INTRODUCTION

Coinciding the foundation of Tea Monopoly in the American colony, the East Indian
Company government established the Bengal Government Opium Monopoly in 1773.
In the Bengal, monopoly was established without any immediate resistance.
The beginning of the political control in the late 1750s allowed the colonial authorities to
set up a monolithic state-run opium monopoly that competitors from the existing free
trade.
the establishment of the government opium monopoly in Bengal evolved through a
process of repressive experiments during the early 1770s.
BEIC finally seized political power from the Nawab and defeated the tripartite combined
troops, including the French and Mughal, during the Boxer War in October 1764.
Following this, the colonial rulers tried swiftly to consolidate their exclusive control in
the opium trade.
, the tendency to maximize personal benefits from the trade often led to conflict and
misunderstanding between the rival Indian agents.
For their self centered virtue of profits, neglecting the local people, they engorged Opium
trade for their own benefits.

IMPORTANCE OF THE TOPIC

DESCRIPTION
In an attempt to establish a business consortium in opium, the East India authorities in
1765 allowed other European companies to participate in a joint venture under one
general agent. Malpractice and corruption of officials affected this system, when the
respective companies started to 'trade clandestinely on their own account in the drug'."
Under the joint venture, the land under poppy cultivation was increased from 2,83,000
hectares in 1765-66, to 3,03,500 hectares in the following year.
On his arrival in Bengal in 1786 Governor General Lord Cornwallis similar to his
predecessor Warren Hastings, felt that royalty paid by the agents and contractors under
the monopoly system were far from satisfactory. In an attempt to address it, Cornwallis
established a government opium monopoly in Benares, and urged the local Zamindars to
refrain from encouraging farmers in alternative crops, or to offer them better incentives.
under the opium monopoly, injury and oppression were inflicted upon poppy-growing
farmers, and tension erupted between Zamindars and contractors.
Governor General Warren Hastings in 1772 withdrew the opium monopoly from the Patna
Council, and leased the whole business for a fixed amount, to two local businessmen who
had previous experience in the management of an opium factory at Patna. This attempt
was followed by the creation of a separate Board that helped create the government
monopoly of opium in Bengal in 1773. Explaining the attempt, Hastings wrote:
We have prohibited all other persons under our protection lions interfering with it and we
have determined to sell it by public auction for the benefit of the Company.

During the early years of the opium monopoly, contractors were involved in the forceful
engagement of poppy farmers to produce the maximum amount of opium. In 1777, the
Bengal Revenue Consultations reported 'forcible destruction' of Crops in Bihar to make
land available for poppy cultivation." In 1789 the Bengal Board of Revenue Proceedings
maintained that the paying a high price to the Company authorities, contractor forced the
farmers 'to increase their poppy cultivation beyond their means and convenience'.
However, upon his arrival Warren Hastings, the new Governor General of Bengal, directly
took over the Dewani and nizamat administration in 1772. He gathered an impression the
traditional Zamindars were not bringing the expected amount of revenue what they had
planned for. In line with the so-called 'Gentlemen Monopoly' in Opium, Hastings
introduced an auction system under which the right to collect revenue was sold out to the
highest bidders for a period of live years. A Scottish historian and member of the colonial
administration William Wilson Hunter (1876) in his book The Indian Musalmans indicated,
as a result of the new policy most of these bidders emerged either from the business
background or having experience under the Mughal administration. The auction system
miserably failed, as the peasantry was unable to pay a higher rate of land revenue
imposed by the collectors after having been struck by a massive famine in 1770 due to
sudden conversion of lands to poppy cultivation by British business people.

As a matter of fact, the introduction of opium monopoly in 1773 had an adverse impact
over the Bengal peasantry in terms of their traditional loyalty and connectivity with the
Mughal Zamindars. The newly adopted monopoly system created frustration and cause of
concern to the existing landed aristocracy. Given the situation, the colonial government
perceived the Mughal Zamindars as an encounter for the successful implementation of the
opium monopoly and hindrance for extracting high rate of land revenue. Then, Cornwallis
decided to replace them by a new bunch of native collaborators from Hindu background
to assist the government enthusiastically.

