British Policies and Their Impact Class 8 Notes

British Policies and Their Impact Class 8 Notes

•British Economic Policies

The economic policies adopted by the British Government in India brought many changes in the land revenue system, trade, agriculture and industry. The aim of these policies was only to promote British economic interest in India. When the British Company took the charge of government in India in its own hands, it appointed its own officials to collect revenue from the peasants. It also made a new policy of collecting revenue. As a result, the village panchayats lost their authority on the village people. The revenue was also taken in terms of cash payment instead of produce. Consequently, the farmers began to produce only those crops which had a high demand in the market. The fine machine-made cloth of Manchester reached to the village market. As a result, the cottage industry was also ruined and the village self-sufficiency suffered a setback. After the Battle of Buxar in 1764, the Company got the privilege of collecting the land revenue (i.e., Diwani) in the form of hard money.

•Drain of Wealth

Early Indian nationalists like Dadabhai Naoroji, M.G. Ranade and R.C. Dutt had expected Britain to undertake capitalist industrialization in India, but were deeply disillusioned with the results of colonial agricultural and industrial policies. Consequently, they formulated a strong  

economic critique of colonialism in the late nineteenth century. Dadabhai Naoroji put forward the drain of wealth theory. Poverty in India, according to them, was the result of a steady drain of Indian wealth into Britain – a result of British colonial policy.

This drain occurred through the interest that India paid for foreign debts of the East India Company, military expenditure, guaranteed returns on foreign investment in railways and other infrastructure, importing all stationery from England, ‘home charges’ paid for the Secretary of State in Britain and salaries, pensions and training costs of military and civilian staff employed by the British state to rule India.

•The Revenue System

In order to bring stability in agriculture the British introduced various land settlements :
- Permanent Settlement : Permanent Settlement was introduced by Cornwallis in 1793. According to it, the Zamindar of an estate became its owner as well. He was required to pay a fixed amount of revenue to the government every year within a specified time. The Zamindars under this system had a much better position than the Jagirdars of the Mughal period.

•Impact of Permanent settlement

- The Permanent Settlement ensured regular income to the Company.

- It also created a new class of landlords which was loyal to the British.

- In 1799, landlords were empowered to evict the tenants and also to confiscate their property for non-payment of their dues to the landlord. This resulted in making a large section of tenants dispossessed of their land, particularly when the crops failed. The number of landless labourers, that formed a large section of the village population, increased in this way.

- In the long run, the Permanent Settlement benefitted the landlords more than the government. By increasing the area under cultivation, the landlords collection of rent went up, but the amount that they had to pay to the government remained the same.

- Ryotwari System : Ryotwari system was prevalent in most of southern India being the standard system of the Madras Presidency. The system was devised by Captain Alexander Read and Thomas Munro and introduced by the latter when he was Governor (1820-27) of Madras. Under this, revenue was collected directly from each individual cultivator by government agents. For this purpose all holdings were measured and assessed according to the crop potential and actual cultivation. The advantages of this system were the elimination of middlemen, who often oppressed villagers, and an assessment of the tax on land actually cultivated and not merely occupied.

Offsetting these advantages were :
(i) The cost of detailed measurement and of individual collection.
(ii) The government itself became a big zamindar.
(iii) The corrupt government agents started exploiting the poor peasants.

- Mahalwari System : In northern India, the system of land settlement varied according to the local practices. In western Uttar Pradesh, a settlement was made with the village communities which maintained a form of common ownership known as Bhaichara, or with Mahals which were groups of villages. Hence, it came to be known as the Mahalwari system. The lands of Punjab and Delhi were also settled on this line.

The land laws introduced by the British brought many changes in the Indian society :
- Land became a sellable property.
- The system of paying off revenue within the specified time compelled many small landholders to mortgage or to dispose off their property.

•Advantages to the Farmers

Production was linked to the market.

- Foodgrains as well as various kinds of cash crops and plantation products became important merchandise both for internal and external markets.

- Cotton cultivation in the black soil of the Deccan received a great boost because of its demand outside.

- Indian jute, tea and coffee slowly built up a profitable export trade.

But it was the British commerical houses and their Indian agents who gained most from the trade. The benefits did not reach the Indian cultivators.

•Exploitattion of Artists and weavers

At the initial stage most of the weavers were happy because they started getting good payments for their production. The French, the Dutch, the Portuguese as well as the local traders competed in the market to purchase woven clothes. But the good days lasted for only a few years. Once the East India Company established its political power, it started eliminating its competitors. To get a regular supply at low prices, the East India Company wanted to establish a monopoly right over the trade. To do this, it took a series of steps :

1. Appointing Gomasthas : The Company tried to eliminate the existing traders and brokers connected with the cloth trade, and establish a direct control over the weavers. It appointed paid servants called the gomasthas to supervise weavers, collect supplies, and examine the quality of the cloth.

2. System of Advances : To have a direct control over the weavers, the Company started the system of advances. Once an order was placed, the weavers were given loans to purchase the raw material for their production. Those who took loans had to hand over the cloth they produced to the gomasthas. They could not take it to any other trader.

They could not take it to any other trader. The system of advances proved very harmful to the weavers.

- The weavers lost any chance of bargaining.

- Most of the weavers had to lease out the land and devote all their time to weaving. Weaving, infact, same to absorb the labour of the entire family.

- Most of the weavers after losing their land became dependent on others for the food supplies.

- The new gomasthas were outsiders, with no long term social link with the villagers.

So, they acted arrogantly, marched into villages with the police, and punished weavers for delay in supply.

So, there were reports of clashes between weavers and gomasthas.

•Introduction of Modern Education

During the early years of the nineteenth century, the company’s government was indifferent to education as it was not regarded as a part of the responsibility of a commercial company. The first efforts at imparting modern education were made by Christian missionaries and individual officers of the Company. The missionaries opened schools and started printing presses. They printed many books. Though they aimed primarily at the spread of Christianity through their educational institutions, they did much pioneering work in the spread of modern education.

The first educational institutions supported by the government were the Calcutta, Madras and Benaras Sanskrit College established in 1781 and 1791 respectively. The Fort William College was started in Calcutta in 1801 and the Hindu College at Calcutta in 1817. The purpose of opening them was to train Indians so that they could help the Company’s British officials in administration.

 

•Woods Despatch

The first step by the government was taken in 1813 when it was decided to set apart a sum of ‘not less than one lakh of rupees’ for education under the Charter Act of 1813.

The next advance came in 1854 with what is known as the Wood’s Despatch. Under this Despatch :
- The government undertook to pay more attention to the spread of education.

- Local languages along with English were made the media of instruction at the school stage and English at the college stage.

- The aim of education as stated by the Despatch was the spread of Western culture.

- It would seek to foster and promote loyalty to the State among Indian students and prepare them for administrative responsibilities.

Mahatma Gandhi argued that colonial education created a sense of inferiority in the minds of Indians. It made them see Western civilisation as superior, and destroyed the pride they had in their own culture. There was poison in this education, said Mahatma Gandhi, it was sinful, it enslaved Indians, it cast an evil spell on them. Charmed by the West, appreciating everything that came from the West, Indians educated in these institutions began admiring British rule. Mahatma Gandhi wanted an education that could help Indians recover their sense of dignity and self-respect. During the national movement he urged students to leave educational institution in order to show to the British that Indians were no longer willing to be enslaved.