Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-wq484 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T13:18:06.267Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Rethinking the Origins of British India: State Formation and Military-fiscal Undertakings in an Eighteenth Century World Region*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2013

TIRTHANKAR ROY*
Affiliation:
London School of Economics, UK Email: t.roy@lse.ac.uk

Abstract

This paper discusses the rise of the East India Company in the contested political world of eighteenth century India, with reference to the manner in which economic power was deployed to enhance military power. It is shown that there was only one successful model of military-fiscal strategy during this time, and that the Company's success was due to interactions between three factors—taxable resources, the strategies of its rivals, and institutional choices.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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.)

Footnotes

*

Earlier versions of this paper were read in the Asian Historical Economics Conference, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 2010, and the Economic History Society annual conference, University of Cambridge, 2011. I am grateful to the participants of the sessions for lively and instructive discussions. I also wish to thank Patrick O'Brien and a referee for comments and suggestions that led to significant improvements.

References

1 Vries, P. H. H., ‘Governing Growth: A Comparative Analysis of the Role of the State in the Rise of the West’, Journal of World History, 13 (1), 2002, pp. 67138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Jones, Eric, The European Miracle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981) pp. xxxGoogle Scholar, 45, 161, 171, 206.

3 See Roy, Tirthankar, Company of Kinsmen: Enterprise and Community in South Asian History 1700–1940 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Chapter 3; and the editorial introduction to Alam, Muzaffar and Subrahmanyam, Sanjay (eds), The Mughal State 1526–1750 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998).Google Scholar

4 Tilly, Charles, ‘Cities and States in Europe, 1000–1800’, Theory and Society, 18 (5), 1989, pp. 563584CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Mobilization of resources for war as a catalyst in the making of a modern fiscal system is emphasized in O'Brien, Patrick K., ‘The Political Economy of British Taxation, 1660–1815’, Economic History Review, 41 (1), 1988, pp. 132CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and in the formation of nation states by Downing, B., The Military Revolution and Political Change in Early Modern Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991Google Scholar). For an economic analysis of the contribution of war to state capacity, see Besley, Timothy and Persson, Torsten, ‘The Origins of State Capacity: Property Rights, Taxation, and Politics’, American Economic Review, 99 (4), 2009, pp. 12181244CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A recent paper argues that political competition induced investment in military technology, and the beginnings of a ‘military revolution’ in England, France, and Germany: see Philip Hoffman, T., ‘Prices, the Military Revolution, and Western Europe's Comparative Advantage in Violence’, Economic History Review, 64 (s1), 2011, pp. 3959.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Wolfe, M., The Fiscal System of Renaissance France (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972).Google Scholar

6 Mann, M., Sources of Social Power, Vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Nehru, Jawaharlal, Discovery of India (London: Meridian, 1946), p. 230.Google Scholar

8 Nadkarni, R. V., The Rise and Fall of the Maratha Domain (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1966), p. 352Google Scholar. The works of G. S. Sardesai, V. S. Khare, and others discuss leadership issues: see Kulkarni, A. R., The Marathas (New Delhi: Books and Books, 1996), pp. 177180.Google Scholar

9 On mercantilism, see Vries, ‘Governing Growth’.

10 B. and Metcalf, T., A Concise History of India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 53Google Scholar.

11 Parker, Geoffrey, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West 1500–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988)Google Scholar, p. 136. Also Bryant, G. J.Asymmetric Warfare: The British Experience in Eighteenth-Century India’, The Journal of Military History, 68 (2), 2004, pp. 431469CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and the brief discussion in Black, J., War and the World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), p. 152Google Scholar.

12 Metcalf and Metcalf, Concise History of India, p. 54.

13 Lal, Deepak, ‘Asia and Western Dominance’, Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, 8 (3), 2003, pp. 283299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 ‘The English already held the most prosperous regions,’ writes Gordon, Stewart, The Marathas 1600–1818 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 193CrossRefGoogle Scholar. C. A. Bayly notes ‘the lack of resources’ in the lands that formed the heart of the Maratha dominion: see Bayly, C. A., Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 102Google Scholar.

15 Bayly, C. A., Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion 1770–1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983)Google Scholar; Alam, Muzaffar, Crisis of Empire in Mughal North India: Awadh and the Punjab 1707–48 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986).Google Scholar

16 The introductions of Marshall, P. J. (ed.), Eighteenth Century in Indian History: Evolution or Revolution? (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986; 2003), pp. 130Google Scholar, and Alavi, Seema (ed.), Eighteenth Century in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 156.Google Scholar Also useful are Washbrook, D. A., ‘Progress and Problems: South Asian Economic and Social History c.1720–1860’, Modern Asian Studies, 22 (1), 1988, pp. 5796CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Perlin, Frank, ‘State Formation Reconsidered: Part Two’, Modern Asian Studies, 19 (3), 1985, pp. 415480CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Prakash, Om, ‘The Great Divergence: Evidence from Eighteenth Century India’, Paper presented at the Global Economic History Network conference, Istanbul, 2005Google Scholar; Datta, Rajat, ‘Commercialisation, Tribute, and the Transition from Late Mughal to Early Colonial in India’, Medieval History Journal, 6 (2), 2003, pp. 259291CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chaudhuri, B. B., Peasant History of Late Pre-colonial and Colonial India (New Delhi: Pearson Longman, 2008), pp. 49107.Google Scholar

