Suchergebnisse

When we ask ourselves the question why India failed to industrialize (and develop a capitalistic economy) either before or after the British conquest, we touch the core of an old and hallowed controversy in which the partisans and opponents of British imperiahsm once confronted each other. To admirers of British rule, generally, it seemed that the fault lay with certain inherent weaknesses in Indian society. The influence of an "enervating climate," the heritage of "oriental despotism" and recurring cycles of anarchy (inhibiting the accumulation and investment of capital), primitive techniques and ignorance, the rigidities of the caste system, the prevailing spirit of resignation rather than enterprise, all created conditions in which nothing but a subsistence economy could function. From such wretched beginnings, the British could not, whatever they did, lift Indian economy to European levels. The critics of imperialism saw things in a different light. They insisted that the primitive nature of Indian economy before British conquests ought not to be overstressed, and they ascribed India's backwardness chiefly to the strangulating effects of British rule, to "the drain of wealth," the destruction of handicrafts, heavy taxation, and discrimination against Indian industry and capital. It will thus be seen that though the controversy involved a number of important aspects of modern Indian economic history, in part at least it centered on the potentialities of development in the Indian economy prior to the British conquests.

By convention the medieval period of Indian history is supposed to begin either with the death of Harsha, c. 648, or, as in this study, with the Turkish conquest of Northern India (about the beginning of the 13th century), and to end on the eve of the British conquests (about the middle of the 18th century). Although this sets a very late date for the close of the Indian medieval period, the arrangement is not illogical, since it was only with the British conquests that India became subject to the modern capitalistic system. But if we can say with certainty that the society of the period previous to British rule was not capitalistic, it is yet not a simple matter to define its basic elements. It is no longer possible to accept the assumption that its economy was based primarily on production for use, and not exchange, and that commodity production and money economy are entirely a gift of British rule.

This effort at mapping the growth of the township of Vrindavan, the famous holy place near Mathura in Western Uttar Pradesh in Mughal times is an exercise in local history and geography made possible by a number of documents surviving in the hands of the Gosa'ins (Goswamis) of the Chaitanya sect at Vrindavan. We see how from around mid-sixteenth century temples began to be constructed and kunjs (groves containing huts) began to be established in the vicinity of some small earlier settlements (Nagla Nagu, Dosaich, Nagla Gopa, etc.), which ultimately became parts of the single township of Vrindavan. The story we are able to trace shows how it will be a mistake to hold the society and economy of that age to have been a static one.

The aim is to collect all information from contemporary and near-contemporary sources about the canals of Fīroz Shāh (reigned 1351–88), so as to map them as accurately as possible. The area involved includes Indian Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and western UP. The paper also gives the account of a massive Sarasvati-restoration project, which like its paler modern-day successor (undertaken by the Haryana government), was a total failure.