Rural Industry and Commercial Agriculture in Late Seventeenth-Century South-Eastern India

The Past and Present Society
Rural Industry and Commercial Agriculture in Late Seventeenth-Century South-Eastern India Author(s): Sanjay Subrahmanyam Source: Past & Present, No. 126 (Feb., 1990), pp. 76-114 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/650810 Accessed: 20/05/2010 02:38
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RURAL INDUSTRY AGRICULTURE AND COMMERCIAL IN LATE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY INDIA SOUTH-EASTERN

The expansionof ruralindustryin manypartsof the Old Worldin the earlymodernperiod, with a view to supplyingdistantmarkets, is one of the striking features of thatepoch.Overthe pasttwodecades overwhetherany set of and moretherehas been a lively controversy at fromthe varietyof individual broadgeneralizations can be arrived the experiences; concomitantly,this particularphenomenon agriculture-has growthof ruralindustryand with it commercial of the historical roots been used as a springboard for an examination of capitalism.However, the discussionpredatesthe whole "protooff by Franklin Mendelsin his 1972 industrialization" debatesparked article,and the readerwill discovermanyof the issuesin this debate of Economic alreadyunder scrutinyin a symposiumin the 3rournal and the Extentof its EarlyDevelopHistory in 1969on "Capitalism ment outside Europe''.1 In the SouthAsian case, despitea braveattemptsome yearsago by FrankPerlin,the debatenevertookoff.2This was partlybecause Perlin'sown essaywas, even by his own admission,"uncomfortably a mouldto elicit constructive schematic" and cast in far too abstract response. But it was also due to the fact that there has been little lack [in the changesince 1983, when Perlinwroteof a "remarkable on textile South Asian case] of any serious regionalmonographs industries,in the seventeenthand eighteenthcenturies,of a kind .3 Whatis trueof textiles long legionin the European historiography" is true in greaterdegree of other pre-colonialindustries iron industries moregenerally (including manufacture, and the extractive examples.So longas theselacunae saltpetre production) beingglaring
The FirstPhaseof the Industrializa1 See F. F. Mendels,"Proto-Industrialization: tion Process",.Tl.Econ. Hist., xxxii (1972); Zl. Econ. Hist., xxix (1969), special by IrfanHabib,HalilInalcik,Subhi number editedby Frederic C. Lane,withpapers Labiband Yasukazu Takenaka. and Pre-Colonial SouthAsia", Past and 2 FrankPerlin, "Proto-Industrialization Present, no. 98 (Feb. 1983),pp. 30-95. 3 Ibid., pp. 39-40, 53.
IN INDIA RURAL INDUSTRY AND AGRICULTURE
77
regrettably, remain,exercisessuch as thatof Perlinmustbe treated, based generalizations of full necessity of air castlesin the asalluring and impressionistic on whatthe authornicely terms"circumstantial evidence". with My primarypurposein the presentstudy is not to quarrel but one not Perlin,whose essayhas, in the ultimateanalysis,served idea the on two useful purposes:first, helpingto cast seriousdoubt SouthAsianhistoryas some sortof hothouseflower, of pre-colonial on a logic of its own and insulatedfrom the rest of the proceeding of colonialand post-colonial world;and secondly,alertinghistorians view", while South Asia to the possibilitiesinherentin the "long pre-colonial of warningthem of the priceto be paidfor theirneglect the present developments.Unlike Perlin's contribution,however, over a economy essay will returnto a focus on a limited regional furthermeasure, shorttime period;it will derivein large relatively the evidence,while at the sametime presenting archival from more, historiographical and findingsin a more generalspatial, temporal context. the modern The region chosen for study here comprisespart of period modern early the in was Indianstateof AndhraPradesh,and major Two Coromandel. observersas northern knownto European the was south the To economy. the role in riversplayeda significant port the of south just Bengal of Krishna,which entered the Bay seventeenth of Masulipatnam which, in the late sixteenthand north Further region. the from trade centuries,dominatedexternal to bifurcated Rajahmundry of town the which at lay the Godavari, Godavari. Gautami the and Godavari the Vasistha formtwo channels: of several Textile productionin this region has been the object as part area the treated have which of most studiessince the 1960s, plain, which unit, the Coromandel of a more generalgeographical These Tamilnadu. extendsas farsouthas the Kaverideltain southern Raychaudhuri studies,amongwhichone maymentionthoseof Tapan the establish to concerned principally been have andS. Arasaratnam, area, the in of textileproduction of the expansion generalchronology growingcontrolby merchant the on arguments some and to advance Sincethe sourceson whichthey process.4 overthe production capital
1605-1690: A Study in the Tapan Raychaudhuri, 3ran Company in Coromandel, S. Economies(The Hague, 1962); 78) Traditional and Commerce European of Interrelations (conl. on p.
4
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are based are the records of the English ar.d Dutch East India Companies, which beganto exporttextilesfromCoromandel only in the earlyseventeenthcentury,these studieshave tendedto presupposethatthe expansion in bothproduction andexportwasprincipally a seventeenth-century phenomenon. In the contextof northern Coromandel, J. F. Richardssums up the essence of these studies in a recentessay:"Dutchand Englishinitiative. . . createdan exportof cottoncloth produced in ruralindustrial villageswhichsoonreached a totalestimatedat nine millionyardsa year. Priorto this, southern Coromandel, ratherthan the northerndistricts,had been the main zone of textile productionfor maritimeexport".5Arasaratnam has recentlyargued, besides, that whereasthe Coromandel textile producer had "traditionally" been a part-time agricultural worker,the relativelysteadydemandpatterns generated by European Company trademovedhim firstinto becominga full-timetextileproducer and then, over time, to a gradualdependenceon cash advances.6 Thus in the courseof the seventeenth andeighteenth centuries themerchant capitalist(it is argued)acquireda stranglehold over the production process,leadingto the impoverishment of the weaverandhis household. The beneficiaries of the processof production for exportwere not the producersbut the merchants,both Asian and European. Withthe passageof time, the balance of economic powershiftedfrom the formerset of merchantsto the latter, and with it the principal partof the surplusfrom production. Raychaudhuri's studyoffersan interesting contrast in explanation. Basedon a sort of earlyPhysiocratic conceptionof the economy,it portrays manufacture as eventually sterile,andthe agrarian economy in which it is embeddedas in stasis.7The principalvillainsof the piece in this view are the classes associatedwith the state, which controlthe surpluses.Their extortionate procedures check agriculturalexpansionand thus ensurethatthe expansion in ruralmanufacture can only prove ephemeral.
(n. 4 cont.)
Arasaratnam, "Weavers, Merchants and the Company: The Handloom Industry in Southeastern India, 1750-1790", IndianEcon.andSocialHist. Rev., xvii (1980),pp. 257-81;S. Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies andCommerce ontheCoromandel Coast, 1650-1740(Delhi, 1986). 5 J. F. Richards,"MughalStateFinanceand the Pre-Modern WorldEconomy", Comp. Studiesin Soc. andHist., xxiii (1981), pp. 285-308,esp. p. 305. 6 Arasaratnam, "Weavers, Merchants and the Company", pp. 262-3. 7 Raychaudhuri, ffan Company, pp. 6-14, 214-16;for a still moreexplicitformulation,seeTapanRaychaudhuri, "TheAsiatic Modeof Production andIndia's Foreign Tradein the Seventeenth Century", in Essaysin Honour of S. C. Sarkar (New Delhi, 1976),pp. 839-46.
O CENTRE WEAVING
<
10
\o
* Nuzvid
* Guntur
,a
8lo
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The state in Raychaudhuri's study is the Deccani sultanateof Golconda, foundedin the earlysixteenthcentury by QuliQutbShah, which survivedinto the late 1680s, when the Mughalarmiesof the emperor Aurangzeb conquered the region.The sultanate of Golconda was dominated fromthe late sixteenthcenturyby a Persianized elite at the courtin Hyderabad, but powerat the level of the localitywas a somewhat morecomplexaffair.The frequentrecourseto revenuefarmingas a fiscaltechniqueby this statehas meantthatit is usually portrayed in the literature as an extraordinarily harshand extractive one, even by the standards of Indiain the periodin question.Recent work, however, has begun to cast doubt on this characterization. First, it has been shown that at the level of the locality(pargana) warrior/cultivator elites continuedto hold sway in many areas;the delicate equilibriumbetween these elementsand the centralstate servedto insulatethe economysomewhatfrom agenciesof surplus extraction.Secondly,it has been arguedon the basis of a detailed examination of the careers of several revenue-farmers (manyof whom were recent migrantsfrom Iran) that this form of fiscal mediation mayactually havehelpedto fuel agrarian expansion, rather thanlimit thepotential of theagrarian economy.It wouldappear, therefore, that the viewsof Raychaudhuri arein needof considerable modification.8 We maynote, in addition,thatthe studiesof bothArasaratnam and Raychaudhuri, as wellas a moregeneral essayby K. N. Chaudhuri on Indiantextileproduction in the seventeenth andeighteenth centuries (whichdrawsfrom time to time on "examples" fromCoromandel), are characterized by what Perlin has recentlytermed a narrowly "evolutionist" perspective.9 Nor do theyappear to haveexplored the rich rangeof documentation which the archivesof the Dutch East India Company(the V.O.C.) offer, both on textileproduction and on commercial agriculture. The presentstudywill offera description, as well as an explanation,of developments in the late seventeenthcenturynorth Coromandel economy,which is based on some new evidence, as well as on recentrevisionsprovidedby the American historianJoseph J. Brennig. It is useful, however, to begin with
8 J F. Richards, MughalAdministration in Golconda (Oxford, 1975), chs. 1, 2; also SanjaySubrahmanyam, "Persians,Pilgrimsand Portuguese: The Travailsof Masulipatnam Shipping in the WesternIndian Ocean, 1590-1665",Mod. Asian Studies,xxii (1988). 9 Cf. K. N. Chaudhuri,"The Structure of the Indian Textile Industryin the Seventeenth andEighteenth Centuries", IndianEcon. andSocialHist.Rev., xi (1974), pp. 127-82;substantially reproduced in K. N. Chaudhuri, TheTrading World ofAsia andtheEnglish EastIndiaCompany, 1660-1760 (Cambridge, 1978),ch. 11.
81
to the chronologyof expansionof textile offeringsome alterations above. productionsummarized The inscriptionsof the medievalperiod reveal the existenceof valleysand andGodavari weavingcentresin thelowerKrishna several 10 andAmritaluru. Nagulapadu Achanta, deltas,suchasBhimavaram, with to compare By its verynature,however,this evidenceis difficult of the periodafter 1500. It may be notedfor the the documentation forexport of textileproduction thatthe tradition record,nevertheless, from the north Coromandelregion can be traced at least to the thirteenthcentury,when the port of Motupallidominatedexternal 11By the earlysixteenthcenturythough,when the firstPortutrade. guese records come to be available,the dominantrole in textile exports from Coromandelis played by the central and southern regionsof the coastalplain. Even as late as 1550northCoromandel thanthose fromthe hinterlands textilesare treatedas less important at leastwhereseaborne of such portsas Pulicatand Nagapattinam, tradeis concerned.12 was reversed that this situation It can, however,be demonstrated in the last three decades of the sixteenth century. The growing portof Masulipatin thatperiodof the northCoromandel importance on the exportof textiles, producedprincipally nam was predicated in the lower valleys and deltas of the Krishnaand Godavari,to In the early westernIndonesia,the Malaypeninsulaand Burma.13 exportsof cottontextiles century,seaborne yearsof the seventeenth from the region also began to flow in increasingquantitiesto west Asia. hasconsistently asit wasby Asianmerchants, Thistrade,controlled like J. F. tended, have who historians by been underestimated by Coromandel north from exports the Richards,to stress instead merchants Asian by of textiles export the that It is true theCompanies. as that of their is not susceptibleof such precise quantification to the figuresdo serveas a corrective rivals,but available European
SouthIndia(Delhi, 1985), in Medieval andWeavers Textiles 10VijayaRamaswamy, Andhra, ofMedieval andSocialC'onditions in Economic Studies pp. 7-12;K. Sundaram, 1968). 4 1).1000 to 1600(Machilipatnam, pp. 49-50; see also the and Social Conditions, Studiesin Economic 11Sundaram, the Concerning Ivolo,theVenetian, evidenceof MarcoPolo, in TheBookof SerMarco 2 vols. (New of theEast, 3rdedn., ed. H. YuleandH. Cordier, andMarvels Kingdoms York, 1903),ii, p. 359. to theRiseof MasulipatResponse "ThePortuguese Subrahmanyam, 12 See Sanjay TheGreatCircle,viii (1986). nam, 1570-1600", TheIvolitic(ll Subrahmanyam, 13 Ibid.; for a more detaileddiscussion,see Sanjay 1989), pp. 213-18. India, 1500-1650(Cambridge, Southern of Commerce: Economy
