Zamindars, mines and peasants

The history of an Indian coalfield was determined by the zamindars, feudal lords who controlled land and labour and held the sub-soil rights of the region, and by the British managing agencies which extended their operations to this area. The zamindars stuck to their feudal habits, wasted their resources and encumbered their estates, the managing agencies exploited mines and men ruthlessly. The peasantry was drawn into this new economic activity at the lowest level as unskilled labour. But even the meagre wages paid for causal work in the mines were more rewarding than the hard task of converting up-land into rice terraces. Therefore agriculture stagnated and the coalfield became an enclave in a backward region.

The role of the zamindars, the distribution of land, the management of their estates, and their financial position are discussed by D.C. Wadhwa. The control of land and labour in the Chota Nagpur region as it evolved under British rule is analyzed by D. Schwerin, and H. Papendieck has contributed a detailed study of the working of the managing agency system in the coalfield.

This is the first volume of the report on the Dhanbad Research Project of the South Asia Interdisciplinary Regional Research Programme of Heidelberg University. The second volume Urban Growth and Rural Stagnation, edited by D. Rothermund, E. Kropp and G. Dienemann, will contain the contributions of the economists, the third volume Social Stratification and Political Structure, edited by J.P. Neelsen, was written by the soicologists and political scientists.