In this volume, three articles on each section: ancient, medieval and modern India have been included. The articles show evolution of certain institutions through the ages. Thus, the section on ancient India begins with an appraisal of early Indian feudalism which was still based on status and servitude in the land system of ancient India. The transition to contract was retarded by religion, caste and culture in such a way that Marx was constrained to call it Asiatic Mode of Production. Dipankar Basu delves into that problem.
Rita Chaudhuri traces the link between feudalism and formation of State and excavates the roots of oriental despotism based on revenues for defence and irrigation.
Anil Kumar goes to the next stage of urbanization in ancient India which sprouted from trade and trade routes. The legendary handicrafts not only found internal market but also international marts. The non-agricultural pursuits led to village fairs and market towns around which urbanization evolved and spread. There was town planning and architecture with urban facilities. The merchant classes came to play a significant role in social and economic transformation. But urbanization had a zigzag course alternating with rise and fall due to natural and man-made causes of war and destruction.
In the second section, Ranjit Sen probes imperial decline and fall due to personal incompetence and institutional decay. In any case, any vast empire has its own limitations which results in its collapse. It is inevitable.
Rila Mukherjee analyses the character of the state and polity which was essentially a despotism but had institutional checks. The courts became a plaything of the nobility and their scramble for jagirs. As long as the army was in the payroll of the government, the state would remain sovereign and absolute but its feudalization eroded state authority. The polity became hierarchical and a burden on the primary producers. This led to unrest at the top and the bottom. It was a fractured central state and polity or alternatively gave birth to segmented states as in the south.
Aniruddha Ray, switches to trade and commerce leading to urbanization in medieval India. It is not true that the Indian villagers did not go to market and merchants did not use the caravan routes.
The great caravan routes are charted in Irfan Habib's Atlas of Mughal India particularly from Benaras to Malwa and Surat. The whole list of merchants and merchandise are available in foreign accounts. Along these routes, towns grew up with caravanaserais. The medieval ports like Surat gradually yielded place to the rising port of Bombay. The Portuguese, the Dutch, the French and the British took their turn to penetrate the Indian market. The Mughals unwittingly tried to play off one against the other and also the Indian princes bringing calamity to themselves. Gunpowder and solidarity won laurels for the foreigners. But urbanization was rapid and threw up Seths and Shroffs who emerged as a powerful middle class upsetting feudal structure. It led not merely to a semi-feudal, semi-capitalist structure but without blinkers, one would see a positive transition as seen by Moreland and Jagadish Narayan Sarkar or Russian scholars like Chicherov and Pavlov.
In the section on Modern India we have Ranjit Sen again talking about urbanization in colonial India which he termed as stagnant with little civic amenities. But there were seeds of improvement which led up to the present metropolises. Historical sense should prevail over ideological obsession.
Ranjan Chakrabarti succinctly argues that the ecological environment was not just a scenario of colonial plunder. There were silver linings of forest management, comprehensive manuals and rules and the steel framework of administration to conjure with. If there was deforestation and dessication on the one hand to extract timber, there was also afforestation and recreation of forest.
Nirban Basu toes the classical line of class struggle to interpret the labour movement in India. Economics jostle side by side with political consciousness and taste of freedom. There was class in itself if not a class for itself. The religious and social explosions have led many to argue that there was no class formation as such. There was an autonomous community instead. But this semantic between class and community disappear if cross-cultural solidarity of labouring men is deciphered as done by Parimal Ghosh.
In writing these pieces all the contributors have faithfully reviewed the published works in their respective fields and underscored the leading trends. In the process, it has become a rich fare of historiography.
Hindu (930)
Agriculture (123)
Ancient (1099)
Archaeology (792)
Architecture (563)
Art & Culture (919)
Biography (722)
Buddhist (547)
Cookery (166)
Emperor & Queen (574)
Islam (245)
Jainism (320)
Literary (888)
Mahatma Gandhi (381)
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