SYMPOSIUM
REPORT
Annual
Conference
of the
Japanese
Association
for
South
Asian
Studies
(October
1 and 2, 2005)
RECONSIDERING
THE HISTORY
OF
EARLY-MODERN
AND
MODERN
SOUTH
ASIA
Introduction
Shigeru Akita and Kohei Wakimura
The general
aim of this session
was to introduce
recent
new
interpretations
on South
Asian economic
history,
which
have
led to intensive
debates
in Indian academic
circles
as well as in Anglo-American
academic
world,
and to reconsider
the contemporary
implications
of these
debates.
The session
consisted
of two parts;
Part I: "Continuity
and
Change:
Debates
on Eighteenth
Century
History
in South
Asia";
Part II: "Debates
on
De-industrialization:
Nationalist
Interpretations
and Economic
History".
******
The specific aim of Part I was to re-interpret the "long eighteenth century" in South Asia from new angles and perspectives. The eighteenth century used to be recognized as a "transitional period" from the dissolution of the Mughal Empire to the establishment of British colonial rule by the English East India Company. However, in the previous studies on South Asia, it is not so clear how we should locate the history of the "long eighteenth century" in the wider perspective of South Asian history. We use the term "long eighteenth century" to include the first half of the nineteenth century up to the 1840s-50s.
Two books on the historiography of the "long eighteenth century" in South Asia were recently published in India and Anglo-American academic world: (1) Seema Alavi (ed.), The Eighteenth Century in India: Debates in Indian History and Society (Oxford University Press, 2002); (2) P. J. Marshall (ed.), The Eighteenth Century in Indian History: Evolution or Revolution? (Oxford University Press, 2003). The journal, Modern Asian Studies, also published a special issue (38-3, 2004), entitled "The Colonial Transition: South Asia 1780-1840". In these publications, the issues of "continuity and change" and "evolution or revolution" in the transitional period to colonialism are debated by several prominent scholars in India as well as in the UK and the US. They discuss how we should evaluate the many-sided changes brought about in the process of establishment of British colonial rule. Dr. David Washbrook, the Dean of St. Antony's College, Oxford University, is one of the
leading historians in the UK on this topic. However, Japanese academics on South Asian History have dealt with these topics independently from their own original perspectives, especially focusing on landownership and their management in South India as well as in Bengal. Profs. Mizushima and Taniguchi are prominent economic historians on these subjects in Japan. Dr. Sayoko Kanda is a young scholar specializing in economic history of Bengal in the early modern era from a regional perspective.
After the publication of a provocative book in comparative economic history, The Great Divergence: Europe, China, and the Making of the Modern World Economy, by Kenneth Pomeranz (Princeton University Press, 2000), the history of the eighteenth century attracted much scholarly attention not only in South Asian history but also in the new field of Global History. In this session, we reconsidered the historiographies of South Asia and their implications on contemporary South Asian world from global perspectives.
******
Today India is enjoying great commercial and industrial activity. Since the beginning of 1990s Indian economy has undergone a considerable change through economic liberalization. After more than ten years of process of change there has appeared a new trend of argumentation on modern Indian economic history, criticizing the so-called nationalist historiography. Prof. Tinthankar Roy has put forward very innovative views on economic history under the British Raj. He has recently published a book entitled Rethinking Economic Change in India: Labour and Livelihood (Routledge, 2005).
The aim of Part II was to reconsider economic change in India during the British period. We invited Prof. Roy to our session as the main guest speaker, and Prof. Kaoru Sugihara
and Prof. Haruka Yanagisawa as discussants.
A major point of Prof. Roy's criticism of the nationalist paradigm was that it presents
"
political narratives" which are too simplified. He asserted that factors and variables other
than political, such as ecological factors-scarcity ofwater resources, for example-should be considered to explain why the standard of living of Indian people did not improve very much under the colonial rule, though India achieved market-induced economic development to some extent in spite of the laissez faire policy of the colonial government. His ambitious proposal was to build an "economic narrative" of Indian modern history.
Prof. Yanagisawa dissented from Prof. Roy in evaluations of the responsibility of colonial rule for underdevelopment, which, in his view, caused disintegration of the peasantry and agrarian stagnation. He also said that he appreciated the positive effects of import-substituting industrialization since the 1920s and during the early phase of the independence period. This view was just the opposite of Prof. Roy's. On the other hand, Prof. Sugihara agreed with Prof. Roy's point that there was labour-intensive industrialization in British India. Prof. Sugihara tried to compare the process of labour-intensive industrialization in South Asia with that in East Asia. He also suggested situating this process in an international context.
Part I
I. Changing
Perspectives
on the
Economic
History
of India
David Washbrook St Antony's College, Oxford
Few areas of Indian history have come to change more dramatically in recent years than those concerned with the character of the economy. It was not very long ago that we used to view the arrival of British rule at the end of the eighteenth century as the beginning of India's entry into the history of capitalism - albeit a particularly brutal entry. The pre-modern economies of South Asia, variously interpreted as subsistence-oriented or as tribute-based, were roughly inserted into a new global economy premised on industrial capitalism. The initial shock, in Marx's famous phrase, spread the 'bleached bones' of the weaver' across the plains of Hindustan and caused deep immiseration. However, by the end of the nineteenth century, it was also clear that the second part of Marx's prophecy - that a new modern economy would arise on the grave of the old 'Asiatic' one - was not to be fulfilled, at least rapidly. The Indian economy remained trapped in agricultural stagnation and failed to generate industrial plenitude. Economic history then became obsessed with tracing the various socio-cultural obstructions and/or political mechanisms of 'colonial' exploitation, which were thought to have kept India from achieving the supposed 'holy grail' of development. India was seen to move from pre-capitalism to post-colonial 'socialism' without ever having properly experienced 'capitalism'.1
However, historical perspectives on the Indian economy in recent years have shifted almost out of recognition. One reason for this, certainly in the last decade or so, has been its belated growth in the context of globalisation'. Familiar sociological formulae, that the nature of Indian culture and society rendered it somehow unfit for/unconducive to capitalism, have been rendered somewhat nonsensical by the economy's current performance.2 But equally, no less familiar politico-economic formulae suggesting that mere exposure to international trade and global capital flows led to India's inevitable 'underdevelopment' have been made to appear vacuous.3
On this last point, a great deal of research on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has seriously questioned how meaningful it is to suppose India disengaged from the world economy - pristine and untouched - until the rise of British colonial rule. Parts of it were centres of an international textile trade, which reached the four corners of the earth and made it into a sump for the precious metals released from the Americas and Japan in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was also heavily involved in other circuits of trans-national exchange - for example, in war-horses, military personnel and ruling elites - which stretched from the Levant to China. These wider connections were already effecting major changes in its society and politics long before the Europeans rose to power:
which they did as much by following established processes of development as initiating them. Early modern India now looks a very different place - economically dynamic, commercial and expansive - from what it was once assumed to be.4
Yet, of course, these expansive tendencies did not survive long into the early nineteenth century and it cannot be disputed that India did 'involute' towards an agricultural economy. Conventionally, the exploitations associated with British colonial rule have been held responsible for this state of affairs - although why the British should have wanted a declining and failing economy to exploit has rather less often been asked. But much recent research has also questioned this convention and pointed towards the global significance of the British industrial revolution, which reached far beyond the terrain of Britain's colonial empire. The erstwhile world supremacy of India's textile industry was displaced by a superior technology developed elsewhere - and India, in part, fell victim to the very market forces, which previously had given rise to its own manufacturing pre-eminence and relative prosperity. Technological change, rather than colonialism, may have played the leading role here5 - and latter-day feelings of regret about its consequences can only be to privilege India's 'traditional economy at the expense of the welfare brought to the rest of the world by industrialisation.
