Eighteenth-Century Gujarat: The Dynamics of Its Political Economy, 1750-1800
The book explores the aspects of the political economy of Gujarat in the eighteenth century. In the historiography of South Asia, studies on the eighteenth century have yielded two major interpretations. The one (so-called Aligarh School) considers the eighteenth century as a major break from the preceding period both in the political and economic senses. The other (so-called Cambridge School) emphasises the continuity in the production and commercial activities and even suggests economic growth. While the contributors to this debate have studied mainly northern India including Bengal, the Deccan, and south-eastern India, one hardly finds any major work on Gujarat undertaken from the viewpoint of this debate. This book tries to fill this gap. One major aspect of the political economy analyzed here is the continuity in the relative autonomy of trade and production in Gujarat and the freedom of producers and merchants from state intervention. Whereas in Bengal and southern India, the British and some local states were able to establish control over trade and production, in Gujarat merchants and producers retained their prominent position. In other words, the market economy continued to function rather smoothly and retained its autonomous dynamic even after the English East India Company had obtained a degree of political power in Surat in 1759. This study examines the multifarious commercial activities of Gujarati merchants, their networks, institutional framework that facilitated their activities, and the degree of continuity in their prominence in Indian Ocean trade. This study challenges the notions that the size of Surat’s merchant-fleet decreased rapidly from about 100 ocean-going ships at the turn of the eighteenth century to only a few in 1750 and that Muslim shipowners avoided European-dominated sea routes and found sustenance from where the Europeans were reluctant to penetrate. The evidence presented in the book shows that the interests in shipping and overseas trading revitalised soon after the crisis of the 1730s and 1740s was over and that the Gujarati shipowners continued to dominate Surat’s major oceanic routes including the one that connected Surat with Mokha and Jeddah, a route that the British tried to monopolise. Similarly, the book examines the significant economic role of the subaltern groups such as producers, laborers, and the service gentry (intermediaries) and illuminates their professional freedom and autonomy. Through a detailed analysis of the Dutch East India Company’s trade as well as those of the English East India Company and private European traders in Gujarat in the eighteenth century, this study argues that contrary to the view that treats the eighteenth century as a period of economic decline the second half of the century experienced economic growth. Rapid expansion in the production of cotton and textiles for external markets as well as in the consuption of imported merchandise indicates growth in the economy. The book establishes that in the eighteenth century the political economy of Gujarat followed a path that was, to a degree, distinct from that of most other regions of South Asia. The data presented in the book testify to the fact that many of the fundamental features of the economy of Gujarat, such as the state’s limited control over economic processes, showed a remarkable historical continuity and that there was a substantial revival of production and trade in the second half of the eighteenth century. It argues that amidst complex political developments, merchants and manufacturers succeeded in preserving their autonomy and freedom in the market place until the end of the eighteenth century.
