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This landmark study constitutes perhaps the only comprehensive analysis of the roots of agricultural stagnation in Bihar. Unlike others, this book incorporates (a) ecological, technical, demographic and economic factors, (b) the impact of the land, revenue, legal and commercial policies during colonial rule, and (c) the influence of rural social systems and ideologies. The result is a rigorous, systematic and coherent study of rural economic and social structure ...
This book studies the indigo plantation economy and its impact on agrarian society in colonial Bihar. It shows how the indigo business, though in part a capitalist speculation tied to the world market, relief methodically on inexpensive, age-old techniques and on the social and institutional constraints of the rural power structure to produce dye at the lowest possible cost. The history of indigo is traced from its beginnings in the late eighteenth century to its ...
This paper deals with the historical origins of the serious ecological situation which now prevails in the Central Western Ghats region of peninsular India. The present alarming state of things has evoked considerable attention, and efforts at popular mobilization, on the part of ecologically conscious people (including scientists) and movements in the recent past. But historical research on the subject is only at the beginning stage. Very substantial work has ...
The idea of an 'eternal India', based on stable and unchanging villages, has been in disarray for at least two decades. However, having demolished this myth, historians have been rather less able to construct an alternative positive vision. This volume sets out to do so, using the idea of ‘circulation’ in relation to South Asia in the colonial period. It comprises a set of complementary essays which deal with merchant circulation, pilgrimages, cartography, ...