DOCSLIB.ORG

Working Paper No. 223 the MID-THIRTIES" TIRTHANKAR ROY

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Working Paper No. 223 the MID-THIRTIES Working Paper No. 223 RELATIONS CX PRODUCTION IN HANDLOOM WEAVING IN THE MID-THIRTIES" TIRTHANKAR ROY - * The Paper forms part of a larqcr study under preparation, I have benefjtted from d' scussions with San:ay Kumar whose on- golag projeat on powerlooms his been a source of inspiration. I wish to thank Sumi-t Guha, Mihir Shah, Raman Mahadevan and Mridul Eapen for their.comments on a draft. I Centre ifor Development Studies, Ulloor, 'irivandrum - 11 . Descriptions of the hendloom industry in the thirties contain the suggestion that competition with machine-made cloth induced adaptations rather than 'a passive decay in the textile handicrafts. The nalrn conp~nentsof this process were diversifi- cation into 'ligher valued prc lucts, from cdtton to noncottan for instance, accompanied by differentiations in the technoeconomf c structure ta which the rapid yrohth of handloom factories and small scale powerlooms bears witness. The paper attempts a survey of the second of these components, relations1 changes. The process in its most general form involved reduction of ' independent' weavers to ' dependencef , that is, a progressive erosion of. the right of posseosion over final product. Two basic f orms of dependence can be dis:inguished: contract for sale of products tied to a particular merchant and contract for sale of labour. At the other end emergec large producers usually with interests in cloth trade. Pure ommercial capital was thus becoming differentiated and weaker as a class. Regional differences .in the strength and direction of the basic movement were considerable. The industry in the south, .including Bombay-Decczn and Hyderabid, proved more progressive with greater stratification among prcducers while in the east. and the north, merchants remained entrenched, collaborating or competing with large producer ,. The paper locates t'le precondi- tions for this. divergence in the intecedent structures of hand- loom weaving in these regions. The coexistence of modern and traditiona, technologies in Indian textiles has provcd s tab12 historically. What characteris- tics has the traditional sector1s groxth process assumed under these conditions? Has the coexistence been secured through a passive survival or dynamic adjustments? If the latter then what constituted these adjustments? These are some of the questions that form a background to the present study on prcductiofi relations in handloom weaving. In current historiography the problem of longterm evolution of crafts continues to be posed in terms of decay and survival. The question asked is, what prevented their elimination rather than what determined their growth. This practice rrot only renders detailed analyses of growth-process and conditions for growth unnecessary but leads to conjectures about the latter. For instance, theories which predict deindustrialisation allow for a very static conception of production relation in crafts -- typically, simple commodity producers surviving by selfuexploita$ion. On the contrary, historical sources pertaining to the eaxly twentieth century s~agestthe presence of accumulation and growth within the crafts, In other words, survival was achieved not statically through a fcssilization of the system but by precisely its opposite.u Quantitative descriptions of the industry reflect this dynamism. Thus cotton yarn consumed in the hand loon.:^ as a whole expanded more than three times between 1900 and 1939. Contrast this with a 40 per cent declint in cloth product.;on in the third quar cr of the nineteenth century according to the best estimates available.3 Much of the twentieth century statistics is too aggregative and hardly do justice to the complexity and segmentation within handloom weaving. When suitab,ly readjusted the data reveal that growth was in fact achieved not by way of import substitution, as a straight reading would suggest, but through continuous diversification into high value- added, skill-intensive, technologically complex products - from plain cotton fabrics to silks, mixed and synthetic fabrics, for instance (lable 1). In the process market-shares in quantum of the entire unorganised sector (handlooms and small powerlo~ms)were maintained and, in value, marginally increased after the mid-thirties. Much of this grov~rthhad been takir,g pl-ar:? in handloom factories and workshops, while powcrloons and centralised proces- sing units emerged as outgrowtr? .3f the handloorns. In Bombay-Deccan and Hyderabad roughly half of' the entire weaver population had .been reduced to a loomless proletariat by the late thirties. Those who were not dispossessed were ,.;?king under increasil19;i li9id contra- ctual arrangements. If Maxwell-Lc!froy ailii 4'!ris~rge'sst?t~.nent that, at the. turn of the century, Ithe single vieaver or fsmily is probably the commonest unit in india' is accepted in its spirit, then developments in the next deczdes consisted in a continuous erosion of the status of the hnuseholds, whc v!ere replaced by co- operative work of different forms. Table 1: Marke.t Shares in Textiles in tire hid-thirties Quantity (in million yards) Value (in million ~s.) Hand- Powel - Cthers Hand- Povrer Others looms looms --- looms looms 1931-32 Cotton. 