Historical Background of British India (contd-1)

The theory that each piece of land must have an owner-- either the ruler or the landlord or alternatively the possessor -- was basic to the laws of land relations enacted by the foreign rulers. The core of the old Indian village system was that although the possessors of the land, the landlord, the feudal chief and the ruler, had certain rights of their own, none of them had an unlimited right.
When the English concept of land ownership was brought into practice in India, the owner whether be it the Zamindar, or the land owner created by a legal enactment or the possessor of the land could now mortgage or sell his right on the land.The land possessor now could be seized for default of payment of taxes due to the Government. As a consequence, a new class of persons were generated known as money lenders who with high rate of interest lent for short period.
Thus in the new system the East India Company could loot the vast majority of peasants and the other section of the rural poor.
Alongside the old handicrafts and the foreign trades based on these crafts which had been extant for centuries in India, declined gradually.For instance Indian textiles exported in
1795-96  amounted to Rs. 21,22,319.5. In
1829-30        ,,            Rs. 6,95,725
On the other side the value of imported goods to India from England in
1814  was pound   18,00,000 , whereas in
1829     ,,       ,,       45,00,000.
In England too the agrarian revolution had throw laborer out of land and increased unemployment, causing great misery and hardship. But the Industrial Revolution which followed soon absorbed the unemployed laborer in the new established manufacturing industries and the period of unemployment was short.