produced outside, the local artisans ought with proper encouragement from the Revenue authorities to be able to make up the deficiency.
But such improvement is impossible if Government instantly withdraws its custom.Sri Aurobindo
Early Cultural Writings
(1890 — 1910)
Appendix One
Baroda Speeches and Reports
Report on Trade in the Baroda State. 1902
1. Trade throughout the Raj is in a state of depression and decline. The great industries that once flourished, such as weaving, dyeing, sharafi etc. are entirely broken and though a number of small retail trades have sprung up, the balance is greatly on the side of decline. The main causes of this condition of things are
I European competition and that of such towns as Ahmedabad, Poona etc.
II The Introduction of machinery.
III The abandonment of ancestral professions.
IV The continual drain of money from the State effected by
(1) Immense purchases from Europe, Bombay etc,
(2) Employment of officials from outside the Raj,
(3) Preference of foreign to local contractors,
and other similar causes.
2. To combat these evils there are certain general measures which are essential, as without them local industry must continue to be handicapped and consequently continue to decline.
3. Wherever such goods are produced locally as for their combined excellence and cheapness may properly be used by the Government, these should be preferred in State purchases to all others.
The transference of Government custom from good local manufactures where such exist is especially undesirable and ought to be avoided.
Where better work begins to be produced outside, the local artisans ought with proper encouragement from the Revenue authorities to be able to make up the deficiency.
But such improvement is impossible if Government instantly withdraws its custom.
Improvement of local production
4. The State should make inquiries on a large scale for
(a) means of improving local production to the European standard;
(b) means of improving country hand-machines.
Weaving, for instance, was once a great and famous industry in every division of the Raj. A Committee should be appointed to find out in each place where the most excellent hand-woven cloths used to be made, the real causes of decline and to discover and apply measures by which they may compete successfully with European cloths. This would not be so difficult a matter as it appears at least with regard to several woven and dyed cloths. These are inferior to European in appearance and fineness but superior in strength and durability. It ought not to be impossible to supply the missing qualities. Much may be done by experiments under sub-head (b), and such are very necessary as European machinery is too costly to be introduced on the scale required. Similarly with regard to dyeing attempts should be made to discover pucca country dyes and improve such as are already in use.
Means of encouraging industrial expansion
5. Besides this the State should push forward the same object by
6. The help may come in the shape of tasalmat. This should especially be given where enterprising traders have started work of an European quality and need help to bring the enterprise to perfection. But for the objects of the Government to succeed, it is necessary that tasalmat should not be given in the present haphazard fashion, but after careful inquiry and stringent tests and with due and constant supervision.
7. Help may also be given in the shape of machinery, which should be given at cost price to workers in articles which can be produced more cheaply here than abroad. These workers should receive grants on condition of using the machinery. There are instances in which deshi artisans have succeeded in reproducing English machinery, after one or two mistakes, at a much cheaper rate than the English.
8. Often only polish is required, or better implements, to bring country goods up to the proper standard. In these cases Government might give the workers specimens and patterns of English work as there are in many places artisans skilful enough to reproduce work they have once examined, and should help them in procuring the necessary tools.
9. Those who first manufacture locally from material which is at present exported raw should have their work made easy for them in the matter of taxes etc., and clever artisans settling from outside should have building timber etc., cheap or gratis.
10. Inducement should be held out to
(a) those who bring up country goods to the European Standard;
(b) those who bring such improved commodities into the market.
This inducement should take the shape of grants (bucksheesh, inams) or of a poshak given in durbar.
11. The State should patronize all country commodities thus improved to an European standard in preference to European commodities, as also new industries, that is to say, manufactures made from material now exported in a raw state.
Lists should be prepared from each khata of the articles in use there and over against each item, details should be entered as to whether, how far, and where they are prepared in the State, along with the price, quality and other necessary particulars. With these lists as a basis, there should be a stringent rule enforced on all departments that wherever country goods equal or even a little inferior to European can be had, European goods should be eschewed in their favour.
Artisans who can work up to the European level, besides receiving costly Inams, should be favoured with the State custom, half the price being advanced as tasalmat.
12. In order to spread knowledge the State should adopt the following methods.
(a) A monthly technical magazine should be issued, containing among other things reliable accounts of the raw material of each mahal and the capabilities of that material.
