Explanation:

day Kerala State is ECONOMICALLY backward in many respects. The region was under colonial

rule since the English East India Company conquered Malabar from the Mysoreans in 1792

till attainment of independence in 1947. Though Malabar had been a major exporter of a wide

variety of agricultural products to Europe for more than two thousand years and consequently

exposed to influences from abroad, it still remains an underdeveloped region with a backward

agricultural sector.

Except for a study by T.W. Shea, no attempts have been made to examine the causes

of agricultural backwardness in Malabar. Shea1 emphasises six barriers to economic growth

in the region, viz. the immobility of the caste structure, the traditional occupational

distribution of the elite, the absence of systematic government in the pre-British period, the

pattern of land tenures, the structure of family property laws and the pattern of POPULATION

growth during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In explaining the barriers to economic

growth, he puts forward the HYPOTHESIS that businessmen in Malabar made no concerted,

systematic attempts to rationalise agricultural production, and that because of their lack of

interest in bringing about changes in productive techniques in agriculture, the development

inhibiting social and economic barriers were NEVER directly challenged. Though the study

highlights a few barriers to the economic development of Malabar, a major limitation of the

study is that it has completely ignored the impact of colonial policies.

In this study our objective is to present an alternative explanation for the agricultural

backwardness of Malabar during the colonial period, in which we emphasise two factors, viz.

(1) the unfavourable and extractive policies pursued by the colonial power in the spheres of

agriculture, industry, infrastructure, trade and commerce; and (2) the caste system, and the

social practices arising out of the system, that prevailed in Malabar.

The Causes of Agricultural Backwardness of Malabar

Agricultural Performance under Colonial Rule

The British Malabar comprised of a vast region covering an area of about 6262 square

miles. It was divided into 18 taluks and 2222 villages for administrative purposes by the

beginning of 19th century. 2 Malabar was richly endowed with natural resources such as soil,

climate, rainfall, etc., favourable to the growth of a wide variety of plants and trees. A large

portion of Malabar to the east is mountainous and overrun with forests.3 Some of the

evergreen forests of Kerala, such as „Silent Valley‟ and „Attapady Valley‟ are located within

the district. The climate of Malabar is also favourable to the cultivation of grain as well as

plantation CROPS. The rainfall varies from 50 to 300 inches. The district also has a number of

rivers and backwaters.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century agriculture was the chief economic activity

of the people and provided the means of livelihood to the entire population except a few who

engaged in trade, commerce, cotton weaving, carpentry, smithy, fishing etc. On the basis of