Survey of British Policies in India

Survey of British Policies in India

Contrary to their pre-1857 intentions of trying to modernise India on progressive lines, now the administration adopted blatantly reactionary policies on the pretext that Indians were not fit for self-governance and needed British presence in their lives.

Determined to avoid a united mass action challenging their authority, the British rulers in India decided to practice a naked policy of divide and rule, by putting princes against states’ people, region against region, province against province, caste against caste, and Hindus against Muslims.

After an immediate spell of repression against Muslims, following the 1857 revolt, the authorities decided, after 1870, to use the middle and upper educated classes among Muslims against the rising tide of nationalism, using conflicts over scarce resources in education, administrative jobs, and later political spoils (which were inherent in the very logic of colonial underdevelopment) as a tool to create a split along religious lines among educated Indians.

The emerging middle class nationalist leadership was analysing the exploitative, colonial character of British rule and demanding Indian participation in administration. At a time when the nationalist movement was born (Indian National Congress was founded in 1885), the British interpreted the moves as a challenge to their authority and adopted a hostile attitude to such leadership. In fact, from then onwards, they opposed all those who stood for modern education. Views

All experience teaches us that where a dominant race rules another, the mildest form of government is despotism. Charles Wood (the Secretary of State for India)

Systems of nomination, representation and election were all means of enlisting Indians to work for imperial ends. Anil Seal

In their pursuit of reactionary policies and hope to expand their social base, the British looked for alliances with the most reactionary of social groups—the princes, zamindars, etc. The British intended to use them as a counterweight against nationalist-minded intelligentsia. Now, the zamindars and landlords were hailed as the ‘natural’ and ‘traditional’ leaders of people. Lands of most of the Awadh taluqdars confiscated prior to 1857 were restored to them.

The interests and privileges of zamindars and landlords were protected in opposition to those of the peasants; the former in turn saw the British as guarantors of their very existence and became their firm supporters.

Having decided to side with the reactionary elements of Indian society, the British withdrew support to social reforms, which they felt had aroused the wrath of orthodox sections against them. Also, by encouraging caste and communal consciousness, the British helped the reactionary forces.

A disproportionately large expenditure on army and civil administration and the cost of wars left little to be spent on social services like education, health, sanitation, physical infrastructure, etc., a legacy which still haunts this country. And whatever facilities were established catered to the elite sections and urban areas.

As in the early stages of industrial revolution in Europe, the working conditions in factories and plantations in the 19thcentury India were miserable. Working hours were long— for women and children as well as for men—and wages were low. In overcrowded, poorly ventilated and poorly lighted working places, the safety measures were practically nonexistent. Ironically, the first-ever demand for regulation of the condition of workers in factories in India came from the Lancashire textile capitalist lobby.

Apprehending the emergence of a competitive rival in the Indian textile industry under conditions of cheap and unregulated labour, they demanded the appointment of a commission for investigation into factory conditions. The first commission was appointed in 1875, although the first Factory Act was not passed before 1881. The Indian Factory Act, 1881 dealt primarily with the problem of child labour (between 7 and 12 years of age). Its significant provisions were:

employment of children under 7 years of age prohibited; working hours restricted to 9 hours per day for children; children to get four holidays in a month; and hazardous machinery to be properly fenced off. The Indian Factory Act, 1891

increased the minimum age (from 7 to 9 years) and the maximum (from 12 to 14 years) for children; reduced maximum working hours for children to 7 hours a day; fixed maximum working hours for women at 11 hours per day with an one-and-a- half hour interval (working hours for men were left unregulated); and provided weekly holiday for all. But these laws did not apply to British-owned tea and coffee plantations where the labour was exploited ruthlessly and treated like slaves.

