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V. State Formation and Transformation in Early Modern India and Southeast Asia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2011

Sanjay Subrahmanyam
Affiliation:
(Delhi School of Economics)

Extract

Orthodox viewpoints on the formation and transformation of states in early modern (or late pre-colonial) South and Southeast Asia fall broadly into two strands. On the one hand, there are those who see the state as ephemeral, and essentially divorced from society in general.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 1988

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References

Notes

Acknowledgements: For help in reformulating the problems this paper attempts to address, I am grateful to C.A. Bayly, Andre Wink, and especially to Pierre-Yves Manguin.

1 Byres, T.J. and Mukhia, H. eds., Feudalism and Non-European Societies (London 1985) 1165.Google Scholar

2 Irfan Habib, ‘Classifying Pre-Colonial India’ in: Byres and Mukhia eds., Feudalism, 44–53. See also Habib, Irfan M., The Agrarian System of Mughal India, 1556–1707 (Bombay 1963)Google Scholar; Idem, Potentialities of Capitalistic Development in the Economy of Mughal India’, The Journal of Economic History 29 (1969) 3278CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Raychaudhuri, Tapan and Habib, Irfan eds., The Cambridge Economic History of India I, c. 1200 to c. 1750 (Cambridge 1981)Google Scholar, for other versions of the same argument.

3 Burton Stein, ‘Politics, Peasants and the Deconstruction of Feudalism in Medieval India’ in: Byres and Mukhia eds., Feudalism, 54–86. See also B. Stein, ‘Vijayanagara, c. 1350–1564’ in: Raychaudhuri and Habib eds., Cambridge Economic History of India, 102–124 and Stein, B., Peasant State and Society in Medieval South India (Delhi 1980)Google Scholar, for earlier statements: For critical comments, see Karashima, Noboru, South Indian History and Society: Studies from the Inscriptions, AD. 850–1800 (Delhi 1984)Google Scholar, and more recently: Tsukasa Mizushima, Nattar and the Socio-Economic Change in South India in the 18th–19th Centuries. Study of Languages and Culture of Asia and Africa, Monograph no, 19 (Tokyo 1986) 24–29, 210–213, passim.

4 Stein, Peasant State and Society, 367.

5 Stein, B., ‘State Formation and Economy Reconsidered’, Modem Asian Studies 19 (1985) 387413CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 400. See also Stein, ‘Politics, Peasants and the Deconstruction’, 77–78.

6 For the quotations cited in the preceding paragraphs, Ibidem.

7 Perlin, Frank, ‘Of White Whale and Countrymen in the Eighteenth-Century Maratha Deccan: Extended Class Relations, Rights and the Problem of Rural Autonomy under the Old Regime’, Journal of Peasant Studies 5 (1978) 172237CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Perlin, F., ‘Proto-Industrialization and Pre-Colonial South Asia’, Past and Present 98 (1983) 3095CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bayly, Christopher A., Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, 1770–1870 (Cambridge 1983)Google Scholar; Alam, Muzaffar, The Crisis of Empire in Mughal North India: Awadh and the Punjab, 1707–1748 (Delhi 1986)Google Scholar; Andre Wink, ‘“Al-Hind”: India and Indonesia in the Islamic World-Economy, c. 700–1800 A.D.’, in this volume.

8 Wink, A., Land and Sovereignty in India: Agrarian Society and Politics under the Eighteenth-Century Maratha Svarājya (Cambridge 1986)Google Scholar Chapter 1.1, which reproduces the arguments in Idem, Sovereignty and Universal Dominion in South Asia’, The Indian Economic and Social History Review 21, 3 (1984) 265292.Google Scholar

9 Perlin, ‘Proto-Industrialization’, 55–56, 59–60; Idem, Monetary Revolution and Societal Change in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Times - A Review Article’, The Journal of Asian Studies 45 (1986) 10371049CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 1045–1046; A.I. Chicherov, India: Economic Development in the 16th–18th Centuries, transl. Don Danemanis (Moscow 1971).

