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A Tribute to Dharma Kumar (1928-2001)

Author(s): Sanjay Subrahmanyam


Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 36, No. 45 (Nov. 10-16, 2001), pp. 4251+4253-4254
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
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A Tribute to Dharma
Kumar
(1928-2001)

Thebookestablished,quitesimply,that
"itwas notthecase thata classof landless
labourerswas whollycreated
agricultural
duringthe Britishperiodby the impoverishmentof the peasantproprietorand
thevillagecraftsmen".
Theconclusionwas
furthermore
posed as an explicitcritique
of a numberof "GoldenAge descriptions"
of the agrariansituationbefore colonial
rule,whetherfromthe pensof A R Desai
and Rajni Palme Dutt, or (most to the
point) that of SurendraJ Patel in his

DharmaKumarwas a controversialfigure, one whose role it was


to call into question the comfortableviews of a series of established'
orthodoxies.At times in doing so she could rub even close friends
the wrong way. But no one who studied with her will forget her
generosity(whetherintellectualor personal) and the wide
Agricultural Labourers in Modem India
and Pakistan (Bombay, 1952).
intellectualhorizonsshe opened up. In an academic world where
The work,writtenin a clear and spare
petty intriguesare the rule, there was nothing in the least small
style
vergingat timeson dryness(though
about Dharma Kumar.
spicedwith the periodicsarcasticremark
SANJAY SUBRAHMANYAM

rT

his brief essay is intended to look

back on the work of one of 20thcenturyIndia's majoreconomic historians, DharmaKumar,who died in New
Delhi on October 19, 2001 at the age of
73, after an extended illness. It is written
from the perspective of someone who was
a student, then a doctoral student, and
finally a colleague of Dharma Kumar,and
who had the privilege of participating in
a number of activities with her, whether
in the Delhi School of Economics or elsewhere. It does not claim to be objective,
for the degree of proximity that existed
between the two of us does not facilitate
objectivity. I hence hope readers will
forgive the personal tone that will creep
into even the relatively academic discussion of the lines that follow; a far more
detailed personal reflection has been
publishedby RamachandraGuha,to which
I refer interested readers ('The Last Liberal', The Hindu, Magazine Section,
November 4, 2001).
DharmaKumarwas trainedas an economist in Bombay and Cambridge in the
1940s and early 1950s, and after a short
career in the Reserve Bank of India and
othergovernment agencies, decided in her
mid-thirtiesto pursue an academic career
in economic history. This move from
economics to economic history was less
unusual in the 1960s and 1970s than it has
become subsequently, and the fact of
having a training in economics decidedly
influenced the manner in which Dharma
conceived of economic history. Her approach was very problem-oriented, with
each exercise being conceived of as an
attemptto solve a problem that was posed
(rightly or wrongly) in the historiography.

This characteristic was evident already in


herfirst (andalso best known) work, which
appeared in 1965 from Cambridge University Press under the title Land and
Caste in South India: Agricultural Labour
in the Madras Presidency during the
Nineteenth Century. This was the text of
a doctoral dissertation from Cambridge
which had itself had a somewhat stormy
history; referred for changes a first time
by a sceptical examiner (the conflict seems
to have been between the historian's and
the economist's view of how to write a
thesis), the resubmitted thesis then won
the Ellen MacArthur Prize for the best
work in economic history of the year at
Cambridge University.
Land and Caste is a relatively slim work
at some 210 pages. It is divided in two
parts, the first somewhat more descriptive
and institutional in orientation, and the
second more closely oriented to an examination of statistical material.The problem
that was addressed was the following: by
the mid-20th century a large group of
landless labourersexisted in India without
any doubt (constituting as much as onefourth of the agrarianworking force). But
was this group entirely created during the
period of colonial rule? Or had it already
existed in some form at the eve of colonial
rule? If the latter,then what modifications
had this group undergone in the period of
colonial rule? One of the major tasks that
the study set itself therefore was to estimate the absolute and relative size of the
landless agricultural workforce in
Madras Presidency at the beginning of the
19th century. This was a period, it should
be recalled, for which regular Census of
India data did not exist, and so inference
rather than direct observation had to
be used.

