Agrarian Relations in India by Sunil Sen

AGRARIAN RELATIONS IN INDIA (1793-1947) By Sununu, Sen Peorre’s Pusiisuinc House New DetarJune 1959 Printed by Jiten Sen at the New Age Printing Press, Rani Jhansi Road, New Delhi 110055, and published by him for People’s Publishing House (P) Ltd., Rani Jhansi Road, New Delhi 110055.Preface It is surprising that the study of the agrarian problem was neglected in this country before the 1960s. Fortunately, India’s agriculture is now a subject in which research is intense. This has helped me to write this book which rests on the works of a great many other scholars, Surely there are plenty of areas in which there has been little research. I have thought it wise to concentrate on these areas. In this book I have asked a few questions that are related to the problems of modernisation of India’s agriculture. To the student of social and economic history the problems of modernisation should be of interest. Throughout the book the problems have been posed not in the abstract, though I do not know how successful the attempt is. It seems that the problems posed here need to be comprehended more fully and sufficiently before we try to build a model of economic growth. As a full-time activist in the Indian Kisan movement (1943-1957), I may say that I lived in the village and tried to cope with the realities of the Indian situation. In this book I have tried to present an overall view of the agrarian social structure, production relations, rural credit, famines and peasant unrest; the emphasis is on interpretation of the main trends that were developing in the entire period from the Permanent Settlement to the end of the Raj. The economic historians seem to have concentrated on the zamindars although land management was actually under the control of new social categories. I have therefore, tried to indicate the structural changes in the agrarian system. In his preface to The Peasant War in Germany (1874), Engels wrote perceptively on the tripartite classification of the German peasantry. Writing in 1908 Romesh Dutt described the peasantry as a homogeneous class. Fortunately, the social scientists have now discovered the Tich peasant who sold the bulk of his crop in the market and was anxious to improve farming. This book attempts to describe the differentiation among the peasantry that started in the nine-vi Agrarian Relations in India teenth century and was accentuated between the two world wars, In his celebrated work, The Development of Capitalism in Russia (1898) Lenin showed how the growth of commercial agriculture led to the disintegration of the peasantry, the trans- formation of agriculture into enterprise, the decline of otrabotki that has a family resemblance with share cropping. In his pioneering studies in the Indian land system Romesh Dutt focus- ed on irrigation, but hardly mentioned its impact on the growth of commercial agriculture. Much work has since been published, but it can not be said that the economic historians have paid a great deal of attention to the impact of commercial agriculture on production relations, especially from 1900 onwards. In this book a recurrent theme is that commercial agriculture ushered in new trends in production relations and laid the basis of capitalist mode of production in some regions, This does not mean that semi-feudal relations were moribund. With the extension of commercial agriculture. rural credit assumed crucial importance. Predictably, the rich peasant clamoured for credit. My research has Jed me to the conclusion that the rich peasant could not become a contented category, partly because the government and commercial banks did not offer him adequate credit. He found it difficult to adapt to new technology that was capital- centred and ching to traditional methods of cultivation. It is not fortuitous that the rich peasant figured prominently in the peasant revolts that flared up in this country. Since its formation in 1936, the Kisan Sabha consistently tried to woo the rich peasant so that the unity of the entire peasantry could be preserved; there was also the political necessity of maintaining alliance with the nationalists that never ceased to champion the interests of Jandlords and rich peasants, As T have tried to show in the section on peasant unrest, the interests of tenants, share croppers and agricultural labourers came to the forefront in the wake of peasant mobilisation. The problem of maintaining the unity of the entire peasantry proved to be intractable. It is also a fact that the Kisan Sabha took an ambivalent attitude towards the agricultural labourers that remained unorganised until the coming of independence. What needs to be noted is that peasant unrest was intense in both zamindari and ryotwari areas, and mirrored , the agrarian crisis.Preface vii In the course of this work, I have benefited greatly from dis- cussions with very many scholars. I am specially indebted to Eric Stokes, John Broomfield, Barun De, Benoy Choudhuri, Ranjit Gupta and Kalyan Datta who showered their kindnesses on me. I am grateful to Girish: Mishra and Himadri Banerjee who kindly permitted me to make use of their doctoral disser- tations. In the search for material I have received help and advice from my students. To them my gratitude goes deepest. I tender my sincere thanks to Mohit Sen and Subodh Roy who readily welcomed this project and took a keen interest in the publication of this book. I will remain grateful to my wife who stood by me cheerfully when I travelled by bus from south Calcutta to north Calcutta to meet my students in the University and worked hard to com- plete the ambitious project on which I had embarked in the winter of 1976. I should add that I did not receive any financial assistance from the proliferating research institutes. Suni] Kumar SenChapter 1: Chapter 2: Chapter 3: Chapter 4: Chapter 5: Chapter 6: Chapter 7: Chapter 8: Chapter 9: Contents Preface Agrarian Structure Differentiation among the Peasantry Growth of Commercial Agriculture: 3 Growth of Commercial Agriculture: II Agricultural Indebtedness and Credit Famines and Agrarian Structure Peasant Unrest: 1 Peasant Unrest: Ii Epilogue Appendices Selected Bibliography IndexCHAPTER 1 Agrarian Structure - The stagnation of Indian agriculture during British rule is a familiar theme. What needs to be asked is whether the stagnation and deterioration of agriculture could be related to the agrarian structure. By agrarian structure we mean the institutional frame- work of agricultural production, which includes land tenure system, distribution of ownership of land between large landowners and. small peasants, tenancy system, the burdens imposed on the peasants by the government and the landowners. It seems that the problems of Indian agriculture cannot be comprehended without reference to the agrarian structure. We will briefly review the land tenure systems and concentrate on the structural changes in the agrarian system to find out how the social relations were responsible for the progressive deterioration of Indian agriculture until independence. Land Tenure System The British ruling class thought it wise to recognize the zamindars and rely on them for revenue collection. Under the Perma- nent Settlement (1793) the zamindars became proprietors of their estates, subject to a permanent fixed payment to the government. The revenue of the government was fixed at about ten-elevenths of what the zamindars received as rent from the ryots; the re- maining one-eleventh was left as the share of the zamindar. The Permanent Settlement was introduced in Bengal, Bihar and some districts of United Provinces and Madras, In the eighteenth century the government hardly pursued any development-oriented policy, and the over-riding object was the security of the land revenue. Throughout the nineteenth century land revenue remained the best revenue-yielder, and the expedient ‘undertaken’ by2 Agrarian Relations in India the ruling class in land tenure policy were largely determined by Tevenue considerations, It was hoped that the landlords would pay their revenue regu- larly and also develop agriculture. These expectations proved to be illusory. Many estates were sold up for arrears of revenue and then resold to new purchasers. The landlords became rent- receivers who hardly took a significant part in raising agricultural Production. As years passed, the landlord became more and more a rent-receiver “living on the proceeds of another’s labour”; the landlord class benefited from increased rents and paid “a comparatively small part of their surplus towards the upkeep of the state’.t_ The zamindars in permanently settled areas paid at a far lower rate than landlords in other parts of the country, and their rising income from land was exempt from income-tax. Jn the permanently settled areas the zamindars became pro- Prictors and the cultivating peasants their tenants. Since the government was primarily concerned with the security of land revenue, the landlords were given powers to evict their tenants, “distrain and sell their property, and even seize their persons, without recourse to the courts of law.”? The tenants, who had no documentary eveidence to prove their rights, were rack-rented and evicted by the landlords who were mostly absentee rent- receivers. As new lands were brought under cultivation and zamindars increased their share by enhancing rents, the ruling class tried a new, experiment known as the ryotwari system. The Ryotwari Settlement was first introduced in Baramahal in the 1790s by Alexander Reed; it was later extended to the ceded districts and the Carnatic. In 1808 the government abandoned it in favour of the gramwari or village system. In 1820 Munro restored a tevised form of ryotwari in the greater part of Madras, which became the main form of land tenure in South India. Under the 1, Report of the Indian Taxation Enquiry Committee (1924-25), para 96. The committee evaded the question of buying out “all the ptoprietary rights or those of intermediate holders”, since “enormous financial operations” were involved in it. 2, O'Malley (ed), Modern India and the West, 1941, p 707.Agrarian Structure 3 ryotwari system, an agreement was made directly between the government and the ryots. English ideas of individual respon- sibility were applied, and the old communal system was set aside. Apparently the boon of private property was conferred on the ryots. It has been held that the ryotwari system elimina- ted intetmediaries between the government and the peasants. Recent research, however, indicates that the ryots represented “the high-caste elite, the rayalu or leaders of the village”. What the government did was to deal with the village leaders separate- ly. There developed “as many intermediaries between the ryot and the governor-in-council under the ryotwari as under the zamindari system”. Indeed, gentlemen farmers in England could “have been cultivators in the same sense as some ryots”. In fact the ryots became converted into rent-reccivers who often sublet their land. In Guntur district the Permanent Settlement was introduced in 1802; the main object was to obtain “a steady revenue”. The Guntur zamindars were allowed to hold tracts (muttas) in return for permanently fixed money payments to the government. But the zamindari system collapsed, as the zamindars failed to meet the revenue demand of the government and were sunk in huge private debts. The government introduced the ryotwari system first in Palnad and then in Guntur. Instead of delegating a large amount of control to the zamindars, the government tried under the ryotwari system to “extend state control in every corner of agricultural life”.5 But the ryotwari system hardly brought any radical change in the agrarian system; the ryots with whom the settlement was made represented ‘village leaders and not the lowly, labouring cultivators”.° It should be emphasized that the. British ruling class invariably relied upon the Brahmins, respect- able Sudras and merchants for revenue collection in South India, 3. Mukherjee and Frykenberg, ‘The Ryotwari System’, in Fryken- berg (ed), Land Control and Social Structure in Indian History, p 200. 4, Ibid, p 225. 5, Frykenberg, Guntur District (1788-1848), p 66. 6. Ibid, p 68.4 Agrarian Relations in India ‘and these sections were to become the dramatis personae in rural society. The ryotwari system was extended to Bombay, Bastar and Assam. Lust for expanded revenue was met by this system. In Bombay there was periodic assessment for twenty or thirty years; land revenue collection amounted to £1.86 million in 1837-38 and £2 million in 1842. Dutt argued that the government took as land tax “the whole of the cconomic rent”.’ As cotton prices increased, the government proceeded to increase land revenue. This became evident during the Revision Settlement that com- menced in 1866. Under the impact of the American Civil War, cotton prices rose abnormally, and the government “effected a high and unreasonable increase in the land revenue demand”.* As the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha noted, “there is no surplus produce left” in the hands of the ryot after paying the cost of cultivation and the asscssment of government.® The Revision Settle- ment that began in 1866 went on slowly; by 1879 it was comple- ted in only half the villages. In the revised settlement there was @ considerable increase in the land tax. The Macdonnell Com- mission found in 1900 that the land tax in Gujarat represented one-fifth of the gross produce. In northern India settlement was originally made with landlords. In 1807 the extension of the Permanent Settlement in the “ceded” and “conquered territories” was promised. As the value of land increased, the government became anxious not to lose their share by permanently fixing land revenue. In 1822 Holt Mackenzie averred that landed rights should be ascertained before a settlement was made. In 1833 scttlement was begun by Bird. What the settlement officers did was to convert “imperfect and rudimentary rights” into distinct property, generally on the basis of long possession. Imbued with English ideas of property, the settlement officers created a landlord tenure in the greater 7. R. C. Dutt, Economic History of India in the Victorian Age, 1906, p 329. 8. Ibid. 9. Ibid, p 332. 10, Ibid, p 492,Agrarian Structure 5 part of North-West Provinces." The proposal of a permanent settlement of the land revenue was’ finally abondoned in 1883, since “the land continued to improve in value”. Partly revenue considerations determined government policy. The government had failed to increase revenue through the income tax, while military and railway expenditure was rising. Hence the government was not anxious to part with the possible increase in the land revenue. The 1857 rebellion marked a shift in government policy and this was cvident in British land policy in Ouch. Although the talukdars were dispossessed in 1856, their control remained in a large part of the province; the intention of the goverament was to encourage the growth of peasant proprietors.'? During the rebellion the village proprictors did not desert the talukdars, and James Outram, a strong advocate of scttlement with the teluk- dars, argued that they had power to exercise cither “for or against us, and the viliage proprietors had neither”."* After the mutiny, Canning issued his famous proclamation of wholesale confisca- tion of land. This was followed by scttlement with the talukdars. Discretion was the better part of valour. For the ruling class the maintenance of the landed aristocracy as the sccial buttress of the raj was of crucial importance. In fact, the position of the talukdars was strengthened. Magisterial and revenue powers were conferred on them; the rights of underproprietors were sacrificed by the act of 1866.14 On the question of protecting the rights of occupancy ryots, the chief commissioner refused to follow the provisions of the Bengal Rent Act of 1859. Lawrence expressed his dismay in his minute: “Ever since the reoccupation of Oudh, it has been the uniform aim of the chief commissioner to sweep away...all subordinate rights and interests in the soil... so that there should be no intermediate interest between the talukdar and the mere tenants-at-will”.15 Indeed the rights 11, O'Malley, op cit, pp 710-11. 12. J. Raj. The Mutiny and British Land Policy in North India (1856-68), 1965, p 19. 13. Ibid, p 22. 14, Ibid, p 71. 15, Minute dated 20 June 1864, Raj, op cit, p 98.6 Agrarian Relations in India of tenants were effaced. In the Oudh Rent Act of 1868, even the twelve years’ rule about occupancy right was denied to the tenants. The Famine Commission reported in 1880 that subletting had become a phenomenon, so that the tenants-at-will had no rights and no incentive to improve agriculture.?® In the Punjab the mahalwari or joint village system was introduced; the mahals or villages were settled with directly, although “a cosharer of standing was generally selected to undet- take the primary liability of paying land revenue”.!7 The object of the government was to create peasant proprietorship. Al- though the jagirdars continued to exist, a large body of small proprietors grew up. Immediately after annexation the land tax was raised, but by 1872 it was reduced to one sixth of the produce. Much of the land of the jagirdars and small proprietors was cultivated by tenants, and the Tenant Act of 1868 was passed, which defined the position of tenants with rights of occupancy. Dutt writes that the government wisely recognized the claims of the landed classes while extending protection to the tenants.18 Structural Changes The forms of land tenure in different parts of India were represented by the zamindari, mahalwarj and roytwari systems. But these systems hardly indicate the outstanding features of the agrarian structure. In a revealing passage O’Malley has told us that “lands and villages passed into possession of land jobbers, lawyers, traders and capitalists”. Indeed, the army of rent receivers was increasing in numbers throughout the country. Con- trol over land was passing into the hands of nonagriculturists that included landlords, moneylenders, traders and landed gentry. Land had become a commodity, and a land market rapidly grew up throughout this country. The image of the village changed as a result of land transfer that continued unabated under British 16, Report of the Famine Conrmission (1880), pp 120-22. 17. Report of the Congress Agrarian Reforms Committee (1949). 18. R. C. Dutt, op cit, p 271. Dutt praises “the wise administra- tors” who “did not desire to set aside the landed classes”.Agrarian Structure 7 rule. As Professor Stokes notes in a recent study of agrarian telations in Uttar Pradesh: “The crucial economic and social divide was, therefore, not between landlord and tenant... the divide corresponded with that between the absentee rent receiver and the cultivating landholder, whose holding was composed of land held under various tenures ranging from full proprietary Tight to tenancy-at-will’. 