The leading contemporary Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith (1770)
in his book The Wealth of Nations criticized the intimidation of the farmers by the official
authorities:
A rich field of rice or other grain has been ploughed up; in order to make room fora
plantation of poppies; when the chieff6oresaw that extraordinary profit was likely to be
made by opium.

Smith also indicated that Company officials, in certain cases, forced unwilling farmers to
accept advance money to grow opium poppies instead of other crops in their paddy fields.
Assessment by Indian officials while converting agricultural land into poppy cultivation
often provoked disagreement by farmers. Once a farmer started poppy cultivation,
invariably he had to continue production year after year. Considering the crop
unprofitable, the farmers were less than enthusiastic about growing poppies and
neglected to water them. As a result of state patronization, however, the opium
monopoly emerged as one of the largest economic activities in colonial India. To maintain
and promote the trade in opium, the government increased the cultivation of poppy to
those areas where the quality was superior.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS
This large-scale conversion of paddy fields into poppy cultivation contributed to the Great
Famine of Bengal in 1770 also commonly known as Chhiattorer monnontor. The
contemporary Famine Commission Report indicated that this famine caused the death of
10 million people in an area that had been traditionally known as the 'Golden Bengal'' due
to its abundance in food and other natural resources. In his book the Discovery of India,
Jawaharlal Nehru (1973) wrote:

Soon the British held the whole of Bengal and Bihar one of the early consequences of
their rule was a terrible famine which ravaged these two provinces in 1770 killing over a
third of the population of this rich, vast, and densely populated area.

Perhaps, Nehru referred to the information from Warren Hastings's official report in 1772
that a one third of the population in the affected areas 'starved to death'. This staggering
figure was higher than the total number of people killed almost in thirty countries during
the four-year long First World War starting from July 1914. There is no such record
available in human history that so many millions of people died in one year out of hunger
and starvation due to denial of their right to exist and access to food by the colonial
authority. Shashi Tharoor (2016) in his work The Era of Darkness: The British Empire in
India observed that altogether almost thirty-five million people died in the famines in
different parts of India under the colonial rule. Consulting the Famine Commission report
Dr. Emdadul Haq give impression that the above assessment was correct and did not
exaggerate. With the massive reduction of population by the deliberate outbreak of
famines and devastations, the colonial masters managed to acquire more fertile paddy
lands readily available for the cultivation of opium poppies.

In 1930, the American historian and philosopher Will Durant wrote that 'Britain's
conscious and deliberate bleeding of India... [was the] greatest crime in all history'.

Its impact on the lives of the impoverished poppy farmers was horrendous during the
consolidation of the opium trade in the region.

unplanned and forceful production of opium poppies in the fertile paddy lands.
The arbitrary role of the middlemen and coercion of the field officers often caused
frustration and sufferings among the poppy farmers. Every cultivator was bound to sell
the whole of his produce to the Opium Departments, at a rate fixed by the government.

Under the monopoly system, the government imposed repressive regulations on poppy
cultivation. and urged poppy farmers to 'refund threefold' the advances for any land,
which they did not cultivate according to their undertaking.

Smith also indicated that Company officials, in certain cases, forced unwilling farmers to
accept advance money to grow opium poppies instead of other crops in their paddy fields.
Assessment by Indian officials while converting agricultural land into poppy cultivation
often provoked disagreement by farmers. Once a farmer started poppy cultivation,
invariably he had to continue production year after year. Considering the crop
unprofitable, the farmers were less than enthusiastic about growing poppies and
neglected to water them.

. Under the opium monopoly, the economic conditions of the poppy farmers deteriorated,
while the colonial hunt for revenue generation accelerated.