Class XII – Colonialism and the Countryside – Important Questions

Ans. The permanent settlement of land revenue rarely extended to any region beyond Bengal because:

i) After 1810, the cost of agricultural products was increased. Due to this, the income of the landlords in Bengal were increased but there was no growth in the income of the East India Company. Thus, the colonial government wanted to maximize its land revenue by introducing temporary revenue settlements instead of permanent settlements.

ii) When British officials devised permanent settlements, they were influenced by the economic theories at that time. By the 1820s, famous economist David Ricardo came with his new theory which said that the sate needed to tax the surplus agricultural produce to enhance its revenue. So, the British officials thought that permanent settlement is not a proper method to collect tax. Therefore, the colonial government wanted to maximize its land revenue by introducing temporary revenues settlement instead of permanent settlement.

Ans. East India Company recognized the importance and significance of zamindars but it also wanted to control, regulate and subdue their authority. To limit the authority of zamindars.

I) The Company disbanded the troop organized by zamindars, customs duties were abolished and ‘cutcheries’ or local court organized by zamindars were brought under supervision of company.

ii) The company appointed collector and gave power to supervise these courts, over the period of time collectorate emerged as center of authority.

iii) The power to organize local justice and the local police, was also abolished.

iv) The Permanent Settlement system was also limited, the power to the zamindars to collect rent from the ryot and manage their zamindari. So by these above steps, influence of zamindar was reduced by the company.

Ans. When the Zamindars were in crisis in the eighteenth century, a group of rich peasants consolidated its position in the villages of Bengal. This class of rich peasants came to be known as Jotedars. They had a control over vast areas of land. Sometimes they had even a control on many thousand acres of land. They even controlled local trade and moneylending. They exercised immense power over the poor cultivators of the region and had become more powerful than the Zamindars. The following reasons were responsible for their strong position:

i) They lived in villages therefore they had a lot of influence on many villagers.

ii) They opposed the efforts of the Zamindars to increase the Jama of the village.

iii) They mobilized ryots to deliverately delay payments of revenue to the Zamindars.

iv) They controlled the local trade and moneylending.

v) They had a control over several areas of land. They even purchased land when the estates of the Zamindars were auctioned for failure to make payment of the revenue.

Ans. The Zamindars adopted various means and measures to establish their control on their Zamindaris. These included the following:

i) They adopted the strategy of fictitious sale of land. When a part of their estate was auctioned, their men bought the property by giving higher bids than others. Later on, they refused to pay up the purchase money due to which the estate was auctioned again. The same process of purchase was repeated. At last the state felt exhausted and sold the estate at a low price again to the Zamindar.

ii) They created hurdles in the possession of the land if anyone from outside the zamindari bought an estate at an auction.

iii) they transferred some of the estates in the name of women as the property of women could not be taken over.

iv) The Lathyals of the former Zamindars sometimes attacked the new buyers.

v) Sometimes the ryots also resisted the entry of purchasers from outside.

Ans. The British had failed to subdue the Paharis. They could not transform the hill folk into settled agriculturists. So they turned to the Santhals who were ideal settlers. They demarcated a separated land for the Santhals and called it as Damin-i-koh. All the Santhals lived within it and practiced plow agriculture. They became peasant settled which resulted in the expansion of cultivation area and increase in the revenue:

i) By the 1850s, the Santhals rebelled against the Zamindars, moneylenders and the colonial state. They were not happy with all of these. The colonial government had imposed heavy taxes on their land. The moneylenders charged high rates of interest on loans and if any Santhal failed to pay his debt, his land was snatched by the moneylender. Besides the Zamindars also asserted control over their land.

ii) The Santhals rose in rebellion against the British rule. They wanted to create an ideal world where they could rule themselves. So after the Santhal Revolt (1855-56), the Santhal Pargana was created taking 550 sq.

iii) Miles of land from the districts of Bhagalpur the Birbhum. It was an attempt by the British Government to reconcile the situation after the Santhal Revolt.

Ans. i) In 1832, the British had given a land to the Santhals in the foot-hills of Rajmahal. This land was demarcated as Damin-i-Koh and declared as the land of the Santhals.

ii) The Santhals could live on this land, practice plow agriculture and could become settled peasants.

Ans. According to Permanent Settlement of Land, it was necessary for the Zamindars to pay the revenue punctually. But according to Sunset Law, if any Zamindar was unable to pay the revenue by sunset of the specified date, then the Zamindari was bound to be auctioned by the government to recover the dues.

Ans. The Permanent Settlement was made between the rajas and tauqdars of Bengal. These taluqdars were classified as the Zamindars. They paid the revenue fixed in perpetuity. They main features of the Permanent Settlement were as follows:

i) The Zamindars were not the owners of land in the village.

ii) The Zamindars were the collectors of revenue of the State.

iii) The Zamindars had many villages under them. Sometimes they had as many as 400 villages under their control.

iv) The villages coming under one Zamindar formed one revenue estate.

v) The Zamindars collected rent from the villages under their control and paid this revenue to the officials of the East India Company.

vi) The Zamindars were responsible for the regular payment of revenue to East India Company. If ever they failed to do so, their estate was auctioned.

