THE PERIOD OF COLONIAL RULEwas actually under some kind of ‘permanent settlement’ with zamindars, and
some parts which were nominally ryotwari were in fact held by landlords
such as the jenmis of Malabar—Brahmin landlords who had been classified
as ryots (peasants) for the purposes of the revenue settlement.
With all this medley of traditions and superimposed constructions, the
Madras administration managed fairly well to adjust to a great variety of
local conditions: the area encompassed the extremely fertile terrain of
ancient kingdoms in coastal lowlands near the mouths of the major rivers,
as well as barren uplands and mountainous tracts. The Madras
administration was known for its masterful inactivity, its reluctance to
produce any kind of legislation and its slow responses to any queries from
the Government of India. The people were left fairly undisturbed by the
administration and reciprocated by showing only rare traces of unrest.
Public opinion was dominated for a long time by a small elite of English-
educated Brahmins who were rather moderate in their political views. The
fact that there were four major Dravidian languages—Kannada,
Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu—represented in the Madras Presidency
initially restricted active communication to the few who knew English.
(The polyglot nature of this area later led to a demand for provincial
boundaries determined by language.)
In economic terms the Madras Presidency was much less ‘colonial’ than
eastern India. Its connection with the world market was slight, as it had
hardly any important export commodities to offer. The different fates of
the weavers in Bengal and those in the South reflected this situation. In
Bengal, where great quantities of textiles were produced for export in the
eighteenth century, the change in the demand for textiles due to the
industrial revolution in England caused a serious dislocation; the southern
weavers, by contrast, produced mostly for the home market and could
survive as long as food and cotton were cheap. Even the spinning of yarn
still continued in the south at a time when the import of industrially
produced yarn had long since replaced indigenous spinning in northern
India. Long distances and a lesser density of population reduced the
frequency of commercial communication in the south, whereas the
populous northern plains with their great rivers were much more accessible
even before the railways opened up the interior of India. When the
railways were built they also traversed first of all the northern plains and
penetrated the interior of South India much more slowly. Thus the British
impact, both in administrative and economic terms, was less intense in the
south than in eastern and northern India.
The Bombay Presidency and the ‘Gateway of India’The Bombay Presidency, which encompassed western India from Sindh to
Kanara, was also a very complex territorial unit. Its many languages