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guests ’, , COMMERCIALISATION OF AGRICULTURE, Under commercialisation or monetisation, various economic activities are, prought into a uniform rel, , ation under the rationalising influence of monetary, exchange. This, therefore,, , leads to the development of an economy. This is, hailed as the sign of modernisation, It is argued by orthodox economists that the, Third World countries have been benefited greatly from commercialisation of, agriculture since commercialisation brings about agricultural surpluses and,, therefore, total prosperity. But we will see that commercialisation in India and, ‘other Third World countries was a forced artificial process through a mechanism, known as non-market coercion, without bringing about genuine economic growth. In, other words, it was not a consequence of conscious response of peasants to the, market stimulus. The economic structure generated through the process of, commercialisa-tion has acted as a brake on economic development in these’, , ee, BR, Tomlinson (1998) ; The Economy of Modern India, 1860-1970, p. 21
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_, , c#l.2: IMPACTS OF BRITISH RULE ON THE INDIAN ECONOMY —e 27, a wholly unremunerative crop like indigo came from its increased demand in, gurope. This phase was characterised, Managing Agency Houses—a mulltif, created by the ex-servants of the EIC, capital for the expansion of indigo cult, , Though no neat Sequencing of these phases of commercialisation is, discernible, the dependent and subsistence commercialisation phases ‘have been, , most pervasive in moulding the productive activities of the working peasantry of, eastern India’., , by the intrusion of foreign capital., aceted institutions of trade and finance, , and merchants—provided the necessary, ivation., , Causes, , The transition of India’s agriculture t, result of a series of developments which, century. These are :, , © commercial propositions was the, took place in the second half of the 19th, , (i) The introduction of money-economy : Firstly,, alisation snow-balled with the introduction of money, trade and money relations existed in the count, reign. As soon as the EIC desperately began to, insisted land tax to be paid in cash. The Britis, in the system of land revenue. Gradually,, revenue in kind went out of fashion. This, of his produce. This was, however, not the, appeared in rural India who took advanta, peasantry. The string of usurious ca, , the process of commerciinto the village. However,, tyside even during the Mughal, acquire more and more territories it, h rule introduced cash assessments, the former system of payment of land, compelled the cultivator to sell a part, whole problem. A new merchant class, ge of the abysmal indebtedness of the, , pital was tagged by this commercial class., Thus, the impetus towards the tendency of commercialisation of agriculture came, , from the interest of the moneylenders who ultimately became an indispensable, tool of colonial exploitation. To meet their monetary liabilities farmers realised, the importance of commercial crops rather than food crops. For instance, in Berar, (Vidarbha) region, the area under cotton increased from 21. 1 p.c. in 1860-61 to, 35.8 p.c. in 1900-01. This then suggests that peasants must have shifted from, foodgrain production to cotton production.? Thus, the compelling circumstances for, , the growth in demand for commercial crops and even food crops was not, determined by market incentives., , (ii) Ease of means of communication : Secondly, the effect of monetisation, could not go far until internal means of transport were improved. The railway, lines were built by the British rulers. The agricultural crops reached the parts of, the then Madras, Calcutta, Bombay or Karachi, with the expansion of the railway lines. “The commercialisation of agriculture, had Progressed most in those tracts where the crops were largely grown for export, Out of the country... Through the operations of exporters an efficient market, Organisation for moving the crops quickly to the ports had come into existence.”3, , from self-sufficient villages, , cs, 1 Sugata Bose (1999) ; Peasant Labour and Colonial Capital, p. 44, , Irfan Habib (2006) ; Indian Economy 1858-1914, p. 59;, 3: D.R. Gadgil (1991) ; The Industrial Evolution of India in Recent Times, p.159