The government helped these planters by passing laws such as those which made it virtually impossible for a labourer to refuse to work once a contract was entered into. A breach of contract was a criminal offence, with a planter having the right to get the defaulting labourer arrested. More labour laws were passed under nationalist pressures in the 20th Century, but the overall working conditions remained deplorable as ever. Views

I am sorry to hear of the increasing friction between the Hindus and Mohammedans in the north-west and the Punjab. One

hardly knows what to wish, for unity of ideas and action could be very dangerous politically; divergence of ideas and collision are administratively troublesome. Of the two, the latter is least risky, though it throws anxiety and responsibility upon those on the spot where the friction exists. Hamilton (Secretary of State, 1897)

The English were an imperial race, we were told, with God-given right to govern us and keep us in subjection; if we protested, we were reminded of the tiger qualities of an imperial race. Jawaharlal Nehru

The nationalists had been quick to use new advancements in press technology to educate public opinion and influence government policies through criticism and censure and later to arouse national consciousness. In 1835, Metcalfe had lifted restrictions imposed on the Indian press. But Lytton, fearing an increased influence of the nationalist press on public opinion, imposed restrictions on Indian language press through the infamous Vernacular Press Act, 1878.

This act had to be repealed under public protest in 1882. After that, the press enjoyed relative freedom for about two decades but was under repression again in the wake of swadeshi and anti-partition movements as restrictions were imposed in 1908 and 1910. (Also refer to chapter ‘Development of Press in India’.)

The notion of white superiority was maintained very carefully by the colonial rulers by systematically excluding the Indians from higher grades of services—both civil and military— from railway compartments, parks, hotels, clubs, etc., and by public display of racial arrogance through beatings, blows, and even murders (reported as accidents). As Elgin once wrote, “We could only govern by maintaining the fact that we were the dominant race—though Indians in services should be encouraged, there is a point at which we must reserve the control to ourselves, if we are to remain at all.”

Agriculture has always been the main occupation of the people in rural India. When the British obtained the Diwani rights of Bengal in 1765, the agrarian economy was the mainstay of other sectors of the economy as well. The policies of the British changed the agrarian structure as they introduced new systems of land tenures and policies of revenue administration; the main aim was to extract maximum income from land with little care about the interests of the cultivators.

The rapacity and corruption of the employees of the Company were partly responsible for one of the worst famines in Bengal in 1769-70. When Warren Hastings became the governor general, he adopted the Izaredari system, also called the farming system, to bring some order to the revenue collection.

The power to collect land revenue was given to contractors (called ‘farmers’) chosen on the basis of the highest bids, i.e., those who offered to pay the largest amount from a particular district or subdivision. (The land, in other words, was ‘farmed out’ to the highest bidders.) The power of revenue collection was for five years at a time (quinquennial settlement). The collection was made annual in 1777.

The system resulted in extortion and oppression in the collection of revenue as (i) the contractors were merely revenue farmers interested in their profit and did not care for the peasants’ welfare, and (ii) the large amounts promised by the contractors far exceeded the production capacity of the land. The policy was based on the assumption that the traditional zamindars were mere tax gatherers with no proprietary rights, so the zamindars were even discouraged from bidding.

As a result, many hereditary zamindars were ousted. Also, corruption reduced the amount of revenue actually going to the government. The country was impoverished and as agriculture diminished so did many items that the British traded in –silk and cotton, for example. The surplus the British expected from the land revenue did not materialise.

In 1776 itself, Philip Francis, a member of Hastings’ council, recommended a permanent settlement in land revenue. In the end, Lord Cornwallis was sent as governor general with instructions that the land revenue settlements with the zamindars be made permanent. Lord Cornwallis set up a committee consisting of himself, Sir John Shore, and James Grant to examine the issue. Cornwallis, himself a member of the landed aristocracy of Britain, favoured giving the right of ownership to the zamindars, who, he hoped, would improve the land as English landlords did.

Also, the number of cultivators being too large, it was seen to be simpler to collect the revenue from the smaller number of zamindars. So, every piece of land in the areas where the permanent settlement was promulgated became a part of some zamindari or other. The Permanent Settlement or Zamindari System covered around 19 per cent of the territory under British rule. Introduced in Bengal and Bihar, it was extended to Orissa, Banaras (Varanasi), and northern Madras.

Features ● The zamindars were given proprietary rights over their land. ●In 1790, a ten-year settlement of tax to be paid was made with the zamindars, and in 1793, the settlement was made permanent. ●A fixed tax on the land had to be paid by the zamindar, and the revenue was to be collected by him from the cultivators who had now become tenants (the ryots or raiyyats). ●The zamindar was allowed to keep one-tenth to oneeleventh of the revenue and give the rest to the Company government. ●The zamindar, as the owner of the land, could sell, mortgage, or transfer it; his heirs could inherit the land along with rights and liabilities.