154.8 42.3 "' I! *- P Non- q cotton 42.3 . 305 A 8 20.3 .. 67.3 ~otal Shares (33.2) (.-) (66.311 (.l8.4-) (-1 (51.6) 1937-38 Cottcn 138.1 ?.?i .7 11 .5 .. 72.2 (2~.i) (-1 (5.7) (.:6.5) (-1 (63.5) No n- cotton 64.3 12.8 '12.0 : 8.0 8.7 3.5 (72.4) ( L-3) I?; 5.) (17.4) (6.9) Total Shares (30.7) ( 1.9) 167.4) (~8.6) ( 5.3) (46.1) Notes: Quantity and value of noncat-Lcr, f ablic.. estimated on the basis of data compiled by the various I'..riff Board enquiries on cotton and silk. Figur~sin bracket-;represent percen- tages of total quantity or value of eac I type of fabric. ' Noncottonl includes silk and silk-SUDStitutes (synthetics, wild silks, spcn, stc.), mixed and nanespun cotton fabrics. 'Others' includes cotton mills and impcrts. These estimates are derived in my paper 'Size and Struciure of Handloom Weaving in the Mid-thirties1, forthcoming in Indian Economic and Social History Review. Buchanan and Gadgil, ine rariy chro~icl2rsof industrialisa- tion, sensed that industrialisetion in zap!.talist enterprises had come to include the handicrafts rather than taking place at their expense. Yet in their writings and in those of the contemporary crafts experts there remained a gap betvoen the level of empirical analysis, namely static descripticn cf forms of relationships and the generalisation implied, a process wherein all such forms were transitional. Cbnsequently while the generalisation was far too general to be seriously Pollawed, tho particular was reduced to a catalogue, similarities and contrasts 'between the elements of which remained arbitrary in the absence of a conceptual framework. 2/ This study attempts to reinterpret the facts as descriptions of a transition a~dexplores the transition ir its general aspects.. It begins with a description of the basic mvement, reduction of independent' weavers to ' dependence1 and clarification af what the terms meant( 'The Genera 1 Tendency,. .J . Forms of dependence varied and so did the nature of the capitalist associated. These differences which, moreover, had a regional component, wi.11 be brought out in the next two sections by an2lysin~the data regionally ('Forms of Depe~dence. l and lForhs oi Capital1). Thi< will be followed by a section proposing ce~tainhypotheses about why relational changes took different routes In 'different regions (lPreconditionst). Finally, implications of the movement for the long term growth- process and structural change in tcxtilis will be discussed ( Conclusion' ) . This sscticn !vill propose tcnta tive answers to the questions we have started with. The main intent of this paper is to describe and classify relational changes. Explanations must refer to the context in which the crafts functioned, especially competition frm machine-made cloth. There is a sense in which crafts-history can be seen as an 'articulation', between exogenous processes, An thie case market- induced, and the complex structure alxeady in eristence. This sense can only be explored in the larger study envisaged. The General Tendencv and Terlclino loqical Questions Reference to a materi 1 and moral decay in the textile handicrafts was as frequent at thp end of the nineteenth century as in the earlier decades. The famines cf the last quarter proved the weavers the most vulnerable of the rural classes. They were the first ia be reduced to : arvation because they had no store of grain and as soon as grain became dear, demand for their cloth. ceased. 