Ruling the Countryside Summary Class 8 NCERT Summary Chapter 3

The Company Becomes the Diwan

• On 12 August 1765, the Mughal emperor named the East India Company as the Diwan of Bengal. This event likely occurred in Robert Clive's tent, with a few English and Indian witnesses present.
• As Diwan, the Company took on the role of the main financial manager of the region it controlled. It now had to focus on managing the land and organising its revenue sources to generate enough income to cover its increasing expenses.

Revenue for the Company

• The Company's goal was to maximise revenue and purchase high-quality cotton and silk at fair prices. Within five years, the value of goods acquired by the Company in Bengal had doubled, allowing the revenue collected there to fund the buying of goods for export.
• However, it soon became evident that the Bengal economy was in serious trouble. Farmers were struggling to pay the taxes imposed on them, leading to a decline in agricultural production.
• In 1770, a devastating famine resulted in the death of about one-third of Bengal's population.

The need to improve agriculture

• Many Company officials began to believe that encouraging land investment was essential and that agriculture needed enhancement.
• After two decades of discussion, the Company established the Permanent Settlement in 1793. This agreement recognised rajas and taluqdars as zamindars.
• They were assigned the duty of collecting rent from peasants and paying revenue to the Company. The revenue amount was set permanently, meaning it would never increase in the future.
• This was intended to guarantee a steady income for the Company while motivating zamindars to improve the land, as they would profit from increased production without facing higher revenue demands.

The problem

• Nevertheless, the Permanent Settlement led to issues.
• Company officials soon realised that zamindars were not investing in land improvements.
• The fixed revenue was so high that zamindars struggled to pay it.
• Those unable to pay lost their zamindari, with many being sold at Company auctions.
• In the villages, cultivators found the system very harsh. The rent to zamindars was steep, and their land rights were uncertain. To afford rent, they often took loans from moneylenders, and failing to pay rent could lead to eviction from land cultivated for generations.

A new system is devised

• By the early nineteenth century, many Company officials believed that the revenue system needed to change again to keep up with rising costs of administration and trade. 
• An Englishman named Holt Mackenzie created this new system, which started in 1822. He thought that the village was a key social unit in north Indian society and should be kept intact.

Mahalwari settlement

• Under his guidance, collectors visited villages to check the land, measure the fields, and note the customs and rights of different groups. They calculated the expected revenue for each plot within a village to determine how much each village (mahal) had to pay. This amount was to be reviewed periodically, not set permanently.
• The responsibility of collecting the revenue and paying it to the Company was assigned to the village headman instead of the zamindar.
• This approach became 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 needed to be made directly with the cultivators (ryots) who had farmed the land for generations. Their fields required careful and separate surveying before the revenue assessment.
• British officials believed they should protect the ryots under their care as paternal figures.
• In their pursuit to increase land income, revenue officials set revenue demands too high.
• As a result, peasants could not pay, leading to ryots fleeing and many villages becoming deserted. Optimistic officials had hoped that the new systems would generate more funds to cover administration and trade expenses.

Crops for Europe

• The British influenced or compelled farmers in various regions of India to grow different 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 employed several strategies to increase the cultivation of crops they required.
• One significant crop was Indigo. As the demand for indigo rose, the existing supplies from the West Indies and America fell due to various issues.
• From the late eighteenth century, indigo farming in Bengal grew quickly, and Bengal indigo began to lead the global market.

Why the demand for Indian indigo?

• By the thirteenth century, Indian indigo was used by cloth producers in Italy, France, and Britain to dye fabrics.
  • However, indigo was very costly.
• European cloth manufacturers had to rely on another plant called woad to create violet and blue dyes, which were less vibrant.
  • Consequently, cloth dyers preferred indigo for its quality.
• The French started growing indigo in St Domingue in the Caribbean, the Portuguese in Brazil, the English in Jamaica, and the Spanish in Venezuela.
• In 1788, only about 30 per cent of the indigo imported into Britain came from India. By 1810, this increased to 95 per cent.
• Between 1783 and 1789, global indigo production halved.
• Cloth dyers in Britain began searching for new sources of indigo.

Britain turns to India

• The Company in India sought ways to increase the area for indigo farming.
• By 1810, 95 percent of the indigo imported into Britain came from India.
• From 1783 to 1789, global indigo production dropped by half, leading cloth dyers in Britain to urgently find new sources.
• Many Company officials resigned, and numerous Scotsmen and Englishmen travelled to India to become planters, drawn by the potential for 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 believed they had backing from local zamindars and village headmen in their uprising against the planters.
• In various villages, headmen who had been forced to sign indigo contracts rallied the indigo farmers and engaged in fierce battles with the lathiyals.
• As the rebellion grew, intellectuals flocked to the indigo regions and documented the hardships of the ryots, the oppression from the planters, and the brutalities of the indigo system.
• The government established the Indigo Commission to investigate the indigo production system.
  • The Commission found the planters guilty and condemned their coercive tactics used against indigo cultivators.
• The ryots viewed the Lieutenant Governor's visit to the area in the winter of 1859 as a sign of government support for their struggles.
• Following the uprising, the situation concerning indigo production became complicated, as the planters were displeased with the growing strength of the ryots and were frustrated by being compelled to provide long land leases.
• Mahatma Gandhi’s visit in 1917 signalled the start of the Champaran movement opposing the indigo planters.