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Lesson 10, Colonialism and Rural Society: Evidence from official Reports, Short answer type Questions, L.Ans, In the 18 century India, the life ofthe peasants and, , craftsmen were in a very, , deplorable condition. The native rulers exacted high land revenue demands from the peasants, Most of the time, they used to borrow money from money -lenders at high interest rates to, pay their land revenue. In failure to repay their debts, their lands or trades were taken from, them or in the worse case scenario; they used to sell their wives and children as concubines, slaves to their landlords and money-lenders in repayment of their dues., , and, 2.Ans:, , When Zamindars were in crisis in the eighteenth century, a group, peasants consolidated its position in the villages of Bengal. This class of rich peasants came, to be known as Jotedars. They had a control over vast areas of land. Sometimes they had even, , ofrich, , a control on many thousands acres ofland. They even controlled local trade and money, , lending.They exercised immense power over the poor cultivators of the region.They had even, become more powerful than the Zamindars. The following reasons were responsible for their, , strong position., 1.They lived in villages, so they had a lot ofinfluence on many villagers, 2.They opposed the efforts of the zamindars to increase the jama of the village., 3. They mobilized ryots to deliberately delay payments of revenue to the zamindars., 4,They controlled the local trade and money -lending., 5.They had a control over several areas of land .They even purchased land when the estate of, the Zamindars were being auctioned for failure to make payment of the revenue., 3. Ans, , The Limitation Law was passed by the British to check the accumulation of, , interests of time and the exploitation of ryots by the moneylenders. According to the, , Limitation Law, the validity of the loan bonds signed between ryots and money lenders, would be only three years. Following were the impact of Limitation law on ryots:, , I t made the life of peasants miserable. The moneylenders turned the bond upside down and, tricked ryots by forcing them to sign a new bond after every three years, wherein the unpaid, balance was entered as the principal amount. Thus, the unpaid balance piled up and the debt, mounted over time., , 2)The ryots were illiterateand weak. They were not strong enough to resist this system of, bonds. Moneylenders entered fictitious figures in bonds, acquired the peasants' harvest at lo, prices, and ultimately took over peasants' property. Thus, the new system turned out to be, , oppressive., 3) Since moneylenders refused to give loans without legal bonds, the peasants were trapped, , in a vicious circle from which it was impossible to get out. They feared every written word in, the document and thus, their life was made disastrous., , 4.Ans:Answer on Text Book, Heading: A Permanent Settlement of Bengal by Lord, Cornwallies, , 5 Ans: The zamindars manage to retain control over their zamindaris in the following, manners:

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1., , Burdwan,, manoeuvres. For example, Raja, Fictitious sale: It involved series of, mother because the company had, first transferred some of his zamindari to his, the company. Secondly,, of women would not be taken over by, , of, , decreed that property, the property, outbidding other, his agents manipulated the auctions by buying, the purchase money. As a result of, purchasers. Subsequently, they refused to pay up zamindar's, the, agents used to, it, the Estate was again resold at auction. But as, the purchase amount, the auctions were, purchase it again and again, and did not pay, the, estate was sold at a lower price back to, , repeated endlessly. Ultimately, the, zamindars, who never paid the full, , revenue, , demand. Such transactions took, , place on a, , large scale in Bengal including Burdwan., an estate at an auction, they could, 2.Attackon outsiders: Whenever outsiders purchased attacked, would be, by lathyals ( agents or, not always take possession because their agents, goondas )of the former zamindars., , 3. Sometimes, , even, , the ryots resisted the outsiders due, , to their, , close relations with the, , zamindars.The ryots considered themselves to be proja (subjects) of the, zamindars.Thus the zamindars could not be displaced .thereafter, the rules of revenue, payments, , were, , made flexible. As, , a, , result, , ofthat, the zamindar's power over the, , villages were strengthened.It was only during the Great Depression, , of 1930s that the, , jotedars consolidated their power in the countryside., 6.Ans:, , East India Company subdued the Bengal Zamindars in the following ways:, , 1)The troops of Zamindars were disbanded., 2)The customs duties were abolished., 3)The courts of the Zamindars were brought under the supervision of a, , Collector who, , was, , appointed by the East India Company., 4)The power of Zamindars to provide local justice and local police was snatched., , 5)The emergence of the collectorate as, an alternative centre of authority restricted the, jurisdiction of Zamindars, , 6)When a raja failed to pay the revenue, an official of the East India Company rushed to his, Zamindari. He had clear instructions to take charge of the District and destroy all the, , influence and authority of the raja and his officers., 7. Ans: Ryotwari system of land revenue was introduced in the late 18th century by Sir, , Thomas Munro, Governor of Madras in 1820.This was practised in the Madras and Bombay, areas, as well as Assam and Coorg provinces., I n this system, the peasants or cultivators were regarded as the owners of the land., They had ownership rights, could sell, mortgage or gift the land., , The taxes were directly collected by the government from the peasants., The rates were 50% in dryland and 60% in the wetland., 8.Ans, Paharias live in the hills ofRajmahal. The British people began to interact, with them and later Santhals began to settle down there. The response of the Paharias was, as follows:

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., , Paharias resisted the settlement of Santhals initially but had to accommodate them in, course of time., , 2. The Paharias shifted to deeper areas into the hills., 3., 4., , They were confined to more barren and rocky areas of the hills in course of time., The paharias did shifting cultivation. Now shifting cultivation was becoming more and, , settlements., , more difficult as proper and stable, 5. As forest began to be cleared, the paharis could not depend on it for livelihood. Thus,, the lifestyle and living of Paharias underwent change due to coming of outsiders., , 9. Ans:, , In the decade of 1770, the British adopted the brutal policy of extermination, , towards Paharias and, , began hunting them down and killing them., , Change in the policy: In the decade of 1780, collector of Bhagalpur, Augustus Cleveland, s, adopted the policy of pacification. This policy proposed to give annual allowance to Paharia, chiefs and they were made responsible for controlling their men. They were also expected to, , maintain order in their localities and keep discipline among their own people., However, a number of Paharias chiefs refused to take the annual allowance. Those, who accepted the allowance lost the authority within their community. They came to be seen, as stiphendiary chiefs being in the pay of the colonial government., , 10. What explains the anger ofthe Deccan ryots against the moneylenders?, During the civil war in USA, Indian merchants hoped to capture the world, market in raw cotton, but that did not happen. On the other hand, the following events took, place after the civil war:, 1Cotton production in America revived and the Indian cotton exports to British, Ans:, , steadily declined., , 2) Export merchants and sahukars in Maharashtra refused to give long-termcredit, They restricted the advances to peasants and demanded repayment of outstanding debts., 3)At the same time as the term of first revenue settlement was over, the demand for, revenue was increased from 50 to 100 per cent., As a result of above, the ryots were not in position to pay the inflated demand, because the prices were also falling. Thus, they had no option except to take a further, loan from the moneylender who also refused to loans. This enraged the ryots., The moneylenders became insensitive to their plight. They were violating the, , customary norms of the countryside. For example, general norm was that the interest, charged could not be more than the principal. They were not charging fair interest. In, , one of the cases, investigated by the Deccan Riots Commission, the moneylender, charged over 2000 as interest on a loan of 100. There were complaints of injustice of, such extractions and the violation of custom. A new law - Limitation Law - was, , passed in 1859 where validity of loan bonds was fixed for three years but the, moneylenders manipulated new systems to exploit the ryots. Under these, circumstances, the ryots' anger against the moneylenders increased., , The fifth report was a detailed report prepared by a Select Committee to, analyse the changes in the countryside in the late 18th century. It gave a detailed idea, , 11 Ans:, , about the default in the payment of evenue by the zamindars, auction of their estates, , and the rise of the jotedars. It was submitted to the British Parliament in 1813., 12.Ans: Same as Answer 10, 13.Ans, Santhal came to Bengal around 1780. Zamindars hired them to reclaim land, and expand cultivation. British invited Santhals to settle in the Jangal Mahal, when they

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failed to subdue Paharias. The Paharias refused to cut the forest, resisted touching the plough, and continued to be turbulent., On the other hand, Santhal appeared to be ideal settlers, clearing the forest and, and, ploughing the land with vigour. Santhal settlements and cultivation gradually expanded, Paharias were forced to withdraw deeper into hills and were confined to dry interior and to, , more barren and rocky upper hills. This severely affected their lives, impoverishing them in, , the long term. If paharia life was symbolised by the hoe, which they used for shifting, cultivation, the santhaTs life represented the power of the, , plough. The battle between, , the hoe, , and plough was really a long one., , During the British rule the Deccan riots began in May 1875.The Government, 14.Ans:, appointed commission to enquire into the nature and causes of the Deccan Riots .Following, are the findings of the Deccan RiotsCommission:, , 1)The poverty and the consequent indebtedness of the cultivators, 2) The serious grievances of the ryots against the money lenders for the high rate of, interest., 3) The poverty of the ryots due to Cotton boom of America leading to the decline of, cash crop trade in India., , By 1832 the Santhals had settled in Damin-i-Koh area. Their settlement, 15.Ans, expanded rapidly. Forests were cleared to accommodate them. The Company also benefitted, as it got more and more land revenue. However, the Santhals too got