36 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
agricultural. In 1891, 62 per cent of the total population of the provinces under British rule was directly dependent on agriculture1. Taking into account the diverse manner of indirect dependence, the percentage of the rural population deriving a livelihood from agriculture was about 90 per cent in the second half of the nineteenth century2. Agriculture was primarily dependent on the vagaries of the monsoons. The Meteorological Department at Calcutta used to classify the whole country into 22 rainfall tracts with annual precipitation varying from 9 to 193 inches. The following table gives a detailed picture of rainfall in 18798.
•^ TABLE I
ANNUAL RAINFALL, 1879
Tracts Rainfall (in inches)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Western Himalayas 65 Punjab Plains 22 Upper Gangetic Plains, N-W Provinces 38 Eastern Himalayas 144 Lower Gargetic Plains 68 As-^am and East Bengal 96 Western Bengal 56 Central India and Nerbudda 44
910 Rajputana and Gujarat 32 Sind and Kutch 9
11 Khandesh and Berar 29
12 13 Central Province (South) 49 North Deccan Plateau 28
14 15 Hyderabad and South Deccan 25 Concan and Ghats 145
16 Malabar and Ghais 112
17 18 Carnatic } - , 34 — , . f Madras <-,/; Northern Gircars J 3b
19 Arakan 193
20 21 Pegu 76 Tenasserin 173
22 Bay Islands 108
From the above table we find that the average annual rainfall over the whole country was 72 inches. Fourteen tracts were below the national average. Hence rainfall could be taken as inadequate for most of the tracts, underlining the paramount importance of irrigation facilities. Incidentally, it may be noted that tracts 17 and 18 comprised the area through which passed the canal constructed by India's first private irrigation enterprise, the Madras Irrigation and Ganal Company. In these regions the annual rainfall was of the order of only 34 to 36 inches.