Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-wq484 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T08:21:35.265Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A WIN-WIN MODEL OF DEVELOPMENT: HOW INDIAN ECONOMICS REDEFINED UNIVERSAL DEVELOPMENT FROM AND AT THE MARGINS, 1870–1905

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2021

Maria Bach
Maria Bach*
Affiliation:
Maria Bach: Université de Lausanne
*
Maria.Bach@unil.ch
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this article, I argue that looking at lesser known intellectuals can help the history of economics to uncover new 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 twentieth 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 innovate at the margins of development discourse. Indian economics redefined the concept of universality in the existing nineteenth-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.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 43 , Issue 4 , December 2021 , pp. 483 - 505
Copyright
© The History of Economics Society, 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I would like to thank Valbona Muzaka and Jon Wilson for believing in my project and for giving me copious amounts of support through detailed edits and long discussions. I would also like to thank the two anonymous referees for their useful suggestions.

References

REFERENCES

Abdelal, Rawi. 2001. National Purpose in the World Economy: Post-Soviet States in Comparative Perspective. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Amin, Samir. 1989. Eurocentrism. New York: Monthly Review Press.Google Scholar
Arndt, Heinz Wolfgang. 1987. Economic Development: The History of an Idea. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226232140.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bach, Maria. 2018. “What Laws Determine Progress? An Indian Contribution to the Idea of Progress Based on Mahadev Govind Ranade’s Works, 1870–1901.” European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 25 (2): 327–356.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bakhtin, Mikhail Mikhaĭlovich. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Edited by Michael, Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Bakhtin, Mikhail Mikhaĭlovich. 1986. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Edited by Emerson, Cheryl and Holquist, Michael. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Baran, Paul A. 1957. The Political Economy of Growth. New York: Monthly Review Press.Google Scholar
Bayly, Christopher Alan. 2011. Recovering Liberties: Indian Thought in the Age of Liberalism and Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beckert, Sven. 2014. Empire of Cotton: A Global History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Bhabha, Homi K. 2013. Nation and Narration. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bhattacharya, Sabyasachi. 2014. The Defining Moments in Bengal: 1920–1947. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198098942.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boianovsky, Mauro. 2013. “Friedrich List and the Economic Fate of Tropical Countries.” History of Political Economy 45 (4): 647–691.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Vivienne. 1994. “Metanarratives and Economic Discourse.” Scandinavian Journal of Economics 96 (1): 83–93.10.2307/3440668CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burke, Edmund. 1981. The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke. Volume 5: India: Madras and Bengal: 1774–1785. Edited by Marshall, P. J. and Todd, William B.. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chandra, Bipan. 1966. The Rise and Growth of Economic Nationalism in India. New Delhi: People’s Publishing House.Google Scholar
Chandra, Bipan. 1968. “Reinterpretation of Nineteenth Century Indian Economic History.” Indian Economic and Social History Review 5 (1): 35–75.10.1177/001946466800500103CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chandra, Bipan. 1991. “Colonial India: British versus Indian Views of Development.” Review Literature and Arts of the Americas 14 (1): 81–167.Google Scholar
Chang, Ha-Joon. 2002. Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective. London: Anthem Press.Google Scholar
Charkrabarty, Dipesh. 2000. Provincializing Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Chatterjee, Kumkum, and Hawes, Clement, eds. 2008. Europe Observed: Multiple Gazes in Early Modern Encounters. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press.Google Scholar
