Sugar in eastern India
Commercial agriculture and the Indian Ocean trade, c. 1600–1800
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8961201 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Murari Kumar Jha (0000-0001-7383-1794, Ahmedabad University, Gujarat, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 62 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 481-506 |
| Publication date | 2025-11-05 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Indian Economic & Social History Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0019-4646 • E-ISSN: 0973-0893 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/00194646251386190 |
| OpenAlex | W4415915991 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 22 |
Eastern India, particularly Bengal and to some extent northeast Andhra Pradesh, was a major hub in the Indian Ocean sugar trade. The fertile and well-watered areas of this vast region were able to meet the growing demand for sugar in the intra-Asian trade. Although sugar exports from Bengal began to decline in the second half of the eighteenth century, it continued to be consumed both locally and regionally. Little is known about the role of eastern India in the early modern regional and overseas sugar trade. This article makes a modest contribution to the region’s experience of commercial agriculture by describing sugarcane cultivation, sugar production and trade. It explains why the sugar export trade became marginal and how regional consumption remained resilient in the late eighteenth century. It sheds light on the region’s participation in intra-Asian trade, sugarcane cultivation and sugar production practices using data from the Dutch East India Company archives and other early colonial documents
Agriculture · BENGAL · Indian ocean · Sugar · Sugar industry · Sugar production · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Land Rights and Reforms
Eighteenth-Century Gujarat
The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal, 1630-1720
Ten Thousand Years of Cultivation at Kuk Swamp in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea
Art. XIV.—Mahuan's Account of the Kingdom of Bengala (Bengal)
The Sugar Plantation in India and Indonesia
Commodity frontiers and the transformation of the global countryside
The Dutch Intra-Asian Trade in Sugar in the Eighteenth Century
Deindustrialization in 18th and 19th century India
Dutch-Asiatic Trade 1620 – 1740
Sugar-Making in Ancient India
Eastern India in the early eighteenth century 'crisis
Economic History and Modern India
Rural Industry and Commercial Agriculture in Late Seventeenth-Century South-Eastern India
The Rice Trade in Eastern India 1650-1740
Weather, Harvests, and Taxes
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |