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Resources » Articles/Knowledge Sharing » General »
Changes in Economic Life in India (1858 – 1947)
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1) HEAVY BURDEN ON CULTIVATORS
1(a) Impact of the British Rule on agriculture
India became an agricultural colony of industrial Britain. Britain needed India as a source of raw materials for its growing industries. However, Indian agriculture suffered.
(1) No efforts were made during the British rule or after 1858 to modernise and revolutionise agricultural technology. Indian agricultural continued to stagnate.
(ii) Hardly any modern machinery was used. The use of inorganic fertilizers was almost unknown.
(iii) The ruler areas remained illiterate and no serious efforts were made even to spread primary education.
(iv) The small size of holdings also contributed to the backwardness of agriculture. The family holdings were continually fragmented.
Beisdes, the ineffective role of intermediaries in the land revenue also led to the backwardness of economy.
1(b) Decline in the production of food grains
The decline in the food grains was the result of a shift in favour of producing commercial crops like cotton, jute and oilseeds. The government prompted their production while doing little to meet the shortage of food supply.
(i) Special measures were adopted in India to encourage cultivation of cotton to meet the needs of British textile mills. This brought temporary prosperity to a section of Indian cultivators, but production of food grain suffered.
(ii) In some parts of the country peasants were forced by the British planters to cultivate Indigo and sell it to them at prices fixed by the latter.
All this led to a decline n the production of food grains.
2) IMPOVERISHMENT OF THE PEASANTRY
Right up to the time of independence, the rural population of India was continually plagued by two chronic ailments-indebtedness and famine. This was due to the poor state of agriculture.
(I) Excessive revenue demands and the family obligations connected with marriages, births and deaths in the family drove the peasants to borrow money from monwy-lenders at exorbitant rates of interest.
(ii) The peasant was born in debt, lived in debt and died leaving the children in a state of poverty, misery and indebtedness.
(iii) Production suffered and land became unremunerative.
All this left the peasantry starved, heavily in debt and illiterate. There were peasants uprisings in Bengal and Deccan in 1870’s against these. But the government showed absolutely no interest in improving the lot of the
peasantry and lessening their burden of indebtedness.
3) FAMINES IN INDIA
3(a) Reasons for the frequent occurrence of famines in India
(i) The absolute dependence of the agriculturists on the monsoons- Even when the harvest was good, they could never store anything to live on during a drought. Hence, the failure of the monsoons in any year brought them face to face with famines.
(ii) The real reason was that the small cultivators and laborers lived absolutely hand to mouth, so failure of crops, even for a short period, due to failure of rains meant starvation for them.
Frequent occurrence of famines caused great suffering to the cultivators. But there was not famine code. In the real sense the government did not seriously bother about the famines. But the frequency of famines made the government appoint Famine Commissions in 1880. on their recommendations, the government decided in 1883 to allocate 15 million rupees every year for famine relief and insurance. Now a Famine Code was also framed to provide guidelines to the administrators. Remission of land revenue, extension of irrigation works and monetary relief to the affected people were the main items of this code. But the government never went into the root of the problem.
4) DEVELOPMENT OF IRRIGATION FACILITIES
For developing agriculture, the British government adopted some important measures to improve irrigation, facilities and to increase the productivity of land.
(I) Efforts were made to provide irrigation facilities in the form of canals, tube wells and tanks.
(ii) Departments of Agriculture were established to collect information about agriculture to execute the schemes for development.
(iii) Agricultural schools and colleges were set up in different parts of the country.
(iv) The imperial Institute of Agriculture was started at Pusa in Bihar for higher training in agriculture on modern lines, research and experimental farming. It was later shifted to Delhi.
Thus, some constructive steps were taken for the improvement of agriculture. But all this was quite insignificant when compared tot he actual needs, i.e., land reforms in a meaningful way.
5) DEVELOPMENT OF TRANSPORT
The improvement in the means of transport was made to promote British interests. But they helped in bringing parts of country closer. And it was the railways which revolutionized the Indian transport system. The first railway line was opened in 1853 between Bombay and Thane. The Effects of the railways on Indian economy and general life have been many and deep.