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prevalentorthodoxy.Trade from Masulipatnam to Burmaon the partof Asianmerchants was consistently estimated in the late 1620s by Dutch observersat between900,000 and 1,350,000florins,and the bulk of the exportswere of textiles. In contrast,it was only in the 1640s that Dutch exports from all of Coromandelexceeded 1,000,000florinsannually,while Englishexportsfor the coastin the periodup to 1650 rarelyif ever exceededa quarterof that value.14 (See Graphs 1-2.) It would thus be no exaggeration to see the expansionin exportsof cotton textilesfrom the north Coromandel region until 1650 as fundamentally dependent on Asian trading networks,ratherthan on the European Companies. In the secondhalf of the seventeenth century,however,therewas a perceptible slackening in the expansion of textileexportsto the rest of Asia. Signs of glut in the Indonesianmarketappeared by about 1680, but by this time a new sourceof demandhad been found.15 This was the European market,whichconsumednot only the chintz and paintedcloth of the Krishnaand Godavari deltas(whichin any caseaccounted for only a smallfraction of totalproduction), but also plain cloth in particularthe varietiesknown under the trade namesof salampurt, percalla, murt,bethille andguinea-cloth (or longcloth).The European marketfor Coromandel textileswas one which the Dutch had assiduouslydevelopedfrom the 1620son, for their shippinginvoicesof that periodshow north Coromandel textilesto have accountedfor between a half and two-thirdsof total exports fromCoromandel to Holland.By 1652the DutchCompany's annual ordersfor the EuropeanmarketincludedS00,000florins'worth of northCoromandel textilesfromthe fivecategories mentioned above: bethilles (fl. 114,000),murzs (fl. 88,000),percallas (fl. 40,000), salampurzs (fl. 80,000), and guinea-cloth (fl. 75,000).16 In the phaseup to about1660the Englishlaggedbehindthe Dutch in their ability to exploit Europeandemandfor north Coromandel textiles.By the lasttwo decadesof the seventeenth century,they had comecloseto outstripping theirrivals.The structure of demand from
14 Algemeen Rijksarchief, The Hague (hereafter A.R.A.), Overgekomen Brieven en Papieren (hereafter O.B.), VOC. 1090, fo. 247; VOC. 1095, fo. 64. 15 Raychaudhuri, an Company, passim;Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and C'ommerce, pp. 96-105. On the rise of the textile trade to Europe, see also Holden Furber, Rival Empires of Trade in theOnent(Minneapolis, 1976), pp. 239-44. 16 A.R.A., O.B., VOC. 1084, fos. 176, 190; VOC. 1090, fos. 222-35; finally, for the order list of 1652, see VOC. 1188, fos. 256-60, "Calculatiewat de jaarlyckseeyssen van de Kust Cormandel ende der onderhorende comptoiren uiit t'vaderlandt ende India omtrent komen te kosten".
GRAPH 1
DUTCH EXPORTS FROM COROMANDEL 1 '000 florins 3,000
1,000-
400-
1620
1630
1640
16X50
16
*Source: Sanjay Subrahmanyam, TheIvolitical Economy of Commerce: Southern Ind
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GRAPH2
ENGLISHEXPORTSFROMCOROMANDEL 1618-1650*
of eight
90,000
70,000-
50,000-
40,000-
1618
1625
1635
1645 1648
PoliticalEconomy of C'ommerce, p. 181. One rial= 2.5 * Source:Subrahmanyam, florins.
TABLE 1
ENGLISHAND DUTCH TEXTILEEXPORTSFROMNORTH COROMANDEL 1682* Dutch (in yards) English(in yards)
Masulipatnam Peddapalli Madapollam Total 1,778,000 628,000 2,173,000 4,579,000 Draksharama Total 1,895 ,000 4,844,500
* Source: Joseph J. Brennig, "1 he Textile Trade of Seventeenth-CenturyNorthern Coromandel: A Study of a Pre-Modern Asian Export Industry" (Univ. of Wisconsin Ph.D. thesis, 1975), pp. 44-5.
the two Companies in 1682 is shown in Table 1. It seems more or less apparentthat textile exports from the northernCoromandel
RURAL INDUSTRY AND AGRICULTURE IN INDIA
85
region peakedin about 1700. Thereafter there are visible signs of stagnation and then declinein the textileindustry,anda consequent loss of interestin the region on the part of the Europeantrading Companies. The Englishandthe Dutch,who hadby nowbeenjoined by theFrenchasmajor traders, concentrated theirtextileprocurement moreand more in centraland southernCoromandel. Besides,since the total export by these Companiesfrom Coromandel as a whole wasnot growing veryrapidly in thefirsthalfof theeighteenth century, a decline in the relativeshare of northernCoromandel is likely to have been reflectedin absolutetermsas well.17 It is not perfectly clear whether or not there was a revival in quantitiestradedin the second half of the eighteenthcentury.The disastrous famineof the early 1770s,whichravaged the Krishna and Godavarideltas, had a severe impact on the textile industry, and fragmentary Dutch reportsfromthe lateeighteenth century concerning the areasaroundPalakollu(a majorweavingcentrein the west Godavari delta) suggestcontinuedsluggishness.18 Finally,as G. N. Rao has shown, the secondquarterof the nineteenthcenturysaw a furthermarkedcontraction in the textileindustryof coastalAndhra, in the face of importsfrom England,both into the regionitself and into othermarkets which had been consumers of northCoromandel textiles. 19 The purposeof this rapidtourd'horzzon has been to indicatethe phasesof growth,stagnation anddeclinein the textileindustry of the regionunderconsideration. It shouldbe underlined that the period withwhichI amprincipally concerned namelythe lateseventeenth century was something of a high-watermark, as well as the beginningof the periodof stagnation. II The growthof ruraltextileproduction in Andhrabetweenthe midsixteenth andlateseventeenth century accompanied a complementary growth in certainforms of commercialagriculture.The principal
17 Calculated from Chaudhuri, Trading World of Asia, pp. 542-3;S. Arasaratnam, "The Dutch East India Company and its Coromandel Trade, 1700-1740", Biddragen totde Taal-, Land-en Volkenkunde, cxxiii (1966), pp. 325-46. 18 Arsip Nasional R; I., Jakarta, Buitenland no. 150, Section L, "Register van de successive ingekomen Palicolsche klaght schriften". 19 G. N. Rao, "Stagnation and Decay of the Agricultural Economy of Coastal Andhra", ArthaViinana, xx (1978); G. N. Rao, "AgrarianRelations in CoastalAndhra under Early British Rule", SocialScientist, lxi (1978).
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food crop of the two rivervalleysand deltasof the regionwas rice, and this becamean extensively tradedcropvery earlyin the period. Thereis not only evidenceof localized,short-distance movements of rice, but also a clear suggestionof a more complexand extended network of coastaltrade.Rice was broughteveryyearin lateJanuary or early Februaryto Masulipatnam and neighbouring ports from Orissaand Bengal, which lay furthernorth along the Indian east coast. 20 This supplywas certainly of someimportance in feedingthe urbanpopulationof Masulipatnam itself, which clearlynumbered over 100,000in the mid-seventeenth century;partof it was probably alsodistributed in the textile-producing villagesof the Krishna delta. The commercial production of two othercropswas facilitated by, and at the same time underpinned,the expansionin the textile industry.The firstof thesewas cotton,whichwasobviouslya crucial input into the manufacturing process.In the pre-1500periodfairly widespread cultivation of cottonmay be observedin the Palnadand Vinukonda talukas of the Guntur region,justsouthof the areaunder consideration.21 A portionof this cotton, togetherwith that grown in the Godavari deltaitself, wouldappearto have suppliedthe bulk of the textileindustry's needseven as lateas 1600.If necessary, these sourceswere supplemented by cotton from the interiorbroughtin boatson the Godavari river.It wasnot untilthe 1630s,however,that this importedcottonassumedmajorimportance. In a recentarticleJosephJ. Brennighas suggestedthatafter1630 boththe extentof tradein cottonin the regionandits formchanged. Whereas earlier the cottonhadbeenbrought partof the wayoverland and then down the Krishnaand Godavari riversby boat, the 1630s apparently saw the beginningsof a large-scale tradeusing caravans of pack bullocks, organizedby the nomadicBanjara community.22 Havingbroughtthe cottonto the martsof the Krishna andGodavari deltasfor sale, thesecaravans ret-urned with saltproduced in the saltpans of the coast. Unfortunately, Brennigis somewhatunclearon wherethe cottonoriginated, suggesting merelythatit was from"the blacksoil districtsof the centralDeccan".Therewereno morethan threeor fourareas,however,whichwerein the seventeenth century
20 V. M. Godinho,Os Descobrimentos e a Economia Mundial,2nd edn., 4 vols. (Lisbon,1981-4),iv, p. 64; alsoA.R.A., O.B., VOC. 1378,fos. 2083V-9; VOC. 1624, fos. 185-96;VOC. 1664, fos. 647-59;VOC. 1855,fos. 53-7. 21 Sundaram, Studiesin Economic andSocialConditions, pp. 23-4. 22 JosephJ. Brennig, "Textile Producers and Production in Late SeventeenthCentury Coromandel", IndianEcon.andSocialHist. Rev., xxiii (1986),pp. 333-56, esp. pp. 335-8.
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notedfor theirextensiveproduction of cotton,andwhichcouldhave servedas sourcesof supply.Onesucharealayduewestof Hyderabad, but it is probablethat much of the cotton producedhere was used by producers of muslinand chintzin the vicinityitself. Still another possibilityis the areaaroundGulbarga which, moreover,lay astride the main tradingroutewhich connectedHyderabad to Bijapurand the ports of the west coast. The most likely candidate,however,is neitherof these:it is insteadthe regionextendingwest fromNanded almostto Aurangabad. Not only was this areaan extensiveproducer of cotton(as testifiedby the seventeenth-century travellers Thevenot and Fryer)but it lay in the vicinityof the Godavari valley. And, as Brennig has pointed out, all evidence points to the fact that the principalmigratoryroute of the Banjaracaravanswas along the Godavari valley.23 Once on the coastalplain, the cotton was distributed througha network of market townsandsmaller centres.Oneof the major nodes in the distributionlattice was Rajahmundry, at the head of the Godavari delta; still anothermajorcentre,which probablysupplied spinnerson both the westernandeasternbanksof the Godavari, was Teeparu.24The other significantcommercialcrop of the region, whichhasbeensomewhat neglected by historians of thisarea(particularly in comparisonto their northernand westernIndiancounterparts),wasindigo.25 Onceagain,this cropwascloselyidentified with the textileindustry,as a sourceof dyestuff,andits production in the broadregionseemsto havesufficednot only to meetthe area'sneeds but to provide a modest surplus for export. The major area of production,referredto by Dutch merchantsin the periodas "het landvan den indigo", stretchednorth-east fromthe town of Nagulvanchato the majorcentreof Palvancha, almostin a band between the Krishnaand Godavaririvers. Most of the towns and villages mentionedin connectionwith indigo production in the seventeenth centurylie in what is the modern-day Khammam districtof Andhra Pradesh; theyincludeNagulvancha andPalvancha andGollapudi (all
23 For a survey of regionsproducing cottonin the period,see IrfanHabib,An Atlas of the Mughal Empire, 2nd edn. (Delhi, 1986),Maps 14-B, 15-B, pp. 58-9, 61-3.
Brennig,"TextileProducers and Production", pp. 337-8. For the most recentdetailedstudyof indigoin northern India, see H. W. van Santen, "De VerenigdeOost-Indische Compagnie in Guiarat en Hindustan,16201660" (Univ. of Leiden Ph.D. thesis, 1982), pp. 133-69;see also H. Nagashima, "IndigoProduction and Circulation in NorthIndiaduringthe Seventeenth Century: A Studyof thatof the Bayana Tract"[in Japanese with an Englishsummary], Shirin, lxiii (1980), pp. 527-60.
24 25
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threeof whichwerealsomarket centresforthe crop)andalsosmaller ruralcentresof productionsuch as Suraram, Pentlam,Gunnepalle, Gurramgudem, Akinepalle,Settipalle,Garla,Pulluru, Kondavanamela, Kachavaram, Araygudem and Gosavidu. 26 Though these villagesstretchedacrossa distanceof some eighty kilometres, andweresomeeightdays'travelfromMasulipatnam, by the earlyseventeenth centurythereis already clearevidenceof their integrationinto wider commercialnetworks. Since the area was principally wateredby the south-westmonsoon,and receivedmost of its rainfallbetweenJune and September,the indigo-production cycle tended to last from June to December.In June and July the sowingtook placein sandysoil (whichis to say somewhat awayfrom the rivervalleys),and therewere threecuttings.27 The firstof these took place in late August or early September,when the plant was one and a half feet high. Between Novemberand Decemberthe plants werecut once again,andaftera gapof thirty-five to fortydays, athird time. The firstcrop tendedto be of poorer qualitythan the laterones, and hence the most active season for marketingwas between October andFebruary. Dutchrecords suggestthatthereafter theindigowhichwas available tendedto be eithergreenandhardor adulterated. As has been noted, the principalmarts where indigo could be purchased for cash were Nagulvancha,Palvanchaand Gollapudi. These were frequentedfrom Novemberto Februaryby merchants from Bezwada and othercentres,includingsomesituatedas farwest as Bijapur.The indigoof the regionthus travelled, on the one hand, tothe weaving villages of Warangal,Khammamand the Andhra coast and, on the other, to Dabholand Goa,whenceit was exported in part to Persia. While early in the seventeenthcentury 400-500 khandi (each weighing 240 kilos) could comfortably be purchased against cash in the indigo martsof the Khammam region, prudent merchants preferredto advancecash to the producersfor greater security. This systemwas not one that wholly bound the producer to the merchantthough, for as H. W. van Santenhas shownin the case of the Bayanaregion(andas independent evidencefor our area
