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From very ancient times agriculture has been the main source of the livelihood of the vast majority of the population of the territories that constituted the Bengal province as in 1911, and in the two parts into which this province was subsequently divided independent Bangladesh and West Bengal under the Indian Union. The pattern has been more or less the same in other parts of the sub-continent. But the fact that almost the entire Bengal constitutes a flat, alluvial plain traversed by three mighty rivers the ganges, brahmaputra and meghna and their innumerable tributaries, with plenty of rainfall, make agricultural operations relatively easy. Consequently, population pressure on agriculture has been particularly heavy in this region.

The decline in industrial activity, especially in the production of cotton textiles, during the early British rule further added to this pressure. Indeed, by 1921 about four-fifths (77.3%) of the total population became dependent on agriculture as against an all-India average of 69.8%. During British rule these people belonged to different social groups: rent-receiving landlords (zamindars), tenure-holders of different grades on the one hand, and the raiyats (tenant-cultivators), bargadars and agricultural labourers on the other. The vast majority, of course, consisted of raiyats directly involved in agricultural operations. Of the two parts of Bengal, population pressure on agriculture has been higher in the territories that constitute Bangladesh today.

The most important feature of the agrarian economy during the ancient, medieval and the British periods was that crop production remained the most dominant sub-sector. Three other sub-sectors of agriculture viz livestock, fisheries and forestry were relatively unimportant. Needless to say, the pattern remains the same even today. A whole variety of crops was grown, and in the official publications issued by the British government these were mentioned under three heads bhadoi (autumn), aghni (winter) and rabi (spring) corresponding to their harvesting time. The crops included paddy, jute, wheat, jowar, barley, sugarcane, tobacco, oilseeds, potato, onion, garlic, opium, indigo, tea, different kinds of vegetable, pulses, spices and condiments. rice was the most important and one of the oldest crops. The earliest reference to this crop is found in the Mahasthan Brahmi Inscription belonging to the third or the second century BC. This crop is also mentioned in several other literary sources: Kalidasa Raghovngsa, Ramcharita, Casapala, and Saduktikarnamrita.

Inscriptions, particularly those issued by the Sena rulers, contain description of paddy fields. Thus, the Anulia copperplate of Laksmansena mentions the harvest of sali rice in autumn. The same inscription tells us that the king gave away to Brahmans several villages containing lands producing paddy. Another reference to this crop is found in the Edilpur copperplate. In this inscription paddy is referred to in general term as sali. However, this is only one of the best of the many varieties grown in different early settlements of Bengal-Vanga, Varendri, Gauda, Purnavardhana or Pundra, Radha and Samtata. There are also references to a large number of other crops grown in ancient Bengal cotton, barley (yava), mustard, sugarcane, and pulses like kalai and mug. Cotton was the most important commercial crop. Different sources refer to its cultivation in ancient Bengal. Apart from these crops a large number of vegetables and fruits were also produced. The following vegetables are mentioned in the sayings of Khana brinjal, long gourd, radish, arum, chilli, turmeric, and patal. Fruit trees like mango, jackfruit, pomegranate (dalimba), plantain, Modhuka, date (kharjura), citrom (vija), figs (parkali), tamarind, and coconut were also widely grown. The mango and breadfruit are mentioned in a large number of Pala and Sena inscriptions.

The Chinese traveller hiuen-tsang who visited Bengal in seventh century AD refers to the abundant growth of panasa in Purnavardhana. This crop is also mentioned in Govindapur copperplate of Laksmansena and the Calcutta Sahitya Parisad copperplate of Visvarupasena. The plantain tree is frequently depicted in Paharpur terracotta plaques. From the inscriptions of Khadga, Chandras and Varmans and those of the Senas it is clear that from the eighth century onwards coconut was extensively grown. Betel-leaf and betel nuts were also grown. Betel leaf cultivation was in the hands of a class of people known as Barai or Barujivi. These crops were exported to other parts of India. Another product used mainly for construction of houses, baskets and sunshades was bamboo. Ramcharit describes Varendri as a land of excellent flowers of countless varieties including asoka, kesara, madhuka, kanaka, ketaka, malali, nagakesara and lotus. Trees which supplied medicines or fruits such as amlaki, triphala, haritaki were also cultivated in ancient Bengal.

