• Dr Gowri Naidu

The British pursued different policies in the economic field. Their sole motive, however, was to serve their own economic interests. All policies were pursued by them with this object and, therefore, none of them proved beneficial to the Indian people. Some of them were as follows: Commercialization of Agriculture. Commercialization of agriculture began during the British rule. It is necessity for an industrially developing country. If the industries are to be fed up, agricultural production on commercial basis has to be raised up. But, in India, commercialization of agriculture took place not to feed the Industries of India because India was far behind in industrial development as compared to Britain and other European countries. It was primarily to feed the British industries that it was taken up and achieved only in case of those agricultural products which were either needed by the British industries or could fetch cash commercial gain to Britain in the European or American market. Therefore, interestingly enough, the demand for the creation of a department of agriculture under the Government of India to look after the development of agriculture in India came from the Manchester Cotton Supply Association. The Royal Commission pointed out that in 1869 this Association urged that “measures should be undertaken for the improvement of cotton, the crop in which it was primarily interested, and that a separate department of agriculture should be established in each province”. The Commission further stated: “Cotton, as the most important crop of special interest to the East India Company, first attracted attention, and, as early as 1788, the directors of the Company urged that encouragement should be given to its production and improvement….In 1839, the Court of Directors sent out twelve American planters to teach the local cultivators how to grow and clean cotton”. The primary purpose of all these efforts was to provide raw and good quality cotton to the cotton textiles industries of Britain which were growing fast after the industrial revolution in Britain. Therefore, cotton-growing area increased in India and its production increased manifold with gradual lapse of time. Indigo and more than that tea and coffee plantations were encouraged in India because these could get commercial market abroad. Mostly their plantations were controlled by the British. Jute was another product which received attention of the British because the jute-made products got a ready market in America and Europe. Thus, the British encouraged the production of those agricultural goods which were needed either for feeding their industries or could get them good commercial dividends otherwise. The commercialization of agriculture in India was beneficial only to British planters, traders and manufacturers and partly to Indian traders and moneylenders who worked as middlemen for them. Of course it led to the establishment of a few industries in India as well which helped in its industrial growth. But it was a very poor consolation because most of the industries established in India, in the beginning, were managed by British capitalists. On the other hand, the Indian people suffered miserably from this policy of the British. It resulted in reduced area under cultivation of food crops. The departments of agriculture established by the government mostly attended to the needs and development of commercial crops. In other items of agriculture, their contribution remained negligible. The result was that while the area under food crops increased between 1892-93 and 1919-20 by 7%, that under non-food crops increased by 43%.The commercial interests pushed themselves so aggressively that during 1934-35 to 1939-40, the area under non-food crops increased by 1.6 million acres, and that under food crops fell by 1.5 million acres. It also meant massive export of raw goods and commercial agricultural goods. The export of raw cotton increased from 1, 78,000 tons in 1900-1901 to 7,62,133 tons in 1936-37, that is, by 328%; in 1939-40 the figure was 5,26, 411 tons. The exports of tea increased from 190 million pounds weight in 1900-1901 to 359 million pounds in 1939-40; of oil-seeds from 549,000 tons in 1900-1901 to 1,172,802 tons in 1938-39. The same was the case with other commercial agricultural goods. The net result of this process was that India failed to produce even that much food crops which could provide even two square meals a day to its population. The misery was further enhanced because the population of India was increasing every year. Fragmentation of land was taking place because of the pressure on land and modern means of agriculture production were not introduced in India. The report of the Prices Enquiry Committee of 1914 stated: “Population has increased by a larger percentage in the period under inquiry (1890-1912) that either the total area under cultivation or the area under food grains, or in other words, the requirements of food grains for internal consumption have increased in a larger proportion that the total production of food grains”. It seriously affected adversely the poor people of India. It became difficult for them to get even sufficient food. In 1945, Sir Manilal B. Nanavati, formerly deputy-Governor of Reserve Bank of India observed in his presidential address to the sixth conference of the Indian Society of Agricultural Economics at Banaras: “During the last 75 years continuous deterioration in the condition of the masses is taking place. In 1880 India had a surplus foreign foodstuff to the extent of 5 million tons and today we have a deficit of 10 million tons. The consumption of food was then estimated at 1½lb. per individual and now it is 1 lb. nearly 30% of the population of India is estimated to be suffering from chronic malnutrition and under-nutrition”. Thus, we find that the commercialization of agriculture in India by the British was also one of the important causes of the impoverishment of the Indian people. Rural Indebtedness

BRITISH ECONOMIC POLICIES IN INDIA AND THEIR IMPACT

"BRITISH ECONOMIC POLICIES IN INDIA AND THEIR IMPACT", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.2, Issue 2, page no.1573-1577, February-2015, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1701638.pdf

"BRITISH ECONOMIC POLICIES IN INDIA AND THEIR IMPACT", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.2, Issue 2, page no. pp1573-1577, February-2015, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1701638.pdf