How permanent settlement system affected farmers?
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Answer:
- permanent settlement
To keep powerful people happy and collect better revenue, Cornwallis introduced the Permanent Settlement. As per permanent system, rajas and taluqdars were recognised as zamindars, who were supposed to collect the land revenue from the peasants. The rate of revenue was never to be increased.
The Permanent Settlement, is also known as the Permanent Settlement of Bengal, was an agreement between the East India Company and Bengali landlords to fix revenues to be raised from land, with far-reaching consequences for both agricultural methods and productivity in the entire British Empire and the political realities of the Indian countryside. It was concluded in 1793 by the Company administration headed by Charles, Earl Cornwallis, also known as Lord Cornwallis.[1] It formed one part of a larger body of legislation enacted, known as the Cornwallis Code. The Cornwallis Code of 1793 divided the East India Company's service personnel into three branches: revenue, judicial, and commercial. Revenues were collected by zamindars, native Indians who were treated as the landowners. This division created an Indian landed class that supported British authority.
Many argue that the settlement and its outcome had several drawbacks when compared with its initial goals of increasing tax revenue, creating a Western-European style land market in Bengal, and encouraging investment in land and agriculture, thereby creating the conditions for long-term economic growth for both the company and region's inhabitants. Firstly, the policy of setting the rate of expected revenue for the foreseeable future meant that the income of the Company from taxation actually decreased in the long-term because revenues remained fixed while expenses increased over time. Meanwhile, the condition of the Bengali peasantry became increasingly pitiable, with famines becoming a regular occurrence as landlords (who risked immediate loss of their land if they failed to deliver the expected amount from taxation) sought to guarantee revenue by coercing the local agriculturalists to cultivate by the countrymen cash crops such as cotton, indigo, jute (opium plantations were managed directly by the Company), while the long-term private investment by the zamindars in agricultural infrastructure failed to materialis move