OUR PASTS – III26

Fig. 1 – Robert Cliveaccepting the Diwaniof Bengal, Bihar andOrissa from the Mughalruler in 1765

The Company Becomes the DiwanOn 12 August 1765, the Mughal emperor appointed the East IndiaCompany as the Diwan of Bengal. The actual event most probablytook place in Robert Clive’s tent, with a few Englishmen andIndians as witnesses. But in the painting above, the event isshown as a majestic occasion, taking place in a grand setting.The painter was commissioned by Clive to record the memorableevents in Clive’s life. The grant of Diwani clearly was one suchevent in British imagination.

As Diwan, the Company became the chief financialadministrator of the territory under its control. Now it had tothink of administering the land and organising its revenueresources. This had to be done in a way that could yield enoughrevenue to meet the growing expenses of the company. A tradingcompany had also to ensure that it could buy the products itneeded and sell what it wanted.

Ruling the Countryside3

27

Over the years the Company also learnt that it had tomove with some caution. Being an alien power, it neededto pacify those who in the past had ruled the countryside,and enjoyed authority and prestige. Those who had heldlocal power had to be controlled but they could not beentirely eliminated.

How was this to be done? In this chapter we will seehow the Company came to colonise the countryside, organiserevenue resources, redefine the rights of people, and producethe crops it wanted.

Revenue for the CompanyThe Company had become the Diwan, but it still saw itselfprimarily as a trader. It wanted a large revenue income butwas unwilling to set up any regular system of assessmentand collection. The effort was to increase the revenue as muchas it could and buy fine cotton and silk cloth as cheaply aspossible. Within five years the value of goods bought by theCompany in Bengal doubled. Before 1865, the Company hadpurchased goods in India by importing gold and silver fromBritain. Now the revenue collected in Bengal could financethe purchase of goods for export.

Soon it was clear that the Bengal economy was facinga deep crisis. Artisans were deserting villages since theywere being forced to sell their goods to the Company at lowprices. Peasants were unable to pay the dues that were beingdemanded from them. Artisanal production was in decline,and agricultural cultivation showed signs of collapse. Thenin 1770 a terrible famine killed ten million people in Bengal.About one-third of the population was wiped out.

RULING THE COUNTRYSIDE

Fig. 2 – A weekly marketin Murshidabad in Bengal

Peasants and artisansfrom rural areas regularlycame to these weeklymarkets (haats) to selltheir goods and buy whatthey needed. These marketswere badly affected duringtimes of economic crisis.

OUR PASTS – III28

The need to improve agricultureIf the economy was in ruins, could the Company becertain of its revenue income? Most Company officialsbegan to feel that investment in land had to beencouraged and agriculture had to be improved.

How was this to be done? After two decades of debateon the question, the Company finally introduced thePermanent Settlement in 1793. By the terms of thesettlement, the rajas and taluqdars were recognisedas zamindars. They were asked to collect rent fromthe peasants and pay revenue to the Company. Theamount to be paid was fixed permanently, that is, itwas not to be increased ever in future. It was felt thatthis would ensure a regular flow of revenue into theCompany’s coffers and at the same time encouragethe zamindars to invest in improving the land. Sincethe revenue demand of the state would not beincreased, the zamindar would benefit from increasedproduction from the land.

The problemThe Permanent Settlement, however, created problems.Company officials soon discovered that the zamindarswere in fact not investing in the improvement of land.The revenue that had been fixed was so high that thezamindars found it difficult to pay. Anyone who failed topay the revenue lost his zamindari. Numerous zamindariswere sold off at auctions organised by the Company.

By the first decade of the nineteenth century thesituation changed. The prices in the market rose andcultivation slowly expanded. This meant an increase inthe income of the zamindars but no gain for theCompany since it could not increase a revenue demandthat had been fixed permanently

Even then the zamindars did not have an interest inimproving the land. Some had lost their lands in theearlier years of the settlement; others now saw thepossibility of earning without the trouble and risk ofinvestment. As long as the zamindars could give out theland to tenants and get rent, they were not interested inimproving the land.

Fig. 3 – Charles Cornwallis

Cornwallis was the Governor-General of India when thePermanent Settlement wasintroduced.

Colebrook onBengal ryots

In many villages ofBengal, some of thepowerful ryots did notcultivate, but insteadgave out their lands toothers (the under-tenants),taking from them veryhigh rents. In 1806, H. T.Colebrook described theconditions of these under-tenants in Bengal:

The under-tenants,depressed by anexcessive rent in kind,and by usurious returnsfor the cattle, seed, andsubsistence, advancedto them, can neverextricate themselvesfrom debt. In so abjecta state, they cannotlabour in spirit, whilethey earn a scantysubsistence withouthope of bettering theirsituation.

Activity�Why do you think Colebrook is concerned with theconditions of the under-ryots in Bengal? Read thepreceding pages and suggest possible reasons.

Source 1

29

On the other hand, in the villages, the cultivatorfound the system extremely oppressive. The rent he paidto the zamindar was high and his right on the land wasinsecure. To pay the rent he had to often take a loanfrom the moneylender, and when he failed to pay therent he was evicted from the land he had cultivatedfor generations.

A new system is devisedBy the early nineteenth century many of the Companyofficials were convinced that the system of revenuehad to be changed again. How could revenues be fixedpermanently at a time when the Company neededmore money to meet its expenses of administrationand trade?

In the North Western Provinces of the BengalPresidency (most of this area is now in Uttar Pradesh),an Englishman called Holt Mackenzie devised the newsystem which came into effect in 1822. He felt thatthe village was an important social institution in northIndian society and needed to be preserved. Underhis directions, collectors went from village to village,inspecting the land, measuring the fields, and recordingthe customs and rights of different groups. Theestimated revenue of each plot within a villagewas added up to calculate the revenue that eachvillage (mahal) had to pay. This demand was to berevised periodically, not permanently fixed. The chargeof collecting the revenue and paying it to the Companywas given to the village headman, rather than thezamindar. This system came to be known as themahalwari settlement.

The Munro systemIn the British territories in the south there was a similarmove away from the idea of Permanent Settlement. Thenew system that was devised came to be known as theryotwar (or ryotwari ). It was tried on a small scale byCaptain Alexander Read in some of the areas that weretaken over by the Company after the wars with TipuSultan. Subsequently developed by Thomas Munro, thissystem was gradually extended all over south India.

Read and Munro felt that in the south there were notraditional zamindars. The settlement, they argued, hadto be made directly with the cultivators (ryots) who hadtilled the land for generations. Their fields had to becarefully and separately surveyed before the revenueassessment was made. Munro thought that the British

RULING THE COUNTRYSIDE

Mahal – In Britishrevenue records mahalis a revenue estatewhich may be a villageor a group of villages.

Fig. 4 – Thomas Munro, Governorof Madras (1819 -26)

OUR PASTS – III30

should act as paternal father figures protecting the ryotsunder their charge.

All was not wellWithin a few years after the new systems were imposedit was clear that all was not well with them. Driven bythe desire to increase the income from land, revenueofficials fixed too high a revenue demand. Peasants wereunable to pay, ryots fled the countryside, and villagesbecame deserted in many regions. Optimistic officialshad imagined that the new systems would transformthe peasants into rich enterprising farmers. But thisdid not happen.

Crops for EuropeThe British also realised that the countryside couldnot only yield revenue, it could also grow the cropsthat Europe required. By the late eighteenth centurythe Company was trying its best to expand thecultivation of opium and indigo. In the century and ahalf that followed, the British persuaded or forcedcultivators in various parts of India to produce othercrops: jute in Bengal, tea in Assam, sugarcane in theUnited Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh), wheat in Punjab,cotton in Maharashtra and Punjab, rice in Madras.

How was this done? The British used a variety ofmethods to expand the cultivation of crops that theyneeded. Let us take a closer look at the story of one suchcrop, one such method of production.

Does colour have ahistory?Figs. 5 and 6 are twoimages of cotton prints.The image on theleft (Fig. 5) shows akalamkari print createdby weavers of AndhraPradesh in India. Onthe right is a floralcotton print designedand produced byWilliam Morris, afamous poet and artistof nineteenth-centuryBritain. There is onething common in the

Fig. 5 – A kalamkari print,twentieth- century India

Fig. 6 – A Morris cotton print, late-nineteenth-century England

Activity�Imagine that you are aCompany representativesending a report backto England about theconditions in rural areasunder Company rule.What would you write?

31RULING THE COUNTRYSIDE

two prints: both use a rich blue colour – commonly calledindigo. Do you know how this colour was produced?

The blue that you see in these prints was producedfrom a plant called indigo. It is likely that the blue dyeused in the Morris prints in nineteenth-century Britainwas manufactured from indigo plants cultivated in India.For India was the biggest supplier of indigo in the worldat that time.

Why the demand for Indian indigo?The indigo plant grows primarily in the tropics. By thethirteenth century Indian indigo was being used by clothmanufacturers in Italy, France and Britain to dye cloth.