'Most of them a e unfitted for t5e heavy labcur of the ordinary relief works1.J Town weavers reacted politically. Behind the food riots that broke out in Nagpur on the eve of the 1896 f arninr, weavers were prominent arnocg the ri ngleederst .g Where decay was gradual and resistance did not find an immediate object protest turned back on society. Thus Bankura silk rearers*:d in the 1910s were referred in official records as criminal tribes. In the twentietk century political resistance was replaced by a state of resignat5.cn. For the official engaged in upliftment this mood was transvlatec into 'stupidity and ignorancef, for any arbitrary intervention a-ousad only suspicion and incredulity among the craftsmen. The series of reports pr~ducedin the thirties made it suffi- ciently clear that the concrett ecobornic process reflected in all this was not an' all-embrticiw decline, as the ni ticlilalist writers interpreted then to be, but a differer,tiation. A distinction came to be made between the 'rclnk and file', the 'watfs and strays of the community' and the large producer for whom the former 'represented .a proletariat. The ordinary wea.rer, 'wherever be survives today is eking out a miserable s\:bsistenc? by working as a mre wage-i?arner in the numerous handloom factories and powerlocm millsf .lj In the mid-thirties, to which this stat2mer.t refers, factory workers were numerically a minority.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Swamy-CV-1.Pdf
    CURRICULUM VITAE Anand V. Swamy Department of Economics 202 Pine Cobble Road Schapiro Hall Williamstown, MA 01267 Williams College Williamstown, MA 01267 (413)-597-2144 [email protected] Personal Information Age: 53 Citizenship: U.S. Education 1993, Ph.D., Economics, Northwestern University 1987, M.Phil., Economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India 1985, M.A., Economics, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi, India 1983, B.A., Economics, University of Delhi, Delhi, India Languages Fluent English and Hindi, speak Kannada Employment Professor, Department of Economics, Williams College, since July 2008 Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Williams College, since July 2002 Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Williams College, July 1999 – June 2002 Visiting Associate Professor of Economics and South Asian Studies, Yale University, Spring 2004 Consultant, Asian Development Bank, July 2012-January 203, project on sanitation in Gujarat. Consultant, World Bank, January 2004, project entitled “Moving out of Poverty” Consultant, World Bank, August 1999, reviewed manuscript of The Quality of Growth Consultant, World Bank, July-December 1998, project on social capital in Burkina Faso Consultant, World Bank, March-May 1996, project on gender and land rights in Burkina Faso 1 Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, University of Maryland at College Park, August 1993-June 1999 Lecturer, University of Maryland at College Park, August 1992-July 1993 Lecturer, University College, Northwestern University, September 1990-May 1991 Teaching Assistant, Department of Economics, Northwestern University, September 1988-May 1990 Research Assistant, Professor Thomas Cook, Northwestern University, Summer 1989 Books In progress: Law and the Economy in Independent India: The Colonial Legacy and Beyond (joint with Tirthankar Roy), under contract with University of Chicago Press.
    [Show full text]
  • Conference Reader
    Global and European Studies Institute EUROPEAN November 19—25, 2020 MASTER 4th EMGS Alumni Conference IN GLOBAResilienceL in the Face STUDIES of Global Challenges European Master in Global Studies EMGS globalstudies-masters.eu 4th EMGS Alumni Conference November 19—25, 2020 Resilience in the Face of Global Challenges Our 4th EMGS Alumni Conference, which marks the 15th anniversary of the European Master in Global Studies program, focuses on global challenges and resilient responses to them. As suggested by the results of our recently conducted alumni survey, EMGS alumni are paying careful attention to developments around the world, taking note of their impact on both a local and a global scale. Through panel discussions and keynote lectures on a variety of pressing topics, we will explore how a Global Studies perspective can respond to these issues. Attendees will gain insights into the many ways that Global Studies scholars and alumni are actively working to explore and navigate these challenges, from climate change and health governance to populism and global inequalities. In addition, this conference devotes considerable attention to a broad range of EMGS-related careers and life trajectories. We will hear from EMGS alumni currently involved in global governance organizations, academia, education, consulting, NGOs, activism, and more. Attendees will also enjoy the opportunity to meet and mingle with one another in “coffee break” sessions following panels, as well as through organized virtual networking opportunities. In this time of social distancing, we look forward to an inspiring conference filled with new and strengthened connections as well as enriching exchanges. Many thanks to our featured speakers, panelists, chairs, and attendees for joining us! 4th EMGS Alumni Conference Page 3 Thursday, Nov.
