Deindustrialization' Revisited

The Handloom Weavers of the Central Provinces of India, c. 1800-1947

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3635014
AutoresPeter Harnetty (University of British Columbia, autor correspondente)
Ano1991
Volume25
Fascículo3
Páginas455-510
Data de publicação1991-07-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoModern Asian Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0026-749X • E-ISSN: 1469-8099
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0026749x00013901
OpenAlexW2055399384
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas9
Referências citadas11

When Marx in 1853 denounced the exploitation of India under British rule and wrote of 'The British intruder who broke up the Indian handloom' he laid the foundation for an economic critique which has endured to the present day. In the twentieth century, the fate of the Indian handloom weaver has been at the center of the controversy over the concept of the 'deindustrialization' of India on which there is now a substantial body of literature. Did the handloom industry collapse in face of competition from manufactured British imports as proponents of this thesis contend? Or were the handloom weavers able to survive the competition and at least retain (and, as has recently been argued, perhaps even improve) their position, as demand for cloth rose with risingper capitaincome, the fall in cloth prices was offset by the cheaper price of machine-spun yarn, and the handloom weavers diversified into higher-valued products and adopted new technologies? This paper is intended as a further contribution to this debate. It examines what happened to the handloom industry in one part of India (the region that from 1861 was called the Central Provinces) over a period of roughly one hundred and fifty years. It is in four parts. The first part studies the changes that occurred in the nineteenth century as British power spread throughout the subcontinent. This is the period when deindustrialization is said to have occurred to a significant extent

Ancient history · Competition (biology · Deindustrialization · Development economics · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Indian subcontinent · Per capita · Per capita income · Population · Position (finance · Sociology · Colonial History and Postcolonial Studies · Demography · History