7° In a perceptive passage the Uttar Pradesh Zamindari Abolition Committee focussed on the changes in the agrarian system: “Millions of people were, by these settlements, deprived of rights that they had enjoyed for well over two thousand years; hereditary cultivating proprietors of land were turned into rack- rented tenants-at-will, and conditions were thus created that led to continuous social discord and economic deterioration and the decay of agriculture.” Evidence that has accumulated in recent years makes it clear that the structure of landholding was rapidly changing in India in the nineteenth century./ Let us tum to Bengal. On the morrow of the Permanent Settlement, the estates of many rajas and zamindars were sold for arrears of revenue. The great zamindars of Rajshahi, Dinajpur, Nadia, Bishnupur, Birbhoom and Midnapur were particularly affected by the sale laws. It is surprising that the Burdwan raj managed to survive and continued to thrive until the end of British rule. What is relevant to our study is the social composition of the emerging class of new landlords. The estates of the Natore raj began to disintegrate after the death of Rani Bhabani, and there was the proliferation of small estates. Major portion of the Natore raj in Jessore was purchased by Kalisankar Ray, the dewan of the Natore raj, who founded the Narail estate. Another purchaser was the house of Tagore, which was connected with British administration. Krishna Pal, a trader, purchased a portion and 19. Eric Stokes, ‘The Structure of Landholding in Uttar Pradesh’ (1860-1948), in The Indian Economic and Social History Review, AprilsJyne 1975,& Agrarian Relations in India became a zamindar.2° In Birbhoom the purchasers were “persons who have held situation under the raja, the rest are merchants and persons that have been in the service of different zamindars”.2! Jaykrishna Mukherjee, founder of the Uttarpara estate, was the son of a banian and worked as a record Keeper at the Hooghly collectorate; he embarked upon purchasing estates and emerged as a large zamindar, who never ceased to bo a moneylender and grain dealer. Such instances may be multiplied. It would be fatuous to hold that there was no concentration of land in the hands of the new zamindars. The new zamindars were not petty landlords. In fact, zamindars frequently acquired large estates by “buying up zamindari after zamindari and tenure after tenure”.22 The Tagorcs, for instance, acquired large landed property that lay scattered in Pabna, Raj- shahi, Dacca, Jessore, Faridpur, Hooghly, Junglemahals, Tri- pura and Cuttack. The Kandi and Kashimbazar estates grew into large estates. Of the 110,456 estates in Bengal and Bihar in 1882, cstates of more. than 20,000 acres represented .04 per cent; 11 per cent ranged from 500 to 20,000 acres; and about 88 per cent were small estates of Iess than 500 acres.2* What is noteworthy is the spread of subinfeudation and the multiplicity of tenures, In fact, there were layers of subordinate tenures, each with permanent, transferable and heritable rights. The gap between revenue and rent gave an impetus to investment in landed property. A large number of middle-class families. living in towns and villages, acquired interest in land, even the anilas employed by zamindars and the collectorate did not fail to buy estates. We turn now to the jotedar that emerged as a social category in the nineteenth century and became increasingly powerful in rural economy as time passed. Few writers tell us about the Bengal jotedar, although Francis Buchanan-Hamilton found jote- 20. P. Sinha, ‘Social Change’, in N. K, Sinha (ed), History of Bengal (1757-1905), p 422. 21. B, Chaudhuri, ‘Land Market in Eastern India: 1793-1940", in The Indian Economic and Social History Review, April-June 1975. 22. P. Sinha, op cit, p 423; Palit, Tensions in Bengal Rural Society (1830-60), pp 16-17. 23, Baden-Powell, Land Systems of British India, 1892, p 441.:°°Agrarian Structure 9 dars in Dinajpur and Rangpur districts in North Bengal in 1806. The landholders were “new men”, who came mostly trom traders and government employees. They were called jotcdars, whose lands were managed by “agents who are oppressive”. The traders “do not cultivate their ficlds themselves but employ pcopie to do it for a share”. About “one farmer in 16” was a jotedar, “who may rent land from 30 to 100 acres”; they “cultivate a portion themselves while the other portion is given to people who cultivate it for a share”. These farmers had “large capitals”. Significantly, krishans or farm servants “are by nv means numerous”. Merchants who came from Patna, Bhagalpur and Kalna “send large cargoes of rice for the Calcutta and Murshidabad markets”, and “many mahajans also export rice, sugar and mol- asses”.24 What emerges from Buchanan-Hamilton’s account is that jotedars came from traders and farmers, and sharecroppers were found mostly on reclaimed lands. Throughout the nineteenth century wastes and jungles were being brought under cultivation, About 40 million acres were reclaimed between 1793 and 1857. In the Sundarbans, for instance, 493,907 acres or 771 square miles of jungle land had been clear- cd between 1830 and 1872. Like the hawaladars of East Bengal, “the agricultural capitalists” as Richard Temple lovingly called them, the jotedars took a prominent part in land reclamation in the Bengal districts. Hunter writes that the expenses of reclamation in the Sundarbans were borne by landowners, who later turned over the land to barga cultivation.2*> In Midnapur the reclamation of waste lands led to the creation of bhag jote tenure, in which the tiller “cultivates the land with his own ploughs, and provides all the expenses of cultivation. At harvest time he gencrally. retains half the produce...and hands the other half over to the landlord or superior tenant, as the case may be, in lieu of rent.”* In Jessore district the jotedar, described as a ryot, 24, Buchanan-Hamilton, Geographical, Statistical and Historical Description of Dinajpur, 1833; also Buchanan-Hamilton’ Papers. 25, W. W. Hunter, A Statistical Account of Bengal, Vol I, pp 337-38. 26. Ibid, Vol 3. Hunter gives the following figures on landowners in Midnapur: zamindars, 988; talukdars, 2,225; ijaradars, 337; jotedars, 402.10 Agrarian Relations in India acquired land in Narail and Magura at the time of the reclamation of waste lands, who ‘never cultivates with his own hands, but sometimes has fields under cultivation by his servants”. The jotedars “are for the most part very well off, the rent they pay being small in comparison with what they realise”.27 In Murshi- dabad a zamindar “was himself a jotedar in respect of a portion of his own estate, which he had leased out in part”.2° In Pabna district, “there is a class of cultivators, known as bargaits or bargadars, who cultivate land under the jotedar”.*® Jaykrishna Mukherjee of Uttarpara describes how mahajans, shopkeepers and well-to-do classes sublet their lands in West Bengal districts: “I can speak with confidence with reference. to the districts of 24 Parganas, Hooghly, Burdwan and Birbhoom and in these districts I can say the holdings of the ryots since 1859 have been gradually passing into the hands of the mahajans, shopkeepers and other well-to-do classes. These persons sublet the jotes either to the original holders or to new tenants at enormous rents and thus reduce them to a condition little better than that of the serfs.”8° Hunter describes the jotedar as a “small landholder”, who sublet his lands to the tenant on a 50:50 share-out; the number of jotedars varied from district to district. Thete was another category: the bhadralok jotedar. It was the policy of the government to encourage “the gradual growth of a middle class connected with land”. Hunter refers to the bhadralok jotedar in the 24 Parganas: “Barga tenure is chiefly granted by Brahmins, Kayas- thas, and others of the upper caste.”*! In the registration reports, a group of purchasers have been classified as “others”; this group refers to mukhtears, pleaders, judges, magistrates, doctors, who “have a great predilection for this class of property as a medium of safe investment for their savings”? O’Malley writes that 27. Ibid, Vol 2. Number of jotedars in Jessore was 5,697. 28, Ibid, Vol 9. 29. Ibid. 30. ‘Ryot and Zamindar’ in Friend of India, 16 October 1873. 31. W. W. Hunter, op cit, Vol 1, pp 155, 338. 32, Bengal Registration Report (1881-82), cited in Chaudhuri, op cit, p 307.Agrarian Structure MW jotedars in Darjeeling district were “pleaders and men of business who have purchased the holdings as a speculation or investment”.*+ Gruning writes that jotedars in Jalpaiguri came from lawyers and Marwari traders.** Since land appeared to be a safe field of investment, the bhadralok had a tendency to purchase land and tum it over to barga cultivation, Predictably, the bhadralok clung to Janded property in the absence of new avenues of employment, and had a stake in the status quo. The authors of the Bengal District Gazetteers refer to the jotedars who generally held land under the zamindar and increased their holding as new lands were reclaimed. In Dinajpur district the “holders of cultivating tenures are known as ryots, or in local parlance jotedars”.*® O'Malley describes the jotedar in Dar- jeeling as “a substantial farmer representing the original reclaimer of the soil, and holding at an easy rent”.*" In Rangpur, many of the jotedars were “formerly actual cultivators”, who “have become middlemen and have sublet their lands to ryots at rates which are often double or more than double the rates paid by themselves to the zamindars”; the term jotedar “meant any tenancy held direct under the zamindar, irrespective of size or mode of enjoyment”.3? Peterson writes about the bhag jotedar in Bur- dwan: “...every well-to-do tenant usually holds a certain proportion of his land in bhag jote generally from another tenant”.®° O'Malley describes the system in Bankura district: ‘In such a holding the tenant has the use of the land for a year or a season, and pays as rent a certain share cf the produce of the land. Ordinarily one half of the produce is so paid, the jotedar cultivating the land with his own cattle and plough, and also finding seed and manure”,s? When we turn to the period 1928-40, the jotedar appears to be increasingly powerful with the extension of the barga system. 33. Darjeeling District Gazetteer (1907). 34, Jalpaiguri District Gazetteer (1908). 35. Dinajpur District Gazetteer (1912). 36. Darjeeling District Gazetteer (1907). 37. Rangpur District Gaze‘teer (1908). 38. Burdwan District Gazetteer (1908). 39. Bankura District Gazetteer (1908).12 Agrarian Relations in India The Report of the Land Revenue Commission refers to the loss of occupancy rights among owner-cultivators and the rapid increase in the number of bargadars during this period. There was considerable land alienation during the years of the Great Dep- tession (1929-33) when prices of primary commodities sharply fell, and land passed into the hands of nonagriculturists. The Land Revenue Commission draws peinted attention to land alienation during and after the depression: “The rapid increase in the number of bargadars is one of the most disquieting features of the present times; and it is an indication of the extent to which the hereditary ryots are losing their status and being depressed to a lower standard of living.”4° In their memorandum to the Land Revenue Commission, the Kisan Sabha refers to this phenomenon: “It must be clear to anyone who has any knowledge of the Bengal countryside that this form of socalled ‘tenancy’ is increasing at a fantastic pace. and that today, in some arcas at any rate, as much as one third of the land is cultivated in this manner”.4? In his tour diary, Frank Owen Bell writes on the purchase of land by the jotedars during the years of the depression. The entries in Bell’s diary indicate three features. First, the Sahas, Bengal’s traditional moneylenders, had acquired land which was turned over to barga cultivation. The owner-cultivator who lost his land was resettled on the land as a bargadar. Second, bargadars (described as adhiars) were generally settled on large landholdings. Apparently, jotedars had acquired considerable landed property. Third, bhadraloks had been acquiring land in some districts. We quote from Bell's diary: “There has been transfer of lands to nonagriculturists (mahajans).” A Saha who has obtained land for debt is cultivating through adhiar” (Mymansingh district, 1933). 40. Report of the Land Revenue Commission, Bengal, Vol 1, pp 38-39, Report of the Congress Agrarian Reforms Committee (1949), noted: “... during the last depression huge tracts of land passed from the hands of cultivators to noncultivating section...”, p 40. 41, Memoradum of Bengal Provincial Kisan Sabha (1939); for full text see Report of the Land Revenue Commission (1940), Vol.6.‘Agrarian Structure 13 “Adhiars are found on very big jotedars paying Rs 500 as rent to zamindars.” “‘Adhi is resorted to when the landowner has more land than he can cultivate himself,” “Few adhiars in some villages, since holdings are too small.” “Adhi is more than 3 years on kabu- liyat, notably when a khai khalasi is made, that is, mortgagee settles the mortgagor as adhiar” (Dinajpur, 1934) “Many bhadralok families live in this village. They arc now acquiring land.” “Adhiars are settled on lands acquired by Sahas. It is said that adhiar chooses the crop.” “Jotedar decides what crop to be sown. He supplies seeds and manures” (Rangpur, 1933) 42 Over the years the jotedars in North Bengal had purchased lands and become dominant in rural economy. Bell writes that the jotedar class in Dinajpur “is socially supreme in the countryside”. The jotedar families “may hold several or thousands of acres of land in their own possession”. In most of the union boards the presidents came from “the jotedar class with 30 to 300 acres of land”. Some of the jotedars kept elephants as a mark of social eminence; their sons received university education and entered the bar. The Shah choudhuris of Porshah village in Dinajpur built cwo-storied houses and received 60,000 maunds of paddy into their golas. There were small jotedars having 100 acres of land or more. The jotedars tock a prominent part in paddy trade. One Muslim jotedar, a lawyer practising in the subdivisional court, held 1,000 acres “in ryoti right”, invested his savings in moneylending, and had “produced a bank with a capital of Rs 75,000”.48 It would be absurd to think that the North Bengal jotedars were rich peasants. In Banaras province in eastern Uttar Pradesh, structural changes in the agrarian system went hand-in-hand with land transfer. Between 1801 and 1806, nearly half the landed 42. F.0. Bell Collection, Miscellaneous Papers (1931-41). 43, Bell, Final Report on the Survey and Settlement Operations in the District of Dinajpur (1934-40), 1942.14 "Agrarian Relations in India property in Banaras Had been transferred.44 In the Ghazipur district “oné quarter of the land has changed hands” from 1842 to 1882. In early nineteenth century the estates of zamindars were sold for arrears of revenue; from 1840 onwards zamindars sold a portion of their estates to pay their creditors, | The Rajputs, Brahmins and Muslims figured prominently in the auction sales, and their lands passed to Bhumi- hars (mainly the raja of Banaras).4° The Kayasthas and banias, who were connected with public service, business and legal profession, formed another group of purchasers. About 41 per cent of the lands were purchased by families whose principal occupations were moneylending, service and law, and the great majority of these families lived in Banaras city. In the districts of Banaras, Ballia, Ghazipur and Jaunpur, there were 134 large revenue payers in 1885; of these large landowners who paid more than a thousand rupees annually in land revenue, 44 per cent came from “new men”, who were connected with administration as tahsildars, sarishtadars, amins and “commercial families” engaged in banking, moneylending, grain trade and sugar manufacture; and 46 per cent comprised aristocratic families that included the raja of Banaras, the single largest revenue payer of this region, and thc’ two rajas of Dum- raon and Viziangram.‘* Apparently, a new group of landholders had emerged in Banaras by the end of the nineteenth century. They thought it wise to invest their savings in land as agricultural prices continued to rise and sugarcane production yielded profits. The new landholders mostly lived in towns and were absentee rent-receivers, who employed | shikami or sharecroppers on their sir land.‘7 In Uttar Pradesh land transfer hardly affected the large landlords who managed to survive; the main casualties were 44, Bernard S. Cohn, ‘Structural Change in Rural Society’, in Frykenberg (ed), Land Control and Social Structure in India, p 69. 45. Ibid, p 76. 46. Ibid, pp 76-78, 80. 47, Ibid, pp 105-07. With the risé in land prices between 1750 and 1850, there was a tendency among nonagriculturists to purchase land, which was imostly cultivated by rent-paying tenants.Agrarian Structure 15 the small landowners and peasant proprietors. As Gracey, the settlement officer of Kanpur, noted in 1907 : “The fact is that the only zamindar for whom the Indian economy has a proper place is either the big talukdar governed by the law of primogeniture and owning so large an estate that he can afford to be generous or the peasant proprictor cultivating own land. For the small middleman who tries to live on his rents and whose property is being constantly split into smaller and smaller shares...there is no niche. ..”4* The social composition of the landowners substantially changed. In western Uttar Pradesh, the old elite of the Mughal period, Muslims, Rajputs and their Kayastha servants, were losing land; the trading and moneylending castes represented by Vaishyas, Khatris and Kalwars emerged as new landowners. But large-scale landholding persisted. Small landowners seemed to be vulnerable, but big landlords often managed to survive. In Aligarh, for instance, Muslim landholding fell from 22 per cent in 1874 to 15.7 per cent in 1943, but the bigger Muslim zamindars survived. In fact, there was a remarkable stability of the large estates in the. post-1860 period.4° What is noteworthy is that “gentry-farmer class ten- ded to disappear”.° The Kanpur district seems to be an ex- ception. Here large estates were negligible; the medium-sized estates, owned by some 1,229 men, met about 50 per cent of the revenue demand. In Kanpur there was a good deal of “commercial investment in rent rights”.5! Over the years the small farmer, who was immensely vulnerable, was losing land, and the number of marginal farmers and tenants-at-will had been increasing. The Zamindari Abolition Committee estimated that 37.8 per cent of the peasants had holdings of less than one acre and 81.2 per cent under five acres. 48. Cawnpore Settlement Report (1907), Stokes, op cit. 49. Stokes, op cit, 50. Ibid. Gracey lamented in 1907: “... the salient feature in the situation is the progress and success of the bankers and speculators and the commercial men...”. 51, Ibid.“16 Agrarian Relations in India It appears that the large farm increased at the expense of the small. Professor Stokes writes on this feature of the agrarian system of Uttar Pradesh : “...the pursuit of agriculture threw up at the top a substantial peasant elite rather than a farmer class that could rival economically the. larger rent-receiving landlords.”** We will presently see that a large portion of the landlords’ estates was sir land, which was cultivated by tenants-at- will or labourers, In Orissa, the Bengali amlas, connected with British administration and enjoying British patronage, took a prominent part in the auction sales in early nineteenth century. The Singhs of Paikpara, for instance, acquired extensive landed property in Orissa. From 1830 onwards new sections, who made a fortune in trade and moneylending, were the purchasers of estates. The settlement officer of Balasore writes : “About one third of them are persons who in addition of being proprietors have some moneylending business, and the balance are professional mahajans...” The Tili mahajans and Tamili merchants were new purchasers of land in Balasore. In Puri district, religious foun- dations, the priestly class, and the large mahajan families of Cut- tack were the principal landowners. The settlement officer noted that “one half of the zamindari interest” had passed to “the religious and usuring classes”. In South Cuttack, the small estates passed to the mahajan families, the choudhuris of Bhinjarpur and Gajrajpur and to the mahant (priest) Raghu- nandan Das.