(i) Railways have helped the growth of Indian economy by making transport quicker, cheaper and more secure.
(ii) They have made the movement of people and goods quicker. The goods produced in the interior of the country can reach the outside market.
(iii) The railways made it possible to eliminate the danger of famines as foodgrains from other parts of the country can now be easily transported to famine affected areas.
(iv) Railways also play an essential role in developing industries by supplying raw materials and coal to places where factories are located.
(v) Railways also. helped in leveling the prices of goods as goods could be moved from surplus areas to shortage areas.
(vi) Introduction of railways also created a new section of people in society which were not dependent on land or crafts for their.
6) MODERN INDUSTRIES IN INDIA
Every country, at the early stages of the industrial development, adopts ‘protection’ measures to free itself from foreign competition. But for the better part of the British rule in India, the government did not take any steop of ‘Protection’ as it was considered against British interests. The spread of Swadeshi Movement gave a spurt to the rise of industries in India and the compulsion of Two World Wars due to stoppage of imports from other countries gave opportunities for starting modern Industries in India. Meanwhile in 1920’s a few industries some protection.
During the second half of the 19th century, a few modern industries were introduced in India. They could be broadly classified as:
(a) Plantation and,
(b) Machine Industries
6(a) Plantation Industries
(i) One of the major areas of European exploitation of Indian resources was in the Plantation Industry.
(ii) It began first with manufacture of dyes from Indigo’. But in the latter part o the century indigo started losing market due to the production of synthetic dye.
(iii) In the middle of the 19th century tea, coffeee, rubber and chinchona formed other important items of plantation industries.
(iv) The British capital monopolished these industries and the work 3rs los was miserable.
6(b) Machine Industries
(i) The machine industries had their beginning in India during the second half of the 19th century.
(ii) The most important of these were the cotton and jute industries.
(iii) Other machine industries developed were cotton, gin and presses, rice, flour and timber mills, paper and sugar mills, mica and cement industries.
(iv) In 1905, Jamshedji Tata laid the foundation of the famous Tata Iron and Steel Company at Jamshedpur. Following this, in free India, industrialization proceeded on a rapid scale.
6(c) Industries which developed in India during 1858-1947 were:
(I) Coal mining industries- 1850
(ii) Cotton gin and presses, rice, flour and timber mills developed during the middle of the 19th century.
(iii) Textile and the sugar industry in the first half of the 20th century.
(iv) Iron and steel industry in 1905.
(v) Plantation industries.
(vi) Cement industry in 1930.
6(d) Industries which were mainly in the hands of Indian industrialists were:
(I) Textile and sugar industry.
(ii) Iron and steel industry.
For this, Indian capitalists had to struggle against heavy odds and stiffresistance from the foregn interests.
7) ECONOMIC CONDITIONS OF THE PEOPLE
The condition of the people of India worsened during the British rule. They were gradually impoverished and sank into poverty.
(I) The economic policies followed in India by Britishers were determined by the needs of British economy. This led to the impoverishment of the Indians.
(ii) India’s wealth was being drained away in many ways leading to poverty in India.
(iii) Besides, under the oppressive land Revenue system Indians were forced to pay illegal dues which were collected rigidly.
(iv) Above all, the population pressure on land was high.
All this led to the poverty in India during the British Rule.
The basic feature of the economic conditions of the people during the period of British rule was their extreme poverty.
(I) Most of the people lived below poverty line.
(ii) There were wide disparities in incomes of different sections of the people.
(iii) The lot of cultivators and labourers working in fileds, factories and ports was miserable.
(iv) An unskilled labourer in big cities did not earn more than Rs. 8 a month at the beginning of the 20th century.
(v) The landlords, factory owners, traders, and the middle calss people were earning a lot more than the small cultivators and labourers. They also exploited the poorand the government did nothing to save them.
(vi) The educational and health facilities provided to the people were meagre.
(vil) The average life expectancy in India was 32 years and the per capita annual income in 1947 was Rs. 228.
To conclude we can say that India’s poverty was man-made. In a word India presented the paradox of a poor people living in a country with rich resources.
You may also read : British Policies and Administration in India after 1858
Related Resources:Read related articles: Indian Economy
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