Ramesh's family belongs to a caste that is today the major landowning group in its district. Family stories go back many generations. In earlier times, his ancestors tilled the same fields year after year, but the village was in the hands of the local raja, a high caste family that was also politically powerful. When the British took over the region, they did not send their own officials to deal with each cultivator; they dealt with the raja's household instead. Ramesh's grandfather remembers stories of years when families left the village and fields lay untilled.
Why did zamindars like the raja's household extract as much produce or money as they could from the cultivators under British rule?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → The colonisers imposed heavy land revenue on agriculture
Option (1) Frequent famines had reduced the produce of the villages — Incorrect. Frequent famines were one cause of the fall in production under British rule, because they decimated the population. The heavy demands zamindars made on cultivators came from the colonial land revenue instead.
Option (2) The colonisers imposed heavy land revenue on agriculture — Correct. The colonisers imposed heavy land revenue, or taxes, on agriculture. To meet this demand, zamindars like the raja's household took as much produce or money as they could from the cultivators.
Option (3) They had to maintain armies for frequent wars — Incorrect. Wars appear along with famines as what reduced the population. The zamindars did not squeeze cultivators to keep armies; the pressure came from the colonial revenue demand.
Option (4) They needed money to build irrigation works for intensive cultivation — Incorrect. Irrigation works belong to regions with assured water, where more labour was needed for intensive cultivation. They have no link to the heavy demands the zamindars made on cultivators under British rule.
NCERT (2026-27): “The Colonial Period … |