William Sleeman, writing about pre-1857 India, seems to believe that Company rule was vastly superior to that of the contemporary princely rulers. Among other things, he notes that military expenditure per capita were much smaller for the British than for the native states (leading to the problem of big unemployment of former soldiers as the Company rule expanded).
Meanwhile, various critics of imperialism talk about how the British were oppressive and so forth, even blaming them for several specific famines (I am not sure whether it is implied that without the British there would have been no famines).
Anyway, so let’s consider the majority of the 19th century population who were farmers and hence not likely to suffer from European industrial imports. From their standpoint, were the British taxes particularly onerous compared to those of princely states or else to some historically accepted “best practices” for agrarian societies? Is there some sort of scholarly consensus on this matter based on actual numbers as opposed to the anti-this-or-that ideologies?
Also, after the British left, were there big changes to the tax system by the post-Independence government?
In Bengal the clothes industry in a word died since the company was not hesitant to chase weavers out of business, weavers could only work in company approved operations from 1769 onwars. The profits made by Bengal went from 1.3 million pounds in 1815, to 100,000 pounds in 1832.
The whole sub continent as a whole saw its revenue fall from 1000 million in 1780’s to about 163 in 1840.
As for famine, well famines were endemic from about 1750 onwards, before that they had been rare and linked to some other natural or man made disater, it was not until the 1880’s when the Imperial Government implemented the famine code that they were brought until some semblance of control, even then famines occured, and it was not until the 1960’s that Pakistan became self sufficient in food production, India still is not fully, but a lot of it has to do with the logistical difficulties in distribution.
Company rule was arbitary and unchecked for the most part. One of the reasons for the events of 1857, and the changs it brought.
Didn’t the company also force farmers to grow indigo, jute, and other cash crops instead of things that would have been useful in local markets or food?
thanks for the info, but I am not certain if what you say directly addresses the OP question.
First of all, about the weavers, well, yes, obviously. The artisans get run out of business by the machines - as in Europe so in India. Artisans suffer a lot, the consumers benefit a bit.
My question focuses on taxation and general condition of the farmers. I don’t doubt that the British government was “arbitrary” (it was an unaccountable oligarchy, as it were), but then so were contemporary princely states. And if you ask the farmer, what he probably cared about was how much land he had and how much tax he had to pay under the various possible existing regimes (which could change if let’s say the British annexed a princely state or, more speculatively, if the British got kicked out by a princely state).
The famines bit is interesting, but I think we have to keep the population growth factor in mind as well. E.g the same Sleeman notes growing land hunger, over-cultivation and fall of soil fertility already back in 1830s, attributing the population growth in part specifically to the British-imposed peace. So maybe it could be argued that the British did not so much “cause” famines as they proved inept in handling the underlying economic conditions (such as by promoting industry, transport or population control). Were the princely states any better at it?
Well your OP is based on a faulty premise. Pre-1860 “British” lands were run by the Company under the loose direction of the Gov in London. The taxes were arbitary as were the laws that existed (if any did). Post 1860 when the crown took over, you had a Civil service and a revenue department responsible to the Provincial and ultimatly central government.
And the princely states varied in nature and size. Some were essentially oversized estates. Others like Bahawalpure, Kalat, Kashmir and Hyderabad were essentially independant states which had treaties with the UK Government. As far as I know, Kashmir was pretty much hell to be in if you were muslim, Kalat is a either a frozen wasteland or a desert, Bahawalpur was a very prosperous state and Hyderabad’s Nizams were known for brutality.
I’ve hesitated to speak to this question, because I have seen el zippo in terms of numbers for the taxation rates for the princely states. But I have seen some rough ones for the Raj and since we have no other datum right now, I’m going to make an educated guess - at least in the early 19th century they were probably broadly similar. And I’m going to agree with AK84 directly above in that the numbers were all over the place and that was a major factor in that similarity.
In terms of land taxes at least early on the Raj seems to have generally adopted the native systems with few modifications. More importantly out of both necessity and naked pragmatism they mostly turned to local elites, whether minor rajas or just village headmen, to both set and collect rates. As these elites ( the ubiquitous zamindars ) had been essentially deprived of their functions as dispensers of justice ( now in the centralized hands of the Raj ), there was little reason to function as reliable agents in these duties. Accordingly many set extortionate taxes on the poorest sections of the community, while exempting or at least softening on the blow on themselves and other wealthier/connected clients and associates. Indeed many zamindars became de facto tax farmers, as native businessmen purchased zamindar estates and with them the right to set tax rates ( and get a cut ). This also produced wide regional variability in rates. Quoting Lawrence James ( from whence I’m getting most of this ):
This unevenness was, perhaps, the worst feature of the Company’s revenue system. Under the Mughals, an average of between 40 and 50 percent of a ryot’s produce was taken from him, but the proportion was occasionally as high as 65 to 80 percent. There was no uniform rate under the Company, with as much as 83 percent being extracted in Orissa, an amount that was progessively reduced to 60percent by 1840. At this time , a two-thirds deduction was considered an equitable mean and exactions of 50 to 60 percent were widespread…
While there was some amelioration over time ( average rates of 50-60% by 1856 ), overtaxation, causing massive rural debt, economic stagnation and the occasional riot and uprising remained an issue. James, again:
*The many faults of the tax system was recognized by those responsible for its everyday operation. Collectors expressed their misgivings, suggested adjustments and sometimes offered relief on their own initiative…
but…
*…This sort of tinkering was frowned on by the company…
Whenever major alterations to the tax system were proposed, expediency overruled compassion. The Company could not afford to change the system: like the Mughal empire, it rested on the exploitation of India’s main source of wealth, the land. There were no comparable alternate sources of income…*
Given the above, I’m again going to guess that the princely states, on average, probably couldn’t get much worse. In the worse case scenario you really can’t tax much more than 80+% for very long.
Not really. During the East-India Company rule, factory owners in England were able to successfully lobby Parliament to impose a system of unfair taxes and tarrifs, so that the native artisans were placed at a tremendous economic disadvantage when competing with English industrial output. The EIC pretty much shut down whatever fledgling industrialization was taking place on the subcontinent and caused severe economic dislocation, which rapidly spread as railroad expansion made distribution of English-produced goods easier. I don’t have time to look up the cites right now, but I know either I or someone else has posted this on the boards before.
Things get somewhat better after the Mutiny, but the British don’t make any real movement towards trying to rectify the disparate treatment until the 20th century, largely because of Congress Party agitation.
I agree here with both Tamerlane and AK84. I’ll add that my reading leads me to believe that the Zamindar system was largely left intact by both the EIC and the British Raj, and that seems to have been the primary method for this type of tax collection, which means that you would have had widely varying tax rates, depending on exactly which government was operating and which Zamindar was collecting.
I think you have a misconception about the princely states. The vast majority did not have the ability to set trade, communications or international policy, which meant that their governments and their economies were completely intertwined with British economic and legal policy. Some princely states probably handled the famines better and some probably worse, but ultimately, at the end of the day, we’re ultimately talking about British policy.
As for whether or not the British “caused” famines, some famines were of course naturally caused. But some of the famines seem to have been caused or exacerbated by British economic or infrastructure policy (you can read Amartya Sen’s work for this viewpoint).
You also seem to be completely skipping over the British’s penchant for shifting farm production away from edible crops and towards non-edible crops, which certainly made the entire system more prone to both food shortages as well as economic problems.
For clarification, the after 1860 revenue collection was handled at a district level by the office of the Deputy Commssioner for that district, as it is today. We are talking about pre-1860 here.