Indian famine and agrarian problems : a policy study on the administration of Lord George Hamilton, secretary of state for India, 1895-1903 PDF
Preview Indian famine and agrarian problems : a policy study on the administration of Lord George Hamilton, secretary of state for India, 1895-1903
INDIAN FAMINE AND AGRARIAN PROBLEMS A POLICY STUDY ON THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD GEORGE HAMILTON SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA 1895 1903 By PREMANSUKUMAR BANDYOPADHYAY STAR PUBLICATIONS* CALCUTTA First PuUished‘ 1958 ' Published by Sri Sibuath Banerjee, Star Publications^ 20 Chandi Charan Ghosh Roa^ Calcutta-700008. Cover Printed by National Half Tone Co. Made and ^ted in India by Ava Ftess, SB. Guripara Road, Calcutta-700015, Set in LinCtype. KNDIAN FAKfXNB AND AGRARIAN PROBLEMS PREFACE Recent interest in the Indian economic history during the British period has led to substantial increase in research on the land system and the land revenue administration of the British Indian government and thdr effects on the economic condition of the peasants. Land was the main source of revenue the government needed to defray the increasing cost of civil and military administration in India as well as the expenses of the India Office in London right from the salaries of the Secretary of State for India down to the wages of the cleaners of the India Office wing of the Whitehall. Part of the preceeds of land revenue, too, was used by the government to pay off the guranteed pro- fits on the British private capital invested in the Railway Companies in India the benefits of which were minimal to the poor peasants. British policy on land revenue in India, therefore, was consistently rigid to attain those objectives. But increasing revenue demand on land caused hardship to the peasants who received very little help from the sarkar to increase the productivity of land and normally had to live in abject proverty and indebtedness throughout the year. Periodic visitation of drought and famine on top of that, resulted in devasta- ting effects on their very physical existence. Their suffering at that time, widespread pestilence and mortality in millions that followed due to lack of timely and adequate relief measures undertaken by the government, posed a dangerous contradiction in the British policy in India. The Imperial trio, the Viceroy of India aided by his pro- vincial colleagues, the members of the Indian Civil Service and the Secretary of State for India, a British cabinet minister but virtually immune from parliamentary control and pressurised by the British merchants, all strove to soften that contradiction. Indian public opinion to redress the distress of the peasants was ignored. The all- England protests and indignation by the British radical and liberals against the “Tmy misrule in India” and their reform {nroposals to save the Indian peasants from the verge of ruin all were wasted down the Thames through the alleys of the Fleet Sheet and Westminster. The whole episode culminated in die late nineteenth and early of the pre- sent century when Lord Gecn-ge Hamilton had been the Secretary of' State for India and Elgin and Curzon held the rein of the Britiria Raj in India.
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