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INDIAN ECONOMIC HISTORY, , 28, The basic motive behind the tremendous spurt in the construction of the railway, British industrialists in England. The, , the interests of the, lution there. The raw material of, , lines was to subserve, ht industrial revo, , colonial commerce broug, ‘ :, British cotton industry W as almost entirely colonial, if not purely Indian. With, the opening of the 1869, transhipment costs of agricultural crops per, cubic ton were reduced by roughly 30 p.c- Indian products, as a result, were sold at, cheaper rates in Europe. Thus market—mainly for cotton—widened. As transport, costs declined with the expansion of the means of transport, other agricultural, and wheat, were added in the export list. Anyway, the ease of, ther with the introduction of money-economy brought about, , rcialisation of Indian agriculture., , Thirdly, another event that sparked off the process, agriculture was the American Civil War (1861-65). As, | War, it transferred the British demand for, rts of raw cotton, other raw, nced a jump in exports. With, , + Suez Canal in, , crops, like rice, communications toge, the movement towards comme, , (iii) The US Civil War:, of commercialisation in, the U.S.A. plunged into the Civi, raw cotton from America lo India. Besides, expo, , materials like jute, oilseeds, and foodgrains experie, the conclusion of the Civil War, exports of raw cotton fell off. But this. was, , largely compensated by a great rise in domestic demand. The spurt in domestic, demand for cotton was accentuated by a slump in cotton prices toa reasonable, level and the cotton mill industry started spreading in and around cotton growing, regions. The tendency towards commercialisation started gathering its, , momentum. ., It is to be remembered here that the precise pattern of commercialisation was, , not uniform for all types of agricultural crops. Rather, it varied from crop to crop., It is the market for raw cotton alone which witnessed dramatic turns and twists., But so far as other agricultural crops were concerned, we see the interplay of the, same forces underlying the tendency towards commercialisation of agriculture., Between 1860 and 1890, markets for cotton in Bombay Presidency, jute in Bengal,, sugarcane in the United Provinces, groundnut in Madras expanded. These crops, are called cash crops since these crops are produced for market sales. However,, the pattern of commercialisation had never been confined to cash crops alone., Food crops also experienced marketable surplus in the process since one pulled the, other. Even then, market for cash crops was on top. Between 1891 and 1946, the, decadal growth rate of production of cash crops was roughly 13 p.c. as against, , 1 p.c. growth rate of food crops., , , , in the market provided boost to both, yvestment in areas like production, he Norther region induced, , The growing, cultivation of crops for sale, European and native entrepreneurs towards in, processing, and marketing. Indigo cultivation in t, altering, patterns of land use., , Consequences, , The opening, up of national and international markets for ag', of India should have served as a catalytic agent in the d, agriculture in India. But the actual results were different. It is sai, ‘indirect production’ and ‘efficient production’. But paradoxically, 1, , ricultural goods, evelopment °, d that trade 6, ndi@, , » |
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Yr, , H.2 |MPACTS OF BRITISH RULE ON THE INDIAN ECONOMY er REESE 29, , d sivencss, ¢ lacked responsiveness to these forces of trade and commerce., , ricultury, became the hand-maiden of trade. Commere ial interest, , 5 became the, , riculture, yiding star. By the second half of the 19th century, overseas trade came under, pritish control. So the bulk of the profits from the agri ultural surplus was, ed by the British business houses and went oul of the country as, , riat, , appre? jackie And, in the pr, foreign ** age: 2 le process, a new merchant class eme, al. In the ultimate, , gubsidiary, analysis, mere, Commercialisation of agriculture could not bring,, roduction organisation which can be described as small pe, roduction organisation remained as the foundation of the, commercial crops despite commercial revolution. Bul such small peasant farming, resulted in the emergence of a new group of credit financiers who enjoyed enormous, ower over the cultivation process and disposal of the cash crops. 1 other words,, the growth of commercial agriculture was aided and abetted by ils twin brother, _the usurious capital. A chain of intermediaries—who were by nature, ‘parasitic’ in relation to agriculture—gained control over production. In the name, of trade and commerce, the entire economic advantage from the monetisaion of, rural India was reaped by merchant capital—the two wings of the same cagle—, that completely devastaed the peasant economy. Thus, the commercial, revolution in the agricultural economy of India did not help organise agricultural, , production in an efficient way., , rged as, , and junior partners of the British mereantile capit, hants became the symbol of colonial exploitation, about a change in the, , asant farming. This, cultivation of, , | development suffered due to the paucity of rsources which the, ‘armer, in fact, was made to, , farmer required