But where British colonial rule may still have relevance is with regard to what happened after the decline of India's 'traditional' industries. Rather than itself adopting the new technologies of the age (which were notionally available to it via its special connection with Britain), India experienced a long period of hiatus —dominated by the `peasantization' of economy and society - before only starting to move towards modern forms of industrial production from the 1860s, which it then developed extremely slowly until World War One.6 It is hard to exculpate British rule entirely from these serious disappointments although, admittedly, many of the mechanisms once thought to have been responsible for them now appear rusty and old. Recent re-interpretations, for example, have questioned the idea of a 'Drain' of wealth to Britain, which denied India the resources for more advanced industrialisation. Much that used to be included in 'the Drain' now looks like legitimate payments for services and, at most, its volume might have been the equivalent of 1-1.5% of GDP a year - a considerable amount, but hardly the difference between
'
tradition' and `modernity'.7 Equally, familiar arguments that Britain's 'free trade' policies -designed to keep Indian markets open to its goods-denied India the protection
necessary to generating its own industrialisation, ring hollow.8 Even at the height of Britain's export of textiles to India (in the early 1900s), these amounted to no more than the equivalent of 0.6% of Britain's GNP: again hardly a quantity likely to have made a major difference to India's economic fate - and symptomatic also of a deeper problem. The demand for textiles (and other manufactures) in the Indian economy was so low that tariffs (and consequent price rises) would likely have served more to suppress it than encourage faster economic growth.
economic historians these days have turned more to the structures and processes of the world economy at the time - where India's supposedly 'dismal' performance is more straightforwardly explained and may, indeed, not have been quite so dismal. In broad terms, India's 'development' followed closely the logic of the world economy itself- once Western Europe had begun to industrialise - and revealed very little colonial `exceptionability'. India gained from the demand for agricultural produce, in whose export it came to excel, and latterly moved towards industrialisation as World War and Depression dislocated metropolitan centres from their erstwhile markets for manufactures. In comparison with the rest of the 'developing' world, India did quite well out of the period 1860-1914, posting increases in per capita income of perhaps 1-1.5% a year. Thereafter, it suffered along with other developing countries in the inter-war years but, at least, generated a faster rate of domestic industrialisation partially to off-set agricultural decline.9 If India's economic history betrays a 'problem', it is more that industrialisation took place first in 'the West' than that being subject to colonial rule altered its trajectory more than in most other parts of the world.
However, there may yet be ways in which colonial rule was significant - although, to be seen, they may require a closer consideration of politics. The hiatus between the decline of India's 'traditional' industries and the rise of its new ones was exceptionally long and was marked (from the 1820s to the 1850s) by an extremely deep price depression.1° If the character of this depression is examined, it can only partly be put down to the decline of the export textile industry. Certainly, there was a severe dislocation in those centres which had concentrated most strongly on servicing export demands. However, much of the internal market for textiles remains intact - unreachable, via the transport means available, by
'
Lancashire' cloth. Also, the Indian population experienced a very sharp rise in the first
half of the nineteenth: creating more bodies to be clothed, and sheltered and fed. Judging by the rapid expansion of agricultural cultivation, which went on at this time, displaced weavers were not without alternative sources of employment and sustenance.11
But why, then, the long period of depression - and at what cost ? Rather than (just) the decline in export markets, the depression can more easily be associated with a spectacular collapse in the internal demand for goods and services. Away from the colonial port-cities on the coasts, many previous 'consumption' centres - cities such as Delhi, Murshidabad, Tiruchirapalle - contracted as their erstwhile court cultures were reduced in scope. Large armies, whose personnel had demanded food and commodities, were dismantled and their soldiers sent back to the land, literally to beat their swords into plough-shares. On the land itself, especially in provinces subject to `ryotwar' revenue settlements, many consuming local elites found their privileges (for example, tax-free inams) challenged and removed. Those who had once possessed supra-subsistence purchasing power in the economy
experienced a rapid emptying of their purses.12
This condition was further exacerbated by shortages of specie itself. One of the most serious effects of the decline of the export textile industry was not merely loss of
employment, but also of money. India imported most of its specie-metal from abroad. It was a long time before the export of primary products (opium, cotton) made up for the decline and, in the interim, money became short in supply. It was made even scarcer by East India Company policies physically transporting Indian silver to China to buy goods.13 As the money-supply shrank, so did prices - and they were further encouraged along this course by a 'glut' of commodities. Expanding land frontiers and growing numbers of
`
peasants' produced mounting piles of goods. Much of the Company literature of the period was dominated by concerns with the problem of 'vent'14: but it was only resolved after the 1850s with the coming of the railways and new systems of transport. In the interim, prices remained very low.
And it was in this 'interim' period that, arguably, India lost a golden opportunity to '
structurally adjust' to the new conditions of the global economy, recover an industrial position and establish itself at a higher point in the value-added chain. Conditions of price-depression and market stagnation stifled opportunities for entrepreneurship and industrial investment. The textile industry made no visible effort to accommodate itself to the new technology or to begin to 're-industrialise' until they were past. But then, from the 1850s, the economy faced a context marked by much higher levels of population (and poverty); by the dislocation of prior linkages between industry and agriculture; and by a distorted profile of market demand. Between the 1860s and 1914, prices rose steadily - but those of food crops (little supported by subsidies and scientific infrastructure) rose faster than those of all other goods.15 Rising costs of subsistence squeezed the surpluses of those with income to spare, reducing their scope to purchase manufactured goods - whether foreign or domestic.
