Peasants and Farmers

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1. In the colonial period, rural India also came to produce a range of crops for the world market.
2. In the early nineteenth century, indigo and opium were two of the major commercial crops.
3. By the end of the century, peasants were producing sugarcane, cotton, jute, wheat and several other crops for export, to feed the population of urban Europe and to supply the mills of Lancashire and Manchester in England.

Opium production in India is directly linked to the British trade with China. The western merchants wanted to balance their trade with China and hence searched for a commodity that could sell in China. The English bought tea from China and the Chinese bought opium from them.

The cultivators were unwilling to produce opium for various reasons :

1. Opium required fertile land
2. Rates paid by the British were very low
3. It required looking after

The British discovered that opium produced in British territories was declining whereas in territories not under British rule the production was increasing. Traders were selling opium directly to China. This forced the British to establish its monopoly over this trade.

1. The Indian peasants were forced to grow opium. The British government bought this opium from them at nominal rates.
2. As the market for opium expanded in China, larger volumes of opium flowed out of Bengal ports.
3. Before 1767, no more than 500 chests (of two maunds each) were being exported from India.
4. Within four years, the quantity trebled. A hundred years later, in 1870, the government was exporting about 50,000 chests annually.