Chatterjee, Partha. 1993. The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Volume 11. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Chatterjee, Partha. 2003. "The Social Sciences in India." In Porter, Theodore M. and Ross, Dorothy, eds., The Cambridge History of Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 482–497.10.1017/CHOL9780521594424.028CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chaudhary, Latika, et al. 2015. A New Economic History of Colonial India. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowen, Michael, and Shenton, Robert. 1996. Doctrines of Development. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Crane, George T. 1998. “Economic Nationalism: Bringing the Nation Back In.” Millennium 27 (1): 55–75.10.1177/03058298980270011001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dasgupta, Ajit. 1993. A History of Indian Economic Thought. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Davis, Mike. 2002. Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World. New York: Verso.Google Scholar
Dutt, Romesh Chunder. 1874. The Peasantry of Bengal. Calcutta and London: Thacker Spink and Company, and Trubner and Company.Google Scholar
Dutt, Romesh Chunder. 1891. A History of Civilization in Ancient India Based on Sanskrit Literature. Calcutta: Thacker Spink and Company.Google Scholar
Dutt, Romesh Chunder. 1897. England and India: A Record of Progress During a Hundred Years, 1785–1885. London: Chatto & Windus.Google Scholar
Dutt, Romesh Chunder. 1901. Indian Famines, Their Causes and Prevention. London: PS King.Google Scholar
Dutt, Romesh Chunder. 1902a. Speeches and Papers on Indian Questions, 1897 to 1900. Calcutta: Elm Press.Google Scholar
Dutt, Romesh Chunder. 1902b. The Economic History of India under Early British Rule: From the Rise of the British Power in 1757 to the Accession of Queen Victoria in 1837. Volume 1. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner.Google Scholar
Dutt, Romesh Chunder. 1904a. Epochs of Indian History: Ancient India. Edited by Adams, John. London, New York, and Bombay: Longmans Green and Company.Google Scholar
Dutt, Romesh Chunder. 1904b. The Economic History of India in the Victorian Age: From the Accession of Queen Victoria in 1837 to the Commencement of the Twentieth Century. Second edition. Volume 2. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Adam. 1995. Ferguson: An Essay on the History of Civil Society. Edited by Oz-Salzberger, Fania. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fukuyama, Francis. 1992. The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Ganguli, Birendranath. 1977. Indian Economic Thought: Nineteenth-Century Perspectives. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill Publications Company.Google Scholar
Gerschenkron, Alexander. 1962. Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective. Boston: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gilpin, Robert. 2001. Global Political Economy: Understanding the International Economic Order. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gokhale, Gopal Krishna. 1920. Speeches and Writings of Gopal Krishna Gokhale. Third edition. Madras: G. A. Nateson.Google Scholar
Gopalakrishnan, Panikkanparambil Kesavan. 1954. Development of Economic Ideas in India, 1880–1914. New Delhi: People’s Publishing House.Google Scholar
Goswami, Manu. 2004. Producing India: From Colonial Economy to National Space. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Government of India. 1886. Report of the Finance Committee. https://indianculture.gov.in/report-finance-committee-1886. Accessed September 7, 2021.Google Scholar
Govindarajan, Swaminath Aduthurai. 1969. G. Subramania Iyer. New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India.Google Scholar
Gupta, Jnanendra Nath. 1911. Life and Work of Romesh Chunder Dutt. London: J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd.Google Scholar
Harlen, Christine Margerum. 1999. “A Reappraisal of Classical Economic Nationalism and Economic Liberalism.” International Issues Quarterly 43 (4): 733–744.Google Scholar
Heilperin, Michael A. 1960. Studies in Economic Nationalism. Geneva: Publications de l’Institut universitaire de hautes études internationales.Google Scholar