Moreover, most of these unfavourable conditions can directly be associated with the
'
peculiarities' of colonial rule. The decline of domestic demand in the 1820s-1850s was
clearly a consequence of East India Company 'pacification' and 'settlement' policies, which reduced the armies and court-centres of previously consuming pre-colonial elites; and which imposed heavy and regressive forms of land taxation, limiting Indian possibilities of capital accumulation. Further, the Company spent only a small part of its swelling revenues in ways likely to stimulate the domestic Indian economy. Opium and indigo production may have increased, but a large number of its purchases and investments were made abroad. In particular, Company India began to develop as a massive 'military barracks' providing 'free' soldiers and military resources for Britain's wider empire.16 From the 1840s, it also began to pump out large quantities of labour to service the needs of other colonial economies around the Indian Ocean and further a-field. In effect, possibilities of stimulating demand and consumption within the domestic Indian economy were sacrificed to Britain's broader global economy and role as 'world policeman' before World War One. Colonial India suffered not (just) because Britain imposed on it bi-lateral relations of wealth extraction and exploitation. But rather because Britain inserted India into a pattern of multi-lateral,
`
for projects
(mines,
plantations,
markets)
being developed
elsewhere.17
Recent revisionist
interpretations
of Indian economic
history have gone a long way
towards
breaking down the distinctiveness
of the colonial
relationship,
and re-situating
India in a 'continuous'
context
of global
history stretching
from the late medieval
period to
today.
This has much improved
our understandings
of its experience.
However,
there may
remain some
areas
which have been neglected
and which still require
greater
consideration.
In particular,
these include
the history of domestic
demand and consumption - which
have been overlooked
for a greater focus on commodity
exports and foreign investment;
and also India's
'real' exports
of military
power,
labour and capital,
which have usually
been
studied only as parts of the history of other countries,
ie., the places to which they went.
But the volume
of Indian commodities
involved
in overseas
trade was always
much less
than that produced
for local consumption;
and the loss of Indian labour and capital (not
least via military
spending
abroad)
would appear to have been very large indeed.
We need
more research
on these dimensions
of Indian economic
history - which also may take us
back to re-assessing
the real impact made by colonial
rule.
(Notes)
1) However,
this understanding
remains
strong
outside
economic
history.
See Partha
Chat-terjee, The
Nation
and Its Fragments.
Princeton:
Princeton
University
Press,
(1994),
ch.2.
2) As, classically,
in Louis
Dumont,
Homo
Hierarchicus.
London:
Weidenfeld
and Nicolson,
(1970).
3) As, classically,
Paul Baran,
The
Political
Economy
of Growth.
New York:
Monthly
Review
Press,
(1957).
4) K.N. Chaudhuri,
Trade
and Civilization
in the Indian Ocean:
an economic
history
from the
rise
ofIslam
to 1750.
Cambridge:
Cambridge
University
Press,
(1985);
Sanjay
Subrahman-yam, The
Political
Economy
of Commerce
in South
India,
1500-1650.
Cambridge:
Cambridge
University
Press,
(1990);
Sanjay
Subrahmanyam,
Penumbral
Visions:
making
polities
in early
modern
South
India.
Ann Arbor:
University
of Michigan
Press,
(2001).
5) David
S. Landes,
The
Unbound
Prometheus:
technological
change
and industrial
development
in
Western
Europe
from 1750
to the
present.
Cambridge:
Cambridge
University
Press, (1969).
6) C.A. Bayly,
Indian
Society
and the
Making
of the British
Empire.
Cambridge:
Cambridge
University
Press,
(1988).
7) G. Balachandran
(ed.),
India and the World
Economy,
1850-1950.
Delhi: Oxford
University
Press,
(2003).
8) For example,
A.K. Bagchi,
Private
Investment
in India 1900-1939.
Cambridge:
Cambridge
University
Press,(1969).
9) Tirthankar
Roy,
The
Economic
History
of India, 1857-1947.
Delhi: Oxford
University
Press,
(2000).
10) Bayly,
India; A. Sarada
Raju,
Economic
Conditions
in the
Madras
Presidency
1800-1850.
State, Uttar Pradesh 1819-1833. Oxford: Clarendon Press, (1973).
11) Morris D. Morris, The Indian Economy in the Nineteenth Century: A Symposium. Delhi: Indian Economic and Social History Association, (1969).
12) Bayly, India.
13) Siddiqi, Agrarian Conditions.
14) K.N. Chaudhuri, The Economic Development of India under the East India Company, 1814-58; a selection of documents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, (1971).
15) David Washbrook, 'Agriculture and Industrialisation in India' in P. Mathias and John A. Davis (eds), Agriculture and Industrialization: from the eighteenth century to the present day. Oxford: Blackwell, (1996).
16) Douglas M.Peers, Between Mars and Mammon: Colonial ASrmies and the Garrison state in India, 1819-1835. London: Taurus Publishers, (1995).
17) David Washbrook, 'The Indian Economy and the British Empire' in Nandini Gooptu and Douglas M. Peers (eds), Oxford History of the British Empire: India. Oxford: Clarendon Press, forthcoming.
II. South India:
Indigenous
Development
and
Colonial
Rule
Tsukasa Mizushima
The main objective of this paper is to assess the historical significance of colonial rule by tracing the indigenous and external changes which occurred in and after the eighteenth century and to conclude that the colonial rule constituted a break in the light of indigenous development of south India.
1. Debate on Eighteenth Century South India
South India was located far from the centres of Mughal rule, hence the latter's fall in the early eighteenth century was not necessarily a matter of direct concern. It was the Nawab of Arcot who claimed suzerainty over the Tamil region in the period, though Maratha, Nizam, and Mysore powers were frequent intruders throughout. Coupled with the conflicts among the European East India Companies, mainly English and French, south India experienced political turmoil as did the rest of India. A point of concern here is the question regarding the nature and process of economic changes that brought about such political instability if the fall of Mughal state was considered irrelevant. Assessing the impact of the textile trade and of the agricultural commodity trade is essential in answering this question. Another point of concern is whether the British colonial rule should be considered as continuity or a break from the viewpoint of indigenous development of south India. Both these issues are related to the ongoing "eighteenth century debate."
The first to be considered is the impact of foreign trade. Maritime historians working on south Indian textile trade seem to share the opinion that the trade showed a downward trend from around the mid-eighteenth century. Manning, for instance, states that "... certain aspects of Asian commerce were in decline, and the French bore vociferous witness to the difficulties of maritime trade on the westward routes from India... from the late 1730s...."1 Arasaratnam gives an overall assessment of the English trade by stating that "
the 18th century continues to be, to maritime historians, a woeful century."2
Some trade statistics of European companies summarized by Om Prakash, however,
show a somewhat upward trend at least in parts of the latter half of the century.3 It would, therefore, take some more time to conclude the assessment of the impact of foreign trade upon south Indian economy.
2. Indigenous Development
One remarkable aspect was the growth of colonial port towns like Madras and Pondicherry in the period. Though the population statistics are not satisfactory, it is estimated that Madras had attracted several hundred thousands of people in the period.4 This growth of the urban population activated grain trade for urban consumption. This leads to a question regarding the impact of growth of such grain trade upon the rural economy.
