India's Industrialization 1850-1947: De-Industrialization and the Economy

'De-Industrialization', Industrialization and the Indian Economy, c.
1850-1947
Author(s): Colin Simmons
Source: Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 19, No. 3, Special Issue: Papers Presented at the Conference
on Indian Economic and Social History, Cambridge University, April 1984 (1985), pp. 593-622
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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Modern Asian Studies, 19, 3 (I985), pp. 593-622. Printed in Great Britain.
',
'De-industrialization
Industrializationand the
Indian Economy, c. 1850-1947
COLIN SIMMONS
Universityof Salford
The purpose of this short discussion paper is to raise some general

questions concerning the current state of the historiography on the
industrialization of pre-Independent India. Although triggered off by a
close reading of Professor Morris's contribution to the recent Cambridge
EconomicHistory of India, volume 2, it is not my intention to review the
essay in a detailed and systematic manner; rather I seek to place it in the
wider context of what is, in my view, the unsatisfactory state of our
accumulated knowledge. The paper is organized in the following way.
Section II contends that all too little is known about a seemingly crucial
sector-a vacuity that is not confined to India alone among the Third
World economies-and that this tends to distort accounts of the general
functioning of the international economy. In Section III I try to
pinpoint the major areas of weakness, and then go on to suggest the main
reasons for this somewhat surprising situation. Finally, in Section IV, I
argue that Morris's study reflects the problems I identify but does not
take us further down the road towards their resolution.
II
Few serious students of modern subcontinental economic history

would-presumably-be prepared to argue against the proposition that
the existing stock of critical literature addressed to unravelling the
character and behaviour of the 'secondary sector'l during the two
1 The difficulties of clear identification and
unambiguous definition are legion, and
hence the caution implied by the use of inverted commas. The three-fold classification-
ary system as developed by Clark, Fisher and Kuznets is of limited Third World
oo26-749X/85/o809-o204$05.oo ? 1985 Cambridge University Press
593

594 COLIN SIMMONS
centuries of British hegemony, is both rudimentary and woefully

inadequate. To the uninitiated this may come as something of a surprise
since the subject matter contains many inherently interesting questions
(touching upon method as well as content), and not a few transcenden-
tally important dimensions-with the consequences of imperialism-
baneful? benign? beneficient?-perhaps the most compelling, and
certainly the most evergreen. Indeed, in view of the large absolute size of
the sector on the eve of Independence (and also the obverse, i.e., its
pitifully small standing in per capita terms); the global status of some of
its better-known component parts; its comparatively diversified struc-
ture;2 the relatively fast rate of growth of the newer forms of
manufacturing industry during the inter-war period;3 its significance
vis-a-vis many-if not most-of the underdeveloped areas; and lastly,
but not least, the alleged centrality of the industrialization process to the
promotion of sustained long-run economic development (admittedly a
now somewhat passe and tarnished theoretical position), there can
surely be little doubt about the legitimacy of such investigation. But,
unfortunately, neither the prospective researcher poised to embark
upon a detailed examination of a specific aspect of the sector, nor the
interested teacher desirous of offering a course of introductory lectures,
would find (for quite the wrong reasons) the compilation of a reasonably
comprehensive bibliography to be a particular onerous or time-consum-
ing task. Until quite recently, the only major sources of reference were to
be found in the writings of the all-too-familiar pioneering fathers-
Romesh Dutt, D. R. Gadgil, Daniel Buchanen, R. Palme Dutt
(assuming a degree of open-mindedness and a generous amount of
scholarly licence), possibly P. S. Lokanathan, and the matriarchal
figure ofVera Anstey. In the two decades following the end of the second
world war a sprinkling of new names could be plausibly added to the list:
the Thorner's, M. D. Morris, Helen Lamb and George Rosen (together
application-and indeed the recent debate concerning 'proto-industrialization' in early

modern Europe is beginning to cast a shadow over its general utility in the Western
economies. Here, simply for the sake of expository convenience, I use the term to refer to
a highly disparate range of activities including both the 'organized' and 'unorganized'
subsectors (hardly an improvement!) which may be weakly differentiated from
'primary' and 'tertiary' pursuits-but only as a first, and really quite unsatisfactory,
approximation.
2 The
variegated nature of the 'organized sector' of Indian industry in the year of
Independence is conveniently presented in the Statistical Outline of Indian Economy,
compiled by V. G. Kulkarni with the assistance ofD. D. Deshpande (Bombay, 1968),
Section IV, Table IV. 17, pp. 52-82.
3 See the useful-and
strangely neglected-study conducted by the League of
Nations, Industrializationand Foreign Trade (New York, I945).

INDUSTRIALIZATION AND THE INDIAN ECONOMY 595
with subsequent yet fundamentally unchanged editions of the earlier
work). But it has only been over the last dozen years or so that a new
generation of (mainly Indian) scholars-with Amiya Bagchi as possibly
the most influential catalyst4-have begun the steep uphill job of
remedying this unhealthy over-reliance upon the hardy, yet scarcely
authoritative, general texts; invaluable though these fresh infusions are,
however, the continued existence of huge lacunae can hardly be denied.
It seems clear that the perceived 'demand' for information, explanation
and interpretation has not been made fully 'effective': thus, to take one
instance, the contemporary Planning Commission establishment
appear to have evinced little genuine concern for exploring the secular
nature of a number of deep-seated problems; for them the past serves the
present only in the most superficial of ways. At the same time, the
'supply' of intellectual capital willing, and able, to grasp the nettle has
been disappointingly sparse-despite the highly skewed distribution of
academic resources within institutions of higher education in favour of
disciplines that, primafacie, might have been expected to swell the ranks
and contribute towards furthering our understanding of this field of
enquiry. It is noteworthy that in 1983 approximately 40% of all students
enrolled at advanced centres of learning in India followed Arts degrees;
some 21% opted for Commerce; and the absurdly low-almost
token-figure of i .3% took up courses in Agriculture.5 From such a seed
we should expect a great harvest; but as experience has shown, it simply
does not materialize.
Of course, in relation to the Western and Japanese cases, the
historiography of Third World industrialization (and much else) is still
in its infancy and is therefore very narrowly based-a state of affairs
which is not simply a reflection of relative weights. So, notwithstanding
the current and ongoing projects that are designed to provide a sound
quantitative foundation (especially the research conducted by Paul
4
Amiya Bagchi is one of the rare breed of scholars who manage to write with
conviction about industrialization in the post- as well as the pre-Independence eras. Few
orthodox economic historians feel at ease with the latter period, and even fewer
development economists are willing to venture very far back into the past. It is no
accident that Bagchi is inspired by the Marxian approach and this imparts a very useful
degree of unity to his work, cf. his 'Long-term Constraints on India's Industrial Growth
1951-68' in E. A. G. Robinson and M. Kidron (eds), EconomicDevelopmentin South Asia
(London, I970); A. K. Bagchi and N. Banerjee (eds), Changeand Choicein Indian Industry
(Calcutta, 198I), esp. the Introduction; and The Political Economy of Underdevelopment
(Cambridge, I982)-in addition to his well-known book and series of articles on
industrialization and de-industrialization.
5 As
reported in the Times Higher Educational Supplement,27 January 1984.

596 COLIN SIMMONS
Bairoch's team)6 and a useful framework for analysis (Lloyd

Reynolds),7 both pitched at the broad macro-level, and the potentially
exciting advance directed towards prising open the 'real' or 'people's'
history of specific regions-particularly with respect to southern
Africa,8 there are enormous gaps. It is also likely that in the straitened
and resource-starved circumstances in which the academic community
in this country (and, increasingly, elsewhere) find themselves at this
point in time, it may well be that the 'best days' are already behind us.
There are few objective grounds for optimism, and we cannot
realistically expect a change of policy which favours the historical study
of the Third World in the foreseeable future.
The extent to which the small and depleting band of Third World
economic historians lag behind their more 'mainstream' colleagues can
be partly gauged by the distance-or rather yawning gap-between
up-to-date textbook treatment of different areas. The sheer volume of
work on Britain, Europe, the United States and Japan dwarfs all else;
and simply by virtue of such overwhelming quantity, the level of quality
must, pari passu, be that much greater. It is no accident that nearly all of
the major methodological breakthroughs have originated in the West,
and are orientated, not unnaturally, towards Western application; all
too often Third Worldists find themselves forced to either adopt a
somewhat defensive posture ('lack of suitable data'; 'the inappropriate-
ness of the-mainly neo-Classical-assumptions': arguments which are
not without substance), or, to put on a parasitic mantle (for example the
use of cliometric techniques to study the impact of railroads in
nineteenth-century Latin America). The lack of an endogenously
6 See P. Bairoch, 'International Industrialization Levels from 1750 to 1980', Journal of
European Economic History 1 (2) 1982, and also P. Bairoch and M. Levy-Leboyer (eds),
Disparitiesin EconomicDevelopment sincetheIndustrialRevolution(London, 1981).
7 See L. G.
Reynolds, 'The Spread of Economic Growth to the Third World:
I850-1980', Journalof EconomicLiteratureXXI (3) 1983. Another useful article in the
same spirit is W. A. Lewis, 'The Diffusion of Development' in T. Wilson and A. S.
Skinner (eds), The MarketandtheState(Oxford, 1976).
8 A bourgeoning-and
largely Marxist-inspired-body of work has been building up
on this area; many important articles have appeared in the Journalof Southern African
Studies,ModernAfricanStudies,the Reviewof AfricanPoliticalEconomy,AfricanEconomic
Historyand Economy andSociety.An impressive monographic literature has also begun to
emerge in the last decade, and for a small selection cf. F. A. Johnstone, Class,Raceand
Gold:A Studyof ClassRelationsandRacialDiscrimination(London, 1976), R. H. Davies,
Capital,Stateand WhiteLabourin SouthAfricai9oo-i96o (London, I979), C. van Onselen,
Studiesin theSocialandEconomic Historyof the Witwatersrand i886-i914, in 2 vols (London,
1982), N. Levy, TheFoundations of theSouthAfricanCheapLabourSystem(London, 1982),
and D. Yudelman, The Emergence of ModernSouthAfrica: State, Capitaland Organised
Labour, 9go02-939 (New York, 1983).

inspired Third World perspective is unsatisfactory on many counts, and
we only have to compare Tom Kemp's recent-and outrageously
ambitious-attempt to chart the course of non-Western industrializa-
tion (but inclusive of Russia/USSR and Japan)9 with that of Clive
Trebilcock's survey of the European continent1 to appreciate the
problem and realize the imbalance. Whereas the latter could call upon
an impressively wide-ranging body of references written in English (and
justly claim that the Milward and Saul antecedent is now dated), and
could meaningfully discuss the respective merits of competing theoreti-
cal positions, the former (Chapters 4 to 9 anyway) is altogether far
flimsier in terms of source material, is necessarily characterized by
highly speculative reasoning, and despite the author's well-known
ideological stance, is theoretically naked. Similarly, and at the other end
of the political spectrum, John Latham's two volumes,1l though
welcome in so far as they seek to place the topic on the wider agenda,
can-at best-only be considered as an elementary, and almost wholly
descriptive, starting point.12 Partly as a result of the unavailability of
suitable texts, the 'orthodox' historians of the modern world economy
such as William Ashworth, Kenwood and Lougheed, John Gould and,
most recently, James Foreman-Peck,13 have not been able satisfactorily
to incorporate the Third World into their scheme of things and all are
guilty, but with decreasing degrees of magnitude, of unduly biasing their
accounts towards the European 'heartland' and/or the Settler Econo-
mies. Radical and Dependency writers,14 on the other hand, have
conspicuously sought to avoid Eurocentrism and have made strong
efforts to include the Third World in their analysis of the rise of
capitalism. As yet, however, a general consensus of approach has yet to
9 T. Industrializationin theNon-WesternWorld(London, 1983).
10 C.Kemp,
Trebilcock, The Industrializationof the ContinentalPowersI780-I9I4 (London,
1981). Trebilcock's study has been made possible because of the richness of the general
treatment (e.g. The FontanaEconomicHistoryof Europe)and of the publication of useful
monograph work, especially on France and Germany. The latest study of interest is A.
Jones (ed.), Industrialisation
andtheStatein Germany i8oo-i9I4 (London, 1984).
11A.J. H. Latham, TheInternational Economy andtheUndeveloped World(London, 1978),
and TheDepressionandtheDevelopingWorld(London, 1981).
12 The other limitations of the work have been
forcefully expressed by his reviewers,
cf. R. C. Mitchie, in the EconomicHistory Review XXXII (2) I979, pp. 298f, and B. R.
Tomlinson, EconomicHistory Review XXXV (2) 1982, pp. 333f.
13 W. Ashworth, A Short theInternational
Historyof Economy(London, 3rd edn, I975);
A. G. Kenwood and A. L. Lougheed, The Growthof theInternational Economyi820-1960
(London, I971); J. D. Gould, EconomicGrowth in History (London, I972); J. Foreman-
Peck, A Historyof the WorldEconomy:International
EconomicRelationssince1850 (London,
I983).
14 Such as Samir
Amin, A. G. Frank, F. Cardoso and Immanuel Wallerstein.

598 COLIN SIMMONS
emerge and the differences within the tradition are perhaps as profound
as they are between it and the rest of their peers.15 Neither the
theoretical framework(s) nor the forays into history (especially those
conducted by one of the most well-known exponents of the Radical
School, A. G. Frank) have been acceptable to the majority of the
profession, and though their works are sold in seemingly great number,
they do not feature as standard fare in the normal undergraduate diet.
This attempt to ignore, discredit, or freeze-out an alternative mode of
thinking has further divided an already quite confused situation, and
the aspiring Third Worldist is now confronted by an array of competing
strands of thought which have emerged in recent years from the two
main parent disciplines, history and economics.16 A badly-needed
element of vigour has been added to the debates, and on those (all too
rare) occasions when the rival protagonists actually engage one another
in open dispute over common ground-such as the controversy
surrounding the 'marginality' or otherwise of the 'Periphery' to
European economic advance over the fifteenth to the eighteenth
centuries17-then much can be learned (and enjoyed). Plurality,
though a hard chore, has compensations: indeed, it is surely the critical
stuff which pushes out the frontiers of the subject.
III
One of the indirect implications of the foregoing line of argument is that

there are a number of basic deficiencies in much of the writing on Third
World industrialization in general, and Indian industrialization in
particular. To be explicit, we may identify three key areas of weakness:
15 See A.
Brewer, Marxist Theoriesof Imperialism(London, 980), for a pithy discussion
of internal differences within the Marxian school, and also P. Limqueco and B.
McFarlane, Neo-Marxist Theories of Development (London, I983). One of the most
ferociouslines of attack on the 'New Left' has come from Bill Warren (a pre-Lenin sort of
Marxist), see his Imperialism: Pioneer of Capitalism (London, 1980).
16 Very roughly, from History: 'traditional economic
history'; 'new economic
history'; 'new social or people's history'. From Economics: 'orthodox development
(Liberal) economics'; 'structuralism';the 'new neo-classical economics'; the return to
'Classical economics'; and the many strands of the Marxian, Neo-Marxian and
Dependency political-economy approaches.
17 For an outline of the debate see P. O'Brien,
'European Economic Development:
The Contribution of the Periphery', EconomicHistory Review XXXV (i) 1982, and the
exchange between O'Brien and Wallerstein in the Economic HistoryReviewXXXVI (4)
I983, pp. 580-5. Also of relevance is H. Alavi's 'India: The Transition to Colonial
Capitalism', in D. McEastern et al., Capitalismand ColonialProduction(London, 1982), pp.
23-76.

an inadequate level of description, poorly articulated-or even the
complete absence of-theory, and the lack of a comparative dimension.
Before I take up each of these points, it is necessary to try to specify the
problem with which I am here concerned, since I suspect that much
disagreement simply flows from different assessments of what constitutes
the most important and appropriate questions to be posed.
If we accept that Paul Bairoch's recent estimates of world levels of
industrialization over the period 1750-1980 are a very rough approxi-
mation of reality18-at least in terms of broad magnitudes-then the
problem can be split into two interconnected parts. Firstly, why and
how was India's relative position as the second largest world producer
(after China) of manufactured products eroded between the middle of
the eighteenth and the middle of the nineteenth centuries? In I750, if
Bairoch is to be believed, India supplied no less than a quarter of the
world's total output: a century later this had dwindled to under Io%,
and by 1880 had further diminished to less than 3% (see Table I).
Irrespective of whether we are justified in referring to the train of events
that underlie this phenomenon as 'de-industrialisation' or not,19 there is
a patently crucial issue at stake here which more than warrants careful,
18
Bairoch, 'Industrialization Levels'. It is as well to note that these estimates were
made prior to the appearance of a number of recent-but still highly questionable-sta-
tistical compilations, such as Alan Heston's reworking of India's national income data,
as reported in his Chapter IV in the CambridgeEconomicHistory of India, [C.E.H.I.], vol. 2.
19 The
widely acknowledged difficulties of arriving at a rigorous general definition of
this term (see the discussion between A. K. Cairncross and N. Kaldor, 'What is
de-industrialisation?' in F. Blackaby (ed.), De-industrialisation (London, 1977), pp. 5-25)
are, of course, greatly compounded when data relating to the behaviour of crucial
variables-particularly the real value of sectoral output shares, total output, and the
levels of sectoral and total employment-are sketchy or simply absent. Quite clearly,
time-series of absolute values and volumes are required before we can properly refute or
validate the claim of de-industrialization; but it is precisely over the period 1750-I880
that such data, at least in the aggregate, are most scarce, fragmentary and crude. We are
therefore faced with a number of unpalatable choices: we can extend the time-period
forward (as did Thorner, see fn. 20 below)-and so omit what was probably the most
significant relevant era; examine particular regions (Bagchi) or industries (Desai,
Twomey) in the hope that they are somehow 'representative' and can hence be
generalized; rely upon extremely indirect evidence such as the relative figures produced
by Bairoch (a decline in the share of a rapidly growing level of output says little about
absolute trends, of course, and the per capita estimates are only marginally more useful
in this context: the case of the British economy in the late nineteenth century is
instructive); abandon the terms and the connotation altogether, as suggested by I. M. D.
Little, 'Indian Industrialization before I945', in M. Gersovitz et al. (eds), The Theoryand
Experienceof EconomicDevelopment:Essays in Honour of Sir W. A. Lewis (London, 1982), fn.
I, p. 369, and seconded, perhaps not surprisingly, by D. Lal, The Povertyof Development
Economics(London, I 983), pp. 84ff; or use it in a frankly wide and non-technical sense to
refer to the process discussed here.

