Introduction to Sustainable

Development (GED 205)

Dr Oliver Scanlan
19th February 2020
Concept of Development: Conventional Thinking & History of
Development II
 What We Will Cover Today

• Recap of Last Lecture

• Lecture on land and the colonial

experience, with a focus on Bengal

• Reporting back

• NB QUIZ to be held on the 26th February,

first three lectures only.
 RECAP last lecture

• Land administration and land rights are central to

discussions of sustainable development.

• Land is wealth
• Land relates to many other issues, like forests,
water, and urban development
• Changes in land management have played an
important role in industrialisation and
development in the past

• The industrial revolution in England was powered by

the mass conversation of “customary land rights”
into “individual freehold ownership”, resulting in
urbanisation, “deepening rule of law” and expanded
agricultural productivity. It also resulted in poverty.
 RECAP last lecture

• We concluded by noting that land remains central to

Sustainable Development Debates because:

• This is still a live and controversial debate in

development

• This system was imposed by the UK on its

colonies

• Colonial laws still influential on present system

• TODAY we look at this issue

 RECAP Presentations

REMEMBER:

• Don’t try to take notes verbatim (word for word)

• Work out what the “story” is in general, and take

down the key, general points.

• Remember to have an introduction and a conclusion,

as well as a middle.
 Introduction

• Debates about land are central to sustainable development.

• The colonial inheritance is an important topic, both for the impact

on the land system but also because it represents the first
“Development Theory” implemented in the colonies.

• In Bengal, the British imposed a system of private individual rights

in property similar to their own.

• They expected that there would be many benefits. In the end it

actually caused many problems. At the time of Independence
these problems had not been solved and continue to plague
Bangladesh.

• Similar unintended consequences have occurred across the Global

South.
 The Colonial Approach To Land

• By the time that Britain began acquiring

colonies across the world, the English
system of individual ownership of land at
home was well advanced.

• Where the British assumed “Direct Rule” of

colonies, they largely imposed variations of
this system.

• The result was a similar change from

“customary rights” to “individual
ownership”.
 Bengal prior to 1765

• Prior to the British annexation of Bengal, the Mughal

Empire operated a complicated system of rights-
bearing tax collectors.

• Individuals had titles, including “zamindar”, “talukdar”,

“jotedar”, given by the Emperor. These titles gave
varying rights to tax a given area and population.

• We see this in the British annexation of Bengal in 1765,

when they assume the right of “Diwani”. In principle
they acted on behalf of the Mughal Emperor as his
“Dewan” (Minister) in Bengal in charge of tax collection.
 The Permanent Settlement of 1793

• In 1793, under Cornwallis as Governor General, the

British implemented the Permanent Settlement of
Bengal, also known as the zamindari settlement.

• A fixed amount of tax was set for each zamindar, in

perpetuity, for set amounts of land. In principle this
was to be a low amount.

• How the zamindar realised this amount was left up to

them.

• In practice this amounted to the transformation of

zamindars from tax collectors to land lords. Peasants
living on the land were transformed into “tenants” /
ryots.
 The Permanent Settlement of 1793

• This marked the beginning of a process.

• Zamindars gained rights of ownership similar to

“universally alienable” rights discussed last time.

• They gained the ability to transfer, sell, bequeath and

mortgage land, enforced by the deepening of land laws
in British India.
 The Permanent Settlement of 1793

• The British expected this system to lead to several

benefits:

• The zamindars would reinvest the profits from the

land in agricultural development, leading to higher
productivity.

• They would also invest in infrastructure, like roads,

schools etc.

• Because of the “light assessment”, the tenants

would be well looked after.
 The Permanent Settlement of 1793

• In practice, the assessments were often not light.

• Zamindars would often not reinvest profits from the

land.

• They would often reduce the peasants to

“sharecropping”, giving half their produce to the land
lord.

• The result was massive rural poverty, that left tenants

vulnerable to shocks. This in turn led to famine and
rural unrest and rebellion.

• Most vulnerable: women, minorities and the already

very poor.
 Agrarian Reform

• The British tried to reform the system several times,

most notably with the Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885, to
try to alleviate the suffering of the peasants.

• This was not very successful.

• Both Pakistan and India tried to reform the system after

Independence. In East Bengal, the State Acquisition and
Tenancy Act was passed in 1950.

• Again, these efforts met with mixed success.

• Today, rural poverty remains a massive problem in

Bangladesh and land is a major part of the problem.
 Land Globally

• Today it is argued that rising landlessness globally is a

big reason for the persistence of hunger and
malnutrition (De Schutter, 2013).

• Landlessness is still associated with the imposition of

private individual property in areas where customary
tenures exist.

• Land will remain key to Sustainable Development, and

the Colonial Legacy from the first “Development
Intervention” remains with us today as we try to solve
the problems associated with land rights.