(b) A pamphlet in very simple Guzerati should be circulated containing every information useful to those who may think of establishing factories, viz. the necessary cost, the nature, use and procurability of the necessary machinery etc.
This will encourage the manufacture of raw material which is at present exported and brought back as manufacture to be sold at heavy prices. There are many who would undertake such enterprises if they only had the information described.
(c) Public lectures by competent people.
An exhibition of specimens of the best European work should be held in different places, having regard to the articles that are there produced, and the artisans should be allowed to take the specimens home with a view to reproduction.
In addition a triennial exhibition should be held in each great Kasba, a grant of Rs. 1500 to 3000 per division being sanctioned for the purpose, where the work of different localities, etc., may be collected.
Instruction in ancestral trades
13. The abandonment of ancestral trades is mainly due to the attractions of service and the failure of the old trades owing to the inferiority of the work. The only remedy is technical education. In the schools only two or three hours should be reserved to general education, the rest being devoted to technical. Each pupil should be instructed in his own craft, and after that instruction is complete, he may be directed to extend his attention to other trades. A rule should be enforced to the effect that work turned out by artisans so instructed should be utilized by the State departments in preference to any other. Pecuniary and other encouragement should be held out wherever necessary. This instruction should be made compulsory in the Kasbas as also in the case of Dheds and other low castes for whom education is specially provided by the Government.
14. With regard to contracts the following rules should be made and strictly enforced.
I Izara tenures should as far as possible be held by permanent residents of the Raj.
II Contracts should be similarly given to permanent residents if they can do the work well and cheaply; otherwise they should be given by preference to outsiders who have become resident in the Raj.
III A committee of officials and respectable non-officials 
(sowkars etc.) should be appointed to supervise contracts.
IV Annual patraks should be drawn up and circulated among thousands showing,
(a) what articles are to be supplied from each Prant;
(b) in what lines contractors are needed;
(c) what knowledge and fitness they must possess;
(d) where the required articles can be had cheap and good.
V Whatever goods can be had at convenient rates within the Raj should be procured there and not from outside.
VI Officers who do not observe these rules, and favour their own men should be degraded to a lower post.
15. The main hindrances to expansion of trade are
(a) the want of technical education;
(b) burdensome and unequal duties;
(c) difficulty of procuring capital;
(d) insufficient means of communication.
Necessity of technical and agricultural instruction
16. Technical and agricultural education are both imperatively required; in many talukas it is impossible to make even a beginning without it and in none is it possible to make any great advance or to compete with even moderate success against foreign manufactures.
17. A technical school should be established in each division and over and above this in each Kasba where a sufficient number of boys can attend. The Kasba schools should teach
(a) manufactures which are in great demand but have to be brought from outside;
(b) trades in which the supply of workers falls below the demand.
Some boys from each division should be taught at the Kalabhavan at State expense and Kalabhavan students who start factories should be helped by Government loans.
From each mahal some boys should be taught at Government expense at Baroda or the Victoria Technical Institute, the money being recovered by instalments from their monthly earnings.
18. Students should also be sent to foreign parts for technical instruction; but their line should be rigidly fixed from the beginning and they should first receive what book knowledge and practical knowledge is possible and then, if necessary, be sent to a foreign workshop to complete their instruction. It is equally useless to send raw and uninstructed youths and to send students to acquire theoretical knowledge merely. They should be sent only for work in which factories are likely to be opened and for knowledge about the discovery and working of metals.
19. Except in backward parts and among very ignorant people, the subjects of the Raj almost everywhere express their willingness to send their children to Europe or elsewhere for technical and agricultural instruction. Parents are often unwilling to send boys to the Kalabhavan because they have no clear idea what will be taught to them. The Revenue officials ought to be able easily to remove this difficulty.
20. The question of duties is a difficult one; complaints come from every Prant and from every mahal and from officials and non-officials alike. The Commission is only able to say that the whole question of duties should be overhauled and rearranged in a sense favourable to trade. Beyond this need of a general enquiry a few circumstances and suggestions may be touched upon.
Necessary measures with regard to taxation
21. The Commission makes the following recommendations.
(a) Where opening industries are hampered or ruined by duties, the Revenue officers should be expected to report the fact.
(b) Throughout the State anomalous cesses are levied, although the reasons originally alleged for levying them no longer exist or although there are very few houses left of the castes on which the cess was laid. These should be abolished.