26 Fora detailed description of theindigo-producing tract,seeA.R.A., O.B., VOC. 1062, fos. 45'-6',passim; alsoW. H. Moreland (ed.), Relations ofGolconda in theEarly Seventeenth Century (London,1931). 27 Moreland (ed.), Relations of Golconda; see also A.R.A., 1111-14; VOC. 1712, fos. 513-22;and Pietervan Dam, O.B., VOC. 1472,fos. Beschnivinge van de OostIndische Compagnie, ed. F. W. Stapel,7 vols. (The Hague, 1927-54),ii, pt. 2, pp. 192-201 .
89
demonstrates), the producercould returnthe advanceand sell to anotherpartyafterthe harvest,if the loan-giverwas not willing to buy at the currentmarketprice.28 In about 1615 indigo productionin the Nagulvancha-Palvancha this being the region was certainlyin excess of 120,000 kilos againstcash. This outputcompares amountthatcould be purchased region,wherethe quitefavourably with whatwe knowof the Bayana most generousestimatessuggestthat around1620 the best harvest would yield 400,000 kilos, and where in fact harvestsin the period from 1620to 1660areneverknownto haveexceeded350,000kilos.29 regioncertainly We mayinferfromour evidencethatthe Khammam producedmorethana thirdof this quantity,and perhapseven up to and this was a half. However, after the 1620s, a decline set in stormsand particularly markedin the 1630s.A seriesof unseasonal poor harvestsfrom roughly 1630 to 1636 is known considerably to have disruptedthe commercialeconomyof the Andhraregion, includingthe locus of indigo production.Repeatedeffortsby the Dutch to procureindigoin the years1634-7yieldedpoorresults,and in late 1636 a mere 100 littel (or 14,000 kilos) were available,and a littel.30 The reason priceof 55 to 58 pagodas these at the exorbitant for this sharprise in prices (froma normallevel of between30 and due to lackof in production 34 pagodas) was not merelythe shortfall rain, but the increasedcompetitionfrom Bijapurand other centres and Bayanaindigo furtherwest, whose regularsuppliesof Gujarat were also shrinkingin the period. Thus, despite the poor harvest conditions,it is not immediatelyobvious that all indigo producers were harshly affected:those who did have some to sell found it fetchinga handsomebonus.31 III pagesto setoutin rudimentary Enoughhasbeensaidin the preceding
of Golconda, pp; 35-6, 79-80; A.R.A., O.B., VOC. 28 Moreland (ed.), Relations atMasulipatnam to Banten; Schorer 1055(loosepapers), JanvanWesickandAnthonij Oost-Indische Compagnie", pp. finally,for the Bayana case,van Santen,"Verenigde 153-4. Oost-Indische van Santen,"Verenigde 29 A.R.A., O.B., VOC. 1062, fos. 45'-6V; Compagnie", pp. 139-42. VOC. 1119, fos. 1110, 1152-3; 325V; 30 A.R.A., O.B., VOC. 1113, fos. 316-6X,
VOC.1122,fo.611-11V.
esp. 325V; VOC. 1119,fos. 1110,1152-3; 31 A.R.A., O.B., VOC. 1113,fos. 316-6V) to Johande Meereand ArnoldHeussenat Masulipatnam VOC. 1122, fo. 611-11V; Van Diemenat Batavia,29 Dec. 1636.
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forma schemaof the spatialdistribution of production in the region. The essentialelements are the two river valleys and their deltas, the major port of Masulipatnam and the metropolitan centre of Hyderabad.The extant descriptionsby seventeenth-century observersallow us to gain a fairidea of the structure and character of the two last-named cities. Masulipatnam is describedby Domingo Navarrete, who visitedit in 1670, as "a very populousplace, and of greattrade",despitethefactthatits climate was"badandunhealthy". John Fryer, who visited the town aboutthe sametime, for his part describesit as havingbroadstreetsand "high and lofty buildings" of wood andplaster,as well as "multitudes" of poorerconstructions, "thatched,cast roundas beehives,and walledwith mud". He mentions too a largenumberof mosquesin the town, besidesa customshouse and court, and three bazaars "crowdedboth with people and commodities". Finally,Fryeris our sole sourcefor a population estimate of Masulipatnam in the period:he claimsthat"200,000souls receivehere their daily sustenance".32 Turning to Hyderabadand its twin Golconda,their structure derivedsubstantially from the last decadesof the sixteenthcentury and the reign of Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah. As a centrewherea largeproportion of the sultanate's surplus-controlling classesmaintainedresidences,the capitalcitywas almostcertainly larger thanthe porttown, andalso somewhat betterstructured. Whereas Masulipatnam tended to straggleinto the countryside at its edges, and had a relatively limitednumberof substantial constructions, Golconda and Hyderabad maintained a hybrid commercial-cum-administrative character.Hyderabad(or Baghnagar) was locatedon a long plain, surrounded by hills;the fortress of Golconda was somemilesdistant, situated in hilly country.The north-west sectionof the citycontained the sultan'spalace,whilethe Peshtva andothermembers of the court residedin the north-east.Just off the PeshwaHaveli, and adjoining the Musi river, was a populous suburb, while anothersignificant knotof population cameto be concentrated after1640in Mughalpura, south-eastof the Charminar. Still anothercentre, importantfrom the viewpointof manufacture and textile production,but also the principalarea of residenceof the smallermerchant,was Karwan, betweenHyderabad and Golconda.Navarrete, who passedthrough this sectionen route fromHyderabad to Golconda fort,was struckby
32 See TheTravels andControversies ofFriarDomingo Navarrete, 1618-1686, 2 vols., ed. J. S. Cummins(Cambridge, 1961-2),ii, pp. 322-3;JohnFryer,A New Account of theEast IndiesandPersia(London,1698),pp. 26-35.
91
the substantialactivity and vehicularmovementin the area, and noted that it was "so full of people, that therewere scarcemore in the citiesof China".33 Equally,this city-like Masulipatnam-had severalmarkets,and housedat any given time a substantial number of residentanditinerant merchants, involvedbothin tradeto the east coast and in the overlandcommerceto Bijapurand pointswest. The Masulipatnam-Hyderabad link may be schematically represented as one of the principal axesin relation to whichtheproducing sub-regionswere arranged.In part, this route coincided with a distributary channelof the Krishna,and one of the majorstagingpoints-Bezwada occupiedthe headof the Krishna delta.34 The roadfollowedthe rivereven furtherwest than Bezwada) and it was only at Ibrahimpatnam that the riverand the traderoutediverged. The river now meanderedsouth-west,while the road pushed on north,throughPenuganchiprolu, Anantagiri, PangalandMalkapur, to Hyderabad.3s It is instructive to note how agricultural production was organized in relationto this route. Closeto the coastrice was produced,in the wetlandsof the Krishnadeltaandthe rivervalleyitself.Also of some importance in the Krishnadeltawas tobacco,a cropwhichhadbeen introduced to the areain the late sixteenthcentury,probably under Portuguese influence.36 The extensivedependence on ricecontinued as one moved up-river,as far as Bezwadaand even a little beyond. Thereafter,however,the agricultural landscapechanged.The area north and north-westof Ibrahimpatnam was describedby Daniel Havart(whoseacquaintance with the regionin the 1670sand 1680s was close and detailed)as devoted above all to cotton and millet, rather than rice. Extensive cotton cultivationcontinuednorth of Nandigama,and almost to Nagulvancha.37 By now, however,we beginto approach indigocountry,whichstretches in a longarcacross
33 Travels andControversies ofFriarDomingo Navarette, ii, pp. 322-3.Cf. DharmendraPrasad,SocialandCultural Geography of Hyderabad City:A Historical Perspective (Delhi, 1986),pp. 1-13,27-57;alsoH. K. Sherwani, History of theQutb ShahiDynasty (New Delhi, 1974), pp. 543-56. 34 For a contemporary description of Bezwada, see Travels in Indiaof3rean-Baptiste Tavernier, Baronof Aubonne, 2 vols., ed. V. Ball andW. Crooke(London,1925),i, passim. 35 Habib,Atlas of theMughal Empire, Map 15-B;JeanDeloche,La circulation en Indeavantla revolution destransports, 2 vols. (Paris,1980),i, pp. 64-71,75-82;Pieter vandenBroecke inAzie, 2 vols., ed. W. P. Coolhaas (The Hague,1962-3),i, pp. 15664. 36 Moreland (ed.), Relations of Golconda, p. 36. 37 DanielHavart, Op-en Ondergang van Cortnandel, 3 vols. (Amsterdam, 1693),ii, pp. 5-16.
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from Khammam and Nagulvancha to Palvancha, being particularly markedin the lattervicinity. This bringsus, in turn, almostto the southernbankof the Godavari. Followingthe riversouth-east to the sea, once againit is rice production which is the rule, in the delta and on Nagaramisland.38 Moreover,embeddedin this nicely diversified agricultural landscape, manufacturing production too tendedto concentrate in pockets. This could be for eminentlyphysicalreasons:the diamondbelt, forinstance,wasnecessarily located in limitedlocalities, one spanning the Krishnanear Ibrahimpatnam, the other furtherup-riverin the vicinityof Chitalpalem.39 Similarly,the salt-pans werelocatedclose to the sea-shorein both the Godavari and Krishnadeltas, as these werethe areaswheresaltwatercollection andevaporation usingsolar heatweremosteasilyfacilitated. Butin the caseof textileproduction, we know that such physical constraintswere of somewhatlesser importance. The vicinityof areasproducing red chay-roots (used as a dyestuff)was certainlya reason for the concentration of textile producersaroundPeddapalli in the southernKrishnadelta, just as the existenceof groundwaterwith specificchemicalproperties was helpful to the paintersand dyers of the east Godavari villages of Golepallem and Gondawaram.40 One shouldnot, however,exaggerate the importance of such factorsin determining the distribution of weavers; andonce theseaspectsareplacedin properperspective, the fact of concentration and specialization of textile-related activitiesis truly remarkable. For my purposes, I shall considerthree broad areas:first, the Krishnadelta;secondly,the Godavari delta;andthirdly,production furtherinland, especiallyaroundNagulvancha. In the weavingvillagesof the Krishnadelta,a good partof production was of the finer gradesof fancycloth, and the principal markets for whichtheywere destinedwerethe Indonesian archipelago andwestAsia.On the other hand, Godavari deltaweaverswere, for the most part,producers of plaincalicoand hence theirproductswere the ones whichthe Companies sought for sale in Europe. Finally, in the inland producing centres(Warangal, Khammam, Nagulvancha, etc.) the textilesproducedweremainlysalampuns, percallas, ginghams andguinea-cloth, as
Ibid., ii, pp.19-26, iii, pp.15-17. Ibid., ii; Travelsin India of 3rean-Baptiste Tavewnier, i; also Indian Travels of Thevenot and Careri,ed. S. N. Sen (New Delhi, 1949), pp. 130-52. 40 Havart, Op- en Ondergang van Corm(lndel, iii, p. 54; van Dam, Beschrijvinge van de Oost-Indische Compagnie, ii, pt. 2, pp. 159-60.
38 39
93
calicoes.4l
well as bethilles,all either plain or striped. Of these, all except bethilles (whicharemuslins)wouldfallunderthe classification of fine
Where the weavingvillages of the Krishnadelta are concerned, the studies of Joseph Brennig throw considerablelight on their character andspatialdistribution. His transcription of a Dutchdocument of the 1680s, listing villages on a route from Palakolluto Nagulvancha,includes a good number of weaver centres in the TABLE 2
WEAVERVILLAGES IN THE KRISHNADELTA 1682* Village WeaverHouseholds Tuluru 10 Viravasaram 40 Srungaravuksham 10 Gunupudi 60 Doddanapudi 15 Sisali 20 Kallakuru 16 Elurupadu 20 Pararamundri Peta 50 Bomminapadu 10 Korraguntapalem 50 Vadala 5 Bampalapalem 5 Peyyeru 30 Ventrapragada 20 Katuru 5 Bezwada 50 Total 416 * Source:JosephJ. Brennig,"TextileProducers and Production in Late Seventeenth-Century Coromandel", IndianEcon.andSocialIlist. Rev., xxiii (1986),Table 3,p. 339.
Krishna delta, which I list in Table 2 (excludingthose between Bezwada and Nagulvancha,which do not fall in the delta). Two aspects of the tableshouldbe emphasized. First, it does not pretend to providea comprehensive, or even a near-comprehensive, survey of weavingvillages in the Krishnadelta. Secondly,these weaving villages appear in the original document (which is an itinerary) interspersed with a large numberof villages without any weaving households at all, which are describedas being solely agricultural.
41 Joseph J. Brennig,"TheTextileTradeof Seventeenth-Century Northern Coromandel: A Studyof a Pre-Modern AsianExport Industry" (Univ.of Wisconsin Ph.D. thesis, 1975),pp. 226-8;alsoJohnIrwinandP. R. Schwartz, Studies inIndo-European Textile [Iistory(Ahmedabad, 1966).