The production activities in the rural area were maintained by a share-distribution system. In this system, a certain proportional share in the total produce of the local society was linked with some specific role necessary for reproducing the society. The system was generally called "mirasi system" in the colonial records. Among others, it was the village magnates called mirasidars who secured a considerable proportional share in the total produce of the local society. They were the important participants in the grain trade, the amount of which is estimated between 2.5 and 3.3 million rupees annually, even if the population of Madras is underestimated at 150,000.
The village magnates' involvement with the grain trade resulted in the emergence of village leaders from among them. Two categories of mirasidars were thus created. While the village magnates were dependent both upon the inter-caste power structure in the locality and upon the mirasi system, the village leaders, a new category of mirasidars,
asserted their economic and political autonomy through their individual activities. Records showing the expenditures of dozens of village leaders at the beginning of the nineteenth century in South Arcot indicate their highly autonomous nature by encroaching on the mirasi system and controlling the village on their own accounts.5 Another analysis of the spatial distribution of individual mirasidar's share in the late eighteenth century indicates the emergence of village leaders controlling several villages in the period.' It should also be noted that there were frequent transactions of the mirasidar's right, especially in and around major local towns.7
up the centuries-old mirasi system in the later pre-colonial period. While many mirasidars found difficulty in tiding over the political turmoil in the latter half of the century, some village leaders enjoyed their autonomous status economically, politically, and sometimes militarily. The Carnatic war (1744-61) or the Mysore war (1767-69, 80-84, 90-92, 99) were fought among the high-level political powers while fundamental changes were in progress at the bottom.
3. Colonial Rule
The end of the eighteenth century saw the beginning of the British colonial rule in south India. After trial and error for nearly two decades, the raiyatwari system was finally enforced. The most critical feature of this system was its simplicity, which it pursued in two ways. First it simplified the relation between the state and the raiyat or "cultivator" by eradicating the various intermediaries. It aimed to bring village magnates, village leaders, poligar (palaiyakaran or military chief), and all others in between down to the same level as other cultivators. Secondly it simplified the relation between the state and a land lot by eradicating the intermediary institutions including local society and village. The mirasi system, which had a locality as its spatial and social base, became also a target for eradication. While tax-exempted lands in the system were reorganized and were partly reserved in the system, shares were included in the land tax and were abolished. The relationship of service in the mirasi system, which was exchanged among the people in the local society, was replaced by a reciprocal relationship either between two individuals or two communities.' A village thus became nothing more and nothing less than an assemblage of land lots and raiyats.
Summary and Conclusion
Pre-colonial south India had the mirasi system where the people in the locality had some specific roles in reproducing the local society while receiving certain proportional shares in the total produce of the local society. The development of foreign textile trade and the inflow of bullion through the hands of European commercial powers attracted people to colonial port towns and activated the rural-urban grain trade. The participation of village magnates called mirasidars in the grain trade generated class diversification among them, leading to the emergence of village leaders from among the village magnates. In contrast to the highly dependent nature of the latter upon the mirasi system and upon the inter-caste power relation, the village leaders claimed economic, political, and even military autonomy. Their autonomous activities became primary factors behind the political instability of the period.
The British colonial rule, which started by taking up the remains of the several decades of warfare, decided to simplify the social structure by eradicating all the intermediaries spatially between the state and a land lot, and socially between the state and a raiyat. In this process the varied social classes that existed in south India till then were leveled, and
a new index, namely landholding, came to prevail for classifying the people. The mirasi-oriented society was totally replaced by a land-mirasi-oriented society. This change can be defined as a break.
The "eighteenth century debate" initiated by Bayly focused, among other factors, upon the genealogical continuity between the middle classes (traders, local bureaucrats, and other urban dwellers) in the eighteenth century and the new middle classes (lawyers, bureaucrats, and others) emerging in the late nineteenth century.' An investigation into the transaction of the mirasidars' right indicates that the trading castes and Brahmins, the classes fitting into the "intermediary" category described by Bayly, were often involved, especially in and around the major local towns.
How then can we assess Bayly's argument? Among the options for Indian middle classes suffering from warfare in the eighteenth century, participation in war operations (provisions and ammunitions)10 or revenue farming was conspicuous, but no longer so once the colonial rule was established. The option of opening up the overseas market also faced the same fate, though we know about the exceptional case of the Nattukottai Chettiyars who headed towards Southeast Asia.11 The last option was to take up landholding under the depressed economic condition in the first half of the nineteenth century. A study of the landholding registers of villages in Ponneri taluk in Chingleput district prepared at the second raiyatwari settlement in the 1870s indicates the entry into landholding by the trading castes such as the Chettiyars.12 These villages became a marked centre of suburban agriculture supplying fruits and vegetables to Chennai (Madras) in 1998.13 This suggests that a new look into the wide-ranging development, not only of the urban classes but also of the rural classes, is required.
(Notes)
1) Manning,
C., 1996.
Fortunes
a faire: The
French
in Asian
Trade,
1719-48,
Hampshire:
Vari-orum,
pp. 199-200.
2) Arasaratnam,
S., 1992.
"Some
Reflections
on the 18th Century
'Crisis' in the Indian
Sub-continent",
Journal
of the
Japanese
Association
of the South
Asian
Studies
4, pp. 98, 101.
3) Prakash,Om.,
1998.
European
Commercial
Enterprise
in Pre-Colonial
India, The
New
Cambridge
History
oflndia
11-5,
Tables
3-7, 4-1, 4-2, 6-2, 6-4, 7-1.
4) For the population
of Pondicherry
in the eighteenth
century,
see Richards,
John F., 1975.
"European City-States
on the Coromandel
Coast",
Studies
in the Foreign
Relations
oflndia,
State
Archives,
Government
of Andhra Pradesh,
Hyderabad,
p.512,
Lettres Edifiantes
et
Curieuses
Ecrites
des Missions
Etrangeres
par Quelques
Missionaires
de la Compagnie
de Jesus
(25 vols,
Paris, 1717-43),
vi, 203; viii, 163, quoted
in Catherine
Manning,
op.cit,
p.51.
Several
population
figures
during
the seventeenth
century
in Madras
are quoted
by
Love (Love,
H.D., 1913.
Vestiges
of Old
Madras,
1640-1800,
London:
Govt. of India, vol.
I. p. 547). The figure
for the year 1691
was 400,000.
1805, BOR Proceedings, 2 January 1806.
6) The names of the mirasidars and sub-mirasidars (payakari) in all the villages in the Jagir are listed with their respective shares in the "Abstract State of the Number of Meerassee Shares and of Meerassee Holders in the Several Districts of the Jagheer in Fusly 1207 shewing also the Quantity of Meerassee unclaimed & occupied by Pyacarries" (Miscel-laneous Accounts, Statistical Tables etc. accompanying Lionel Place's Report on the Company's Jaghire, vols.1-2, Madras Revenue, 2 March 1803, draft 73/1802-03, E/4/890, in Board's Collections, F/4/112, Nos. 2115-16).
