Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T07:23:14.946Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Town Building in North India, 1790–1830

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

C. A. Bayly
C. A. Bayly
Affiliation:
Centre of South Asian Studies, Cambridge
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The fate of urban centres in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century India has attracted attention far in excess of their supposed importance as population centres. It is assumed that flourishing towns are an indicator of economic development and change in their hinterlands. Muslim historians traditionally laid stress on the opulence of towns as a gauge of the wealth of divisions of the Moghul Empire. Recently, Indian historians of the Medieval period have returned to the theme, claiming for the Moghul cities large populations, developed ‘industries’ and sophisticated credit systems. Throughout these works there is an implicit paralled drawn with the point it is suggested that far from being mere administrative centers and entrepots for ‘aristocratic’ long-distance trade, these cities were exchange marts for wealthy hinterlands where agreculturalists exchanged thier products of ‘urban industries’. It is but a short step to argue that these cities weakened by the anarchy of the eighteenth century, were finally ruined by the negligent commercial amorality of the East India Company. The claim by early British writers that the security of British rule encouraged the growth of urban communities in which merchants secured relief from the vexations of local potentates and innumerable minor transit duties is rejected This argument for town decline first revived by Professor Irfan Habib almost as a throwaway, has recently been followed by other younger Indian Marxist historians.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , July 1975 , pp. 483 - 504
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

The research on which this paper is based was generously funded by the United Kingdom Social Science Research Council. The paper was originally presented at the Director's study group on ‘India: Society in War, 1795–1808’, School of Oriental and African Studies, London, in 1974.Google Scholar

1 Habib, I., The Agrarian System of Mughal India, 1556–1707 (Bombay, 1963), pp. 75–7.Google Scholar

2 Naqvi, H. Q., Urbanisation and Urban Centres under the Great Moghuls, 1556–1707: an Essay in Interpretation (Simla, 1972);Google ScholarUrban Centres and Industries in Upper India, 1556–1803 (London, 1968).Google Scholar

3 Habib, I., paper on the hundi system given at the Indian Historical Congress, 1972.Google Scholar

4 Habib, , The Agrarian System, p. 76. He speaks of ‘the great depopulation of the towns in the nineteenth century’; the authority is Bentinck who is referring to Trevelyan's Report, see below, note 7.Google Scholar

5 For the Gangetic area, the ultimate source of this view is Barlow's, G. H. report on the nature of the trade in the Vizier's country, Foreign Department Secret 6 June 1787, 19, National Archives of India, New Delhi [N.A.I.].Google Scholar

6 Borpujari, J. G., ‘Indian Cotton and the Cotton Famine; 1860–65’ I.E.S.H.R., X, I (1973), based on Selections from the Records, North-Western Provinces.Google Scholar

7 Borpujari, J. G., ‘The Impact of the Transit Duty System in British India’, I.E.S.H.R., X, 3 (1973)Google Scholar, which is based on Trevelyan, C. E., A Report on the Inland Customs and Town Duties of the Bengal Presidency (Calcutta, 1835), an avowedly polemical work of militant free trade.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., p. 253.

9 E.g. Richard, Fox G. (ed.), Urban India: Society, Space and Image (Duke University Monograph 10, 1970), and the same author's, From Zamindar to Ballot Box: Community Change in a North Indian Market Town (Ithaca, N.Y., 1969).Google Scholar

10 In particular, Modi, B., Desh ki Itihas me Marwari Jati ki Stan (Calcutta, 1934?)Google Scholar, and Agarwal Jati ka Itihas (Bhanpura, Indore, 1938);Google Scholar see also the family histories contained in Nevill, H. R. et al. , District Gazetteers of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh [D.G.U.P.] (Allahabad, 1903—1909)Google Scholar, and Rau, N. Madhava, An Encyclopedia of North and Central India (Madras, 1933).Google Scholar

11 These remarks are based on a preliminary survey of two collections of Pandas' books preserved at the Manakarnika Ghat, Varanasi (in possession of Sri Devi Narayan and Sriman Raj Guruji Gajendra Nath Phattak). So far I have been able to identify three commercial families in these who appear to have left Delhi between 1720 and 1760, the period of Nadir Shah's invasions; many Benares, Mirzapur and Agra family histories date internal migration to Nadir Shah; Pachhaina Khattris in Lucknow and Varanasi date their migration from Punjab to ‘the time of the disturbances of Ahmed Shah Durrani’. Proceedings of the Resident, Benares, 13 October 1789. U.P. Central Records Office, Allahabad [U.P.R.];Google ScholarFortescue, T., ‘Report on the Customs and Town duties of Delhi Territory, 1820’, Records of the Delhi Residency and Agency (Lahore, 1911), p. 169.Google Scholar

12 E.g. the works of the poet ‘Nazir’, Agra c. 1740–1826.Google Scholar

13 Paper presented at the Indian History Congress, 1973, on 18th century price levels by members of the ‘Aligarh School’.Google Scholar

14 Perlin, F., ‘Stage or Recession?’, Institute of Commonwealth Studies seminar, 20 May 1974; cf. R. Singh, ‘The Role of the Mahajans in Eastern Rajasthan’, Indian History Congress, 1973.Google Scholar

15 Barlow's Report, N.A.I.Google Scholar

16 Malet's Report on the Mahratta territories, Home Public A, 22 April 1789, 25, N.A.I.Google Scholar

17 Selections from the Records of Government, N.W.P. (Agra, 1855), XXII, article 1, pp. 3 ff.Google Scholar

18 Selections from the Records of Government, N.W.P., XXV, article 48, p. 196.Google Scholar

19 Collector of Government Customs, Aligarh, to Board, 8 November 1808, Conquered and Ceded Provinces Revenue Proceedings (Customs) [C.C.P.R.(C)], 14 November 1808, I.O.L.Google Scholar

20 Proceedings of the Resident, Benares, 7 February 1793, arzie of Ramnanth, vakil of Bakhtawar.Google Scholar

21 F. Fowke to W. Hastings, 7 March 1776, Foreign Dept. Secret Cons. 3 April 1776, 1, N.A.I.Google Scholar

22 Selections from the Records of Government, N.W.P., XXII, article 1, p. 8.Google Scholar

23 See Fatehpur Final Settlement Report, 1878 (Allahabad, 1878);Google ScholarAllahabad Final Settlement Report (Allahabad, 1878).Google Scholar

24 Hall, J. W., ‘The Castle Town and Japan's Modern Urbanization’, in Hall, J. and Jansen, M. (eds), Studies in the Institutional History of Early Modern Japan (Princeton, 1968).Google Scholar

25 Prinsep, J., Benares Illustrated (Calcutta, 1836), p. 12.Google Scholar

26 The ascription of later 19th century mahajan families to their early trades and villages is at present only partial; sources include Agraval Jati ka Itihas, II, 45–52 (Lala Pirumal family); interviews with SriAgarwal, R.S., Agra, and family history (Majlis Rai family); Offg. Collector Government Customs, Agra, to Board, 4 July 1829, Agra Customs Records, Vol. 6, which lists several prominent merchants of Agra who can be traced as cotton merchants in the Agra Customs and Judicial series; interviews, Belanganj, Agra, January 1974. Collector of Government Customs Agra, to Board, 19 May 1815, Agra Customs 1, U.P.R.Google Scholar

27 Agraval Jati ka Itihas, II, 14–22 (Lala Ganesh Prasad);Google ScholarD.G.U.P., XXIII, 59–61 (Piru Mal, Gappoo Mal, Tori Ram Bhargava, etc.);Google Scholarinterviews, Chauk, Allahabad, Chaukambha, Varanasi, January—March 1974.Google Scholar

28 Collector of Government Customs, Agra, to Board, 25 May 1820, Agra Customs 4, U.P.R.; above, note 25.Google Scholar

29 Collector of Government Customs, Agra, to Board, 23 May 1816, C.C.P.R. (C), 16 July 1816, I.O.L.Google Scholar

30 Collector of Government Customs, Agra, to Board of Commissioners, 9 May 1817, Agra Customs 2, U.P.R.Google Scholar

31 Petition of Dharam, Das, C.C.P.R. (C), 8 May 1816, I.O.L.Google Scholar

32 Petition from merchants of Agra to Government, C.C.P.R. (C), 9 May 1817, I.O.L.

33 Magistrate's District Police Report, April 1830, Mirzapur Misc. Judicial, 80, U.P.R.Google Scholar

34 Dube Brahmins with Bundelkhand connexions were prominent bankers and merchants at Benares and Mirzapur. Most famous was the house of ‘Bhonder Dube’; one Narain Dube was chaudhri of the cloth merchants. Magistrate, Mirzapur, to Lieut. Edwards, 18th Regt, Jubbulpore, N. I., 28 Octcber 1830, Mirzapur Misc. Judicial, 81, U.P.R.Google Scholar

35 Memo by Magistrate on the resale of Commissariat grain to the grain dealers of Mirzapur, 16 July 1804, Mirzapur Judicial 32, U.P.R.Google Scholar

36 Proceedings of the Resident, Benares, , 4 March 1790, U.P.R.Google Scholar

37 Proceedings of the Resident, Benares, 12 August 1791, 12 September 1791, 3 February 1795, U.P.R.Google Scholar

38 Jenkins, R., Report on the Territories of the Rajah of Nagpore (Calcutta, 1827), pp. 92–3.Google Scholar

39 Acting Magistrate, Mirzapur, to Commissioner, nil November 1818, Mirzapur, Judicial, 77, U.P.R.; cf. Magistrate to Commissioner, 23 July 1834, Judicial, 83, U.P.R.Google Scholar

40 Extract from Collector's letter, 2 June 1803, C.C.P.R., 26 July 1803, 90, I.O.L.;Google Scholar see Cohn, B.S., ‘The Initial British Impact on India: A Case Study of the Benares Region’, J.A.S. XIX, 4 (08 1960), pp. 418–31.Google Scholar

41 Asiya, Siddiqi, Agrarian Change in a Northern Indian State: Uttar Pradesh 1819–33 (Oxford, 1973), pp. 151–153.Google Scholar

42 ‘A short Account of the Nouputtee Mahajans of Benares’, Foreign Department Misc., serial 12/1, pp. 13–18, c. 1805?, N.A.I.Google Scholar

43 ‘Summary of depositions taken in the case of Nand Kishore’, Offg. Collector of Government Customs, Agra, to Board of Control, 4 July 1829;Google Scholar list of members of Agra Sarrafa in possession of SriAgarwal, R.S., Belanganj, , etc. Agrawal Jati, II, passim; D.G.U.P.Google Scholar

44 Proceedings of the Resident, Benares, 3 April 1791, U.P.R.Google Scholar

45 Magistrate to Commissioner, Agra, Agra Judicial, 7, U.P.R.Google Scholar

46 Wellesley, H. to Governor General, 10 02 1803Google Scholar, Parliamentary Papers, 1806–1807, VII, 34–42.Google Scholar

47 Ibid.

48 Greenberg, M., British Trade and the Opening of China 1800–42 (Cambridge, 1969), pp. 84–7;Google Scholar for the economic background to these fluctuations see Chaudhuri, K.N., The Economic Development of India under the East India Company, 1814–58 (Cambridge, 1971), introduction.Google Scholar

49 Collector of Government Customs, Agra, to Board, C.C.P.R., 20 September 1803, I.O.L.Google Scholar

50 Collector of Government Customs, Cawnpore, to Board, 27 October 1807, C.C.P.R., 30 October 1807, I.O.L.Google Scholar

51 Allahabad was to become a ‘depot for provisions’. Adjutant General to Magistrate, Mirzapur, 30 July 1803, Mirzapur Judicial 72, U.P.R.Google Scholar