The basic livestock of the peasants was cattle, used for ploughing, transport and various dairy products. Wealth was sometimes measured in terms of the number of cattle in one’s possession. Certain expressions in Pala and Sena land grants suggest that pasture grounds produced various kinds of grass for livestock and these were usually located near villages. Villagers sometimes employed communal cowherds who drove the cattle branded with the owners’ marks every morning to the pasture and waste beyond the fields under cultivation and returned with them at dusk. Milk, curd and butter were important articles of diet. The flesh and bones of the cows were used for manuring, while cow dung was used both as a fuel and manure. Among various other animals represented either in sculptures or referred to in inscriptions and literary sources mention may be made of buffaloes, horses, goats, sheep, deer, monkeys, boars, jackals, lions, tigers, etc. A whole variety of fresh water and sea-fish was available in abundance and fish constituted an important item of the diet of the people.

Epigraphic and literary sources are full of references to the fertility of the soil in ancient Bengal. When Hiuen-Tsang visited Bengal in the seventh century AD, he noticed intensive and regular cultivation of land. His description is corroborated by some of the poems in Saduktikarnamrita. However, all land was not fertile nor served by adequate rainfall. Such land needed artificial irrigation. The numerous tanks in many parts of north Bengal Mahipala, Ramsagara, Pransagara were most probably constructed by the rulers for this purpose. The people also knew the technique of sinking wells for reaching deep-flowing streams. In some cases, they altered the course of rivers so that they could supply canals. They also knew how to regulate the flow of water to make canals overflow and thus swamp paddy fields. William Wilcox calls this ancient system ‘overflow irrigation’. Literary sources provide names of different agricultural implements used during this period. These are ploughshares (fal), cleavers (da), sickles (kaste), frames (pasi), ladders (mai), sticks (pacanbadi) and rice-husking pedals (dhenki). Most of these implements were made by village blacksmiths and carpenters. Casapala of Ramesvar describes the different processes involved in the manufacture of those implements.

In most copper-plates belonging to the Gupta period and found in Bengal there are references to the king or the state itself selling land; when the land is donated for religious purposes, the king is given one-sixth of the religious merit due from the land grant. In every case the application for the purchase of land was made to the king through local officers. The king’s permission was particularly necessary in these pious grants for it was only the king who had the power to exempt land from the payment of all royal dues. Thus in the earliest period for which records can be traced the king or the state was the owner of the soil. Some advocates of the theory that there was private ownership of land have argued that lands referred to in most of these inscriptions were khila or wastelands. But three copperplates from Faridpur and most Pala and Sena inscriptions record grants not merely of wastelands, but of whole villages as well. These villages must have included in them settled vastu and cultivated lands also. Again, the evidence of the Tippera grant of Lokanatha makes it clear that the king’s ownership extended to forestlands. For then proof which can be advanced in support of the royal ownership of land is that the king could confiscate or annul a grant and make a fresh endowment of it to another person. However, though lands were owned by the state, cultivation was carried on by peasants living in villages and was based on individual peasant farming. The king’s share of the agricultural produce was obviously the main source of state income. But though a host of tax names are mentioned in our sources these do not tell us what proportion of produce was appropriated by the state as revenue and as levies. Most of the land revenue was assessed in kind, but certain classes of crops were assessed in cash on the ground that it was difficult to divide into shares. Probably hiranya was a tax of this type. In some areas cultivators had to pay royal dues on the basis of the number of ploughs used for tilling land.

For information on agricultural conditions in medieval times one has to rely on the accounts of foreign travellers and local literature. Indeed, foreign travellers praised the fertility of Bengal soil and the state of its agriculture. For example, a Chinese account of 1349/50 stated, ‘The seasons of Heaven have scattered the wealth of the Earth over this kingdom’. At about the same time ibn battuta visited east Bengal. He mentioned that as he travelled from sylhet to sonargaon by rivers for 15 days he saw on his right and left orchards, water wheels, prosperous villages and gardens, ‘as if we were passing through a market’. During shaista khan’s time Bernier came to Bengal. He noticed on both sides of the Ganges ‘extremely fertile’ fields producing a whole variety of crops. Abul Fazl informed us that a particular variety of rice was ‘sown and reaped three times in the same year without little injury to the crop’. But this cannot be taken as an index of the general fertility of the land. For even as late as the middle of the twentieth century, only a small part of the land was cropped more than twice in the same agricultural season.

