R.C. Dutt: The Economic History of India

How Romesh Chunder Dutt, a civil servant and nationalist, wrote a two-volume economic history criticising British land revenue and trade policies in India.

Romesh Chunder Dutt (1848-1909) was one of India’s first economic historians.

Background

Among the first Indians to join the Indian Civil Service.
Later a writer, translator of the Ramayana and Mahabharata, and Congress president in 1899.

The Economic History of India

His two-volume Economic History of India (1902 and 1904) argued that British policies:

Imposed heavy land revenue that impoverished farmers.
Destroyed Indian industries like handloom weaving.
Drained wealth through home charges and trade policies.

Famines

Dutt linked frequent famines to high land taxes that left farmers without reserves.

Proposals

He called for moderate, fixed land revenue and support for Indian industry.

Legacy

With Dadabhai Naoroji, Dutt built the economic critique of colonial rule that shaped India’s freedom movement.

The overtaxed farmer

Dutt described how a farmer paying high land revenue in good years had no savings when drought came, leading to starvation.

Thinking colonial economic critiques began after independence

Dutt wrote detailed critiques in the early 1900s.

Key takeaways

R.C. Dutt was an early Indian ICS officer and historian.
His Economic History of India appeared in 1902 and 1904.
He blamed heavy land revenue for famines.
He shaped the economic critique of colonialism.