IEPH

First of all, Stats went really average... Am disappointed with my performance... But can't really help that... Everyone seems to have done better than me... Guess will have to make up for it in IEPH....

IEPH - Indian Economic and Political History... This basically talks about the past, and is portrayed in the sense of economics... Starting from how population has a distinct curve which keeps repeating itself - how it groww, becomes constant, and then falls, mainly due to literacy... It talks about why Calcutta is different from Mumbai - mainly because the British East India Company(EIC) first took control over Calcutta... The Marwaris there had to give up their own factoroes and become agents for the EIC.. Calcutta started producing Jute and Tea and had labour from outside.... Calcutta thus was not even serving for indigenous purposes... Mumbai on the other hand made the short staple cotton and was the nation's pride... By the time the British came to Mumbai the British govt had taken over the EIC, and hence the form there was a Utilitarian capitalistic govt....

Coming back to the crops that were grown, we had cash crops replacing food crops on demand of Lancashire... As a result the farmers, who would normally prepare food crops, use some for their own purpose and then sell the surplus, now had to buy food. Also, their returns on Jute were quite less... And Jute was only used as a RM and not as a finished product.

Next comes the Zamindari stuff.... Now the British auctioned land to zamindars for a period of time, and the profit for zamindars was Yield = Consumption + Tax + Surplus. Since consumption was constant, tax and surplus had the say. Govt increased taxes, and thus surplus reduced. As a result, the next Yield, which depended on the current surplus would be lesser, as this time around lesser land would be bought. Finally there would be poverty leading to famine, which would cause relief measures by the Govt, eating up the extra taxes which they themselves had eaten up. Therefore there was no use of this scheme. Thus came the Permanent Settlement Act, wherein Zamindars would buy land permanently. It was now assumed that things owuld get resolved. However, they didn't. Zamindars employed Naibs to manage these lands, as the former were more interested in naming themselves Nawabs than governing the land. The Naibs were in charge of collecting taxes, paying that to Zamindars. They had a court and police (hathiyaar). Now, no one actually cared if they made more money. But when Zamindars realized this they started giving them fixed salary, and thus permanent settlement failed.
When UK govt came in, they removed monopoly, allowed private players to buy land. THe Marwaris and a few others bought land and started building factories for Indigo, Jute etc. India now became an importer after having been an exporter. Payments for Jute would come in only once the final good was sold. This was the commercialization of Indian Agriculture. Thus the peasants were not interested in cash crops. However, Naibs, seeing the real profit form this. However, since they did not own the land this was not of much use. So Naibs cheated the zamindar by not paying taxes, and the land would go in auction, and some kin of the Naib would buy the land, and thus Naib would gain control over the land. The peasants did not earn much any more, and starting taking debts from money lenders. Since they could never return the money due to fall in prices (competition) of their goods, the money lenders would start collecting only the interest, until the interest + principle became more than the value of the land(causing Debt Trap). Then, the money lenders would approach the court and take ownership of the land, and then bonded labour with the existing peasants.

Land reforms - After Independence, a bill was passed saying one could not own more than a particular amount of land. The land owners then started controlling the land in the names of other family members, pets, and even illiterate servants who would never understand the meaning of that they were encountering. This sort of transfer, called the Benaami transfer, ensured that the govt could not even collect 10 % of the land. Thus the land reforms failed...