600 COLIN SIMMONS
TABLE I
Distribution of World Manufacturing Output
175o-1980 (% sharesof total)
Third Developed
India* China World Countries
1750t 24.5 32.8 73.0 27.0

i8oo 19.7 33-3 67.7 32.3
I830 17.6 29.8 60.5 39-5
i86o 8.6 19.7 36.6 63.4
I88o 2.8 12.5 20.9 79 I
I900 1.7 6.2 II.0 89.0
I'93 I.4 3.6 7.5 92.5
1928 1.9 3.4 7.2 92.8
I938 2.4 3.I 7.2 92.8
I953 1.7 2.3 6.5 93-5
1980 2.3 5-0 I2.0 88.0
Notes:* Refersto the undividedsubcontinentup to

1938.
t Triennial annual averages except for I9I3.
Source: Derived from P. Bairoch, 1982 (see fn. 6),
Tables 10, p. 296, and 13, p. 304; see also the
'Methodological Appendix' pp. 311-29 for
details of estimation procedureand coverage.
detailed and imaginative investigation. Despite-or perhaps because

of-its age and pedigree (the charge of de-industrialization was, after
all, a key element in the Nationalist School's canon), it is one of these
perennially debated issues which continues to excite original research
and to generate intense controversy.20 The recent literature on and
20
Since the appearance of the articles by Daniel Thorner 'De-industrialisation in
India 188 -I 93 I', in Daniel and Alice Thorner, LandandLabourin India(Bombay, 1965,
pp. 70-81), and M. D. Morris ('Towards a Re-interpretation of Nineteenth Century
Indian Economic History', Journalof EconomicHistory23 (4) 1963), a large number of
important contributionshave been made. All the essaysin the famous 're-interpretation'
debate refer,directly or indirectly, to the issue, cf. M. D. Morrisetal., IndianEconomy
in the
NineteenthCentury(Delhi, 1969), and the most noteworthy of the journal pieces are M.
Desai, 'Demand for Cotton Textiles in Nineteenth Century India', IndianEconomicand
SocialHistoryReview10 (4) 1971; J. Krishnamurthy, 'Changes in the Composition of the
Working Force in Manufacturing I905-195I: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis',
Indian Economicand Social History Review IV (I) 1967, 'De-Industrialisation Revisited',
Economicand Political Weekly I I (26) June 1976, and most recently, his contribution to the
CambridgeEconomicHistory of India, vol. 2, ch. VI; R. Chattopadhyay, 'De-industrialisa-
tion in India Reconsidered', Economic and Political Weekly 10, 12 March 1975; A. K.
Bagchi, 'De-industrialisation in Gangetic Bihar I809-I9I0', in B. De (ed.), Essays in
Honour of Prof. S. C. Sarkar (New Delhi, 1976), pp. 499-522, 'De-industrialization in
India in the Nineteenth Century: Some Theoretical Implications', Journal of Development
Studies 12 (2) 1976; M. Vicziany, 'The De-industrialization of India in the Nineteenth

INDUSTRIALIZATION AND THE INDIAN ECONOMY 60I
around the subject has thrown-up many thought-provoking questions of

method and data-and, it is not too difficult to discern echoes of the
Indian discussion in the attention now being lavished upon both
proto-industrialization (especially with regard to the problem of what
has been called 'mixed occupations')21 and, perhaps more faintly, the
plight of the current British economy vis-a-vis the newly industrializing
nations.22 The second part of the problem highlighted by the Table is an
equally long-standing one, notably the question why the secondary
sector did not perform better over the period since, say, the middle
decades of the last century. Putting the matter this way around
inevitably focuses our lens upon either some normative standard of
judgement, or the comparative experience of other economies (usually
Japan, Table 2). Furthermore, we can scarcely avoid considering the
nature and effects of the imperial impact-unpalatable though that
may be to several members of the profession who now seek to downplay
the general significance of alien rule.23
In any event, whether we seek to elevate or downgrade the imperial
dimension, the techniques of the cliometricians seem destined to feature
more prominently in future work. A procedure that attempts to separate
out the consequences of the colonial presence from what might otherwise
have happened (a whole array of counterfactual assumptions are
possible) has already been tentatively proposed,24 and although we may
Century: A Methodological Critique of Amiya Kumar Bagchi', and A. K. Bagchi 'A
Reply', both in the IndianEconomicand Social HistoryReviewXVI (2) 1979; A. Orr,
'De-industrialisationin India-a Note', Journalof Development
Studiesi6 (I) 1980; and
M. J. Twomey, 'Employment in Nineteenth Century Indian Textiles', Explorationin
Economic History 20 (i) 1983. The subject has also been recently discussed-albeit
briefly-by W. J. Macpherson, 'Economic Development in India under the British
Crown, I858-I947', in A. J. Youngson (ed.), EconomicDevelopment
in the Long-Run
(London, I972), pp. 138-43; N. Charlesworth, British Rule and the Indian Economy
I80o-I9I4 (London, I982), ch. 3; P. Robb, 'BritishRule and Indian "Improvement" ',
EconomicHistory Review 34 (4) 1981; and F. Perlin, 'Proto-Industrialization and
Pre-Colonial South Asia', PastandPresentno. 98 1983, esp. pp. 34, 53. Perhapsit is worth
mentioning, too, that a number of non-Indianist writers (such as Joan Robinson, T.
Balogh, Paul Baran, A. G. Frank and Keith Griffin) have used the 'Indian example'
(accepting the case for de-industrialization) to illustrate more general arguments
concerning the effects of imperialism.
21 Perlin,
'Proto-Industrialization',pp. 56ff.
22 See A.
Singh 'UK Industry and the World Economy: a case of de-industrialisa-
tion?' Cambridge Journalof Economics, June 1977; and the collection of essays in Blackaby
(ed.), De-industrialisation.
23 See Charlesworth, British Rule, pp. I2-14, and P. Robb, 'British Rule', pp. 518-23
(i.e., if I understand his plea for a 'middle-way' correctly) for a short discussion of this
line of reasoning. To be fair, the main thrustof the 'Cambridge School' has been directed
more towards politics, local society, and the rural sector rather than to industry.
24
See M. Edelstein, 'Foreign investment and empire 1880-I9I14', in R. Floud and D.

602 COLIN SIMMONS
TABLE 2
Comparative*per-capita Levels of Indus-
trialization (index numbers)
India Japan Developed Countries
1750 7 7 8
800o 6 7 8
I830 6 7 II
i860 3 7 i6
i88o 2 9 24
1900 I I2 35
I9I3 2 20 55
1928 3 3? 71
1938 4 5I 8I
1953 6 40 I35
I980 i6 353 344
Note: * UK in 1900 = Ioo

Source: Derived from P. Bairoch, 1982 (see
fn. 6), Tables 9 (p. 294) and I2 (p. 302).
harbour a great many reservations about the utility of both the

underlying theory and the method-not to speak of the suitability of the
available runs of data-this mode of treatment and analysis has a very
real future, particularly amongst the potential crop of American-trained
post-graduate students.
Lack of concurrence with this outline of the general problematic-a
process of loosely defined 'de-industrialization' and lost opportunity
over I750 to circa I88o, and a 'disappointing' rate of industrial
development relative to international comparison and, more nebu-
lously, 'need' over I850 to I947-does not necessarily preclude assent as
to what constitutes the major lacunae, nor even agreement over the most
promising way forward. Because of its openness and elasticity, it should
be possible to accommodate quite different and opposing viewpoints
within this umbrella characterization-though it is not hard to imagine
McCloskey (eds), The Economic History of Britain Since 700oo:Vol. 2, I860 to the I970s
(Cambridge, 98 ), esp. pp. 86-97. Earlier work on the New England Colonies and the
effects of the Navigation Acts paved the way for this initiative; and on the narrower
question of imperial investments see L. E. Davis and R. A. Huttenback, 'The Political
Economy of British Imperialism: Measures of Benefit and Support', Journal of Economic
History XLII (i) I982; and the controversy between D. 0. Flynn and D. St Clair, and
Davis and Huttenback, 'The Social Returns to Empire', Journal of Economic History
XLIII (4) I983. As far as the imperial experience of the US is amenable to such an
approach, see S. Lebergott, 'The Returns to US Imperialism 1890-1929' also in the
Journalof EconomicHistoryXL (2) 1980.

that a number of scholars would balk at the prospect of putting the
matter in this fashion. However, I suspect that few economic historians
would wish to demur from at least the first of our complaints-that of
'insufficient' secondary material. To be sure, it is unlikely that there will
ever be a 'sufficient' body of work to satisfy our collective and individual
sense of curiosity, but I do not think that it is an exaggeration to say that
our knowledge of all three standard units or levels of classification-the
sector, the industry, the 'firm'-is palpably thin. Highly subjective
though such kinds of judgements are, I would argue that if we could
somehow draw up a hypothetical balance sheet with the 'knowns'
(assets, credits) on the one side, and the 'unknowns' (liabilities, debits)
on the other-with the 'only very vague inklings of... ' (a contingency
item?) floating uneasily between the two (depending upon the goodwill
of the auditor) then we would earn something less than blue-chip listing
on the academic stock exchange!
It is somewhat paradoxical, but not really surprising, that our pool of
hard information about the secondary sector as a whole is probably
greater than that of its component parts-at least for the first half of the
twentieth century. By and large, economic historians have preferred to
work from the top down rather than from the bottom up. Thanks to the
painstaking study of S. Sivasubramoniam-now supplemented and
made more accessible by Alan Heston25-we now have a tolerable series
of estimates of income originating from the sector for each year between
I900-01 and 1946-47 (see Table 3a). When used in conjunction withJ.
Krishnamurthy's valuable work on the Census returns26-which
enables us to monitor, albeit very roughly, changes in the occupational
structure-we can derive some reasonable statistical series of the value
and volume of per capita output by major groupings. This work
25
S. Sivasubramoniam, 'Income from the Secondary Sector in India, 1900-47',
Indian Economic and Social History Review I4 (4) I977; Heston (see fn. I8). Economic
historians weaned on Simon Kuznets's meticulous work would doubtless have many
reservations about both studies-especially Heston's-but given the intractable
problems of deriving accurate national accounts for pre-Independent India (the long
line of scholars who have tried to interpret the basic data all agree on this, although they
disagree on much else), the yardstick of what is acceptable is necessarily wider. This, of
course, does not excuse faulty reasoning or dubious assumptions, and Heston's chapter is
replete with both these. This criticism has been forcefully made by both Amiya Bagchi
and Angus Maddison during the Conference on the C.E.H.I. held at Selwyn College,
Cambridge, 11-13 April 1984, and appears in Bagchi's review of the volume in the
American Historical Review, April I984, and Maddison's note 'What Did Heston Do?',
paper presented to the Cambridge Conference (mimeo). Also see Pramit Chaudhuri's
attack on Heston's general methodology in his review of the C.E.H.I., in the Economic
Journal, March 1984, p. 193.
26
Krishnamurthy (see fn. 20).

