Q. How could the subordination of peasants be secured through the system of advances ? Discuss its with reference to the production of indigo in Bihar. पेशगीदेय के जरिए किसानो को कैसेअधीन बनाया गया ? बिहार में नीलके उत्पादन कोध्यान में रखतेहुए इसका वर्णनकीजिए। [BPSC-1993 (History optional)]
Ans:
Indigo started grown commercially in Gangetic valley after mid-18th century. By the end of the 18th century, there was high demand of the indigo in Europe. The rise on cotton production and collapse in Indigo supplies from the West Indies and America for a variety of reasons had created huge demand-supply gap in indigo. To fix this gap in demand and supply the Company in India looked for ways to expand the area under indigo cultivation. From the last decades of the eighteenth century indigo cultivation in Bengal (Bihar was part of Bengal at that time) expanded rapidly and Bengal indigo came to dominate the world market. In 1788 only about 30 per cent of the indigo imported into Britain was from India. By 1810, the proportion had gone up to 95 per cent.
Indigo had sound base in Bihar, particularly in Tirhut. The spite of discontent with regard to indigo-planting, the indigo revolt of 1859-60 in bengal was absent in Bihar due to the non-existence of middle class. The indigo industry in Bihar was further strengthened by shift of focus from Sugar to Indigo and the transfer of a considerable amount of capital from Bengal to Bihar after the indigo revolt of 1860. It is estimated that Indigo production in Bihar was more than 30% of the whole crop in 1850s.
There were two main systems of indigo cultivation – nij and ryoti.
- Within the system of nij cultivation, the planter produced indigo in lands that he directly controlled. He either bought the land or rented it from other zamindars and produced indigo by directly employing hired labourers. However, there were several issues with nij cultivation like need of large areas in compact blocks, need to mobilise labour, requirement of ploughs and bullocks on large-scale etc.
- Till the late nineteenth century, planters were therefore reluctant to expand the area under nij cultivation. Less than 25 per cent of the land producing indigo was under this system.
- So the rest of Indigo cultivation was under an alternative mode of cultivation – the ryoti system. The system of advances was associated with this system.
- Under the ryoti system, the planters forced the ryots to sign a contract, an agreement (satta). At times they pressurised the village headmen to sign the contract on behalf of the ryots.
- Those who signed the contract got cash advances from the planters at low rates of interest to procure raw material for producing indigo. But the loan committed the ryot to cultivating indigo on at least 25 per cent of the area under his holding. The planter provided the seed and the drill, while the cultivators prepared the soil, sowed the seed and looked after the crop.
- When the crop was delivered to the planter after the harvest, a new loan was given to the ryot, and the cycle started all over again.
The subordination of peasants was secured through the system of advances:
- Peasants who were initially tempted by the loans soon realised how harsh the system was. They though that they would fulfil their immediate needs with the loan and would pay back it at a later stage. But,
- By taking the loan, they were forced to grow Indigo on a specified area of land (e.g. Tinkathia system in Bihar) and they had no option of planting the field with a crop of his choice.
- They were then bound to deliver indigo to the factory at a low fixed price and the cycle of loans never ended.
- The planters usually insisted that indigo be cultivated on the best soils in which peasants preferred to cultivate rice.
- Indigo, moreover, had deep roots and it exhausted the soil rapidly. After an indigo harvest the land could not be sown with rice.
- It caused further impoverishment of peasants. Working on indigo farms also absorbed the labour of the entire family.
- Impoverished peasants became dependent on others tor the food and other basic necessities.
- Although the advances were made but the peasants had to pay about four times the sum advanced for preparing and weeding the land and cutting the crop.
- Also other lands which were not under indigo cultivation could not be cultivated because the ploughs and oxen were engaged on the indigo fields.
- When Peasants refused to accept the advances, the planters forced the peasants to take advance sums and enter into fraudulent contracts which were then used against the peasants. The planters intimidated the peasants through kidnappings, illegal confinements, flogging, attacks on women and children, seizure of cattle, burning and demolition of houses and destruction of crops.
- After taking advances, the peasants were tied with the planter so they lost any chance of bargaining.
- The new gomasthas (agents of planters – who came to collect rent) were outsiders, with no long term social link with the village. So they acted arrogantly, marched into villages with the police, and punished peasants who acted independently.
Apart from these structural issues with the system of advances, the most of the disputes that occured between planters and the peasants can be attributed to the oppression committed by the servants of the factory who were the means of communication. Oppression and unlawful violence practised upon the peasants had no end. The opperassion of the planters was so cruel that a number of tenants had to take refuge in Nepal. The government officials who were the custodians of law and order were friends of the planters and they made the things worse only.
All these caused large-scale alienation of the peasant farming with the result that the peasant ceased to be ‘self-sufficient’ producers and increasingly dependent for their subsistence on agriculture wage labour. Thus the system of advances in in indigo cultivation contributed to the growth of rural indebtedness. Although there were sign of discontent which was more visible after 1860s, the colonial government treated them as ‘occasional complaints’ and disputes.
Only after the Champaran Satyagraha in 1917, under the leadership of Gandhiji, the peasants were relived from this oppressive system. ©crackingcivilservices.com