However, only small amounts of Indian indigo reachedthe European market and its price was very high.European cloth manufacturers therefore had to dependon another plant called woad to make violet and bluedyes. Being a plant of the temperate zones, woad wasmore easily available in Europe. It was grown in northernItaly, southern France and in parts of Germany andBritain. Worried by the competition from indigo, woadproducers in Europe pressurised their governments toban the import of indigo.

Cloth dyers, however, preferred indigo as a dye. Indigoproduced a rich blue colour, whereas the dye from woadwas pale and dull. By the seventeenth century, Europeancloth producers persuaded their governments to relaxthe ban on indigo import. The French began cultivatingindigo in St Domingue in the Caribbean islands, thePortuguese in Brazil, the English in Jamaica, and theSpanish in Venezuela. Indigo plantations also came upin many parts of North America.

By the end of the eighteenth century, the demand forIndian indigo grew further. Britain began to industrialise,and its cotton production expanded dramatically, creatingan enormous new demand for cloth dyes. While thedemand for indigo increased, its existing supplies fromthe West Indies and America collapsed for a variety ofreasons. Between 1783 and 1789 the production ofindigo in the world fell by half. Cloth dyers in Britainnow desperately looked for new sources of indigo supply.

From where could this indigo be procured?

Britain turns to IndiaFaced with the rising demand for indigo in Europe, theCompany in India looked for ways to expand the areaunder indigo cultivation.

Plantation – Alarge farm operatedby a planteremploying variousforms of forcedlabour. Plantationsare associated withthe production ofcoffee, sugarcane,tobacco, tea andcotton.

OUR PASTS – III32

From the last decadesof the eighteenth centuryindigo cultivation inBengal expanded rapidlyand Bengal indigo cameto dominate the worldmarket. In 1788 only about30 per cent of the indigoimported into Britain wasfrom India. By 1810, theproportion had gone up to95 per cent.

As the indigo tradegrew, commercial agentsand officials of theCompany began investingin indigo production. Overthe years many Companyofficials left their jobs tolook after their indigo

business. Attracted by the prospect of high profits,numerous Scotsmen and Englishmen came to India andbecame planters. Those who had no money to produceindigo could get loans from the Company and the banksthat were coming up at the time.

How was indigo cultivated?There were two main systems of indigo cultivation – nijand ryoti. Within the system of nij cultivation, theplanter produced indigo in lands that he directlycontrolled. He either bought the land or rented it fromother zamindars and produced indigo by directlyemploying hired labourers.

The problem with nij cultivationThe planters found it difficult to expand the area undernij cultivation. Indigo could be cultivated only on fertilelands, and these were all already densely populated.Only small plots scattered over the landscape could beacquired. Planters needed large areas in compact blocksto cultivate indigo in plantations. Where could they getsuch land from? They attempted to lease in the landaround the indigo factory, and evict the peasants fromthe area. But this always led to conflicts and tension.

Nor was labour easy to mobilise. A large plantationrequired a vast number of hands to operate. And labourwas needed precisely at a time when peasants wereusually busy with their rice cultivation.

Fig. 7 – The Slave Revolt inSt Domingue, August 1791,painting by January Scuhodolski

In the eighteenth century,French planters produced indigoand sugar in the French colonyof St Domingue in the Caribbeanislands. The African slaves whoworked on the plantations rosein rebellion in 1791, burning theplantations and killing their richplanters. In 1792 France abolishedslavery in the French colonies.These events led to the collapseof the indigo plantations on theCaribbean islands.

Slave – A person who isowned by someone else –the slave owner. A slavehas no freedom and iscompelled to work forthe master.

33

Nij cultivation on a large scale also required manyploughs and bullocks. One bigha of indigo cultivationrequired two ploughs. This meant that a planter with1,000 bighas would need 2,000 ploughs. Investing onpurchase and maintenance of ploughs was a bigproblem. Nor could supplies be easily got from thepeasants since their ploughs and bullocks were busyon their rice fields, again exactly at the time that theindigo planters needed them.

Till the late nineteenth century, planters were thereforereluctant to expand the area under nij cultivation. Lessthan 25 per cent of the land producing indigo was underthis system. The rest was under an alternative mode ofcultivation – the ryoti system.