604 COLIN SIMMONS
TABLE 3a
The Growth of the SecondarySector igoo-oi to 1946-47
i9oo-oi I946-47
I. Mining:
i. Value of output (Rs million)* 199 430
ii. Share of total net output (%) 0.49 0.65
iii. Average annual rate of growth,
I900o-o to I946-47 (%) 1.98
2. Manufacturing:
i. V* 664 4841
ii. S I.6 7.2
iii. % A 5.I4
3. Small-scale Industries:
i. V* 3825 5979
ii. S 9.6 8.9
iii. % A 1.59
4. Secondary Sector as a whole:t
i. V* 4688 11 250
ii. S 1.69 i6.8i
iii. % A 2.9
Notes: * In constant 1946-47 prices

t The 'Secondary Sector' as a whole is here simply the sum of
sub-sectors 1-3
Source: Derived from A. Heston, 1983 (see fn I8), Table 4.3B, pp. 398f.
provides us with a relatively sound basis for probing deeper (historians

of many other underdeveloped countries are not nearly so well blessed at
present), and is undoubtedly a boon for future research. The nineteenth-
century-and of course the earlier-landscape, however, is still very
bleak, and if we are compelled to rely upon either the simple backward
extrapolations of Heston (see Table 3b)27 or the somewhat heroic
guestimates of Angus Maddison,28 the present outlook is far from
promising and with few signs of improvement on the immediate horizon.
In addition to this descriptive statistical coverage we possess a number of
surveys and accounts-the two most notable being those of Bagchi and
Ray29-which provide both information and interpretation (however
27 Heston (see fn. i8), Table 4.3A, p. 367.
28 A.
Maddison, Class Structureand EconomicGrowth: India and Pakistan since the Moghuls
(London, 1971), Table II-i, p. 33.
29 A. K.
Bagchi, Private Investmentin India i9oo-i939 (Cambridge, 1972), and R. K.
Ray, Industrialization in India: Growth and Conflict in the Private CorporateSector I914-47
(Delhi, 1979).

TABLE 3b
The Growth of the SecondarySector I882-83 to i89g-g9oo
I882-83 i89g-90oo
I. Mining:
i. Value of Output (Rs million) 34 153
ii. Share of total net output (%) o. 0.4
iii. Average annual rate of growth,
1882-3 to I899-1900 (%) I0.
2. Manufacturing:
i. V 282 870
ii. S 0.84 2.26
iii. % A 7.38
3. Small Scale and Services:*
i. V 8196 9604
ii. S 24.4 24.9
iii. % A 1.02
Note: *A vague composite of small-scale industry, government, professions,

'other services', and 'other commerce'. This cannot be compared
with the third grouping in Table 3a.
Source: Derived from A. Heston, 1983 (see fn i8), Table 4.3A, p. 397-
which is in turn no more than a backward extrapolation of
S. Sivasubramoniam'swork.
controversial), and it is these which ultimately find their way into the
obligatory 'industry' sections of the more general studies.30
The further one delves back into the nineteenth century the more
hazy our vision becomes since there are precious few works available
which are written in this survey genre.31 There are probably two main
30
cf. see B. L. C. Johnson, Developmentin South Asia (London, 1983), ch. i-for a
popular account; Little, 'Indian Industrialization', and Lal, DevelopmentEconomics, for
the neo-Classical position; B. Davey, The Economic Developmentof India (Nottingham,
I975), ch. IV, and A. Sen, The State, Industrialization and Class Formation in India: A
Neo-Marxist Perspective on Colonialism, Underdevelopmentand Development (London,
1982)-for a Radical view; and N. Charlesworth, British Rule, ch. III, D. K. Fieldhouse,
Colonialism 181z-1945 (London, I98I), R. von Albertini with A. Wirz, EuropeanColonial
Rule, i88o-g94o: The Impact of the West on India, South-eastAsia and Africa (Oxford, 1982),
esp. pp. 48-67, and K. de SchweinitzJr., The Rise and Fall of British India: Imperialismor
Inequality (London, 1983), esp. ch. 5-for a more general perspective.
31 The most often
quoted is that ofR. L. Lidman and L. I. Domrese, 'India', in W. A.
Lewis (ed.), Tropical Development,i88o-i9I3 (London, I970), esp. pp. 318-29, but this is
now dated and only really considers the three decades prior to the outbreak of the first
world war. The literature (in English) emanating from the Soviet Union is, as might
have been expected, disappointingly shallow and unoriginal, cf. G. K. Shirokov,
Industrialisationof India (Moscow, 1973), and V. Pavlow et al., India: Social and Economic
Development,i8th-2oth Centuries(Moscow, 1975), esp. ch. 3.

6o6 COLIN SIMMONS
reasons for this. First, the 'modern' parts of the sector only really got
going after the mid-century, so that in 1868-69, the manufacturing and
mining sub-sectors between them only produced some Rs 53 million
worth (k3.53 million) of output-equivalent tojust o.175% of the total
net product; and three decades later (I900-0 I), the combined figure of
Rs 863 million (?57.5 million) though representing a substantial rise,
still only amounted to a mere 2.16% of the total.32 Secondly, it is well
known that small-scale industry has not attracted very much research
attention33 and hence there is no real body of literature that the
potential surveyor can call upon; so, even at this very broad aggregate
level, we remain very much in the dark.
When we begin to descend from these lofty heights down to industries
and firms-thereby hopefully going closer to the springs of growth, or
the sources of stagnation and decline-the veil over our subject has only
been lifted a mite further. Bearing in mind the 'industrialisation-first'
stratagems embodied in the planning documents and proclaimed on
innumerable political platforms on the one hand, and the pervasive
respect accorded to Gandhian ideals ('translated' by E. F. Schumacher
into a readily acceptable contemporary economic formula) on the other;
and given the passage of time since Independence with the consequent
reduction in the need for engaging in polemic; and finally the absolute
number of potential students, it is little short of astonishing that today
we can call upon no more than a tiny handful of modern accounts of the
emergence and functioning of a sector which, in 1946-47, contributed
Rs I11250 million (C844.6 million), or just under 17% of total output
(Table 3a). This ignorance is most marked with respect to the
small-scale industry and 'firm' grouping-still the largest sub-sector at
the time of Independence (Rs 5979 million or 9% of N.D.P.)-so that it
remains, as Professor Morris aptly remarks, 'almost totally terra
incognita'.34We are, of course, a little better placed as far as the other two
sub-sectors are concerned. The more overtly intrusive presence of the
large-scale urban factory establishments and, to a lesser extent, the
plantations and mines, with their obvious manifestations-a substantial
proletariat,35 considerable European involvement and financial inter-
32 Derived from
Heston, I983 (see fn. I8), Tables 4.3A and 4.3B.
33
M. Twomey's recent study of textiles (see fn. 20), is a welcome exception to the
general rule, but is unlikely to be a general harbinger.
34
M. D. Morris, 'The Growth of Large-Scale Industry to I947', in C.E.H.I., vol. 2, p.
676.
35 The emergence of the labour force has probably attracted more research interest in
recent years than any other single aspect of modern industrialization. Since Professor
Morris's tilt at what he called the 'traditional view' which seemed to stress the problems

est, links with world markets and, not least, their impact upon political
and social life-can hardly have failed to generate interest. However, to
be metaphorical for an instant, neither the range nor the depth of the
resulting colours (literature) at our disposal enable us to deploy our
paint-brush with anything other than an extremely cautious hand; and
when it comes to putting in the details (individual enterprises and firms)
we find ourselves positively arthritic. The fact of the matter is that we are
almost entirely lacking in the essential building blocks (to mix
metaphors) of a reasonable historiography-detailed monographic
studies of industries and firms that, where at all possible, are firmly
anchored to primary business data and yet placed within an intelligible
overall context. Without such material we cannot hope to profile the
sector with any real degree of conviction.
But simply making a plea for this sort of research is tantamount to
whistling in the wind, and the pleader could be justifiably accused of
advocating a form of utopianism. Probably the least insurmountable-
though still formidable-hurdle centres round the questions of data
availability, accessibility and reliability-and this may partially explain
the preference for Official and demi-Official printed publications
exhibited by writers such as M. D. Morris, Amiya Bagchi, the essayists in
the V. B. Singh collection, and Rajat Ray (the latter's almost exclusive
reliance upon the reports of the various inter-war Tariff Boards renders
much of the book sadly one-dimensional).36 The study of the handicraft
or small-scale industries and units is naturally more bedevilled by this
problem, but it may well be that a purposive in-depth investigation of
the appropriate E.I. Co. and Government archives at national,
provincial and district levels may yield some valuable insights: hope is
certainly greater here if only because the very nature of the 'unor-
ganized' sector meant that it turned over so few bits of paper. Two other
constraints are worth mentioning. First, the present division of academic
labour is such that subcontinental economic history has failed to attract
or command a reasonable share of the limited resources: although there
are some signs of change, political history (especially topics focused on
the National Movement) continues to exert a greatly disproportionate
and constraints of recruiting and organizing a work force, a steady stream of mainly
article literature has appeared-chiefly in the Indian Economicand Social History Review,
but also more intermittently in Past and Present, the Journal of Peasant Studies, and even the
EconomicHistory Review (D. Mazumdar's piece in I973, fn. 38 below).
36 cf. M. D.
Morris, The Emergenceof an Industrial Labour Force in India: A Study of the
BombayCottonMills 1854-I947 (Berkeley, i965); Bagchi, Private Investmentin India, esp. pt
II; V. B. Singh (ed.), EconomicHistory of India 1857-I956 (Bombay, 1965) esp. chs 9, IO,
II, 14 and I6; and R. K. Ray, I979, Industrialization in India, Ch. 3.