However, the validity of early references to the flourishing conditions of agriculture cannot be in doubt. Certainly during the Sultanate and Mughal periods Bengal agriculture experienced considerable expansion. Many of the place names with abad (for example, Fatahbad and Khalifabad) meaning "settled" or "cultivated" bear testimony to their settlement and cultivation during this period. The government took some steps for the extension of cultivation through reclamation. For example, it provided loans called ‘taqavi’ to enable peasants to buy seeds and bullocks or agricultural tools and implements. More frequently, lower revenue rates were granted to encourage the cultivation of wasteland. The rates were gradually increased every year until full rates were reached. The government took such steps primarily because extension of cultivation meant enhancement of land revenue, which was the principal source of income of the government. The basic impetus to the extension of cultivation was provided by population growth. However, it is not possible to say to what extent crop acreage expanded during medieval times. But Irfan Habib has hazarded the guess that during the Mughal period (1526-1707) the cropped area in certain parts of Bengal (as also in some other regions of Mughal India) doubled.

As in the ancient period, the chief agricultural produce was rice. It was produced in such abundance that after meeting local requirements there remained a considerable surplus for export. Broadly speaking, three varieties of paddy were grown. These were Aush (autumn), Aman (winter) and boro (summer). Within each of these three varieties there were great many cultivars of rice. Many of these are named in contemporary sources, including Shuny-Purana and Shivayana. Indeed, according to the former there were more than one thousand varieties. The Mughal historian Abul Fazl corroborates this information when he says that a large vase would be filled up ‘if a single grain of each kind were collected’. This description in not exaggerated. For in an exhibition held in Calcutta in the first decade of the twentieth century, more than one thousand varieties of rice were put on display. Abul Fazl speaks of a special variety of paddy which used to grow up with the gradual rise of water-level so that no harm was done to the crop from water. Here he seems to be referring to broadcast variety of Aman paddy grown in low-lying areas subject to regular flooding. The other variety of winter rice was transplanted Aman or ropa Aman.

Cotton and mulberry plants were the two most important industrial crops of the province. Incidentally, cotton and silk were the principal industries of Bengal. Cotton was produced in different districts of western, northern, and eastern Bengal. In western Bengal a large quantity was produced in Birbhum, Burdwan and Nadia districts, while in north Bengal it was produced mainly in Rangpur, Malda and Dinajpur districts. However, the best quality of cotton suitable for the famous muslin industry was grown in dhaka and mymensingh districts. John Taylor, an agent of the east india company around 1800 AD, mentioned that the cotton (karpas) produced around Dhaka city and along the banks of the Meghna was the ‘finest’ that was to be found in ‘any part of the world’. Taylor further mentioned that cotton seed was sown in October-November and harvested in April-May. With the decline of the cotton textile industry during the rule of the East India Company, cotton cultivation virtually came to an end in Bengal. Mulberry plants for silkworms were grown in central and north Bengal, especially in the districts of murshidabad and rajshahi. In all probability this crop was introduced from China and it was for the first time mentioned in the account of a Chinese traveller in the fifteenth century Bengal. Abul Fazl, Travernier, Bernier and English factory records also refer to the cultivation of mulberry plants in the province. Travernier, who visited kasimbazar in 1666, stated that the annual production of this crop in Kasimbazar was of the order of 2.5 millions pounds and a certain part of it was exported to other parts of India.