7) See, for instance, the village records of Asanpoodoor, Chinnamullavoil, Codypullum, Coommungalum, Cunacumbacum, Cuncavullyporam, Kistnaporum, Perinjary, Soora-pade, Voiloor, or Mutteravade (Jaghire - Barnard's Survey Accounts, vol.68, Ponnary). 8) So-called jajmani system is a newly organized service relation after the collapse of the
mirasi system.
9) Bayly, C.A., 1983. Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, 1770-1870, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
10) As to the great number of trader-cum transporters called Banjary, see "From the Officer Commanding in the Ceded Districts to the... Lord Clive, Governor in Council, Fort St. George", Extract of Fort St. George Military and Political Consultations, the 4th De-cember 1798 (Measures adopted for securing the assistance of the Benjarries, Extract of Military Letter from Fort St. George dated 2nd January 1799, OIOC, F/4/59, in Board's
Collections, 1313).
11) For details regarding the Nattukottai Chettiyars, see for instance, Rudner, David West., 1995. Caste and Capitalism in Colonial India: The Nattukottai Chettiars, New Delhi: Mun-shiram Manoharlal Publishers.
12) Mizushima (forthcoming).
13) From the field survey and from the interviews with village administration officers by Frank Heidemann in 1998.
III.
Situating
Eighteenth
Century
Bengal:
The Co-existence
"Colonial
of Indigenous
Space"
Space" and
Shinkichi Taniguchi
1. Introduction
Eighteenth century India saw a period of transition with one great empire starting to disintegrate and some powerful successor states taking shape. Colonial rule was about to be established by the English East India Company, and the overall picture that was emerging was inevitably equivocal, reflecting the various factors at work at the time.
In the latter part of this paper I introduce the dual concept of "indigenous space" and "colonial space" in
order to provide a clearer understanding of colonial Bengal. It is my contention that "indigenous space" was subsumed by the "colonial space" when the scheme of actions within this space fell into the hands of colonial rulers or their associates.
2. Bengal in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century (1) The Initial Political Conditions
In early eighteenth century Bengal, Nawab Murshid Quli Khan (1717-1726) emerged as a virtually independent ruler of Bengal, though he remained loyal to Delhi insofar as fiscal obligations were concerned.
He was said to have taken over all land held by the zamindars and had them directly measured by the government officers. It seems that he also fixed the rents of land on the basis of a well-defined table of rents (nirikh) for the respective fiscal subdivisions (the parganas). After collecting basic information on the lands, he returned them to their original zamindars with whom fresh land-revenue settlements were made. Such uniform system of land revenue settlements were found even till the late eighteenth century in some of the zamindaris at least in northern Bengal. The importance of the general introduction of rent payments made in silver currency (rupees) cannot be overemphasized.
(2) The Initial Social Conditions
Frustratingly, there is hardly any reliable documentary evidence about the structure of Bengal village society and peasantry. Theoretically, it can be argued that under the strong government of Murshid Quli Khan to that ofAlivardi Khan, the Bengal cultivators tended to be equalized in both the size of their landholdings and the incidence of rents imposed on them, as a result of their land being measured and registered by the government officers discussed above.
In Bengal, to all intents and purposes, the zamindars commanded a strong control over the use of land in their estates, and peasants were essentially their tenants-cum-subjects (praja). Although the caste system did exist and provided a system of social division of labour, the Bengali villages in the plains had never functioned as a so-called "Indian village
community." (3) Bengal's Economy
We may safely say that Bengal enjoyed economic prosperity and close-knit industrial, commercial and financial links with the north Indian, Asian and European markets. The subcontinent-wide division of labour in the cotton industry, connecting the cotton growers of the Deccan, the various classes of traders, the rural female spinners and male cotton weavers of Bengal, the dyers ofBayana, and so forth, shows the extent of commercialization during the period under review. Needless to say, behind the scenes, networks of safe and cheap transportation, market information, and financial clearance were at work, crossing over the boundaries of several kingdoms and the empire. There was tough competition amongst the native and foreign merchants to procure the cloth which ensured that weavers
obtained fair prices for their products.
It may reasonably be assumed that the number of weavers grew rapidly as demands for their products expanded in the early eighteenth century. At the same time, if their numbers became excessive, the redundant weavers could be absorbed into the agricultural sector. This two-way shift of labour between industry and agriculture was made possible by the ample supply of arable land awaiting cultivation at that time. This flexibility of the labour supply in the weaving sector should be taken into consideration when we discuss the impact of the so-called de-industrialization.
It is also important to understand clearly that the growth of the economy in Bengal was not restricted to the weaving sector. Demand for rice also expanded in accordance with the growth of the urban population within Bengal, and with the increase in its exports to Upper India, the Coromandel Coast, and other places. The growth of market-oriented production (commercialization) such as cotton-weaving, sericulture, indigo and sugar production amongst the village population must have created demand for rice, because some of the villagers gave up paddy cultivation and started to buy rice from the market for their home consumption.
In this way, expansion of and specialization in the production of certain valuable crops encouraged the expansion in production of many other crops as well. This linkage effect should not be overlooked.
The size of the internal markets for rice should have been large enough to enable the Bengali peasants to pay their rent in cash regularly to their zamindars.1 If not, Murshid Khan's revenue system, which was characterized by the payment of rent in rupees, would have met serious problems. The rather restricted demand of government revenue imposed on the zamindars enabled them to be generous in their relations with the peasantry. It can also be argued that money rents tended to lessen the real incidence of rent, in the face of the inflationary trends of the economy.
3. Bengal in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century (1) Economy
Although the cotton industry continued to produce a great quantity of cloth, the circumstances under which they operated changed completely. Company weavers were placed under unequal regulations with severe penalties, and were deprived of fair prices for their production. Thus, an important part of the weaving industry was subsumed under the "colonial space" and ceased to exercise a stimulating and dynamic impact on the growth of the Bengal economy.
However, we should not overlook the fact that during this period the urban centres continued to grow and they naturally required supplies of food-grains and other commercial goods to support their inhabitants. Even under colonial rule, the rice trade remained essentially in the "indigenous space", or in the hands of private indigenous traders, big and small. It is well-known that John Shore's attempt at controlling the grain trade, by
establishing public granaries in Bengal, met with dismal failure towards the end of the eighteenth century.
The virtual stoppage of bullion imports following the acquisition of the Diwani by the East India Company (1765) certainly tightened the money supply and would have exercised deflationary pressure2 on commodity prices in the markets. Consequently, food-grains sold very cheaply. Both peasants and their landlords found it difficult to procure the necessary currencies to pay for their rents and land revenues respectively. Thus the zamindars' economic crisis crept in. Many were forced to sell their estates under the "Sunset Law" in order to clear the arrears of land revenue towards the end of the eighteenth century.3 Many of the merchants and indigenous government officers obtained profitable landed-properties at unusually low prices, utilizing their connections with the colonial government at all levels.' The purchasers at the public auctions became the new zamindars who were considered the indigenous partners of the empire by the colonial government. Thus, the estate management of the zamindars began to be subsumed in the "colonial space" towards the end of the eighteenth century.