Economicand PoliticalWeekly November 10, 2001

in thefootnote),establishedDharmaas an
alternativevoicein a debatethat
important
was largely dominatedat that point by
Marxistandnationalisthistorians.Inview
of the fact thatit literallydemolishedthe
canonicalposition that S J Patel represented,LandandCastewasnaturally
badly
receivedin manycircles,andits position
often misrepresentedas statingthat"the
class of agriculturallabourerswas not
affectedbycolonialrule".Besidesitsmajor
conclusion,I stillfindthebookinvaluable
todayfor its carefulworkingthrougha set
of official dataon emigration,wages and
- above all - for its pioneering use of pre-

Censusstatisticaldata.Of laterhistorians
of earlycolonialsouthIndiarelativelyfew
scholarshave followed this lead, distinguished exceptions including David
Luddenand TsukasaMizushima.
It is ironic,but not entirelysurprising,
that the most thoroughgoingcritiqueof
Land and Caste may be found not from

anotherauthor,butfromDharmaherself,
in her 30-pageintroductionto the reprint
(which appearedin 1992 from Manohar
Publishersin New Delhi).Here,reflecting
on the book after a gap of a quartercentury, she noted a numberof weaknesses in its construction:"its complete
relianceon official records",the neglect
of theprocessof "theconversionof tribals
intountouchablesandbondedlabourers",
an excessivelystrongassociationof caste
and occupation, and so on. Still, she
concluded(and this view seems to me
perfectlydefensible),thatthe "mainconclusions of the work still held". These
were as follows: "Membersof certain
castes were by and large agricultural
labourersat the outsetof Britishrule;this
connection enables us to estimate the
minimumstrengthof agricultural
labourers
then,andtheestimateshowsthatthegroup
4251

was sizeable so that it cannot be held that


landless labour was virtually created by
British rule" (reprint, p xxxvii).
After a brief furtherstint as a consultant
economist at the Indian Council for World
Affairs (which saw the publication of a
minor work by her on economic relations
between the EEC and India), Dharma
Kumar became established as the major
economic historian at the Delhi School of
Economics from the turn of the 1970s on.
It was an association that continued to
1993 and her retirement from the Delhi
School. In institutional terms, the Delhi
School was in these years something of an
oddity, as the sole economics department
in the countrywith a major investment in
economic history. In the initial years of
Dharma's involvement with the Delhi
School (where she had, incidentally,
never studied or taken any degrees), the
dominant figure was that of Tapan
Raychaudhuri. After his departure to
Oxford, the group of economic historians
was centred on Dharma, Om Prakash and
J Krishnamurty.Subsequently,in the 1980s,
OmkarGoswami worked there briefly on
his returnfrom Oxford; Ijoined the faculty
in 1983 as Research Associate; and G
Balachandranbegan to teach there in 1989,
in the last years of Dharma's stint at the
Delhi School.
Dharma's influence in the Delhi School
was considerable,even though her success
as a lecturer was limited (as she herself
admitted in a disarming interview to the
Dutch magazine, Itinerario in the late
1980s). The large classroom or lecture
theatrewas neverherstrongpoint;she came
across rather better in a small group,
conductinga discussion in a seminarformat
ratherthan presenting a structuredlecture
over an hour. Her students from the 1970s
and 1980s, who ranthe gamut from Omkar
Goswami, Mihir Shah and Ramachandra
Guhato the presentauthor,A Joseph James
and Jaivir Singh, would probably remember her more for her capacity to open up
new worlds (with her exciting if at times
disorganised bibliographies), than for her
instilling us with a fixed ideology or viewpoint. Dharma was also particularly good
at raising funds for students - whether the
Sri Ram Travelling Fellowships for students in the summer, or more substantial
sums of money such as thatwhich I needed
for my archival work in the Netherlands.
It is particularlyapposite therefore that a
doctoral fellowship will be created in her
nameat the Delhi School in the near future
by her family.
Economic and Political Weekly

