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and belongings being auctioned. As the revenue
was being periodically revised and raised, it
became quite difficult for the farmers to pay it.
They were, thus, forced to mortagage their lands
to the moneylenders so that their lands were not
auctioned to recover the revenue. But, borrowing
money also threw them in perpetual indebted-
ness. They had generally to sell or dispose of
their homes, ornaments, land and other belong-
ings in order to pay off this debts.
Backwardness of Agriculture
The Government’s only concern was to release
independently and were self-sufficient. All of this revenue. It was least worried about the living
went for a toss when the Britishers set feet on the conditions of the cultivators. No steps were taken
Indian subcontinent. either to improve irrigation or to bring to their
The heavy assessments held up agricultural knowledge the new technique of farming. Thus
progress and reduced the cultivation class to a the condition of peasantry became very misera-
state of poverty and resourcelessness. The high ble.
rates of taxation made accumulation of capital in Effects on Landlords
agriculture impossible and left very little incen-
The earliest land settlement of Warren Hastings
tives with the land owner to make improvements
in Bengal was made on the assumption that all
in land. The land revenue policy was opressive to
land belonged to sovereign. He started the
the peasantry. India’s trade and industry had system of auctioning the land to the highest
been ruined by the foreign conquerors and the bidders of revenue. Thus, many of the old
burden of taxation had to be borne by the poor Zamindar families were ousted and the centuries
agriculturists. old links between the hereditay Zamindars and
Effect on Peasants the government on the one hand, and cultivators
British rule had far-reaching impact on rural India on other were severed. The landlords who lived
and thus the peasants. Under the new adminis- in the villages were sympathetic with the peas-
trative measures, the old agrarian system col- ants and rarely compelled them to pay the
lapsed, new land tenures were created, new revenues in case of crop failure. It caused non-
social classes emerged and peasantry came payment of revenue by the Zamindars to the
under the brutal exploitation by Zamindars, government. And, the Zamindars were very
moneylenders, tax-collectors and parasitical harshly treated by the government and their
intermediaries. Within a few decades of the Zamindaris were sold out to pay the land reve-
British rule the Indian peasantry soon came to be nues.
oppressed and exploited not only by the foreign In this way, the condition of landlords of Madras
rulers and their agents, but also by the native and Bengal were reduced to worst and gradually
exploiters and urban-based capitalists. they also lost everything. Their Zamindaris were
The British Govenment had fixed very high rates purchased by moneylenders and absentee
of revenue. The peasants were forced to pay landlords who lived in the towns and had no
these higher rates under the threat of their land sympathy with the peasantry class.
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