Indian Economy: 1858-1914 (A People's History of India)
Book Specification
| Item Code: | IDF566 |
| Author: | Irfan Habib |
| Publisher: | Tulika Books |
| Language: | English |
| Edition: | 2018 |
| ISBN: | 818948706X |
| Pages: | 159 |
| Cover: | Paperback |
| Other Details | 10.0" X 6.5" |
| Weight | 410 gm |
Book Description
The monograph surveys the developments within the Indian economy during the period of the ghigh tide of colonial domination between the 1857 Rebellion and the First World War. Its various sub-chapters deal with population, gross product and prices; tribute, the imperialism of free Trade and the construction of railways; peasant agriculture, plantations, commercialization of agriculture and its impact on rents, peasant incomes and agricultural wages; rural de-industrialization, modern industries, tariff and exchange policies; banking and finance; and the fiscal system, tax burden and the rise of economic nationalism. There are extracts from contemporary comments and reports; technical notes on such matters as computing national income, counterfactual analysis, etc. Short bibliographies are provided accompanying each of the five chapters.
About the Author:
Irfan Habib formerly Professor of History, Aligarh Muslim University, is author of the Agraian System of Mughal India 1556-1707, An Atlas of the Mughal Empire(1982) and Essays in Indian History: Towards a Marxist Perception (1995). In the People's History of India series he has authored Prehistory (2001) and The Indus Civilization (2002), and co-authored The Vedic Age (2003) and Mauryan India (2004). He has co-edited the Cambridge Economic History of India, Vol. I(1982), and UNESCO's History of Humanity, Vols IV and V and History of Central Asia, Vol. V.
| Preface | Xi | |
| 1. | The Economy as a Whole: Population, National Income, Prices | 1 |
| 1.1 | Population | 1 |
| 1.2 | National Income/Gross Domestic Product | 6 |
| 1.3 | Money and Prices | 10 |
| Extract 1.1: India's Overpopulation | 14 | |
| Extract 1.2: Whose Per Capita Income? | 15 | |
| Note 1.1: national Income | 15 | |
| Note 1.2: units of Currency, Weights and Measures used under British Rule | 18 | |
| Note 1.3: Administrative Regions | 19 | |
| Note 1.4: bibliographical Note | 21 | |
| 2. | Colonialism and the Indian Economy | 23 |
| 2.1 | The Tribute or Drain | 23 |
| 2.2 | The Imperialism of Free Trade | 30 |
| 2.3 | Railways | 35 |
| Extract 2.1: Dadabhai Naroji on the Drain or Tribute,1873 | 46 | |
| Note 2.1: The Counterfactual Approach and the Economics of Colonialism | 46 | |
| Note 2.2: Bibliographical Note | 49 | |
| 3. | Agriculture | 51 |
| 3.1 | Peasant Agriculture | 51 |
| 3.2 | Commercialization of Agriculture | 59 |
| 3.3 | The agrarian Classes | 62 |
| 3.4 | Rural indebtedness | 74 |
| 3.5 | Plantations | 78 |
| 3.6 | Destitution and Famines | 81 |
| Extract 3.1: Two Peasant Families in Village of Banda District, North-west Provinces, 1887-88 | 86 | |
| Extract 3.2: Land Revenue and Poverty in Gujarat and Maharashtra, 1903 | 87 | |
| Extract 3.3: The coolies under the European Planters of Assam | 87 | |
| Note 3.1: Calculating Agricultural Output | 88 | |
| Note 3.2: Bibliographical Note | 90 | |
| 4. | Industry, Trade, Finance | 92 |
| 4.1 | De-Industrialization | 92 |
| 4.2 | The emergency of Modern Industry | 99 |
| 4.3 | Capital Supply and Ownership | 111 |
| 4.4 | Conditions of the Industrial Working Class | 120 |
| 4.5 | Internal and External Trade | 124 |
| Extract 4.1[A]: The Village Weaver | 130 | |
| Extract 4.1[B]: The Village Customer | 130 | |
| Extract 4.2: Karl Marx on the Prospects of Growth of Modern Industry in India. | 131 | |
| Extract 4.3: Challenge to Lancashire from the Indian Textile Industry,1886 | 132 | |
| Extract 4.4: Conditions of Labour in Bombay Mills,1885 | 132 | |
| Extract 4.5: The Sin of Opium Trade: Dadabhai Naoroji, 1880 | 132 | |
| Note 4.1: Human Capital: The Development of Technological Skills | 133 | |
| Note 4.2: Bibliographical Note | 136 | |
| 5. | The State | 138 |
| 5.1 | Taxation | 138 |
| 5.2 | Expenditure | 144 |
| Extract 5.1: Gopal Krishna Gokhale, before the Royal Commission on the military and Civil Expenditure in India, 1895 | 148 | |
| Note 5.1: Economic Nationalism | 148 | |
| Note 5.2: Bibliographical Note | 150 | |
| Index | 152 | |