    [Show full text]
  • How British Rule Changed India's Economy the Paradox of The
    PALGRAVE STUDIES IN ECONOMIC HISTORY How British Rule Changed India’s Economy The Paradox of the Raj Tirthankar Roy Palgrave Studies in Economic History Series Editor Kent Deng London School of Economics London, UK Palgrave Studies in Economic History is designed to illuminate and enrich our understanding of economies and economic phenomena of the past. The series covers a vast range of topics including fnancial history, labour history, development economics, commercialisation, urbanisation, industrialisation, modernisation, globalisation, and changes in world eco- nomic orders. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14632 Tirthankar Roy How British Rule Changed India’s Economy The Paradox of the Raj Tirthankar Roy Department of Economic History London School of Economics London, UK Palgrave Studies in Economic History ISBN 978-3-030-17707-2 ISBN 978-3-030-17708-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17708-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifcally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microflms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifc statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
    [Show full text]
  • The British Empire and the Economic Development of India (1858-1947)*
    THE BRITISH EMPIRE AND THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF INDIA (1858-1947)* TIRTHANKAR ROY London School of Economics and Political Sciencea ABSTRACT Interpretations of the role of the state in economic change in colonial (1858-1947) and post-colonial India (1947-) tend to presume that the colonial was an exploitative and the post-colonial a developmental state. This article shows that the opposition does not work well as a framework for economic history. The differences between the two states lay elsewhere than in the drive to exploit Indian resources by a foreign power. The difference was that British colonial policy was framed with reference to global market integra- tion, whereas post-colonial policy was framed with reference to nationalism. The article applies this lesson to reread the economic effects of the two types of state, and reflects on ongoing debates in the global history of European expansion. Keywords: colonialism, nationalism, developmental state, industrialisation, institutions JEL Code: F54, N15, O10 * Received 30 May 2015. Accepted 5 October 2015. The author wishes to thank two referees and the editors of the Revista for comments and suggestions that led to significant improvements on the version submitted. An earlier draft of the paper was presented in a workshop on Colonial Legacies: Persistence and Long-run Impact on Economic Growth, January 2015, held at the Fundación Ramón Areces, Madrid. The author is grateful to the participants and organisers of the workshop for a stimulating discussion and especially to Rafael Dobado González for his constructive comments and criticisms of the paper. a Department of Economic History, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK.
    [Show full text]
  • Can India Grow Faster? Answers from History
    Can India grow faster? Answers from history Global Perspectives Series: Paper 3 TIRTHANKAR ROY July 2015 SUMMARY POINTS o The Indian economy has grown at an impressive pace of late. It can do even better if India receives more foreign direct investment and world-class skills. Opening up the economy further to enable more inflow of capital and knowhow is hindered by nationalistic sentiment. This essay concludes that India can grow faster if Indians can sort out their troubled relationship with the idea of globalisation. o The anti-globalisation sentiment has support from some businesses. But it is also ideological and derives from a reading of history. o Indian nationalists hold that the British Empire, which ruled between 1858 and 1947, impoverished the region by imposing an open economic system upon it. This, however, is a misreading of history. In fact, openness helped private enterprise grow in these years by making use of free trade, the inflow of capital, and the knowledge brought in by skilled migrants. Average standards of living did not rise greatly. The obstacle was the low and stagnant yield of agricultural land. Colonialism did not create the problem, but it failed to deal with it. o After independence in 1947, India succeeded in implementing a Green Revolution but, by closing the economy, hurt private enterprise outside agriculture. o After the economy opened up again in the 1990s, India saw a big growth in private enterprise. Openness helped enterprise again as in the past. But now there was a difference. Borders opened to trade, but did not open enough to capital and not at all to skilled services.
    [Show full text]
  • The Global World of Indian Merchants, 1750-1947
    Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society 6 The Global World of Indian Editorial Board C. A. BAYLY Merchants, 1750-1947 Vere Harmsworih Professor of Imperial and Naval History, University of Cambridge, and Fellow ofSt Catharine's College Traders ofSindjrom Bukhara to Panama RAJNARAYAN CHANDAVARKAR Fellow of Trinity College and Lecturer in History, University of Cambridge GORDON JOHNSON Claude Markovits President of Wolfson College, and Director, Centre of South Asian Studies, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris University of Cambridge Cambridge Studies in Indian History and Society publishes monographs on the history and anthropology of modern India. In addition to its primary scholarly focus, the series also includes work of an interdisciplinary nature which contributes to contemporary social and cultural debates about Indian history and society. The series is thus designed to further the general development of historical and anthropological knowledge and to attract a wider readership than that concerned with India alone. 1 C. A. Bayly Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780-1880 0 521 57085 9 (hardback) 0 521 663601 (paperback) 2 Ian Copland The Princes of India in the Endgame of Empire, 1917-1947 0 521 57179 0 3 SamitaSen Women and Labour in Late Colonial India: The Bengal Jute Industry, 0 521 45363 1 4 SumitGuha Environment and Ethnicity in India, 1200-1991 0 521 64078 4 5 Tirthankar Roy Traditional Industry in the Economy of Colonial India 0 521 65012 7 CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Introduction Among South Asian merchants and businessmen dispersed across the world, the Sindhis are probably the most ubiquitous, if not the most conspicuous.
    [Show full text]
  • History Review Indian Economic & Social
    Indian Economic & Social History Review http://ier.sagepub.com State, society and market in the aftermath of natural disasters in colonial India: A preliminary exploration Tirthankar Roy Indian Economic Social History Review 2008; 45; 261 DOI: 10.1177/001946460804500204 The online version of this article can be found at: http://ier.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/45/2/261 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com Additional services and information for Indian Economic & Social History Review can be found at: Email Alerts: http://ier.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://ier.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.in/about/permissions.asp Citations (this article cites 27 articles hosted on the SAGE Journals Online and HighWire Press platforms): http://ier.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/45/2/261 Downloaded from http://ier.sagepub.com at CNTR SCI AND ENVIRONMENT on October 7, 2008 State, society and market in the aftermath of natural disasters in colonial India: A preliminary exploration Tirthankar Roy London School of Economics and Political Science How did South Asian societies rebuild their economies following natural disasters? Based on five episodes from colonial India, this article suggests that between the mid-nineteenth and the mid-twentieth century, the response to disasters changed from laissez-faire to more state intervention. Despite this change, post-disaster rebuilding was complicated by unspecified rights to lost property, conflicting claims to property, asymmetric information between aid- givers and receivers, conflicts between agencies, lack of cooperation between gainers and losers, and in some of these examples, clashes between the colonial state and nationalist organisations.
    [Show full text]
  • Trading Firms in Colonial India
    Tirthankar Roy Trading Firms in Colonial India The aim of this article is to develop a general narrative of the firms that led the growth of trade in nineteenth-century India, and thus to supply a missing piece in modern Indian business history. The trading firms had several features in common with trading firms globally, especially, a high degree of mobility, institutional adaptation, and occasionally, diversi- fication into banking and manufacturing. But certain aspects of the process were specific to the regions where they operated, such as differences between the ports and the interior trading orders, between cities, and between expatriate and indigenous firms. The article reconsiders these features. olonial India (1757–1947) witnessed a dramatic growth in long- Cdistance trade. Shipping tonnage handled at Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta increased from one hundred thousand tons to over six million tons between 1798 and 1914. Between 1860 and 1914, the railways chea- pened the cost of cargo movement from inland to the seaports. The carrying capacity of the bullock caravans in peninsular India, the only pre-railway mode of long-distance cargo transport in the region, has been estimated at about ten thousand tons c. 1800.1 A century later, goods carried by the main South Indian railway companies amounted to over five million tons. If we add the Great Indian Peninsular railway, which connected Bombay with the western part of the Deccan plateau, the figure would rise to eight million tons. Such scale of commercialization could hardly be achieved without a reorganization of trade, a process that S. D. Chapman calls in the British context “diversification and redeployment of merchant The author wishes to thank two readers of the BHR for comments and suggestions that led to many improvements on an earlier draft.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction
    Notes Introduction 1. Mohandas K. Gandhi, “Indian Art, Its Neglect,” Young India 1 no. 8 (May 31, 1919): 3. 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid. 4. For details on these, see Lisa Trivedi, Clothing Gandhi’s Nation: Homespun and Modern India (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007). 5. Karen Livingstone and Linda Parry, eds., International Arts and Crafts (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 2005). 6. For some of the major statements of this debate, see Marika Vicziany, “The Deindustrialization of India in the Nineteenth Century,” Indian Economic and Social History Review 16 no. 2 (1979): 105–146; Amiya Kumar Bagchi, “‘The Deindustrialization of India’: A Reply,” Indian Economic and Social History Review 16 no. 2 (1979): 147–161; and Colin Simmons. “‘De- industrialization,’ Industrialization and the Indian Economy, c. 1850–1947,” Modern Asian Studies 19 no. 3 (1985): 593–622. 7. Tirthankar Roy, Traditional Industry in the Economy of Colonial India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Tirthankar Roy, Artisans and Industrialization: Indian Weaving in the Twentieth Century (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1993); Douglas Haynes, “The Logic of the Artisan Firm in a Capitalist Economy: Handloom Weavers and Technological Change in Western India, 1880–1947,” in Institutions and Economic Change in South Asia, ed. Burton Stein and Sanjay Subrahmanyam (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996), 173–205; Douglas Haynes, “Artisan Cloth-Producers and the Emergence of Powerloom Manufacture in Western India, 1920–1950,” Past and Present 172 (2001): 170–198; and Willem van Schendel, Reviving a Rural Industry: Silk Producers and Officials in India and Bangladesh, 1880s to 1980s (New Delhi: Manohar, 1995). 8.