(2) Co-existence of "Colonial Space" and "Indigenous Space"
I shall now discuss how the colonial rule that started in the latter half of the eighteenth century brought about profound changes to various aspects of social and economic life in Bengal.
The company's government introduced not only the Permanent Zamindari Settlement of land revenue (1793), but also new police and law courts into rural areas, which were placed under the direct supervision of government officers. Thus the zamindars were dejure deprived not only of their military establishments, but also of police and judicial powers over their tenants. Whilst they retained the de facto power over their tenants, their local influence was greatly reduced by the intrusion of the government police and law courts into their estates. In fact, they themselves increasingly depended on the government police and the law courts for the collection of rents from their tenants.
Calcutta became a centre for the propagation of western thought and English education, which were considered to be a pre-requisite for obtaining much sought after jobs in the government administration or becoming high earning professionals. Bengal gentry (bhadralok) began to flock to cities, especially to Calcutta, in order to find jobs. They filled the newly created posts within the colonial administration and supported the workings of colonial rule at various levels. The gentry utilized their connections with the colonial administration and earned handsome incomes, albeit illegally. In fact, the most profitable economic chances in Bengal were almost always related to colonial connections. These naturally attracted many talented people mostly from the upper echelons of Bengali society. Thus the process of subsuming the bhadralok into the "colonial space" accelerated. This circle of indigenous colonial supporters grew rapidly both in extent and in depth, and its participants accumulated private property in various forms. Some of the most successful started to invest in the indigo business, the salt monopoly, or smuggling opium to
China, for example. The early years of the nineteenth century thus saw a fairly large number of indigenous moneyed men in Bengal engaged in these "colonial spaces". However, their further growth into early industrial capitalists as equal "partners in the empire" was rudely shattered during the indigo crises of the 1830s and 1840s. The gentry learned from these bitter experiences that under colonial rule, there were scarcely any opportunities for Indians to succeed in the "colonial space" as industrial capitalists, and many of them re-directed their capital to landed properties and other traditional fields of economic activities left to them in the "indigenous space".
(3) Colonial Impact on the Bengal Agrarian Society
We can draw a fairly detailed picture of the peasant society under early colonial rule, as I have done elsewhere.5 I argued that a group of wealthy peasants grew and amassed the informal privileged holdings by taking advantage of the confusion under early British rule. I then explained how stratification or differentiation amongst the peasantry took place even in the absence of the land market for peasant holdings. I do not hesitate to say that village society in the late eighteenth century Bengal was, on the whole, a highly stratified class society and had fairly well-developed commercial relations with the wider economy. It was never a homogeneous body of small peasants as some scholars have claimed.6
The residential gentlemen (bhadralok) were not ubiquitous, but their regional distribution was highly skewed. In some localities, particularly in east and west Bengal, they were numerous, whereas in many parts of north Bengal they were few and far between. The wealthy peasants sometimes acted as grain traders, lent money or paddy loans to the
needy neighbours, and were often elected as the village heads by the co-villagers. They represented the villages and negotiated with landlords on various matters. They were the leaders of the village society and one of the direct predecessors of the Jotedars in the nineteenth century.
Some of the zamindars maintained a well-designed system of estate management, where land was regularly quantified by a team of measurers. Rents were regulated according to the quantity, quality and use of land, and the rent-rolls were regularly kept by the zamindars' accountants. In estates under poor management, where the zamindars did not measure the land for many years, rents tended to be fixed at a lump sum on the village as a whole, and rent-rolls were full of fraudulent alterations. Needless to say, in the former type of estates, tenants could not possess larger land than that assigned to them by the landlords, whereas in the latter type of estate tenants, especially those with means, held much more land than that rented to them.
4. Concluding Remarks
There were drastic changes in some sections of the society as a consequence of the commencement of colonial rule, but at the same time there were still sufficiently large spaces ("indigenous space") where traditional transactions not only continued to exist, but also expanded. Thus, we observe the co-existence of "indigenous space"
and "colonial space."
However, it is hard to deny that the colonial rulers and their associates monopolized many of the highly profitable economic chances ("colonial space"), and the producers, especially weavers and indigo cultivators, were denied judicious rewards for their labour under the colonial monopolies.
As the nationalist economists of the late nineteenth century - and more recently Irfan Habib7 - have pointed out, the annual drain of wealth to the order of a few per cent of GDP deprived the Indian colonial economy of its dynamics for growth. The indigo crash created a kind of psychology among the indigenous moneyed people to desist from making investment in the "colonial space", and to remain within the "indigenous space" which was their natural preserve. This attitude survived until the latter half of the nineteenth century, when the "colonial space" and the "indigenous space" began to be closely intermingled and the boundaries of both spaces became obscured in the process of "colonial modernization".8
(Notes)
1) The total amount
of rent paid to the zamindars
by the Bengal
raiyats
may
not have been
smaller
than Rs.20,000,000
or L2,000,000.
See my unpublished
Ph.D. dissertation
(1977).
2) Not inflationary,
as wrongly
assumed
by Seema
Alavi
(2002).
It should
be noted
that Rajat
Datta (2000)
draws a drastically
contrasting
picture
regarding
the monetary
situation
in
Bengal.
3) Of course,
the causes
of the zamindars'
crisis
were multifarious.
There
were many
other
factors
that brought
about
the downfall
of many
zamindars.
For details,
see my article
(1978).
4) Sirajul
Islam (1978)
and S. Taniguchi
(1978).
5) S. Taniguchi
(1995).
Some
Indian scholars
criticized
my view, saying
that my example
is
an exceptional
one applicable
only to a few frontier
districts
such as Dinajpur
and
Rang-pur. I wonder
whether
they have
read my article carefully,
because
I have clearly
shown,
with evidence,
of course,
that similar
kinds of wealthy
peasants
and highly
stratified
struc-ture of the peasantry
did exist in many
other districts
as well.
6) Rajat
Datta (2000).
7) Irfan Habib
(2002).
8) Railway,
jute cultivation,
reclamation,
jute industry,
growth
of cities,
public
administra-tion, local
self-government
and general
education
were amongst
the most important
fac-tors behind
this change.
References
Alavi, Seema, 2002, "Introduction", in Seema Alavi (ed.), The Eighteenth Century in India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp.1-56.
Chakrabarti, Shubhra, 2005, "Colonized Trade: Major Shifts in India's Trade and Commercial Organizations, 1700-1860", in Binay Bhushan Chaudhuri (ed.), Economic History of India from Eighteenth to Twentieth Century, New Delhi: Centre For Studies in Civilizations, pp.
57-106.
