Empire of free trade the east india company and the making of the colonial marketplace

Empire of Free Trade The East India Company and the Making of the Colonial Marketplace Sudipta Sen PENN University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia For Gautam Bhadra Copyright © 1998 Sudipta Sen All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper IO I Published by University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-40!! Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sen, Sudipta Empire of free trade : the East India Company and the making of the colonial marketplace/ Sudipta Sen p cm - (Critical histories) Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN 0-8122-3426-X(alk paper) East India Company Bengal (lndia)-Commerce Free trade-Great Britain I Title II Series HF3789.B4S46 1998 382'.0954'14042-dc21 97-39615 CIP Contents Introduction r Passages of Authority l 19 The Phirmaund and the Charter 60 The Making of a Colonial Terrain 89 A Permanent Settlement of Marketplaces 120 s.Remains of an Order 144 Notes Glossary 201 Bibliography 207 Acknowledgments 217 Index 219 Introduction ONE OF THE AIMSOF THIS BOOK is to present eighteenth-century north India as a society of marketplaces as much as one driven by land and its cultivation The wealth of north Indian polities on the eve of English conquest, especially in the eyes of tlie people who had wrested a fair measure of political autonomy from the Mughal empire in decline, was reflected not only in their ability to muster revenue from land but also in the prosperity of their markets How did the establishment of colonial rule appropriate, refashion, or disrupt relationships that had grown among places of exchange, places of worship, and places of authority? Answers to this question, raised throughout this work, depend on how we view markets and marketplaces in premodern societies such as India's Why markets continued to multiply in later medieval northern India during the period of the dissolution of Mughal rule might not be readily explained by economic laws that work in the context of marketdominated societies,,where commercial exchange motivated by measurable profit is used as an enduring template for acquisitive behavior While it may be argued that north Indian society was certainly not subject to a market-driven economy or capitalist development along the lines of private property and contract, one could hardly be surprised by the abundance of marketplaces that flourished in the greater Bengal and Banaras regions during this period These regional networks of artisanal production, mercantile interest, and aristocratic consumption and movements of commercial capital were tied not only to the domestic material culture of the semi-independent landed regimes of late Mughal India but also to the wider world of seaborne and coastal commerce of the Indian Ocean in general, a world that had seen times of great abundance of trade ever since the middle of the thirteenth century Recent long-term histories of the commercial culture of Asia before the entry of Iberian Europeans have shown beyond doubt the tremendous vibrancy and resilience of trading zones in Introduction greater Asia that linked China and Southeast Asian littorals to India, India to the Near East, and the world of the Mediterranean According to Janet Abu-Lughod, it was precisely the existence of such trading links of antiquity that sustained the economies of Europe in the Middle Ages and made it possible for them to reach out to the rest of the trading world; moreover, their eventual exploitation set the stage for a new "world system" with Europe at its core.2 During the mid-eighteenth century, when the great French and English rival trading companies were vying for privilege and control in the coastal markets and inland manufactories of India, textiles, cotton and silk, metal, and porcelain (what K N Chaudhuri calls the "three great crafts" of Asia) dominated the European markets and drained Europe of American silver.3 In eastern India the Dutch, the French, and the English followed the Portuguese in seeking out the coastal and provincial entrepots of trade and commerce to establish factories for textiles, silk, and saltpeter throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Far-flung commercial circuits of greater Bengal connected the old Mughal city of Dacca and the rising provincial capital at Maqsudabad (later Murshidabad) developed by the astute Mughal deputy Murshid Kuli Khan, who had secured the administration of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa in the first decade of the eighteenth century, to the flourishing commercial cities of Patna and Banaras through the great waterways of the Gangetic plain.4 These centers of trade and administration were also linked directly to such maritime outlets as Hugli, Satgaon, and the English _settlement of Calcutta; further westward by river or over land they were connected to the imperial cities of Agra and Delhi Other prominent land routes connected Patna to Agra, Banaras to Lucknow, Maldah in Bengal to the hinterlands of Patna and northern Bihar and Jaunpur in Awadh This broad sweep of the alluvial lower Gangetic plains connected the revenue-rich territories of the Nawabs of Bengal and the Rajas of Banaras, nominally dependent on the ruling house of the Nawabs of Awadh These territories, newly endowed with agricultural and commercial potential emerging from the confusion and decay of Mughal administration, provide the immediate geographical and political setting for this book This volume is a study of marketing communities in an age of social and political upheaval in eighteenth-century India, a period in which colonial rule was being established