1.13 Colonial revenue and economy in Andhra notes

1. 1.13.1Zamindars of the Northern Circars: Padmanabham 1794 and the Permanent Settlement 1802

   In the Northern Circars the Company first left the zamindars in place for a fixed tribute (peshkash), crushed the defiant Vizianagaram raja at Padmanabham (1794), and in 1802 extended Cornwallis's Permanent Settlement of Bengal (1793), fixing the zamindars' revenue for ever.

   Advanced · 7 min · Full course
2. 1.13.2Ceded Districts 1800 and Munro's ryotwari settlement

   The Nizam ceded the districts later called Rayalaseema to the Company in 1800; as Principal Collector (1800–1807) Thomas Munro subdued the palegars and settled revenue directly with each cultivator, the ryotwari system that became the rule in Madras from 1820.

   Advanced · 7 min · Full course
3. 1.13.3Famines and irrigation: the Guntur famine to Cotton's anicuts

   Repeated famines in colonial Andhra — above all the Guntur famine of 1832–33 and the Great Famine of 1876–78 — pushed the Madras Government into irrigation: Sir Arthur Cotton's Godavari anicut at Dowleswaram and the Krishna anicut at Vijayawada turned the deltas into rice bowls, while dry Rayalaseema stayed famine-prone.

   Advanced · 7 min · Full course
4. 1.13.4Rural economy in colonial Andhra: the Torture Commission, cotton boom and zamindari abolition

   Colonial rule reshaped rural Andhra: revenue was collected by force (exposed by the Torture Commission, 1855), commercial crops rose and fell with world markets (the cotton boom of the 1860s), weavers lost their trade, tenants paid rents far above the revenue, and the zamindari system was finally abolished in 1948.

   Advanced · 8 min · Full course

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