Yet another commercial crop was sugarcane. Down to 1756 a considerable trade in Bengal sugar was carried on with Madras, Bombay, the Malabar coast, Surat, Sind, Muscat, the Persian Gulf, Mocha and Jeddah. Bengal was the chief centre of this industry with a large export trade in sugar even in the middle of the seventeenth century. This is clear from the accounts of Barbosa, Barthema, and Bernier as well as from the records of the English and the Dutch. It would then appear that sugarcane constituted an important industrial crop in medieval Bengal. A certain proportion of the land was sown with such commercial crops as rape, mustard and other oilseeds. Several new crops were introduced in the province during this period. These were tobacco, maize and probably indigo. Similarly, three new fruits, for example, cashew nut, pineapple and papaya were received from the west. Guava came later. So did sweet and ordinary potato. Thus, not only did Bengali peasants grow multiplicity of crops, but they were also prepared to accept new ones. Once again, contemporary accounts make it clear that great variety of fishes were abundantly available from rivers and their tributaries, including haors, beels, ponds and the sea.

Visiting the province in the fourteenth century, Ibn Batuta noted that the villagers living by the ‘blue-river’ paid half of their produce as land tax together with other imposts. Wang-ta-yuan, writing at about the same time, said that state demand during medieval times was one-fifth of the total produce. This apparent anomaly was possibly due to variations in revenue rates in different regions in accordance with the productivity of the soil and the nature of the crops. During the Sultanate period there were several rates ranging from one-fifth to one half of the produce. The standard rate at the time of akbar was one-third of the produce. This continued to be so during the rule of murshid quli khan. However, apart from land revenue there were other rural taxes. It has been suggested that at the all-India level these levies accounted for about 25 percent of the land revenue. Thus, judged by any standard, revenue rates were very high in medieval Bengal.

Revenue was levied at rates per unit of land or in lump sum covering entire villages. In some areas land revenue continued to be assessed on the basis of the number of ploughs used for tilling the land. Land revenue and other taxes were paid in cash. This means that the cultivators had to sell a considerable part of their agricultural produce. In other words, commodity production developed on a significant scale. The rural-urban exchange, which thus developed, had a special character in the sense that it was a one-way traffic. Rural areas sold cash and food crops to urban centres without buying anything substantial in return. This was so because all the non-agricultural goods, which the villagers needed, were produced in the villages. This is not to support the assumption (at one time popular) that every village in the medieval period was self-sufficient, but to emphasize the point that rural areas were by and large self-sufficient. Land revenue was collected with the help of a group of mostly hereditary intermediaries known as zamindars of different size and status, and officials known as amils. The system of giving pattas to the peasants was generally followed during the Sultani and Mughal period. In the Chandimangal of Kavikankan and Shivyana of Rameshvara Bhattacharya, the legendary raiyats are depicted as receiving pattas from Indra and Kalaketu respectively. Tenants were of two categories khudkasta and pahikasta. Early British administrators called tenants of the former category ‘resident’ cultivators. The latter category included peasants who came from other villages to cultivate land on temporary basis. They paid generally lower rate of rent than the khudkasta cultivators.

Farming methods and most agricultural tools and implements remained the same as in the ancient period. With regard to farming methods the only exception was in chittagong hill tracts. Here a method of shifting cultivation locally known as jhum is practised even today. The method of lifting water from wells did not improve. The Persian wheel, which was introduced in north India remained unknown in Bengal. The system of manuring seems to have been the same. Consequently, it is unlikely that yield rates of important crops was higher during the Mughal period than in the late nineteenth or twentieth century. It may be argued that yield rates could have been higher because more fertile lands were under cultivation during these times. But as against this it could also be argued that as land-man ratio was more favourable, less intensive method of cultivation was followed. However, a favourable land-man ratio meant that per capita production was larger in medieval Bengal. The cheapness of the agricultural produce, which so drew the attention of foreign travellers, may well be taken as the index of the abundance of agricultural produce during the medieval period.