(c) Heavy duties should be imposed on the import of such goods as are already made within the Raj, and duties on the import of raw materials which are manufactured in the Raj and exported should be entirely removed.
(d) Duties should not be levied twice on the same article i.e. on goods passing through Savli to Baroda once at Savli and again at Baroda.
(e) Municipal taxes should only be levied on articles used in the town and not on goods which enter it only to be again exported. Where possible duties should be abolished and a light cess placed in their stead on the cultivators.
(f) In many places there are duties in Gaekwari villages which in neighbouring foreign villages do not exist or only in a lighter form. It would be well if an understanding could be arrived at between this State and the British and other Governments. Until then such duties should be abolished or reduced to the level of the corresponding foreign duties.
Difficulty of procuring capital
22. The difficulty of procuring capital for industrial enterprise or agricultural improvement is reported from every taluka and it is a fact that to supply this want is the first desideratum without which nothing can be done.
The only remedy is to establish Government banks in each mahal.
Where possible, it should be a joint concern in which the capitalists of the mahal should be induced to take shares, the Government taking the rest.
The existing banks should deal on a far larger scale.
The Baroda bank should keep deposits and lend money to any one at low rates (proper security being taken), the rate of interest given on the former being a little higher than that taken for the latter.
23. In every division and every mahal the means of communication are deplorably insufficient: a great number of railways, roads, bridges etc., will have to be constructed in order to open out the country; moreover no care is taken to keep the roads already constructed in repair; everywhere they are allowed to fall into bad condition. For this work of opening out the country District Boards should be set on foot with the Vahivatdar as chairman, and the Municipal, Forest and other officers and leading men as members. The Boards would borrow money at reasonable rates, the sanction of the works to be undertaken would rest with the Government and the debt could be paid off from the proceeds of tolls or cesses. A rough list of works required or suggested is included under each Division.
24. Some measures should be taken to encourage indigenous medicine. The following are suggested.
(1) A list of herbs growing in Songhad Vyara should be prepared.
(2) A skilful Hakim or Vaid should be kept in each hospital in the big towns with some patients always under his treatment and the results registered under the supervision of the Civil Surgeon.
(3) In some small villages the whole medical work should be intrusted to such Hakims or Vaids.
(4) Two or three matriculated students should be taught at State expense both Native and English Medicine and put in charge of hospitals or dispensaries or set to make researches into the powers of herbs and publish books on the subject.
25. A trade in the horn, bone, skin, hair and fat of animals might be established in every taluka. At present a vast amount of these are allowed to go unused. In every division a place should be appointed for throwing dead cattle, and a contract should be given for taking out the hide and bone etc. Traders should be encouraged to open factories in which these articles will be immediately useful. The proceeds of the contract should be devoted, after burying the corpses, to the improvement of breed.
Causes of agricultural depression
26. The main features of agricultural decline are,
(a) deterioration of the soil;
(c) ignorance of the best methods;
(d) difficulty of procuring capital.
Disadvantages of the vighoti system
27. The deterioration of the quality of the soil is very marked and arises from the vighoti assessment. The circumstances of the vighoti tenure have several very undesirable results.
In the first place they lead to continuous cultivation of the soil, the land never being left fallow, as assessment has to be paid whether the land is cultivated or not. The soil must obviously lose its productive power under such circumstances. It would be better for the State not to exact assessment from lands left fallow.
In the second place they lead to extensive cultivation, no provision being left for pasture.
Thirdly they lead to more land being undertaken by the cultivator than he can properly cultivate. Its full value is therefore not realized from the soil; less labour and less manuring results in a poorer out-turn over a larger area.
Fourthly they lead to the soil being taken up by Brahmins, Vaniyas and others ignorant of agriculture, the real agriculturists remaining as labourers without any interest in the soil.
A smaller area carefully cultivated by cultivators with an interest in the soil, sufficient land being left for pasture, would be far better than the present condition of large cultivated areas with a poor out-turn, deteriorating soil and deteriorating cattle.
