1.

a>describe forced commercialization of agriculture

b> impact on Indian agrarian society
c> relate to post 1947 land reforms in India
The commercialization of agriculture in India was not a normal process, but a
forced and artificial one. Also the artificiality had to do a lot with the subordination
and dependence of the peasantry. It was necessitated by the obligatory remittance
of colonial tribute and the inability of de-industrialized India to pay for the rapidly
rising import bill of British manufactured goods. Under the British rule
commercialsation of the undertenures started wherein the zamindars leased out
their land much in ecess to the re!ene due to the go!ernment and with the lessee
repeating the practice. "his inflated peasants burden and he was forced to borrow.
"his led to distress sale of his crops and he had to buy food from mar#ets. Any
inno!ation leading to increase in production was pre!ented by the landlords as an
increase in production would enable the peasant to free from the debt cycle. "o
ser!ice their debts peasants started switching to cash crops li#e sugarcane, in U$.
As a result of industrialization of U%, the eport of non-agriculture based artisan
products from India fell. "he new goods that were in demand in &urope were
'otton, (ute, indigo etc. As a result peasants switched from food crops to
production of these. Because of this switch, the supply of food crops reduced.
$easants were already dependent on mar#et for food crops and hence the price of
food increased. )pium was also culti!ated in Bengal and *arwah $lateau to be sold
to 'hina. "he railways also led to change in composition of Indian eports, as bul#
no longer remained a barrier to transport. "hus there was a real shift in Indian
agriculture to production of raw material for &ngland, a shift from food grains to
non-food crops. "his !ast change in Indian agriculture from food grains to non-food
crops +,ute, indigo- is sometimes #nown as commercialization of agriculture.
ffect of commercialization of agriculture on Indian agrarian society!
"he growth of commercial agriculture would normally induce a lot of dynamism in
the peasant economy. But it wasn.t the case in Bengal. In case of "ea the
commercialized sector was largely isolated from old peasant agriculture. Another
reason was that re!enue from cash crops were largely remitted abroad thus !ery
little coming bac# into the system to impro!e the efficiency of the system.
'ollateral was rise in number of unpaid bonded laborers. "he /amindars, acting as
0enders, 0easeholders and 1oarder at the same time de!ised a credit system
notorious enough to rob off marginal peasants of all their sa!ings and earnings only
to reduce them to bonded laborers. )ne could argue that this resulted in the
formation of a rural capitalist class and a landless proletariat class. "he
commercialization had a ma,or impact as 2uantity of food a!ailable for home
mar#et declined and it led to great famines +famines of 3456-57 8 3455-3599-
were millions perished. "he commercialization made condition of poor peasant
worse and only few rich landlords were the gainers.
1owe!er it did play some positi!e role also, in the form of interest-free ad!ances
especially in )pium culti!ation. :ome peasants e!en managed to e!ade the
go!ernment and sell opium to the pri!ate traders.
"ost 1947 land reforms in India
"he principal aim of 0and reforms in India was to change the character of
agriculture form subsistence farming to economic farming and bring about changes
that would impro!e the efficiency and returns. "his needed reorganization of
agriculture in relati!e larger units of management and production than eisting
ones. "he ultimate ob,ecti!e was cooperati!e farming in which the entire land in a
gi!en !illage was to be treated as a single farm. /amindari was abolished and
ceiling was imposed on future ac2uisition of land. &mphasis was laid on greater use
of technology, irrigation and use of fertilizers to impro!e the production.