Ans. No doubt, the East India Company considered the Zamindars were very important. Yet it wanted to control and regulate them. It wanted to restrict their autonomy and that they should submit to the control of the company. So it took the following steps to tame them:

i) The troops of Zamindars were disbanded.

ii) The customs duties were abolished.

iii) The courts (cutcheries) of the Zamindars were brought under the supervision of a collector who was appointed by the East India Company.

iv) The power of Zamindars to provide local justice and local police was snatched.

v) The emergence of the collectorate as an alternative centre of authority restricted the jurisdiction of Zamindars. When a raja failed to pay the revenue, an official of the East India Company rushed to his Zamindari.

vi) He had clear instructions to take charge of the district and destroy all the influence and authority of the raja and his officers.

Ans. Introduction

The permanent settlement had come into operation in 1793 by Lord Cornwallis. Under this system, Zamindars collected revenue from peasants and handover to the East India company. Company officials felt that a fixed revenue demand would give zamindars a sense of security and assured of returns on their investment, encourage them to improve their estates. In the early decades after the permanent settlement, however, zamindars regularly failed to pay the revenue demand and unpaid balances accumulated. The causes for this failure were:

i) The initial demands were very high. This was because it was felt that if the demand was fixed for all time to come, the company would never be able to claim a share of increased income from land when prices rose and cultivation expanded. To minimize this anticipated loss, the company fixed the revenue demand high arguing that the burden on zamindars would gradually decline as agricultural expanded and prices rose.

ii) This high demand was imposed in the 1790s, a time when the price of agricultural produce was depressed, making it difficult for the ryots to pay their dues to the zamindar.

iii) The revenue was invariable, regardless of the harvest, and had to be paid punctually. In fact, according to the Sunset law, if payment did not come in by sunset of the specified date, the zamindari was liable to be auctioned.

iv) The permanent settlement initially limited the power of the zamindar to collect rent from the ryot and manage his zamindari.

The consequences after the failure to fulfil the land revenue demands were:

i) When a raja or zamindar failed to pay the revenue demand, a company official was speedily dispatched to his zamindari with explicit instructions ‘to take charge of the district and to use the most effectual of the raja or zamindar and his officers’.

ii) The East India Company subdued their authority and restrict their autonomy.

iii) the zamindars troops were disbanded, customs abolished and their ‘cutcheries’ (courts) bright under the supervision of a collector appointed by the company.

iv) Zamindars lost their power to organize local justice and the local police.

v) Over time the collectorate emerged as an alternative centre of authority, severely restricting what the zamindar could do.

vi) While many zamindars were facing a crisis at the end of the 18^th century, a group of rich peasants also known as ‘Jotedars’, were consolidating their position in villages. They controlled local trade as well as money-lending, exercising immense power over the poorer cultivators of the region.

vii) Besides these, the estates of the zamindars also were auctioned for failure to make revenue payment and at that time Jotedars were after amongst the purchasers as they were most powerful in North Bengal.

Ans. Introduction: Many of the changes occurred at the time of the East India Company were documented in detail in a report that was submitted to the British Parliament in 1813. It was the fifth report on the administration and activities of the East India Company in India. The main aspects of the fifth report are discussed below

i) The fifth report had been convered into 1002 pages of which over 800 pages were appendices that reproduced petitions of zamindars and ryots reports of collectors from different districts, statistical tables on revenue returns, and notes on the revenue and judicial administration of Bengal and Madras (present day Tamil Nadu) written by officials.

ii) From the time the company established its rule in Bengal in the mid 1760s, its activities were closely watched and debated in England. There were many groups in Britain who were opposed to the monopoly that the East India Company had over trade with India and China.

iii) An increasing number of private traders wanted a share in the India trade, and the industrialists of Britain were keen to open up the Indian market for British manufacturers.

iv) Information about Company misrule and maladministration was hotly debated in Britain and incidents of the greed and corruption of company officials were widely publicised in the press.

v) The British Parliament passed a series of acts in the late 18^th century to regulate and control company rule in India. It forced the company to produce regular reports on committees to enquire into the affairs of the company.

vi) The fifth report was one such report produced by a selted committee. It became the basis of intense parliamentary debates on the nature of the East India company’s rule in India.

vii) The evidence contained in the fifth report is invaluable. But the recent researches show that the arguments and evidences offered by the fifth report cannot be accepted uncritically.

viii) After careful examination of the archives of various Bengal zamindars and the local records of the districts, researchers found that the report exaggerated the collapse of traditional zamindari power and also overestimated the scale on which zamindars were losing their land. As we have seen even when zamindaris, were auctioned, zamindars were not always displaced, given the ingenious methods they used to retain their zamindaris.

Conclusion:

Thus, the fifth report had been proved to be a good source to understand the India’s economy in the colonial times.