10 F. Perlin, ‘Concepts of Order and Comparison, with a Diversion on Counter Ideologies and Corporate Institutions in Late Pre-Colonial India’ in: Byres and Mukhia eds., Feudalism, 87–165, esp. 116. This piece largely overlaps with another, published simultaneously: Perlin, F., ‘State Formation Reconsidered’, Modern Asian Studies 19 (1985) 415480.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Cf. Palat, Ravi A., ‘Popular Revolts and the State in Medieval South India: A Study of the Vijayanagara Empire (1360–1565)’, Bijdragen lot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 142 (1986) 128144CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Karashima, South Indian History, xxxii.

12 This is discussed at greater length in Sanjay Subrahmanyam, ‘Persians, Pilgrims and Portuguese: The Travails of Masulipatnam Shipping in the Western Indian Ocean, 1590–1665’, Modern Asian Studies. For existing discussions in different Asian contexts which tend to support a relatively cautious view of the timing and effects of the introduction of firearms, see S.N. Sen, Military Systems of the Marathas (1958; repr. Calcutta 1979) and Manguin, Pierre-Yves, Les Nguyên. Macau el le Portugal: Aspects politiques et commerciaux d'une relation privilégiée en Mer de Chine, 1773–1802 (Paris 1984) 126128, passim.Google Scholar

13 Cf. Reid, Anthony, ‘The Pre-Colonial Economy of Indonesia’, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies 20, 2 (1984) 151167CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 161–164; Habib, ‘Potentialities’.

14 Thus, the discussions in Andaya, Leonard Y., The Heritage of Arung Palakka: A History of South Sulawesi (Celebes) in the Seventeenth Century (The Hague 1981)Google Scholar; Warren, James F., The Sulu Zone 1768–1898: The Dynamics of External Trade, Slavery and Ethnicity in the Transformation of a Southeast Asian Maritime State (Singapore 1981).Google Scholar

15 Cf. Schrieke, B.J., Indonesian Sociological Studies I (The Hague 1955)Google Scholar. This theme recurs in recent writings as well, for instance in J. van Goor, ‘Seapower, Trade and State-Formation: Pontianak and the Dutch’ in: Idem ed., Trading Companies in Asia, 1600–1830 (Utrecht 1986) 83–106, esp. 83–85.

16 Burger, D.H., Sociologisch-Economische Geschiedenis van Indonesia I (repr.; The Hague 1975) 2730.Google Scholar

17 In the Southeast Asian case, this often is traced to Benedict Anderson, R.O'G., ‘The Idea of Power in Javanese Culture’ in: Holt, Claire ed., Culture and Politics in Indonesia (Ithaca 1972) 522Google Scholar, and Kumar, Ann, ‘Javanese Historiography in and of the “Colonial Period” - A Case Study’ in: Reid, A. and Marr, D. eds., Perceptions of the Past in Southeast Asia (Singapore 1979) 187286Google Scholar. For a reiteration, see also Willem Remmelink, ‘Expansion without Design: The Snare of Javanese Polities’, in this volume.

18 Pearson, M.N., ‘Shivaji and the Decline of the Mughal Empire’, The Journal of Asian Studies 35 (1976) 221235Google Scholar; Blake, Stephen P., ‘The Patrimonial-Bureaucratic Empire of the Mughals’, The Journal of Asian Studies 39 (1979) 7794.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 Reid, Anthony, ‘Trade and State Power in 16th and 17th Century Southeast Asia’ in: Proceedings of the Seventh IAHA Conference (Bangkok 1977)Google Scholar and Idem, ‘Trade and the Problem of Royal Power in Aceh: Three Stages, c. 1550 to 1700’ in: Reid, A. and Castles, L. eds., Pre-Colonial State Systems in South-East Asia. M.B.R.A.S. Monographs 6 (Kuala Lumpur 1975) 4555.Google Scholar

20 Cf. Lieberman, Viktor B., ‘Europeans, Trade and the Unification of Burma, c. 1540–1620’, Oriens Extremus 27, 2 (1980) 203226Google Scholar; Idem, Burmese Administrative Cycles: Anarchy and Conquest, c. 1580–1760 (New Jersey 1984).