27.1 With regard to the deterioration of the soil a committee of expert and practical men should be appointed to inquire
(a) what is the extent of the deterioration;
(b) what are the elements of fertility which have been lost;
(c) what are the materials (manure etc.) by which the lost elements can be recovered;
(d) which of these are the cheapest and most plentiful;
(e) as to divisions of soil what materials are required for each and in what amounts;
(f) in what tappas to introduce them;
(g) by what means to impart the knowledge of them to the kheduts;
(h) in what way to make their use compulsory on the cultivators.
The committee should be empowered to make the necessary experiments and after a year’s experience make a report.
28. The most obvious means of enriching the soil are irrigation and manuring. Wherever there are no talavs, wells, nehers or rivers, Government should sink one pucca well for every 100 bighas; the expenses could be recovered in nine or ten years, an addition being made to the assessment of the fields for that purpose. The same measure should be taken wherever asked for by poverty-stricken cultivators. The preservation of the wells should rest with the cultivators.
Abyssinian and Artesian wells should be constructed.
When cultivators dig wells and make the land bagayat they should be excused bagayat assessment for ten years as otherwise they will have to pay both assessment and the interest of Government money.
29. An universal complaint comes from every taluka against the working of the tagavi rules; it is stated that these are not carried out either liberally or expeditiously; that tagavi is given to new immigrants from outside who decamp with the money while the subjects of the Raj can with difficulty obtain it; that people are shy of taking tagavi because if they cannot pay punctually owing to a bad season or other accident, they are at once posted as defaulters and their credit ruined etc. The Commission can only recommend that a reliable inquiry should be made in the matter.
30. It appears that in several Talukas the people are not allowed to collect manure and in others the material for manure is destroyed under official orders. This is a needless waste, as no harm is likely to result from the collection of manure in the open air of the villages. A place should be fixed on the village padar, as also a place for bestowing the village refuse which should be distributed to the people cheap for manuring. In Amreli the burning of cow-dung should be stopped and the people allowed to take fuel from the Gir. The cultivators should also be persuaded to use bone-manure against which they have some objection but which owing to the plentifulness of bone can be brought into use with great advantage. Finally a heavy duty should be fixed on the export of certain plants that are commonly useful for manure.
31. From every division and every Taluka there is reported deterioration in the quality of the cattle, diminution in their numbers and consequent increase in their cost. The following are some of the causes.
(a) Failure of pasture owing to the cultivation of uncultivated and auction of Kharaba land.
Consequent to this result of the vighoti system, hardly any land is left for the cattle and what there is, is of the very poorest quality so that the cattle can get little nourishment from it.
The cultivators are too poor to provide good and sufficient fodder.
Some measure must immediately be taken for this; a proper share of the land in each village (one fourth would not be too liberal an allowance) should be left for pasture.
Goats should not be allowed to graze in gochar.
(b) Want of good bulls and male buffaloes. The Government should keep cattle for breeding in each village on the responsibility of the Patel and the cultivators should take turns to provide fodder. In Kamrej it is the custom to allow bulls marked as belonging to the village to graze anywhere; under this system there would be no expense of keep to the Government. Where bid is kept for grazing good cattle should be kept for breeding purposes and sold cheap to the cultivators.
(c) Cowslaughter. A duty should be imposed on cattle taken to the slaughter houses or to foreign parts.
(d) The shingoti duty upon bullocks and other cattle in Amreli should be reduced.
(e) Neglect, driving of sick oxen, over-driving, over-loading, ignorant methods of pasturing, use of the same cattle for agricultural labour and for conveyance owing to the enforcement of veth. Rules should be issued to put a stop to all this.
(f) Cattle have to be imported. These are brought on credit involving risk, delay in payment and law suits, considerations which increase the cost. An arbitration court should be established for such cases.
(g) Buffaloes are not used for agriculture in many talukas and the males are allowed to die instead of being reared.
Revenue officials should be directed to instruct the people in this matter and a yearly patrak should be submitted showing the extent to which the use of buffaloes in agriculture increases.
32. The increasing scarcity and cost of cattle has resulted in an increasing dearness of ghee which calls imperatively for the establishment of farms for milk-giving cows in Songhad, the Gir and other such places.
33. Along with deterioration there is a great increase of cattle diseases; for this there is no sufficient provision. There should be veterinary surgeons for each Prant: several boys should be taught for two or three years how to treat cattle diseases and one such qualified student appointed in each Taluka. A light fee might be levied for this expense.