But, under the ‘sunset clause’ introduced in 1794, if the tax due was not paid by sunset of a certain date, the zamindari would be taken over by the government and auctioned, and the rights would be transferred to the new owner.

• ● Regulations made in 1793, 1799, and 1812 empowered the zamindar to seize the tenants’

property if the rent had not been paid and, for this, he did not need the permission of any court of law. Shortcomings ● The revenue was fixed at a very high rate, leaving many of the zamindaris with very little or no margin for shortfalls in times of flood, drought, or other calamity. This resulted in the takeover and sale of many zamindaris in the years following the permanent settlement. Absentee-landlordism grew as merchants and government officials, besides other zamindars,

bought these lands. ●The high rates forced many zamindars to divide up their estates into small lots of land called patni taluq and rent them out permanently to holders (patnidar) on the promise that they would pay a fixed rent. Thus began the process of subinfeudation. ●Under the settlement, zamindars were required to issue written agreements (pattas) to each cultivator, specifying what tenant was to pay.

However, no such agreements were made; the result was that the peasants were at the mercy of the zamindars to be exploited and harassed for more rent, driving the cultivators into the clutch of moneylenders. The peasantry was reduced to serfdom. ●The zamindars did nothing to improve the land or agricultural system, concentrating only on the extraction of rent. ●From the government’s point of view, there was no way of increasing the tax, so the revenue could not increase to meet the growing expenses of the Company which was trying to expand its base through wars.

Thomas Munro and Captain Alexander Read, who were sent in 1792 to administer the recently acquired Baramahal region of Madras Presidency, devised a system of collecting directly from the villages, fixing the amount that each village had to pay. When Munro became governor of Madras Presidency in 1820, he introduced the system which came to be known as the Ryotwari System.

The most important reason for the adoption of this system, from the Company’s point of view, was that it brought in a larger revenue than any other system could have done as no intermediaries were involved and whatever was extracted from the cultivator went directly to the government. Munro reduced the tax to one-third of the gross produce and extended the ryotwari system to other areas in the presidency (excepting those already under permanent settlement).

Unfortunately, this one-third of gross produce was nearly equal to the economic rental, and the state wanted its money regardless of the actual yield of the holding and the prices prevailing in the market. This continued for nearly thirty years with the peasants getting deeply mired in poverty As the system was extended to many districts that had not been surveyed there was no clear picture of how much land a peasant cultivated, or how much it would produce.

The tax was fixed arbitrarily, often on the basis of what the ryot had paid in earlier years. This was known as a ‘putcut’ assessment. The tax was so high that very often it was beyond the ryot’s capacity to pay. But the ryots were coerced and even tortured to extract revenue. Many ryots were forced into the clutch of moneylenders. In 1855, the Madras Torture Commission Report revealed the practices of coercion, bribery, and corruption by the subordinate officials of the collectorate.

It was from 1855 that a scientific survey of land and a fresh assessment of revenue were undertaken, resulting in a decline in the actual burden of tax. Now it was decided that the revenue rate would be half of the net value of the produce of the land and the settlement would be made for thirty years. The reformed system of settlement was introduced in 1864 which led to agricultural prosperity and extension of agriculture in coming years although interrupted by two famines in 1865- 66 and 1876-78.

In the Bombay Presidency, beginning in Gujarat, the British began collecting directly from the peasants in 1813-14. After 1818, when the British conquered the Peshwa’s territory, the ryotwari system on the Madras pattern was also introduced there, under the supervision of Elphinstone, a disciple of Munro and Governor of Bombay from 1819 to 1827. On the basis of a survey carried out in 1824-28. The state demand was fixed at 55 per cent of the net produce.

However, most of the surveys were faulty, and the estimates of produce erroneous, leading to over-assessment. The harassment of the peasantry reached such levels that the cultivators deserted their fields and large tracts of land remained fallow. Around 1836, Wingate and Goldsmith improved the system. This modified assessment covered most of the Deccan by 1865. Each field was to be assessed on the basis of its soil and location.

The land revenue was somewhat reduced, and land that had become devalued acquired some saleable value. The system was extended to Berar, East Bengal, parts of Assam, and Coorg. It may be noted that the system was devised at a time when Utilitarian ideas had begun to influence policy planning in India, among which was David Ricardo’s theory of rent. Features ● Ownership and occupancy rights of land were vested in the ryot and there was no limit on the extent of land they could own.