Several important qualifications need to be made, however. Firstly, as is still the case today, agriculture was a ‘gamble in the monsoon’. This means that production was affected sometimes by excessive rainfall and sometimes by drought. Little is known about the outbreak of famines, but it is likely that sometimes famine conditions prevailed in some parts of the province. Secondly, there was a certain degree of inequality among the cultivating classes. While a section of the rural families held such large holdings that these could not be operated with the help of family labour alone, others were denied access to land or held small holdings. This meant that a certain section of rural families earned their living as agricultural labourers. This is indicated by Vipradas who gave the picture of the Muslim peasantry of west Bengal. Thus, even though on average per capita production was higher, its distribution was unequal. Although agricultural produce was in abundant supply for the vast majority of the people engaged in this field, the overall standard of living does not seem to have been enviable. This is clear from the account of foreign travellers and the evidence available from local sources. Abul Fazl says that the common people of Bengal for the most part went naked, wearing only a cloth (lungi) about the loins. It is not convincing that this was dictated by climatic factors and social traditions, since the upper classes could be distinguished by the type and quality of the clothes they wore. Moreover, in those days cotton production and weaving was widespread in Bengal. It might then be suggested that cloth was more expensive relative to paddy. By and large people did not use shoes, and Moreland thinks that this was due to the high cost of leather. The bulk of the peasants lived in single-roomed houses made of mud with thatched roofs. The peasants’ houses had hardly any furniture besides cots and bamboo mats. Utensils made of bell-metal or copper were expensive and were not generally used by the people. Thus despite the abundance of agricultural production there is little to indicate that the agriculturists enjoyed a high standard of living.

The agricultural sector of the Indian sub-continent experienced a marked expansion during British colonial rule. Total volume and value of agricultural production increased, mostly through the extension of cultivated area. What is more, as India changed her role from a supplier of industrial goods to a supplier of agricultural produce, and as the domestic market also expanded with the development of certain industries and urban centres, production for the market became a more important feature than in the past. This was so despite the fact that with the decline of traditional industries and the natural growth of population there was now increased pressure (of population) on the agricultural sector. The impact of the widening of market was felt first in Bengal because it was the first province to come under British rule.

Towards the end of the eighteenth century vast tracts of land in Bengal were cultivable wastes. An important factor behind this situation was the famine of 1770, which caused considerable depopulation in different parts of the province. But during the succeeding century or so crop acreage expanded fast and by the turn of the twentieth century it virtually reached its natural limits (there being little scope for further extension of cultivation). However, expansion was most concentrated in the territories that today constitute Bangladesh. Thus, the greater part of Chittagong and noakhali, most of the Meghna estuary including Tipperah, the whole of the barind tracts, Sundarbans, and the haor area of Northeast Bengal were brought under cultivation during the nineteenth century. Peasants of three districts of 24 Parganas, Khulna and Bakerganj participated in the reclamation of the Sundarbans area. The census statistics show a striking population growth in the new agricultural settlements. However, the new cultivation in these districts at the expense of the Sundarbans was in fact far larger than the size of population growth. The great fertility of the soil there made it possible for an individual raiyat to farm a much larger area than he did elsewhere. Moreover, a considerable part of the cultivation was done by non-resident raiyats who went back home after cultivating their lands there. Another field of reclamation in these districts was the fertile alluvial lands constantly brought into existence by the active rivers.

The largest scope for such reclamation was in Bakerganj. In Tipperah too vast areas of char (alluvial lands, formerly the habitation of pigs) were brought under cultivation. Apart from these new agricultural settlements in eastern Bengal as a whole, some individual districts there had their own particular regions of growth. In the Barind area the southern third of Dinajpur, the eastern half of Malda, the western half of Bogra and the northern quarter of Rajshahi reclamation was made possible by immigrant Santal labour. However, the pattern was different in certain parts of west and central Bengal. Here as a natural process a decay of the river system had been taking place over a long period of time.

This was now accelerated by the construction of railways and feeder roads to connect the railways with remote villages. This produced two adverse results: land productivity declined and the outbreak of malaria fever became frequent. This latter phenomenon led to a decline in population growth. In the circumstances crop acreage in districts like Nadia, Birbhum, Midnapore, Hoogly, and Jessore declined or remained stagnant in the latter half of the nineteenth century. However, though the performance in the two parts of the province- the moribund and active delta was different, the trend in Bengal as a whole was a positive one, since agricultural production increased in volume as also in value because of improvement in prices. It is unlikely that there was any significant improvement in the yield rate of crops in east Bengal districts during the nineteenth century.

