The Peasant Production of Opium in Nineteenth-Century India

Erscheinungsjahr 2019
ISBN: 978-90-04-38517-7
Verlag: World Bank Publications

Buch, Englisch, Band 12, 220 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 231 mm, Gewicht: 499 g

Reihe: Library of Economic History

Winner of the 2019 Michael Mitterauer-Prize for best monograph

The Peasant Production of Opium in Nineteenth-Century India is a pioneering work about the more than one million peasants who produced opium for the colonial state in nineteenth-century India. Based on a profound empirical analysis, Rolf Bauer not only shows that the peasants cultivated poppy against a substantial loss but he also reveals how they were coerced into the production of this drug. By dissecting the economic and social power relations on a local level, this study explains how a triangle of debt, the colonial state’s power and social dependencies in the village formed the coercive mechanisms that transformed the peasants into opium producers. The result is a book that adds to our understanding of peasant economies in a colonial context.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bauer, Rolf

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftsgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Wirtschaftsgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements

List of Illustrations and Tables

Glossary

Units of Measurement

1 Introduction

2 The Creation of a System

2.1 A Chronology of the British Opium Monopoly in India

2.2 A Further Note on Bengal and Malwa: Two Opium Economies Intermingled

2.3 Keystone of Empire

2.4 Opium and China

2.5 Auctions

2.6 The Sudder Factories

3 The Functioning of a System

3.1 The Opium Department: A Centralised Bureaucratic Structure

3.2 The Settlement

3.3 Laws and Fines

3.4 Local Collaboration

4 A Local-Level Analysis of an Opium District: Saran

4.1 Topography and General Aspects Related to Agriculture

4.2 The People of Saran

4.3 Distribution of Land Proprietorship and Tenancy

4.4 Crops

5 The Costs and Benefits of Poppy Cultivation

5.1 Poppy within Bihar’s Agriculture

5.2 Agricultural Operations of Poppy Cultivation

5.3 Who Cultivated Poppies?

5.4 Costs and Benefits: An Assessment

6 The Mechanics of a System: Incentives, Coercion and Dependence

6.1 The System of Advance Payments

6.2 Sarkar—By Order of the Government

6.3 Zamindar—Triadic Relations

7 Conclusion

Appendix

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Rolf Bauer, PhD (2018), University of Vienna, is currently a lecturer in Economic and Social History, South Asian Studies and International Development at that university. He has previously published on the opium industry in nineteenth-century India.