They were free to sublet, transfer, or sell their land. ●Ryots paid the tax directly to the Company. The revenue to be paid was in the range of 45 per cent to 55 per cent based on an estimated production of the land.

• ● Revenue was not fixed, so it could be raised when production was higher.
• ● The settlement was not permanent and could be revised periodically.

●In theory the ryot were allowed to cultivate the land of their choice, but in practice they were more or less forced to cultivate land even if they did not want to do so. ●Barren land under government control was allowed to be cultivated and the revenue generated would have to be shared with the government.

• ● Land could be confiscated if the revenue was not paid.

Shortcomings ● Overassessment of revenue was a major problem. The land revenue fixed was often more than the capacity of land.

• ● The method of collection was inflexible, often involving torture to extract tax.
• ● Corruption grew as the officers could be bribed while assessing the land.

●It was possible for non-cultivating landlords to get registered as the owners of particular holdings, with the actual cultivator being reduced to becoming their tenants, servants, or even bonded labourers.

• ● The high tax and the harassment in collection devalued land value as not many wanted to buy it.

The adoption of mahalwari system in parts of Northern India began to be considered in 1819 when Holt Mackenzie, the secretary to the board of commissioners, recommended this form of

the settlement of land revenue. The recommendation was formalised by the Regulation VII of1922. The complex method of survey, high revenue demand, and harsh methods of extraction led to a breakdown of the scheme. The situation was worsened by the agricultural depression of 1828. Even as arrears began to accumulate, land remained uncultivated; and there were few buyers of land. It was in 1833, when William Bentinck was governor general, that the Regulation of1833 simplified the procedure for estimating the produce.

Merttins Bird, regarded as the Father of Land Settlements in Northern India, supervised the new scheme. It consisted of a survey of a tract of land showing field boundaries of cultivated and fallow lands. The state share was fixed at 66 per cent of the rental value and the settlement was made for 30 years. Even this rate was too high, so Lord Dalhousie issued fresh directions to the settlement officers in 1855 under which the state demand was limited to 50 per cent of the rental value.

This system came to be known as a modified zamindari system because the village headman was a link between the individual cultivator and the government; however, he did not have the rights that the zamindar had. It is to be noted that the settlement had different versions and operated with different names at different places. In the North Western Provinces, it went under the name of ‘mauzawar’; in the region of the Central Provinces its name was ‘malguzari’.

The system was a dual system in which settlement was done collectively with the whole community and also with the individual landlords. Features ● Mahal, a Hindi word denoting a house or by extension an estate, was the basis of revenue assessment in this system; in the mahalwari system, a mahal could be a village or a group of villages and was considered as the unit for assessment of tax.

• ● Revenue was determined on the basis of the produce of a mahal.

●The village community was considered the owner of the land. Individual ownership rights lay with the cultivator.

• ● Each individual farmer gave his share of the tax.
• ● The responsibility of collection of the tax and payment of that tax to the Company government

lay with the village headman (called lambardar) or a community of village leaders. ●Under Bentinck, the state’s revenue share was 66 per cent of the rental value; later this was modified to 50 per cent.

• ● The concept of average rents for different soil classes was introduced.
• ● In the mahalwari regions, the land revenue was revised periodically.

Shortcomings ● The system required the government officials to record all the rights of cultivators, zamindars, and others, and fix the tax payable on every piece of land. This was practically impossible to implement.

• ● The calculations the officials made were often quite inaccurate, often being based on

guesswork, and the collectors usually manipulated them to increase the revenue due to the government. There was scope for corruption too. ●It hardly favoured the village communities; it, in fact, ruined them by imposing exorbitant tax assessments that could not be complied with.

• ● In the face of inability of cultivators and landholders to meet the rates of taxation, large tracts of

land went to moneylenders and merchants who ousted the old cultivating proprietors or turned them into tenants. ●On the whole, the settlement system led to the impoverishment and largescale dispossession of the cultivating communities of North India, and their resentment and discontent found expression in the popular uprisings in 1857.

• ● From the Company point of view, more was spent for the collection than the revenue collected.