    [Show full text]
  • India's De-Industrialization Under British Rule: New Ideas, New
    NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES INDIA’S DE-INDUSTRIALIZATION UNDER BRITISH RULE: NEW IDEAS, NEW EVIDENCE David Clingingsmith Jeffrey G. Williamson Working Paper 10586 http://www.nber.org/papers/w10586 NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 June 2004 Paper presented at the 5th World Congress of Cliometrics, Venice, July 8-11, 2004. We are grateful for advice and criticism from Greg Clark, Ron Findlay, Bishnupriya Gupta, Leandro Prados, Debin Ma, Patrick O’Brien, Kevin O’Rourke, Sevket Pamuk, Ananth Seshadri, T. N. Srinivasan, Tony Venables, and participants in the Harvard Economic History Tea. We also thank Javier Cuenca Esteban for sharing his data. Williamson acknowledges with pleasure financial support from the National Science Foundation SES-0001362, and the work environment at the University of Wisconsin Economics Department, where much of this paper was written while he was on leave from Harvard. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the National Bureau of Economic Research. ©2004 by David Clingingsmith and Jeffrey G. Williamson. All rights reserved. Short sections of text, not to exceed two paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission provided that full credit, including © notice, is given to the source. India’s De-Industrialization Under British Rule: New Ideas, New Evidence David Clingingsmith and Jeffrey G. Williamson NBER Working Paper No. 10586 June 2004 JEL No. F1, N7, O2 ABSTRACT India was a major player in the world export market for textiles in the early 18th century, but by the middle of the 19th century it had lost all of its export market and much of its domestic market.
    [Show full text]
  • Were Indian Famines 'Natural' Or 'Manmade'?
    Economic History Working Papers No: 243/2016 Were Indian Famines ‘Natural’ Or ‘Manmade’? Tirthankar Roy London School of Economics Economic History Department, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE, London, UK. T: +44 (0) 20 7955 7084. F: +44 (0) 20 7955 7730 LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC HISTORY WORKING PAPERS NO. 243 - JUNE 2016 Were Indian Famines ‘Natural’ Or ‘Manmade’?1 Tirthankar Roy London School of Economics Abstract Keywords: Were the Indian famines natural (geographical) or manmade (political) in origin? I review the theories of Indian famines and suggest that a mainly geographical account diminishes the role of the state in the occurrence and retreat of famines, whereas a mainly political account overstates that role. I stress a third factor, knowledge, and suggest that limited information and knowledge constrained state capacity to act during the nineteenth century famines. As statistical information and scientific knowledge improved, and prediction of and response to famines improved, famines became rarer. JEL Codes: N15, N35, Q54, F54 Keywords: Famine, Colonialism, Natural Disaster, India, Environment 1 An earlier version of the paper was discussed in a workshop titled ‘Struggling nations – phrasing famines,’ held in the University of Iceland, Reykjavik, 19-20 May 2016. The discussion led to significant improvements in the draft. I wish to thank the participants in the workshop. Famines were a frequent occurrence in South Asia until 1900, and were often devastating in impact. A series of nineteenth century famines were triggered by harvest failure. Food procurement for World War II, combined with a crop failure, caused the harshest famine of the twentieth century, the 1943 Bengal famine.
    [Show full text]
  • The Economic History of South Asia 1600-2000
    Economic History Department London School of Economics EH307: The Economic History of South Asia 1600-2000 Teacher responsible Tirthankar Roy. C315. Office Hours: Friday 3.30 – 5.00 pm. [email protected] Availability This is an optional course for BSc Economic History, BSc Economic History with Economics, BSc Economics, BSc Economics and Economic History, BSc Economics with Economic History. This course is also available to one-year General Course students. Content The economic resurgence of South Asia in the last twenty years has revived interest in the history of the region. It has also led to a fresh look at theories of economic history. Until recently, economic historians used to ask why India, Pakistan or Bangladesh had ‘failed’ to become success stories. Their answers looked at the legacy of colonialism or the legacy of culture. Today, we would hesitate to call these countries failures. But it would be mistake to see them as success stories either. After all, South Asia still contains the world’s largest pool of poor people, millions without adequate education or healthcare, who remain trapped in low income livelihoods. We need to ask instead, will a study of history show us why dramatic growth can co-exist with stubborn poverty? At the end of the course, you should be able to formulate your own answer to this question. The course introduces the basic facts and major debates in the economic history of modern South Asia. It considers the legacies of empires and developmental states, globalizations of the past and the present times, and the role of indigenous institutions and resource endowments.
    [Show full text]