6o8 COLIN SIMMONS
amount of endeavour and, I suppose, fascination; and within economic

history itself, other subject areas seem always destined to be more
popular. Secondly, and not unrelated to the above, the quest for
knowledge about India's industrial past is clearly not generally
regarded as an especially useful or operationally important topic. It
could be argued that if one of the central aims of post-Independent
Congress policy was to change the entire basis of the sector both
endogenously and in relation to the rest of the economy (a mistaken but
widely held proposition), then only a cursory knowledge of the legacy
and inheritance was necessary. If we therefore wish to rest our case for
more resources on a frankly utilitarian platform (surely a more
promising line in this day and age than 'knowledge for its own sake')
then it would be incumbent upon us to try and be explicit about either
the benefits (to my mind many) of doing so, or the costs of not pursuing
an approach that stresses the very long-run.
These observations and reservations about the depressingly small
amount of work on the secondary sector and its predominantly
'officially-based' source material bias also applies to three associated
areas, each of which tends to affect the pace of change and in turn is
affected by it. Firstly I refer to the institutional framework. As far as
'modern' business activity is concerned, we may point to the managing
agency system, the myriad employer organisations (including the role of
the cosy European-dominated clubs), the various chambers and
federations of commerce and industry, and the trade union movement-
all of which have received very niggardly attention, especially in a
qualitative sense.37 And, needless to say, we know next to nothing about
the nature of'firms' in the 'unorganized' sub-sector. Furthermore, any
channels or networks of connections between the two major sub-sectors
(which, since John Clapham's day, have been recognized as being of
prime importance in understanding the gradually unfolding character
of the first Industrial Revolution, and therefore maybe quite instructive)
37 Since this is not an essay in bibliographyI do not intend to list the relevant
contributionshere.Of theseinstitutionsperhapsonly the managingagencysystemhas
attracted some seriousscholarlywork-doubtless on account of its having been
somethingof a hot politicalpotato.Butevenheremuchof theworkis noweitherbadly
dated (cf. P. S. Lokanathan, I935; M. M. Mehta, I955; S. K. Basu, I958; N.C.A.E.R.,
I959; R. K. Hazari, I966; and A. Brimmer, I954) or disappointingly shallow (R. S.
Rungta, 1970, ch. I2). Two more recent articles-both characterisedby an attempt to
use primaryevidence-are more promisingviz. H. Papendieck,'Some Problemsof
Quantificationin IndianBusinessHistory',Bulletin Methods
of Quantitative inSouthAsian
Studies,no. I, June I973, and B. R. Tomlinson, 'Colonial Firms and the Decline of
Colonialism in Eastern India 9 4-47', ModernAsianStudies15 (3) 1981, but still barely
scratchthe surface.

have not yet been precisely identified or explored. It seems a plausible
suggestion that the ubiquitous 'contractor' acted as some kind of
bridging mechanism, but to the extent that this somewhat chimeral
figure (to historians that is) has been studied at all, it is in the context of
his intermediation in the labour supply and disciplinary process-rather
than in his capacity as budding entrepreneur.38
A wider definition of the institutional framework would embrace the
fundamental characteristics and the 'laws of motion' of the macroecono-
mic environment; Marxists see this in terms of the mode(s) of production
(and there is much debate as to which mode is the most appropriate-
semi-feudal, pre-capitalist, capitalist or even 'colonial'); neo-Classicals
tend to examine the functioning of input and output markets, the
demarcations of private property rights and, most recently, the question
of transactions costs; and those few historians who would explicitly
consider such matters in this way (not many Indianists have so far been
influenced by the Annales School) would probably be inclined to
investigate the implications of the confusing blend of capitalism, custom
and government intervention. Although no little headway has been
made in all three traditions, especially the first two, there has been little
direct point of interface between such general abstractions and the fall
and rise of the secondary sector per se. Only in the realm of the
formation-rather than the results-of economic policy (where the
historian has the advantage of Official papers and files) can we identify a
relevant body of literature.39
The two remaining areas of association I wish to pinpoint may be
quickly named. The first relates to what might broadly be termed the
state of technology, i.e., how both 'modern' and 'traditional' inputs were
combined so as to produce a given stream of outputs. Awareness of
technological choice and the logic, pace, and direction of technological
38 Most work has been done on the

of an
Bombay jobber. cf. M. D. Morris, Emergence
IndustrialLabourForce;D. Mazumdar, 'Labour Supply in Early Industrialization: The
Case of the Bombay Textile Industry', EconomicHistory Review, 24 (3) I973; and R. K.
Newman, 'Social Factors in the Recruitment of the Bombay Millhands' in K. N.
Chaudhury and C. Dewey (eds), Economyand Society. Essays in Indian Economicand Social
History (New Delhi, I979), and his Workers and Unions in Bombay I918-24: A Study of
Organisationin the CottonMills (Canberra, 1981).
39 Clive Dewey's two illuminating essays on the subject, 'The Eclipse of the
Lancashire Lobby and the Concessionsof Fiscal Autonomy to India' in C. Dewey and
A. G. Hopkins (eds), The Imperial Impact: Studies in the EconomicHistory of Africa and India
(London, 1978), and 'The Government of India's "New Industrial Policy", 1900-1925:
Formation and Failure', in Chaudhury and Dewey, EconomyandSocietyare in the same
tradition as the earlier work by Arthur Silver, Peter Harnetty, Ian Drummond and
S. K. Sen.

6io COLIN SIMMONS
change over the period is still very rudimentary, and although we may
intuitively harbour several probably highly germane suppositions
notably those revolving around the implications of different factor prices
vis-a-vis capital-goods supplying countries, and the alleged results of
entrepreneurial conservatism with respect to plant vintage and writing-
down policy (as far as the organized sector is concerned)-definite
information is at a premium.40 Secondly, the spatial or regional aspects
of industrial location and relocation have yet to be systematically
examined. To date we are still short of detailed historical narrations of
the rise-and fall (Murshedabad)-of 'industrial' village clusters,
districts, townships, towns, cities and regions. We seem to know a great
deal about the political, social, military and architectural fabric of
colonial cities-but their economic development has not generally been
accorded anything like the same degree of emphasis (usually it tends to
be relegated to background or contextual reference), and the less
well-known, non-metropolitan places--including the princely states-
have received scant interest. Of course, this is but one element within the
wider ambit of regional diversity; and the problem of determining the
most appropriate unit of analysis in the general study of the subcon-
tinent is still a matter of controversy. The sooner we are able to fill in
some of the gaps the more valuable will be the contribution of economic
historians to this particular issue.
Though far from comprehensive, this necessarily discursive survey of
what we lack in the way of informed descriptive work leads us directly
towards the two remaining lacunae already alluded to above, namely
the atheoretical approach of many, but of course by no means all
commentators, and the failure to invoke a comparative perspective;
indeed, there is clearly a strong relationship between these and what I
take to be our key weakness-the lack of a monographic tradition. I
suppose that in some ideal world of scholarship, description, theory,
comparison and contrast are intimately bound up together and, to the
extent that they are separable in the sense of individual predilection, a
constant tension exists between them so that a particular advance or
40
Paradoxically,althoughfew economichistoriansof modernIndia.have seemed
interestedin delvinginto technologyand thechoiceof technique,thesubjectappearsto
be attractingthe attentionof the pre-Britishand especiallythe Mughalspecialists(see
K. Currie,'The Developmentof Petty CommodityProductionin Mughal India',
Bulletinof Concerned
AsianScholars,14 (I) 982, and especially I. Habib, 'Technology and
Barriers to Social Change in Mughal India', IndianHistoricalReview,V, nos 1-2, July
I978-Jan. I979). Apart from the usual disclaimer of lack of information about the
'unorganized'sector, the main reason for this neglect seems to be related to the
'borrowed'natureof technologypriorto the secondworldwar.

INDUSTRIALIZATION AND THE INDIAN ECONOMY 6I I
breakthrough on one 'front' spills over elsewhere and prompts the

development of new avenues of enquiry. In the case of the historiogra-
phy on and around the secondary sector, there are only the faintest signs
of such trends41 and these could hardly be mistaken for an embryonic
presence. At first sight this might appear surprising. The debate about
the fate of the sector is now at least a century old, and almost from the
outset it has been characterized by both a problem-orientated and
comparative dimension-how to account for the decline or the
'de-industrialization', and what were the reasons for the relatively slow
pace of industrialization? To the extent that an analytical framework
has been deployed, it has tended to be pitched at the grand macro level:
the early writers were preoccupied with either the allegedly unpropi-
tious socio-cultural environment (Apologist School) or the non-inter-
ventionism of the colonial state (the Nationalists); and the more recent
works have singled out intrinsic supply-side weaknesses and/or the
deficiencies of aggregate demand consequent upon the 'dragging effect'
of the slow-or negative-agricultural growth rate. Now, whilst it
would be foolish to deny the significance of at least some of these factors,
if they are not integrated into a detailed study of industries and firms
then much of their force is lost. The same sort of argument applies to
comparisons over time (i.e. outside the I750-I947 period), and over
space: when they are advanced they tend to be superficial and
tendentious.
It is not enough to bemoan the rarity of such work: one also has to
suggest the possible reasons for this state of affairs. As far as theory is
concerned, I think it is fairly obvious why an inductive approach is ruled
out. Quite simply, there are too few soundly based case-studies in
existence, and this may well be why there is no real 'Indian example': I
am not aware of any theoretical advances or novelties that have been
derived from the study of either the 'organized' or the huge 'unor-
ganized' sectors. Whatever we may feel about the work on the Southern
African or the Latin American economies during the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries, it has proved to be a fertile ground for
furthering theoretical discourse. It is more difficult to explain the weakly
articulated application of deductive reasoning. To my mind there are
two likely causes. Firstly, and most prosaically, many of the entrants to
41
Bagchi, Private Investmentin India, is one of the few economic historians who has
consciously tried to set his study of modern industries within a theoretical framework (Pt
i, Introduction and Appendix). Although we may argue about the utility of this
framework and wonder how it relates to his more recent work, it is the very existence of
such an approach which I am concerned with here.

