Agricultural stagnation
Topic: Indian Economy on the Eve of Independence · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 1 "Indian Economy on the Eve of Independence"; Class 11, Ch 2 "Indian Economy 1950-1990"
Meaning
Agricultural stagnation means farming stays stuck. Productivity (output per hectare) stays low and often gets worse. In colonial India, about 85% of people lived in villages and depended on agriculture, yet farming barely improved. The main causes were:
- colonial land revenue settlements, which pushed zamindars to squeeze rent out of farmers instead of improving the land
- poor technology
- little irrigation and hardly any fertiliser
- no investment in drainage or flood control
Example
Total farm output in colonial India rose only because more land came under the plough. Output per hectare did not rise. Under the zamindari system in Bengal, a zamindar lost his rights if he missed the payment date (the "Sunset Law"). So zamindars collected rent whatever state the farmer was in and spent nothing on the land. This pattern broke only after independence, with land reforms and later the Green Revolution.
Don't confuse with
- Commercialisation of agriculture: this is a change in which crops are grown (food crops replaced by crops for sale). Stagnation is about low productivity, and the two happened together.