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41796 results in Collections

Page 2028 of 2090

  • 1 - North India

  • from III - Regional Economy (1757-1857)
  • Edited by Dharma Kumar, Meghnad Desai
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of India
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    10 March 1983, pp 242-270

  • Summary

    This chapter outlines economic organization and activity in late-eighteenth-century north India. One way to penetrate the diverse historical experience of various parts of north India in the period is to get a sense of how the economy was organized in the middle of the eighteenth century in terms of different types of trade. By distinguishing between trade in luxury goods, wholesale commodity trade, and localized exchanges around towns and cities and within complexes of related villages, one can obtain a rough picture of economic organization applicable to north India in general. The chapter also emphasizes the pivotal role of the state of transportation in the Mughal period. It shows that the expansion of the commodity trade down the Ganges river, a consequence of peace and security and the connection to the world economy via Calcutta, is the key factor for the economic history of the region. The chapter also reviews the changes in north Indian agriculture in the nineteenth century.

  • VI - The Occupational Structure

  • from PART I - THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE
  • Edited by Dharma Kumar, Meghnad Desai
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of India
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    10 March 1983, pp 533-550

  • Summary

    Economic growth is associated with a relative shift in the structure of the workforce away from agriculture, towards industry and services. The Indian occupational structure showed little sign of change over the whole period 1881-1951. This chapter examines changes in the employment pattern for undivided India between 1901 and 1951, concentrating on the results for males. For both cultivators and agricultural labourers there was a slight rise in relative shares. The chapter also examines changes within the manufacturing sector in both male and female employment. It would be futile to attempt to explain these changes or draw conclusions about them without examining closely the economy of each of these states. The chapter considers four areas for closer scrutiny: Kerala, West Bengal, Rajasthan and east Punjab. In Rajasthan and Punjab irrigation had important effects. In Rajasthan it moderated the effects of the breakdown of pre-modern manufacturing by making agriculture a viable proposition.

  • XI - Price Movements and Fluctuations in Economic Activity (1860–1947)

  • from PART II - THE BEGINNINGS OF THE MODERN ECONOMY
  • Edited by Dharma Kumar, Meghnad Desai
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of India
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    10 March 1983, pp 878-904

  • Summary

    The period 1860 to 1947 was one in which market activity in India appears to have changed substantially. Price data are among the tracks of these changes in market activity. This chapter begins with a short examination of price movements over the entire period, and then moves to a longer examination of the forces determining agricultural prices in India and of the changes in these forces which occurred during this period. Next, it covers the prices of non-agricultural commodities and export and import prices. Relative movements of agricultural and non-agricultural prices and the potential impact of such movements on income distribution are also explained in the chapter. In industrial economies it is generally expected that short periods of rising prices are accompanied by expanding economic activity. Investment will be increasing, output will be expanding, and prices for factors will be bid up. The chapter considers how forces determining price movements may influence the level of economic activity.

  • 3 - Western India

  • from II - Agrarian Relations
  • Edited by Dharma Kumar, Meghnad Desai
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of India
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    10 March 1983, pp 177-206

  • Summary

    Western India comprises roughly the long narrow coastal area from the Rann of Kutch to north Kanara; the wide flat Gujarat plains and the Deccan plateaus. The new system of survey and assessment framed by G. Wingate and Goldsmid in 1835, called the Bombay Survey System, was introduced with some modifications into all the government villages of the Presidency, including British Gujarat. After the conquest of greater Gujarat in 1803 and 1817, the Peshwa's domains, about one-third of Gujarat, became part of Bombay Presidency; another third of Gujarat proper and part of Saurashtra was assigned to the Gaikwad's Baroda state, and in the remaining third, about 150 small princely states were recognized. From the middle of the nineteenth century, western India began to emerge from the sustained depression of the first third of the century, when prices and output were low, and when large tracts of land and many villages and small towns were deserted.