Otherwise the most effective remedy for each of the chief cattle diseases should be ascertained and distributed with a printed list to each village. To very poor cultivators or owners of cattle they should be given free. Ordinary diseases should be treated on the spot and gratis.
34. Agricultural instruction should be imparted by the following methods: —
(a) Agricultural schools or classes teaching the children of cultivators free and other classes for a light fee. Scholarships should be given and some of the students employed.
(b) Public lectures by competent persons.
(c) Publication of Agricultural pamphlets, books or a magazine.
(d) Skilled cultivators should be sent to Europe along with English-knowing students to learn. They should take implements with them to compare with the European. It is useless to send students alone.
Those who thus study the subject should be intrusted with agricultural improvement and rewarded for any notable success.
35. If model farms have not had any notable success in the State it is because they have not been carried out under the right conditions. The following methods should be adopted.
(a) Cultivators knowing local and foreign methods should be appointed to teach.
(b) The method of comparative experiments should be adopted to show the cultivators
I the superiority of improved methods and manures;
II the effect of nehers and wells;
III the difference between well-fed cattle and cattle nurtured by themselves and between their milk, butter and ghee.
(c) The profit of cultivating by steam-ploughs should be shown to the zamindars and the use of European machinery to the students.
(d) The conditions under which coffee, tea, cinnamon, cloves etc., are grown should be taught to the cultivators.
(e) Model farms should be opened under varying climatic conditions.
(f) A model Farm should be opened with specimens of all the chief crops of the world.
(g) An annual or biennial agricultural exhibition of the crops thus produced should be held.
(h) The expenses of all such experiments should be published in so lucid a manner that all may understand.
36. Means of procuring capital easily and at easy rates, are, as has been said, the first condition of improvement.
In the poorer talukas the oppression of the sowcars is very great, sometimes as in 
Mahuva driving the people over the border.
Other talukas are greatly indebted, the sowcars force the people to mortgage their fields and houses and these are put to auction at the first failure to pay.
A rule should be made that the sowcars must receive their dues by instalments.
37. Complaints of lands being too heavily assessed come from different quarters. It cannot be said how far these are true, but it is certain that the limitation of the settlement to 15 years leaves the cultivators little power to make improvements. The collection of the assessment at an unfavourable time and its enforcement in bad years has been prejudicial to agriculture; in Mehsana especially these hardships have led a great number of people to abandon agriculture. Leniency should be shown in bad years, and collection should only be made when the crops are ready.
38. Agricultural expansion depends partly on the cultivation of uncultivated land and partly on the growth of new crops. Where the kheduts are unable owing to their poverty to bring uncultivated soil into a fit state for cultivation, the State should first get it turned and then let it out.
39. In pushing on the introduction of new crops the following considerations must be kept in view.
(1) The crops which are cheapest in sowing, are most profitable.
(2) Those crops should by preference be introduced which have to be bought dear from outside.
(3) A new crop should not be introduced near a place where it is already largely grown.
(4) No new crop should be so introduced as to drive out of production any crop which is already largely and profitably grown or the loss of which would have to be made up by purchases at a high price from outside.
To settle this point a good cultivator should be got to sow both old and new in his land.
The loss and profit of both should be carefully compared and the results published among the cultivators.
Those who are exceptionally successful in introducing new crops, should receive grants.
40. As in many places there is a want of vegetables, an attempt should be made to introduce the growth of potatoes in each division, the State selling the seed. The introduction of Italian potatoes and bhoymug might be successfully carried out, but the experiment is too costly for any one except the Sarkar, unless special facilities in the nature of patents, etc. are given.
41. A special officer should be appointed to watch over agricultural improvement, as the continual change of officers is a great obstacle to success.
42. Subas, Naib Subas and Vahivatdars should be asked to send in with their collections an account of the state of the people, and also of any rules etc., which weigh heavily on trade and agriculture, together with the reasons.
Printing of the Commission’s report
43. Copies of the Commission’s Report should be printed and circulated broadcast throughout the talukas.
Note. — The Commission has a suggestion that for articles over which Government has to spend thousands and lakhs of Rupees, it should start State factories; and as these must be conducted on business principles and not by official rules, a special Department should be created for them.
Earlier edition of this work: Archives and Research: A biannual journal.- Volume 8, No1 (1984, April)
1 This number is repeated in the original report. — Ed.