The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c7.s10.12

c7.s10.12

This being the general state of the country it must be stated that at least three causes concurred to depress rather than to improve the condition of the people during the first years of British rule. In the first place the Konkan suffered in a very excessive degree from the return of the military men now thrown out of employ, as, besides numbers who had served in the cavalry and infantry, most of the forts in the Dakhan as well as along the Gháts and in the Konkan had been in a great measure garrisoned by Konkanis.² Secondly the great demand for grain, especially rice, in the Dakhan and particularly at Poona which resulted from the absence of cultivation above the Gháts and the presence of a great Court and army at Poona, suddenly ceased, for the Court and army disappeared together, and the immediate increase of cultivation in the Dakhan made it independent of the supply of Konkan grain, so that it soon became an exporting instead of an importing country.⁴ Thirdly the ruin of the Chitpávan dynasty which had always kept the great offices of the State to a great extent in the hands of members of that caste and had favoured other natives of the Ratnágiri district, could not have been otherwise than a most serious loss to so poor a country as the Southern Konkan. The measures taken for the improvement of the district were to a great extent counterbalanced by these inevitable causes of distress.