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This information can be usefullycontrasted to that available for the other two sub-regionswhich concernus. Brennigprovidesus with evidencein respectof eighteenproducingcentresin the area aroundDraksharama in the east Godavari delta. These rangefrom villageswith 40 weaverhouseholds(Pandalapake) to otherswith as many as 900 (Amalapuram and Nagaram);the averagenumberof weaverhouseholdsper centreenumerated is 331, andthe numberof loomsroughly418.42This suggests,as Brennigis quickto pointout, that the Krishnadelta in the last two decadesof the seventeenth century probablycontainedfewer weaversand smallercentres of weaving than the east Godavari region or Nagaramisland (which containedsuch substantial centresas Nagaram,Amalapuram, Tatipaka, Mummidivaram and Baduralanka). On the other hand, the westGodavari centreof Palakollu hada mere176weaverhouseholds, suggestingthat the largersize of individualcentresbeganonly east of the GautamiGodavari.43 Evidenceforthe inlandregion,andforsuchcentresas Kanakagiri, Khammam and Warangal, is moredifficultto come by. The Dutch factory atNagulvancha drewtextilesfromallthese(andothercentres) despite their relativedispersion.Nagulvancha itself contained150 weaver households, while Penuganchiprolu to its south-easthad another 50.44 On the otherhand,the marketing centreof Makkapeta, which boastedwell over 1,200 householdsin all in the early 1680s, housedwithin its environsno morethan 100 weaverfamilies.Thus thelimitedevidenceatourdisposalsuggeststhat,of the threeregions, the Godavari delta containedthe largestconcentration of weavers; the Krishnadelta supportedfewer,* and in smallerconcentrations; while the inland producingregion not only had dispersedweaver settlements,but its individualnodes were apparently less sizeable thanin the east Godavari region. If regional specialization had, by the lastquarter of the seventeenth century,advanced to the extentI havesuggested,it presupposes the existenceof a marketing network to supportit. It appears, moreover, thatthe rudimentary theoryof hierarchical markets necessary for the marketing of ruralproduceto pay revenuedues to the statewill not suffice. The existing literatureon pre-colonial India tends to pose this problem in terms of the "typical"market town, mediating
Brennig,"TextileProducers and Production", Appendix,pp. 354-5. Subrahmanyam, PoliticalEconomy of Commerce, p. 75. 44 On Nagulvancha, see Havart,Op- en Ondergang van Cormandel, ii, p. 16; on Penuganchiprolu, see n. 42 above.
42 43
95
between the village and the administrative town. The role of this marketis to facilitate whatthe recentCambrxdge Economic History of India,volumeI, terms"thepredominantly one-way flowof commodities from the villages to the towns".45At best, it is claimed, the individualvillage could be "part of a narrowcircuit of exchange whichencompassed severalvillages",while the bulk of inlandtrade comprisedexchangesbetween the towns. Such a patternof trade, portrayed, moreover,as a hothouseflower"peculiar to Indiarather than the whole of Asia", was quite evidentlynot what obtainedin the regionunderour consideration. Nor were marketcentres"typical",with a uniformprofile.Centres werefunctionally distinguished, andthisis clearly reflected in theoccupational profiles of theirresident populations. I havealreadynotedhow the list of villagesavailable on a routein theeasternKrishnadelta shows predominantly agricultural villages interspersed with centresof weaving.Occasionally, one comesacross a village such as Kankipadu,describedas a large centre, with a number of milk-sellerswho suppliedvillagesin the vicinity.46 Or take the villageof Ma-sahiba Peta(namedafterthe queenmotherof Golconda), which in the 1680s is said to have had a "considerable Monday market".47 This centre was one where a wide varietyof goodswas bought and sold; but such was not the case with all markets. If one looksto the tradein rawcotton,Rajahmundry at the head of the Godavaridelta, Teeparuin west Godavari,and other centres specializedin this product;on the other hand, it was not generally on sale in Masulipatnam. The fragmentary information thatis available on the occupational characteristics of these petty urbancentresand market-places in the region is of some interest in this context. (See Table 3.) On the assumption of around4.5 personsperhousehold, it maybe suggested that these centreshoused a populationfrom around2,250 to 5,000 persons What is remarkable about them is their diversity.If one considers the proportion of merchants to agriculturalists, this itself
45 Tapan Raychaudhuri, "Inland Trade",in TapanRaychaudhuri andIrfanHabib (eds.), TheCambridge Economic History of India, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1982-3),i, p. 327. 46 Brennig,"TextileProducers and Production", p. 354; Pietervan denBroecke, ed. Coolhaas,i, p. 162. 47 Havart,Op- en Ondergang van Cor7nandel, ii, p. 6, ". . . noch drie-vierde-deel van een mijl, dwerstmen middendooreen Dorp, genaamd Ma-zahibpeenta (oftehet Dorp van Mevroude Koninginnemoeder),hier word smaandags treffelijke merkt gehouden".
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TABLE 3
OCCUPATIONAL PROFILES OF FIVECENTRES (BYHOUSEHOLD) c. 1689*
.g
Occupation X / / @ z Weavers 150 100 176 50 50 Washers 20 20 35 ? ? Painters 206 Landed Agriculturists 80 200 99 200 300 Goldsmiths 15 20 20 ? ? Textiletraders 130 150 110 Othermerchants 13 400 56 50 100 Brahmins 150 20 ? 200 150 Drovers 100 10 ? ? Pions 45 150 22 ? ? Untouchables 30 50 ? ? ? Others 37 25 64 ? 4 Total 690 1235 848 500 604 * Note and source:Brennig, "Textile Trade in Seventeenth-Century Northern Coromandel", AppendixB, pp. 290-2, also pp. 293-4. In the case of Nagulvancha, Havartprovidesslightlydifferentfigures,also includingwithin his purviewsome neighbouring villages: Daniel Havart,Op- en Ondergang van Cormandel, 3 vols. (Amsterdam, 1693).
varies considerably from 1:4 in Bezwadato 2.75:1 in Makkapeta. Otherfeatures alsodiffersubstantially: for instance,the extentof the Brahminpopulationin relationto the total-particularly high in Bezwadaas a consequence of the substantial templecomplexthere. These featurescan be explainedwith referenceto the particular functionsperformed by each centre.Makkapeta was a majormarket for the distributionof importedgoods which arrivedthere from Masulipatnam, and spices as well as metalswere tradedthereon a considerable scale. This servesto explainwhy justunderone-halfof its households (550froma totalof 1,235)comprised merchants. As for Palakollu, its mostmarked "special" feature wasthepredominance in its occupational profileof "painter" households;these were in fact cloth-painters, who preparedthe kalawharz cloth of the area, and hence formedan ancillarypartof the textileindustry. Also of majorsignificance in each of these centresis the presence of a large numberof goldsmithand silversmithhouseholds.Since
97
these smiths usually performedthe roles of assayers and lendersas well, they testifyto the extentof money-usein moneythe region in the period, and also suggest that the bullion importedinto the region(againsttextileandotherexports)did not simply flowinto the coffersof state and nobility. IV I have alreadyarguedin an earliersectionof this essaythatthe late seventeenth centurymarkedthe peak of an expansionary phasefor the textile industryin northernCoromandel. It has also been noted that by this time, as a result of a processextending from the last quarter of the sixteenthcentury,there had developedin the region anextensivelydifferentiated economywhen viewedin spatialterms; the region as a whole exportedand importedkey commodities indigo,textiles,rawcotton,somerice, bullion butwas alsoclearly differentiated within itself, in relationto the locationof both rural industry and agricultural activities. Supportingthis differentiated landscape was a grid of specialistand non-specialist markettowns. Atone end of the spectrumwere the very largest centres of the region namely Masulipatnam and Hyderabad, eachof which had apopulationof around200,000 in this period. But in the extensive space betweenthese centresand the very smallestproducing villages were other centres:some, like Makkapeta and Palakollu,of 3,0005,000 persons;others,like Narsapur, Kondapalli or Nizamapatnam, rather larger.This last set of centresis of some interest,since it is here that one typically finds resident the havaldarand sar-samtu administrators of the Golcondasultanate; also, in those areaswhere central administration hadwhollyfailedto penetrate, one mightfind petty zamindart courts,wherelocalnotablesof Teluguwarrior castes held sway, while payingtributeto the sultanate.Suchcentres could house a residentpopulationof 10,000 personsand more, and had a commercial as well as administrative character. On the otherhand, market centressuch as Makkapeta, Palakollu or Penuganchiprolu or for that matterDraksharama and Palvancha had a somewhat different character,on account of their still partly agrarian occupational structure. The lack of systematic attentiondevotedto the problemof spatial differentiation and specialization is, I havenoted,one of the features of the orthodoxhistoriography of pre-colonial India. It should also be stressedthat this accompanies anotherfeatureof the literature:
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namelya highly simplisticconceptionof verticaleconomicdifferentiationin the period. The classicmodelfor northern (or "Mughal") Indiaof the Aligarhschoolof historians stressesaboveall a division betweenproducers andthe surplus-controlling classesattached to the state. In this view, producers are exploitedto the extentpossibleby the statemachinery,and left with only theirsubsistence needs:thus thereis, on the one hand, a largemassat the edge of existence,while on the otherhand, a proportionately smallfragment of the economy enjoysan extremely high standard of livingfromexpendingsurplus. "Thus", writes Tapan Raychaudhuri, "an infinitesimal proportion of the population disposedof the bulkof the agricultural surplusand in doing so influencedcruciallythe courseof the economy".48 If the occasionalcaveatis introduced,it is in the form of suggestingthat local war-lordsand membersof the "dominantcaste" in a given regionwereprobably betteroff thanthe others,andthe untouchables worse off. But this is as far as qualification goes. On the other hand, some recentwork on the eighteenthcentury has providedevidenceto challengethe modelsummarized above.A studyof magnate households in the Maratha Deccanby FrankPerlin demonstratesthe existence of a complex of assets held by such households,whichwereoftentradedthroughthe market,andwhich contributed to their superiorpositionin the agrarian landscape.In the caseof northern Tamilnadu, Tsukasa Mizushima provides similar evidencefor the eighteenth centuryof economicdifferentiation based on rightsto land, cattle,accessto the revenue-collection machinery, and so on.49 Wherethe areaof this studyis concerned,we are so fortunate as to have for the earlyyearsof the 1690sa detaileddescription of two villagesin the eastern Godavari delta,in whatis nowKakinada taluka, which sheds light on this issue. The revenuerightsto thesevillages hadbeenacquired by the DutchCompany in farmfromtheMughals, whoseconquestof the regionoccurred in 1687-8.In orderto facilitate the collectionof revenue, as well as for other reasons,the Dutch collecteddetailedinformation on the villagesas a whole, as well as on eachhouseholdindividually. They enumerated households by the nameof the head, notedthe numberof men, womenandchildrenin
48 TapanRaychaudhuri, "The Stateand the Economy: The MughalEmpire",in Raychaudhuri and Habib(eds.), Cambridge Economic History of India, i, p. 179. 49 Frank Perlin, "Of White Whaleand Countrymen in the Eighteenth-Century Maratha Deccan",TI.Peasant Studies,v (1978),pp. 178-237; T. Mizushima, Nattar andtheSocio-Economic Change inSouthIndiain the18th-19th Centuries (Tokyo,1986).
99
each, the cattle endowmentof each, the numberof looms in each, andnumerous otherdetails.They alsocompiledinformation on how landrevenuewas collectedin the recentpast, the variousdeductions and the logic behind them, and a good deal of related data. It is probablethat the principalsource from which the Dutch derivedtheir information was the Brahmininterpreters whom they used in the region. However,it is unlikelythat their datawere no morethana replication of karnam (or villageaccountant) records,as is seen to be the case very often with late eighteenth-and early nineteenth-century Britishdocumentation fromthe region.For one thing, the narrowareaover which datawere collectedby the Dutch (incontrast to theirBritishcounterparts of a century later)waslimited andtractable; secondly,the information does not referto categories of data for instance, ploughs or land distribution-which are quite typical of situationswhen karnamrecordswere used. And finally, it is important to notethattheV.O.C. maintained a continuous presence in the villageswherethe information was collected,which madetheir little census ratherdifferentfrom the rapid collection procedures espousedunder earlycolonialrule. The dataon the householdsarepresented in Table4 for the larger of the two villages,Golepallem, whichhad252 households anda total population in 1692of 1,071. This summary provides someremarkable insights into the natureof the village, as well as its functioning. Let us beginwith the demographic aspect.One observes,firstof all, that the sex ratiois adverseto malesby 1:1.176;while this can in partbe explained by the existenceof twelve female-headed households, it isalso noteworthythat three of the major occupational categories (weavers, paintersand komattis) show a male to femaleratioof less than 1:1. Equallyof interestis the remarkably small numberof children; though, in view of the epochin whichthe information was we may supposethatadultsweretakento be thoseover collected, twelveyears of age. Still, even so, the demographic pyramid was farfromacutely angled in the Godavari delta of the period, if this evidencemay be generalized. A further aspect of interest is that for most of the occupations under consideration the nuclearfamilywas the norm. This may be observedby dividingfor each categorythe numberof men by the numberof households.Thereemergesa ratio of overone in the caseof weavers(1.3), komatti merchants (1.72) andcultivators (54). 1. But households with two or moreresidentmalesarerelatively rare: by enumeration in the village as a whole, they add up to 61,
TABLE4
THE HOUSEHOLDS OF GOLEPALLEM 1692
Categorv Weax ers Kaikkolas Salis Devangas

