The New Cambridge History of India, Peasant Labour and Colonial Capital~ Rural Bengal since 1770

212 Pages·1993·13.29 MB·English

by  Sugata Bose

The last two decades have witnessed 'the return of the peasant' to
South Asian history. New empirical research and innovative
methodologies have enabled this historical reconstruction of
agrarian economies, politics and society in colonial and post-
colonial India. In this key volume in the New Cambridge History
of India, Professor Sugata Bose presents a critical synthesis of
existing scholarship and offers a new interpretation of agrarian
continuity and change from 1770 to the present.
The author examines the related themes of demography, com­
modity production, agrarian social structure, and changing forms
of peasant resistance. Agrarian relations are addressed along lines
of gender and generation as well as class and community. By
focussing on 'peasant labour', Bose integrates the histories of land
and capital. He also explores the relationship between capitalist
development of the economy under colonial rule and elements of
both change and continuity at the point of primary production
and appropriation.
Although the author draws most of his empirical material from
rural Bengal, he makes important comparisons with regional
agrarian histories across India and beyond. Peasant Labour and
Colonial Capital: Rural Bengal Since iyyo is essential reading for
the understanding of rural India's colonial and post-colonial
experience. It is also of relevance to all those interested in agrarian
societies in the developing world and debates about the origins and
character of agrarian capitalism.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
THE NEW CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF INDIA
General editor GORDON JOHNSON
Director, Centre of South Asian Studies, University of
Cambridge, and Fellow of Selwyn College
Associate editors C. A. BAYLY
and JOHN F. RICHARDS
Professor of History, Duke University
Although the original Cambridge History of India, published between 1922
and 1937, did much to formulate a chronology for Indian history and
describe the administrative structures of government in India, it has
inevitably been overtaken by the mass of new research published over the
last fifty years.
Designed to take full account of recent scholarship and changing concep­
tions of South Asia's historical development, The New Cambridge History
of India will be published as a series of short, self-contained volumes, each
dealing with a separate theme and written by a single person, within an
overall four-part structure. As before, each will conclude with a substantial
bibliographical essay designed to lead non-specialists further into the
literature.
The four parts are as follows:
I The Mughals and their Contemporaries.
II Indian States and the Transition to Colonialism.
Ill The Indian Empire and the Beginnings of Modern Society.
IV The Evolution of Contemporary India.
A list of individual titles already published and in preparation will be found at the end
of the volume.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
THE NEW CAMBRIDGE HISTORY
OF INDIA
Peasant Labour and Colonial Capital:
Rural Bengal Since iyyo
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
THE NEW
CAMBRIDGE
HISTORY OF
INDIA
111:2
Peasant Labour and Colonial Capital:
Rural Bengal Since 1770
SUGATA BOSE
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, TUFTS UNIVERSITY
CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521266949
© Cambridge University Press 1993
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 1993
Reprinted 2003
This digitally printed first paperback version 2006
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Bose, Sugata.
Peasant labour and colonial capital: rural Bengal since 1770 /
Sugata Bose.
p. cm. - (The New Cambridge History of India: IIL2)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0 521 26694 7
1. Peasantry - India - Bengal - History. 2. Bengal (India) -
Colonization - History. 3. Bengal (India) - Industries - History.
4. Bengal (India) - Rural conditions. I. Title. II. Series.
DS436.N47 1987
[HD1537.I4]
945 S-dc20
[305.5'633'095414] 92-12666 CIP
ISBN-13 978-0-521-26694-9 hardback
ISBN-10 0-521-26694-7 hardback
ISBN-13 978-0-521-03322-0 paperback
ISBN-10 0-521-03322-5 paperback
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
TO MY PARENTS
SISIR KUMAR BOSE
AND
KRISHNA BOSE
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
CONTENTS
List of illustrations page x
List of tables xi
General editor's preface xiii
Preface xv
Introduction i
1 Ecology and demography 8
2 Commercialization and colonialism 38
3 Property and production 66
4 Appropriation and exploitation 112
5 Resistance and consciousness 140
Conclusion 181
Bibliographical essay 186
Index 197
IX
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
ILLUSTRATIONS
MAPS
1. The rivers of Bengal page 10
2. Density of population, 1941 30
3. Regional spread of Famine-year mortality, 1943 31
4. Bengal districts in the early twentieth century 8 5
FIGURES
1. Bengal: value of major exports 54
x
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008