The Mahalwari Settlement, was introduced in about 30 per cent of the total area under British rule i.e., in major parts of the North Western Provinces, Central Provinces, and the Punjab with some variations. The Ryotwari System covered about 51 per cent of the area under British rule comprising part of the Bombay and Madras Presidencies, Assam, and certain other parts of British India. All these revenue settlements proved disastrous for farmers and Zamindars too.

As the revenue fixed by the system was too high, many zamindars defaulted on payments and their property was seized. High rates of land revenue, indebted the farmers for lifelong. Various types of revenue settlement gave rise to a new form of private ownership of land in which, the benefit of the innovation did not reach the cultivators. Instead, it led to the impoverishment of the peasantry and hence rural indebtedness.

With zamindar’s permanent right on land, the ownership of land became inequal. Land became saleable, mortgageable, and alienable to protect the government’s revenue. The village community was divided into two hostile groups: land owning class and landless peasantry. The stability and continuity of the Indian village was shaken. The village artisans became jobless and were converted into landless labourers.

Under these systems, law courts, lawyer’s fees, and formal procedures replaced the old body of customs. The British land revenue systems exposed the Indian peasantry to the exploitations of the moneylenders and the middlemen. The government demand of revenues was arbitrarily high. In such a situation, the landlords delegated the collection of revenue to middlemen who squeezed high sums from the peasants.

The new systems gave rise to absentee landlordism as the practice of subletting revenue collection rights came into being. Exorbitant revenue demands led to commercialisation of agriculture.

British Social And Cultural Policy InIndia Till1813, the British followed a policy of non-interference in the social, religious, and cultural life of the country. After 1813, measures were taken to transform Indian society and its cultural environs because of the emergence of new interests and ideas in Britain of the nineteenth century in the wake of significant changes in Europe during the 18th and the 19th centuries.

Some of these changes were: (i) Industrial Revolution which began in the 18th century and resulted in the growth of industrial capitalism. The rising industrial interests wanted to make India a big market for their goods and therefore required partial modernisation and transformation of Indian society. (ii) Intellectual Revolution which gave rise to new attitudes of mind, manners, and morals. (iii) French Revolution which with its message of liberty, equality and fraternity, unleashed the forces of democracy and nationalism.

The new trend was represented by Bacon, Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant, Adam Smith and Bentham in thought and by Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, and Charles Dickens in literature.

Some of the characteristics of the new wave of thought were: (i) Rationalism which advocated faith in reason and a scientific attitude. (ii) Humanism which advocated the love of man—the belief that every man is an end in himself and should be respected and prized as such. No man has a right to look upon another man as a mere agent of his happiness. These ideals gave rise to liberalism, socialism, and individualism. (iii) Doctrine of Progress according to which nothing is static and all societies must change with time. Man has the capacity to remodel nature and society on just and rational lines.

These new currents of thought caused conflicts among administrators and produced different schools of thought: The Conservatives advocated introduction of as few changes as possible. Indian civilisation, they felt, was different from the European one but not necessarily inferior to it. Many of these thinkers respected Indian philosophy and culture. If at all, Western ideas and practices were to be introduced gradually and cautiously.

Social stability was a must, they felt. Early representatives of this school of thought were Warren Hastings and Edmund Burke and later ones included Munro, Metcalfe, and Elphinstone. The Conservatives remained influential throughout and most of the British officials in India were generally of a conservative persuasion. The Paternalistic Imperialists became influential, especially after 1800. They were sharply critical of Indian society and culture and used to justify economic and political enslavement of India.

The Radicals went beyond the narrow criticism and imperialistic outlook of the Conservatives and the Imperialists and applied advanced humanistic and rational thought to the Indian situation. They thought that India had the capacity to improve and that they must help the country do that. They wanted to make India a part of the modern progressive world of science and humanism and therefore advocated the introduction of modern western science, philosophy, and literature. Some

of the British officials who came to India after 1820 were Radicals. They were strongly supported by Raja Rammohan Roy and other like-minded reformers. But predominantly, the ruling elements in the British Indian administration continued to be imperialistic and exploitative. They thought that the modernisation of India had to occur within broad limits imposed by the needs of an easier and more thorough exploitation of its resources.

In this respect, often the Radicals also towed a conservative line. They desired most of all the safety and perpetuation of the British rule in India; every other consideration was secondary.