*4 A considerable section ot the peasants lost their land and worked as nonoccupancy tenants and sharecroppers. As in Uttar Pradesh so in Bihar the large estates survived. In Champaran district, Bettiah raj, Madhuban raj, Shoohar raj and Ramnagar raj represented the biggest zamindars; they were Bhu- 52. Ibid. 53. Survey and Settlement Report, Orissa (1892-98), Chaudhuri, op cit, 54, Puri Final Report, Chaudhuri, op cit. In North Cuttack and Balasore, purchasers of land sometimes came from “cultivating elasses”, probably representing rich peasants. .Agrarian Structure 7 mihar and Rajput chiefs since the days of the Mughal empire. Only the Shoohar raj was affected by the sale law and split up into small estatos; the other big zamindars were not affected either by the sale law or partition.’ Few changes occurred in the Dar- bhanga raj, the Hutwa estate in Saran, the estate of the Tikari and Deo families in Gaya, the Dumraon raj and the estate of Bhupnarain Singh in Sahabad. Land transfer, however, continued throughout the nineteenth century, and the new purchasers of land included businessmen, bankers, European indigo planters and local moncylenders. In Purnca the bankers of Murshidabad held considcrable landed property; in Champaran the zamindars included indigo planters.** As the gap between revenue and rent increased the landowncrs invariably sublet a portion of their land to the under-ryots that included bataidars; a few zamindars held their land as zirat on which agricultural labourers were employed. From 1930 onwards there was considerable land alicnation, and the area of bakasht land was extended. In the face of kisan movement the Congress ministry passed the Bihar Restoration of Bakasht Land in 1938,'7 In Chotanagpur the communal system disintegrated towards the close of the nineteenth century. The tribal jagirdars or tribal chiefs were replaced by nontribal landlords; in Palamau Rajput jagirdars became the dominant force. In Ranchi district the number of jagirdars stood at 600 in 1856; by 1874, the old Munda and Oraon chiefs were replaced by “Hindu farmers”, who were settled in the villages by the new landlords. There was large-scale land alienation among the tribals; land passed to nontribal landlords and moneylenders. After the passing of the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act, 1908, land transfer continued; the Settlement Report of 1920 indicated that the landlords evaded the tenancy act, and the Oraons and Mundas swelled the ranks of nonoccupancy tenants and agricultural labourers. In 1918 55. Final Report on the Survey and Settlement Operations, Cham- paran (1913-19). 56. Ibid. 57. Proceedings of All-India Kisan Sabha (1936-39). AR-2 - .18 Agrarian Relations in India there were about sixty thousand Kamias in Palamau, who were mostly serfs, In Bombay land passed to moneylenders and tradess who grew as intermediate holders between landowners and ryots. As cotton cultivation yielded profits, the Marwaris invested in landed property. ‘The sowcars, who came mostly from the Marwaris, were. “extensive owners of fields” in the 1860: It is noteworthy that land was a favourite field of investment of Parsi and Gujarati merchants. In Bombay city the richest landowners came from the Parsis, who enjoyed rising urban real-cstate valucs as land prices went up in the second half of the nincteenth century. Jamscdji. Tata, the great entrepreneur, was also a large landowner; he acquired! his father’s Janded property at Navsari and purchased land in Bombay, Mahad, Juhu, Bandra, Anik and Ootacamund. Cowasji Jehangir, trader and millowner, was one of the largest landowners of Bombay. After the introduction of the ryotwari system the Kunbis gradually ceased to be the dominant force in the villages of Maha- rashtra and were replaced by banias, who were mostly Marwaris. The Report of the Deccan Riots Commission, 1876, throws a great deal of light on the emergence of the Marwari moneylenders. The Karamchands, a Marwari family, had come to Parner in Ahmednagar district early in the nineteenth century. Tuka- ram, the cldest son of Karamchand, started moneylending business as his father’s agent and subsequently “sct up on his own accounts”. His “khata in Parner and Nagar taluks is Rs 664 for government assessed land. ..How much land is mortgaged to him...it is impossible to say with any accuracy... Kul- Karni states that Tukaram was assessed in 1871-72 at Rs 2,000 per annum.”*! In Parner village the Kowreys lost their land to the moncylenders. In 1863 Rowji Kowrey borrowed a sum of 58. This account is based on K. Suresh Singh, ‘Tribal Land Orga- nisation in Chotanagpur and its Development’, in Trends of Socio- economic Change In India (1871-1961), Simla, 1969. 59. Report of Bombay Chamber of Commerce (1864-65). 60. Sen, The House of Tata (1839-1939), 1975, pp 11, 23. 61. Report of the Deccan Riots Commission (1876), Vol. I; also R. Kumar, Western India in the Nineteenth Century, 1968, p 159.Agrarian Structure 19 Rs 200 from Rajmull Marwari; subsequently Rajmull acquired Rowji’s share of the Kowrey estate, and Rowji had to leave the village and work as a labourer in his wife's village."* There was an increase in sowear holdings and a corresponding decrease in the holdings of peasants. In fact, the Kunbis were being dispossessed of their land. Between 1869-70 and 1873-74, there was a considerable increase in land transfer in the form of mortgage and sale deeds in Poona and Ahmednagar. In Poona, 143 suits for debts against peasants were recorded in 1872; in Ahmed- nagar district “about an eighth of the socalled occupancies were held by moncylenders”.“ Dr Catanach notes: “We must accept. on the combined evidence of the statistics and the official reports, the notion that land transfer from agri- culturist to nonagriculturist classes was occurring, and probably occurring increasingly. in the twenty or thirty ycars preceding the Deccan Riots.”5+ Over the years this phenomenon continued. It appears from Bombay Land Revenue Administration reports for the years 1926-27 and 1936-37 that five million acres or more than 20 per cent of the land held by owner cultivators had passed to the moneylenders.® Predictably, there was the growth of rent-paying tenants and agricultural labourers, who represented the peasants whose land was mortgaged or sold to the moneylenders. The nationalist writers consistently focussed attention on the high incidence of land tax and had a tendency to exaggerate the benefits of a permanent settlement of land revenue. What is clearly missing in their interpretation is an analysis of the structural changes in the agararian system. When we view the country as a whole, some crucial changes become evident. Land was being concentrated in the hands of nonagriculturists representing mostly traders, moneylenders and urban middle-classes; estates 62. Ibid. In Poona “better classes of land” were passing to sowcars. 63 Ibid, pp 55-59; Catanach, Rural Credit in Western India, 1970, p 17, 64, Catanach, op cit, p 20. 65. S. J. Patel, Agricultural Labourers in Modern India and Pakistan, p 57.20 Agrarian Relations in India ‘were being mortgaged or sold; and a new class of landowners had emerged. Truc, some of the rajas and large landowners managed to survive, most notably in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Bengal. But the golden age of the Indian nobility had passed. By the second half of the nineteenth century land had become a favour- ito field of investment of the rising class of traders and moneylenders. As we shall see, this feature became evident with the extension of commercial agriculture. Since the pace of indus~ trialization was slow, the urban middle-classes had a tendency to acquire landed property, specially in the zamindari areas. The bhadralok jotedar was a recognizable social category in Bengal, who scldom showed a tendency to encourage moncy rents from tenants or to rely on agricultural labourers for cultivating the land. The growth of a class of nonproductive rent receivers was accompanied by the dispossession of improverished peasants with small holdings. To the story of the disintegration of the peasantry we now turn. Let us shift the focus of economic enquiry from a study of the structure of landholding to a study of the class differentiation among the peasantry, which seems, in this country at least, to be Jong overdue.CHAPTER 2 Differentiation Among The Peasantry This country has not been immune to discussion about feudal and capitalist relations in agriculture. Curiously cnough, the growing differentiation among the peasantry during British rule has seldom received attention of some of our distinguished writers, who seem to think that the peasantry constitute a homogenc- ous class. The simple fact is often forgotten that there are certain strata within the peasantry having different aims and ambitions. When we turn to comprehend the process of growth of different categories among the peasants, we are. faced with a difficult problem: paucity of statistical evidence. The census reports, for instance, often refer to “peasantry”, “tenants”, “owner-cultivators”. But peasant families could have varying size of holdings; a few could be rent receivers. We have been told how “census redefinition” brought about “agrarian revolution”.'' In the 1951 census rural families have been classified as “noncultivating owners”, “owner-cultivators”, “tenant cultivators”, “labourer’s”. But the question is whether “noncultivating owners” and “owner- cultivators” had layers within them. We do not know whether “noncultivating owners” represented not only the absentee rent receiver but also the market-oriented rich peasant. As Dr Chandra tells us, stratification within the peasantry was quite common in the eightcenth century.? Under British rule this process was accentuated, and stratification assumed new social form. The growth of industries, the formation of indus- 1. Daniel and Alice Thorner, Land and Labour in India, 1961, pp 131-33. The census report gives the impression that agrarian structure had become “socially egalitarian”, although demand for land reforms was growing. 2. S. Chandra, ‘Some Aspects of Indian Village Society in Nor- thern India’, Indian Historical Review, I.2 Agrarian Relations in India trial centres, and the migration of the peasants to the towns and industrial centres exerted a most profound influence on the rural system. The mass of the peasantry was inevitably drawn in the system of capitalist production as agricultural and industrial wage workers. The market was expanding, and there was the rise of a section of relatively prospcrous peasants who were linked with the markct as sellers of their produce. It was not fortuitous that diffcrentiation among the peasantry was rapidly growing in the second half of the nincteenth century. The process of change in Tural society was indicated in contemporary official reports. As the Famine Commission of 1880 noted; “the occupancy class” was disintcgrating, and tenants were being “merged in the crowd of rack-rented tenants-at-will”. The Dufferin Enquiry Committce (1888) referred to the growing class of labourers and tenants.? Apparently the “depeasantising” process had gonc forward. Let us examine the “depcasantising” process and its impact on the agrarian structure. Rent-Paying Tenants Both in zamindari and ryotwari areas, the nonagriculturists took to subletting and exacted rent from the tenants. The rent-paying tenants may be defined as peasants who cultivated the land of the landowner and gave him a share of the produce as rent. The Official reports refer to them as tenants-at-will, who had no secu- Tity of tenure and could always be evicted by the landowner. In Bengal, for instance, the rent-paying tenants known as adhiars or bargadars had to pay rents averaging 50 per cent of gross produce, while bearing most of the expenses of cultivation. The normal practice was that they stacked paddy in the landowner’s khamar (threshing floor), and the actual division of the grain was made on the threshing floor; the straw was also divided between the landowner and sharecropper on a 50:50 share-out. The rent-paying tenants were described as adhiars in Assam and Orissa, shikamis in Uttar Pradesh, bataidars in Bihar, Uttar Pra- desh and Punjab, waramdars in Madras and verumpattamdars in Malabar. 3. See Dr Bhatia’s paper published in Comn‘ributions to Indien Economic History, December 1960.Differentiation Among The Peasantry 23 Colebrooke referred to “a class of tenaniry monopolising land to relet it to the actual cultivator at an advanced rent or for halt the produce”. Among poor peasants in North Bengal, Buchanan- Hamilton noticed adhiars whose number was 150,000 in Dinaj- pur; some of them had small plots of land. Over the years adhi or barga system spread in the Bengal districts. It appears from the scttlement reports that peasants were scttled on reclaimed lands with the lure of free land; the landowner turned to barga system when produce rent proved to be more profitable than cash rent. Hunter wrote in 1872 that prices nearly doubled since 1857 and trebled since 1830.4 With the rise in agricultural prices, the landowner showed a tendency to swing ovcr to barga cultivation. The increasing gap between revenue and rent also influenced the landowner’s choice. in Midnapur, Bankura, Birbhoom, Malda and Dinajpur, the jungles were cleared by the Santals, who were cxempted from rent for the first few years and evicted “as the twelve-year period with the prospect of bestowing occupancy right on the tiller draws nigh”.5 Santals, Rajbangsis, Bagdis, Doms and Haris comprised the bulk of bargadars. Ini 1951, the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes together constituted 40.8 per cent of the sharecroppers in West Bengal. Apparently those who had reclaimed wastes and jungles had been reduced to bargadars. In Bankura deforestation led to extension of cultivation, but ryots lost their land and became sanja tenants paying produce rent or producc- cum-cash rent. The collector of Bankura wrote in 1927: “Mr Robertson has shown in his report what a serious evil the sanja or produce rent is to the welfare of the district. It keeps the cultivator under an ever-increasing load of debt... The serious dimensions already attained by this evil can be gauged from the fact that one-fourth of the settled ryoti land, is held either on produce rent or on produce rent supplemented by a cash payment. Both of these kinds of rent are steadily increasing.. .”* The official reports indicate that the spread of the barga system 4. Hunter, Statistical Account of Bengal, Vol I, p 191. 5. A. Mitra, Census of India, Vol 6, p 445, Mitra has made an intensive study of settlement reports. 6. Ibid, p 448.24 Agrarian Relations in India was related to the indebtedness of owner-cultivators. Most frequently the agency of eventual dispossession was debt. When the. peasant lost his land, he was resettled on the land “on condition that he paid half of the produce”. The colléctor of Dacca reported in 1913: “...The increase in barga lands and khas lands of proprictors and tenure holders is largely due to the indebtedness of the ryot... many of the landlords, headed by the Mura- para zamindars, lend money to their ryots at 37.5 per cent interest, and gradually acquire holdings, keeping them in their own ion or letting them out on barga.”? The settlement officer of Midnapur wrote. on the extension of barga system in 1917: “...far from bhag rent showing any tendency to disappear in favour of moncy rent it seems to be.on the increase. When a tenant of the latter class is sold up for arrears of rent, it is a common practice for the purchaser to resettle the land with the defaulter on bhag rent... The reversion to produce rents...indicates that competition for land is becoming severe, for no onc would accept a tenancy on such a rent, representing as it does, twice or thrice the money rent for similar lands, were he not compelled to do so.’ In the Duars of Jalpaiguri district the Bengali traders “used to give loans both in cash and in barter system, gradually purchasing the interests of the tenants and reducing them to the position of adhiars”.” Bell has told us how the Sahas, Bengal’s traditional moneylenders, added field to field through khai khalasi, in which the mortgagec settled the mortgagor as bargadar.!” It scems that the system of khai khalasi became wide- spread during the bleak years of the Great Depression. The Jal- Paiguti Bar Association noted this phenomenon: “During the economic depression the ryots have lost their holdings more for arrears of rent than by private. sales and in many cases they have been allowed to cultivate the lands as bargadars”.1! 7. Survey and Settlement Report, Dacca (1910-17); Chaudhuri, ‘The Process of Depeasantization in Bengal and Bihar, Indian Historical Review, July 1975. 8. Settlement Report, Midnapore (1911-17). 9. Bargadars and Their Problems, 1958. 10, See chapter one. 11, Report of Land Revenue Commission (1940); for the evidence of Bar Associations see Vol 6,Differentiation Among The Peasartry 25 When we turn to the period 1928-40, the dimension of the barga system grips attention. Despite land reclamation, the extension of the area of cultivated land lagged behind population increase. The land-man ratio and the slow pace of industrializa- tion created the material basis for the rapid extension of the barga system in all the Bengal districts. The dispossessed peasants and Tuined artisans queued up to be absorbed in the army of bargadars. The period 1928-40 included the years of the depression. As Vera Anstey tells us, the condition of the peasants did not improve in the years following the depression. In fact, agricultural prices did not rise until 1938-39. The table on sales and mortgages shows that the number of mortgages was much larger than that of sales in the years of the depression.’? Under the system of usufructuary mortgage, the owner-cultivator was allowed to cultivate his land as a bargadar. Thi, explains why the number of bargadars increased during the depression. As Prices rose from 1938 onwards the number of sales steadily increased. Apparently, landlords and moncylenders dispossessed owner-cultivators, who swelled the ranks of labourers. The volume of sales and mortgages taken together indicate how vulnerable the small peasants had become in this period. Table 1 LAND TRANSFER IN BENGAT. (1930-42) year number of sales number of mortages 1930 129,184 510,974 1931 105,701 376,422 1932 114,619 338,945 1933 120,492 313,431 1934 147,619 349,400 1935 160,341 357,297 1936 172.956 352,469 1937 164,819 302,529 1938 242,583 164,895 1939 500,224 184,780 1940 $02,357 160,152 1941 634,113 151,553 1942 749,495 106,088 —_—_— 12. Chaudhuri, op cit,26 Agrarian Relations in India It appears from the Report of the Land Revenue Commission that 21 per cent of the land was cultivated by bargadars. The figure seems to be on the side of understatement. The jotedars were chary in declaring the arca of barga cultivation. Most frequently bargadars were not recorded as tenants. The Land Re- venue Commission enquired how ryoti lands were transferred during 1928-40. The total area enquired into was 8,547.004 acres, of which 592,335 acres were transferred; much of it (31.7 per cent) was turned over to barga cultivation; 38 per cent was cultivated by purchasers’ family; and only 5.7 per cent was cultivated by labourcrs."* The purchasers hardly employed Jabour- ers for the cultivation of the land. It seems that the barga system was ideal for them so Jong as bargadars bore the expenses of cultivation and deposited 50 per cent of the gross produce as rent. The behaviour pattern of the landowner is reflected in this comment: “I have got sufficient lands and do some cultivation myself. 