Ruling the Countryside Day 1 PDF

LO: Students will be able to- Students will be able to recall the Battle of Plassey and Buxar events that led to the colonization of the countryside. Students will be able to explain the role of the British as Diwans. SC: Students will be able to- List the impact of British acceptance of Diw...

LO: Students will be able to- Students will be able to recall the Battle of Plassey and Buxar events that led to the colonization of the countryside. Students will be able to explain the role of the British as Diwans. SC: Students will be able to- List the impact of British acceptance of Diwani Differentiate between the three settlements introduced by the British.  Let us recall Why did the British come to India? To trade Why did they want a puppet ruler? For trade concessions What did they trade in? Cotton, silk, spices How did they get legal access to land? How are these goods obtained? Land What would be the most important resource Agriculture for the British then?  Recalling the Battles What did the What did the nawabs say? Company say? The Company on its part declared that the Refused to grant the Company concessions, unjust demands of the local officials were Demanded large tributes for the Company’s ruining the trade of the Company, and trade right to trade, could flourish only if the duties Denied it any right to mint coins, were removed. Stopped it from extending its fortifications. Claimed that the Company was depriving Bengal of huge amounts of revenue It was refusing to pay taxes, writing disrespectful letters, and trying to humiliate the nawab and his officials. The Battle of Plassey  Do you remember the Battle of Buxar? Mir Qasim- Nawab of Bengal EIC (Hector Munro - Shuja-ud-Daulah- Nawab of Awadh army officer) Shah Alam II- Mughal Emperor POST BATTLE OF Plassey (1757) and Battle of Buxar (1764) Why did the Battles happen? What do you think were the intentions of the company? Now that the British took over the regions and annexed other parts of the country, what kind of policies do you think they’ll make? INTRODUCTION : The Company becomes the Diwan Revenue for the company The Need to improve Agriculture Problems in Agriculture A new system is devised The Munro system and its problems Crops for the Europe Indigo cultivation and Nij Ryots forced to grow indigo: Blue Rebellion Robert Clive accepting the Diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa from the Mughal ruler in 1765 The East India Company was made the Diwan of Bengal on 12 August 1765; by then Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II.  Impact of East India company assuming the Diwani The Company became the As a trading company, it had Controlled the local authorities. chief financial also to ensure that it could buy administrator of the the products it needed and sell territory under its control. what it wanted. The effort was to increase the Value of goods bought by the revenue as much as it could Company in Bengal doubled. Now and buy fine cotton and silk the revenue collected in Bengal cloth as cheaply as possible could finance the purchase of goods for export. Peasants and artisans from rural areas regularly came to these weekly markets (haats) to sell their goods and buy what they needed. These markets were badly affected during times of economic crisis. Bengal-It wanted a large revenue income but was unwilling to set up any regular system of assessment and collection. Problems faced by the Province of Bengal that led to introduction of settlements systems. ⚫ Artisans were being forced to sell their goods to the Company at low prices; hence, most were deserting their villages. ⚫ Peasants were not able to pay the dues. ⚫ Production by artisans declined and farm production also declined. ⚫ In 1770, a terrible famine hit Bengal. It killed 10 million people. EIC was turning towards agriculture: Take a minute to draw this flow chart of tax collection system. Ruler Diwan Tax Zamindars Rent Peasants So how do you think the British assured continuous revenue in such times? They introduced various systems of tax collections which failed one after another. These are: The Permanent Settlement The Mahalwari Settlement The Ryotwari Settlement. Charles Cornwallis was the Governor General of India when the Permanent Settlement was introduced in 1793 Terms of the Settlement- They were asked to collect rent from the peasants and pay revenue to the Company. Permanent settlement The amount to be paid was The Rajas and taluqdars fixed permanently, that is, it were recognized as was not to be increased Zamindars ever in the future. Permanent settlement The Motive behind introducing: Being an alien power, it needed to pacify those At the same time who in the past had ruled encourage the the countryside, and zamindars to invest in enjoyed authority and improving the land. prestige. Those who had held It was felt that this would local power had to be ensure a regular flow of controlled but they could revenue into the not be entirely Company’s treasury eliminated. Problems faced by the Permanent settlement: no gain for the Company since it could not increase a revenue demand that had been fixed permanently Company officials soon discovered that the zamindars were in fact not investing in the improvement of land. Problems The revenue that had been fixed was so high that the zamindars found it difficult to pay. Anyone who failed to pay the revenue lost his zamindari. Numerous zamindaris were sold off at auctions organised by the Company. Page number 29 How could revenues be fixed permanently at a time when the Company needed more money to meet its expenses of administration and trade? Mahal – In Introduction of a new System.- Mahalwari Settlement British revenue An Englishman Holt Mackenzie in the north western provinces of the records mahal is Bengal presidency, devised a new system, with effect from 1822. a revenue He gave villages prime importance and the following approach was used: estate which may be a village Collectors went from village to village, inspecting the land, measuring the fields, and recording the customs and rights of different groups. or a group of villages. The estimated revenue of each plot within a village was added up to calculate the revenue that each village (mahal) had to pay. This demand was to be revised periodically, not permanently fixed. The charge of collecting the revenue and paying it to the Company was given to the village headman, rather than the zamindar. Another system of Settlement in the Southern British Territories: Ryotwar (or Ryotwari). It was tried on a small scale by Captain Alexander Read in some of the areas that were taken over by the Company after the wars with Tipu Sultan. Subsequently developed in 1820 by Thomas Munro, this system was gradually extended all over south India. Read and Munro felt that in the south there were no traditional zamindars. The settlement, they argued, had to be made directly with the cultivators (ryots) who had tilled the land for generations. Their fields had to be carefully and separately surveyed before the revenue assessment was made. Munro thought that the British should act as paternal father figures protecting the ryots under their charge. Thomas Munro, Governor of Madras (1819-26) Why did all of these settlements eventually fail? Driven by the desire to increase the income from land, revenue officials fixed too high a revenue demand. Peasants were unable to pay, ryots fled the countryside, and villages became deserted in many regions. Optimistic officials had imagined that the new systems would transform the peasants into rich enterprising farmers. But this did not happen.  Let’s Recall On 12 August 1765, the Mughal emperor appointed the ______________ as the Diwan of Bengal. By the terms of ________________ the rajas and taluqdars were recognized as zamindars. Holt Mackenzie felt that the ___________ was an important social institution in north Indian society and needed to be preserved.  Let’s Recall Can You Distinguish between the Three settlements imposed by the Company?? Permanent Settlement Mahalwari Settlement Ryotwari Settlement/The Munroe System