Helleiner, Eric. 2002. “Economic Nationalism as a Challenge to Economic Liberalism? Lessons from the 19th Century.” International Studies Quarterly 46 (3): 307–329.10.1111/1468-2478.00235CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Helleiner, Eric. 2015. “Globalising the Classical Foundations of IPE Thought.” Contexto Internacional 37 (3): 975–1010.10.1590/S0102-85292015000300007CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hobson, John M. 2004. The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511489013CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hobson, John M. 2012. The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics: Western International Theory, 1760–2010. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139096829CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inden, Ronald B. 1990. Imagining India. Cambridge: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Iyer, G. Subrahmaṇiya. 1903. Some Economic Aspects of British Rule in India. Madras: Swadesamitran Press.Google Scholar
Iyer, G. Subrahmaṇiya. 1918. Speeches and Writings. Madras: S. R. Murthy and Company.Google Scholar
Sundaram, Jomo Kwame, and Reinert, Erik S., eds. 2005. The Origins of Development Economics: How Schools of Economic Thought Have Addressed Development. New Delhi: Tulika Books.Google Scholar
Joshi, Ganesh Vyankatesh. 1912. Writings and Speeches of G.V. Joshi. Pune: Arya Bhushan Press.Google Scholar
Kapila, Shruti, ed. 2010. An Intellectual History for India. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Khodaiji, Sharmin. 2017. “Formalising a Discipline: History of Economics and Economic Thought in Early-Twentieth-Century India.” Presentation, 21st Annual European Society for the History of Economic Thought Conference. Antwerp.Google Scholar
Koffman, Jan. 1990. “How to Define Economic Nationalism? A Critical Review of Some Old and New Standpoints.” In Szlajfer, Henryk, ed., Economic Nationalism in East-Central Europe and South America. Geneva: Centre of International Economic History, pp. 17–55.Google Scholar
List, Friedrich. 1856. National System of Political Economy. Philadelphia: JB Lippincott and Company.Google Scholar
Luke, Allan. 1995. “Text and Discourse in Education: An Introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis.” Review of Research in Education 21 (1): 3–48.Google Scholar
Maine, Henry. 1861. Ancient Law. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Maine, Henry. 1895. Village-Communities in the East and West: Six Lectures Delivered at Oxford. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Mantena, Karuna. 2010. Alibis of Empire: Henry Maine and the Ends of Liberal Imperialism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.10.1515/9781400835072CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marglin, Frédérique Apffel, and Marglin, Stephen A.. 1990. Dominating Knowledge: Development, Culture and Resistance. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matin, Kamran. 2013. “Redeeming the Universal: Postcolonialism and the Inner Life of Eurocentrism.” European Journal of International Relations 19 (2): 353–377.10.1177/1354066111425263CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mehmet, Ozay. 2002. Westernizing the Third World: The Eurocentricity of Economic Development Theories. London and New York: Routledge.10.4324/9780203055519CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Metcalf, Thomas R. 1995. Ideologies of the Raj. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CHOL9780521395472CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mill, James. 1817. The History of British India. London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy.Google Scholar
Mill, John Stuart. 1848. Principles of Political Economy with Some of Their Applications to Social Philosophy. Manchester: George Routledge and Sons.Google Scholar
Mukherjee, Aditya. 2010. “Empire: How Colonial India Made Modern Britain.” Economic and Political Weekly 45 (50): 73–82.Google Scholar
Naoroji, Dadabhai. 1887. Essays, Speeches, Addresses and Writings (on Indian Politics) of Hon-ble Dababhai Naoroji. Edited by Parekh, Chunilal Lallubhai. Bombay: Caxton Printing Works.Google Scholar
Naoroji, Dadabhai. 1901. Poverty and Un-British Rule in India. London: Swan Sonnen Schein and Company.Google Scholar
Naoroji, Dadabhai. 1977. Dadabhai Naoroji Correspondence: Correspondence with D.E. Wacha, 30-3-1895 to 5-4-1917. Edited by Patwardhan, R. P.. Volume 2. Bombay: Allied Publishers.Google Scholar
Omkarnath, Goddanti. 2016. “Indian Development Thinking.” In Reinert, Erik S. et al., eds., Handbook of Development Economics. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 212–227.Google Scholar