612 COLIN SIMMONS
Indian economic history have traditionally been recruited from ortho-

dox schools of history-rather than from the social-sciences, and apart
from any innate suspicion of theorizing that such a background often
breeds, there is the practical problem of coming to grips with often quite
daunting-and increasingly quantitative-literature. In such circum-
stances it is not hard to imagine why energies should be directed towards
unearthing library-type data than becoming familiar with the mysteries
of production functions, the procedures for measuring capital or the
valuation problem of (post-Steedman) Marxian economics. It is surely
no accident that the few scholars who have deployed theory in an
explicit way have either originated from North America (such as John
Hurd II and M. B. McAlpin) where recruitment has come from
economics, or who incline towards a Marxian or neo-Marxian frame of
reference (A. K. Bagchi, A. Sen). For the majority, intellectual
polymathy is a tall order. Secondly, and not unconnected with this
point, many economic historians (and not merely those specializing in
India) appear to harbour grave reservations about the usefulness of the
deductive approach in general and, where it has been invoked, the
degree to which it succeeds in asking the 'right' questions, and its fidelity
to the historical record as they perceive it. Moreover, it is often argued
that neither the quality nor the availability of the data for 'their'
problem area is sufficient to justify formal modelling methodology.
Whether the momentum towards a greater use of explicit theorizing
continues will depend upon the interaction of a large number of diverse
imponderables-but it will certainly be neither helped along nor
afforded a genuinely sympathetic reception unless the more esoteric and
historically ill-grounded efforts42 are significantly outweighed by a
steady stream of original and high quality work emanating from the
pens of the theoretically-minded writers (in whatever intellectual
tradition).43 At present, although there is still a strong general tide
running in favour of the theoreticians, in the specific Indian case, the 'G.
R. Eltons' maintain a clear numerical lead over both the 'Robert Fogels'
and the Marxists.44
42
In this category I would be inclined to take as my examples B. Davey, A. G. Frank
and A. Sen (Radicals), and the forays by D. Lal and Ian Little (in the neo-Classical
vein)-none of whom, of course, would attempt to posture as 'main-line' historians.
43 Cf. the work of K. N.
Chaudhuri and B. M. McAlpin (in the quantitative,
neo-Classical tradition), and A. K. Bagchi, H. Alavi and the recent studies of B.
Chandra ('Capitalism, Stages of Colonialism and the Colonial State', Journal of
Contemporary Asia io 1980 and 'Karl Marx, His Theories of Asian Societies and Colonial
Rule', Review V (I) 1981) in the Marxist tradition.
44 See R. W.
Fogel and G. R. Elton, WhichRoad to thePast?: Two Viewsof History (Yale,
1983) for a popular outline; and for a more formal statement of different methodologi-

Apart from gazing with somewhat glazed and perhaps covetous eyes
at post-MeijiJapan, students of the Indian economy have tended to take
little cognizance of comparative experience; nor have they actively
sought to place India within the broader sweep of world patterns of
'de-industrialization' and its obverse. Of course, when one is confronted
with a 'domestic' mountain to climb, it is admittedly a by no means
obvious step to seek out challenges elsewhere-especially if the terrain is
very unfamiliar. But the intellectual case for making comparisons and
drawing out contrasts is obviously quite compelling,45 and I think there
is a need to try and specify why this has been a neglected area.
I would forward two main points for consideration. First, my
impression has always been that India is frequently thought of as
occupying something of a special place in the pre- I 947 underdeveloped
world-a view that seems to be shared by both specialists and 'outsiders'
alike.46 Of course, all countries have unique qualities and endowments,
but somehow the image of India having a little extra degree of
differentiation persists and is perhaps attributable to a combination of
the sheer length of time that imperial subordination lasted, and India's
physical size, regional diversity and relatively large population. By way
of contrast (and, in my view, equally erroneously), after Independence
India has often been portrayed as the archetypal 'developing' or 'less
developed' economy-a rather interesting about-turn! Secondly,
although comparative economic history has always exerted a strong
appeal and indeed seems to have been a definite area of scholarly growth
over the last two decades or so (with its own well-established journal),47
as yet there are few generally accepted guiding principles. Furthermore,
cal-and indeed philosophical traditions-see the contributions of D. McCloskey, R.

Forster and S. Resnick in the Journal of EconomicHistory 38 (i) 1978, and the essays by D.
North, Structure and Change in Economic History (New York, I98I), and his 'The
Theoretical Tools of the Economic Historian', in C. P. Kindleberger and G. di Tella
(eds), Economicsin the Long View: Essays in Honourof W. W. Rostow (London, i982) vol. I,
Ch. 2.
45 For both Marxists (Bagchi, PrivateInvestment
in India,chs 3 and 4) and non-Marxists
(see Kindleberger and di Tella (eds), Economiesin the Long View, esp. vol. i) alike. The
virtues of comparative work on industrialization may be appreciated from such widely
different source and area references as B. R. Tomlinson's 'Writing History Sideways:
Lessonsfor Indian Economic Historiansfrom MejiJapan' published here; Y. Kigokawa,
'Technical Adaptations and Managerial Resources in India: A Study of the experience
of the Cotton Textile Industry from a Comparative Viewpoint', TheDeveloping Economies
XX (2) 1983; and C. H. Kirkpatrick, N. Lee and F. Nixson, IndustrialStructureand Policy
in Less Developed Countries(London, I984).
46 See L. G. Reynolds's rather typical comment that colonial India was 'rather a
special case' (see fn. 7), p. 956.
47 ComparativeStudies in
Society and History.

6I4 COLIN SIMMONS
the trend towards area specialization (which can potentially aid-

rather than frustrate-comparative work) presents serious practical and
institutional problems to the would-be synthesizer; and it is becoming
increasingly difficult for the 'Indianist', 'Africanist' or 'Latin-Ameri-
canist' to transcend his or her chosen field of study in any truly
meaningful way. A good illustration of such difficulties is the Hopkins
and Dewey (edited) volume which sets out to be a genuinely compara-
tive exercise-but unfortunately lapsed into familiar area-bounded
work.48 For these kinds of reasons, comparisons between Indian
industrialization and that of other countries (especially underdeveloped
countries where again we encounter the problem of data deficiency) are
seldom attempted: and when they are the ring of scientific authenticity is
rarely heard.49
I would like to end this section of the paper on a pessimistic-but I
think realistic-note. I do not think that Professor Morris, writing in the
late I970s or early I98os, was able to call upon, sift through and
marshall a significantlygreater body of secondary literature detailing
either the large-scale industries (his main brief) or the small-scale
'unorganized' sector (which he also chose to include) than any of his
post-Independence predecessors who set out to survey the field.50 The
fundamental and overriding monographic gap is as evident today as it
must surely have been to Professor G. C. Allen (writing about
industrialization in the Far East) over twenty years before in an
48
Dewey and Hopkins (eds), The Imperial Impact.
49 See for example Kemp, Industrialization in the Non-Western World, and the
particularly annoying article by S. Swamy, 'The Response to Economic Challenge: A
Comparative Economic History of China and India, I870-I952', QuarterlyJournal of
EconomicsXLIII (I) I979. Curiously enough, the more general and ambitious the work
the more suggestively fertile it seems to be, cf. P. Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State
(London, I975), Barrington Moore Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
(London, 1967), and E. L. Jones, The EuropeanMiracle (Cambridge, 1981).
50 All of the surveys cited below cover a much broader
spectrum than industrializa-
tion, of course, cf. V. V. Bhat, 'A Century and a Half of Economic Stagnation in India',
Economic and Political Weekly, 15 July 1963; A. Maddison, Class Structure, and 'The
Historical Origins of Indian Poverty', Banca Nazionale del Lavoro23 (92) March 1980; D.
Kumar, 'The Economy Under the Raj', South Asian Review 3 (4) I970, and her 'Recent
Research in the Economic History of Modern India', Indian Economicand Social History
Review 9(I) 1972; J. D. Bhagwati and P. Desai, India: Planning for Industrialisation
(Oxford, I970), ch. I; W. J. Macpherson, 'Economic Development in India Under the
British Crown', in A. J. Youngson (ed.), EconomicDevelopmentin the Long Run (London,
1972); E. Stokes, 'The First Century of British Colonial Rule in India: Social Revolution
or Social Stagnation?' Past and Present 58, I973; C. A. Bayly, 'English Language
Historiography on British Expansion in India and Indian Reactions since 1945', in H. L.
Wesseling and P. C. Emer (eds), Reappraisalsin OverseasHistory (Leiden, 1979); P. Robb
'British Rule', and N. Charlesworth, British Rule.

anteceding CambridgeEconomicHistory.5 Our knowledge of much of the
course of industrial history is therefore exceedingly weak and invariably
based upon non-business sources. Least of all is known about the great
jumble of activity subsumed within those most anodyne of
terms-'small-scale', 'unorganized', 'cottage' and 'handicrafts'; but we
also have a crying need for reliable and interpretative accounts of the
major (and of course 'minor') modern manufacturing industries and
firms, the plantations and the mines.52
IV
Since the appearance of his first 're-interpretation' article in the early

I96os, Professor M. D. Morris has been a highly influential-if
somewhat controversial-figure in modern Indian economic history,
and whilst it would be invidious formally to contemplate the selection
criteria that the Editor(s) of the Cambridge History may have had in
mind at the time of the commissioning, it is not difficult to understand
the choice of author for this subject.53 The wide-ranging nature of
Professor Morris's research; his role as teacher, supervisor and friendly
discussant; his talent for sparking-off major scholarly dispute; his
refreshingly iconoclastic approach towards the conventional wisdom of
the 'traditionalists'; his enthusiasm for the application of simple 'supply
and demand' type economic theory and his more recent espousal of
quantification;54 his knowledge of Japanese, British and American
economic history; his foray into development studies (the P.Q.L.I.
measure);55 and finally, but not least, his reviews of, and familiarity
with, ongoing work related to the secondary sector,56 all add up to a
formidable list of appropriate qualifications for tackling the rather
51 G. C. Allen, 'The Industrialisationof the Far East', in H.J. Habakkuk and M. M.

Postan (eds), The Cambridge EconomicHistoryof Europe,vol. VI TheIndustrialRevolutions
and After (Cambridge, 1965), pt II, ch. Io, section III, pp. 908-19.
52 Even the obvious 'front line' industries like cotton, jute, metals, paper, tea and
sugar steadfastly resist the beckoning finger.
53
Although to my mind it is somewhat surprisingthat A. K. Bagchi was not involved
with any aspect of the work; after all, his own connections with Cambridge and the
C.U.P. seem particularly strong.
54 M. D. Morris, 'Introduction to the in Economic
Symposium', Explorations HistoryI2,
1975, PP. 253-61.
55 M. D. Morris, Measuring the Conditionsof the World's Poor (New York, 1979).
56 Especially his extended review of A. K.
Bagchi's 1972 book, 'Private Industrial
Investment on the Indian Subcontinent 1900-1939: Some Methodological Consider-
ations' Modern Asian Studies, 8 (4) 1974, pp. 535-76.