Chaudhuri, Sushil, 1995, From Prosperity to Decline Eighteenth Century Bengal, Delhi: Manohar. •\ 2002, "Was There a Crisis in Mid-Eighteenth Century Bengal?", in Richard B. Barnett (ed.), Rethinking Early Modern India, Delhi: Manohar, pp. 129-152.
Datta, Rajat, 1999, "Markets, Bullion and Bengal's Commercial Economy: An Eighteenth Cen-tury Perspective", in Om Prakash and Denys Lombard (eds.), Commerce and Culture in the Bay of Bengal 1500 - 1800, Delhi: Manohar, pp. 329-359.
•\
2000, Society, Economy and the Market, Commercialization in Rural Bengal, c. 1760
-1800 ,Delhi:Manohar.
Habib, Irfan, 2002, "The Eighteenth Century in Indian Economic History", in Seema Alavi (ed.), The Eighteenth Century in India, Oxford: New Delhi, pp. 57-83.
Islam, Sirajul, 1979, The Permanent Settlement in Bengal: A Study of Its Operation 1790 - 1819, Dacca: Bangla Academy.
Sinha, N.K., 1965, The Economic History of Bengal, Vol.1, Calcutta: Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay, (3rd edition).
Taniguchi, S., 1977, Structure of Agrarian Society in Northern Bengal (1765 to 1800), University of Calcutta, (unpublished Ph. D. dissertation).
•\
1978, "The Permanent Settlement in Bengal and the Breakup of the Zamindari of Di-najpur", The Calcutta Historical JournalIII-1, pp. 26-55.
•\
1996, "The Peasantry of Northern Bengal in the Late Eighteenth Century", in P. Robb, K. Sugihara and H. Yanagisawa (eds.), Local Agrarian Societies in Colonial India, Surrey: Cur-zon, pp. 146-198.
IV. The Colonial
Transition
in the "Long"
Eighteenth
Century:
Reflections
on the
Presentations
of Professors
Shinkichi
Taniguchi
and
Tsukasa
Mizushima
Sayako Kanda 1
The last two decades or so have witnessed remarkable advances in historical studies on eighteenth century South Asia, which have provoked considerable discussion and drastically changed our understanding of the century. The debate now needs to be reappraised, as Seema Alavi and P. J. Marshall have done recently [Alavi 2002; Marshall 2003]. In this essay, first I would like to shed light on the contributions of Professors Taniguchi and
Mizushima to our understanding of the century by examining their respective views. Then, I would like to take up the issues that have not been fully examined in previous studies, by referring to recent studies and to my own view on eastern India. More specifically, I would like to point out the importance of the internal market in order to understand the colonial transition in the eighteenth century debate.
2
Both presentations give us well-balanced and dynamic interpretations of eighteenth century Bengal and South India respectively based on empirical studies. Their views refute the simple continuity/break or decline/prosper dichotomy as a way of understanding the historical developments in the eighteenth century.
Professor Taniguchi introduces a pair of notions: "colonial space" and "indigenous space", with which he eloquently describes the economy and society of early colonial Bengal. Some sections of the economy and society-the cotton industry and the indigo cultivation in particular-were subsumed under the "colonial space", which represented the interests of the British and their associates within the indigenous population. But he emphasises that there was a great deal of "indigenous space" beyond colonial control, and that the internal grain trade was the most important in this "space". He regards the colonial transition in Bengal as a process of gradual integration of these two "spaces", more precisely as the process in which the "colonial space" engulfed the "indigenous space" through "colonial modernisation". This process accelerated from the mid-nineteenth century, after the development of a railway system, the expansion of jute cultivation, the large-scale land reclamation, and the reform of educational and administrative systems.
Professor Mizushima delineates the transition of eighteenth century South India by focusing on the changes in the mirasi system. During the first half of the century, the mirasi system was transformed by the changes outside the system-the growth of the textile industry and of the trade in grain and textiles-as well as by the emergence of village leaders within the system. It was also affected by the political turmoil in the second half of the century, but its role as "social grammar" had been maintained throughout the century. The impact of the raiyatwari settlement was, however, so profound that the mirasi system finally lost its function as "social grammar". He thus claims that the colonial rule marked a clear break; South India began to move towards land-oriented society under the raiyatwari system.
Though different in interpretation, both professors suggest the emergence of the "
colonised" economy and society much later, say, in the early or even in the mid-nineteenth century. Recently, academics have also begun to express interest in the period of "colonial transition"-c. 1780 to 1840-which has been rather neglected in previous studies [Barrow and Haynes 2004]. A closer look at this period should also contribute to reassessing the eighteenth century debate. As Marshall states, even for those who claim continuity for a longer span of time, the "long" eighteenth century seems to have ended by 1830; the
economy was on the decline, and the English East India Company (hereafter the Company) had gradually achieved centralisation of political power in its territories [Marshall 2003: 34-36]. Therefore, in this paper, I suggest that the ultimate focus should be on this period if we are to understand the colonial transition.
I would also like to stress that the changes in the indigenous economy and society were an active agent of transformation, and that such changes always influenced and determined the policy-making and governance of the Company state. This aspect has not been fully examined in previous studies. In my view, the forces of change were diverse, and here I would like to draw attention to "colonial rule" as one of them. To do this, I would like to re-examine the state of industry in Bengal by taking up two broad issues-the internal market and consumption, and "deindustrialisation". Close examination of the internal market, consumption and indigenous mercantile activities should lead to a re-assessment of the state of "traditional" industry. Though the textile industry is one of the key topics of both presentations, the internal market and consumption are not fully discussed. As Professor Washbrook stressed in his speech, these issues have remained unexplored in spite of their importance.
3
Recent studies on the cotton industry in Bengal in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries stress the resilience of the industry. The Company was never able to monopolise the buyers' market, because there was severe competition among buyers [Chakrabarti 1994: 117-124]. Other European Companies and private traders purchased textiles by giving the Company's manufacturers advance money through intermediaries such as gomasthas (agents), dalals (brokers) and paikars (brokers or itinerant traders), who acted on behalf of the English Company. The Company's intervention in the internal trade had deprived the old interests such as land proprietors and elite merchants of their privileges and opened up direct access to producers for the Company and a variety of local merchants [Sen 1998: chapters 4 &5; Datta 2000: 200-206]. However, the Company failed to estab-lish direct control of the market and trade, mainly because a series of state interventions met with strong opposition by local merchants; and as a consequence the Company resorted more to a chain of intermediaries to gain access to producers. This encouraged the growth of mercantile and intermediate classes between the state and primary producers. This suggests that the Company's control of the industry was never firmly established. Foreign demand was not the only cause that weakened the Company's control. The Company's procurement system did affect some sections of the industry, but its impact on the weaving sector was limited, because of a growing demand of certain types of textiles in the internal market [Mukherjee 2004: 253-266]. Weavers often responded more to the demand in the internal market than that in foreign markets.
