Ruin of Old Zamindars and Rise of New Landlordism
The first few decades of British rule witnessed the ruin of most of the old zamindars in Bengal because of Warren Hastings’ policy of auctioning the rights of revenue collection to the highest bidders. The Permanent Settlement of 1793 also had a similar effect in the beginning. The heaviness of land revenue (the Government claimed ten-elevenths of the rental) and the rigid law of collection, under which the zamindari estates were ruthlessly sold in case of delay in payment of revenue, worked havoc for the first few years. By 1815, nearly half of the landed property of Bengal had been transferred from the old zamindars, who resided in the villages and showed some consideration to their tenants, to merchants and other moneyed classes, who usually lived in towns and were quite ruthless in collecting revenue from the peasants.
In the Ryotwari areas too the system of landlord-tenant relations spread gradually. As we have seen above, more and more land passed into the hands of money-lenders, merchants, and rich peasants who usually got the land cultivated by tenants.
A remarkable feature of the spread of landlordism was the growth of sub infeudation or intermediaries. The zamindars found it convenient to sublet their right to collect rent to other persons on profitable terms. But as rents increased, subleasers of land in their turn sublet their rights in land. Thus by a chain of rent-receiving intermediaries between the actual cultivator and the government sprang up, pushing the peasants to near slavery.
An extremely harmful consequence of the rise and growth of zamindars and landlords was the political role they played during India’s struggle for independence. Along with the princes of protected states they became the chief political supporters of the foreign rulers and opposed the rising national movement.
Stagnation and Deterioration of Agriculture
As a result of overcrowding of agriculture, excessive land revenue demand, increasing indebtedness, and the growing impoverishment of the cultivators, Indian agriculture began to stagnate and even deteriorate resulting in extremely low yields per acre.
Overcrowding of agriculture and increase in subinfeudation led to subdivision and fragmentation of land into small holdings, which were unviable for cultivation. The extreme poverty of the overwhelming majority of peasants left them without any resources with which to improve agriculture by using better cattle and seeds, more manure and fertilizers, and improved techniques of production. Nor did the cultivator, rack-rented by both the Government and the landlord, have any incentive to do so.
In England and other European countries the rich landlords often invested capital in land to increase its productivity with a view to share in the increased income. But in India the absentee landlords, both old and new, performed no useful function. They were mere rent-receivers who had often no roots in land and who took no personal interest in it beyond collecting rent.
The Government could have helped in improving and modernising agriculture but the Government – refused to recognise any such responsibility. At a time when agriculture all over the world was being modernised, Indian agriculture was technologically stagnating. The úse of inorganic fertilizers was virtually unknown. In 1922-23, only 1.9 per cent of all cropped land was under improved seeds. Furthermore, agricultural education was completely neglected with only six agriculture colleges in 1939. The peasants could not make improvements as there was hardly any spread of primary education or even literacy in the rural areas.