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Summary

The rural sector, comprising agriculture, and ancillary activities such as animal husbandry, forestry and fishing, was the foundation of the colonial economy. In most parts of the country, the peasant mode of production never fully resolved itself into a class structure based on labour and capital. Rich peasants rarely became rentiers; poor peasants did not often suffer full proletarianisation by losing access to land entirely. The creation of a land market in India in the first half of the nineteenth century was identified by nationalist historians as one of the most drastic effects of colonial rule that acted, especially in north India and Bengal, as a mechanism for transferring control of land out of traditional proprietors into the hands of merchants and moneylenders. For the rural poor the disruption of the rural labour market was probably the most severe direct consequence of the depression in agriculture.

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2 - Agriculture 1860–1950: land, labour and capital

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2 - Agriculture 1860–1950: land, labour and capital

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