21 Kathirithamby-Wells, Jeya, ‘Royal Authority and the Orang Kaya in the Western Archipelago, circa 1500–1800’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 17, 2(1986) 256267, esp. 266–267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 The notion of an ‘open frontier of explanation’ is borrowed from Perlin's writings. See for instance Perlin, ‘Proto Industrialization’, 94–95.

23 See Steensgaard, Niels, ‘The Seventeenth-Century Crisis’ in: Parker, Geoffrey and Smith, Lesley M. eds., The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century (London 1978) 2656, esp. 48.Google Scholar

24 Thus, this is a theme that occurs in Perlin's ‘Proto-Industrialization’ and ‘Monetary Revolution’, and is equally to be encountered in Wink, ‘“Al-Hind” ’, and Bayly, C.A., ‘The Middle East and Asia during the Age of Revolutions, 1760–1830’, Itinerario 10, 2 (1986) 6984.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 One would hence tend to view critically the modes of explanation adopted in Prakash, Om, ‘Bullion for Goods: International Trade and the Economy of Early 18th Century Bengal’, The Indian Economic and Social History Review 13, 2 (1976) 159187CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Chaudhuri, K.N., The Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company, 1660–1760 (Cambridge 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a more detailed discussion, see Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, Trade and the Regional Economy of South India, c. 1550 to 1650 (unpublished Ph.D. thesis; Delhi 1986) 519545.Google Scholar

26 Cf. Braudel, Fernand, Civilization and Capitalism, 151h–18th Century I, The Structures of Everyday Life, transl. Reynolds, Siân (London 1981) 3234, 46–51.Google Scholar

27 See Atwell, William S., ‘Some Observations in the “Seventeenth-Century Crisis” in China and Japan’, The Journal of Asian Studies 45 (1986) 223244CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 223–244. For a discussion of parallel climatic problems in the Indian peninsula to those discussed by Atwell, see H.W. van Santen, De Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie in Gujarat en Hindustan, 1620–1660 (un published Ph.D. thesis; Leiden 1982) and Subrahmanyam, ‘Persians, Pilgrims and Portuguese’.

28 Subrahmanyam, Trade and the Regional Economy, 144–145, 543–545, passim. On the 16th century, also see Magalhâes Godinho, Vitorino, Os Descobrimentos e a Economia Mundial (4 vols.; Lisbon 19811984).Google Scholar

29 This view is most clearly articulated in Tapan Raychaudhuri, ‘Inland Trade’ in: Raychaudhuri and Habib eds., Cambridge Economic History of India I, 325–359, esp. 327, 358 passim. For a brief critique, see Perlin, ‘State Formation Reconsidered’, 424, 464–465, passim.

30 For an elaboration of this point in the context of the rice trade, see Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, ‘The Portuguese, the Port of Basrur, and the Rice Trade, 1600–1650’, The Indian Economic and Social History Review 21 (1984) 433462.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 For a clear discussion of monetisation, the income-velocity of money, and structural changes accompanying monetisation, see Driscoll, M.J. and Lahiri, A.K., ‘Income-Velocity of Money in Agricultural Developing Countries’, The Review of Economics and Statistics 65 (1983) 393401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32 See Subrahmanyam, Trade and the Regional Economy, 66–74; Ludden, David, Peasant History in South India (New Jersey 1985) 7581.Google Scholar

