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Book SynopsisIn The Political Economy of Indigo in India, 1580-1930: A Global Perspective Ghulam A. Nadri explores the dynamics of the indigo industry and trade from a long-term perspective and examines the local and global forces that affected the potentialities of production in India and elsewhere and caused periods of boom and slump in the industry. Using the commodity chains conceptual framework he examines the stages in the trajectory of indigo from production to consumption. Nadri shows convincingly that the growth or decline in indigo production and trade in India was a part of the global processes of production, trade, and consumption and that indigo as a global commodity was embedded in the politics of empire and colonial expansion.
Trade Review"The book’s unique merit lies in shedding light on the early modern history of indigo that scholars have thus far passed over. There are a number of assertions on the history of indigo production on the Indian subcontinent going back to antiquity, but not until this book has there been any systematic study of this history in any era other than the modern, except in broader studies of oceanic trade by economic historians of the previous generation. Nadri has to be commended for dwelling on an uncharted chronology of the history of indigo on the subcontinent. His detailed consultation of Dutch archives and of scattered Persian archives in this regard is praiseworthy. [...] Nadri’s book entices other scholars to follow the lead he has provided." - Prakash Kumar, Pennsylvania State University, in: Economic History Review, 70, 2 (2017) "[...] Nadri’s relentless comparative commodity chain framework conceptual approach represents an important contribution to the growing corpus of new scholarship at the intersection of tradition and modernity, state and economy, and the local and global in South Asia. The chapters on the making of the world market and the political economy of indigo in particular are required reading for anyone interested in early modern and colonial India in the contexts of modernization, colonial capitalism, and globalization (or rather ‘glocalization’)." - Markus Vink, The State University of New York at Fredonia, in:The Mariner's Mirror, 103:3, pp. 353-354
Table of ContentsGeneral Editor’s Foreword ... vii Acknowledgements ... x List of Illustrations ... xii List of Abbreviations and Short Titles ... xiv Currency, Weights, and Measures ... xvi Glossary ... xvii Introduction ... 1 1 The Making of Indigo: Cultivation and Manufacture ... 12 2 From Manufactory to Market: Logistics and Commerce ... 61 3 The Indigo Trade: Local and Global Demand ... 85 4 The Making of the World Market: Indigo Commodity Chains ... 124 5 The Political Economy of Indigo: States, Merchants, and Producers ... 154 Conclusions ... 192 Appendices 1 Annual Volumes (in Dutch pounds) and Values (in guilders) of the voc’s Indigo Exports from Surat, 1619–1742 ... 197 2 Quantities and Values of Annual Indigo Sales by the voc, 1642–1765 ... 200 3 Indigo Sale Prices (stivers/pound) in Amsterdam, 1695–1760 ... 206 4 Quantities (in lb.) of Indigo Exported by the eic from Surat/Bombay, 1615–1729 ... 208 5 Values (in rupees) of Annual Indigo Exports from India, 1795/96–1933/34 ... 211 6 Quantities (in Dutch pounds) and Values (in guilders) of voc’s Exports of Java Indigo to the Dutch Republic, 1704–1781 ... 216 7 Values (in guilder) and Volumes (in kilogram) of Indigo Exports from Java, 1824–1873 ... 217 8 Indigo Prices (rupees per man and stivers per Dutch pound) in India, 1609–1757 ... 219 9 Indigo Prices in Calcutta (rupees/factory man) and London (pence/lb.), 1843–1921 ... 221 Bibliography ... 223 Index ... 240