The story told so far about crop production in the nineteenth century is based on impressionistic assessment of concerned officials, and population statistics drawn from decennial census reports, but not on any time-series data on cropped area and yield per acre. Such data were made available by the government only from 1891/92 onwards. The relevant publications are Estimates of Area and Yields of Principal Crops in India, Agricultural Statistics of India, Agricultural Statistics of Bengal and Season and Crop Reports. Much has been said about the quality of these statistics. However, most scholars are of the opinion that though it is difficult to estimate the volume of crop output with any degree of reliability on the basis of these data, it is possible to estimate the time-trend on the assumption that the margin of error remained more or less uniform over time.

To proceed on the basis of the officially published statistics, the area under cultivation in some of the west and central Bengal districts declined or continued to decline. On the other hand, crop acreage marginally increased (especially through the extension of double cropping) in East Bengal districts. But the rate of increase was now so marginal that the overall pattern was one of stagnation. Among the individual crops, jute area recorded some expansion but the stagnation in paddy, which accounted for about 80 percent of the total crop acreage, determined the overall trend. According to the officially published statistics, food crop acreage expanded fast after 1941. This was attributed to the "Grow More Food" campaign launched by the government during these years. However, it seems that the success of this campaign was not as spectacular as claimed. What about the trends in yield rates? On the basis of the available data it appears that jute yield increased and so did the yield of sugarcane. But the yield rate of Aman paddy did not improve. This meant stagnation in the all-crop yield rate.

Stagnation in the all-crop yield rate and acreage, in turn, meant that all-crop output did not increase. This came about against a background of population growth of about one percent per annum. Per capita crop production was already low at the turn of the twentieth century because high population density meant that the average size of a holding was small (about four acres). Now the stagnation in crop production led to a further lowering of per capita output.

A Provincial Department of Agriculture was established in 1885. This Department took a number of steps for agricultural improvement. These included: (i) experiments with improved methods of cultivation through the establishment of experimental farms in Burdwan, Dhaka, Rajshahi, Shibpur and Rangpur, (ii) demonstration to the peasants of the improved methods through the appointment of demonstrators, (iii) dissemination of the results of experiments among the cultivators through publication of agricultural literature, (iv) supply to the peasants of better seeds grown in the farms, (v) provision for imparting training to the sons of the cultivators in the improved methods, and (vi) introduction of improved agricultural implements. But the impact of these efforts at the farm level was extremely limited. Consequently, the method of farming and agricultural tools and implements remained more or less the same as in medieval and ancient times.

Commercial fertiliser was unknown. Use of improved varieties of seeds made little progress. Towards the close of the 1930s, only six percent of the paddy area was sown with improved seeds. The irrigated area accounted for only a small part of the total cropped area and this was concentrated in certain districts of west Bengal. Meanwhile, the double-cropped area increased in East Bengal districts, but with a corresponding decline in fallow lands. Thus the causes for the stagnation in the yield per acre of the major crops are not far to seek.

As mentioned earlier, with the establishment of British rule agricultural production not only increased in terms of volume and value, it became more commercialised or market-oriented. This was not new, but commercialisation now became an important feature of the agrarian economy. Production for sale did not remain confined to the cash crops, for according to one estimate (Report on the Marketing of Rice in India), towards the close of the 1930s, 44 percent of the total rice output was marketed in Bengal. However, cash crop cultivation also increased. Most important in this respect was the expansion of jute acreage, especially in certain districts of east and north Bengal (Dhaka, Mymensingh and Rangpur).

At its height jute cultivation provided employment to more than 10 percent of the agricultural labour force, different groups of middlemen involved in jute trade, profits to the mill owners and export-firms in Calcutta, an industrial labour force of considerable size and, most important of all, contributed the bulk of the marketed surplus in the agricultural sector. According to one estimate, the proportion of total marketed surplus contributed by this crop ranged between 20 percent in 1920/21 and 64 percent in 1925/26, the average for the period 1920/21-1932/33 being 40 percent as against 34 percent in the case of rice.