Indigo on the land of ryotsUnder the ryoti system, the plantersforced the ryots to sign a contract,an agreement (satta). At timesthey pressurised the villageheadmen to sign the contracton behalf of the ryots. Thosewho signed the contract gotcash advances from theplanters at low rates of interestto produce indigo. But the loancommitted the ryot to cultivatingindigo on at least 25 per cent ofthe area under his holding. Theplanter provided the seed and thedrill, while the cultivators preparedthe soil, sowed the seed and looked after the crop. Fig. 8 – Workers harvesting

indigo in early-nineteenth-centuryBengal. From Colesworthy Grant,Rural Life in Bengal, 1860

In India the indigo plant wascut mostly by men.

Bigha – A unit ofmeasurement of land.Before British rule, thesize of this area varied.In Bengal the Britishstandardised it to aboutone-third of an acre.

RULING THE COUNTRYSIDE

Fig. 9 – The Indigo plant beingbrought from the fields to thefactory

OUR PASTS – III34

Fig. 13 – The indigois ready for sale

Here you can see the last stage of the production –workers stamping and cutting the indigo pulp thathas been pressed and moulded. In the background youcan see a worker carrying away the blocks for drying.

Fig. 12 – The Vat-Beater

The indigo workerhere is standing withthe paddle that wasused to stir thesolution in the vat.These workers had toremain in waist-deepwater for over eighthours to beat theindigo solution.

Fig. 11 – Women usuallycarried the indigo plant tothe vats.

Vat – A fermentingor storage vessel

Fig. 10 – An indigo factory located near indigo fields, painting byWilliam Simpson, 1863

The indigo villages were usually around indigo factories ownedby planters. After harvest, the indigo plant was taken to thevats in the indigo factory. Three or four vats were needed tomanufacture the dye. Each vat had a separate function. Theleaves stripped off the indigo plant were first soaked in warmwater in a vat (known as the fermenting or steeper vat) for severalhours. When the plants fermented, the liquid began to boil andbubble. Now the rotten leaves were taken out and the liquiddrained into another vat that was placed just below the first vat.

In the second vat (known as the beater vat) the solution wascontinuously stirred and beaten with paddles. When the liquidgradually turned green and then blue, lime water was added tothe vat. Gradually the indigo separated out in flakes, a muddysediment settled at the bottom of the vat and a clear liquid rose

to the surface. The liquid was drained off and the sediment –the indigo pulp – transferred

to another vat (known asthe settling vat), andthen pressed anddried for sale.

FermentingVat

BeaterVat

How was indigo produced?

35

When the crop was delivered to the planter after theharvest, a new loan was given to the ryot, and the cyclestarted all over again. Peasants who were initiallytempted by the loans soon realised how harsh the systemwas. The price they got for the indigo they producedwas very low and the cycle of loans never ended.

There were other problems too. The planters usuallyinsisted that indigo be cultivated on the best soils inwhich peasants preferred to cultivate rice. Indigo,moreover, had deep roots and it exhausted the soilrapidly. After an indigo harvest the land could not besown with rice.

The “Blue Rebellion” and AfterIn March 1859 thousands of ryots in Bengal refused togrow indigo. As the rebellion spread, ryots refused topay rents to the planters, and attacked indigo factoriesarmed with swords and spears, bows and arrows.Women turned up to fight with pots, pans and kitchenimplements. Those who worked for the planters weresocially boycotted, and the gomasthas – agents ofplanters – who came to collect rent were beaten up.Ryots swore they would no longer take advances to sowindigo nor be bullied by the planters’ lathiyals – thelathi-wielding strongmen maintained by the planters.

Why did the indigo peasants decide that they wouldno longer remain silent? What gave them the powerto rebel? Clearly, the indigo system was intenselyoppressive. But those who are oppressed do not alwaysrise up in rebellion. They do so only at times.

In 1859, the indigo ryots felt that they had thesupport of the local zamindars and village headmen intheir rebellion against the planters. In many villages,headmen who had been forced to sign indigo contracts,mobilised the indigo peasants and fought pitchedbattles with the lathiyals. In other places even thezamindars went around villages urging the ryots toresist the planters. These zamindars were unhappy withthe increasing power of the planters and angry at beingforced by the planters to give them land on long leases.

The indigo peasants also imagined that the Britishgovernment would support them in their struggleagainst the planters. After the Revolt of 1857 theBritish government was particularly worried about thepossibility of another popular rebellion. When the newsspread of a simmering revolt in the indigo districts,

A song from anindigo-producing

village

In moments of strugglepeople often sing songsto inspire each otherand to build a sense ofcollective unity. Suchsongs give us a glimpseof their feelings. Duringthe indigo rebellionmany such songs couldbe heard in the villagesof lower Bengal. Here isone such song:

The long lathiswielded by theplanter of Mollahati /now lie in a cluster

The babus of Kolkatahave sailed down /to see the great fight

This time the raiyatsare all ready, / theywill no longer bebeaten in silence

They will no longergive up their life /without fighting thelathiyals.