33 For a discussion, see Perlin, ‘Concepts of Order’ and ‘State Formation Reconsidered’; also some remarks in Dharma Kumar, ‘The Taxation of Agriculture in British India and Dutch Indonesia’ in: Bayly, C.A. and Kolff, D.H.A. eds., Two Colonial Empires (Dordrecht 1986) 203225, esp. 204–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34 For a discussion of these elements, see Brehriig, Joseph J., ‘Chief Merchants and the European Enclaves of Seventeenth-Century Coromandel’, Modern Asian Studies 11 (1977) 321340Google Scholar, esp. 323–328; Ludden, Peasant History, 69–71, 98–99; Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, ‘Aspects of State Formation in South India and Southeast Asia, 1500–1650’, The Indian Economic and Social History Review 23 (1986) 357377CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 366–372. My own discussion is based in particular on references to these individuals in the Dutch East India Company's records; thus, see Algemeen Rijksarchief, The Hague, VOC 1056–1171.

35 Muzishima, Nattar, chapters 2 and 3; also see the discussion in Perlin, ‘Of White Whale’, and more recently (in the context of northern India) Alam, Crisis of Empire.

36 Subrahmanyam, ‘Aspects of State Formation’, 371–372; Wink, Land and Sovereignty, 339–375,

37 Boomgaard, Peter, ‘Buitenzorg in 1805: The Role of Money and Credit in a Colonial Frontier Society’, Modem Asian Studies 20 (1986) 3358, esp. 34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 Breman, Jan, ‘The Village on Java and the Early Colonial State’, Journal of Peasant Studies 9, 4 (1982) 189240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 These populations are discussed for instance in Kumar, ‘Taxation of Agriculture’, 220 note 8; and Ricklefs, M.C., ‘Some Statistical Evidence on Javanese, Social, Economic and Demographic History in the Later Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, Modem Asian Studies 20 (1986) 132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

40 Cf. Carey, Peter, ‘Waiting for the “Just King”: The Agrarian World of South-Central Java from Giyanti (1755) to the Java War (1825–30)’, Modem Asian Studies 20 (1986) 59137CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 90–92; Ricklefs, ‘Some Statistical Evidence’, 28–32.

41 Blussé, J.L., ‘Labour Takes Root: Mobilisation and Immobilisation of Javanese Rural Society under the Cultivation System’, Itinerario 7, 1 (1984) 77118CrossRefGoogle Scholar, constitutes a somewhat iconoclastic view of the population and labour question. See also Idem, Batavia, 1619–1740: The Rise and Fall of a Chinese Colonial Town’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 12 (1981) 159178CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on West Java, and Luc Nagtegaal, ‘The Dutch East India Company and the Relations between Kartasura and the Javanese Northcoast, c. 1690 - c. 1740’ in: Van Goor ed., Trading Companies in Asia, 51–81, on northern and Central Java.

42 Algemeen Rijksarchief, The Hague, VOC 2548, f. 304, cited in Nagtegaal, ‘Dutch East India Company and the Relations’, 51.

43 See for example Wink, ‘“Al-Hind” ’.

44 Cf. Wisseman, Jan, ‘Markets and Trade in Pre-Majapahit Java’ in: Hutterer, K.L. ed., Economic Exchange and Social Interaction in Southeast Asia: Perspectives from Prehistory, History and Ethnography (Ann Arbor 1977) 197212Google Scholar; Boomgaard, ‘Buitenzorg in 1805’; Carey, ‘Waiting for the “Just King” ‘.

45 The authorative discussion on picis is that of J.L. Blussé, ‘Trojan Horse of Lead: The Picis in Early 17th Century Java’ in: F. van Anrooij et al., Between People and Statistics: Essays on Modern Indonesian History Presented to P. Creuzberg (The Hague 1979) 33–48. Also see Carey, P., ‘Changing Javanese Perceptions of the Chinese Communities in Central Java, 1755–1825’, Indonesia 37 (1984) 148, esp. 9–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

46 This evidence is summed up in Subrahmanyam, ‘Aspects of State Formation’, 372–374.

47 However, the traditional stigma attached to being a revenue-farmer still persists in the Javanese historiography; thus, sec Ricklefs, ‘Some Statistical Evidence’, 31–32.

48 See Atwell, ‘Some Observations’, 237.