Colonialism and the Countryside — Exploring Official Archives

The Permanent Settlement of Bengal (1793): • The Permanent Settlement (also called the Zamindari Settlement) was introduced in Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa by Governor-General Lord Cornwallis in 1793. • It fundamentally reorganised the relationship between the colonial state, landlords, and peasants. Intended Purposes: 1. Stable revenue for the Company: By permanently fixing the land revenue demand (not subject to revision), the East India Company could predict its income reliably. 2. Create a class of improving landlords: Cornwallis and the ideologues of the settlement hoped that by giving zamindars permanent, secure property rights (modelled on English landed gentry), they would invest in improving their estates, increasing agricultural productivity, and ultimately paying more to the state. 3. Reduce administrative costs: A fixed settlement eliminated the need for expensive annual assessments. 4. Create a loyal class: A class of zamindars with secure property rights and a stake in the colonial order would, it was hoped, become loyal supporters of British rule. Actual Consequences: 1. Rack-renting and peasant misery: Zamindars, with no obligation to improve their estates and knowing the state's demand was fixed, simply extracted as much as possible from peasants. Peasants had no security of tenure — they could be evicted if they could not pay enhanced rents. 2. The Sunset Law: If a zamindar failed to pay the fixed revenue by the set date (sunset), their estate was auctioned. This led to massive transfers of land — old zamindars were frequently replaced by merchants and moneylenders who had purchased their lands at auction. 3. Sub-infeudation: Large zamindari estates were subdivided and sublet through layers of sub-zamindars and patnidars — each taking a cut before passing revenue to the level above. This created a complex hierarchy of overlapping rights, not the clean landlord-tenant relationship the Company intended. 4. No agricultural improvement: The hoped-for investment in agricultural improvement did not materialise — zamindars had no incentive to invest since they could simply raise rents.

The Ryotwari System: • Unlike Bengal's Permanent Settlement (which worked through zamindars), the Ryotwari system attempted to create a direct settlement between the colonial state and individual peasant cultivators (ryots). • Developed in Madras (by Thomas Munro) and later applied in Bombay (by Mountstuart Elphinstone), and in parts of the Deccan. • The state assessed individual peasant holdings, fixed a revenue demand, and collected directly from the cultivator — bypassing zamindars. Intended Advantages: 1. Direct relationship: By eliminating the intermediary zamindar, the Company hoped to ensure peasants were not doubly exploited. 2. Agricultural census: Individual assessments required detailed surveys — creating the first systematic maps and statistics of peasant agriculture in these regions. 3. Revenue flexibility: Unlike the Permanent Settlement, Ryotwari rates could be revised periodically (usually every 30 years). Actual Effects in the Deccan: 1. Very high revenue demands: The initial revenue settlements in the Deccan in the 1820s–1840s set demands at 50–100% of the net agricultural produce — leaving peasants with little margin for survival in bad years. 2. Debt and moneylender power: When harvests failed or revenue demands exceeded capacity, peasants borrowed from moneylenders (sahukars) at very high interest rates, pledging their land and future harvests. 3. The Deccan Riots (1875): By the 1870s, chronic indebtedness had created enormous resentment. In the Deccan, peasants launched coordinated attacks on moneylenders — tearing up and burning their account books and debt bonds rather than attacking persons. • The riots revealed the depth of agrarian distress created by colonialism. 4. Forced commercialisation: The requirement to pay revenue in cash (not produce) forced peasants to sell their crops immediately after harvest, when prices were lowest. This benefited merchants and moneylenders who bought cheap and sold dear. The Deccan Agriculturalists' Relief Act (1879): • In response to the riots, the colonial government passed legislation to limit indebtedness — but without addressing the fundamental problem of high revenue demands.

Colonial Archives and Rural India: • The British colonial state was the most prolific producer of administrative records in Indian history. It created vast archives of census data, revenue surveys, settlement reports, court records, and police reports. • These records are the primary sources for historians studying 19th-century rural India — but they are deeply problematic. What Colonial Archives Reveal: 1. Revenue settlements: Detailed settlement reports contain data on land ownership, crop types, soil quality, yields, village population, and revenue rates — invaluable for economic history. 2. Caste surveys: The colonial census (from 1872 onwards) systematically recorded caste — creating unprecedented statistics on caste composition, but also, as historians argue, hardening and reifying what were more fluid social identities. 3. Forest surveys: The Survey of India and forest department records document the systematic takeover of forests — bringing into view the dispossession of forest-dwelling communities. 4. Court records: Revenue and criminal court records contain the voices of ordinary people — depositions, petitions, testimonies — that appear nowhere else. Limitations and Problems: 1. Administrative gaze: Colonial records were created to serve administrative purposes — revenue extraction, law enforcement, population management. They record what the state needed to know, not what peasants experienced. 2. Categories distort reality: Colonial officials imposed their own categories on Indian society — classifying fluid, complex social groups into fixed administrative boxes (tribes, castes, criminal tribes). 3. Colonial knowledge as power: As Edward Said and historians of colonialism have argued, colonial knowledge systems (surveys, censuses, ethnographies) were not neutral — they classified and controlled Indian society, making it legible for governance. 4. What archives miss: Ordinary daily life, women's perspectives, oral traditions, non-literate communities — all are largely invisible in official records. 5. Reading against the grain: Historians must read colonial records critically — looking for what they suppress or distort, and using them alongside other evidence (newspapers, oral history, folklore) to build a fuller picture.