Inthislongassociationof nearlyaquartercenturywiththeDelhiSchoolof Economics, severalphasesarevisiblein Dharma's


work. The 1970s were for the most part
occupied,so faras I cangather,withwork

But the light editorial touch thatone sees


in general in the CEHI was characteristic
of Dharma's views of what an editor's real
function was. In the 1970s and 1980s, this
is also clear in the functioning of the Indian
on the Cambridge Economic History of Economic and Social History Review,
India,of whichDharmaandRaychaudhuri which she felt more passionately about in
were the general editors, and of which many respects than the Cambridge EcoDharma eventually edited the second nomic History of India. Early on in my
volume (in collaborationwith Meghnad association with the journal, she explained
Desai).Theprojectwasa massiveone,and her principles: the need to have at least one
which Dharmalatercommentedcost her Indian (or south Asian) author in every
an enormousamountof effortnot merely issue, the need for careful refereeing, the
in terms of her own contributions(two crucial importance-of a reputation for
chapterson south India,and one on the impartiality. Further, if an essay had an
fiscal system),but in orderto coordinate important idea in it, she was prepared to
and revise the chaptersof others.It was devote hours and even sometimes days to
a projectthatsawtheparticipation
of many improving its style of presentation, and
of the major-economichistoriansof the form. In spite of some angry missives from
period - from Eric Stokes and Benoy would-be authors, the fact that the journal
Chaudhuri, to Hiroshi Fukazawa, J published Amiya Bagchi, Irfan Habib and
and TapanRaychaudhuri. David Arnold, as much as Alan Heston or
Krishnamurty
Buta numberof exclusionsandinclusions Burton Stein, is a sign that despite accuwere also the objectof controversyeven sations that Dharma held to this or that
before the work was published,and this ideological position, her personal views
controversycontinuedfrom 1983 (when were by and large kept separatefrom those
the workeventuallyappeared)to the late of thejournal. This was the key to Dharma,
1980s.The violenceof the debatesseems who was temperamentallynot- in my view
oddviewedfromtheperspectiveof today. at least - always inclined to be a liberal
The accusationswere often predictable in the full sense, and who had to struggle
ones: that the work represented an hard with herself to emerge finally as one.
'apologistic'visionof Britishrule,thatthe I take her struggle as a lesson to others (the
bestknownauthoritieson certainsubjects present authorincluded) who are naturally
hadbeensetasideinfavourof moreobscure intolerant, and must curb this intellectual
authors,and so on. Thoughthe work is intolerance in the interests of preserving
clearlyof quiteunevenquality,it is unclear a viable intellectual community.
to me thatthereis a coherentideological
The essays Dharma wrote in the 1970s
kind
that
of
from
and
1980s bear testimony to this struggle.
any
agenda
emerges
readingit. Somechaptersclearlystandout Some 15 of them were eventually pubfor me, includingseveralon the regional lished by Oxford University Press in 1998
economiesand agrarianissues, those on under the title Colonialism, Private Propdemographyand occupationalstructure, erty and the State, and they reveal both
and also the chapterthatDharmaherself her intellectual strengths and weaknesses.
wrote somewhat in extremis (when a Probably the best known of these essays
contributorlet her down) on the fiscal examines relative inequalities in landholdsystem.At anyrate,anyintelligentreader ing in MadrasPresidency between the midcan see thatthe views of MorrisD Morris 19th and mid-20th centuries, and appeared
or Alan Heston are clearly somewhat in the IESHR in the mid-1970s, to be
different from those of Sabyasachi widely imitated by other authors in the
Bhattacharyaor Benoy Chaudhuri;the years that followed. The general thrust of
inclusionof S Sivasubramoniam
or Chris this essay, as indeed of a numberof others,
Bayly among the authorsmay have im- was to be systematically sceptical in reprovedtheaveragequalityof thechapters, lation to the facile received wisdom, which
butI am unsurethatthe thrustof the work Dharma usually identified with nationalwouldhavebeenradicallyaltered.Indeed, ist-Marxist historiography. Other essays,
a possible reproachthat can be directed comparing the economic effects of British
againstthe work is thata strongenough rule in India with Dutch rule in Indonesia,
editorialhandis notvisible.Wherea strong were less successful, a sign of the fact that
editorial hand is visible (such as in Dharma's erudition often could not keep
Fukazawa'schapteron westernIndia),the pace with her intellectual ambitions. She
admitted as much in a disarming last
chapteris clearly far the betterfor it.

