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Feudal (feudal) system was the first period of human evolution when man became associated with the profession of agriculture and farming. Human differentiation began in Mesopotamia when small states and empires were first formed during the agricultural period. A class society emerged in master and slave. The subjects, Nawabs and Jagirdars began to profit handsomely from the labor of the zamindars, cultivators and kamis.
The influence of Nawabs, Jagirdars increased so much that the slaves had no right to leave agriculture and take up any other profession or settle in any other place. He was attached to his native profession. The landlords had to hand over half to three-quarters of the share to the Nawabs. Free beggars and compulsory fees were applicable to them. Tools of production like plough, oxen, seeds etc. were owned by the cultivators, but they could barely produce enough grain to feed their children after paying their dues.
At that time, there were artisans such as blacksmiths, shoemakers, potters, etc., whom the villagers used to work for in exchange for grain.
The other pillar of feudalism in Europe was the Roman Church, which continued to use Christianity for personal gain. He declared the Christian religion as the religion of the empire. Because of this, the Roman Church became a political power in Europe with influence, power and wealth. He had millions of hectares of land in countries other than Italy and was the largest landowner in Europe. He did not have to pay any rent or income on these lands and the church cultivators were considered harmless slaves by the priests and the Nawabs also had to pay tithes of their income to the church.
Understand that this is where human exploitation, class systems and religious influence originate.
Karl Marx believes that “the production of a large number of workers under a capitalist in one place, under their own power, of the same type of commodity is historically and logically the starting point of capitalist production”. In simple words, capitalism is a social system where the working class combines the means of production ie raw materials and machines and tools in a factory to produce goods that are sold in the market.
This style of production largely originated in Italy during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
The kingdoms of Italy had flourished during the Crusades. The ostensible purpose of the crusade was to liberate Jerusalem from the Muslims, but the real purpose was economic. That is, occupy Syria, Lebanon and Palestine and get a monopoly on shipping trade. Italian (Italy) traders took advantage of the fear of this war. Christian and Muslim armies continued to fight and Italian opportunists captured the trade of Qasria, Aqra, Sidon and Tyre. The result was that Tripoli, the silk industry of Tyre, the glass industry of Syria and the arms industry came under the control of Italian merchants.
When the feudal lords of Europe saw how the fortunes of the Italian capitalists changed overnight, they too began to flock to capitalism.
Woolen mills opened in Holland and Nawabs in Britain drove their farmers from the country to raise large numbers of sheep and supply their wool to the Dutch mills. Thousands if not millions of farmers were evicted and had to turn to cities in search of livelihood. The farmers had neither tools nor assets except their labor. Capitalists started hiring them as wage laborers for their factories.
The capitalist system definitely favored the peasants to become independent workers. That is, they were freed from their work and begging, but the practice of making them do more work for less pay reappeared.
During the 16th and 17th centuries, Britain was a center for the mining, glassmaking and armor industries. Seeing the benefits of capitalism, large corporations were opened for international trade, of which the East India Company was opened in 1600 AD. Apart from this, no British company had the right to trade with India and China. Similarly, the East India Company monopolized trade with Lanka and Java beyond the subcontinent.
The British production system was still engaged in manufacturing that could not meet the needs of the capitalist class. There was no cotton in Britain and the cotton textile industry was extinct. This deficiency was compensated by the occupation of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa by the East India Company (1787) and the large-scale cultivation of cotton by British colonists and Negro slaves in North America.
The capitalist coinage continued to flourish, but the only problem was that political power was still concentrated in the hands of the feudal lords and Nawabs. Therefore, at the beginning of the 17th century, the struggle for power between the London capitalists and the feudal king James I began and took the form of a civil war. In 1649 King James I was beheaded and political power was transferred from the feudal class to the capitalist class. The British Nawabs became forever subordinate to British industrialists.
The workers and slaves participated well in this civil war, although it did not benefit them except that they learned to resist and fight and fight for themselves in the future, and this resulted in the formation of the Paris Commune in the 17th century. to the front where the workers took power from the capitalist emperor Napoleon and kept their power in Paris for two months.
From a trading monopoly, the East India Company became a nationwide power. In 1833, the agreement with the East India Company was to expire in 1853 under the Indian Act. During these 20 years, the company had illegally occupied Sindh, Punjab and the border. At that time, a British circle believed that India should be included directly in the British Empire. But the government did not accept this, but such provisions were included in the new law, due to which the administration of India came under the supervision of the British Empire.