by the English East India Company chartered by the British Parliament The book shows how marketplaces became the site of conflict between the Company and traditional rulers of Bengal Introduction and Banaras, and how extensive reorganization in revenue and customs affected the substance and hierarchy of long-established rights to market exchange It is a study of the relationship among rulers, traders, and markets in precolonial India (Chapters rand 2) as well as a history of the rise and expansion of colonial rule from the standpoint of its political economic agenda (Chapters 3, 4, ands) In a broader context, this book argues that trade and conquest in the eighteenth century implied from the very beginning an attempt by the East India Company to build a powerful and intrusive state in India The establishment of a far-flung customs and police network and the "settlement" of marketplaces indicate an early and significant gain in the power and stature of the colonial state The Company during the period of so-called indirect rule has often been seen as a trading corporation drawn unprepared into the exigencies of warfare and administration This book shows, however, th.at the first decades of colonial rule entailed much more than just the preservation of trade and commerce in the colonies The ideology and objectives of the colonial state in India derived from reigning notions of eighteenth-century European political economy and shared some crucial aspects of nation-state formation in Georgian England (see Chapter ) These had a profound effect on how the English viewed Indian society and its commercial culture and on how they attempted to reform the Indian economy by overhauling the inland trade and markets of Bengal This book seeks to contribute to the growing debate on the history of the global expansion of European mercantile capital, in this case the relationship between Britain and India My central thesis suggests that, rather than being just a mechanistic structure of inevitable economic dominance and subservience between the industrializing core and the undeveloped periphery, the results of this expansion can be seen legitimately in the light of political and cultural confrontation, conflict, and compromise that set the context for such economic change Colonial India provides an early historical instance where the East India Company's demands for commerce and markets came face to face with a different organization of trade, market exchange, and authority This difference was crucial in determining the nature and outcome of the conflict of economic interests The experience of early colonial rule in the greater Bengal region provides one of the first examples of this encounter, which set the tone for the expansion of British and European colonies and economic interests in Asia and the rest of the world Not much has been written on the history of marketplaces in pre- Introduction colonial India other than traditional economic histories concerned with phenomena such as price behavior or the demand and supply of commodities This study undertakes a detailed exploration of the cultural meanings inherent in market exchange, tributes, and gifts under the auspices of traditional political regimes in late eighteenth-century India In investigating how such meanings were threatened or disrupted under the administration of the East India Company, this study debates some of the interpretations offered thus far of the conflict between the Company and the regional rulers It also calls into question the standard historical rendition of the Company state as a relatively weak polity swayed by local power elites and the internal dynamic of regional power struggle Colonial rule in India has often been studied from the perspective of the British Raj of the nineteenth century, but there are relatively few studies that treat the period of Company rule as the initial and perhaps crucial phase of colonial expansion And lastly, rather than accepting without reservation the existence of a precolonial or colonial "economy" or attempting to reconstruct a workable model of the indigenous economic or social structure, I have tried to be faithful to the prevalent articulations of material life from the points of view of historical agents: peasants, pilgrims, traders, landlords, rulers, and the officials of the East India Company This is thus a search for a much broader definition of wealth and power that medieval Indian society shared with other parts of the premodern world: rights, family honor, possession, ritual well-being, and the power to withdraw and redistribute objects of value Such considerations were crucial for the social life as well as the moral economy of the market in the age of British expansion in India The Market and the Marketplace Marketplaces and fairs in this part of India had always been the sites by which regions and localities are known and remembered Glimpses of this historical topography have made their way into some of the literary imaginations of our own times, especially where the precolonial Indian past is recounted as a bygone era of affluence I have in mind here the novel Radha by the Bengali author Tarashankar Bandopadhyaya, himself a descendant of a prominent family of landlords; he describes the religious and commercial communities that, around the year 1726 during the rule of Nawab Shujauddin, had grown along the banks of the river Ajay in the Birbhum district of Introduction western Bengal, in the markets of Ilambazar, Janubazar, and Sukhbazar.6 Ilambazar, in particular, was the hub of this busy site of commerce and pilgrimage, renowned for its cotton, silk, and lacquer Lacquer was sent from there to Delhi and Murshidabad to be used as wax for sealing