1 find however that Ictting them out on half the produce is more paying than cultivating the lands with my own cattle and by hired servants.”"4 During the famine of 1943, there was large-scale land alienation and reduction of owner-cultivators into bargadars. The famine was a “man-made” famine in which traders and jotedars made hay. The beneficiaries of war-time inflation were the jotedars who possessed large stocks of foodgrains and could sell them at high prices. The price of rice rose from Rs 6 per maund in 1942 to about Rs 50 in October 1943 in some districts. The majority of peasants whose holdings were below 5 acres were the first casualties; the impact of the famine gradually extended to all categorics of peasants. About Rs 10 crore worth of land was sold off in the famine-affected areas; 5 per cent of the peasant population sold off their lands entircly and 11 per cent partially.1* Roughly 420,000 acres of paddy land passed to nonagriculturists, who had surplus money thanks to profits made in trade, specula- 13. Report of the Land Revenue Commission 1940), Vol 2, p 120. 14, Chen Han-seng, ‘Agrarian Regions of India and Pakistan’, cited in Thorner, op cit, p 111. 15. B, Sen, Devastation in Bengal's Country Life. People's War, 5 June 1945; S. Basu, Bangler Chast (in Bengali), 1956,Differentiation Among The Peasantry 27 tive business and war contracts. There is hardly any doubt that the nonagriculturists representing jotedars, urban middle-classes. and prosperous peasants turned over most of the land to barga cultivation.!6 According to the Ishaque Repor!, 25 per cent of the land was under barga system in 1946.'7 Surely the area under barga cultivation had extended since 1940. It is significant, as Dr Ghosh points out, that “more land in Bengal was sharecropped than, cultivated by hired labourers”.'> The reasons are not far to seek. The jotedar, who was frequently a trader and usurer, had every reason to cling to barga system, and the dispossessed peasants dreaded to be khetmajur (landless labourer) whose condition was worse than that of the bargadars. Over the ycars employment in the village diminished and grew more uncertain. We have concentrated on Bengal where the barga system was pervasive in most of the districts. The system of produce rent, however, had developed in other parts of the country, and for the same reasons. Land passed to nonagriculturists, who found produce rent to be more profitable than cash rent, and owner- cultivators iad been losing land mainly for debt. In Uttar Pradesh zamindars and talukdars ¢mployed shikami tenants on their sir land in the 1820s; in eastern Uttar Pradesh the zamindar often supplied the plough, cattle and sced; the shikami tenant had no occupancy right and was often the zamindar's household servant.!9 There was another category of tenants. called bataidars, who also paid produce rent and had no sccurity of tenure. The author of the Diwan Pasand, written in carly nineteenth century, refers to batai.2” In the 1820s batai was the usual form of payment in Moradabad; in Mccrut “payments in kind are made under battace or bhaolee engagements.”2! It scems 16. Basu, op cit. 17. Ishaque Report (1946). 18. A. Ghosh, ‘Agricultural Labour in Bengal’, in R. K. Mukherjec, (ed) The Dynamics of a Rural Society, 1957. 19. A. Siddiqui, Agrarian Change in a Northern Indian State (1819-33), 1975, pp 34, 35. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid, p 64.28 Agrarian Relations in India that tenants preferred batai to cash rent. In 1832 Bird considered batai as unprofitable for the tenant; it did not protect him from the landlord cither; the landlord could keep the tenant under his control by “such methods as not allowing the crop to be cut until the grain had been shed, or by delaying the division”. ‘Tenants had shown their preference for batai out of fear of the high rates that might be charged on inoney pattas. Towards the close of the nineteenth century land transfers increased steadily: the annual average number of sales was 32.188 between 1878 and 1883, 32,361 between 1883 and 1888 and 35,928 between 1888 and 1893.2" As the table on landholdings in Agra district shows, 22.4 per cent of the land was cultivated by the tenants-at-will, whose average holding was 6 acres. They included shikami tenants and bataidars. Table 2 LANDHOLDING IN AGRA class of percent oftotal percent of area average cultivator cultivated area held as sir holding held (acres) (acres) Proprietors 23.5 9.7 11.7 Occupancy tenants 52.1 0 8.1 Privileged tenants 2.0 0 2.0 ‘Tenants-at-will 22.4 0 6.0 Source : Agra Settlement Report, 1880, Whitcombe, Op cit, p 145. With the rise in prices the produce value of the rents paid by ‘shikami tenant and bataidar increased considerably, and it appears that occupancy tenants were in a much better position. The settlement officer of Saharanpur reported in 1921 that “the occupancy tenant appears to be even more prosperous than the 22. Minute by R. M. Bird, 25 September 1832, cited in Siddiqui, wp cit, p 84, 23. Whitcombe, Agrarian Conditions in Northern India (1860- 1900), 1971, p 202. For the same years Oudh figures were 6,257, 6,672, 7,075.Differentiation Among The Peasantry 2» cultivating proprietor” and on average had a large holdin; zamindar’s usual device was to evict the tenant of sir land in order to get nazarana (premium) from the new tenant and to make it difficult for the old tenant to establish his claim of hereditary right on the basis of long-standing occupation.** According to the Zamindari Abolition Committee, the arca held by the tenants of sir land was about 27 lakh acres, and the number of nonoccupancy tenants that included bataidars was 27 lakhs.?* In ryotwari areas in Madras a large proportion of the land was cultivated by tenants on varam or crop-sharing basis. The tenants paid as rent 40 to 60 or even 80 per cent of the produce and were sunk in poverty. The Madras Banking Enquiry Committee noted the condition of rent-paying tenants in 1930: “Subletting is rarely on a money rental. It is commonly on a sharing system, the landlord getting 40 to 60 or even 80 per cent of the yield and the tenant the rest. The tenant commonly goes on from year to year eking out a precarious living on such terms, borrowing from the landlord, being supplied by him with sced, cattle and implements... The tenant may cultivate with his own stock and implements...and when the Jandlord is an absentee, it is not always obvious whether the actual cultivator is a farm- labourer or a subtenant.”?7 The rent-paying tenants were concentrated in Tanjore, Ram- nad, Madura, Tinnevelli and Chengulpet districts; tenants comprised about 14 per cent of the agricultural population in 1946- 47; 15 per cent were small holders who cultivated the lands of Trent receivers, and the number of subtenants was estimated at 1.5 million.28 24. Stokes, op cit. 25. Report of UP Kisan Sabha, Proceedings of AIKS (1936-39). 26. Report of the Congress Agrarian Reforms Committee (1949), p 37. 27. Report of the Madras Banking Committee (1930); R. P. Dutt, India Today, 1970, p 242. 38. Report of the Congress Agrarian Reforms Committee (1949),. p 37.30 Agrarian Relations in India In Punjab rent-paying tenants included nonoccupancy tenants and bata‘dars. Darling has told us in his classic study how the peasant proprietors were expropriated after the fall of the Sikh monarchy. The mortgage was rare in the days of Sikh rule; by 1878 “seven per cent of the province was pledged”.** The author of Gujranwala District Gazetteer writes: “The door having ‘once been opened to outsiders, capitalists and moneylenders, the homogeneous character of the community disappears; conflicting interests begin to clash with one another.”*° As land increased in valuc, the number of land transfers rapidly increased. The expropriation of peasants posed “a political danger”, and the Land Alienation Act was passed in 1900, which sought to restrict the sale of agricultural land and also its sale by agricultural tribes to nonmembers. The government, however, knew that the proportion of mortgages to sales would increase. As Revaz put it, the scheme was “to encourage temporary in preference to permanent alicnations”."' In fact, mortgages increased, and the peasant was generally resettled on the land as a tenant-at-will. Before partition, out of 31.17 million acres of cultivated land, 15.26 million acres were held by tenants who had no occupancy right. In Bombay the tenants cultivated the landowner’s land mostly ‘on annual lease; they bore the expenses of cultivation and paid produce rent. The system of produce rent has been described in this passage : “The tenant who cultivates land on lease, which is gencrally annual, is not sure how long the lands would remain in his pos- ‘session as the landlord has power to resume the lands at the end of the ycar after giving three months’ notice to the tenant. The tenant has thus no permanent interest in lands. In many cases, lands are leased out to the crop-sharing tenant who sows improved seeds or puts in good manure. or extra labour to improve the 29. Darling, The Punjab Peasant in Prosperity and Debt, 1928, p 208. 30. Gujranwala District Gazetteer (1895), p 72. 31. Speech of C. M. Revaz, Council Proceedings (1900), see Philips (ed), The Evolution of India and Pakistan (1858-1947), 1962, pp 646-47, 32. Report of Congress Agrarian Referms Committee, p 37.Differentiation Among The Peasantry 31 land: half of the increased produce so obtained at his cost goes to the landlord, and the tenant does not get a proper return on his labour and enterprise. The absentee landlord comes only for his annual rent and takes no intercst in the improvement of his methods of cultivation.”3* in Bihar rent-paying tenants that included bataidars were mostly employed in the zamindar’s khas and bakasht lands. The settlement officer of Palamau reported in 1879 that “when a landlord, in whose villages rents have been hitherto paid in cash, desires to harass or to oust his ryots, he has only to introduce the battaya system and his object is soon effected.” The upper-caste priests, teachers, doctors and lawyers had a tendency to turn their land to batai cultivation. Since the bataidar had no security of tenure he could always be evicted by the landlord. This seems to be one of the reasons why the landlord was a devotee of the batai system. The pace of land alienation in Bihar was accelerated towards the close of the nineteenth century. There was considerable ex- prepriation of owner-cultivators in Saran, Champaran and Dar- bhanga during the decade 1885-95. The arca of land transferred in Bihar (excluding Chhotanagpur division and Santal Parganas) between 1923 and 1935 varied from 1.4 lakh to 1.6 lakh acres. The process of land alienation continued in the present century. As the following table shows, land transfer increased steadily from 1935 onwards. There is little doubt that the peasants who lost their land either became labourers or were resettled on the land as bataidars. The collector of Champaran wrote on usufructuary mortgage in 1896-97: the creditor “can either cultivate the land himself or as is more usual he lets it out to the former ryot at an exorbitant produce rent”.*6 33. Report of the Famine Enquiry Commission (1945), p 269. 34, Report of the Assistant Commissioner, Palamau (25 January 1879), cited in Chaudhuri, ‘Agrarian Relations in Bengal’, N. Sinha (ed) History of Bengal (1757-1905), p 272. 35. Chaudhuri, ‘The Process of Depeasantization in Bengal and Bihar’, op cit. 36. Survey and Settlement Report, Champaran (1913-19),32 Agrarian Relations in India Table 3 LAND TRANSFER IN BIHAR (1935-40) — year area transjerred (acres) "1935 1,53,905 1936 174,132 1937 193,825 1938 189,795 1939 193,360 1940 . 266,287 Source : Reports on Administration of Registration Department, Chaudhuri, op cit. The tenancy system was an obstacle to the development of agriculture. Since the rent-paying tenant knew that any increase in output would accrue to the landlord who mostly did not bear the expenses of cultivation, he would have little incentive to increase production. It was cxtremely difficult for him to use modern inputs; as a result of the high share of the produce taken from him as rent, he was left with a bare subsistence minimum, with no margin for investment. The Famine Commission noted in 1880 that the tenants-at-will had “no incentive to thrift or to improvement”. The settlement officer of Midnapur reported in 1917: “From an economic point of view bhag rent is hope- lessly bad and is always associated with inferior cultivation.” Lack of security of tenure did not surely act as an incentive to increase production. The Bengal Land Revenue Commission (1940), while pointing to the low yield, recomménded that bargadars should be regarded as tenants. and that the share of the landowner should bo reduced to one third instead of half. The relevant extract reads : “. ..the balance of opinion in all countries is that this system of cultivation is not economic... The cultivator only gets the benefit of half the value of any increase in yield, which is the reward of his own labour or enterprise... Our recommendation is... to treat as tenants bargadars who supply the plough, cattle and implements... We also recommend that the shareDifferentiation Among the Peasantry _ 33 of the crop legally recoverable from them should be one third instead of half. ..”7 Agricultural Labourers The growth of agricultural labourers, who had to live on wages in cash or kind, and the growth of rent-paying tenants proceeded hand-in-hand and represented the same process of the expropriation of the small peasants. It is surprising that Professor Morris fails to perceive the changes in agrarian relations and argues that land transfers merely meant transfer of legal titles to the lands transferred to nonagriculturists, since the old peasants continued to cultivate these lands.** What happened was that peasants who mortgaged their land were generally resettled on it as a sharecropper or under-ryot, and these categories, as we have noted in an carlier section, had no security of tenure and were separated from the means of production. Much land was also sold during land transfer, and in such cases the expropriated owner-cultivators swelled the ranks of agricultural labourers. In the nineteenth century the agricul: tural labourer was a growing category among rural population. Rural socicty consisted not only of landowners, traders, moneylenders and farmers, but also of numérous artisans. Since Plas- sey, deindustrialization had started and old towns, like Dacca, Murshidabad and Lucknow, decayed. What happened to the tuined artisans? Jt is quite possible that they became absorbed in the army of landless labour. Agriculture had become over- crowded, and there was a surplus rural population, which sought cmployment in factories, coalmines end tea gardens, There was hardly any complaint of the dearth of labour in this country. 37. Report of the Land Revenue Commission, 1940, Vol 1, pp 68-69. After 1872, a figure of over 22 maunds of paddy per acre has seldom been reported; in Bengal 18 maunds of paddy per acre was considered to be the average by the commission. 38. M. D. Morris, ‘Economic Change and Agriculture’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, June 1966. Dr Dharma Kumar also writes about Madras: “...there seems to have been no large- scale dispossession*of the peasintry by moneylenders ‘and ‘traders.” See D. Kumar, Land and Caste in South'India, p 179. an-334 Agrarian Relations in India Since surplus labour was plentiful, the millowners could pay low wages to the labourers.*® Industrial development was slug- gish and the agricultural labourer had to seek employment in the village: he was a village labourer. In 1842 Munro reported that there were no landless peasants in India. This is an undoubtedly incorrect picture. In Uttar Pradesh, for instance, agricultural labour was a recognizable category in early ninetcenth century. Since members of the higher castes among the Hindus and the Muslims would not touch the plough, the Jats, Aheers, Garahs and Kurmis worked as labourers, who were paid in money as well as in grain.° Buchanan-Hamil- ton gave a vivid description of the agricultural labourers in Go- takhpur. There was one category of seasonal labourers, who were employed during the ploughing and sowing season and paid two rupees a month and a quantity of grain. There was another category of hired labourers, who had their own land and worked as part-time workers on their master’s land; they also worked for daily hire during their free time. The third category was represented by landlords’ labourers who were farm servants of their masters.‘ In Dinajpur district, Buchanan-Hamilton noted that the number of sharecroppers was considerable, but the krishans or farm servants employed for the month “are by no means numerous”.‘? Evidently landowners relied more upon adhiars than on krishans in their agricultural work. Towards the close of the nineteenth century the agricultural labourers had become a rising category. In 1888 the Dufferin Enquiry Committee noted the miserable condition of the labourers in the Punjab, Agra and Oudh, In Darbhanga in Bihar about 25 per cent of the agricultural population could be described as 39. Morris, Emergence of a Labour Force in India, 1965, pp 199- 204, Morris writes that cotton mills hardly faced the problem of labour shortage; surplus labour of the villages sought employment in the Bombay mills; since labour supply was plentiful millowners paid only a subsistence wage. 40. Siddiqui, op cit, p 50. 41. Buchanan-Hamilton Papers. 42, Buchanan-Hamilton, Geographical, Statistical and Histerical Description of Dinajpur, 1833.Differentiation Among the Peasantry 35 agricultural labourers in 1876. In Gaya an enquiry of the condition of 10,000 persons revealed that 23 per cent were agricultural labourers in 1888. Ten years later Moore estimated their number as 34 per cent of the rural population.“ Hunter wrote in 1872 that the number of agricultural labourers was insigni- ficant in 24 Parganas and Sundarbans. In 1888 in the Sadar and Basirhat subdivisions of 24 Parganas, agricultural labourers were “nearly as numerous as cultivators”.“® The agricultural labourers in Murshidabad formed 10 to 15 per cent of the “agriculturists” in 1888. But their number was relatively small in North Bengal districts and Backargunj in East Bengal.* By 1901 the agricultural labourers had become a large group in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa; they formed 17.5 per cent of the agricultural population.*7 Professor Mukherjee notes the simultaneous growth of rent-paying tenants and agricultural Jabourers in Bengal since the closing decades of the nineteenth century : “The number of transfers of occupancy holdings effected by registered deeds have risen from 43,000 in 1884 to 23 million in 1913... This implies the displacement from the soil of a high- ly desirable class of cultivators who. ..must swell the ranks of the landless proletariat. The labourers, however, do not go into the mills, factories and plantations of Bengal, which are mainly fed by up-country labour. They work either as under-ryots or as hired farm hands,”4* Between 1921 and 1931 the number of agricultural labourers increased by 49 per cent. In 1940 they constituted 28.7 per cent of the total agricultural population.*® It should be noted that agricultural labourers also included rent-paying tenants, who often 43. Chaudhuri, Agrarian Relations, p 320. 44. Ibid. 45. Ibid, p 321. 46. Ibid. In North Bengal the bargadars comprised a large section of the rural population. 47. Tid. 48. Mukherjee, Land Problems of India, p 157. 