Jute was an export crop, both in raw and manufactured form, and jute manufactures included gunny bags and gunny cloths used for packaging purposes. The basic impetus to increased jute production was provided by foreign demand. The first jute mill was established in Calcutta in 1855. During the next 50 years, thirty-four other jute mills were established. In 1900/01 the manufacturing capacity of these mills consisted of 315,000 spindles and 15340 looms. They employed over 110 thousand workers and consumed about 40 percent of the total crop. Meanwhile demand from Dundee mills increased and by 1896/97 jute acreage expanded to 1.6 million acres from a meagre 0.553 million acres in 1876/77. During the period 1920-47, jute acreage accounted for about 10 percent of the total cropped area. The highest point was reached during 1904/05-1907/08 when more than three million acres were sown with this crop. Jute acreage did not significantly decline even during the depression years when prices were very low. As rightly pointed out by two jute enquiry committees (Finlow Committee and Fawcus Committee), this was due to the absence of a profitable alternative crop.

Other cash crops grown in Bengal during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were tea, opium, indigo, sugarcane, tobacco and oilseeds. Tea, a plantation crop, was distinguishable from other cash crops in the sense that it was cultivated entirely with the help of wage labour (mostly drawn from tribal people). Tea was grown only in three districts Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri and Chittagong. Opium had, one distinctive feature: the exclusive control of the government over its production and sale. But its production was mostly confined to Patna and its neighbourhood. Indigo cultivation had an impressive growth rate. Once again, the main incentive was provided by increased foreign demand as a result of the decline in its supply from traditional sources such as western India, parts of North America and the West Indies. The East India Company had a stake in the expansion of indigo average. For after the decline in the export of cotton textiles from Bengal, the colonial government was badly in need of a profitable external commerce, mainly as a medium of remittance, and found in indigo a promising substitute.

However, an element of extra-economic coercion was present in planter’s instruments for promoting indigo cultivation. This was because indigo cultivation was not profitable for the raiyats. Left to them they would not have cultivated the crop. Consequently, the system of indigo cultivation proved oppressive and in 1859/60 raiyats revolted against indigo cultivation. Unlike earlier instances of anti-indigo resistance, the Indigo Revolt of this year engulfed the whole of the indigo belt. As a result indigo cultivation declined drastically in Bengal. Sugarcane, another cash crop, was one of the few crops (others being tea and linseed) which registered some improvement in yields per acre. This was due to two factors. Firstly, during the 1930s more than half of the area under sugarcane was sown with improved varieties of seedlings. Secondly, the use of iron mill for crushing sugarcane increased. But all the cash crops (excluding jute) taken together did not account for even five percent of the total cropped area of the province.

The institutional framework of Bengal agriculture during British rule was provided by the permanent settlement introduced by Lord CHARLES cornwallis in 1793. Under this arrangement, zamindars were declared as the proprietors of land, the revenue payable by them to the government was fixed for all time to come. It was further provided that henceforth the proprietors would have no right to claim remission or suspension of revenue on account of any natural calamity and that if a proprietor failed to punctually pay the revenue within a stipulated date the whole or part of his zamiandari lands would be sold in auction. The strict execution of the Revenue Sale Law (popularly known as Sun-set Law) meant that many zamindaris were indeed sold in auction. A new set of people formerly engaged in trade and commerce and government and zamindari services became new zamindars. One objective behind the introduction of the Permanent Settlement was that as government demand on them would not be a variable one, the zamindars would invest capital for agricultural development. In other words, the expectation of Lord Cornwallis was that the magic touch of private property would inspire the zamindars to imitate their British counterparts. But this expectation was not fulfilled: neither the old zamindars nor the new ones took any initiative in investing capital in agriculture.

Many of the zamindars were not even ready to undertake the task of collecting rent from cultivating tenants or raiyats. Instead, they began shifting their landholding responsibilities to a class of perpetual rentiers, imposing on them the same terms and conditions as they themselves had agreed to fulfill under the Permanent Settlement. Tenurially, these rights stood between the zamindars and the raiyats, they were called madhyasatvas or intermediate property. Madhyasatva was as transferable and inheritable as zamindari svatva (right) was. Madhyastvas were broadly of two categories: pattani svatva and patitabad svatva. Pattani svatva was first invented by the Maharaja of Burdwan. He divided his vast estate into thousands of blocks, each of which was settled with an intermediary called pattanidar. The pattanidar created darpattanis (second grade) and dar-pattanidars, in turn, created se-pattani (third degree) and so on. This practice was followed by other zamindars. The Patitabad intermediary interests included those who were primarily responsible for the reclamation of wastelands in east Bengal districts. The zamindars created these intermediaries of various denominations and allowed them to invest capital in the reclamation of patit (cultivable waste) land in lieu of permanent rights in lands cleared.

