Ruin of Old Zamindars and Rise of New Landlord-ism | UPSC – IAS
British economic policy favoured the rise of a new landlordism, as the high revenue demands forced traditional landowners to sell their land. Rich money-lenders and others bought this land and there was a spread of growth of intermediaries
By 1815, half the total land in Bengal had passed into hands of money-lenders, merchants, and rich peasants who usually got the land cultivated by tenants. The new zamindars, with increased powers but with little or no avenues for new investments, resorted to land-grabbing and sub-infeudation.Warren Hastings’ policy of auctioning the rights of revenue collection to the highest bidders, (Izaredari System)
The Permanent Settlement of 1793 | UPSC – IAS
A remarkable feature of’ the spread of landlord-ism was, the growth of sub-infeudation or intermediaries. Since the cultivating tenants were generally unprotected and the overcrowding of land led tenants to compete
With one another to acquire land, the rent of land went on increasing. The zamindars and the new landlords found it convenient to sublet their right to collect rent to other eager persons on profitable terms
Increase in number of intermediaries to be paid gave rise to absentee landlordism and increased the burden on the peasant.
Zamindar had no incentive to invest in the improvement of agriculture. The interests of the zamindars lay only in the perpetuation of British rule and in opposing the national movement
But the condition of the zamindars soon improved radically. In order to enable the zamindars to pay the land revenue in time, the authorities increased their power over the tenants by extinguishing the traditional rights of the tenants. Consequently, they rapidly grew in prosperity
Stagnation and Deterioration of Agriculture | UPSC – IAS
As a result of overcrowding of agriculture, excessive land revenue demand, growth of landlordism, increasing indebtedness, and the growing impoverishment of the cultivators, Indian agriculture began to stagnate and even deteriorate resulting in extremely low yields per acre.
At a time when agriculture all over the world was being modernised and revolutionised, Indian agriculture was technologically stagnating, hardly any modern machinery was used.