49. Report of the Land Revenue Commission (1940), Vol 2, p 117. According to the survey of 1946-47, agricultural labour formed 24 per cent of rural families in West Bengal.36 Agrarian Relations in India worked for hire to keep body and soul together. Nevertheless, the agricultural labourers formed a large group in undivided Bengal. In Madras the expropriation of the peasants started in the nineteenth century and proceeded steadily from 1901 onwards. In 1931 the labourers formed about one half of the agricultural population. The working tenants and labourers came mostly from dispossessed owner-cultivators. Table 4 TENANTS AND LABOURERS IN MADRAS: (PER THOUSAND OF THE AGRICULTURAL POPULATION) 1901 1911 1921 1931 Working tenants 151 207 225 120 Labourers 345 340 317 429 ee Source : P,P. Pillai, Economic Conditions in India, p 114; Census Report, Madras, 1931. In 1882 the census returned a total number of 7.5 million agricultural labourers; the number rose to 21 million in 1921 and 33 million in 1931. Bhowani Sen relates this rapid increase in the number of agricultural labourer’ to the depression that set in from 1922 onwards, broken by bursts of recovery that proved to be transient.” In 1929 the Great Depression erupted like a volcano. The census commissioner noted the remarkable increase in the number of agricultural labourers in 1931 and tried to explain how it happened. “.., the change in ratio is somewhat remarkable, even: when adopting the lowest ratio which can be compared with that ot 1921. Possibly the explanation is that a large increase has taken place in the agricultural population without a corresponding increase in actual holders of land, whether as tenants or owners, though it is likely that a concentration of land in the hands of noncultivating owners is also taking place .”°1 50. B. Sen, Evolution of Agrarian Relations, p 147. 51. Census of India, 1931, Vol I, cited in B. Sen, op cit, p 148,Differentiation Among the Peasan:ry 37 It appears from Dr Patel’s investigation of the social composition of the peasantry in 1931 that agricultural labourers formed about 35 per cent of the agricultural population and bonded labourers 2.7 per cent. Apparently, landowners relied more on wage-labour than on bonded labour. The dwarf-holding labourers formed 33 per cent and tenants-at-will and sharecroppers 24 per cent of agricultural working population.®? Table 5 COMPOSITION OF AGRARIAN SOCIETY (1931) social composition number in per cent million ‘Total agricultural population of which: lt 100 I Rent receivers 4 3.6 Il Farmers cultivating more than 5 acres 28 25.3 of which a) owner-cultivators 18 16.3 b) tenants 10 9 Ill Dwarf-holding labourers 37 33.3 of which a) petty proprietors: 10 9 b) tenants-at-will and sharecroppers 27 24.3 IV Landless agricultural labourers 42 37.8 of which a) bonded labourers 3 2.7 b) unemployed labourers 35 31.5 c) fulltime free wage- labourers 4 3.6 Source : S. J. Patel, Agricultural Labourers in Modern India and Pakistan, p 148. Between 1931 and 1951 the proportion of agricultural labourers decreased; they constituted 31.1 per cent in 1931 and 26.7 per cent in 1951. It is not clear how agricultural labourers decreased in numbers. What is noteworthy is that the pro- 52. Patel op cit, pp 148-49, Patel writes that “moneylender-landlords dispossessed the peasants of their land, but found it more profitable to exploit them on the land”.38 " Agrarian Relations in India portion of agricultural labourers varied from region to region. It has been noted in an earlier section that the number of sharecroppers increased in Bengal since 1931; jotedars had a tendency to rely more on sharecroppers than on agricultural labourers. Nevertheless, agricultural labourers constituted a large group; they formed 22 per cent of the agricultural population of West Bengal in 1951. The situation was different in the coastal districts of Andhra and the canal areas of the Punjab, where landowners preferred wage-labourers to sharecroppers."* Jt is familiar that agricultural labourers formed a large proportion of the rural population in South India. The expropriation of owner-cultivators in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh has been referred to. An enquiry into the conditions of Khirhar village in North Bihar in 1939 found that the most numerous class was represented by the landless labourers, who formed 72 per cent of the rural population." According to an estimate made by the Kisan Sabha, agricultural labourers formed about 30 per cent of the agricultural population in Uttar Pradesh in 1946. It secms that the employment of agricultural labour increased as landowners felt that hired labour had substantial and enduring advantages. Throughout India the agricultural labourers were paid low wages, which ranged from 3 to 6 annas for men, 2 to 4 annas for women and 14 to 2 annas for children per day. They were often paid in kind."* In fact, payment in kind continued along- side money payments in most parts of the country: a reflection, perhaps, of the increasing pressure on land. Professor Mukherjee says that the real wages of the agricultural labourers had fallen with the price of rice: in Bengal the price of rice increased eight times while wages rose four to six times between 1852 and 1922.57 During the second world war wages increased, and new avenues of employment opened, but there was 53. B. Sen, op cit, p 160. 54. S. Sarkar, ‘Economic Conditions of a Village in North Bihar (1939)', Indian Journal of Economics, July 1939. 55. Proceedings of AIKS, 1939-46. 56, Report of Congress Agrarian Reforms Committee, 1949, p 117. 57, Mukherjee, op cit, p 222.Differentiation Among the Peagantry 39 a sharp rise in prices thanks to the operations of hoarders and traders. The Congress Agrarian Reforms Committee noted that “the war has not brought about any substantial rise in the real income of the agricultural labourers”.°* Apart from low wages, they suffered from acute unemployment or underemployment, and had to turn to the moneylenders for loans to subsist during the period of unemployment. They were mostly employed in agricultural work as ploughmen, reapers, sowers, weeders, trans- planters and differed radically from wage workers of capitalist farms. Mr Chatterjee writes that they were victims of “an inferior mode of exploitation” so that peasants regarded the economic and social status of the agricultural workers as a misfortune.’* The inferior social status of the agricultural labour draws sanction of the caste structure, which helps to perpetuate the domination of the upper castes in rural society. Dr Thorner writes: “The kisans are drawn primarily from cultivating or artisan caste; the mazdoor-log, primarily from Harijans, scheduled, depressed or backward classes. Certain types of work, locally considered degrading, such as ploughing in the eastern UP, are reserved for these lowly servitors.... To a considerable extent, the belief that low castes are born to labour with their hands, and high castes to enjoy the fruits of others’ labour, is accepted by the former as well as the latter. The separation between proprietorship and physical cultivation both draws sanction from and serves to reinforce the caste structure of rural society.”°° Professor Mukherjee draws attention to serfdom and debt slavery that developed and continued among scheduled castes and tribes with social sanction. In the Bombay Presidency, the Dublas and Halis “are bond slaves”, who had served for several genera- tions “as slaves to their masters’ households”. In the south-west 58. Report of Congress Agrarian Reforms Committee, p 120. 59, B. Chatterji, ‘Agricultural Labour, Enterprise and Land Re- forms in Indie’, Enquiry, Vol 2. Mr Chatterji argues that agricultural labour force “‘can be subjected to noneconomic constraints”; money “has not served as a solvent of forms of noneconomic compulsion”. 60. Thorner, The Agrarian Pruspect in India, p 11, cited in B, Sen, op cit, p 164.40 ‘ Agrarian Relations in India of Madras, the Izhavas, Cherumas, Puleyas and Holiyas were all virtually slaves. On the east coast, the Brahmin’s hold on the lands was strong and a large proportion of the agricultural labourers had fallen into “hereditary dependence on a landowner through debt”. The Kamias in Bihar were “bond servants” who had to work for the landlords till they had discharged their debt; they were allowed to work for uther landlords only during the off-season.“! The findings of the Congress Agrarian Reforms Com- mittee confirm what Professor Mukherjee tells us about debt slavery. The hali system in Surat originated in loans, and the Halis remained bound to the master, the Dhaniama, for genera- tions, and desertion on their part was rare. In Calicut, some of the rajas and landlords “have got a number of serfs under them”. In Kerala the serfs of a Jenmie “are leased to certain people for a return to the Jenmie in money or paddy”. In the Mirasdar- tidden Tanjore district, the farm servant was indebted to the landowner, stayed in the house site provided by him, and “must be available for agricultural and domestic service” for the master. The Halis in Bombay and the Panneyals in Madras had to live as subservient serfs under the landowners partly because there was no provision for “house sites for these people in the village abadi.”°2 The Congress Agrarian Reforms Committee focuses on the structural changes in the agrarian system: “Land has been further concentrated in fewer hands and there has been more and more proletarianisation of the small peasants. Agriculture is no longer, at least to a section, of substantial peasants, a means of livelihood and a way of life but a source of profit.”6* Rich Peasants We now turn to the “substantial peasants”, for whom agricul- 61, Mukherjee, op cit, p 226, Thorner, op cit, pp 34-38. Thorner argues that much of the labour force is “unfree”; and “unfree labour” is the result of indebtedness, allotment by the employer cf a plot of land, traditional attachment to family. 62. Repdrt, pp 130-35. 63, Ibid, p 137, The need of agricultural labourers’ unions “has been intensified because of the wartime structural changes in the agrarian economy”.Differentiation Among the Peasaniry 4 ture was not “a way of life but a source of profit”. Evidence is scanty; nevertheless it points to the emergence of the rich peasant as a distinct stratum among the peasantry. The rise of this category is a crucial watershed between the old mode of production and the new. What needs to be emphasized is that the new mode of production was emerging slowly, almost imperceptibly. The question will be asked how do we identify the rich peasant. The answer is simple. The rich peasant was a cultivator, who partly sublet his land or employed labour, and was primarily interested in selling foodgrains and cash crops in the market, Resourceful and ambitious, he was eager to add ficld to field so that he could improve farming and sell a larger portion of the produce in the market. The size of his farm was often large, which could not be cultivated with family labour, and he had to employ day labourers. Since his neighbours were poor and becoming poorer, he relied on usury as a means of social advance- ment. This partly explains why he did not use his accumulated capital for improving the technique of production. The rich peasants constituted a minority of the peasants, but acquired crucial importance in rural economy wtih the growth of trade and market. It is also a fact that some of the peasant communities proved to be more efficient than others; the Mahisyas of Bengal and the Jats of Punjab and Uttar Pradesh with their inherited skill sub- siantially improved farming. In Dinajpur district Buchanan-Hamilton noticed that peasant families had varying size of holdings. The farmers were classified as “principal farmers”, “great farmers”, “comfortable farmers”, “easy farmers”, “poor farmers” and “needy farmers”. Elsewhere he refers to “middling farmers”, who had “three or four or five ploughs”, and “are not exempt from holding the plough”. We do not know how many ploughs the large farmers had. Buchanan- Hamilton, however, makes a significant comment: the large farmers advanced paddy loans to poor farmers and charged high tates of interest. He writes: “It is true ‘that these large farmers extort enormous profits from whatever they advance to their necessitous dependents, but still they are of infinite use to these people.”*+ 64, Buchanan-Hamilton, op cit.a2 Agrarian Relations in India Buchanan-Hamilton writes that a peasant could cultivate 5 acres or 15 bighas with one plough. Apparently the more ploughs he had, the more substantial he was. In a village in Nadia dis- strict in the 1880s, 25 peasant families had one plough, 8 had two, two had three, three had four and only one family had five ploughs.*® Evidently small peasants comprised the majority of the peasants. In Jessore 155 peasant families owned 10 bighas or more, 232 families less than 10 bighas, 365 families two bighas. Peasant families owning 10 bighas or more employed under-tenants.** In a village in Khulna only 7 holdings were of 40 to 50 bighas, 43 of 20 to 30 bighas, 673 of 10 bighas and under."? In a village in Rajshahi, about 6 per cent of the peasant families held more than 20 bighas, 23 per cent 10 to 20 bighas and about 57 per cent held only 5 bighas.** As table 6 shows, the number of perpetual leases increased steadily in the Bengal districts; the rich peasants constituted a large group among the lease holders. George Campbell welcomed this phenomenon as “diffusion of landed property”. It is prob- able that the lease holders frequently sublet a portion of their holdings. The leases considerably increased from 1874 onwards. After the agrarian disturbances in Pabna, the zamindars perhaps thought it wise to grant leases to substantial peasants who played a prominent role in these disturbances. The rich peasant was also a moneylender and trader, who undertook jute cultivation. We will presently see that his economic position improved with the extension of commercial agriculture. Since the rich peasants lived in the village, the poor peasant had a tendency to tum to them for loans. It would be fatuous to think that landlords and traders only formed the class of moneylenders; the mahajans were frequently the rich peasants. The census commissioner of West Bengal writes that in 1946 the 65. Famine Proceedings (1888), cited in Chaudhuri, Agrarian Relations, p 315. 66, Ibid. 67. Ibid. 68. Ibid.Differentiation Among the Peasantry 43 biggest source of loan in the village was “a new class of rich peasantry”.6? Table 6 PERPETUAL LEASES year number of year number of leases leases 1868-69 36,830 1879-80 126,137 1873-74 66,398 1880-81 102,512 1874-75 100,325 1881-82 74,639 1875-76 109,399 1882-83 70,764 1876-77 102,147 1883-84 75,552 1877-78 108,678 1884-85 85,519 1878-79 119,015 1885-86 87,236 Source : Chaudhuri, Agrarian Relations, p 335. In the United Provinces the rich peasant was a rising category in the second half of the nineteenth century, particularly in the sugarcane belt. In 1860s the Oudh peasants were indebted not sonly to village bankers and banias, but also to “thriving members of the agricultural classes”. The peasant turned to the village mahajan “hoping to cheat him, but he knows he cannot cheat his landlord”.7° The deputy commissioner of Lucknow reported in 1868-69 that a prosperous cultivator, who had managed to save some money, immediately tried to increase it “by lending it out to fellow villagers”."* A mahajan family cultivated 5 acres with three kharif crops and two rabi crops, which brought in an income of Rs 79, while his income from moneylending was estimated at Rs 300 per year.’? The rich peasant also benefited 69. Mitra, op cit, p 95. The rich peasants “combined agriculture with moneylending and probably settled his lands, acquired in outright sales during the famine, with bargadars”. 70. Whitcombe, op cit, pp 166-68. ‘71, Ibid, p 166. . 72, Dufferin Enquiry, pp 77-78, cited in Whitcombe, op cit, p 167.44 Agrarian Relations in India from high prices: “To the well-to-do farmer, who has grain to sell, high prices bring fortune; to the indebted man, who has to borrow, they are loss and ruin.” ™* The rise in agricultural prices in late nineteenth century helped the rich peasant to impove his economic position. When we turn to Maharashtra, the rich peasant appears to be a distinct category. True, the Kunbis were being replaced by Marwari and Gujarati moneylenders as the rural elite. What needs to be remembered, as Dr Kumar tells us, is that a minority of the Kunbis had tecome opulent. The revenue policy favoured them; the land tax proved to be moderate as compared to the assessments levied by the Marathas. In 1867 the rich Kun- bis were found to excavate wells to irrigate their land in Indapur village; the number of carts increased so that they could sell their crop to the trade centres instead of in the village; in Satara district the number of carts rose from 5,552 to 17,440 between 1860 and 1890. Apparently, carts were used by the rich Kunbis to carry their grains to the railhead. In three villages in Shola- pur district, there was a considerable increase in garden land in the 1890s, which was used for better farming. We wilt presently see that rich Kunbis benefited from commercial agriculture and also from new credit agencies like rural cooperatives.’* In Bihar substantial ryots formed a new category of the purchasers of land towards the close of the nineteenth century. In Muzaffarpur district there were 417 transfers by sale till 1899; ryots formed 21.2 per cent, moneylenders 8.4 per cent and lawyers 1.2 per cent of the purchasers.” Rich peasants were also moncylenders, who embarked upon sugarcane cultivation. Landed property was a symbol of social status; a ryot of Goala caste, for instance, purchased Jand at a higher rate, as he wanted to raise himself “to the status of the maliks of the. village, who, by the 73. Whitcombe, op cit, p 198. 74, Kumar, op cit, pp 298-303, also Report of Deccan Agricultur- ists’ Relief Act Commission (1892). 75. Report on Survey and Settlement Operations in Muzaffarpur (1892-99).Differentiation Among the Peasantry 45 way, were Brahmans”.”° What is significant is that ryots figured among the purchasers of land. This phenomenon was evident also in Bengal. Evidently, these ryots had savings to fall back upon, What we. have tried to assert is that agrarian society had become stratified into clear divisions of a few rich peasants and numerous poor peasants. The rich peasants incurred capital expenditure on wells, carts, and garden land; they often sold their grains in the markets to get better prices. Sometimes they purchased’ land from impoverished small peasants who formed the majerity of the rural population. But the prosperity of rich peasants should not be overdrawn. Production depended on the vagaries of nature. They hardly got remunerative prices for commercial crops and had to turn to the moneylenders for loans. Table 7 PERCENTAGE OF FAMILIES WITH DIFFERENT SIZES OF LANDHOLDINGS provinces number of acres per holding Bombay: Gujarat 27.5 Assam 38.9 12.6 Deccan 19.8 44.7 West Bengal 34.7 16.6 Madhya Pradesh (CP) 49.0 A 30.0 Orissa 50.0 27.0 13.0 10.0 Madras 51.0 31.0 70 11.0 Uttar Pradesh (UP) 55.8 25.4 12.8 6.0 Punjab 37.9 17.9 20.5 23.7 es Source: Report of Congress Agrarian Reforms Committee, 1949, p 14, We again turn to the varying sizes of the holdings of rural families. As table 7 indicates, differentiation among the peasants had become a marked feature of the agrarian system. 