What were the injustice faced by the farmers of malabar from the land lords
Answers
Explanation:
day Kerala State is economically backward in many respects. The region was under colonial
rule since the English East India Company conquered Malabar from the Mysoreans in 1792
till attainment of independence in 1947. Though Malabar had been a major exporter of a wide
variety of agricultural products to Europe for more than two thousand years and consequently
exposed to influences from abroad, it still remains an underdeveloped region with a backward
agricultural sector.
Except for a study by T.W. Shea, no attempts have been made to examine the causes
of agricultural backwardness in Malabar. Shea1 emphasises six barriers to economic growth
in the region, viz. the immobility of the caste structure, the traditional occupational
distribution of the elite, the absence of systematic government in the pre-British period, the
pattern of land tenures, the structure of family property laws and the pattern of population
growth during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In explaining the barriers to economic
growth, he puts forward the hypothesis that businessmen in Malabar made no concerted,
systematic attempts to rationalise agricultural production, and that because of their lack of
interest in bringing about changes in productive techniques in agriculture, the development
inhibiting social and economic barriers were never directly challenged. Though the study
highlights a few barriers to the economic development of Malabar, a major limitation of the
study is that it has completely ignored the impact of colonial policies.
In this study our objective is to present an alternative explanation for the agricultural
backwardness of Malabar during the colonial period, in which we emphasise two factors, viz.
(1) the unfavourable and extractive policies pursued by the colonial power in the spheres of
agriculture, industry, infrastructure, trade and commerce; and (2) the caste system, and the
social practices arising out of the system, that prevailed in Malabar.
The Causes of Agricultural Backwardness of Malabar
Agricultural Performance under Colonial Rule
The British Malabar comprised of a vast region covering an area of about 6262 square
miles. It was divided into 18 taluks and 2222 villages for administrative purposes by the
beginning of 19th century. 2 Malabar was richly endowed with natural resources such as soil,
climate, rainfall, etc., favourable to the growth of a wide variety of plants and trees. A large
portion of Malabar to the east is mountainous and overrun with forests.3 Some of the
evergreen forests of Kerala, such as „Silent Valley‟ and „Attapady Valley‟ are located within
the district. The climate of Malabar is also favourable to the cultivation of grain as well as
plantation crops. The rainfall varies from 50 to 300 inches. The district also has a number of
rivers and backwaters.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century agriculture was the chief economic activity
of the people and provided the means of livelihood to the entire population except a few who
engaged in trade, commerce, cotton weaving, carpentry, smithy, fishing etc. On the basis of