secret and official dispatches It was also used by local craftsmen, who made bangles for women in the houses of the Nawab, the Rajas, and the Zamindars, as well as the courtesans and prostitutes of Murshidabad At the same time, Ilambazar was known for its proximity to the great fair of Kenduli held in remembrance of the great Vaishnava poet and lyricist Jayadeva The fair was a gathering spot for various religious orders and organizations, devotional singers, soothsayers, almsgivers, mendicants, and pilgrims, including predatory and militant nagiis:ascetic wanderers and fighting men, mercenaries for local armies, unclothed, with their bodies smeared in ash Such extended networks of exchange, such resident and itinerant communities around the marketplaces of greater Bengal, are the subject of this book There were also various kinds of markets, permanent and temporary: markets specific to products, markets of rice, markets of vegetables, temporary markets afloat on boats on the rivers of eastern Bengal during the height of monsoon, markets secured to temples, mosques, and hospices Marketplaces of late medieval India have not been studied in any great depth Research has been done on agricultural production, on trade and commerce in the countryside, but not much on the social and cultural underpinnings of market transactions This is also a detailed study of the early colonial intervention in the running of markets, which gathered momentum after the East India Company's acquisition of the revenues of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa in 1764 I show how the new regime went about trying to facilitate access to sites of production and distribution, minimizing the agency of indigenous rulers and their emissaries often at the cost of direct conflict Precapitalist political regimes in India were not easy prey to the demands of overseas trade and interests of European capital I have generally argued against the idea that societies on the margins of Western capitalist expansion offered little effective resistance to the forces of economic change I have also argued against the interpretation that, under the surface of administrative and commercial expansion, Indian society moved along at its own intrinsic pace, relatively unaffected by the colonial rule to which it was being subjected Histories of colonial expansion have too often rested on an image of the capillaries of a worldwide market economy spreading outward from the cities of industrializing Europe and drawing the rest of the world in- Introduction exorably into its fold This image has been reinforced by the work of dependency theorists who have built on Andre Gunder Frank's Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America (1969) and economic historians who have followed Immanuel Wallerstein's The Capitalist World Econmny ( 1969 ), The Modern World System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century (1974), and The Modern World System II: Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the Euro-pean World-Economy, r600-r7so (1980) The works of many historians and anthropologists have taken into account what is now familiar as the "world systems" approach and have accepted and debated global historical dimensions of the divisions of labor and the massive, glacial movements of production and consumption between the cores and peripheries of this world In the specific context of India, Wallerstein has argued that India was incorporated into the modern world system through two kinds of qualitative change: the reorganization of the structure of production reflected in the social division of labor and the reorganization of the political structures such that they make possible a new kind of economic participation.7 His holistic approach makes it seem that the Indian subcontinent as well as the commercial world of the Indian Ocean were drawn into the European world system in one bold stroke of capitalist expansion One of the implications of this kind of history is that it makes Indian credit and commercial networks appear either too fragile or too malleable in the face of European challenge Among the historians who have taken exception to this view is Frank Perlin, who has tried to show that merchant capitalism or "proto-capitalism" flourished in Asia independently of Europe, and indeed the European domination of overseas trade thwarted further developments in that direction Without going further into the tangled debate over the exact nature of commercial development in India and the question of whether it marked a significant change in the mode of production in Indian society, Perlin's findings leave us with considerable doubt as to the rise of European hegemony in Asian commerce simply as the triumph of a more advanced economic system The other, and perhaps more important, implication of the world system's analysis from the perspective of this book is that not only are political structures seen as being swept away by the tide of economic change, but social and cultural aspects of trade and commerce are seen as epiphenomena Wallerstein's theory has been subjected to criticism on this score, par_ticularlyin a rejoinder from M N Pearson, who points out the centrality Introduction of religion, especially Islam and Islamic pilgrimage, in the trade of the Indian Ocean My task here is to go much farther in exploring the interface between political economy and culture in the precolonial and early colonial period in northern India, reasserting the need to define the political agency of Indian regimes as well as the Company Raj This history is crucial to qualifying the larger and perhaps too familiar story of capitalist transformation: the eventual absorption of Indian labor and