Agriculture Under Colonial Rule: Stagnation and Commercialisation

At the end of British rule, agriculture was by far the largest occupation in India, employing the overwhelming majority of the working population. Yet despite this huge dependence on land, agricultural productivity — the output obtained per acre or per worker — remained extremely low and showed little sign of improvement over the colonial period. Several factors together explain this stagnation:

• Backward technology: Most cultivation continued to use traditional tools and methods, with very little use of improved seeds, fertilisers, or irrigation compared to what was needed.
• Lack of investment: There was very little capital investment in agriculture, either by the colonial government or by cultivators themselves, many of whom were too poor to invest even if they had wished to.
• Exploitative land-revenue systems: Systems such as the Zamindari system fixed a high, often rigid revenue demand that had to be paid to the state (or to intermediaries such as zamindars) regardless of the actual harvest. This left cultivators with little surplus to reinvest in their land and made them vulnerable to debt and land loss in bad years.

At the same time, colonial policy actively promoted what is called the commercialisation of agriculture — a shift from growing food crops for local consumption toward growing cash crops meant for sale, particularly for export to Britain and other markets. Crops such as indigo, cotton, and jute were encouraged (and in some cases, such as indigo, forced) because British industry needed them as raw material. …