Stagnation and Deterioration of Agriculture | NCERT – UPSC | IAS | PCS
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.
- There was a sudden and quick collapse of the urban handicrafts which had for centuries made India’s name a byword in the markets of the entire civilised world
- The peasant was also progressively impoverished under British rule, his material condition deteriorated and he steadily sank into poverty. In the very beginning of British rule in Bengal, the policy of Clive and Warren Hasting of extracting the largest possible land revenue had led to such devastation
- 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)
Economic Impact of British Rule in India | UPSC – IAS
- De-industrialisation – Ruin of artisans and handicrafts (In – Detail)
- Impoverishment of peasantry—ruralisation of India (In – Detail)
- Emergence of new land relations—ruin of old zamindars. (In – Detail)
- Stagnation and deterioration of agriculture.
- Commercialisation of Indian agriculture.
- Development of modern industry.
- Rise of Indian national bourgeoisie.
- Economic drain.
- Famine and poverty.