Indian products into the world market In this context, I trace how the regional polities of northern India conceived their material culture on the threshold of an overseas market for commodities dominated by Europe While the principlesof market exchange in a world of emerging European hegemony had revolutionary consequences for British India, they might not have been shared in the same way when the two societies came face to face I am particularly concerned here with historical writing that offers economic explanations for the transformation of Indian society through the lens of individualist monetary gain and loss, without considering how the market with a capital M, viewed solely as an economic phenomenon, masks important social and political relationships 10 My goal here is to name and place the market, its patrons, claimants, and clientele, and, above all, to mark its site and genealogy In the study of the market as an epicenter in the battle for colonial conquest, and the attempts at a colonial account of that victory, which is part and parcel of the surviving documentation, only the particularities of place and person in the market may provide the clues to the rich and many valences of the encounters between (at least two) widely differing political and material conceptions The economic imperatives of East India Company's rule in India, to be sure, were based upon a certain vision of the domestic and export markets, first along the rules of monetary and mercantile political economy and then reconsidered in the light of liberal economics Yet throughout the age of colonization, one of the principal issues of conflict with local Indian rulers was not the economy of Indian principalities but the actual sites for the display and passage of wealth, indices of social and political eminence Much of this conflict arose from the colonial desire to promote a self-regulated market economy in a society where marketplaces and their patrons were part of an extended social and political landscape Insofar as the English adventurers and subsequent rulers of greater Bengal encountered a wide and differentiated array of marketplaces while they sought to expand their own investment and profit in private and cor- 2IO Bibliography North India during the Seventeenth-Eighteenth Centuries." 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Economyand Society6 (1977): 315-343 Bibliography 214 Land, Labourand EconomicDiscourse.London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978 Genealogies of Capitalism.London: Macmillan, 1981 Van Den Abbeele, Georges TravelasMetaphor:FromMontaigne to Rousseau.Minneapolis and Oxford: University of Minnesota Press, 1992 Vansittart, Henry A Narrative ofthe Transactionsin Bengal, r760-r764 London, 1766; reprint, Calcutta, 1976 Walford, Cornelius Fairs Past and Present:A Chapter in the History of Commerce London: Elliot Stade, 1883 Walker, Wendy EssexMarkets and Fairs Essex: Essex Records Office, 1981 Wallerstein, Immanuel TheModern World-System.Vol CapitalistAgriculture and the Originsofthe EuropeanWorld-Economy in the Sixteenth Century New York: Academic Press, 19'74 - "Incorporation of the Indian Subcontinent into Capitalist WorldEconomy," Economicand PoliticalWeek~ 21, no (January 1986): 28-39 Washbrook, D A "Progress and Problems: South Asian Economic and Social History, c 1720-1860." Modern Asian Studies22, no (1988): 57-96 Weiner, Annette B InalienablePossessions: The ParatUJXof Keeping-While-Giving Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992 Wilkins Glossaryto the Fifth Reportfrom the SelectCommitteeAppointed to Enquire into the PresentState of the Affairs of the East India Company.Rare Book Collection, National Library, Calcutta, n.d Wilson, C R The Early Annals of the English in Bengal vols Calcutta: Asiatic Society, 1911,2nd ed 1963, repr 1967 Wilson, H H Sketchof the ReligiousSectsof the Hindoos.London: Trubner, 1861 Wolf, Eric Euro-peand the Peo-ple without History Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982 PUBLISHED OFFICIAL RECORDS Fort William India HouseCorrespondence Delhi: National Archives of India, 1949- Calendar of Persian Correspondence Calcutta: Government of India Publications, 1911-25 A1lCHIVAL SOURCES Khuda BakhshLibrary, Patna Khan, Ghulam Hussein Tiirikh-i-Banaras Ali, Karam Muzaffarniimah Bibliography India OfficeLibrary and fucords, Landan Ethe Collection of Persian Manuscripts Bengal Public Consultations Board of Revenue, Sayer, Proceedings Board of Revenue, Judicial and Criminal, Proceedings Home Miscellaneous Series West Bengal State Archives,Calcutta Board of Revenue, Sayer, Proceedings Board of Revenue, Customs, Proceedings Board of Trade, Customs, Proceedings Board of Revenue, Criminal and Judicial, Proceedings Bihar State Archives,Patna District Records of Bhagalpur, Patna, and Rajmahal BangladeshNational Archives,Dhaka District Records of Dacca, Rangpur, and Chittagong Allahabad District fucords Office,Allahabad Duncan Records of the Commissioners Office, Banaras 215 Acknowledgments THIS BOOK IS BASED ON A LONG-TERM and much-traveled project I began to worry about eighteenth-century marketplaces as a first-year graduate student at the University of Calcutta in the fall of 1985 It was Gautam Bhadra who, through his inimitable strategies of persuasion, drove me toward further explorations during the first glimmerings of this project He served once again as an indefatigable source of material and ideas while I was doing my archival work in Calcutta Bernard Cohn at the University of Chicago was responsible for keeping this interest alive and kindling others that would not let my subject of inquiry rest in any one simple direction I thank Ron Inden for trying to curb my straying