Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • 2 - Agriculture as the Engine of Growth

  • Bishnupriya Gupta, University of Warwick
  • Book:
    An Economic History of India
    Published online:
    06 February 2025
    Print publication:
    13 February 2025, pp 43-76

  • Summary

    Chapter 2 focuses the largest sector of the economy: Agriculture. The rural economy produced most of the output in Mughal India and in British India. 85 percent of the population lived in rural communities. The economic history of India has a rich narrative of regions, of introduction of new institutions and integration of the cultivators into commercial exchange of food and raw material at the regional level. This chapter brings together an overall narrative of the regions and explains why some regions prospered, while others declined. It sees the role of infrastructure as an important part of this discussion, that is, the impact of the railways and irrigation. While British investment in irrigation and new technology in agriculture was inadequate and can explain agricultural stagnation in different parts of the country, the railways played an important role in integrating markets. The chapter ends with a discussion of the building of agricultural infrastructure after independence and the Green Revolution of the 1960s and it importance in economic growth and development.