52 Collector, Cawnpore, to Collector, Farrukhabad, , 12 March 1807, C.C.P.R., 14 April 1807, I.O.L.Google Scholar

53 Collector of Governtment Customs, Cawnpore, to Board, 16 October 1807, C.C.P.R. (C), 30 October 1807, I.O.L.Google Scholar

54 Collector, Allahabad, to Board, 2 June 1803, C.C.P.R., 26 June 1803, I.O.L.Google Scholar

55 Ahmuty, R. to Magistrate, Allahabad, 26 June 1804, C.C.P.R., 16 June 1805, I.O.L.Google Scholar

56 Commissioner to Offg. Magistrate, Agra, 26 February 1841, Agra Judicial 16, U.P.R.Google Scholar

57 Magistrate, Allahabad, to Chief Secretary to Government, 29 June 1805 C.C.P.R., 26 July, 1805, I.O.L.Google Scholar

58 C.C.P.R., 17 December 1807, I.O.L.Google Scholar

59 Reconstructed from Panda book of the Phattak family and letter of Collector, Moradabad, ? March 1811, in possession of Sri Devi Narayan, Sakshi Binayak, Varanasi.Google Scholar

60 Siddiqi, , Agrarian Change, pp. 140–68; Trevelyan, Report, p. 3; Collector, Bundelkhand, to Board, 13 January 1808, C.C.P.R., 23 January 1808, I.O.L.Google Scholar

61 Siddiqi, , Agrarian Change, pp. 152–3.Google Scholar

62 Wellesley's, H. report on the commerce of the Ceded Districts, 29 May 1802, Board's Collections 2803, I.O.L.Google Scholar

63 Calculated from Chaukidari Tax statistics, Mirzapur Judicial 28, and periodic comparative reports on the diet of prisoners at the Agra and Mirzapur jails, U.P.R.Google Scholar

64 Collector of Government Customs, Cawnpore to Board, 27 October 1807, C.C.P.R., 30 October 1807, I.O.L.Google Scholar

65 The cotton merchants' main gain was the difference between the contract price and the price current on the day of delivery; if interruption of the trade occurred bankruptcy could result. Collector of Government Customs, Agra, to Board, 7 October 1809, C.C.P.R. (C), 11 October 1809, I.O.L.

66 Enclosure to Deputy Collector of Government Customs, Farrukhabad, to Board, 31 August 1811, C.C.P.R. (C), 4 October 1811, I.O.L.Google Scholar

67 Collector, Aligarh, to Board, 26 October 1821, Agra Customs 13, U.P.R.; for the exaction of Mewatis outside Rohilkhand, see Deputy Collector, Etawah, to Board, 16 July 1803, C.C.P.R., 2 August 1803, I.O.L.Google Scholar

68 Ibid.

69 In this connexion, it is significant that the customs house staff were drawn from Persian literates, a form of employment likely to attract members of the old service classes of pre-British rule. Trevelyan, , Report, p. 47.Google Scholar

70 E.g. Deputy Collector of Government Customs, Patna, to Board, 12 October 1811, C.C.P.R. (C), 10 December 1811, I.O.L.Google Scholar

71 Offg. Magistrate, Mirzapur, to Commissioner, 20 December 1851, Mirzapur Judicial 92, U.P.R.Google Scholar

72 Commissioner to Offg. Magistrate, Agra, 26 February 1841, Agra Judicial 16, U.P.R.Google Scholar

73 The end result of this process has been studied by Cohn, B.S., ‘Structural Change in Rural Society’, in Frykenberg, R.E. (ed.), Land Control and Social Structure in Indian History (Madison and London, 1969);it can also be followed in the family histories and private papers of the banking families.Google Scholar

74 Reports of the Revenue Settlements of the N.W.P. under Regulation IX of 1833, N.W.P. (Calcutta, 1862), II, 407, 429; cf. I, 7.Google Scholar