for technological improvements. The f, nformation about high, , bear repeatedly the burden of instability in prices. I, market prices of agricultural produce did not percolate down to the poor peasants., Consequently, rising prices could not benefit the small farmer. He was reduced to, , amere sharecorpper OF sub-tenant. It was beyond his means to make investments, or carry out even crude technological changes in his farming practices. Result was, the low productivity of land even in the midst of commercialisaion of agriculture., , Possibly, whatever inves yas in the cash crops., , Agricultura, , tment took place w, d Indian traders and moneylenders reaped the, “prices of agricultural products. ' Productive, da very risky business. “A peasant who had, d, therefore, have every incentive to turn, nants or sharecroppers, thus", , On the contrary, British an, benefits of widely fluctuating, investment or innovation remaine, managed to accumulate some funds woul, , towards trade, usury OF renting-out of land to sub-te, parasitically shifting the whole burden of production risks instead of going in for, , Teal ‘capitalist farming.”! In the process of commercialisation of agriculture in a, colonial economy, the vast army of peasantry loses ils independence. Even fora, paltry dose of investment, the peasants take advances; coupled ‘with this, production loan, dependence on moneylenders for consumption loan ‘as well as, dependence on merchants for marketing their products becomes no less
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INDIAN ECONOMIC HISTORY, , , , , , as the inevitable consequence, , , , 30, insignificant. In fact, dependence on these agents W, of this monctisation process. _ ., din differentiation In a greater degree within, landlords-moneylenders, but, , pendence resulle ; tiatic, reen poor and rich peasanls- ;, ultural growth except ina few pockets. That, , to real agre cw por, y say that it was a “forced commercialisation, rather, alc asants once told a British Collector that they, , t it; the grain they might, , could not ea, by themselves, whereas now they, , hich to meet revenue needs,”I, agriculture had not been, ‘armers to make use of the, irrigation., , And this de}, the peasantry, i.c., betw, hardly did it contribute, , is why one 1S tempted tc, than y natur “Coimbatore pe, , were crowing, cotton sim because they :, have cultivated would have been consume: sage, , went half-fed but at least had the money with w, What is true ts that the surpluses generated from, invested on land. It was beyond the means of the f, | output to initiate 4and-augmenting investments, C.8-But the view that the growth of cash crop cultivation as 4 process of ‘forced, commercialisation’ is partially valid, as suggested by B. Chodhury- The decision, of peasants to grow commercial crops which they hoped that would make them, free from debt was a perfectly rational one, but the dominant idea behind this, was the ‘expectation of real gains from their cultivation’. The sale of cash crops, n ample evidence that the, , (except indigo and opium) by their growers is a, asants did not necessari for their creditors and hand over to, , ly produce them, them all their produce., Another outstanding effect of commercialisation was the regional, fits to producers of these crops. With the, , specialisation of crops conferring bene, , spread of commercialisation, agricultural production began to get localised in, different regions endowed with different geographical peculiarities. For, instance, the dark-coloured volcanic soil (or the regur soil) of the North-West, Deccan of Bombay Presidency, presently Maharashtra, was good for cotton, , cultivation. Before 1860, peasants in this region produced simultaneously both, cotton and wheat, jowar and bajra mainly for meeting their own requirements., But, after 1860, as the market for cotton was stretched to England, farmers, became more and more specialised in the production of this commercial crop and, traded it for meeting the requirements of production of food crops. Wherever the, road to commerce was open, regional specialisation crept in. This means that, farmers were no longer sellers only, they were converted to buyers also., , aid that the process of commercial revolution resulted in, d crops. The effect of this development, , the substitution of commercial crops for foo, on the overall food situation of the country was a tragic one. The famine of Orissa, The, , and Bengal in 1866 bore testimony to this process of substitution of crops., changeover to cash crops discouraged the cultivation of poor men’s food crops like, jowar, bajra or pulses. It is still an open issue whether the expansion fot, , al one., ply, , residua, , We have already s., , 1 Sumit Sarkar (1983); Ibid, 2 ", Dharma Kumar (ed.) (1984); The Cambridge Economic History of India, Vol. Il, p- 328-329, , , , pp,
