Agriculture under colonial rule

Under British rule, India was mainly an agricultural country: about 85 per cent of the people lived in villages and depended on farming. Yet agriculture stagnated. Productivity (output per acre) was low and kept falling. Whatever growth there was came only from bringing more land under the plough, not from farming it better.

Why? The main reasons:

• The land revenue system. Under the zamindari system, used in the Bengal Presidency, the zamindars (landlords) collected rent from the cultivators and kept most of the profit, but did nothing to improve the land. The British fixed strict dates for paying revenue; a zamindar who missed one could lose his rights, so zamindars squeezed the cultivators hard.
• Low technology: old tools, little irrigation, almost no fertiliser.
• No investment in land improvement: terracing, flood control, drainage, and desalinising (removing salt from) the soil were neglected.
• Commercialisation: some farmers were pushed to grow cash crops (such as cotton and indigo) needed by British industry, instead of food for their families.
• Tenants and sharecroppers, who did most of the farming, had neither the money nor any reason to invest, because the gains went to others.