'rotal
oF
34 49 6 89
-
tz
31 46 6 83 11 4 57 6 5 11 12 8 3 1 1 4 3 1 3 2 5 3 4 2 2 4 1 2 3 1 10
t
39 61 8 108 19 10 86 12 6 17 12 3 2 1 4 4 1 6 3 5 5 4 2 4 1 4 3 2 10
t
47 65 8 120 24 13 94 9 9 19 15 19 4 2 3 4 5 1 6 2 3 3 4 6 3 4 2 4 1 2 12
X
33 76 14 123 17 2 60 15 7 23 17 14 _ 5 10 5 2 1 1 2 3 2 5 2 2 7 1
4
S
42 58 6 106 14 6 68 17 10 16 13 11 3 -(?) 1 4 4 1 3 2 6 3 4 3 2 4 1 4 3 1 10 -
2 1
Komattis Oilmen Painters Washers Goldsmiths Cultivators Toddy-tappers "Whores" Betel-sellers Rlilkmen
Tobacco-sellers
4 mills
11 12 16 6 46 1 -
8 -
Coppersmiths Brahmins Embroiderers Carvers Barbers Peons Textile-beaters Poor widows Carpenters Smiths Coolies Musicians Potters Muslims Cobblers Pariahs
_ -
14
89 252 334 393 344 320 92 1 Totals * Source:AlgemeenRijksarchief, The Hague(hereafter A.R.A.), Overgekomen Brievenen Papieren (hereafter O.B.), V dorp Golepalemin de MaandJuls Anno 1692 sig met der woon onthoudende",fos. 1135-42;see also fos. 1144, 1147-5
101
where this categories from a village total of 252. The occupational are the oilmen, washers,milbnen, caroccurs most conspicuously and potters.There is thus a close reXonship bevers, carpenters and familieswith two tween craftsother than textile manufacture have of weaverhouseholds residentmales;in contrast,only a quarter more than one residentadult male. concernconclusions It is alsopossibleto inferfromthe datacertain of inforabsence In the village. in the of inequality ing the nature of stocks or on the possession mationon incomes,or on landholding, of preciousmetals,the assetsthatcan be used in the presentcontext are cattle. While there exists little or no workon the placeof cattle ruraleconomyof India, it is almostcertainthat in the pre-colonial regionwould have been of the so-called those in the east Godavari Ongolebreed. By the nineteenthcentury,althoughthe productivity was low, they continuedto have a place of of these as milch-cattle great importancein the ruraleconomy;equally, the possessionof Two other functions was an importantdifferentiator. plough-cattle performedby these cattle made them quite crucialin an economy in trade: which was seekingto establishan expandedparticipation prized), wereparticularly (inwhichbuffaloes theiruseaspackanimals numberof and as breedingbulls. Thus the owner of a substantial sourceof income,andit is notsurprising cattlehada majorsubsidiary century,for to find in otherpartsof southernIndiain the eighteenth betweenlevel of wealthin generaland instance,a close correlation ownershipof cattlein particular.S? 71 possessed Of the 252 householdsin the villageof Golepallem, some cattle, the remaining 181 none. Moreover,61 of these 71 householdsaccount for the bulk of cattle held in the village as a whole,as TableS indicates.If one takesthe use of cattleas a measure of statusor wealth, it emergesthat not only was the villagehighly by occupationgroup and caste, but that a greatdeal differentiated existed within groups such as weavers,washers, of differentiation and even cultivators.Of 83 weaverhouseholds,only 34 merchants owned cattle; at one end of the spectrumis a Kaikkolahousehold one adultmale, one femaleand two children,possessed comprising and two calves, of eight cows, sixteen calves, two milch-buffaloes while at the other end of the spectrumwere 49 cattle-lessweaver in the households.While there does seem to be some relationship,
(Madrasn1947), inMadras Ivroblems 50 See, for instance, S. Y. Krishnaswami, Rural und the Socio-Economic pp. 186-9; on the eighteenth century, Mizushima, Nattxzr
(,hange.
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TABLE S
1692* IN GOLEPALLEM CATTLEOWNERSHIP
Occupation Cultivators Weavers Washers Oilmen Komattis Goldsmiths Milkmen Total
tS
8 34 2 4 8 4 1 61
82 40 16 3 3 7 151
oA7 46 16 12 11 6 91
ff
69 56 32 3 6 11 177
9 39
12
7 49
1 6 55
2 14
2 8 66
* Source:A.R.A., O.B., VOC. 1511, fos. 1135-42.
case of weavers,betweenhouseholdswith more than one resident adultmale and cattleownership,it can only remaintentative.Of 21 with morethanone adultmale,twelve(or 57 per weaverhouseholds housecent)own cattle,while only 21 per cent of the 62 single-male holds are similarlyfavoured.On the otherhand, thereseems to be betweenpossessionof a secondloom in whatsoever no relationship the householdand cattleownership. Again, using cattle as an index, it is possible to pin-pointthe amongotheroccuwealthyhouseholds presenceof someparticularly pationalcategories.Thus a certaingoldsmithhousehold(one adult male, two females,one child)ownedas manyas six oxen, fourcows, and two calves.A certain six calves, a buffalo,two plough-buffaloes washer household (with four adult males, two females and four childrenresident)owned ten oxen, ten cows and twentycalves with no cattlewhatsoever. to fourwasherhouseholds this in contrast persistseven when we Interestingly,this radicaldifferentiation turn to cultivatorhouseholds.Here, from a total of eleven, three owned no cattle, five were fairlywell endowedin this respect,and three were extremelywell off. One of these, headed by a certain Akkanna,comprisedthreeadultmen, two womenand no Kotapalli children;it owned twelve oxen, sixteen cows and fifteen calves, and four calves. four milch-buffaloes besidesfour plough-buffaloes, was the householdheaded by Kottagullapudi Equallyremarkable wherewe findresidentone maleadult,one femaleandfive Appanna,
103
children; the household possessedby wayof cattletwelveoxen, thirty cows, thirtycalvesand two plough-buffaloes. Before concludingthis section, I shall turn brieflyto the information availableon another village of the same region, namely Gondawaram. This was a far smallervillage,both in termsof cultivable land (135 acres to 413 in Golepallem)and population(91 households,a totalpopulation of 431 persons).The mostinteresting aspectof this village is its extremespecialization; of the total of 91 households,74 were designated"washers" those who washed, bleachedand starched cloth, oncewoven.Therewasa reasonforthis extremespecialization, for the village was locatedat the edge of a largetank, noted for its alkalinewater,whichwas important for the processingof raw, unbleachedcloth. The occupational and asset TABLE 6
GONDAWARAM IN 1692*
Occupation Weavers (Kaikkolas) Washers Cultivators Carvers Pariahs Total
3:? wcS : 14 74 1 1 1 91 15
oS 2 12 14
cS 4 8 12
, 7
15
20 20 37 14 107 113 117 75 2 2 7 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 132 137 162 92
4 12 16
20
20
* Source:A.R.A., O.B., VOC. 1511,fos. 1160-3,"Rolleen Staatder inwoonders binnens'CompCs dorp Gondewarom in de maantJuly Anno 1692sig met der woon onthoudende".
profileof Gondawaram is set out in Table 6. The high degree of specialization evident in the overwhelmingproportionof washers implies that the village serviced not only the cloth producedby weaversresidenttherein,but the produceof weaverselsewhere(for instance,say, Golepallem).The Dutch took cloth to Gondawaram fromeven as faras Draksharama, whichwas sometwo hoursdistant by road, to have it rashed, bleachedand prepared for packingin bales.51 It is not necessary to enterin this caseinto the detailsof inequality
51 Havart, Op- en Ondergang van Cormandel, iii, pp. 54-5.
as I have done with Golepallem: what obtainsthereequallyobtains here. The oxen and cattle enumerated in the table were owned by only two of the households, the asses and mules by nine washer households (whichwere,however,distinctfromthoseowning cattle). Incidentally, thoughthereare two householdsdesignated "hoovden derwassers' (or head-washers), thesearenot the ones. We mayalsonote thatthe washerhouseholds cattle-owning whichownedassesand mules probablydid so in orderto move cloth to and fromthe tank, and also quite possiblyfor the collectionand distribution of cloth to and from nearbyweavingcentres.
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The "snapshot"picture, as we have seen it capturedin the last section, relatesto the periodwhenthe textileindustry of the KrishnaGodavari region, as well as the commercial economythat extended further inland, was at its peak. The stagnation and declinethat set inthereafter has been discussedin quite explicittermsby Brennig, and more recentlyhinted at in a characteristically cautious fashion byArasaratnam.52 The key to the decline is seen by both these authors as the Mughal invasion and the confusion that Brennig has arguedfor a recoveryof sorts thereafter, followed. althoughhe notes that even after Mughal consolidation"the region's export trade never reachedthe levels of the early 1680s".53 The economic dislocation is sited by J. F. Richards,in his studyof the Golconda, in two phases:one in the late 1680s,and the Mughalsin othermore important phasefrom 1702 to 1704.54 In the latterphase, Richards has argued thatMaratha incursions curtailed overland tradeto Hyderabad, while an extended droughtand plague added to However, his evidencesuggeststhatthese difficulties problems. were far more severe in the interiorthan on the coast. In the presentstate of evidence, it seems safe to arguethat the period immediatelyafter 1690 was more one of stagnation than of precipitate decline. In a study of the Vizianagaram area, B. Hjelje has located the actual decline of the agrarianand manufacturing economy only fromthe 1740s,andit is possiblethatthis wasalsothe
Brennig, "Textile Trade of Seventeenth-Century Northern Coromandel", pp. 40-51; Arasaratnam,Merchants, C'ompanies andC'ommerce, pp. 151-2, 159-60. 53 Brennig, "Textile Trade of Seventeenth-CenturyNorthern Coromandel", p. 276. 54 Richards, ;tIughal Administration in (wolconda, pp. 220-3.
52
105
casefurthersouth, in the Krishna-Godavari region.55 For the period 1700to 1740figuresareavailable forDutchandEnglishexportsfrom Coromandel, the Dutch to Europeas well as to Asia, andthe English to Europealone. (See Graph3.) These suggestthe exporttradefrom Coromandel of the Companies was not expanding; thereis evidence too from the same periodthat the tradeof Asianmerchants was on the wane. Perhapsthe only personswhoseexporttradewas growing were the Englishprivatetradersoperatingfrom the area. Withinthis pictureof stagnation in the exportfromCoromandeln thereis furtherperceptible a shift fromprocurement in the northern partof the regionto more southerlyareas.This suggeststhat while Companyexportsfrom Coromandel as a whole stagnated,exports fromthe Krishna-Godavari andthe Warangal-Khammam areasactuallydeclined.The evidencefromthe Dutchfactories at Palakollu and Draksharama in the 1720sand 1730spresentsa picturein tune with this conclusion:thereare complaints thatweaversare scarce,orders cannot be met, and that it were best to concentrate on the areas furthersouth.56 In the last decadesof the eighteenth century,Dutch recordsfromPalakollu show this centreto be a shadowof its former self, housingperhaps a thirdof its 1682population.57 Thusbeforethe English East India Companyintroducedthe Permanent Zamindari Settlementin the area in 1802-4, the weaverpopulationhad been much reducedfromwhatobtaineda centuryearlier.The faminesof the early 1770sand the period1790-2mayalsohaveplayeda partin this process. Unfortunately, the earliestquantitative evidenceavailable on the weavingcommunityin the colonialperiodis in the 1820s,but since this was very soon afterthe beginningof the importof Britishmillcloth into India, it may still providea basisfor comparison with the late seventeenth-century situation.By this comparison,I intend to show that a decline in the textile industryof the areahad already takenplacebeforeBritishimportsmadea major impacton the region. This does not preclude,naturally, the possibility of a furtherdecline in the subsequentperiod. In the years 1824 to 1828 the number of looms operatingin Rajahmundry district(whichincludedboth east andwest Godavari)
