How was the life of common people in Maharashtra during british era ?

I had this discussion once with my grandfather , and he said that pre independence and post independence things were not very different till late 80s when sugarcane mills emerged especially in our region ( western maharashtra ) . Society mostly functioned on rural basis ( kind of symbiotic with everyone has defined work , obviously based on castes at that time ) . Most people still believed in kings autonomy especially in princely states . Casteism was still a thing . Also he says that british made education much more accessible . Also he said that kings played much more important role and most of them along with britishers did good works like dams , canals etc . He also said that gandhiji was much more popular than any regional fighter at that time . Even most marathis resonated with gandhian ideology compared to savarkar , tilak . what was life like according to you ?