As Tilottama Mukherjee suggests, behind this, there was the growing purchasing and consuming power including the common people [Mukherjee 2004: 59-72]. The new
elites, who emerged as a result of new commercial and political opportunities under the British contributed to this growth. Among the new elites were indigenous merchants who rose by utilising the growth of the internal market. We need further examination on the consuming power of the "common" people, but the following examples suggest their well-being at least until 1830. For example, the standard of living of indigo cultivators and salt manufacturers, who were regarded as the most deprived section of the population, had not deteriorated as it has been previously considered. Rammohan Roy observed that indigo cultivators in the late 1820s "looked 'better clothed and better conditioned' than their neighbours" [Bose 1993: 47]. Salt producers in the early nineteenth century received rewards from the Company that monopolised the salt production; what they wanted were not only necessities but also "luxuries" such as broad cloth of particular colours, looking glasses, and so on, and worked hard to get them [Mild 2005: 153-155].1) Moreover, there were clear regional differences in consumer preference of salt in eastern India, which played a major role in forming and transforming the salt market. Though the poor had little choice, large sections of the populace were able to express preference for certain types of salt. These circumstances affected the Company's salt policies that formed an indispensable part of its finances [Mild 2005: chapters 2 & 3]. The Company had to incorporate such consumer preference into their salt policies, which made the Company's monopoly costly.
4
All those circumstances indicate the importance of the domestic market and consumption for understanding the industrial development or decline, and the impact of colonial rule. However, the political and economic state in the second quarter of the nineteenth century seems to have been very different. In order to understand its significance and historical context of the "long" eighteenth century, we now need to examine this period closely.
This period in South Asian history has been described negatively as a transitional period towards "deindustrialisation", "peasantisation" and "traditionalisation", which characterised the economy and society of later colonial period [Washbrook 1993; Bayly 1988: chapters 4 & 5] . Professor Washbrook attaches much importance on the period between the 1820s and 1850s that was characterised by deep price depression. Bengal also experienced price depression in the early 1830s. The recession in the early 1830s led to failures of big agency houses in Calcutta and forced many Bengali merchants to withdraw from commerce and banking. Yet it is not certain that such deteriorated economic conditions can be generalised. In the case of Bengal, its effect on the economy was rather scattered because the market was more regionalised than integrated [Mild 2005: chapters 2 & 4]. Commodity prices in eastern India clearly show that the market was integrated regionally but not at the provincial level.2) It is highly likely that this trend continued well into the second quarter of the nineteenth century, considering the regionally divided market structure. Thus, despite the depressed economic conditions in Calcutta after the late 1820s, it seems that
the internal market continued to grow, supported by the demand from new rural and urban elites and by the activities of up-country merchants. Such changes in the internal market and trade, in fact, accelerated the decline of large Calcutta merchants who had played an indispensable part in the Company's finances. The above observations strongly suggest that the deterioration of the economy and its impact during the second quarter of the nineteenth century need to be re-examined.
Even so, the "traditional" industries in Bengal in the 1830s, the cotton industry in particular, was no longer as prosperous as before. But the causes, process and extent of the decline of "traditional" industries should be re-assessed. Let me take up the case of the salt industry. As in the case of the cotton industry, the decline of the Bengal salt industry in the mid-nineteenth century has been ascribed to colonisation and the strength of British industrial capital, and seen as a typical process of "deindustrialisation" [Ray 2001]. But my study suggests that its decline was brought about by a combination of factors-the competition with Coromandel and Orissa salt; fuel scarcity; labour shortages; consumer preference; the structure of the internal market and mercantile activities; and the Company's salt policies that had to consider and incorporate all these elements [Mild 2005]. This made the production of Bengal salt costly and less competitive. Therefore, long before the influx of Liverpool salt in the mid-century, many of the production sites in Bengal had been closed down because Bengal salt was unable to compete with Coromandel salt in terms of price and with Orissa salt in terms of quality. This clearly shows that economic changes involve many factors and interactions between these factors.
5
The transformation in the internal market was one of the major causes that changed the Company's financial structure, and consequently its governance, by breaking the collaboration between the Company state and large Calcutta merchants who had supported the Company state. This was a break would mark the end of "the eighteenth century order". Clearly, the impact of the Company's policies and external economic forces were not sufficient to explain the transformation of the indigenous economy and society during the period of colonial transition. As I have mentioned above, forces of change were diverse, and socio-economic changes occurred in the economic, political, social, cultural and physical environments, and more importantly in the interactions between them.
(Notes)
1) Behind
this, there was a severe
competition
for securing
the workforce
between
differ-ent industries,
including
the Company-controlled
salt production,
which
improved
their
working
conditions.
This suggests
that the land-labour
ratio was still very low even in the
core regions
of Lower
Bengal,
and this also cost the Company
to secure
the workforce
with extra financial
support
including
rewards
in kind.
ev-ery level of transactions enabled a large flow of commodities, cash, information and credit. References
Alavi, Seema (ed.), 2002, The Eighteenth Century in India, Delhi: Oxford University Press. Barrow, Ian J., and Douglas E. Haynes, 2004, "The Colonial Transition: South Asia 1780-1840",
Modern Asian Studies, 38-3, pp.469-478.
Bayly, C. A., 1988, Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bose, Sugata, 1993, Peasant Labour and Colonial Capital: Rural Bengal Since 1770, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chakrabarti, Shubhra, 1994, "Collaboration and Resistance: Bengal Merchants and the English East India Company, 1757-1833", Studies in History 10-1, pp.105-129.
Datta, Rajat, 2000, Society, Economy and the Market: Commercialization in Rural Bengal, c.1760-1800, Delhi: Manohar.
Marshall, P. J. (ed.), 2003, The Eighteenth Century in Indian History: Evolution or Revolution?, Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Mild (Kanda) Sayako, 2005, "Merchants, Markets, and the Monopoly of the East India Com-pany: The Salt Trade in Bengal under Colonial Control, c.1790-1836", unpublished Ph. D. thesis, University of London.
Mukherjee, Tilottama, 2004, "Markets, Transport and the State in the Bengal Economy, c.1750-1800", unpublished Ph. D. thesis, University of Cambridge.
Ray, Indrajit, 2001, "Imperial Policy and the Decline of the Bengal Salt Industry under Colonial Rule: An Episode in the De-industrialisation' Process", Indian Economic and Social History Review 38-2, pp.181-205.
Sen, Sudipta, 1998, Empire of Free Trade: The East India Company and the Making of Colonial Marketplace, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Washbrook, D. A., 1993, "Economic Depression and the Making of 'Traditional' Society in Co-lonial India, 1820-1855, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th series, 3, pp.237-263.
Part II
V. Economic
History
of India: A Reconsideration
Tirthankar Roy
London
School
of Economics
and
Political
Science
On three occasions within the last two years, the state of economic history of India was debated. The first of these debates took place in the pages of Economic and Political Weekly (2004-05), in response to an article that suggested that the discipline was not doing well in the Indian academia. The second occasion was a panel in the New England Association