55BenedicteHjelje,"Economic and SocialStructure of VillageSocietyin Coastal AndhraPradeshabout the Year 1800" (paperpresentedto conference on Indian Economicand SocialHistory,St. John'sCollege,Cambridge, 23-5 July 1975). 56 Arsip NasionalR.I., Jakarta, Patriasche Missiven, 1725-30,no. 73, fos. 9-17; ArsipNasional,Buitenland no. 150 (c), 1732. 57 ArsipNasionalR.I., Buitenland no. 150 (l), letters1, 17.
GRAPH3
'000 pieces
DUTCHAND ENGLISHEXPORTSFROMCORO
Dutch exports
T andits Coromande "TheDutchEastIndiaCompany DerivedfromS. Arasaratnam, * Source: Ind East English the and Asia of World Trading The Chaudhuri, N. K. (1966); cxxiii en Volkenkunde, 542-3.
107
wasas follows:1824,6,689; 1825,7,229; 1826, 12,031;1827, 11,934; 1828, 11,747.58 In the sameperiodthe Britishcollector of Rajahmundry districtsurveyedthe 34 villageswheretextileproduction in the area had been most important,and gatheredthat these contained 2,610 weaverhouseholdsand 3,026 looms. This providesthe basis for an instructivecomparison,for we have from 1682 a Dutch list of eighteen centres in east and west Godavari which suppliedthe Draksharama factory.From this list, it emergesthat therewere in these centresalone5,960 weaverhouseholdsoperating 7,530 looms. This figureis nearlytwo and a halftimesthe loomagein the 34 most activeproducing centresof the sameareain the period1824-8.Table TABLE 7
WEAVER HOUSEHOLDS AND LOOMS IN ANDHRA 1680s AND 1820s* 1680s Name of centre Palakollu Peddapuram Pithapuram/ Samalkota Oupada Dulla Mandapeta Angara Amalapuram Households 176 400 600 500 400 180 80 900 Looms ? 500 800 600 500 200 100 1200 1820s Households 150 203 97 167 129 180 134 45 Looms 256 238 102 200 130 210 168 118
*Source: Konrad Specker, Weberin Wettbewerb: Das Schiksaldes sudindischen Textilhandwerks im 19. Zahrhundert (Wiesbaden,1984), p. 272; Brennig, "Textile Producers and Production", p. 339.
7 providesa comparison of eight weaving-centres of the regionfor whichdataare available fromboththe 1680sand 1820s.Onlyone of these centresshows an increasein weavingactivityover the period (Angara);two have relativelystable weaverpopulations(Palakollu andMandapeta); andthe othersall register precipitate declines.This changeis all the more remarkable-it is worth stressingagainsince K. Specker'srecent study of weavingin nineteenthcentury southIndiaplacesthe majorphaseof de-industrialization anddecline in handicrafts afterthe mid-1820s.Thus there is a case to be made for a phenomenonwhich we may term "de-industrialization before de-industrialization" ! To what may we attributethis decline?Traditionally, sourcesof
58
Cf. Rao, "Stagnation and Decay", p 236.
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explanation havebeenpolitical anarchy in theaftermath of theMughal invasion(circa1690)or afterthe collapseof theAsafJahidispensation in coastalAndhra(circa1740).Betweenthese two years,in the halfcentury1690-1740,the twindeltasof the Krishna andGodavari were contestedby regionalpowersdependenton the Mughalstate.In the 1730s, for instance,RustamKhan, the Mughal-appointed governor of Rajahmundry, foughta seriesof campaigns to reducethe power of localHinduzamindars, and institutedsubstantial fiscalchangesas a consequence.After 1740Charlesde Bussy, the FrenchEastIndia Company's enterprising employee,soughtto createa territorial base for his Company in this region,and once againengagedin extensive conflictwith localelites.59Frenchcontrolwas short-lived, however, and was succeededby a combination of Britishofficialsand Hindu entrepreneurs, who continuedto dominatethe region until late in the century. These changes, accompaniedby periodic outbursts of conflict, may be thought to have disruptedearlierpatternsof consumption: for one thing, they tendedto disturbthe tradinglinks overlandbetween the region and the western Deccan (the areas aroundAurangabad and Bidar, for example);for another,they are likelyto havehada detrimental effecton consumption in the KrishnaGodavaxi area itself, in the small towns and centres which were organized aroundthe petty zamindarz courts.60 In additionto these factors,which are of utilityin explainingthe visible contraction of the eighteenthcentury, it may be useful to adducecertaineconomicfactorswhich explainthe stagnation that wasalreadyevidentat the closeof the seventeenth century.We have seenthat the growthof the textileindustryof the regionin the late sixteenthand seventeenthcenturieswas based on a sort of spatial division of labourandgrowingsub-regional specialization. The zones producing rice, indigo and cotton soon becamedistinctand complementary, as did the areasof weaverconcentration. However,by thesecond half of the seventeenth century,imports both of rice and, more importantly,of cotton had become crucial in the
59 Cf. C. A. Bayly,Indian Society andtheMaking of theBntishEmpire (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 55-7; also JeanDeloche, "Le Memoirede Moracin sur Macilipattinamu: untableau des conditions economiques et socialesdes provinces cotieres de l'Andhra au milieudu xviiicsiecle",Bulletin de l'Ecole Francaise d'Extreme-Orient, lxii (1975), pp.126-49. 60 Fora viewof lateeighteenth-century Indianpolitical economy whichstresses the crucial role of consumption links, see C. A. Bayly,Rulers,Townsmen andBazaars: North Indian Society in theAgeofBritish Expansion, 1770-1870 (Cambridge, 1983),pp. 201-11 passim.
109
sustenanceof the path of expansionof the economy. It is highly probable,then, that it was from these very sourcesthat the checks came. A rise in the price of cottonis perceptible fromthe thirdquarter of the seventeenthcenturyon. It is possiblethat therehad been an earlierincrease,betweenthe mid-1630s(whenrawcottonwas availablein Masulipatnam at 53 lbs. a pagoda) and about 1660,when the price had stabilizedat roughly40 lbs. a pagoda.However,Brennig has shown the existenceof a definiteupwardtrend in the price of TABLE 8
RAWCOTTONPRICESIN NORTH COROMANDEL 1660-1680 (in pagodas)* Price Price (per 100 lbs.) (per 100 lbs.) 1660 2.50 1674 4.00 1668 2.50 1675 4.08 1669 2.63 1676 4.54 1670 2.63 1677 3.84 1671 2.63 1678 4.35 1672 3.12 1679 4.54 1673 3.84 1680 4.35 * Source:Brennig,"TextileProducers and Production", Table 1, p. 339.
cotton from the late 1660s. (See Table 8.) Arasaratnam, moreover, has arguedthat the periodafter 1710 saw a still furtherrise in raw cottonprices,andthat"afurther steepriseoccurred fromabout1725 and went on increasingyear by year''.61 The other item whose price is likely to have had an impacton weavers,and hence on the costs of textiles(throughthe producers' cost of living), is rice. But, as I have shown elsewhere,there is no evidenceto supportthe hypothesisof an increasein the priceof rice (measuredin pagodas)in the Masulipatnam region for the period 1610 to 1650.62For the subsequentperiod, from roughly 1660 to 1680,Brennigexamines the evidenceforthe sameareaandconcludes that"the priceof rice in termsof gold remained stablein this period of increasingtrade".63 This is in markedcontrastto what seems to occur after 1680 if we are to follow Arasaratnam. He statesthat "fromthe 1680s is noted the beginningof a steadyincreasein the priceof rice in northCoromandel, attributable to continuous failing
Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies andCommerce, pp. 337-9. See Subrahmanyam, PoliticalEconomy of Commerce, pp. 351-2. 63 Brennig,"TextileTradeof Seventeenth-Century NorthernCoromandel", pp. 206-9.
61 62
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harvests,wars and politicalinstability".64 In the absenceof a price series presentedin its support,this assertionremainsat presentan unverifiable one. But thereis certainly circumstantial evidenceof an increasein the price of rice in the courseof the eighteenthcentury, for otherwiseit is difficultto explainhow large-scale importsfrom Arakaninto the region(whichwere certainlynot practicable in the earlyeighteenthcentury)had becomea sourceof profitfor traders a centurylater.65 In sum then, my argumentruns as follows. The growthof rural industryand commercial agriculture in the Krishna-Godavari deltas andlowervalleysis a striking caseof pre-modern economic expansion accompanied by a growingspatialdivisionof activity.The resultof thisprocessis to producein theseareasby the closeof the seventeenth centuryan economyof producing centres,underpinned by a marketing network,whereinimports,exportsand locallytradedgoods all founda place.66 This resulted,on the one hand, in the creation of a set of intermediate centresof a mixedcharacter, whoseoccupational profilesdifferedconsiderably fromone another a farcry fromthe stereotype of a "typical" village,with its characteristic composition; on the otherhand,it also meantthatconsiderable economicdifferentiation occurredwithin the centresof production.While the caste hierarchymay provide a rough and ready first approximation of gainers and losers the dominantagricultural caste as gainers, untouchables as devoid of accessto gains it does not adequately emphasize how withineachcasteandoccupational group,wealthand incomecame to be unequallydistributed. Sucha processcould, however,proceedonly so far, becauseof the constraints set by the extent of spatialspecialization especially giventhe stateof long-distance transport in peninsular India.As the ruralindustryof the regiongrew increasingly dependenton distant supplies of cottonandrice, broughteitheroverlandor by waterfrom outsidethe area, this broughtwith it a set of constraints. The first checkswere appliedthroughthe rise in the priceof rawcotton,and this had become a serious phenomenonby the late seventeenth century.Subsequently,the price of food which is to say rice
Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies andCommerce, p. 336. Rao, "Stagnation and Decay",p. 231; KonradSpecker,Weber im Wettbewerb: Das Schiksal dessudindischen Textilhandwerks im 19. 3tahrhunderts (Wiesbaden, 1984). 66 It shouldbe clarified that my intentionis not to deny the existenceof tradeto facilitate surplusextraction by the statenor, for thatmatter,of non-market exchange relations. However,since these are the relationships nonnally stressedin studiesof pre-colonial India, I have chosento focus insteadon free-market exchange.
64 65
lll
probablyalso rose in the region, as a resultof growingdependence on importsby water.It is possibleto attribute the stagnation of rural industry in the regionaftera longphaseof growthto this combination of factors.To explainthe perceptible decline of theeighteenth century, accompanied by the processthathasherebeentermed"de-industrialization before de-industrialization", this argumentmay seem less than adequate. Two additionalexplanationshence present themselves.First,it is possiblethatthe eighteenth century sawa disruption in consumptionpatterns,in part as a consequenceof the changes wroughtunderfirstde Bussy, andlaterBritishandIndianentrepreneursoperating undertheumbrella of the EnglishEastIndiaCompany. Secondly,giventhe factthatDutch lettersfromthe regionin the late eighteenthcenturycomplainunceasingly of the failureof producers to meetdemandeven when it existed,one maysuggestthatthe latter half of the eighteenthcenturysaw a demographic downturnin the area(of which the most dramatic causesare the faminesof the early 1770sand early 1790s).This mayin turnhaveled to a declineof the weavingpopulation, aswellas a shiftto agriculture. A finalconclusion on the latterquestionawaitsfirmdemographic evidence.Finally,the secondquarterof the nineteenthcenturyseems to havewitnesseda furthercontraction in manufacture, partlyaccounted for in termsof the importation of mill-cloth,and partlydue to the conditions in the agrarian economyof the period.Not until the 1850sdid the process of recoveryin the regionbegin. But this recoverywas basedon the expansionof the agrarianeconomy, and was not accompanied by equallypositivechangesin ruralmanufacture.67 VI In his important essaycited at the outsetof this article,FrankPerlin examined,in the contextof certainchangesin the economyof India in the sixteenthto the eighteenth centuries,the utilityof the concept of "proto-industrialization". While a few of the featuresof protoindustrialization do seem relevant in the Indiancase the regionas thelocusof productive activity andthesymbiosis between commercial agricultureand manufacturebeing two examples these seem phenomena of far too generala character for one to forcethe Indian instancesinto the strait-jacket of "proto-industry". Indeed,this was Perlin'sown conclusion for althoughbeginninghis essaywith the intention of "applyinga modified form [of the concept] to pre67
Rao, "Stagnation and Decay";Specker,Weber im Wettbewerb, pp.93-112.
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PAST AND PRESENT
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colonialIndia",he proceeded to replace it successively withthe terms "commercial manufacture" andthe "broader developmental concept . . . of proto-capitalism". His reasonsfor the rejectionof the term "proto-industrialization" rested above all on what he termed its "evolutionist aspect. . . [in] the slottingof ruralindustries into what is essentiallya sequence of notionallydevelopmental stages".68 A moreobviousproblemwith the use of the term"proto-industrialization"in the Indiancontext- andonewhichseemsto escapePerlin is that ruralindustryin the periodwas by and largenot carriedon by peasant producers on a part-time basis.In the caseof the KrishnaGodavariregion, evidence in this respect is perfectlyclear: while some weaver householdsmay have held land and rented it out, they were not themselves cultivators.69 Since the whole "protoindustrialization" literature dependsto a largeextenton the notion of manufacture as an activitythat is conducted,in the initialphase, in the interstices of the annualagrarian labourcycle,we mayquestion its applicability on this specificground,besidesthe broader objection raised by Perlin to use of "proto-industrialization" per se in any context. 70 The alternative suggestedby Perlin, namely"proto-capitalism", derivesfroma notionof commercial production, whetherin agriculture or manufacture, as characterized by a growingtendencyfor mercantile capitalto gaincontroloverthe meansof production. This processis seen as largelyemergentthrougha debt-trap mechanism: thus, for Perlin, "industrial producers were increasingly caughtup in advancepaymentsystems"alreadyin the seventeenth century,a process further accentuatedby "a considerableextension of the
68 Perlin, "Proto-Industrialization and Pre-Colonial SouthAsia",pp. 42-3passim. Anextensivecritical literature now existson the subject,whichpaucity of spacedoes not permit me to survey. However, Perlin'sessay providesan extensiveset of references; see also Perlin'sexchangewith GeoffEley, Economy andSociety,xiii-xv (1984-6),for bibliographical material. 69 A.R.A., O.B., VOC. 151 1, fos. 1144, 1147-8passim.See also Ramaswamy, Textiles andWeavers, pp. 48-52,on weaver land-holding. As lateas the 1940sweaving inAndhraand Tamilnadu was almostwhollya full-timeoccupation; thus see B. V. Narayanaswami Naidu, Report of the Courtof EnquityintoLabour Conditions in the Handloom Industry (Madras,1948),p. 6: "Ithaslongbeenbelievedthatweaving may bepursued as a subsidiary occupation; it is an erroneous belief,exceptfora verysmall number of scheduled-caste weaversin certainplaceswho mainlypursueagriculture butweavein the off-season.Thus, it may be statedas a broadtruththathandloom weaving [in MadrasPresidency] is a full-timeoccupation". Contrast this to Perlin, "Proto-Industrialization and Pre-Colonial SouthAsia", pp. 44, 57-8. 70 Cf. Mendels,"Proto-Industrialization", pp. 241-61;SamuelP. S. Ho, "Protoindustrialisation, protofabriques et desindustrialisation: un analyseeconomique", Annales E.S.C., xxxix (1984), pp. 882-95.
113
advance systemin the eighteenth century" .71Thisis in parta modified versionof a themefavoured by the "Sovietschool"of writerson the pre-colonial Indianeconomy(Chicherov, Surendra Gopal),who had suggested that nascent capitalismexisted in India on the eve of colonialconquest,andwouldhaveemerged through one of the routes suggestedby Marx,namelythe rise of the capitalist fromoutsidethe narrowsphereof production.72 In an earlyattackon this view, IrfanHabibresorted to scriptural citation namelyMarx's ownremark that"theindependent developmentof Merchant Capital stands. . . in aninverseratioto the general economicdevelopment of society" in orderto deny the validityof this formulation.73 Since, however,this particular remarkof Marx was made in the context of a discussionof the carryingtrade of merchants based in the Italiancity-states,it does not seem wholly apposite in the presentcontext.In the European case, the the place of commercialimpulses ("the rise of the debateon market")as an independentfactor behind the growth of industrialcapitalism continues, focusingcentrallyon the "world-systems" schoolof Immanuel Wallersteinand others.74Though distancinghimself from thisschoolof thoughtin his writings,the central concernof Perlin's 1983 essay(whichhas servedin manysensesas a sounding-board for the presentstudy)remains the "failure" of Indiato developindustrial capitalism in the eighteenthand nineteenthcenturies, approached through preciselysucha commercialization perspective. The reversal of earliercommercial patternsin the late eighteenthand earlynineteenth centuries is thus seen as central in leading from "protocapitalism" to "de-industrialization". Withoutdenyingthe qualitative importance of the impactof colonial rule on early nineteenth-century India, the presentstudy has suggested that other constraints often checkedthe development of commercial manufacture, evenin thepre-colonial period.Thisshould
71 Perlin, "Proto-Industrialization and Pre-Colonial South Asia", pp. 85-6; this assertion, unencumbered by a substantive frameworkof evidence, is to be encountered also in the writings of S. Arasaratnam and K. N. Chaudhuri, cited in nn. 4 and 9 above. 72 A. I. Chicherov, Irzdia: Economic Development znthe16th-18th Centunes: Outline History of Crafts and Trade (Moscow, 1971); Surendra Gopal, Commerce andCrafts in (wudarat, 16thand17thC'enturees (New Delhi, 1975). 73 Irfan Habib, "Banking in Mughal India", C'ontributions to IndianEcon.Hist., i (1960), p. 20, citing Marx, Capital,iii, p. 260 (Moscow edn., pp. 327-8). 74 See, for example, Robert Brenner, "Dobb on the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism", C'ambridge Tl.Economics, ii (1978); also SanjaySubrahmanyam," 'WorldEconomies' and South Asia, 1600-1750: A Skeptical Note", Revieuw, xii (1989).
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serveto stressthatdetailedregionalstudiesarea sinequanonfor an understanding of the more generalprocessof changein the South Asian economy,and that "theory" howeverboldlyconceived can never be separated from "practice". One of the significant developments over the last decadeor so in the historiography of severalpartsof Asia has been the attemptto understand at a generallevel formsof pre-modern economicgrowth. It has been possiblein some cases (as with Japanin the eighteenth century) to builddirectcausallinksbetweensuchphasesof expansion and later moderneconomicgrowth.75 However,such an approach does not prove fruitfulin other cases, as is noted in severalrecent studiesof Chinaand South-East Asia. If one examinessuch casesas south-eastern Chinain the eighteenthcenturyor Ambonin eastern Indonesiain the seventeenthcentury,and comparesthem with the case at hand, severalimportant parallels emerge.76 All thesecasesof expansionoccurin the contextof expanding external commerce,yet it would be simplisticto see them merely as cases of"export-led growth"which are snuffedout when autonomous externaldemand ceasesto grow.Instead,in eachof thesecases,onewitnesses a complex interaction betweenautochthonous sourcesof growth,processesof spatialdifferentation, and the producingand consumingeconomy, all within the context of a period (from 1500 to 1750) broadly characterized by growingtrade.The core of these experiences can, however,neverbe graspedunlessone understands not througha counter-factual exercise, but by examiningthe actual processesat hand theirwell-spring,and also the natureof theirlimits.
Delhi School ofEconomics
Sanjay Subrahmanyam
75 Cf. ThomasC. Smith, "Pre-Modern Economic Growth: Japanand the West", Past andPresent, no. 60 (Aug. 1973),pp. 127-60. 76 See, for example, Susan Naquin and Evelyn Rawski, Chinese Societyin the Eighteenth Century (New Haven, 1987);G. J. Knapp,Kruidnagelen en Christenen: De VOCende bevolking vanAmbon, 1656-1696 (Dordrecht, 1987).

