Economics · Ch 1 — Indian Economy on the Eve of Independence
Agricultural Sector
Agricultural Sector
Under British rule India's economy stayed fundamentally agrarian. About 85 per cent of the population lived in villages and depended directly or indirectly on farming (see Box 1.2). Yet, despite supporting such a huge population, agriculture stagnated and at times actually deteriorated.
Box 1.2: Agriculture During Pre-British India
The French traveller Bernier described seventeenth-century Bengal as richer than Egypt: it exported cotton and silk in abundance, grew ample wheat, vegetables, rice, sugar and butter for its own use, kept immense herds of livestock and abundant fish, and was threaded by an endless network of canals — cut over the centuries from the Ganges down to the sea — built for navigation and irrigation.
Notice the agricultural prosperity of the country in the seventeenth century, and contrast it with the agricultural stagnation around the time the British left India, roughly 200 years later.
Drawn by us to help you understand the concept clearly, and verified to make sure it's accurate. For exams, practice from your textbook's own diagram.
Our own line-art recreation of the scene the NCERT chapter captions "India's agricultural stagnation under the British colonial rule" (Fig. 1.1) — bullock-drawn ploughing on a cultivated hillside. Drawn fresh by us, not traced from the textbook photograph; it illustrates the low level of technology described in this section, one of t …
Growth in area, not in productivity
- Agricultural productivity remained low.
- In absolute terms the sector did grow a little, but only because the total area under cultivation expanded — not because output per unit of land improved.
The land-settlement systems
The main cause of the stagnation lay in the various land-settlement systems the colonial government introduced.
- Under the zamindari system, used in the then Bengal Presidency (parts of India's present-day eastern states), the profits from agriculture went to the zamindars, not to the cultivators who actually worked the land.
- Many zamindars, like the colonial government itself, did nothing to improve farming. Their sole interest was collecting rent, regardless of the cultivators' condition, which bred deep misery and social tension.
- The terms of the revenue settlement encouraged this attitude: fixed dates were set for depositing fixed sums of revenue, and a zamindar who failed to pay on time lost his rights — so the pressure was passed down harshly onto the cultivators.
Work These Out
- Compare the map of British India with that of independent India and find out the areas that became part of Pakistan. Why were those areas so important to India from an economic point of view?
- What were the various forms of revenue settlement adopted by the British in India? Where did they implement them, to what effect, and how far do those settlements have a bearing on India's agricultural scenario today?
Other handicaps of farming
- Low levels of technology.
- Lack of irrigation facilities.
- Negligible use of fertilisers.
Together these worsened the farmers' plight and kept productivity dismally low.
Commercialisation of agriculture …