76, Ibid. -4% Agrarian Relations in India Trends in Output At this point we will refer, briefly and in passing, to the trends in agricultural production. The “depeasantising” process has been indicated. There was the growth of poor peasants with tiny holdings, tenants who paid produce rent and did not enjoy security of tenure and of a stratum of rich peasants who constituted a minority of the rural families. We would like to know whether the growth of the rich peasants was accompanied by increase in agricultural production. Another crucial question is whether the rich peasants resorted to improved technique. Much that we should like to know can only be imperfectly understood in the present state. of our knowledge. More research on the behaviour pattern of the rich peasants is now urgently required. Blyn’s study throws a great deal of new light not only on output but also on per acre yields. Progress or stagnation in agriculture can only be measured by per acre yields. Blyn has shown that acreage expansion continued unabated, but foodgrain yield per acre declined during the period from 1891 tu 1947; average. yield >er acre. was falling as acreage rose. Half of foodgrain output vonsisted of rice, and for the half-century as a whole, the decline n rice output was striking. Wheat, which comprised only a juarter of foodgrain output, showed high rates of increase, parti- ularly in Greater Punjab. There was a steep rate of decline in rice output in Greater Bengal. Over 3 million acres of land went out of cultivation between 1915-16 and 1945-46. In Madras, Assam, Central Provinces, Bombay-Sind, rice output showed a moderate increase. In Greater Punjab foodgrain yield per acre showed an upward trend. Most of “the additional irrigated land” was in this region. Rice and wheat accounted for about half of foodcrop acreage in the United Provinces; wheat yield perDifferentiation Among the Peasantry 47 acre hardly increased, but rice yield declined in the second half of the period.” Blyn has tried to explain why foodcrop production showed a decreasing trend. Except in Greater Punjab, the area of irrigated land hardly showed an increase. In the Punjab “about a third of the increase in yield per acre” was due to better irrigation. There was hardly any technological change. evn in the Punjab, “almost every village was said to have experienced no change in agricultural implements used”. Subdivision of holdings into smaller sizes and scattering of fragments of these holdings into noncontiguous parcels increased during the period. Very little was done to promote agricultural education or research.7® Surely these were contributory factors. Yet it seems that disintegration of owner-operated farms and extension of tiny tenant-operated farms stood in the way of modernization of agriculture. The rent- paying tenants were too poor to use modern inputs, and the big landlords hardly showed any tendency to take to capitalist farming. As Thorner puts it: “The Indian landowners have found Tent and usury, as opposed to capitalistic profit, easier, safer, more congenial, and more lucrative.” It is also a fact that “the policy of the state in respect to Indian agriculture was largely hands-off”.79 ; Blyn’s study, however, reveals that the production of market- oriented nonfoodgrains increased rapidly, especially in the later decades. There was a remarkable increase in yield per acre of sugarcane and cotton. Blyn writes: “The British India zero rate of change in yield per acre was not a sign of stagnation, but of balance between forward moving elements in yield per acre change and elements making for retrogression.”®° The question may be asked whether commercial agriculture ushered in changes in agricultural production. To seek an answer to this question we turn now to the growth of commercial agriculture. 77. G. Blyn, Agricultural Trends in India (1891-1947), pp 98, 140, 174. 78. Ibid, pp 200-12. 79, Thorner, op cit, p 111 80. Blyn, op cif, p 240.CHAPTER 3 Growth of Commercial Agriculture: | What is particularly noteworthy in agrarian development under British rule is the extension of commercial agriculture in many tegions of this country. To some extent government policy favoured the production of cash crops. With the progress of the industrial revolution, British industry needed. an expanding market for its goods and also an expanding supply of raw mate- tials, a number of which came from abroad. Lancashire had been clamouring for cotton, since every ounce. of its cotton had to be imported. In thcir memorial of 1838 the Manchester Chamber of Commerce urged the construction of roads and even recommended “modification of land tax”, so that the supply of cotton could be increased. In 1846 the Cotton Commission pro- posed the opening of the Deccan by railways. In his Railway Minute of 1853, Dalhousie pointed out the commercial advantages of railways, which would be “the fitting means of conveyance for cotton from distant plains to the several ports adopted for its shipment.”? It would, however, be fatuous tn hold that commercial agriculture was geared to the interests of British industry. Truc, indigo, jute and cotton were exported to England. But the acreage under jute and cotton increased considerably towards the close of the nineteenth century when jute and cotton-textile industry had been expanding in Bengal, Bombay and Ahmedabad. There was a remarkable increase in the acreage under sugarcane when the Indian- financed and Indian-managed sugar industry grew to a substantial size in the 1930s, The development of industry and the extension of commercial agriculture proceeded hand-in-hand, and were in- separably connected, and created a market for each other. 1, Sen, Economic Policy and Development of India (1848-1939), pp 2-3,Growth of Commercial Agriculture: I 49 Much has been said about the opening of the interior by railways and roads. The first railway was opened between Bombay and Thana in 1853. By 1865 more than 3,000 miles of railways had been opened. Surely the infrastructure built by the British benifited the Indian merchants, who could operate. in the sprawl- ing hinterland, purchasing cotton, jute and oilseeds for the city firms. Yet the fact is that millions of villages were unconnected by either a railway or a metalled road even in 1930. Only those peasants who lived within a few miles of towns or railways or good roads could bring their produce for sale in the multiplying urban centres. Understandably, traders became increasingly important with the extension of commercial agriculture. Of the isola- tion of the village a vivid picture is given in the official statement of 1930-31: “Even now, despite the remarkable improvements in. communi- cations which have taken place, only a small proportion of villages have either railways or metalled roads within several miles of them, and the rest must be approached by rough cart tracks or winding pathways between the fields... Thus, many millions of Indian villages are, according to western standards, extremely isolated... Those that happen to be: situated within a few miles of towns, or railways, or good roads...can market their surplus produce for consumption either in urban India or abroad.”? We will deal, cursorily and in passing, with poppy and indigo cultivation, and concentrate on principal cash crops. We would also like to ask some questions. How did commercial agriculture grow? Did the peasants benefit from it? What was the mode of production? Can we say that the growth of commercial agriculture was bound up with technological changes in agriculture? Poppy The cultivation of poppy was the result of opium trade. Opium was a state monopoly which the British fostered mainly for revenue purposes. The production of opium was concentrated in Banaras, Bihar and Bengal, Central India and in Malwa. As 2. Moral and Material Progress Report (1930-31). ar-4 _.50 Agrarian Relations in India late“as 1870 almost half of China’s total imports consisted of these narcotics. Over the years the Indian merchants were connected with opium trade. In the 1860s “opium hundecs on account of their opium chests” were in circulation.” In the cighteenth century noneconomic pressure was applied on the peasants for the diversion of paddy lands into poppy cultivation. In the celebrated Ninth Report (1783), Burke writes that “fields green with rice had been forcibly ploughed up to make way for that plant”, and this was done “in the presence of rural Eng- lish gentlemen, who beheld the spectacle with a just and natural indignation”.4. The usual practice was to make advances to the peasants and force them to: undertake poppy cultivation; the government relied on khatadars, mostly rural moneylenders, for poppy cultivation. It seems that the system of advances to small peasants was the basis of poppy cultivation. This system helped the government to force the peasants to undertake poppy aaltivation, which proved to be unremunerative as time went on. As the opium agent of Gorakhpore wrote, by offering advances the government could establish “a claim upon the assamis (peasants) which they could not otherwise maintain”.® This system became increasingly co- ercive as the peasants found that poppy cultivation was not re- muncerative. They had to pay high rent; they had to hand over the entire produce at a fixed price to the opium agent and could not scll opium in the open market. As the transport system improved, they found it more profitable to grow potatoes and sugarcane. * The system of poppy cultivation broke down with the extension of the market. Mangles reported in 1882: “Improved means of communication, both by land and water, have opencd out to the cultivators markets for their country produce which they did not possess before. ..”; potatocs that could be grown before only near the towns “are often sold on the ground itself”. The Board of Revenue also drew attention to the expansion of 3. Bombay: Financial Proceedings (March 1865); also Green- burg, British Trade and the-Opening of China, 1951. 4, Sen (ed), Edmund Burke on Indian Economy, 1969, p 10. 5. Chowdhury, Growth of Commercial Agriculture, 1964, p. 58.Growth of Commercial Agriculture: I 51 the market, Since the peasants had to sell their produce in the village, they took advances and “gave their best land for poppy”; but with the coming of the railways “the ever-growing demands, of the commerce of the country have completely changed the state of affairs”, and opium “lost its place. as the most lucrative crop”. The opium agent of Bihar reported in 1892: “There:can be no doubt that since the opening of the Bengal and N.W. Railway, the difficulty of maintaining the cultivation of such a delicate crop as poppy has largely incteased."* Although poppy cultivation continued, the acreage under poppy was declining as peasants turncd to the production of potatocs, sugarcane and! jute. : Indigo . The British merchants embarked upon indigo cultivation in Bengal as the demand of indigo, the largest dycing material used in the world, was growing in Europe. It was financed mostly by the agency houses and banks. Factories were est- ablished in Maldah, Purnea, Pabna, Nadia, Jcssore, Midnapur, Rangpur and Rajshahi, and paddy lands were diverted to indigo cultivation. Rammohan Roy, Dwarkanath Tagore and Prasanna’ Kumar Tagore welcomed indigo cultivation in 1829. Dwarka- nath noted that the value of land considerably increased in the villages where indigo cultivation had extended; Prasanna, Kumar welcomed “the application of European skill and cnterprige’’. There is a great deal of evidence to show that the planters had to pay high rent to the zamindars to get land for indigo ciul- tivation. Apparently zamindars had a stake in indigo cultivation. Some of them, notably Dwarkanath, choso to ‘be planters.” Teas ..There were two forms of indigo cultivation—nij abad-‘and ryoti. Nij abad represented the system of cultivation on the 6. Royal Commission on. Opium, Vols 5, 6, cited in Chowdhury, op cit, p 71. In 1890 the area under poppy was 3.9 lakh acres in Bihar and 3.7 lakh acres in Banaras. a 7. Palit, Tensions in Bengal Rural Society (1830-60), 1975, pp 106, 107. ——52 Agrarian Relations in India planter’s land with the help of hired labour; the expenses of cultivation were borne by the planter. Under ryoti system, smal peasants grew indigo on their own lands under contract and received advances made by the planter; the peasant bore the expenses of cultivation and had to hand over the entire produce to the planter at fixed prices. The planters had a tendency to prefer ryoti system to nij abad. The reasons are not far to seek. Nij abad cntailed capital expenditure, and after the collapse of the Union Bank in 1847 it was difficult to procure finance. In 1860 the Bengal Indigo Company had 75,000 bighas under indigo, of which 61,000 bighas were under the ryoti system.® In his evidence before the Indigo Commission Larmour said: “Our object is always to decrease our nij cultivation and increase the number of our ryots... the more. ryots we can induce to settle by giving up our nij abad, the greater the value of our landed property.”° R. P. Sage, a planter, said: “I should not recommend a planter to extend his neez cultivation, because there would always be an uncertainty from year to year, as to the quantity of land he might obtain.”!' There was much difficulty in land acquisition, which often led to disputes between planters and zamindars. The ryoti system, based on advances, virtually became forced cultivation by dependent peasantry; the planters resorted to coer- cion; and indigo cultivation was becoming unremunerative. The evidence of Ashley Eden before the Indigo Commission reads: “Cultivation is not the result of free agency, but it is always compulsory. First, I believe it to be unprofitable, and therefore the cultivators will not consent to take up that cultivation; “second, it involves an amount of harrassing interference;... fourthly.. .if the ryots were free agents, they would not cultivate indigo;... seventhly, as soon as the ryots became aware of 8. Lalit Mitra, History of Indigo Disturbances, 1903. Mitra was the son of Dinabandhu Mitra, author of Nil Darpan. 9. Chowdhury, op cit, p 125. 10, Report of Indigo Commission, Minutes of Evidence (1860). i, Ibid,Growth of Commercial Agriculture: I 53 th: fact that they were by law and practically free agents, they at once refused to continue. the cultivation... .”"* That indigo cultivation was not remunerative for the peasants was admitted by Jaykrishna Mukherjee of Uttarpara. As he put it: “They sow it to please me, their landlord, and because they have sown it beforc...”!* The small peasants had to divert paddy lands into indigo cultivation, but they relied on paddy lands to subsist. As Sawyers, a planter, put it: “It feeds him and his family and the straw feeds his cattle and thatches his house; therefore, it is not fair to compare indigo with rice."* According to a rough estimate, a peasant made a profit of Rs {1 per bigha by growing tobacco, and incurred a loss of Rs 9 by growing indigo on one bigha of tobacco land.'!* In Barasat, the centre of indigo peasants’ rebellion, the demand of jute was growing, since “every two maunds of rice exported required a guany bag”."" As we will sce, jute cultivation was expanding in the Bengal districts in the 1850s. It seems that small peasants hardly benefited from the advances, which were often secured by “pro- Sperous ryots”. This was emphasized by Eden with reference. to the conditions in Barasat: “The only men who ever go to the factories willingly for advances are those who go openly with the intention of defrauding either the planter or ryot. These are the middlemen, generally prosperous ryots, who have a number of jotcdars under them.”!? In Bengal, indigo cultivation suffered a severe sctback when agrarian disturbances flared up in 1859-60. The acreage under indigo rapidly declined; there was a flight of capital from Bengal to Bihar. As the following table shows, production of indigo increased in Bihar and Banaras. The prospects of indigo culti- 12. Ibid. Eden cited 49 cases of murder, arson, dacoity, plunder and kidnapping from 1830 to 1859. Fergusson noted that in Nadia indigo cultivation did not occupy more than 5 per cent of its land. 13. Ibid. 14, Ibid. 15. Eden's evidence, Ibid. 16. Mitra, op cit. 17. Eden’s evidence, cited in Palit, op cit, p 147.54 Agrarian Relations in India vation in India dwindled when Germany brought into the market a synthetic dye in 1896-97. Table 8 INDIGO PRODUCTION (IN MAUNDS) province 1857-58 1877-78 Banaras 10,000 17,556 | Bengal 50,330 16,502 ‘Bihar 18,822 34,857 Source : Reid, The Culture and Manufacture of Indigo, 1887, p 85; Palit, op cit, p 150. * : Jn Bihar indigo cultivation had started in mid-cighteenth century and made ‘rapid progress in the 1870s; it was concentrated in North Bihar, notably Champaran. Since the indigo planters \ zamindars they had a tendency to resort to ryoti system in Champaran. In the 1860s zerat system or cultivation with thé help” of hired labourers spread in Bihar, notably in Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga and Saran. Labourers were paid low wages, nevertheless they found employment particularly in winter when they had no work. As Stevensun-Moore noted: “The average number of labourers employed in Champaran per diem by indigo factories is 33,000, and more than half the labour is cmployed in cold .weather months, when these classes are most liable to destitution.” It appears that the planters introduced new im; plements, which were later used in sugarcane production. Indigo cultivation helped monctization of the economy; cash crops were produced for the market. In fact, the peasants did not fail to notice the value of cash crops and turned to sugarcane production.!® In the 1890s the area under sugarcane was about 11,000 acres in Champaran, which increased considerably in the 1930s. 18. Girish Mishra, ‘Indigo Plantation and the Agrarian Relations in Champaran’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, Decem- ber 1966; also Chowdhury, op cit, pp 136-37; Palit, op cit, p 150.Growth of Commercial Agriculture: I 55 Jute We turn now to jute, Bengal's “golden crop”, which remains West Bengal’s main cash crop today.’ As package material jute was unrivalled in the world, and its demand in the world markets was large and growing. The Dundee merchants relied on Indian jute; Germany, which used jute in the manufacture of blankets and cheap carpets, was another big customer for raw jute. The demand for jute cxpanded ‘with the: growth of jute industry. In 1855 the first jute mill was founded at Rishra by George Auck- land. There was a steady growth of the jute industry between the two world wars, which owed its development to European (mostly Scottish) enterprise. By 1920 the number of jute mills was 77, which employed 288,000 workers. With the growth of jute industry, the proportion of jute exported from India diminished; the percentage of jute cxport decreased from 52.7 in 1913-14 to 35.7 in 1922-23,19 The Indian Jute Manufacturers’ Association (IJMA), which changed its name to the Indian Jute Mills Association in 1902, was formed in 1884. The IJMA, which had the privilege of re- turning two representatives to the Bengal Legislative Council, was destined to occupy a unique position in jute industry; it helped the industry to overcome intermill rivalries, regulate output and keep the rate of profit at a high level“° The British firms, notably Ralli Brothers, M. David and Co. and R. Sim and Co. were the principal exporters of raw jute.2! The Marwari traders became organized in the Calcutta Baled Jute Association, which was founded in 1892. The Birlas and Jalans, for instance, accumulated capital in jute trade. Seth Surajmull Jalan, born in 1881, was connected with the Bajoria family, which was engaged in jute trade. He set up his gadi in Calcutta and entered jute trade, Dhulian in Murshidabad district being his main centre. In 1907 19, Cotton, Handbook of Commercial Information, 1924, p 113. The principal buyers of jute were England, Germany, Austria, Ame- rica, Italy and Spain. 