  • IV - National Income

  • from PART I - THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE
  • Edited by Dharma Kumar, Meghnad Desai
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of India
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    10 March 1983, pp 376-462

  • Summary

    This chapter first gives an overview of past work on national income in India. It discusses methods of developing comparisons of per capita income, beginning with simple comparisons of the estimates of writers at different points of time. The discussion then turns to methods for building up annual series, or five- or ten-year series of estimates for different years, or methods to extrapolate estimates forward and backward, versus direct estimates to build up a per capita income series. Then, the chapter explains agricultural and non-agricultural income over the period 1857-1947. Agriculture has been the most important sector of the economy of the sub-continent and warrants considerable attention. Some checks of the national figures are made against alternative indicators of economic growth. Interest in agricultural statistics has a long standing in India, and early surveys often estimated acreage and production on a scattered basis.

  • 4 - South India

  • from II - Agrarian Relations
  • Edited by Dharma Kumar, Meghnad Desai
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of India
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    10 March 1983, pp 207-241

  • Summary

    South India is a region of great physical diversity. This is also a region of great social and historical diversity. This chapter starts with a description of the agrarian structure as the British found it. Next, it describes changes in agrarian relations and government policy affecting them, particularly as regards the land revenue, between 1792 and 1855. Three regions are described separately: Madras Presidency excluding British Malabar and south Kanara, the west coast, and Hyderabad and Mysore. Since there are much more data available on such matters as agricultural prices, wages, rents and conditions of tenancy from 1855 onwards, the section covering the period 1855 to 1947 is organized rather differently. After a discussion of changes in governmental policy, the chapter describes the changes in the fortunes of the main agricultural groups including landowners, tenants and labourers.

  • 1 - Northern and Central India

  • from II - Agrarian Relations
  • Edited by Dharma Kumar, Meghnad Desai
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of India
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    10 March 1983, pp 36-86

  • Summary

    The upper Gangetic region, which today falls largely within the boundaries of Uttar Pradesh, exercised a palmary influence on the evolution of the Indian landholding system in the colonial period. When the British annexed the upper Gangetic region and formed the Ceded and Conquered Provinces in 1801-03, they at first made considerable use of the magnate element for local revenue collection purposes. Apart from increasing the importance of cash in the agrarian economy, the other important change effected by the British revenue system in the first half of the nineteenth century was to make the incidence of the revenue demand more uniform, at least within individual districts. The last half-century of British rule in the United Provinces witnessed a sharp intensification of agrarian difficulties and an increasing reponsiveness of the land revenue administration to political pressures. By the beginning of the century the net cultivated area reached almost its maximum extent of some 35 to 36 million acres.

  • X - Foreign Trade and Balance of Payments (1757–1947)

  • from PART II - THE BEGINNINGS OF THE MODERN ECONOMY
  • Edited by Dharma Kumar, Meghnad Desai
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of India
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    10 March 1983, pp 804-877

  • Summary

    This chapter first outlines the institutional changes relating to trade, which followed from the change of government in 1757, and then examines those particular features of Indian overseas trade which distinguish it from later development. The trends and fluctuations in India's overall foreign trade can be classified into two main components: changes, both relative and absolute, in the demand for commodities, and those relating to the geographical distribution of trade. The chapter argues that the changes in the commodity composition of Indian exports were the induced effects of factors operating through demand. Perhaps no other subject connected with India's international economy has generated so much controversy as the commercial and tariff policy pursued first by the East India Company and then the Indian administration under the Crown. The chapter discusses the mechanism which kept India's balance of payments and foreign exchange rates in equilibrium, given the unilateral transfers.

  • V - Population (1757–1947)

  • from PART I - THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE
    • By Leela Visaria, Sardar Patel Institute of Economic and Social Research, Ahmedabad, Pravin Visaria, Sardar Patel Institute of Economic and Social Research, Ahmedabad
  • Edited by Dharma Kumar, Meghnad Desai
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of India
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    10 March 1983, pp 463-532

  • Summary

    This chapter discusses the growth of population in the Indian subcontinent during the period 1757-1947 and the determinants of the observed growth rates including mortality, fertility and migration. Even prior to the censuses conducted during 1867-72, enumerations of populations and houses were attempted in different parts of the country and in cities like Benares, Dacca, Bombay. A brief examination of these regional data provides a rough guide to the pre-census growth of population. The censuses conducted between 1867 and 1872 actually paved the way for the uninterrupted series of decennial censuses in the Indian subcontinent, which have been the major source of information on trends in population and its characteristics. The census data have been compiled for territorial units down to at least the district level, and in some cases to taluka or tehsil level. The chapter discusses the rate of growth, sex ratio, the age composition of the population and fertility and mortality estimates derived from the census data.