17 Panikkar, K. M., cited in Lal, ‘Asia and Western Dominance’. On merchant collaboration, see also David Washbrook, ‘India in the Early Modern World Economy: Modes of Production, Reproduction and Exchange’, Journal of Global History, 2 (1), 2007, pp. 87111.Google Scholar For another statement, see Arnold, D. and Stein, B., A History of India, 2nd edition (Malden and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), pp. 197198.Google Scholar

18 Alam and Subrahmanyam (eds), The Mughal State.

19 Mysore under Tipu Sultan, or Hyderabad under the Nizam-ul-mulk, did not suffer from divided leadership.

20 For at least 30 years after the Company registered a decisive military success in Bengal (Plassey, 1757), ‘[w]ar, conquest and the extension of territory were condemned as contrary to the interests of a trading company’ in the British political mainstream. Marshall, P. J., Problems of Empire: Britain and India 1757–1813 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1968), p. 63Google Scholar.

21 On convergence, see Roy, Kaushik, ‘Military Synthesis in South Asia: Armies, Warfare, and Indian Society, c. 1740–1849’, The Journal of Military History, 69 (3), 2005, pp. 651690CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Pemble, John, ‘Resources and Techniques in the Second Maratha War’, The Historical Journal, 19 (2), 1976, pp. 375404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 The most famous examples were Tipu Sultan of Mysore, Mahadaji Sindhia (Shinde), ruler of the Bundelkhand arm of the Maratha dominion, and Ranjit Singh of Punjab. On Mahadaji's enterprise, see ‘Civis’, Letters, Political, Military and Commercial on the Present State and Government on the Province of Oude and its Dependencies (details unavailable), circa 1796, p. 25. See also Thomson, J. P., ‘An Autobiographical Memoir of Louis Bourquien’, Journal of the Punjab Historical Society, 9 (1), 1923, pp. 3671.Google Scholar All the rulers, and especially Mysore, tried to control trade in military equipment and manufactured cast-iron cannons under European supervision.

23 The problems of contract enforcement and lack of trust in Indo-European partnership in the eighteenth century export trades are explored in Roy, Tirthankar, East India Company: The World's Most Powerful Corporation (New Delhi: Allen Lane, 2012).Google Scholar

24 Stein, BurtonState Formation and Economy Reconsidered. Part One’, Modern Asian Studies, 19 (3), 1985, pp. 387413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 Bayly, C. A., ‘The British Military-Fiscal State and Indigenous Resistance. India 1750–1820’, in Stone, Lawrence (ed.), An Imperial State at War: Britain from 1689 to 1815 (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), pp. 322354.Google Scholar See also Brewer, J., The Sinews of Power: War, Money, and the English State, 1688–1783 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1990).Google Scholar

26 See, for example, Alavi, ‘Introduction’.

27 Richards, J. F., ‘Mughal State Finance and the Premodern World Economy’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 23 (2), 1981, pp. 285308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Alam and Subrahmanyam (eds), The Mughal State, pp. 55–68.

28 Duff, James Grant, A History of the Mahrattas, Vol. 1 (of 3) (Bombay: Exchange Press, 1863)Google Scholar.

29 On the Maratha-Afghan military contest, see Gommans, Jos, ‘Indian Warfare and Afghan Innovation during the Eighteenth Century’, Studies in History, 11 (3), 1995, pp. 261280.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30 Calculations by V. G. Khobrekar, cited by Divekar, V. D., ‘Survey of Material in Marathi on the Economic and Social History of India - 2’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 15 (2), 1981, pp. 221240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, ‘Warfare and State Finance in Wodeyar Mysore 1724–25: A Missionary Perspective’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 26 (2), 1989, pp. 203233.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32 Brodkin, E. I., ‘British India and the Abuses of Power: Rohilkhand under Early Company Rule’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 10 (2), 1973, pp. 129156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33 British Parliamentary Papers (BPP), Vol. 363, 1810, Select Committee on Affairs of East India Company Second Report, pp. 94–96; Macfarlane, Charles, A History of British India (London: George Routledge, 1853), p. 522Google Scholar.

34 Divekar, V. D., ‘The Emergence of an Indigenous Business Class in Maharashtra in the Eighteenth Century’, Modern Asian Studies, 16 (3), 1982, pp. 427443.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

35 Sykes, W. H., ‘The Past, Present, and Prospective Financial Conditions of British India’, Journal of the Statistical Society of London, 22 (4), 1859, pp. 455480.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 By then the Company's dependencies were under a burden of tribute that left them financially incapable of raising an army, and bound by treaties that restrained their military options. For Awadh, see BPP, