A history of capitalism in India

LSE’s Tirthankar Roy draws out long-term patterns in Indian capitalism and uses history to contextualise India’s present-day economy

Book review: Railways' economic impact on Uttar Pradesh and colonial North India (1860-1914): the iron Raj by Ian D. Derbyshire

In The Iron Raj, Ian D. Derbyshire explores the economic impact of the railways in India’s most populous region, present-day Uttar Pradesh, between 1860 and 1914. The book makes a methodological contribution to the economic history of colonial India and a substantial addition to the growing literature rethinking the role of the railways in shaping economic change, writes Tirthankar Roy. Railways’ Economic Impact on Uttar Pradesh and Colonial North India (1860-1914): The Iron Raj. Ian D. Derbyshire. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2022

“Africa is part of South Asia just as South Asia is part of Africa” – Tirthankar Roy

LSE’s Tirthankar Roy calls for greater historical consciousness of the centuries-old ties between India and African countries

The mutiny and the merchants

The historiography of the Indian mutiny (1857–8) suggests that livelihood classes responded to the episode differently, but pays more attention to the agricultural classes than the urban commercial ones in studying the response. This article revises the economic history of the rebellion by showing that commercial interests were influenced by concerns over security of property, and that they, as much as landed interests, shaped the course of the rebellion

The monsoon and the market for money in late-colonial India

Banking experienced large growth in colonial India along with a process of commercialization of agriculture. Yet, the rate of aggregate saving or investment remained low. This article is an attempt to resolve this paradox. It suggests that traditional forms of banking were helped by the formalization of indigenous negotiable instruments, but that transactions between bankers, merchants, and peasants were characterized by a limited use of legal instruments. The limited circulation of bills in this sphere is attributed, among other factors, to high seasonality in the demand for money. Seasonality-induced distortions in the organization of the money market made indigenous banking an unsuitable agent to promote saving and finance industrialization

The British Empire and the Economic Development of India (1858-1947)

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 integration, 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.Las interpretaciones del papel del estado en los cambios económicos de la India colonial (1858-1947) y poscolonial (1947-) tienden a suponer que la India colonial fue un estado explotador y la India postcolonial un estado desarrollista. Este artículo muestra que esta oposición no funciona bien dentro del marco de la historia económica. Las diferencias entre los dos estados se centran en factores distintos al deseo de una potencia extranjera por explotar los recursos de la India. La diferencia reside en que la política colonial británica se construyó en referencia a la integración en el mercado mundial, mientras que la política poscolonial se estructura en torno al nacionalismo. El texto aplica este enfoque a la relectura de los efectos económicos de los dos tipos de estado, y reflexiona sobre los debates en curso acerca de la historia global de la expansión europea

“Natural disasters can produce lasting changes in economic systems” – Tirthankar Roy

LSE’s Tirthankar Roy discounts the extent to which natural disasters are man-made and argues for greater scientific collaboration to help predict events in South Asia

Useful & reliable: technological transformation in colonial India

The proposition that Useful and Reliable Knowledge (URK) produced divergent patterns of long-term economic growth implies that such knowledge had weak agency in countries that fell behind. This article rejects such a theory on the evidence of colonial India. Indo-European contacts activated transfer, transplantation, and adaptation in URK; however, the impact was uneven within India. Despite boosting productivity in manufacturing and consumption, large areas were left untouched. These contrasts highlight the differentiated impact of URK on production conditions in India and question its transferability and mode of knowledge exchange under colonialism

Water, climate, and economy in India from 1880 to the present

Theories of economic growth based on Western Europe are inadequate when applied to India because the two areas are incommensurate in their geographies and their resources. Because its initial conditions were different from those in, say, Europe and North America, India could arrive at economic growth only by solving different problems—preeminent among them being reliable access to clean water. The actions taken by the state, scientists, and society since 1880 in India weakened the chains that linked water insecurity, low yield, mass mortality, and caste-biased mortality but at the inevitable cost of ecological stress. In a tropical-monsoon climate, where well-being and the environment were constantly in flux, asking deprived individuals to consume less or cooperate more was not necessarily the best response to water problems. Science and capitalism provided better solutions. This article explores the interaction between water, environmental change, and economic change in India since the end of the nineteenth century. A struggle to mitigate poverty and inequality in access to water, a condition that the tropical-monsoon climate made almost universal, delivered economic growth and demographic transition in colonial India (1858–1947) and postcolonial India. At the same time, ensuring the fair distribution of a vital resource like water led to its overexploitation. The “tragedy of the commons” notion that Hardin advanced is not an accurate representation of this syndrome (see below).

The ‘Marwari’ business community is now a part of history

Tirthankar Roy looks at how the nature of the “business community” in India has evolved since the 19th century. He argues that modernisation and globalisation has resulted in a fundamental shift away from ethnic business networks to pan-Indian bodies