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The Past and Present Society

RURAL INDUSTRY AGRICULTURE AND COMMERCIAL IN LATE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY INDIA SOUTH-EASTERN

IN INDIA RURAL INDUSTRY AND AGRICULTURE

PAST AND PRESENT

PAST AND PRESENT

IN INDIA RURAL INDUSTRY AND AGRICULTURE

PAST AND PRESENT

DUTCH EXPORTS FROM COROMANDEL 1 '000 florins 3,000

*Source: Sanjay Subrahmanyam, TheIvolitical Economy of Commerce: Southern Ind

PAST AND PRESENT

PoliticalEconomy of C'ommerce, p. 181. One rial= 2.5 * Source:Subrahmanyam, florins.

RURAL INDUSTRY AND AGRICULTURE IN INDIA

PAST AND PRESENT

RURAL INDUSTRY AND AGRICULTURE IN INDIA

PAST AND PRESENT

IN INDIA RURAL INDUSTRY AND AGRICULTURE

PAST AND PRESENT

RURAL INDUSTRY AND AGRICULTURE IN INDIA

PAST AND PRESENT

RURAL INDUSTRY AND AGRICULTURE IN INDIA

PAST AND PRESENT

RURAL INDUSTRY AND AGRICULTURE IN INDIA

PAST AND PRESENT

RURAL INDUSTRY AND AGRICULTURE IN INDIA

PAST AND PRESENT

RURAL INDUSTRY AND AGRICULTURE IN INDIA

THE HOUSEHOLDS OF GOLEPALLEM 1692

Categorv Weax ers Kaikkolas Salis Devangas

IN INDIA RURAL INDUSTRY AND AGRICULTURE

PAST AND PRESENT

Occupation Cultivators Weavers Washers Oilmen Komattis Goldsmiths Milkmen Total

* Source:A.R.A., O.B., VOC. 1511, fos. 1135-42.

RURAL INDUSTRY AND AGRICULTURE IN INDIA

Occupation Weavers (Kaikkolas) Washers Cultivators Carvers Pariahs Total

20 20 37 14 107 113 117 75 2 2 7 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 132 137 162 92

PAST AND PRESENT

RURAL INDUSTRY AND AGRICULTURE IN INDIA

RURAL INDUSTRY AND AGRICULTURE IN INDIA

Cf. Rao, "Stagnation and Decay", p 236.

PAST AND PRESENT

RURAL INDUSTRY AND AGRICULTURE IN INDIA

PAST AND PRESENT

RURAL INDUSTRY AND AGRICULTURE IN INDIA

Rao, "Stagnation and Decay";Specker,Weber im Wettbewerb, pp.93-112.

PAST AND PRESENT

RURAL INDUSTRY AND AGRICULTURE IN INDIA

PAST AND PRESENT

Delhi School ofEconomics

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