November 10, 2001

4253

sentenceto the introductionin the reprint the groundwas less remarkable.In some
respects,thismaybebecausesheremained
the agriculturallabourerawaits its histo- trueto herinitialtrainingas aneconomist.
rian,withsensitivity,imagination,andfar Thisgave hera numberof articlesof faith,
betterlinguisticskills than I possess".
including a strongly positive view of
This problemis also visible in an essay (thoughnot a blindbelief in) the market,
which Dharmawrote and discussed at and of the logic of individualrationality.
intheearly1980s, I can recallseveraldebateson this in the
severaloralpresentations
namely, on propertyrights in medieval early 1980s, with RaajSah and our own
southIndia(the essay appearedin Com- colleague at the Delhi School, Kaushik
parative Studies in Society and History, Basu; Dharmamay also have discussed
1985).Dharma'sattemptto cut througha these issues with George Akerlof, with
Gordianknotby propos- whom she was personally acquainted.
historiographical
the
of full privateproperty Reviewingthelastcollectionof Dharma's
existence
ing
in medievalsouth Indiaraised far more essays, DavidLuddenspokeof "theecoproblemsthanshe had anticipated.What nomist's analyticalbite,marketorientation
andto thiswe
was the largercontext, whetherlegal or andempiricalcommitment",
withinwhich such prop- mayaddadistrustforverbiage,anda sense
communitarian,
ertycouldhave existed?While her sharp that a no-nonsense approachincluded
semanticcritiqueof those who used the paringdown a text to a bareminimumof
catch-allterm'landcontroller'was on the words. Again, this was the economist's
mark,thealternativethatwasproposedleft aestheticratherthanthatof the historian;
manyreaderssceptical.Here,as in another Dharmaliked to recounthow her superof herlateressays, on servicesin Madras visor Jack Gallagherin Cambridgehad
Presidency,one could see that Dharma criticisedherthesisforits'Tamilterseness".
was at herbest arguingagainsta position
The readerof the precedingparagraphs
diverse
her
cahave understood(even if he or she
would
evidence;
by marshalling
pacityto constructa positivepicturefrom did notknowDharmaKumar),thatwe are
of Land and Caste: "The mental world of

dealing with a controversialfigure, one


whose role it was to call into questionthe
comfortableviews of a series of establishedorthodoxies.At times,in so doing,
shecouldrubevenclose friendsthewrong
way, as happenedwhenshe intervenedon
the subjectof amniocentesisandselective
abortion.Indeed,mostof us whoknewher
well had a stormyrelationshipwith her;
but fortunately,the ruptureswere rarely
permanentones. Side by side with irreverenceanda devastatingsense of humour
was a capacityto takeumbrage,especially
if she felt herprofessionalreputationwas
beingcriticised.Perhapsthiswastheresult
of coming to academicslate, or perhaps
the resultof constantattacksthatshe had
to face in the 1970sand 1980s.Butno one
who studiedwith her will forgethergenerosity(whetherintellectualor personal),
andthewideintellectualhorizons(shewas
the firstto introduceme to the writingsof
FernandBraudel,TheodoreZeldin,anda
hostof others- includingDavidShulman!)
she opened up. In an academic world
where petty intriguesare the rule, there
wasnothingintheleastsmallaboutDharma
Kumar.13

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