  • 2 - Railways

  • from VIII - Irrigation and Railways
  • Edited by Dharma Kumar, Meghnad Desai
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of India
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    10 March 1983, pp 737-761

  • Summary

    Railways had an impact throughout the Indian economy. The Government of India felt that some lines should be built to lower the risk of famine, and using its power to dictate the location of track, it approved so-called famine lines which were constructed for the purpose of transporting grain to poor famine areas in time of need. The monopoly by the East Indian Railway of much of the area between Punjab and Calcutta, a region rich in agricultural and mineral resources, permitted it to earn 34 per cent of all earnings in 1881 even though it owned only 16 per cent of the total length of track. Railways led to increased agricultural output, the growth of modern industry and mining, new jobs, although many jobs were lost, the redistribution of the urban population, higher incomes for some segments of the population, and numerous other economic changes.

  • 3 - Western India

  • from III - Regional Economy (1757-1857)
    • By V. D. Divekar, Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Poona
  • Edited by Dharma Kumar, Meghnad Desai
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of India
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    10 March 1983, pp 332-352

  • Summary

    Prior to the middle of the nineteenth century, agriculture in Western India was the only means of livelihood for the overwhelming majority of the population. The steady though gradual expansion in cultivation in most parts of western India was checked towards the closing years of the Maratha rule, and during the first fifteen years or so after the East India Company took over the political power. Transport facilities were perhaps more meagre and expensive in western India than in any other part of the country. This affected severely not only the cotton economy but the process of agricultural development as a whole. The condition of the western Indian agriculturist, which had been made grievous by the calamitous fall in the prices of grain in the first half of the nineteenth century, also started to improve gradually with the increase in agricultural trade and the rise in agricultural prices after the 1850s.

  • XIII - The Indian Economy since Independence (1947–70)

  • from PART III - POST-INDEPENDENCE DEVELOPMENTS
  • Edited by Dharma Kumar, Meghnad Desai
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of India
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    10 March 1983, pp 945-994

  • Summary

    The actual performance of the Indian economy since Independence presents a rather mixed picture. There is little doubt that the country experienced a much faster pace of growth, both in the aggregate and in the major sectors, during this period than in the previous decades. The greater dynamism of agriculture in the post-Independence era is clearly the result of larger, more intensive and better coordinated programmes undertaken as part of the five-year plans. The emergence of a dynamic indigenous entrepreneurial class and a progressive spread of industries away from their traditional locations are also noteworthy features of the post-Independence industrial transformation. During the British rule, private foreign enterprise played an important role in the industrial sector. The steady expansion in the scope and range of economic activities undertaken by government is another significant feature of the post-Independence period.

  • 2 - Eastern India

  • from III - Regional Economy (1757-1857)
  • Edited by Dharma Kumar, Meghnad Desai
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of India
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    10 March 1983, pp 270-332

  • Summary

    The Ganges river system, together with the Brahmaputra further east, shaped the human geography and economic life of eastern India. In some parts of eastern Bengal the river was the only channel of communication and bulk transport of commercial goods. A notable development in the agricultural history of eastern India during our period was the growth of commercial agriculture. Though the cultivated area under cash crops remained, till the end of the period, too small appreciably to affect the peasant economy of the region as a whole, the effects of the growth were far from negligible, and its study would also indicate the factors in the decision of peasants to change over from the traditional subsistence crops to cash-crops. The growth of commercial agriculture, even where it did not lead to the emergence of a distinct export sector, necessitated a great deal of adjustment in the old organization of the small peasant economy.

Page 2028 of 2090