The
Battle of Plassey put an end once and for all to the need for Britain to send
precious silver to India (from the sale of slaves in the West Indies). The EIC
could now get their hands on India's wealth without having to send wealth in
return. The first step was the dewani. the right to collect the revenue on
Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. Before the British came, there was no private
property; the self-governing village community handed over each year to the
ruler or his nominee, the 'king's share' of the year's produce. The EIC stopped
this practice and introduced a new system in which the State was the supreme
landlord. The cultivator had to pay a fixed sum to the government every year
whether or not his crop had been successful. In the years of bad harvest, the
cultivators were forced to borrow from moneylenders to pay their taxes and
British authorities did not hesitate to charge 200% interest or more.
Furthermore, Indian and other merchants (French, Danish)
were prevented from trading in grain, salt, betel nuts and tobacco, In 1769,
the Company prohibited the homework of silk weavers and compelled them to work
in its factories. Weavers who disobeyed were seized, jailed, fined or flogged.
India was not only agricultural but also had an established
industrial base. It had a prosperous textile industry whose cotton, silk and
woollen products were marketed to Europe and elsewhere in Asia.
It had remarkable skills in iron-working. Calcutta, Daman,
Surat, Bombay and Pegu were important shipbuilding centres and in 1802 skilled
Indian workers were building British warships at the Bombay Shipyard of
Bomanjee & Maneckjee. It was acknowledged that the teakwood vessels of
Bombay were greatly superior to the oaken walls of Old England. Benares was
famous for its brass, copper and bell-metal wares. Other industries included
the enamelled jewellery and stone-carving of Rajputana towns, as well as
filigree work in gold and silver, ivory, glass, tannery, perfumery and
paper-making.
The British destroyed the Indian textile industry and
throttled tha shipbuilding, metalwork, glass and paper industries. An order by
Sit Charles Wood, Secretary of State for India (1859-66) obliged the British
government in India to use only British-made paper. As the industrial
revolution took off in Britain, heavy duties were levied on Indian textiles
while British goods secured virtual free entry into India.
Systematic
plunder led to the 1769-70 famine in which 10 million people died. A commons
Select Committee reported in 1783 that "the Natives of all ranks and
orders had been reduced to a state of depression and misery." (Peter Fryer, Black People
in the British Empire,
(Pluto 1993, 2nd edition, p18-20). 
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