Modernization of Agriculture in India under Late Colonialism The Case of the United Provinces from 1890 1945

Abstract

This thesis studies the origin and development of the idea of agricultural modernisation, in newline discourse and in reality, in India under colonialism. It has a particular emphasis on the newline application of modern science and technology to the process of agricultural production, newline and a geographically focus on the (erstwhile) United Provinces of British India. newline The study locates itself in the changing economic and political context of British colonial newline rule in the country. It begins with examining the origin of the new idea of agricultural newline improvement in the late nineteenth century, and its institutionalization in the early decades newline of twentieth century. It documents and explains the evolution of this idea and the newline institutional framework in the last fifty years of British colonial rule. It also highlights the newline different meanings of agricultural modernisation for different classes of historical actors, newline and the respective roles played by them in the process of agricultural advancement. newline The study concludes that the idea of agricultural modernisation that emerged under British newline colonial rule appreciated the need for a productive interplay between the expansion and newline modernisation of productive forces, and changes in agrarian relations and institutions. newline However, there were contradictions inherent in the idea from its inception, that were to newline critically undermine its realization, and eventually lead to a fragmented view of agricultural newline improvement. The study examines the various ways in which these contradictions played newline out as the notion of agricultural improvement evolved in the twentieth century, and limited newline the work of the Imperial Department of Agriculture, as well as the Department of newline Agriculture in the United Provinces. In the ultimate analysis, these contradictions were newline inherent in the reality that the idea of agricultural modernisation and the institutional newline framework that was designed to bring it about took shape under colonial rule, and were newline driven by its motivations. At a more concrete level, however, it was the zamindari class, and newline the related agrarian relations and institutions, that were both the bulwark of British rule, as newline well as the key to the failure of the absorption of scientific agriculture, equally an newline imperative to the advancement of its purpose newline