dissatisfied. They, rebelled against the British rule. Following are the main causes for their rebellion., , 1) Santhals were not happy with tax regime ofthe company.They thought that the, land revenue rates were high and exploitative., 2) The zamindars began to exercise greater control on the areas brought under, cultivation by Santhals., 3) Moneylenders charged them high rates of interest and took over their land when, , they were unable to pay., 4) The zamindars also had began to increase their hold over their land., , Thus they revolted against the exploitation ofthe zamindars, moneylenders, and the state, The British took step to pacify the Santhals. It created Santhal Pargana from the, districts of Bhagalpur and Birbhum.lIt was believed that the creation of new state and passing, of special laws for their protection would conciliate the Santhals., , 16 Ans, , The Fifth Report submitted to the British Parliament in 1813 was a series of, , report on the administration and the activities of the East India Company in India. It was a, , report of 1002 pages., Out of these pages, 800 pages were appendices that reproduced petitions of, , zamindars, riots, reports ofcollectors and district, statistical table ofrevenue return , notes, on the revenue return, judicial administration of Bengal and Madras written by the official., Many politically groups argued that the Bengal conquest was benefited to only, East India Company. It also contained infomation regarding company's mal-administration., This report was criticized on the ground that it exaggerated the collapse of, , traditional zamindari power and, overestimated, , over, , estimated the scale on which zamindars lost, , their land

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Extra questions- answers, , 1. What was the other name ofthe Bombay Deccan revenue system of the 1820s? Mention, any three features of it., Ans: The revenue system introduced by the British Government in the Bombay Deccan, was called as the Ryotwari Settlement. It had the following features:, I. The revenue was directly settled with the peasant or the ryot., 2. It estimated the average income from different types of soil., 3. It, also assessed the revenue-paying capacity of the ryot., 4. It fixeda proportionate amount of the revenue as the share of the state., 2. Who were the Jotedars?, Ans:The Jotedars were the rich peasants of the north Bengal. They lent money to the needy, peasants. They controlled vast areas of land. Sometimes they controlled even several, thousand acres of land., , 3. Who were the hill folk, Ans: The Paharis were known as the hill folk. The lived in the vicinity of the Rajmahal, hills. They earned their livelihood from the forest produce and also practised shifting, cultivation. Buchanan reached the Rajmahal Hills in the early 19th century. He found these, hills as impenetrable., 4.What was Damin-i-Koh? How it came into being?, Ans: Damin-i-Koh was the land of Santhals situated in the Rajmahal hills. The British, persuaded the Santhals to live in the foothills of Rajmahal by giving land to them., , By 1832, a large part ofthe land was demarcated as Damin-i-Koh and was declared as, the land of Santhals. They had to live in this region, practise plough agriculture and had to, become settled agriculturalists. There was a stipulation in the certificate of land grants that, , the minimum of 1/10 ofthe total area had to be cleared and had to be cultivated within the, first 10 years. The whole ofthis region was surveyed and mapped. This region was enclosed, by boundary pillars. In this way, this region was separated from the world of settled, agriculturists of plains and Paharias of the hills., 5.Write a brief note on the Deccan Riots Commission and its report. Or, Critically examine the Deccan Riots Commission's Report., When the revolt spread in Deccan, the Bombay Govenment did not take it, Ans:, seriously. But the Indian Government was worried by the memories of 1857 Revolt and, , therefore, it pressurised the Bombay Government to set up a commission to find out causes of, the revolt. The commission investigated in riot-affected districts took statements of ryots,, moneylenders and eyewitnesses. It also collected statistical data on revenue rates, prices and, , interest rates of different regions and even collected reports of District Collectors. On the, basis of, the collected information, the commission prepared a report and produced itto the, British Parliament, in 1878. This report is known as the Deccan Riots. Thereport which, provides the basic material to historians who wanted to study the peasant riots., 6.Explain two reasons for the failure of the Permanent Settlement of the land revenue, introduced by the British in Bengal., The reasons for the failure of the Permanent Settlement of the land revenue, Ans:, introduced by the British in Bengal are as follows:, , 1. The early revenue demands fixed by the company were very high. Under permanent, settlement, the state revenue demand was fixed in perpetuity. It meant that company was not, claiming an additional share of increased income from land with rising prices and expanding, cultivation. Therefore, the Company wanted huge revenue for high demand in order to, minimise this anticipated loss., 2. It is worth mentioning that the high demand of land revenue was fixed in 1790s. The price, of agricultural produce was depressed during this period. Consequently, it became difficult, for the ryots to pay their dues to the zamindars. Thus, the zamindar could not collect the rent, and were unable to pay their fixed amount to the company.