryot to cultivating indigo on at least 25 per cent of the area under his holding. The planter provided the seed and the drill, while the cultivators prepared the soil, sowed the seed and looked after the crop.
CASE STUDY-INDIGO PRODUCTION
The indigo villages usually developed around the indigo factories, owned by the planters. After harvest, the indigo plant was taken to the vats in the indigo factory.
There are three steps involved in the making of indigo:
First step: Three or four vats were required to manufacture the dye, Each vat had a separate function. The leaves stripped off the indigo plant were soaked in warm water in a vat (known as fermenting or steeper vat) for several hours. When the plants fermented, the liquid began to boil and bubble. Now, the rotten leaves were taken out and liquid drained into another vat, that was placed just before the first vat.
Second step: In the second vat (known as the Vat-Beater), the solution was continuously stirred and beaten with paddles. When the liquid gradually turned green and then blue, lime water was added to the vat. Gradually, the indigo separated out in flakes, a muddy sediment, settled at the bottom of the vat and a clear liquid rose to the surface. The liquid was drained off and the indigo pulp to another vat.
Third step: In the third vat (known as the settling vat), the indigo pulp is pressed and dried for sale.
THE BLUE REBELLION
The problems associated with indigo cultivation resulted in popular unrest and finally, in popular rebellion In 1859, large-scale rebellion erupted in Bengal. Ryots refused to pay the loan to planters. People attacked indigo factories. They used all kinds of arms and ammunitions) such as bows and arrows, spears, etc., to fight planters. Women even used pots and pans to fight with planters. People who worked for planters were socially boycotted. Gomasthas (agents of planters) were beaten up at many places, They were the agents of planters and used to collect rents from cultivators. Ryots could not be controlled by lathiyals, Lathiyals were the lathi-weilding strongmen appointed by planters. Ryots refused to accept further advances for indigo cultivion.
Zamindars were angry because their lands had been forcefully taken away for indigo plantation. Zamindars also supported the rebellion by ryots, Many zamindars openly came out in support of ryots. An encouraging aspect of the Indigo revolt was support it received from the Bengali intelligentsia.
When the news of a similar revolt like the Revolt of 1857, came in the indigo districts, the Lieutenant Governor, visited the region in the winter of 1859. The ryots thought of this as a sympathy for their trouble. Queen Victoria now declared that indigo was not to be sown. Magistrate Eden tried to placate the peasants and control an explosive situation. Gradually, even intellectuals from Calcutta joined the revolt and wrote about the miseries of the ryots, The worry of another rebellion led the British government to appoint the Indigo Commission, The Commission held the planters guilty and took them to task for cruel methods they used with indigo cultivators. It reported that indigo production was not profitable for ryots. The Commission told the ryots to fulfil their existing contracts and not to take up new contracts.
After the revolt, indigo production collapsed in Bengal. The discovery of synthetic dyes in the late nineteenth century jolted indigo business. On Gandhi's return from South Africa, a peasant from Bihar persuaded him to come to Champaran and witness the plight of the indigo cultivators, His tour in 1917, led to the beginning of the Champaran movement against the indigo planters.
ELSEWHERE
Indigo making in the West Indies
In the early eighteenth century, a French missionary, Jean-Baptiste Labat, travelled to the Caribbean islands, and wrote extensively about the region. Published in one of his books, this image shows all the stages of indigo production in the French slave plantations of the region.
You can see the slave workers putting the indigo plant into the settler vat on the left. Another worker is churning the liquid with a mechanical churner in a vat (second from right). Two workers are carrying the indigo pulp hung up in bags to be dried. In the foreground two others are mixing the indigo pulp to be put into moulds. The planter is at the centre of the picture standing on the high ground supervising the slave workers.