For example, the company’s new agreement does not specify a time frame so that the government can revoke the charter whenever it wants. Secondly, the number of directors was reduced from 24 to 18 and it was decided that 6 directors would be nominated by the British Crown. Simma that all officials in the service in the future will be appointed by open competitive examination and not by the will of the directors. Fourth, the chairman of the board was made a member by the government so that all major decisions of the company were at the will of the government and the government was aware of the operations of the company.
After the death of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, when Taif al-Muluki spread in India, the Deccan, Karnataka, Mysore and Bengal became independent. The British took advantage of the sovereignty of these areas and occupied the coastal areas under the pretext of protecting their commercial interests. At the same time, the mechanical industry in Great Britain developed well. The result was that the East India Company no longer engaged only in buying and selling Indian goods, but also began to sell British products in India. This is why the role of the East India Company changed.
Now the East India Company began to export raw materials, especially cotton, from India instead of products, and British products began to be imported. In 1850 goods worth £8 million came to India from Britain. Earlier goods worth 4 lakh pounds used to come to India.
The political occupation of the British in the country of India began in the middle of the 18th century, but it was not even 100 years before the British occupied the entire subcontinent from Peshawar to Rangoon and from Srinagar to Ras Kumari.
The well-known intellectual, political activist and revolutionary Karl Marx writes, while commenting on these conditions in India, that the events of the 7 Years’ War (1756-1763) turned the East India Company into a military and regional power instead of a commercial enterprise. . Thus trade’s share of the wealth transferred from India to Britain in the 18th century was nominal. This wealth was derived from the enormous and direct plundering of the land. Along with this, the nature of the trading company’s trade also changed”.
However, the British Empire maintained the so-called sovereignty of many sovereign states. History tells us that these native states proved to be loyal allies of the British crown and they fully supported the British to crush the country’s independence movement.
Marx writes of them that “these governors are the most loyal slaves of the British.” They are the strongest bulwark of the British system and the greatest obstacle to India’s progress”.
The British treated India in a way that even looters like Nadir Shah Durrani and Ahmed Shah Abdali could not do. He turned this robbery into an art. Marx writes that 17 percent of Indian wealth was spent on the British army and only 4 percent on construction.
Marx says of this dark side; But there is no doubt that the ravages brought to India by the British are of a different nature and extremely severe. England has destroyed the entire fabric of Indian society and no signs of reconstruction are visible till now. After coming under British rule, India has been cut off from its old traditions and past history”. Type next; ‘The British have two tasks to perform in England; One destructive and the other revival, that is, the destruction of ancient Asiatic society and the material basis of Western society in Asia”.
Marx said that all the conquerors who came to India including the Turks, Tatars and Mughals before the arrival of the British did not accept the influence of the local civilization, but the civilization of the British was superior to the Indian civilization. The British destroyed the rural communities and local industries and destroyed the excellence and sophistication of the society and destroyed the civilization here brick by brick. The history of the British in India is the history of this destruction.
Expressing the tolerance of the British government to create hardship for themselves, Marx says that the first condition of social revival for the society is the political unity of the country. Marx argues that political unity was created in India for the first time during the British era. Even during the time of the Mughals, India was not blessed with this unity. Another important feature of the British era was the telegraph and railway system, which strengthened political unity. The third advantage was that the British had to train the native soldiers according to Western principles for their imperial purposes. This trained indigenous army proved to be the basic condition for India’s independence. (This happened in 1857 when the native soldiers rebelled against the British). The fourth advantage is that before the arrival of the British there was no newspaper here. The British introduced newspapers to the Indians for the first time by setting up printing presses and publishing newspapers. According to Marx, the reason for social stagnation in India was that land was not the private property of anyone. The British introduced the Zamindari system in North India and the Raitdari system in South India.
The British needed English teachers for government offices, companies and courts, so they established modern schools and colleges in Calcutta, Madrasas and Bombay. Thanks to these educational institutions, Indian students became familiar with the modern sciences and arts of the West and democracy, freedom and principles. Civil rights awareness was developed in them. It is as if the British were forced by circumstances and themselves provided the equipment for the death of their power.
Marks writes that from the beginning the East India Company was committed to the policy of shifting the burden of its expenses to Indian subjects. For example, in 1705 the Indian debt was 256 million pounds. In 1769 it was 34 million pounds. £471 million in 1850 and £6 million in 1858. The plight of Indian wealth may be judged from the fact that the total income of India in 1859 was £24 million and the expenditure £37 million, i.e. an annual deficit of £17 million.
Marx says that imperialism has three basic characteristics; First, by occupying the underdeveloped countries and taking over their raw production, second, by selling their processed products at high prices in the annexes, and third, by investing their surplus capital in the underdeveloped countries to earn ever higher profit rates. Marx writes that Britain made a profit by loading India with debt and then charging interest on those debts.
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