Gomastha

Topic: Colonial Economy: Land Revenue, Drain, Deindustrialisation · NCERT: Class 10, Ch 4 "The Age of Industrialisation"

Meaning

A gomastha was a paid servant of the East India Company. The Company appointed gomasthas in the weaving villages after the 1760s to supervise weavers, collect the finished cloth and check its quality.

The gomastha matters because he was the Company's tool for taking control of Indian cloth production. The Company used him to remove Indian traders and tie weavers to itself. Because of how gomasthas behaved, they came to stand for the Company's harsh treatment of weavers and for the start of deindustrialisation (the decline of India's own crafts and industries).

Explanation

Background: why the Company needed a gomastha

• Indian cloth once led the world. Indian silk and cotton goods dominated the international textile market. The finer varieties of cloth came from India.
• Indians ran the whole trade. Indian merchants and bankers:
• gave weavers money in advance,
• supplied the raw material,

• shipped the cloth out from Surat, Masulipatam and Hoogly.

• This network broke down by the 1750s. European companies won:

• concessions (special trade favours from local rulers),

• then monopoly rights (only they could buy or sell a good).

• Surat's trade collapsed. Its gross trade fell from Rs 16 million at the end of the 17th century to Rs 3 million in the 1740s. Trade moved to the European-controlled ports of Bombay and Calcutta.

• Political power came next. In 1765 the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II gave the Company the diwani (the right to collect and manage the revenue) of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa [3].
• The Company now wanted a regular supply of cloth. It wanted that supply under its own control, with no Indian middlemen in between.

Main features: how the gomastha system worked

Step ①: remove the middlemen

• The Company got rid of the traders and brokers who used to deal with weavers.
• In their place it put a paid servant of its own: the gomastha.

Step ②: the gomastha's three jobs

• Supervise the weavers.
• Collect the finished cloth.
• Examine the quality of the cloth.

Step ③: the advance system (a loan that traps)

• The weaver got an advance, a loan to buy yarn.
• Once he took it, he had to give ALL his cloth to the gomastha. He could sell to no other buyer.
• In the early 19th century the Company also set heavy production quotas (fixed amounts of cloth to be made) and strict delivery deadlines [2].

Why the gomastha was hated

• Old merchants vs gomasthas:
• The earlier supply merchants lived in the weaving villages. They had close social links with the weavers and helped them in bad times.

• The gomasthas were outsiders with no long-term link to the village.

• Force: gomasthas came into villages with sepoys and peons (armed soldiers and hired servants).

• Punishment: they beat and flogged weavers for delays in supply.
• Low prices: the Company paid miserably low prices. The loan meant the weaver could not bargain or walk away.

Results: how weavers suffered and fought back

• Weavers lost their fallback.
• Many leased out their small plots of land (gave the land to someone else to farm) and wove full-time.
• Wife and children worked on the loom too.

• If weaving failed, they had no field to return to.

• Weavers resisted in several ways:

• Desertion: they left their villages. This is recorded in the Carnatic and Bengal.
• Revolt: weavers revolted together with village traders against the Company and its officials.
• Refusal: in many places they refused advances and closed their workshops.

• Change of work: many gave up weaving and became agricultural labourers.

• Many quit the craft. The pressure of quotas and deadlines made many artisans give up weaving for other work [2].

• Worse came later. After the gomastha system, weavers also lost to Manchester cloth. Indian piece-goods fell from 33% of exports in 1811–12 to 3% in 1850–51.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: after the 1760s, once the Company had political power. This followed the 1765 diwani of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa granted by Shah Alam II [3]. Clive became governor of Bengal in the same year [3].
• Region: mainly the weaving villages of Bengal and the Carnatic (the south). Weaver desertions are recorded in both.
• Key people:
• the East India Company and its gomasthas,
• the weavers,
• the village traders who joined their revolts,

• William Bentinck, the Governor-General.

• How we know:

• The NCERT Class 10, Ch 4 "The Age of Industrialisation" describes the gomastha, the advance system and the weavers' resistance.
• Bentinck's statement of 1834 shows the scale of the weavers' ruin: "The bones of the cotton weavers are bleaching the plains of India."
• Trade figures show the wider collapse. Two examples are the Surat trade numbers and the fall in piece-goods exports.

Don't confuse with

• Traders and brokers (the old supply merchants): these were the middlemen the gomastha replaced. They lived in the villages and had close links with the weavers. The gomastha was a paid Company servant and an outsider.
• Jobber: in the same NCERT chapter, a jobber was the person factory owners used to recruit mill workers in Indian factories. The gomastha supervised handloom weavers for the East India Company.
• Sepoys and peons: these were the armed soldiers and hired servants who went with the gomastha into villages. The gomastha himself was the supervisor and cloth collector.
• Diwani: this was the right to collect revenue in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, granted in 1765. It gave the Company political power. The gomastha was the village-level official through whom that power reached the weaver.

Prelims Hooks

• Gomastha = a paid servant of the East India Company who supervised weavers, collected cloth and checked its quality. He was not an independent Indian merchant or broker.
• Under the advance system, a weaver who took a loan had to sell all his cloth to the gomastha only.
• Gomasthas came with sepoys and peons. They punished late supply with beating and flogging.
• Weavers deserting their villages is recorded in the Carnatic and Bengal.
• "The bones of the cotton weavers are bleaching the plains of India" → William Bentinck, 1834.
• Correct order: concessions and monopoly rights (by the 1750s) → diwani of 1765 → gomasthas and the advance system → Indian piece-goods fall from 33% (1811–12) to 3% (1850–51) of exports.

Mains Points

• Deindustrialisation was political before it was technological. The gomastha shows that the Company crushed weavers by monopoly and force, long before British machine-made cloth arrived:
• first it removed the Indian traders,
• then it tied weavers with loans,
• then it enforced supply through outsiders backed by sepoys.

A GS-I answer can trace the order: conquest → monopoly → gomastha and advance system → tariff gap → machine competition.

• It broke the social and economic base of the village. The old merchants had been part of village life and helped weavers in hard times. The gomastha was an outsider who used punishment. Weavers who had leased out their land and then lost their craft became agricultural labourers. This added to the overcrowding of agriculture and to rural poverty under colonial rule.
• Weavers resisted. Desertion in the Carnatic and Bengal, joint revolts with village traders, refusing advances and closing workshops show that weavers did not simply accept Company control. Some scholars argue the decline of handloom weaving was specific to certain types of market and cloth, not general [2]. This is useful for balance, but the NCERT view of a broad destruction of the weaver economy is the exam position.

Related concepts

• Surat
• System of advances
• Deindustrialisation
• American Civil War
• Cotton Supply Association
• Manchester Cotton Company
• Bombay Gazette

Read more

• Deindustrialisation I: the destruction of the weaver economy