Like pattani tenure, these patitabad tenures also developed multi-tiered structure with the local nomenclatures of talukdar, haoladar, nim-haoladar, gantidar, etc. However, it may be pointed out that only a certain part of the zamindari lands was affected by the growth of intermediaries. Secondly, the number of grades of intermediaries was never as high as the 50 grades suggested by the Indian Statutory Commission. The maximum was 12 in Bakerganj district. In other districts for which information is available, the number of grades was as follow: Dhaka (4), Jessore (6 or 7), Khulna (8), Bogra (10) and Mymensingh (3).

The zamindars or the original proprietors and the tenure-holders of all grades appropriated a large part of the agricultural surplus in the form of rent and a whole range of abwabs (illegal cesses). The volume of this surplus increased in two ways since 1793, the rate of rent was being enhanced, and additional lands were being brought under cultivation. But the state demand remained fixed. Some idea about the magnitude of this increase may be had from the fact that according to one estimate, in 1918/19 these proprietors and intermediaries intercepted as much as 76.7 percent of the gross rental of Rs 12.85 crores, paying only 2.99 crores to the state as land revenue. Incidentally, the Permanent Settlement envisaged that of the total amount collected as rent 90 percent would go to the treasury while zamindars would retain only 10 percent. Thriving on the gap between rent and revenue, proprietors and intermediaries formed the core of an expanding status group (known as Bhadralok) from which came the early generation of successful professionals in law, journalism, medicine, civil and the judicial services.

But the landlords did not invest a part of this surplus for improvement of agriculture. Herein lay the greatest drawback of the Permanent Settlement for, it enabled landlords to appropriate agricultural surplus without themselves playing any part in creating this surplus. The patitabad tenures played a productive role to the extent that these promoted the reclamation process. But by the early twentieth century, when reclamation activities had come to a virtual close, these intermediaries, like those in the other category as well as the original proprietors, became parasites. The Bengal Land Revenue Commission (popularly known as Floud Commission) appointed in 1938 by the provincial government, recommended the abolition of the Permanent Settlement. However, this recommendation was not implemented during the remaining years of the British rule.

The rights of the raiyats were never properly defined under the rules of the Permanent Settlement. On the other hand, their position was made even more vulnerable by the regulations of 1799, 1812, 1822 and 1844. All these regulations enormously increased landlords’ powers and subjected the peasantry to an increasing rent burden and to extreme insecurity in land rights. However, beginning from 1859 a series of legislative steps ware taken to improve the status of the tenants. As a result by 1938 raiyats were endowed virtually with all the rights of ownership inheritance, free transfer of land, security against eviction and enhancement of the rate of rent. Certain legal rights were granted even to the under-raiyats who held land under the raiyats.

Attempts were also made to grant certain rights to the bargadars or sharecroppers (their share of the produce being normally 50%) but predictably these attempts failed because of the opposition of the representatives of the rich peasants and landlords in the provincial legislature. Thus, by the close of British colonial rule, the tenurial system had become a very complex one. There was a group of rent-receiving zamindars and tenure-holders of different grades on the one hand, and ‘owner’ cultivators on the other. A tenure-holder of a certain grade was a landlord in relation to the tenure-holder immediately below him, but he was a tenant in relation to the zamindar or the tenure-holder above him, since as per law any one who received rent was a landlord while any one paying a rent was tenant. Similarly raiyats who received rent from the under-raiyats, strictly speaking, were also landlords. Again, though the landlords (ie, original zamindars and the intermediaries) primarily lived on their rental income, they also possessed a certain khas (demesne) land and had it cultivated with the help of sharecroppers and hired labour. The proportions of land, without any reference to the manner of their cultivation, under the possession of these different groups were as follow: landlords’ khas land (20%), raiyats (72%) and under-raiyats (8%).