CONTENTS:- Introduction and History 1. Most Prominent Sages 2. Britain and British India 3. Practices Under British Rule 4. British India: The Great Religious Identities 5. The Policy of Religious Conservation 6. Status of the Ganga and Nearby Areas
DESCRIPTION
According to strict social science definitions, colonial India was a peasant society. By far the vast majority of the population of the subcontinent lived in villages, and well over half the working population was engaged directly in agriculture. These villages were not isolated communities : the urban magnates maintained important social, economic, and political ties to the countryside to secure the steady stream of agricultural provinces that transcended lines of caste and clan and whose complex bureaucratic dimensions reflected the agrarian revenue potential. Clear cultural, social, economic, and political distinctions could be and were made between town and country. Most importantly, the typical unit of production was the family household, which may or may not have owned the land upon which it worked but, regardless, directed its combined labor to the cultivation of crops.