Source 2

RULING THE COUNTRYSIDE

OUR PASTS – III36

the Lieutenant Governor toured the region in the winterof 1859. The ryots saw the tour as a sign of governmentsympathy for their plight. When in Barasat, themagistrate Ashley Eden issued a notice stating thatryots would not be compelled to accept indigo contracts,word went around that Queen Victoria had declaredthat indigo need not be sown. Eden was trying to placatethe peasants and control an explosive situation, buthis action was read as support for the rebellion.

As the rebellion spread, intellectuals from Calcuttarushed to the indigo districts. They wrote of the miseryof the ryots, the tyranny of the planters, and the horrorsof the indigo system.

Worried by the rebellion, the government broughtin the military to protect the planters from assault,and set up the Indigo Commission to enquire into thesystem of indigo production. The Commission held theplanters guilty, and criticised them for the coercivemethods they used with indigo cultivators. It declaredthat indigo production was not profitable for ryots. TheCommission asked the ryots to fulfil their existingcontracts but also told them that they could refuse toproduce indigo in future.

“I would rather beg than sow indigo”

Hadji Mulla, an indigo cultivator of Chandpore, ThanaHardi, was interviewed by the members of the IndigoCommission on Tuesday, 5 June 1860. This is what hesaid in answer to some of the questions:

W. S. Seton Karr, President of the IndigoCommission: Are you now willing to sow indigo;and if not on what fresh terms would you be willingto do it?

Hadji Mulla: I am not willing to sow, and I don’tknow that any fresh terms would satisfy me.

Mr Sale: Would you not be willing to sow at arupee a bundle?

Hadji Mulla: No I would not; rather than sowindigo I will go to another country; I would ratherbeg than sow indigo.

Indigo Commission Report, Vol. II, Minutes of Evidence, p. 67

Source 3

Activity�Imagine you are awitness giving evidencebefore the IndigoCommission. W.S. SetonKarr asks you “On whatcondition will ryots growindigo?” What will youranswer be?

37

ELSEWHERE

Indigo making in the West IndiesIn 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 hisbooks, this image showsall the stages of indigoproduction in the Frenchslave plantations ofthe region.

You can see the slaveworkers putting theindigo plant into thesettler vat on the left.Another worker ischurning the liquid witha mechanical churnerin a vat (second fromright). Two workers arecarrying the indigo pulphung up in bags to be dried. In the foreground two others are mixing the indigopulp to be put into moulds. The planter is at the centre of the picture standing onthe high ground supervising the slave workers.

RULING THE COUNTRYSIDE

Let’s recall1. Match the following:

ryot village

mahal peasant

nij cultivation on ryot’s lands

ryoti cultivation on planter’s own land

After the revolt, indigo production collapsed in Bengal. Butthe planters now shifted their operation to Bihar. With thediscovery of synthetic dyes in the late nineteenth century theirbusiness was severely affected, but yet they managed to expandproduction. When Mahatma Gandhi returned from SouthAfrica, a peasant from Bihar persuaded him visit Champaranand see the plight of the indigo cultivators there. MahatmaGandhi’s visit in 1917 marked the beginning of the Champaranmovement against the indigo planters.

Fig. 14 – Making indigo in a Caribbean slave plantation

OUR PASTS – III38

2. Fill in the blanks:

(a) Growers of woad in Europe saw __________as a crop which would provide competition totheir earnings.

(b) The demand for indigo increased in late-eighteenth-century Britain because of __________.

(c) The international demand for indigo wasaffected by the discovery of __________.

(d) The Champaran movement was against__________.

Let’s discuss3. Describe the main features of the Permanent

Settlement.

4. How was the mahalwari system different from thePermanent Settlement?

5. Give two problems which arose with the new Munrosystem of fixing revenue.

6. Why were ryots reluctant to grow indigo?

7. What were the circumstances which led to theeventual collapse of indigo production in Bengal?

Let’s do8. Find out more about the Champaran movement

and Mahatma Gandhi’s role in it.

9. Look into the history of either tea or coffeeplantations in India. See how the life of workers inthese plantations was similar to or different fromthat of workers in indigo plantations.

Let’s imagineImagine aconversation betweena planter and apeasant who is beingforced to grow indigo.What reasons wouldthe planter give topersuade the peasant?What problems wouldthe peasant pointout? Enact theirconversation.