toward the path of thoughtless empiricism and helping me think my way out of tight theoretical corners I also thank Jean Comaroff for helping me keep in sight the ethnography of colonial rule that in many important ways bridges British rule in India and parts of Africa-relations that might not be obvious to readers, but that have informed much of the interpretation attempted here Michael Geyer was the person who introduced me to the historiographical nuances of state formation in the European context, and in my analysis of the late eighteenth-century English state and its colonial extensions I have gained much from his perspective And, of course, I must thank C M Nairn for his patience in steering me through passages of Urdu and his unconditional help in unraveling knotty problems in both Urdu and Persian texts The research for this thesis was made possible through generous grants from the American Institute of Indian Studies and the MacArthur Foundation I am also beholden to the Mellon Foundation and the Committee on Southern Asian Studies, University of Chicago, for support during the period of writing I must also acknowledge the Center for Studies in the Social Sciences, Calcutta, the generous help and advice of Professor Barun De; the National Library, Calcutta, and Uma Majumder; Khuda Bakhsh Library, and Dr Bedar, India Office Library and Records; the British Museum Library; the Institute of Historical Research; the Institute of Commonwealth Studies; the School of Oriental and African Studies; 218 Acknowledgments the West Bengal State Archives; Allahabad District Records Office; Bihar State Archives; Bangladesh National Archives; and the help of Ratanlal Chakraborty and Ahmed Kamal For many years I have been rewarded with the riches of the Joseph Regenstein Library at the University of Chicago, and the help of Jim Nye and Bill Alspaugh In various later stages of writing I benefited from the resources of Van Pelt Library at the University of Pennsylvania, House of Our Own Books of Philadelphia, and the Main Library of the University of California, Berkeley Among the people who have commented on parts of the manuscript are Gyan Pandey, Antoinette Burton, Philippa Levine, Philip Corrigan, Aditi Nath Sarkar, Blair F Bigelow, YaseenNoorani, Barbara Metcalf, and David Ludden I thank Eileen Allen for helping out with the index It is not easy to express my debt to Faisal Devji in this and other endeavors I shall only say that he is present throughout this book as an unseen interlocutor I thank Lyn Bigelow for her kindn~s and support, particularly through times of difficulty, without which this task would not have been done, and in the last few months of the completion of the book, tiny Devika for just being herself Index Note: Figures (f), tables (t), and selected notes (n) are included in the index Act of Union (1708), 126 Ain-i-Akbari (Abul Faz!, author), 21-22, 137 Akbar SeeMughal emperors Amirchand (merchant), 67, 72, 96-97 Appeals and petitions, 75, 76, 79 See also Farman Asian markets, European access, Aurang, 31, 76, 84-85, 87, 160; definition, 18m60 SeealsoManufacturing sites Aurangzeb SeeMughal emperors Bakhshbandar (customs outpost), 105; annual revenues collected, 65, 66; riverborne trade and duties, 39-40 Banaras, 2; adulation, 34-35; annexation, 102; beginnings, 25; deferential exchange, n4; police wards, 109; political authority over pilgrimages, 34-36; prohibition of tolls, 136; religious center, 33 Bandopadhyaya, Tarashankar (author), Battle of Buxar, 89-90 SeealsoWar Battle of Plassey, 43, 89 SeealsoWar Bayly, C A., 17, 122 BengalAtlas SeeMaps and plans; Rennell, James Betel nut, 49, 92; and friendship, 83 Seealso Merchandise of honor Board of Revenue, 9, IO, 121, 135; control of customs houses, 146; management of market duties, 106; mistrust of Zamindars, 140; vision of reformed India, 142-43 Burke,Edmund,72-73 Calcutta, profits from management of markets, 146 Calcutta Committee of Revenue, 139 Capitalism: and colonialism, 163; and politics, 130; transformation, Seealso Ideologies Caste system See Class relations Charities and pensions, 54-55, 142-43, 146, 148 Charnock, Job, 62, 68; petition for factory, 68-69 Chartered corporations, autonomy of, So Cities, linked by pilgrimages, 33 City markets, 46, 47 City plans, 46-47, 48 SeealsoMaps and plans Class relations, 169n4; economic privileges, 29; merclrants, 66; reconfiguration of, 8; subordinates, 58; and trade, S6 Clavell, Walter, 63-64 Clive, Robert (Lord), 72, 81, 82, 84-85, 96-97, 127,130; merchant support, 96; observations on salt trade, 83-84 Coinage, 159, 199n58 Colonial political geography, 107 Colonial rule: adaptation to, n4; autonomy, 164; constabulary, 109; formative period, 99; hostility against, n6; markets as property, 144; mistrust of subordinates, no-15; morality, 72-73; sole arbitrator of transactions, 146; transformation of marketplace, u9 SeealsoPrecolonial rule Colonization, 14-18; Company rule, 4, 122-23; conflicting cultures, 3; rights of British monarclry, 125.SeealsoIdeologies Commercial practices of British, 73; Mughal endorsement, 61; regulation, 126 Commissioner of customs, 98 Company-state; fiscal regime, 108; Georgian model, 9; principles of organization, 121; property rights, 126; symbols of rule, n3 SeealsoEast India Company 220 Index Concessions: documentation of title, 14142; to Zamindars, 140-41 Conquest state theory, 163, 164 Contraband, 109-10 Contracts: legal duties, 139 SeealsoFarman Cornwallis, Charles (Lord), 106, II9, 130, 131;faith in even-handed rule, II9; quest for permanent settlement of revenue, 130; vision of north Indian landed society, 131 Corruption, 179n26; charges, 72, 73; Company servants, 80-81, 126; connotations, III; English view, 66, 