Pickel, Andreas. 2003. “Explaining, and Explaining with, Economic Nationalism.” Nations and Nationalism 9 (1): 105–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prebisch, Raul. 1950. The Economic Development of Latin America and Its Principal. New York: United Nations.Google Scholar
Ranade, Mahadev Govind. 1900. Rise of the Maratha Power. Girgaum, Bombay: Punalekar and Company.Google Scholar
Ranade, Mahadev Govind. 1902. Religious and Social Reform: A Collection of Essays and Speeches. Edited by Kolasker, M. B.. Bombay: G. Claridge and Company.Google Scholar
Ranade, Mahadev Govind. 1906. Essays on Indian Economics: A Collection of Essays and Speeches. Madras: G. A. Natesan and Company.Google Scholar
Ranade, Mahadev Govind. 1915. The Miscellaneous Writings of the late Hon’ble Mr. Justice M.G. Ranade. Edited by Ranade, Ramabai and Wacha, D. E.. Bombay: The Manoranjan Press.Google Scholar
Ray, Prithwis Chandra. 1895. The Poverty Problem in India: Being a Dissertation on the Causes and Remedies of Indian Poverty. Calcutta: Thacker Spink and Company.Google Scholar
Ray, Prithwis Chandra. 1901. Indian Famines—Their Causes and Remedies. Calcutta: Cherry Press.Google Scholar
Reinert, Erik S., et al. 2016. Handbook of Alternative Theories of Economic Development. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.10.4337/9781782544685CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ricardo, David. 1817. Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Rostow, Walt Whitman. 1960. The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-communist Manifesto. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Said, Edward W. 1978. Orientalism. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Sartori, Andrew. 2008. Bengal in Global Concept History: Culturalism in the Age of Capital. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226734866.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seth, Sanjay. 2007. Subject Lessons: The Western Education of Imperial India. Durham: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Shulman, Stephen. 2000. “Nationalist Sources of International Economic Integration.” International Studies Quarterly 44 (3): 365–390.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singer, Hans Wolf. 1975. “The Distribution of Gains between Investing and Borrowing Countries.” Journal of Development Studies 11 (4): 376–382.10.1080/00220387508421554CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singh, Vir Bahadur. 1975. From Naoroji to Nehru: Six Essays in Indian Economic Thought. New Delhi: Macmillan and Company of India.Google Scholar
Smith, Adam. [1759] 1853. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. London: Henry G. Bohn.Google Scholar
Smith, Adam. 1776. An Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations. London: Strahan and Cadell.Google Scholar
Sun, Yat-sen. 1920. The International Development of China. Shanghai: Commercial Press, Ltd.Google Scholar
Tabb, William. 1999. Reconstructing Political Economy: The Great Divide in Economic Thought. Volume 2. London and New York: Routledge.10.4324/9780203254806CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Telang, Kashinath Trimbak. 1916a. “Free Trade and Protection from an Indian Point of View.” In Selected Writings and Speeches, edited by Gadgll, Dhanaojayarao. Bombay: Manoranjan Press, pp. 97–181.Google Scholar
Telang, Kashinath Trimbak. 1916b. Selected Writings and Speeches. Edited by Gadgll, Dhanaojayarao. Bombay: Manoranjan Press.Google Scholar
Washbrook, David A. 2012. “The Indian Economy and the British Empire.” In Peers, D. M. and Gooptu, N., eds., India and the British Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Watson, Matthew. 2012. “Friedrich List’s Adam Smith Historiography and the Contested Origins of Development Theory.” Third World Quarterly 33 (3): 459–474.10.1080/01436597.2012.657482CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wendler, Eugen. 2014. Friedrich List (1789–1846): A Visionary Economist with Social Responsibility. Berlin: Springer.Google Scholar
Wilson, Jon. 2016. India Conquered: Britain’s Raj and the Chaos of Empire. London: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Young, Robert. 1990. White Mythologies: Writing History and the West. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Zachariah, Benjamin. 2019. “Moving Ideas and How to Catch Them.” In After the Last Post: The Lives of Indian Historiography. Oldenbourg: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, pp. 129–148.10.1515/9783110643404-009CrossRefGoogle Scholar