Bilal9
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2014
- Messages
- 26,569
- Reaction score
- 9
- Country
- Location
Bihar got fucked during British rule. The goras made it part of Bengal province and used it as a cash cow by levying land taxes that were not linked to agricultural output. A fixed tax like this is bad for small farmers, but good for large farmers. The small farmers gradually ended up losing their holdings to the big zamindars and ended up literally as bonded labour. Thus began the chain of poverty, illiteracy and lack of social mobility, which produced a class of people that were servile, low on confidence.
It was a thriving region before British times. Bengal, Bihar and Orissa were primary agricultural hinterland responsible for over half of the GDP of India for Mughals. It was also the industrial powerhouse with textile dyeing and indigo farming being prevalent. The poverty rot hadn't set in at that time.
Even before Mughals took over Bihar, it was one of the main bread (and rice) baskets of India under the Independent Murshidabad Sultans. Once Bihar separated from this situation under the British (when Capital was moved to Delhi from Calcutta), the downhill spiral was unavoidable.
Bengal Subah - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org