68, 70, 82; Parliament, 126-27 Councils of Revenue, 120 Customs duties, Company authority, 101 Customs houses: centralization, 40; established by East India Company, 100, 135; major cities, 38; Mirbahar, 66; placement of, 105-6; sites, 66, 98, 100, 105; sources of revenue, 39 Customs outposts, 38-39 Dacca (city), 64, 105; commodities, 39; decline of ancient wards, 46; Nawab court and the English, 64; pilgrimage, 33; police wards, 109; port duties, 40; prosperity, 162; trade center, Dalrymple, Alexander, 63, 124, 130, 132-34 Diirogfza,services to Company, n1-12 Dastak, 76, 78, 79, 81, 84 Deferential exchange, 65-73 Defiance SeeResistance Despotic societies, 150 Despotism: in India, 124; modern economy, 124; Oriental despotism, 68, 72, 130-34 Diwany Adawluts (courts of civil law), 136, 153, 156, 162 Documentary regimes, 146,151,155, 19m3 Documenting markets, 150-53, 155; and illegal duties, 152; record keeping, 92; resistance, 150-52, 154, 189n104 Domains of authority and domains of exchange, II Duties; abolishment of, 88; acknowledgment of authority, 50; calculation of, 102-3; converted to rents, 138-39; differential rates, 40, 66; English reforms, 135-36; exemptions, 61, 65, 66, 76, 85, 181-82n62; forbidden collections, 105, n8, 153; legality, 139; negotiations, 42; protection, 175-76n90; rural trade, 47, 49; special privileges, 39-40; specific commodities, 39; subversion of, 39; support of religious sites, 54; trade routes, 38-39; uniform payments, 39; voluntary contributions, 50 SeealsoLevies and Cesses; Revenues; Taxation East India Company, no; administrative ideology, 96; dismissal of diirogjzas,112; dominance in trade, 84-85; form of statehood, 17; justification of authority, 132; militia, n7; native employees, III-13; Parliamentary interests, 122-23; precolonial privilege, 56; provinces, 101-2; rights of revenue, 126-27; as sovereign, 138; successors to the Mughal empire, 132; symbols of authority, 104-5 Seealso Company-state East India Company servants: pursuit of fortunes, 84; violations of farmiin, 79-81 Economic doctrine, and reforms, 123-24 Economic histories: Eurocentric views, 5-7; and indigenous forms of exchange, 157; land revenue, 120-21; modernization of India, 6; "political arithmetic," 17, 152; regional rule, 122; revisionist history, 96; world systems theory, 6, 122 English merchants: Nawabs' view, 75; political conduct, 74-75 Excise system, II3 Exploitation, 85 Fakir, Kalai (bandit), II7 Fakir uprising, 106, 107 Famine of 1770, 84, 90, 120, 134; and Company revenue administration, 147 Farmiin: Akbar's (1603), 17on8; associated rights, 77-78; granted to English, 14, 7576; nature of, 77; permission to trade "as Englishmen," 76; trading rights, 62; violations, 78-79 SeealsoAppeals and petitions; Contracts Feudalism in India, 132, 134; tolls, 137 Fiscal management, and Georgian state, 128 Foucault, Michel, 29, 121, 19m3 Free trade, 10, 164; basis for colonial economy, 100; and benefits to natives, II9; conflict with indigenous practices, 12728; contradiction with regulation, 101; Index and government control, 134; guarantees, 123; Mughal grant, 61, 63; original right, 127; rhetoric, 126; state intervention, 125; use of force, 100-101 Gaya pilgrim tax, 158 Geographical surveys, 91-92, 94; Descriptwns of the Roadsin Bengaland Bahar, 93-94; StatisticalAccount of Scotland,94 Geography and order, 91-95 SeealsoMaps and plans Georgian England, crime, n5 Georgian state, 3, 9, 96, III, u5, 128, 142; and marketplace, 127-30 Ghalib, Mirza (poet), 148 Gift economy, 31, 18on35; changing nature, 72; dismantling of, 101; English ignorance of rites, 67-68; violation of rules, 6263 SeealsoMoral economy; Patronage; Prestation Gifts: acceptance by East India Company, 70-71, 72; nobility, 67-68 Guardianship of marketplaces, 14-15, 22-23 Guha, Ranajit, 120, 130, 131,132 Guilds and workplaces, 31 Hastings, Warren, 72-73, 102, 104, u3; corruption, 72-73; observations of social classes, 157 Hindu merchants, 64, 66 Hindus, right of possession of land, 133 Historical documents: colonial economy, 9-u; local privileges, 135; precolonial practices, 21; record of resistance, u5; social history, 10; view of India, 91 Hugli (city), 69, 78, 105; customs outpost, 38, 39, 53, 65-66; pilgrimage, 33 Ideologies, 3, 96, 125; post-Mughal society, 32 SeealsoCapitalism; Colonization Imperial expansionism, 122 Inalienable gift, 13-14, 75-79; violation of privileges, 13-14 SeealsoPatronage; Prestation India Act of 1784, 120 Indian society; descriptions in novels, 45; descriptions in poetry, 27-28, 32, 33-36, 56-57, 58; English view, 3; eyewitness accounts, 33-36, 66, 147; folktales, 19; Harilua, 32; Hata Pattana, 56-57; 221 Muzaffarnamah, 66,147; regulation, 133;Sii/ir-ul-Mutiikharin,147; Tarikhi-Banaras,67; Tarfkh-i-Bangiilii,68; teachings, 27-28; Urdu poetry, 27-28 Indirect Rule of India, 89 Inland trade: abolishment of private trade of Company servants, 86; cause of war, 81-82; Company administration, 86; landlords' monopoly, 121; routes, 2, 25-26 Jagat Seths (bankers), 25, 72; collaboration with English, 96-97; custom houses, 41; duties, 39; English exemptions from duties, 66; financial prosperity of Bengal, 25; influence in court, 67; intercession for English, 60; political clout, 56 Joint stock trading corporations, 80 Khvaja Vajid (banker), 67-69 Land revenue: disputes, 120-21; political stability, 131;settled husbandry, 130.See alsoPermanent Settlement Landed estates, 130-31 Law, Thomas, 101, 140-41; excise system, u3; justifications for reforms, 136-37; pilgrimage revenue, 1,7-58; state of trade, 136; view of Mughals, 133 Law and order, n5-19 Legal contract SeeContracts Levies and cesses: busy trade routes, 47; exemptions, 36; pilgrims, 35-36; resistance, 35; ritual contributions, 