The agrarian society in India became highly stratified in the British period. Various agrarian classes emerged as a fallout of the implementation of the colonial land policy in India. The main objectives of the British land policy in India were
- To collect the maximum amount of rent from Indian agrarian society.
- To introduce international money into agrarian economy to suit their interest.
- To introduce free trade in agriculture; and
- To make Indian agrarian economy a part of their colonial markets.
All these arrangements were made by the Britishers to serve their colonial interest. Hence to further their interest, the Britishers, besides introducing new land tenure system, took effective steps for opening up of road and railways communications, promotion of export trade in certain agricultural commodities within the framework of the free trade policy of the colonial power.
Land Tenure System
The Britishers introduced three major types of land systems in India the Zamindar, the Ryotwari and the Mahalwari.
(i) Zamindar System
On the basis of the Permanent Settlement Act, 1793 the Zamindar system was introduced in Bengal and later it was extended to U.P., Bihar, major parts of Orissa and some parts of Madras. Under this system, Zamindars were given the freedom to collect whatever they possibly could as rent.
(ii) Ryotwari System
Under the Ryotwari system settlement was made separately with each peasant who was recognised as the proprietor with the right to sublet, mortgage or transfer. This system was initially introduced in Madras and later extended to Bombay, Madhya Pradesh and some parts of Assam. It is to note here that 95% of the cultivatable lands was under the Zamindari and the Ryotwari system in this period.
(iii) Mahalwari System
Under the Mahalwari system settlement was made with the entire village, and the peasant contributed on the basis of their holding to the total revenue demand of the village. It was initially introduced in some parts of the United Province and later extended to some prats of Punjab.
In this period, however, an entirely different system of land tenure existed in the North-Eastern regions. In the tribal areas of North East the cultivable land falling within the village limits was disturbed by the village authority to different clans inhabiting the village. The clan then distributed it among its members. A cultivator under this system could neither acquire any ownership right on the land nor could he transfer it.
Agrarian Classes and Class Relations.
In due course of the functioning of the colonial rule, the agrarian society of India became highly stratified. Here class-differentiation was sharpened among various agrarian categories. In the Zamindari areas, Zamindars and other intermediaries constituted dominant classes of the rural society. Under this system, the actual cultivators were denied their traditional rights of security of tenure and gradually they were reduced to the position of sharecroppers and agricultural labourers. In the Ryotwari areas the big landlords sublet lands emerged as the non-cultivating owners of vast plot of lands. There also gradually emerged sub-tenants, sharecroppers and various types of agricultural labourers. In the Mahalwari areas as well classes of big landowners and cultivating peasants began to dominate in the agrarian society. Here we can identify the following broad agrarian classes of the British Period in India.
(i) Landlords
They were the owners of vast plots of land. However, there were various categories of landowners within this class viz., intermediary landowners (like the Zamindars, Talukdars, Patnidars etc.), the absentee landowners, the rich farmers etc, but the common ground of their economic interest was that they employed mostly either the tenants, sharecroppers or the agricultural labourers for the purpose of cultivation of their land. Indeed they were the non-cultivating rentier class.
(ii) Tenants
They were holding leases under the landlords of various categories. Many of the tenants also employed under-tenants for the purpose of cultivation of a part of their land.
(iii) Peasant Proprietors They were the cultivators of small plots of land with or without occupancy rights. They were mostly the subsistence cultivators and were dependent on family labour for the cultivation of their land. Small peasants and under-tenants belonged to this class.
(iv) Agricultural Working Class.
They mostly worked in the field of others for the mainstay of their livelihood. The agricultural labourers and sharecroppers belonged to this category. For subsistence many of the sharecroppers, worked as agricultural labourers seasonally, while the landless agricultural labourers sold their labour throughout the year.
The British land system gave enormous scope to the landlord class to exploit the poor peasantry and to make agriculture market-oriented. This landlord class emerged at the cost of the decay of the poor and medium cultivators who transferred their also to this new stratum. This class also relied on usury as a means of their social advancement. They took full advantage of the poverty of the peasants. The high rates of interest varying from 400% to 500% made it impossible for the peasant to repay the loan. Thus he ended up transferring his land money-lenders.
The British period ahs visualized a phenomenon growth of the sharecropping system of land cultivation both in the Zamindari and Ryotwari areas. The space of sharecropping system was related to the indebtedness of small peasants. They were indebted to the village money-lenders, traders and rich farmers and the intermediaries. When the peasants lost their land, because of their failure to repay the loan in time, they were resettled on the condition that they would pay half of the produce. The Land Revenue Commission (Bengal) showed that in 1940 of the total land sold and purchased around 32% was brought under sharecropping system of cultivation.
It is important that when the indebted peasants were not resettled on their land as sharecroppers, they were incorporated in the category of landless agricultural labourers. Their number also sharply increased in this period. In Bengal their growth rate was tremendous. By 1901 they formed only 17.5% of the rural population of Bengal. Between 1921-31 their number increased to 49%. In this period the tradition village and cottage industries were destroyed. A significant section of the village artisans and craftsmen joined the army of agricultural labourers since not other avenue of employment was left for them.
Against this backdrop, the functioning of the economic structure of the agrarian society led to the concentration of the means of production in the hands of minority (landlords) and the driving majority was landless or semi-landless people. Hence relations of production were primarily determined by the privileged section of the rural society and transformed the agrarian society from subsistence to commodity production. Ramakrishna Mukherjee making an indepth study of Bengal points out that in such a given situation, the functioning of the economic structure of the society laid a basis for the emerged of class I (composed of the landlords and supervisory farmers); and class III (composed of sharecroppers and agricultural labourers) at the expense of the decay of class II (composed of self-sufficient peasantry, artisans and traders.)
The continued aggravation of exploitation and social of the peasantry grew in course of time into a system and these became a feature of the existing social life all over the country and all these created a very serious and untenable social situation in India. The exploitation of the small peasants, tenants, under tenants, sharecroppers and agricultural labourers by the landlord class created underneath tension and conflict of interest between them. This situation also generated enormous discontent among the peasantry and this discontent was manifested in the form of peasant movements and organised mobilisation of the peasantry in the national movement in various parts of the country. Thus, on the eve of independence the agrarian society emerged as an extremely poverty-ridden, stratified and disintegrated sector. It was reeling under the feudal social and economic bondages. Hence, the agrarian society was characterised by extreme inequality, subinfeudation in the landholding, high concentration of the land in the hands of rural rich, landlessness and land-hunger of the peasants, rackrenting and tenurial insecurity of the tenants and small peasants; destruction of the traditional village and collage industries, penetration of market and money economy in backward agriculture. Besides there were the surfaces tensions of conflict of interest between the agrarian classes which were manifested in the peasant movement and large-scale participation of the peasantry in the national movement.