616 COLIN SIMMONS
tricky job of surveying industrialization. Certainly, in so far as the three

important lacunae identified here are concerned, Professor Morris
would seem to be well equipped for the task in hand-though Marxist
scholars would undoubtedly cavil at Morris's theoretical framework.
Before I comment upon the essay itself, it is only fair to note the chief aim
of the volume as a whole. According to the Editorial Preface, this is 'a
general survey of the field' which should be 'in the nature of a
stocktaking, which reports on work already done and in process, but also
points out areas of relative darkness and encourages a redirection of
future effort'.57 Now, although such clearly stated objectives58 narrow
down the criteria of our evaluation (in that no pushing out of the frontier
was required),59 the very nature of such a broad enterprise presents its
own special problems. At the best of times 'reviewing a review' is a
somewhat hazardous and petulant undertaking, and in the present
circumstances the difficulties are exacerbated by the length of the essay,
its wide-ranging breadth, and the value-judgement element intrinsic to
determining the directions of future research or indeed where the rate of
return to scholarly endeavour is likely to be highest. For these reasons, I
do not believe that at this juncture it would be a particularly rewarding
or worthwhile exercise to try and scrutinize the Chapter in a line-by-
line, page-by-page, section-by-section manner-though I do recognize
that given the reference status the Cambridge volume will undoubtedly
enjoy in the years to come, there is a case for subjecting the text to
microscopic treatment.60 Rather than deal with the details of the piece,
57
C.E.H.I. p. xvii.
58
It is interesting to note that the Editors also mention, albeit in passing, that the
work on India (presumably including the volume under discussion) has much to
contribute to the 'current literature of underdevelopment' and even 'development
policies' (Preface p. xvii). Now although this is a refreshing departure from traditional
economic history (and goes beyond the somewhat bland and more orthodox expec-
tations contained in the editorial Prefaces of both Volumes 6 (1965) and 7 (1978) of the
CambridgeEconomicHistory of Europe), there is little evidence that any of the contributory
authors have seen fit to cast their studies with this objective in view.
59 Though Dharma Kumar and
Meghnad Desai state that 'some of the authors
... undertook original work as part of their brief', Preface p. xvii. These authors are not
mentioned by name, but I do not think that Professor Morris was one of the more
conspicuous examples.
60 Book reviewers are
unfortunately seldom allowed sufficient space to undertake such
work-and this applies with particular force to massive compendiums such as the
Cambridge volumes. Thus Premit Chaudhuri in his review (EconomicJournal, March
I984, p. I92) notes that 'it is impossible, in a short review, to do justice to a major
publication on a great theme .. .'. Since there is no obvious solution to this problem (we
cannot expect an extended Floud and McCloskey-type series of reviews in the Western
journals and the Chief Editor of vol. 2 is, of course, the Chief Editor of the I.E.S.H.R.),
the Cambridge Conference was all the more important.

my intention is here limited to providing a general critique along the
lines that have already been sketched out above, especially the
argument presented in Section III.
Professor Morris's essay is one hundred and twenty-three pages long
and is the largest single contribution to the Volume (at I2% of the total
textual space it is well in excess of the sub-sector's proportionate share of
both net output and employment!). It is divided into nine unequal parts,
viz. an introduction (pp. 553-8); a short discussion of the background or
'baseline' (pp. 558-63); a consideration of the half-century or so before
I850, the 'prelude' (pp. 563-6); four succeeding sections covering the
'first burst' of activity between I850 and 1914 (pp. 566-600), the first
world war (pp. 606-7), the inter-war period (pp. 607-40), and the years
spanning the second world war (pp. 640-2); one thematic section on the
industrial labour force (pp. 642-68); and finally a brief-almost to the
point of caricature-survey of handicrafts and small-scale industries
(pp. 668-78). In addition, there are two maps (showing the regional
distribution of factory employment in I93 , pp. 648ff, and 1961, pp.
65off), twenty-six diverse tabulations (7.I to 7.26) and, in compliance
with the singularly short-sighted and cost-cutting directive of the
Press,61 a mere sprinkling of source and reference citations-a conspi-
cuous gap which makes something of a mockery of the 'stocktaking'
function.
With regard to the organization of the material, the choice of what
was included and omitted, and the style of the prose, I have few
substantive comments to make. The essentially chronological way in
which the Chapter is written looks somewhat old-fashioned and
certainly impedes the development of a coherent overall argument. If
there are still any genuine advantages in adopting such a format they do
not shine through in this instance, and student readers may well find it
difficult to resist the temptation of examining the process as if it were but
a series of discrete phases with arbitrary starting and cut-off points-
rather than as part of a long-run dynamic whole. Professor Morris is also
heavily dependent upon three industries-cotton, jute, iron and
steel-to recount his story. Of course, no one would wish to dispute the
fact that the quantitative significance of this trio features prominently in
the total mix, especially prior to the 1920s, and that in many senses they
were crucial to the 'large-scale' manufacturing sector in toto. But
absolute size is by no means the only possible criterion and I would have
liked to have seen more attention being paid to the less 'glamorous'
61
Preface p. xviii.

618 COLIN SIMMONS
industries.62 Further, if a Chapter that is headed 'the growth of

large-scale industry' can legitimately include a section on the small-scale
sub-sector, I cannot understand the logic of excluding the plantations,
the mines and even the railway 'workshops'. Naturally a line has to be
drawn somewhere, but since these other activities receive little men-
tion-let alone considered discussion-elsewhere in the Volume, and
given that the distinction between a modern 'factory' establishment and
other forms of industrial organization are blurred and is anyway more a
matter of convention than substance, it is puzzling that the author
banishes these important areas altogether from his purview.
A similar point of inconsistency could be levelled at Professor Morris's
decision to devote twenty-six precious pages to the labour market and
yet subsume the action of the other conventional factor inputs within the
discussion of particular industries.Just as with the bias towards the three
largest industries, mitigating factors can be found: the labour-intensive
nature of the 'typical' industrial establishment and the consequent stress
upon the 'problem' of the workforce in the early Official literature-
now paralleled by a resurgence of interest by contemporary economic
historians (led, in no small measure, by Professor Morris's own work on
Bombay millhands). Nevertheless the impression that we are left with is
that it is somehow more important to give space to this aspect of the
supply-side of the economy than to others: if Professor Morris was a
Marxist historian, then we could better understand this emphasis-but
he obviously does not subscribe to any version of the labour theory of
value and nor does he deploy any of the insights offered by the
fast-expanding Marxist (Henry Braverman) inspired 'labour process'
literature. On the other hand, no attempt is made to estimate the
contribution of labour inputs to industrial growth rates and so even in
neo-classical terms the single thematic section is nowhere reallyjustified.
This is not to suggest that Professor Morris was somehow 'wrong' to
have a separate discussion of labour-only that if he was determined to
stick to a conventional framework then it would have been useful to have
had a separate account of the other input markets (especially those of
credit and entrepreneurship). As to style, few historians can match the
clarity, elegance and exuberant elan of Professor Morris's pen; and in
this essay the skilful blend of questioning and narration that has
characterized all his published work is as much in evidence as ever.
Though it is perfectly feasible to take issue with the minutiae of the
62
The same point has been made, albeit in a slightly different context, by R. S.
Chandavarkar in his stimulating paper presented to the Conference, 'Industrialization
in India Before 1947: Conventional Approaches and Alternative Perspectives', pp. 5ff.

INDUSTRIALIZATION AND THE INDIAN ECONOMY 6I9
Chapter, I am more concerned with the author's general approach. I

would like to open out two lines of criticism. First I would argue that the
essay does no more than (in a reasonably faithful way) reflect the general
historiographical weaknesses which were identified earlier in this
paper-inadequate description, the absence of-or weakly articula-
ted-theory, and the lack of an effective comparative dimension both
across time as well as over physical space. Clearly, without embarking
upon a mammoth expenditure of research time and effort, Professor
Morris was simply not in a position to make serious inroads into any one
of the three areas: he could only summarize what was available-and
even a cursory glance reveals that he was forced to rely much more
heavily upon 'Official' literature than secondary sources. If my
contention of enormous lacunae at all levels of the subject is correct, then
the essay is hardly remiss in this respect, and Professor Morris cannot be
considered culpable of leaving much out. Perhaps the only real surprise
is that he did not choose to identify the gaps in a systematic manner and
nor did he take the opportunity of using the book as a platform from
which to issue a powerful clarion call for more research resources to be
concentrated on this sector of the economy. As far as theory is
concerned, there was no discussion of the relative merits of alternative
approaches and methods, and I-for one-was unable to discern any
explicit acknowledgement of the bedrock model which may have
underpinned the study. If we disregard all previous allusions to
ideological position, the best clue to the ordering framework of this essay
lies in the series of scattered observations concerning the quintessentially
private enterprise nature of the colonial economy. According to
Professor Morris, the great bulk ofallocative decisions were made upon
an individualistic basis-'peasants' freely deciding upon the distribu-
tion of their time between labour and leisure (in connection with the
recruitment and stability of the work-force) as much as entrepreneurs-
and in accordance with an appreciation of their own perceived best
interests. In true Schultzian fashion 'homo economicus' was apparently
alive and well in India during this period and in full possession of a finely
tuned sense of personal costs and benefits. Neither government
intervention (in terms of both the State's limited appropriation of
national resources-here expressed as expenditure as a proportion of
G.N.P.-and its economic policy, especially with reference to tariff
protection, or rather its absence, before the I920s) nor the indigenous
value system exerted a profound or in any way significant influence-
positive or negative-and certainly 'no single act of policy or single
change of behaviour could have made far more rapid progress than did