There were many Indians who instigated social reform and caused legislations to be brought about so as to control and eradicate social evils imbedded in so-called tradition. Rammohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, B.M. Malabari, to name a few social reformers, worked hard to get legislation passed by the government to remove social evils. [These aspects have been discussed in detail in the chapter on Religious and Social Reform.]

The government feared that too much modernisation might generate forces hostile to their interests; thus it was thought to be appropriate to opt for partial modernisation—introducing it in some respects and blocking it in others, in other words, a ‘colonial modernisation’.

The missionaries regarded Christianity to be a superior religion and wanted to spread it in India through westernisation which, they believed, would destroy the faith of the natives in their own religion and culture. Towards this end, the Christian missionaries: — supported the Radicals whose scientific approach, they believed, would undermine the native culture and beliefs; — supported the Imperialists since law and order and the British supremacy were essential for their propaganda; and — sought business and the capitalist support holding out the hope to them that the Christian converts would be better customers of their goods.

After 1858, however, the policy of hesitant modernisation was gradually abandoned. However, the Indians proved to be apt pupils and shifted rapidly towards modernisation of their society and assertion of their culture and demanded a rule in accordance with the modern principles of liberty, equality, and justice. Now, the British came to side with the socially orthodox and conservative elements of society. They also encouraged casteism and communalism.

Relations with princely states were to be guided by a twopoint policy—using and perpetuating them as bulwark of the empire and subordinating them completely to British authority (the policy of subordinate union). To cultivate these states as a buffer against future political unrest and to reward them for their loyalty during the revolt of 1857, the policy of annexation was abandoned. The new policy was to depose or punish but not annex. Also, territorial integrity of states was guaranteed and it was

announced that their right to adopt an heir would be respected. The subordination of princely states to British authority was completed when the fiction of Indian states standing in a status of equality with the Crown as independent, sovereign states ended with the Queen adopting the title of Kaiser-i- Hind (Queen Empress of India) in 1876, to emphasise British sovereignty over entire India. It was later made clear by Lord Curzon that the princes ruled their states merely as agents of the British Crown.

With paramountcy, the British Government exercised the right to interfere in the internal affairs of states through their residents or by appointing and dismissing ministers and officials. The British were helped further in their encroachment by modern developments in communication—railways, roads, telegraph, canals, post offices, etc. The motive for interference was also provided by the rise of nationalist, democratic sentiments in these states, the suppression of which, the British realised, was essential for their survival.

As a positive side to these modern political movements, the British helped these states adopt modern administrative institutions. (Also refer to chapter on ‘Indian States under British Rule’.) View

The British and the princes needed one another; India’s need for either was highly doubtful. F.G. Hutchins

British Foreign Policy In India The pursuance of a foreign policy, guided by interest of British imperialism, often led to India’s conflicts with neighbouring countries. These conflicts arose due to various reasons. Firstly, political and administrative consolidation of the country coupled with the introduction of modern means of communication impelled the Government of India to reach out for natural, geographical frontiers for internal cohesion and defence, which sometimes resulted in border clashes.

Secondly, the British Government had as its major aims in Asia and Africa: (i) protection of the invaluable Indian empire; (ii) expansion of British commercial and economic interests; and (iii) keeping other European imperialist powers, whose colonial interests came in conflict with those of the British, at an arm’s length in Asia and Africa. These aims led to British expansion and territorial conquests outside India’s natural frontiers, and to conflicts with other imperialist European powers such as Russia and France.

While the interests served were British, the money spent and the blood shed was Indian. (A survey of British relations with various neighbours of India has been made in the chapter ‘British Expansion and Consolidation in India’).

• ● Administrative Policies

Divide and Rule Hostility to educated Indians Zamindars and landlords propped as counterweights to the nationalists Reversal of policy of support to social reforms Social services ignored

Half-hearted and inadequate labour legislations introduced Stifling of press wherever seen to be helping the nationalist upsurge Racial arrogance

• ● Revenue Policies

Hastings’ Efforts Permanent Settlement Ryotwari System Mahalwari System Overall Impact of British Revenue Policies

• ● British Social and Cultural Policies

• ● Foreign Policy

Reach out to natural geographical frontiers for internal cohesion and defence Keep other European powers at an arm’s length Promote British economic and commercial interests