20. Cotton, op cit, p 30. ° 21, In the 19th century British managing agency firms were engaged in jute trade; see Sen, Economic Policy, pp 96, 97.56 Agrarian Relations in India he started exporting jute; in 1913 the Indian Jute Press was founded and three years later Hanuman Jute Press was opened. In 1928 the Hanuman Jute Mill started work, which had several agencies of jute purchase in East and West Bengal.22 The Birlas were engaged in jutc trade and set up a jute mill near Calcutta between 1919 and 1921. The Roys of Bhagyakul, who were among the principal Bengali jute traders, had several steamers that brought raw jute from East Bengal to Calcutta.2* The numerous beparis, fariahs, pykars, dalals, who operated in the hinterland, were mostly Bengalis. There was a remarkable extension of jute cultivation over the years. The area under jute did not exceed 850,000 acres in 1874; the average for the five years ending 1912-13 was 3,150,400 acres." Jute was Bengal’s monopoly, although it was grown in some areas in Bihar, Assam and Orissa. In 1930 about 90 per cent of jute was grown in Bengal. The principal area of jute was in East Bengal; Narayanganj, Sirajganj and Chandpur were the main centres of jute trade. There was extension of jute cultivation in North and West Bengal. In West Bengal, for instance. jute cultivation had extended to Murshidabad, Nadia and 24 Par- ganas." It was not fortuitous that jute cultivation rapidly spread in West Bengal after partition. Tt will be evident from a study of jute acreage until the onset of the Great Depression that the area under jute fluctuated from year to year. The climatic factor was important; rains, both before sowing and after germination, affected the harvested area. But the main factor that was responsible for increase or decrease in acreage was fluctuation in prices. There was a risc in acreage in 1914 when prices soared up; in 1921 the decline in acreage ‘was particularly marked. It seems that high prices for rice-encouraged the peasants to grow this important foodgrain at the 22. Banerjee, Calcutta and Its Hinterland (1833-1900), 1975, pp 165-66; also Timberg, Industrial Entrepreneurship Among the Trading Communities of India, 1969. 23. Bengalee, 11 October 1908. Some of the members of Bengal National Chamber of Commerce were jute merchants. 24, Cotton, op cit, p 111. 25. See District Gazetteers of Murshidabad, Nadia and 24 Parganas.Growth of Commercial Agriculture: I 57 expense of jute, Prices of jute showed a downward trend from 1921 onwards, except in 1925-26. Surely fluctuations in prices severely hit jute growers; fall in prices was gencrally followed by decline in acreage. Table 9 ACREAGE AND PRICES OF JUTE (1920-29) year acreage average annual . wholesale price Rs-As-P 1920-21 2,472,938 95-8-7 1921-22 : 1,505,527 90-11-2 1922-23 1,446,426 8-1-8 1923-24 2,329,232 72-1-8 1924-25 2,737,931 98-11-7 1925-26 2,923,408 105-2-8 1926-27 3,609,490 R7-11-6 1927-28 3,293,801 75-11-6 1928-29" 3,062,302 73-2-6 Source : Report of Bengal Jute Enquiry Committee, 1934, Vol 2. Great Depression With the cnset of the Great Depression in 1929, Indian economy was faced with a disaster. The immediate and crucial effect of the depression was fall in agricultural prices. Vera Anstey states that the fall in prices halved the value of agricultural output. which surely hit all categories of peasants.?* The crisis was not confined to the agricultural sector but affected the major industries also. Of the Indian industries an export- oriented industry like the jute industry was the first to be hit. As table 10 shows, there was a progressive decline in exports of raw jute and jute manufactures. Faced with the depression, the IJMA embarked upon retrenchment. By 1933 about four- 26. V. Anstey, Economic Development, in L. S. S. O'Malley, op cit, p 288. Anstey writes that the depression “greatly aggravated the problem of indebtedness”. Land alienation during this period has been discussed in chapter 2.58 Agrarian Relations in India teen thousand workers were retrenched; several jute presses and tice mills closed: down.*? ; Table 10 EXPORIS QF JUTE AND JUS MANUFACTURE (1929-37) year value of jute value of jute exports (1000 Rs) manufactures (1000 Rs) 1929-30 271,738 519,268 1930-31 128,847 318,945 1931-32 TIL S81 219,243 1932-33 97,303 217,118 1933-34 109,327 . 213,749 1934-35 108,711 214,683 1935-36 137,076 234,895 1936-37 147,710 279,475 Source : Annual Statement of Sea-Borne Trade of British India, Vol I. . Jute prices also collapsed.2* The average price of raw jute per maund was Rs, 9.6 annas during the years 1920-29, the average price between 1930 and 1934 was Rs 3.10 annas.*" Predict- ably, there was a fall in acreage under jute. Although there was a bumper crop in 1930, the arca under jute was only 1.9 million acres in 1931-32. From 1933 onwards the acreage under jute showed a tendency to increase.*° The government became panicky, because duty on the export of raw and manufactured jute brought in large revenue and encouraged voluntary restriction of jute cultivation. We will presently sce how the scheme of yolun- tary restriction failed. 27. Moral and Material Progress Report (1932-33). 28. Harvest prices of jute per md in Bengal districts in 1933-34: Dacca, Rs 3.9 annas; Faridpur, Rs. 3.4 annas; Rajshahi, Rs. 3.6 annas; Rangpur, Rs 3.4 annas;, 24 Parganas. Rs 4, Report of Central Jute Committee (1940). 29. Ibid. 30. Report uf Bengal Jute Enquiry Committee (1934).Growth vf Commercial Agriculture: I 39 Table JI ARLA UNDER JUIE (1929-34) (1000 acres) ————$ provinces 1929-30 1930-31 1931-32 1932-33 1933-34 Bengal 2,986 3,028 1,597 1,822 2,142 Bihar 238 238 14s 170 iyo Assam 457 192 99 127 \s7 Cooch Bihar 34 34 17 24 26 and Tripura Total 3,415 3,492 1,862 2.143 2,517 Source : Indian Central Jute Committee, 1940. Ligures for Bahar relate to Bihar and Orissa. he depression reached its peak in 1931-32. The finance member drew attention to the calamitous fall in jute prices and the consequent fall in the purchasing power of the peasants. The amount of jute crop fell from 8,729,570 bales in 1929 to 5,127,500 bales in 1932; the valuc of the crop decreased from about Rs 48 crore in 1929 to Rs 14 crore in 1932. The valuc of rice, the principal foodgrain crop, decreased by Rs 88 crore in this period." In 1932 the Bengal government urged voluntary Testriction of jute cultivation: Leaficts distributed in the villages read: .“Last year the government urged the cultivators not to grow more jute than in the previous year... In spite of this cultivators grew more jute than in the previous year... Cultivators are again urged, in their own interests, to restrict the sowing of jute this year. ..”52 It seems that the policy of voluntary restriction, which was centinued from 1934 to 1937, did not attain much success; it did not affect jute prices either. The collector of Hooghly noted 31. Statesman, 22 February 1933. Compared to 1929 the price of rice fell by 50 per cent. Rice was grown mostly for local consumption; export of good quality rice, which accounted for 5 per cent of production, virtually stopped. J. A. Woodhead, finance member, noted’ that Bengal was faced with a deficit of Rs 1.38 lakh at the close of 1932-33. 32. Statesman, 4 April 1933.60 Agrarian Relations in India ° in 1938: “I cannot say that the voluntary restriction scheme was very successful. Whatever favourable prices were obtained was due to adverse weather conditions.”** The district magistrate of Bogra said that the fall in jute acreage was duc to drought or flood.** Several officials tried to emphasize the fact that there ‘were no substitute crops for jute, and peasants were unwilling to leave their lands fallow. S. K. Dey pointed out that the idea of jute restriction was a chimera, since “the entire chain of middlemen, from the Faria and Bepari to the millowner, is opposed to restriction of the crop, because the less the supply, the higher the cost of the raw material to these people”. Dey suggested that restriction could be effective only “through state monopoly of jute growing", ur through “licensed cultivation by selected largescale growers”.** M. M. Basu thought that voluntary restriction scheme was not likely to succeed, since “jotedars and mahajans and big farmers who are often men of influence like presidents of union boards and whose agency is chiefly utilised for propaganda work, themselves take advantage of the reduced acreage of farmers and increase their own cultivation”.** The Bengal Cham- ber of Commerce supported “regulation of production” instead of “restriction of production”, and shfewdly hinted that the ryot’s attitude was the deciding factor: “The ryot has not readily res~ ponded to the restriction propaganda and is influenced primarily by weather conditions at the time of sowing, prices at the time of sowing and availability and prospects of an alternative and equally remuncrative crop... There appears at the present time to be no altcrnative crop as remunerative as jute.”*7 The Indian Chamber of Commerce expressed their opinion in favour of “a policy of scientific regulation of production”; the lands re- leased as a result of restriction could be diverted to “the cultiva- 33. Report of Bengal Jute Enquiry Committee (1938), Vol 2, 1941. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid. Evidence of S. K. Dey, additional collector, Dacca. 36. Ibid. Evidence of M. M. Basu, ICS. Basu noted that “peasants often cultivate jute as a matter of course”; alternate crops were necessary for b2tter out-turn in successive years; areas visited by floods “are better suited for jute”. 37. Ibid. Evidence of Bengal Chamber of Commerce.Growth of Commercial Agriculture: I 61 tion of sugarcane, tobacco, groundnut, rapeseed, paddy and cotton and wheat”.** The Marwari Chamber of Commerce pointed out that restriction propaganda achieved success in 1924-25 thanks to the campaign of C. R. Das; propaganda organized: by officials had little chance of success. They were “definitely against compulsory restriction of the jute crop”, and advocated “an improved system of voluntary regulation”.*” With the onset of the depression, the LIJMA urged restricted production by the jute mills; from 2 March 1931 the mills worked for 40 hours a week (previously they worked for 54 hours) with 15 per cent of their looms sealed. It resulted in the accumulation, of vast stocks of raw jute, which amounted to 5,956,000 bales in June 1932, 6,090,000 in 1933 and 5,935,000 in 1934.*° But the new mills were not anxious to restrict production. These mills had started with heavy capital expenditure and could not fall back upon resources accumulated in the prosperous years. The new mills argued that to accept restricted production “is to submit themselves to be squeezed to death”, and seceded from the IJMA. The Statesman described their attitude as “perverse and selfish”, and urged the intervention of the government, and hoped that “there may well be a situation in which restriction welcomed now will become heavy shackles on enterprise”.4? The government intervened in May 1932 and the mills came to an agreement, which allowed the new mills to work 54 hours a week. As the profits of the jute mills declined in 1936-37, the Bengal government promulgated the Bengal Jute Ordinance in September 1938, making it compulsory for the mills to work 45 hours a week. The Bengal Chamber averred that controlled production would inevitably affect the prices of jute; the Jute Ordi- 38. Ibid. 39, Ibid, 40. Report of Indian Central Jute Committee (1940). 41. Statesman, 16 April 1932. Mills were advised not to “dissipate their reserves in cut-throat competition”. Two mills were outside the DMA, and these were joined by mills that had seceded from the UMA, :62 Agrarian Relations in India nance “has the immediate effect of increasing prices of raw. jute appreciably”.** At this point we turn to the viewpoint of Indian merchants. It seems that they were faced with a difficult situation, but the main burden of the depression fell on the peasant masses. As the director of agriculture put it: - “The manufacturing interests successfully averted loss by res- tricting production but indirectly arrested a further depressing effect in the price of raw fibre. But. the cultivators failing to ini- tiate organised action, the main burden of Joss as a result of, gene- tal depression, over-production and accumulation of stock fell tothe lot of the growers.”4# When we turn to jute trade, the problems faced by Indian traders, that included big Marwari traders and petty traders operating’ in the districts, grip attention, They had to pay high freight chatges; the Eastern Bengal Railway freight for jute was higher than that charged by East Indian and Bengal Nagpur Railways. Under the home guarantee. system the Indian merchants were at the mercy of foreign buyers; the system of invoicing back empowered British firms to refuse to accept delivery of Indian jute. The mills made large profits from high prices for jute manufactures while the profits of the traders remained small.4# They pointed out that the jute mills could reduce. costs @f production by. installing modern machinery. The Muktears’ Bar Association (Dacca) felt that there was “no justification for: the present wide-margin between the prices of raw jute and that of| manufactured: jute”-and suggested that “the profits that go to the managing agents must also be scrutinized”, It was, remarkable that the Muktears drew attention :te-an, important-issue on which the Marwari traders had little to say. In fact, the managing agency firms were interested in an expanding supply of raw jute. at low prices. 42, Jute Enquiry (1938). Evidence of Bengal- Chamber. ‘43, Ibid. Evidence of the director of agriculture, Bengal. . 44, Ibid. Evidence of Bengal National Chamber of Commerce and ‘Marwari Chamber of Commerce... 45. Ibid.Growth of Commercial Agriculture : I : 63 But the most controversial question was the futures market in loose jute. The Bengal Chamber emphatically stated that the futures market helped balers and speculators “to exaggerate both upward and downward price movements” and to mislead the jute grower by “inducing him to sell when he would be better advised to hold and to hold when he would be better advised to sell The Indian Merchants’ Association agrued that ‘fatka markets” were detrimental to the interests of the grower, but futures market could help him “to sell against his growing crop”, and provided “hedging facilities to merchants and traders who have to purchase loose jute in muffasil markets”. The Indian merchants agreed that “futures market should be controlled” and that “standards of loose jute should be fixed”. The Bengal Jute Dealers’ Association, however, did not advocate any futures market for loose jute, which, they agrued, “depresses the price of jute paid to the cultivators by artificially controlling the movement of the prices generally in the interest of the manufacturing sections of industry, who have powerful influence on the management of the market”.‘* Indecd, the “manufacturing sections” were closely linked with the merchants. Minimum Price Let us take a different sort of look round Bengal villages. In rural Bengal millions of poor, illiterate and unorganized peasants grew jute on tiny holdings and were at the mercy of the traders and moneylenders. As prices of paddy and jute collapsed during the. depression, the peasant masses were faced.with a bleak future. By 1936 Europe had started rearming as fast as possible, and ‘an important item of defence equipment was sandbags. For jute industry a period of prosperity was in the offing. But the péas- ants, who had passed through the depression, were not likely to increase acteage under jute if the prices were unremunerative. At last the government thought it necessary to examine the question of fixation of a minimum price for jute. In fact, the Bengal 46, Ibid, 47. Ibid.64 Agrarian Relations in India Jute Enquiry Committee of 1938 paid a great deal of attention to this question. Woe will briefly refer to the marketing of jute and its impact on the jute growers. The majority of the jute growers consisted of small peasants who sold their produce to the middlemen. The beparis or fariahs went to the growers’ house and purchased jute; sometimes the peasants sold their jute in the nearest hat. Only “big cultivators sell their jute to the nearest arats”:4® The position of the big cultivators was different from that of the small peasants: the big cultivators could hold on while the small peasants sold crop as soon as it was ready. The small peasants often paid dhalta or an allowance in weight (generally one seer per maund) charged by the buyers. The Marwari balers purchased jate from the Calcutta marts at Cossipore Road, Hatkhola, Ful- bagan, Ultadanga, Shyambazar and Baghbazar; Cossipore Road with railway godowns was the most prominent market. Grading of jute was done by the balers, who divided the jute into three grades—first class, second class and rejection. There was no standardization of grades. The mills purchased from the balers and exported pucca bales to foreign countries.*? The peasant sold his crop at harvest time when the price was low. As the following table shows, Calcutta prices of jute were higher than harvest prices. Table 12 PRICES OF LOUSE JUTE (1911-12 to 1940-41) years Trarvest prices Calcutta prices Rs-As -Re-As 1911-12 to 1920-21 1-4 9-12 1921-22 to 1930-31 9-7 2-6 1931-32 to 1940-41 5-1 6-12 Source : Report of the IJMA, 1949, 48. Ibid. Evidence of district mnagistrate, Bogra. 49. Ibid, Evidence of Jute Balers’ Association.Growth of Commercial Agriculture: I 63 The cost of production of jute varied from district to district and according to the circumstances of the grower. Heavier out- lays were necessary if the grower employed hired labour; production costs were lower when, jute was grown by the peasant families. While the Bengal Chamber of Commerce placed the cost of production at from Rs 2-8 to Rs 3-8 per maund, the collector of Mymansingh placed it at above Rs 4. The cost of production ‘was tabulated as follows: Rent 1-8 + Ploughing 2-0 Seeds 0-8 Weeding 8-0 Manure 1-8 Harvesting 1-0 Steeping 1-0 Extraction 4-0 Dying 0-8 20-0 Estimating normal production per bigha at about 5 maunds, the cost of production per maund came to above Rs 4.5° Most of the officials recommended the fixation of minimum price at Rs 7 per maund. The Bengal Chamber stubbomly opposed fixation of a minimum price “either by means of legislation or by agreement, having regard to the numerous competitive fibres and products which are seeking to oust its prominance as the world’s chief packing material”.5* The Indian Chamber of Commerce noted that the question was “very complicated” as jute and gun- nies. were export commodities. The Marwari Chamber of Com- merce considered the fixation of a minimum price as “advisable”, but ‘added that it would be difficult to maintain it, as jute and jute goods were commodities for export. The Bengal National Chamber of Commerce welcomed the fixation of a minimum66 Agrarian Relations in India price, but warned that that it would “involve heavy financial com- mitments on the part of the government”. The Jute Balers’ Association also took an equivocal position’? Apparently, the Bengal Chamber and Indian merchants thought it wise to unite against the jute growers. * In a paper read at Dacca Rotary Club, H. L. Dey, an eminent economist, argued that the fixation of a minimum price for jute fwas desirable but not practicable. If the price had to be raised above the market price, jute cultivation had to be restricted, but this could be done only when the aggregate demand of jute could be ascertained in a particular year. The fixation of a minimum price would involve the appointment of a large army of inspectors and the organisation of cooperative jute societies that would buy jute from the “million scattered and small-scale cultivators”. If there was a bumper crop, the government would have to buy the excess output; the Bengal government could hardly undertake the “heavy financial risks”. There was the problem of storing jute in times of low prices or slack demand. Dey pleaded for the organisation of cooperative sale societies, introduction of diversified farming and reduction of the burden of debts and provision for cheap credit; the object should be to improve the bargaining position of the jute grower.°* Dey did not examine whether cooperative sale societies could ‘be run efficiently. As the director of agriculture stated, the cooperative sale societies for jute “have not been a success in the past”, and added that “no economic profit accrues to the grower” unless the market remained high.