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252 THEMES IN INDIAN H ISTORY – P ART III 3.5 Credit dries up While the boom lasted, cotton merchants in India had visions of capturing the world market in raw cotton, permanently displacing America. The editor of the Bombay Gazette had asked in 1861, “What can prevent India from supplanting the Slave States (of U.S.A.) as the feeder of Lancashire?” By 1865 these dreams were over. As the Civil War ended, cotton Source 8 production in America revived and Indian cotton exports to Britain steadily declined. A ryot petitions Export merchants and sahukars in Maharashtra were no longer keen on extending long-term credit. This is an example of a petitionThey could see the demand for Indian cotton fall from a ryot of the village of Mirajgaon, Taluka Karjat, to theand cotton prices slide downwards. So they decided to close down their operations, restrict their Collector, Ahmednagar, Deccan advances to peasants, and demand repayment of Riots Commission: outstanding debts. The sowkars (sahukars) … have of late begun to While credit dried up, the revenue demand increased. The first revenue settlement, as we have oppress us. As we cannot seen, was in the 1820s and 1830s. Now it was time earn enough to defray our for the next. And in the new settlement, the demand household expenses, we are actually forced to beg of was increased dramatically: from 50 to 100 per cent. them to provide us with How could ryots pay this inflated demand at a time money, clothes and grain, when prices were falling and cotton fields which we obtain from disappearing? Yet again they had to turn to the them not without great moneylender. But the moneylender now refused difficulty, nor without their loans. He no longer had confidence in the ryots’ compelling us to enter into capacity to repay. hard conditions in the bond. Moreover the necessary 3.6 The experience of injustice clothes and grain are not The refusal of moneylenders to extend loans enraged sold to us at cash rates. The the ryots. What infuriated them was not simply that prices asked from us are generally twenty-five or they had got deeper and deeper into debt, or that they were utterly dependent on the moneylender fifty per cent more than for survival, but that moneylenders were being demanded from customers insensitive to their plight. The moneylenders were making ready money violating the customary norms of the countryside. payments … The produce of our fields is also taken by the Moneylending was certainly widespread before sowkars, who at the time colonial rule and moneylenders were often powerful of removing it assure us that it will be credited to our account, but they do not Explain the complaints that the ryot is making in the actually make any mention petition. Why was the harvest taken by the of it in the accounts. They moneylenders not credited to the peasants’ account? also refuse to pass us any receipts for the produce so Why were peasants not given any receipts? If you removed by them. were a moneylender what reasons would you give for these practices? Reprint 2026-27