620 COLIN SIMMONS
occur' (p. 588). I take the implication of these somewhat unremarkable

sentiments to mean that within the parameters of the existing socio-
economic structure of the Indian colonial state little could be done
purposively to generate self-sustaining industrial growth: in the prevail-
ing political-economy of the time a revolutionary single act of policy or
change of behaviour was indeed unlikely. I also presume that in order to
be consistent with the two basic thrusts of Professor Morris's initial
re-interpretation article-that the State had a beneficent influence on
nineteenth-century development (defined in terms of per capita income
growth) by establishing 'law and order' and laying down infrastructure
etc., and that the disappointing performance of the first half of the new
century was attributable to the 'insufficient time' at the disposal of the
Raj-the underlying message of the Chapter is tacit approval of the
main colonial foundation-stones and the ensuing economic policies. We
should also be clear that Professor Morris is not a radical neo-Classical in
the same way as, say, Deepak Lal,63 since he does not seem to castigate
the authorities for not actively seeking to make input and product
markets more 'perfect' and so getting the prices 'right'-although he
does seem to disapprove of the discriminating protectionism of the
inter-war years (p. 6Io). Thus, the Chapter is not characterized by an
infusion of theory, and when we do uncover the basic premises (in line
with previous publications) they are hardly of a very novel kind. Finally,
little in the way of a comparative dimension is offered. Pre-British levels
of technology were 'everywhere quite simple' (pp. 558f); there were few
mechanical advances, and we are told that foreign trade did not
stimulate any organizational changes of note; techniques in iron
production lagged behind those adopted elsewhere; and the equipment
in the cotton textile industry remained very basic and output per person
employed was 'very low'. I suspect that few modern historians of
Mughal India would readily concur with these assertions, and in any
event Professor Morris does not relate his discussion to prevailing 'needs'
or factor prices. The period I800-50 is treated in a similar cavalier
manner: what little advance did occur came as a result of E.I. Co.
initiative (p. 563)-colonialism is not merely acquitted of responsibility
but is given a pat on the back. Naturally there is no discussion of
plunder, large-scale corruption, the predatory role of the Company's
servants, the administrative chaos or the effects of wars centring upon
territorial expansion. No comparisons are made with the post-Indepen-
dence period and there are only a few throw-away remarks about the
63
D. Lal, The Poverty of DevelopmentEconomics.

INDUSTRIALIZATION AND THE INDIAN ECONOMY 62I
pace and direction of industrialization elsewhere-although it is

interesting that Professor Morris calls for (another) re-interpretation of
the impact of the Great Depression on Indian industry in the light of the
(impressive?) rate of Indian output growth (under a protectionist
regime-albeit that the role of tariffs have been exaggerated) vis-a-vis
Hilgerdt's comparative data (p. 6o8). But the extenuating factor of the
general lack of information with respect to spatial comparison (particu-
larly with regard to other Third World countries) cannot be gainsaid.
The second line of criticism is really an extension of the first. I would
venture to suggest that Professor Morris has failed to tackle head-on
what I regard as the fundamental question posed in Section II: What
caused the disappointing performance of the sector as a whole over the
long period of British rule? Professor G. C. Allen, writing in the
pre-Dependencey School days, asked why 'India ... though fully
exposed to the Western influences for a longer period than any other
Asian country, made even in the middle of the Twentieth Century a
meagre contribution to the world output of modern industrial pro-
ducts?'64 Many-but not all65--Radicals, of course, would nowadays
argue that it was precisely because of such exposure that the record (for
both 'modern' as well as 'traditional' sectors) was so bleak. But
disregarding the first part of the quotation, the question itself is surely
the appropriate one to put. Professor Morris cannot avoid considering at
least that aspect of the problem which concerns the large-scale
enterprises (the 'de-industrialization' of the small-scale sector is dismis-
sed). Rejecting (by implication) any structural or ideological explana-
tion, Professor Morris concentrates upon a Myrdal-like cumulative
causation framework. Aggregate demand was deficient because the
growth in population dragged down (not in an absolute sense!) average
per capita income levels and anyway the rural economy was allegedly
only partially 'monetized'. The distribution of income was also highly
unequal. Supply-side constraints were very serious, too: 'all machinery
had to be imported' (my emphasis); 'fuel was costly'; and skilled labour
was scarce. Moreover, the market mechanism did not develop a reliable
signalling system, uncertainty was prevalent and presumably trans-
actions costs were so 'high' as to preclude all-round advance over a
number of different fronts.
I believe that this type of reasoning is superficial and simply begs the
crucial issue. It is surely not enough to state that demand-side,
64 G. C. Allen, 'Industrialisation of the Far East', p. 919.

65 The
dissenting voices would be led by Bill Warren, Imperialism.

622 COLIN SIMMONS
supply-side and 'environmental' forces were defective: we need an

explanation of why they were-why was income per head so low? Why
were incomes-and assets-so highly skewed? Why didn't an indi-
genous capital-goods sector emerge? Why was skilled Indian labour at
such a premium? Why was fuel so expensive (if indeed it was)? Why was
there so much uncertainty? Professor Morris is apparently content with
'first order' causes only.66 Could his reluctance to probe deeper indicate
an unwillingness to concede that in this case anyway the power and
potency of the market was inadequate, and that it was a less than perfect
instrument for fostering long-run industrial development? Or could it be
that he is not prepared to condemn the entire political-economy of the
imperial state as being fundamentally antipathic towards the develop-
ment of a rounded, self-sustaining and vigorously-growing industrial
sector?67
66
Such 'causes' are more akin to tautologies than a serious attempt at explanation.
Let us briefly consider two industries I am most familiar with, textile machinery and
coal. If we perceive the former as a surrogate for all capital goods, the absence of
indigenous capacity prior to I939 (discussed by Professor Morris in one footnote, p. 582)
cannot be simply ascribed to a combination of the alleged frailty of inter-sectoral links
and the availability of 'cheap' machinery imports from the U.K. The story is more
complicated and we cannot omit the indirect influence of the imperial connection.
Similarly, the assertion (it is nowhere quantified let alone rigorously argued) that fuel
was 'costly' and 'extremely expensive' fails to incorporate any of the essential context.
The crude pit-head price of Indian coal was probably the lowest in the world (thanks to
the cheap labour systems of production in vogue in the major coalfields); if it was
relatively expensive in Bombay City, transport costs were obviously of considerable
significance, and clearly the level of freight charges was not entirely independent of
Government! The location of industry and the growth of (thermal) power-stations were
also hardly matters that lay beyond the reach of the Raj.
67 If so, he is evidently not alone, since both the Editors and a clear
majority of the
remaining contributors to the Cambridge volume appear to take the view that the
impact of imperial rule can somehow be side-stepped-perhaps even divorced-from
the basic economic history of the subcontinent. Along with Professor I. Habib
('Studying a Colonial Economy-Without Perceiving Colonialism', paper presented to
the Cambridge Conference) and others, I do not believe that this is a tenable
procedure-however sophisticated this kind of thinking may be (obviously it is not
simply a hostile reaction to Nationalist or Radical opinions). Moreover, apart from any
intellectual misgivings, it surely has the unintended effect of removing one of the most
compelling and all-embracing aspects of the entire historiography.


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'De-Industrialization', Industrialization and the Indian Economy, c.

This content downloaded from 14.139.217.82 on Mon, 30 Sep 2013 05:12:26 AM

The purpose of this short discussion paper is to raise some general

Few serious students of modern subcontinental economic history

This content downloaded from 14.139.217.82 on Mon, 30 Sep 2013 05:12:26 AM

centuries of British hegemony, is both rudimentary and woefully

application-and indeed the recent debate concerning 'proto-industrialization' in early

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This content downloaded from 14.139.217.82 on Mon, 30 Sep 2013 05:12:26 AM

Bairoch's team)6 and a useful framework for analysis (Lloyd

This content downloaded from 14.139.217.82 on Mon, 30 Sep 2013 05:12:26 AM

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One of the indirect implications of the foregoing line of argument is that

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1750t 24.5 32.8 73.0 27.0

Notes:* Refersto the undividedsubcontinentup to

detailed and imaginative investigation. Despite-or perhaps because

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around the subject has thrown-up many thought-provoking questions of

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India Japan Developed Countries

Note: * UK in 1900 = Ioo

harbour a great many reservations about the utility of both the

This content downloaded from 14.139.217.82 on Mon, 30 Sep 2013 05:12:26 AM

This content downloaded from 14.139.217.82 on Mon, 30 Sep 2013 05:12:26 AM

Notes: * In constant 1946-47 prices

provides us with a relatively sound basis for probing deeper (historians

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Note: *A vague composite of small-scale industry, government, professions,

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This content downloaded from 14.139.217.82 on Mon, 30 Sep 2013 05:12:26 AM

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amount of endeavour and, I suppose, fascination; and within economic

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38 Most work has been done on the

This content downloaded from 14.139.217.82 on Mon, 30 Sep 2013 05:12:26 AM

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breakthrough on one 'front' spills over elsewhere and prompts the

This content downloaded from 14.139.217.82 on Mon, 30 Sep 2013 05:12:26 AM

Indian economic history have traditionally been recruited from ortho-

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cal-and indeed philosophical traditions-see the contributions of D. McCloskey, R.

This content downloaded from 14.139.217.82 on Mon, 30 Sep 2013 05:12:26 AM

the trend towards area specialization (which can potentially aid-

This content downloaded from 14.139.217.82 on Mon, 30 Sep 2013 05:12:26 AM

Since the appearance of his first 're-interpretation' article in the early

51 G. C. Allen, 'The Industrialisationof the Far East', in H.J. Habakkuk and M. M.

This content downloaded from 14.139.217.82 on Mon, 30 Sep 2013 05:12:26 AM

tricky job of surveying industrialization. Certainly, in so far as the three

This content downloaded from 14.139.217.82 on Mon, 30 Sep 2013 05:12:26 AM

This content downloaded from 14.139.217.82 on Mon, 30 Sep 2013 05:12:26 AM

industries.62 Further, if a Chapter that is headed 'the growth of

This content downloaded from 14.139.217.82 on Mon, 30 Sep 2013 05:12:26 AM

Chapter, I am more concerned with the author's general approach. I

This content downloaded from 14.139.217.82 on Mon, 30 Sep 2013 05:12:26 AM

occur' (p. 588). I take the implication of these somewhat unremarkable

This content downloaded from 14.139.217.82 on Mon, 30 Sep 2013 05:12:26 AM

pace and direction of industrialization elsewhere-although it is

64 G. C. Allen, 'Industrialisation of the Far East', p. 919.

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supply-side and 'environmental' forces were defective: we need an

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