Reinterpretation of Nineteenth Century Indian Economic History

Chandra, Bipan

doi:10.1177/001946466800500103

Cited by 29 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…For instance, a large amount of the articles was published in the journal that Ranade founded in 1870, (Gupta, 1911, p.294) Similar conclusions can be found in later scholarship.(e.g. (Gopalakrishnan, 1954;Chandra, 1966Chandra, , 1968 The studies seem to focus on the discursive and material constraints imposed upon imperial subjects. For instance, the research often concludes that the British dominant discourse such as political economy categories and norms taught at the imperial universities made discursive innovation difficult for Indian intellectuals.…”

Section: Meaning Making In An Imperial Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Journal of the History of Economic Thought Preprints – A Win-Win Model of Development: How Indian Economics Redefined Universal Development from and at the Margins

Bach¹

2020

Preprint

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In this article, I argue that looking at lesser known intellectuals can help history of economics uncover news ways of seeing the world. My focus is the beginnings of “Indian Economics” and its conceptualization of development. The Indian economists, despite their elite status in India, were from an imperial context where they were never considered economists. Studies throughout the 20th century continued to treat them only as nationalists, rarely as contributors to economic knowledge. My research gives agency to these economists. I show how the position of Indian Economics from the margins of discursive space offered a unique perspective that enabled it to discursively innovate at the margins of development discourse. Indian Economics redefined the concept of universality in the existing 19th century idea of development by rejecting the widely accepted comparative advantage model and assertion that progress originated in Europe. Moreover, the economists pushed for universal industrialization, even for imperial territories, arguing that universal progress was beneficial to all.

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Section: Meaning Making In An Imperial Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Journal of the History of Economic Thought Preprints – A Win-Win Model of Development: How Indian Economics Redefined Universal Development from and at the Margins

Bach¹

2020

Preprint

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“…Following hostile assessments of Morris's argument by Chandra (1968) and Raychaudhuri (1968) on largely ideological grounds, Desai (1971) tried to assemble some data on imports and prices to infer the price elasticity of demand for cotton textiles, but was unable to draw firm conclusions without data on population and income. Bagchi (1976) also assembled empirical evidence to argue for the collapse of Indian industry on a catastrophic scale, based on a study of Bihar where he claimed that the share of the occupied population in secondary activities declined from 18.6 per cent in 1809/13 to just 8.5 per cent by 1901.…”

Section: Did Colonial India Experience Strong Deindustrialisation?mentioning

confidence: 99%

India and the great divergence: An Anglo-Indian comparison of GDP per capita, 1600–1871

Broadberry¹,

Custodis²,

Gupta³

2015

Explorations in Economic History

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Estimates of Indian GDP are constructed from the output side for 1600-1871, and combined with population data. Indian per capita GDP declined steadily during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries before stabilising during the nineteenth century. As British growth increased from the mid-seventeenth century, India fell increasingly behind. Whereas in 1600, Indian per capita GDP was over 60 per cent of the British level, by 1871 it had fallen to less than 15 per cent. These estimates place the origins of the Great Divergence firmly in the early modern period, but also suggest a relatively prosperous India at the height of the Mughal Empire. They also suggest a period of "strong" deindustrialisation during the first three decades of the nineteenth century, with a small decline of industrial output rather than just a declining share of industry in economic activity.JEL classification: N10, N30, N35, O10, O57

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“…The contrary view was put initially, and forcefully, by Bipan Chandra (1968) and Tapan Raychaudhuri (1968). Apart from questioning the extent of the Pax Britannica in the period up to the mutiny of 1857, they also argued that inhibitions such as heavy taxation, the tenurial system, and the expansion of moneylending prevented the cultivator (let alone the laborer) from securing a share of any surplus.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%