36-37; single state levy, 103; voluntary contributions, 35-36 SeealsoDuties; Revenues; Taxation Liberal state, 136, 140-41, 156, 159, 19596m13 SeealsoModernization of India; Moral economy Liturgical patronage, 54, 177nu6; as voluntary charity, 154 SeealsoPatronage; Sacred sites Local authorities: English view of, 63; resistance to English control, 61 London, 122, 129, 130 Long distance trade, minimization of risk, 42 Luxury demand, 172n38 Mahals, historical rights, 47, 49 222 Index Manufacturing sites, 31, 62, 69, 76, 83, 87; access to, 160; control by English, 60 See alsoAurang Maps and plans, 91; colonial geography, 95; compared to Tirthamangala, 93; military mapping, 93; necessity, 90; statistical information, 155;trade routes, use of, 86, 105, 107 SeealsoCity plans; Geography and order; Rennell, James Market administration, English interferences, Market exchange, premodern societies, II-12 Marketplace control, inherited from Mughals, 148 Marketplaces: architecture, 8, 26, 44; census, 161-62; cultural meaning, 4; family connections, 43; Germany, 167m4; location, 32-33, 169n28; 176mo6; mapping sites, 141; material illusion, 58-59; multiple meanings, 15; patronage, 44t, 45t; as place and as process, 129; precolonial autonomy, 8-9, 154; religious sites, 5155; rights of succession, 44-45; social centers, 4-9, 33-34, 37, 46, 167mo; social order, 52f; spectacles, 8, 26-27; types and purposes, 15 SeealsoSacred sites Market rights: curtailed, 138; implied by transactions, 47, 49 Markets, medieval England, 128-29 Market statistics, 161-62 Market types and purposes, 5, 12, 157 Marx, Karl, definition of wealth, 16 Material exchange and authority, II-If Mauss, Marcel, II, 12, 13 Mercenaries, II7 Merchandise of honor, 81-88 SeealsoBetel nut; Salt Merchant capitalism, Merchants: influence in court, 67; social status, 66 Military actions, 89-90 Military activities, II7; enforcing regulations, 98-99; state control, 127 Military markets, 157 Military protection, and trade, 74 Mill,James,10,100 Mirzapur: annexation of Banaras, 102; Company customs, 105; currency, 160; customary duties, 4-ot; divergent rights and privileges, IIf; illegal exaction of customs,103;revenues,49 Modernization of India, 6, 163 Seealso Liberal state; Precolonial rule; Reforms Moral economy, f, 8, 13, 124-25 Seealso Gift economy; Liberal state; Reforms Mughal agrarian society, 168m6 Mughal aristocracy SeeRuling elite Mughal emperors, 137; Akbar, 21-22, 23, 137, 17on8; Aurangzeb, 23, 25, 61, 62, 68, 75; suspension of duties, 23; authority, 23-24-;farmiin, 61, 75; Farukhsiyar, 28, 60, 61, 62, 68, 69, 79-80; hold on trade, 23 Murshidabad (city): families, 43; merchants' influence in court, 67; pilgrimage, 33, 34, 56; restoring authority of, 85; trade center, SeealsoNawabs of Bengal Niigiis (ascetic warriors), 5, 37, 113.See also Sanyiisis National economy, 125; and internal duties, 144; political infrastructure, 160 Native middlemen, reduced profits, 87 Natural rights, of native populations, 13637 Nawabs of Bengal, 2; Alivardi Khan, 25, 74, 89; Mir Jafar, 89, 90; Mir Qasim, 84, 85-86, 89, 97; Murshid Kull Khan, 2, 25, 63, 65, 68, 69, 71; Siraj-ud-daulah, 43, 45, 68, 69, 74-75, 80, 89; confrontation, 80; pledge of faith, 83; war, 74-75 Seealso Murshidabad; Ruling elite Noble families SeeRuling elite North, Frederick (Lord), 126-27 Offices of inspection, assigned to households, 40-41 Omichand SeeAmirchand Orme, Robert (official historian), 80, 94-95 Pachotera (customs outpost), 38, 65 Parliamentary interests in the East India Company, 122-23 Patna (city); pilgrimage, 33, 71, 76; city plans, 46-47; map, 48f; merchants' influence in court, 67; revenue collection, 101; trade center, Patronage, 26-32; affect on marketplaces, 43; decline of system during the later Index Mughals, 27-29; disrupted relationships, rr3-14; East India Company, 74, 145; English aversion to, 16; European participation, 68-69; major marketplaces around Murshidabad, 44-t; major marketplaces in Patna, 45t; sacred sites, 53; sanyiisi merchants, u3-14; rimal of submission, 69 See alsoGift economy; Inalienable gift; Liturgical patronage; Prestation; Redistribution of wealth Permanent Settlement, 130, 131,134; disruption of custom, 155; redistribution of wealth, 162-63 SeealsoLand revenue; Reforms Phirmaund See Farman Pilgrimages: accounts, 15; authority of East India Company, 36; importance of marketplaces, 32-38; regulation, 157; transactions and religious merit, 37 Police tax, rn7-8; resistance, rn8 Policing, rn6-9 SeealsoResistance Political authority: decline of India, 135; economic exchange, 20; economic relations, 12-13; hierarchy, 56-57; levels, 173n44; sacred and material, 34; trade, 38-42 Political economy: and British monarchy, 124; and market duties, 138; and moral code, 123; classical, 16-17; colonial, 94; East India Company, 3; English concept, 16-17; European tradition, 145-65; landed property, 130-31; uniform rules, 161 Precolonial rule, rn; affluence, 15-16; English view, 14; James Mill's view of India, rno; merchants, 68; multiplicity of authority, rn; violation of rights, 133.Seealso Colonial rule; Modernization of India Precolonial trade: centers, 2; Indian Ocean region, 1; qualities of, 22 Premodern economies, I Prestation; changing attimdes, 70; economic transactions, 31; English aversion to, 16; trading rights, 63-65 SeealsoGift Economy; Inalienable gift; Patronage Prestige: from marketplaces, 43-44; merchandise of honor, 82 Private and public property, 139 Private and public rights, 139, 192021 Professions, status in precolonial India, 29 223 Property rights, 96, 121,149 Protection, 79; duties, 175-76n90; loss of, 147; nobility, 31-32, 79 Punishments, 185m9; English, 98; sites, 26; violations offarmiin, 79 