* Dey was perfectly right in recommending provision for cheap credit. Indeed, this was of crucial importance. As we shall see, the small peasants were sunk in debts and had often to rely on dadan or advances. Some officials urged the organisation of primary cooperative societies of jute growers that would supply improved seed to the peasants on credit, pay them some cash money on delivery of jute and sell jute “at an advantage according to the direction of 52, Ibid. 53. Ibid. Paper read at Rotary Club, acon, 27 Fane 1938, “4. Ibid.Growth of Commercial Agriculture: I 67 the Central Board”; the finance could be raised by issue of deben- tures; and the cooperative societies could get money on hypothecation of jute from the Provincial Cooperative Bank or Reserve Bank.°5 While recognizing that restriction of jute cultivation would be unwise since “stocks of the fibre have been reduced to the minimum”, the Jute Enquiry Committee recommended that minimum prices of raw jute “should be fixed at Rs 7, Rs 8 and Rs 9 per maund for bottom, middle and top grades respective- ly”.55 A peasant, having “minimum economic holding and growing jute in all his lands”, should be assured of a minimum Price “to meet the bare costs of maintaining himself, his wife and at least two children for a year”.57 This recommendation, ‘which came in the wake of rising prices, was of crucial importance; jute growers were at the mercy of the traders and would hardly extend jute cultivation without the prospect of remune- Tative prices. Production Conditions The production of jute required a high labour input per acre. At least six labourers were employed for weeding a bigha of land. The crop was cut before ripening and retted for about three weeks in some pool, tank or stream before the fibre could ‘be removed by washing and beating. Machinery was hardly used for the extraction of the fibre. The fibre was dried in the sun and made up into hanks. Jute was grown from March to May and harvested from July to September.5* All catagories of peasants undertook the production of this cash crop, although $5. Ibid. Evidence of Maulavi Anwar Hossain, assistant registrar of cooperative societies, Rajshahi-Malda division. 56. Report of Bengal Jute Enquiry Committee (1938), Vol I, 1940, p74. 57, Ibid, The committee noted that jute was Bengel’s “monopoly money crop", whose prices “should be controlled by the state, if the best value for the crop is seriously desired to be assured to the jute-growers.” 58. Cotton, op cit, p 111; also Murshidabad District Gazetteer (1914),68 Agrarian Relations in India small peasants constituted the majority. What needs to be mentioned is that jute growers also included “big cultivators, mahajans and jotedars”. It should be noted that “big cultivators” did not sell jute at harvest prices and improved their position with the extension of jute cultivation. As we shall see,. they were often moneylenders and grabbed a portion of the. peasants’ produce through the system of dadan or advances. Al- though jotedars surely benefited from jute cultivation, it is difficult to say whether barga was a pervasive system in the major jute-growing districts.» Barga cultivation never occupied a large area in Dacca, Noakhali, Faridpur, Nadia, Murshidabad and Rajshahi. It is also a fact that the bargadar would have a tendency to produce food crops requiring less inputs per acre; he could subsist by producing foodcrops. It is possible that jotedars and rich peasants employed hired labour in jute cultivation, There is little evidence to show that sharecropping was 2 pervasive system in the jute-growing areas.° The small peasants were compelled to raise loans to provide circulating capital on onerous terms of repayment. This was why the system of advances spread with the extension of jute cultivation. The small peasants took advances from landowners. and moneylenders on hypothecation of a portion of their produce; the landowners and moneylenders could thus grab a por-- tion of the produce of the peasants without bearing the expenses of cultivation. Let us see how exactly dadan affected the 59, Bharadwaj writes: “Most tenants producing jute are under the share-cropping system” in West Bengal. See K. Bharadwaj, Productio® Conditions in Indian Agriculture, 1974, p 59. This seems: to be a sweeping statement. In the postindependence period jute cultivation has extended to Murshidabad and Nadia, where share~ cropping is not a pervasive system. . 60, There is hardly much evidence on jute cultivation under barga system in the official reports. It is, however, a fact that barga cultivation occupied a lerge area in North Bengal; jute ecreage increased from about 22,000 acres in 1901-02 to about 40,000 acres in 1911-12, and jute was grown ryots. O’Malley, Mourshidabad, 1914. 7 .Growth of Commercial Agriculture: I 69 peasants. A copy of a contract form of dadan is reproduced as follows:*1 “...I have taken from the gentleman Rs 24 as advance dadan, and I agree to deliver at his Baruipur residence in 1279 12 maunds of well dried jute at Rs 2 per maund. If I fail to deliver jute...I shall pay the price of 12 maunds of jute with interest at the prevailing market rate. Signed, Kartik, 1279.” The jute grower took advances in Kartik (October) when he ‘was in pressing need of money. Apparently, advances were interest-free; the peasant would have to repay his loan with interest if he failed to deliver 12 maunds of jute at the residence of his creditor. The peasants of 24-Parganas took advances from fariahs before the cultivation of jute; advances ranged from Rs 2 to Rs 30 in 1873. Jarip Halder of Hooghly reported: “I have known jute cultivation all my life. It has increased greatly during the last 20 years... I take no advances for growing jute, ‘but sometimes I borrow from the mahajans, who at times take ‘the jute grown in liquidation of the debt at a somewhat less than ‘the current price.”*? It seems that this was the general prac- ‘tice: the moneylender got a portion of the peasant’s produce at less than the current market price. We get the same picture from the enquiry of 1938. The assistant registrar of cooperative societies of Rajshahi, Malda division, reported in 1938: “An advance of, say, Rs 5 per bigha is received from the beparis, dalals or balers on condition of pledging of the crop of a bigha of land (which is about 5 maunds). They are bound to receive lower price because the advances are made to them without interest,""3 It does not seem that the system had become pervasive in all the districts or that all categories of peasants took advances. The subdivisional officer of Sirajganj, Pabna, reported in 1933: “All ‘G1. H.C, Kar, Report on the Cultivation of and Trade in Jute in Bengal (1873); the Bengali version has been reproduced in Banerjee, op cit, p 207. 62. Tid. Also, Banerjee, op cit, pp 88-90. 63. Report of Jute Enquiry Committee (1938), Vol 2.70 Agrarian Relations in India the cultivators do not pledge their crop before harvest, some at least do so to the Marwaris and bepari merchants. Money is advanced (dadan) on condition that jute would be delivered at the godown at so much per maund and a stipulated quantity of it is also entered into the bond.”** In Rangpur the peasants “in many cases pledge or sell their crops before they are harvested”. In Barasat, a major jute-growing area of 24-Parganas, the pro- ducers “have practically to hypothecate the produce”. In Jal- paiguri the peasants took advances on condition that a certain quantity of jute would be delivered to the traders.°* In their evidence before the Jute Enquiry Committee of 1938, the Bengal Chamber and the Indian Merchants’ Chamber stated that the system “is becoming less common, especially since the passing of the Agricultural Debtors Act”.°t But this seems to be on the side of understatement; in many districts the system continued as before, In Dacca the peasants hypothecated their crop to middlemen and “to those holding the superior interest in their land”.*® In Murshidabad the peasants pledged their crops “to some extent”. In Bogra peasants pledged about 2 per cent of their produce to moneylenders and aratdars. In Faridpur peasants pledged “to a very limited extent to mahajans and jute dealers”. The director of agriculture stated that the system of hypothecation continued “to a certain extent” in the Bengal districts. In Khulna the peasants pledged their produce “to some extent to mahajans”.°° The officials reported that the system of hypothecation had not spread to Mymensingh and Noakhali disticts."° When we come to yield per acre, the importance of technological changes becomes evident. As the following table shows, yield per acre remained low over the years. The normal yield per acre varied from district to district; the most important jute~ 64. Report of Jute Enquiry Committee (1933), Vol 2, 1934. 65, Ibid. Evidence of K. K, Hazra. 66, Ibid. Evidence of Maulavi Tamizuddin Ahmed. 67. Report of Jute Enquiry Committee (1938), Vol 2, Evidence of Bengal Chamber and Indian Merchants Chamber, 68, Ibid. 69, Ibid, 70, Ibid.Growth of Commercial Agriculture: I nn growing areas were concentrated in Dacca, Mymensingh, Farid- pur, Rangpur and Tippera, which accounted for 65.6 per cent of the provincial acreage in 1937-38. According to the report of the director of agriculture, the normal yield per acre in 1938 was 3.7 bales in Dacca and Chittagong divisions, 3.5 bales in Rajshahi division and 3.2 bales in Presidency and Burdwan divisions.”? It appears that yield per acre declined from 1933 on- Table 13 TREND OF PRODUCTION OF JUTE (1927-28 To 1937-38) year yield per acre (bales) 1927-28 3.7 1928-29 3.6 1929-30 3.6 1930-31 3.3 1931-32 3.6 1932-33 3.1 1933-34 7 3.2 1934-35 3.1 1935-36 . 3.0 1936-37 3.2 1937-38 3.0 Source : Repont of Central Jute Committee, (1940). It does not seem that the government took positive measures to bring about improvements in jute cultivation. When Finlow was appointed fibre expert in 1904, some experiments on improved seed were undertaken and a variety called ‘kakya bombai yielded Bood results"? We do not know whether peasants used this seed. ‘The Jute Enquiry Committee of 1938 recommended the use of improved seed, interchange of seeds, careful manuring and suita- ble rotation. As the director of agriculture pointed out, the produ- ‘71. Report of Central Jute Committee (1940), -p 14, 72. Report of Jute Enquiry Committee (1938). -Evidence of Ben- gal Chamber of Commerce. 73. N. C. Choudhuri, Jute in Bengal, 1908,"72 Agrarian Relations in India cers were too poor to use improved seed or to apply large amounts of manure other than farmyard manure.” It is sur- Prising that the Jute Committee: hardly paid much attention to H. L. Dey’s suggestion of providing cheap credit to the small peasants who had to rely on traders and moneylenders for loans. Nevertheless, jute production increased in the 1930s while acreage fluctuated. Table 14 average acres (000) bales of 400 lbs (000) 1932-33 to 1936-37 2,479 8,077 1937-38 2,888 8,680 1938-39 3,164 6,844 1939-40 3,118 9,646 Source : Report of Central Jute Committee (1940). It would be fatuous to think that jute cultivation had a family likeness with indigo cultivation, True, the practice of pledging crops on the part of small peasants was quite common in many Bengal districts, but they hypothecated a portion of their produce. The peasants showed a tendency to grow jute and hardly responded to the campaign of restriction of jute cultivation that was launched by the government in the 1930s. Surely, the rich peasants who hardly sold jute at harvest prices benefited from commercial agriculture. In fact, the rise of the rich peasant as @ powerful element in rural Bengal was associated with the extension of commercial agriculture. By 1942-43 about 3.3 million acres were under jute; after partition there was a rapid expansion of jute acreage in West Bengal. The jute market was dominated by the IJMA and Indian traders that included Marwaris and also Muslims, notably Adamjee Hajee Dawood and M. A. Ispahani representing Muslim Cham- ber of Commerce, and their main object was to keep down jute eport of Jute Enquiry Committee (1938). Evidence of director of agriculture. The Deputy Chairman, Bogra Cooperative Central Bank drew attention to “subplotting of lands” and frag- mentation of holdings.Growth of Commercial Agriculture: I 713 ‘Prices.”* Significantly, the Bengal Chamber and Indian merchants opposed the fixation of a minimum price for jute. While «millowners and merchants had a common interest to keep down prices, “big cultivators, jotedars and mahajans”, whom we have met earlier, were keen to get remunerative prices. There is little evidence to show that these categories showed much interest in Taising yield per acre. So long as the system of dadan continued, they could get a portion of the peasants’ produce without bearing the expenses of cultivation.’* Over the years the merchants made a fortune in jute trade. It “seems that the very success of merchant and moneylending capital in the centres of jute trade, instead of aiding, retarded invest- “ment in agricultural production. In the story of commercial agriculture the focus should be not only on tenurial conditions but :also on the role of merchant and moneylending capital. The behaviour pattern of merchants and moneylenders helped to per ‘petuate the old mode of production in Bengal. 75. The British Indian Association pointed out that the jute mills ‘hardly replaced “worn-out machinery”, obtained “about 4 times their normal earnings according to the prewar standard in the catastrophic depression period”, and tried to make “unusual profits”, with “serious far-reaching consequences on jute trade”. Evidently ‘the interests of IMA and Indian traders were incompatible; yet ‘Indian traders remained tied to the IMA until the coming of ‘independence. 76. Rajat end Ratna Ray write: “the political influence and ‘€conomic control of the dominant village groups, based on usury and crop sharing, depended on a virtually unchanging mode of production”; the weakness of the jute market derived from “the culti- ~vator’s lack of holding power and organization as against the re- ™markable holding power and strong combination of the buyers of jute”. See the ‘Dynamics of Continuity in Rural Bengal Under the ‘British Imperium’, in Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol 10, No 2, 1973, Mukherji tells us that the largest share of “the gain trom Jute trade was going to the jute manufacturers” represen- ‘ted by the exporting managing agency houses; and these houses were based on mercantile groups “operating along the rural-urban continuum”. Mukherji, ‘Imperialism In Action. through a Mercantilist Function’, in Essays In Honour of Prof S.C, Sarkar, 1976,CHAPTER 4 Growth of Commercial Agriculture : Il When we examine the extension of commercial agriculture the importance of foreign trade becomes evident. Cotton became a commercial crop under the stimulus of foreign trade. Europe’s need of cotton was met mostly from America and India. Since its very formation the Bombay Chamber of Commerce showed. a keen interest in extending the acreage under cotton.’ It was- in the 1850s that there was some shift of British capital to Indian: railways. With the extension of railway building, cotton fronr. Nagpur, Berar, Gujarat and southern Maratha country could be brought to Colaba, the centre of cotton trade. In Bengal, the IJMA. dominated jute trade. In Bombay, although British firms. held a dominant position in foreign trade, Indian merchant capital was advancing throughout the nineteenth century. The Guja- rati and Marwari traders operated in the hinterland, purchasing cotton for the British firms; they also exported cotton through foreign houses. The Parsis embarked upon foreign trade and set up merchant houses in China and England? Much of the capital made in trade was reinvested in cotton mills. With the expansion of Indian financed cotton textile industry, cotton cultivation received a great stimulus and spread to many parts of the country, notably Bombay, Sind, Central Provinces, Madras, Punjab, United Provinces. Although cotton had an expanding home market, it had also a large export market. In the 1920s the exports of cotton represented about 41 per cent of the total value of raw materials exported from India.* 1, Report of the Bombay Chamber of Commerce (1836+37), Most of the British firms exported cotton from Bombay. 2. Sen, The House of Tate (1839-1939), pp 7-10. 3. Cotton, op cit, p 122,Growth of Commercial Agriculture: 1 - 15 The table on cotton exports from Bombay indicates the growing volume of cotton trade before the coming of the railway age. Cotton prices fluctuated, and a contemporary writer tells us that this was due to “the state of money market in Great Britain and America and the banking operations of the two countries”. While the price of Indian cotton was 1.5 d. a pound (reflecting low costs of production), it could be sold at Liverpool for 3.5 d, What needs to be emphasized is that the peasant had become linked with the world market; he was no longer isolated from the rest of the world. Table 15 COTTON EXPORTS (1840 To 1845) year to Britain to China average value per tb bi) tb in pence 1840-41 81,581,688 33,711,049 3.49 1841-42 104,795,091 47,409,464 3.09 1842-43 69,839,914 16,444,744 2.95 1843-44 91,781,828 77,551,410 2.83 1844-45 62,296,954 68,812,814 2.62 Source: Bombay Cotton Reports, Tracts, Vol 366. From 1850 onwards cotton replaced opium as the chief article of export. The average value of cotton exports from Bombay between 1853-54 and 1857-58 was more than Rs 3 crore." There was an unprecedented boom in cotton trade during the Ameri- can Civil War (1861-65). Cotton prices rose from 8 d. to 15d. per Ib at Liverpool in 1863. The area under cotton increased’ from 1,002,196 acres in 1860-61 to 2,171,888 acres in 1864-65.° The crash came in 1866, which severely hit Bombay. What is temarkable is that Bombay recovered within a few years from such a great disaster. Indian cotton found a new market in Japan. In the 18803 Indian cotton began to displace Japanese 4. J. Forbes Royle, Review of the Measures Adopted for the Improved Culture of Cotton, 1857. 5. Bombay Commercial Reports, 1853-58, 6. Report of Bombay Chamber of Commerce, 1860-61, 1864-65.6 Agrarian Relations in India -cotton whose production steadily decreased.? Bombay could escape from the great crash by exporting more cotton to Europe and Japan, and also by building the ‘cotton mill industry. The Suez Canal was opened in 1869, and the Bombay Port Trust ‘was created in 1873. By 1877, the Bombay Presidency had 51° cotton mills.§ It would be fatuous to think that the rise in cotton prices during the American Civil War benefited all categories of peasants. The small peasants received advances from the wakarias -or sowcars and had to deliver their produce “at the lowest possible price”. The Bombay Chamber of Commerce reported in 1841 that the wakarias and village Banias made advances to the ryots “to enable them to sow their cotton and to pay their assessment, purchasing the produce always frequently before it is ripened, often before it is ever sown”.1° J. Forbes Royle wrote in 1857 that the ryot was held in “helpless bondage by the village moneylender or the cotton middleman, and his cotton was taken only at the lowest possible price”.!! Prices often fluctuated, and “irregularity of price was a great permanent cause of the comparatively small supplies of Indian cotton”.1? The -overriding consideration of the ryots was to grow food crops; cotton, a delicate plant, frequently failed, and the peasants showed a tendency to grow sugarcane instead of staking their all on ‘cotton. Over the years per acre yield remained small: 60 to 80 Ibs 7. Allen, A Short Economic History of Modern Japan, 1972, p 73. ‘In the 1890s Indian cotton drove away Chinese cotton from Jay ‘market. . 8. Cotton, op cit, p 135. 9. Peter Harnetty, ‘Cotton Exports and Indian Agriculture (1861- 70)’, The Economic History Review, August 1871. Hranetty’s con- ‘tention is that rise in cotton prices benefited the peasants. 10, Letter of Bombay Chamber (21 January 1841), cited in Report of Bombay Chamber of Commerce (1841). 11. Forbes Royle, op cit. Occasional high prices at the markets “were “appropriated by the middleman ‘or the moneylender”. 12, Ibid.

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