Seealso Resistance Raja of Banaras, 2; Balvant Singh, 25, 33, 39, 40, 64, 67; Chait Singh, 40, rn2, rr8; Mahipnarayan Singh, rn3, n8 Seealso Ruling elite Rebellions See Uprisings Recordkeeping, 92 Redistribution of wealth, 52, 54-55; importance in countryside, 146; Permanent Settlement, 163; religious institutions, 153; undermined, 143 SeealsoPatronage Reforms, 16; effect on trade routes, 98; Bengal Presidency, 134-43; duties, 97-98; famine, 147; objectives, 136; persistence of custom, 156; prestation, 87; process, 162; social dislocation, 147 Seealso Modernization of India; Moral economy; Permanent Settlement Regulations, 99-rn4; Company enforcement, rn4-rn; conflict with gift economy, rrr; enforcement, 98, 102; resistance, I07, 156; uniform rules of payment, II4 Religion and markets, 7, 15, 52-55; and trading, 32 Religious practices, 178m23, 1780125;loss of support, 146; social and commercial transactions, 37-38 Rennell, James (surveyor), 93; Description of theRoads in Bengaland Bahar, 93-94; statistical documentation, I07, 155.Seealso Maps and plans Rents, 138, 140-41, 146, 149-50 Resistance, 85-86; hostility, rr6-17; illegal activities, rr5-16; insubordination, 7375; Mirzapur merchants, rr5; police tax, rn8; subversive actions, 87, rr8 Seealso Policing; Punishments; Uprisings; War; Zamindars Revenue Consultations, 145 Revenues: collectors, 101,rr2, 146, 15051; currency, 20; English sums, 90; local headquarters, 20; major sources, 39; monopolies, 183mo9; Mughal permissions, 9; protection, 22; statistics, 95, 177m14; 224 Index Revenues (continued) suspension of collections, 22; trade protection, 65; types, 22 SeealsoDuties; Levies and cesses; Taxation Rights to markets: conflicts, 2-3; precolonial India, 19-21 Roe, Sir Thomas, 61 Roy, William, 93 Royal Charter, 80 Ruling elite; and marketplaces, 19, 43-+1-, 46-47; bazaars, 26-32; curbed privileges, 134; literary accounts, 56-57; loss of financial autonomy, 148; post-Mughal, 32; purchase of commodities, 29-30; wealth, 96 SeealsoNawabs of Bengal; Patronage; Raja of Banaras Rural economy, 120; power and exchange, 47,49-51;revenues,50 Rural markets, Sacred sites, 171n24; prosperity, 51; support, 147, 153-54 SeealsoLiturgical patronage; Marketplaces Sii'ir, 47, 65, 137, 146; abolition of, 108, u8, u9, 140-41, 153, 156; definition of, 22 Salaried office, uo-u Salt, 71, 183n93; English dealers, 84; privilege, 82-83; semi-precious commodity, 83-84; smuggling, 86; use of force, 84 Sec alsoMerchandise of honor Sanskritization, 169n4 Sanyiisis (ascetics, traders, mercenaries), 4ot, u3-14; uprising, 106, 107 See also Niigiis Sauda (poet), 30 Self-regulating markets, II Sen, Bijayram (physician), 33-36, 37 Shahbandar (customs outpost), 38, 65 Smith, Adam, 16, 124, 138; state intervention, 125; view of East India Company, 125 Social activities, religious calendar, 37-38 Social class SeeClass relations Socio-cultural aspects of trade, 6-7 Stamps and seals, 38, 101, 105, 109, u2 Standardization: coinage, 159; commerce, u2; customs, 88; differential rates, u4; duties, 135, 186n45; price of salt, 86; value of goods, 103 Steuart, James (economist), political economy, 124 Supreme Court of 1774, 120 Surman, John, 62, 72 Surman embassy, 62, 67-68, 71, 77, 80, 179n26, 18on44 Surveillance: colonial regimen, 109-10; impediment to free trade, 159 Swadeshi, 156 Taxation: exclusive right of government, 135, 149; taxpayer obligations, 128 Seealso Duties; Levies and cesses; Revenues Territorial authority, 127; basis, 91 Territory, medieval Indian conception, 92, 93 Textiles, 2, 13, 87, 103; silk, 92 Thompson, E P., 9, 96 Trade: abuses, 79-81; disruptions, 102; grants given to English, 61; permissions, 62-63; political authority, 38-42; political infringements, 10; premodern Asia, 2; privileges for English, 60-62; process, 129-30; restrictions, 42 Trade centers, 2, 38 Trade protection: safe passage of travelers, 22; use of force, 64 Uprisings, 106, 107, u7, 189-9onro5 Seealso Resistance; War Value, conception, 12 Violence, 168-69n27, 174n55; checkpoints, 60; Mughal times, 172-73n43; securing markets, 78-79 Vision of reformed India, 142-43 Wallerstein, Immanuel, War: commercial practices, 73; factions, 189n98; inland trade, 81-82; with Siraj, 74-75 Waterborne trade: Bengal, 41; duties, 38, 39-40, 41; offenses, 98; regulation, 101 Wealth, profits: concept, 16, 70; denied to subordinates, 58; dependence on trading, 68; precolonial India, 1, 4; privileges, 31, 56; profits, so; regional authorities, 23; visions of, 124 SeealsoBattle of Buxar; Battle of Plassey; Resistance; Uprisings Wealth of Nations, 125,128 Weavers, 87-88 World systems theory, 6, 122 Index Zamindars: concessions to, 140-41; control of commerce, 50; exploitation, n6; exploitation of trade, 7; forced illegal levies, us; forfeiture of rights, 150; fraudulent records, 145, 150-51; humiliation, II7; illegal activities, n6; image, 51; lawlessness, 120; mistrust of, 142; 225 privileges, 97, 103, 133, 140; redistribution of wealth, 52-53; regulations, 105, 138; resistance, 14, 98, II6-17, 156; state control, 131; waterborne trade, 41, 97 Seealso Resistance Zatalli, J'afar (social critic), 27-29 ... physical extension of a certain vision of patrimony The East India Company' s administrative and official accounts of the markets of eastern and northern India, on the other hand, belong to a very... Sen, Sudipta Empire of free trade : the East India Company and the making of the colonial marketplace/ Sudipta Sen p cm - (Critical histories) Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN... landlords, rulers, and the officials of the East India Company This is thus a search for a much broader definition of wealth and power that medieval Indian society shared with other parts of the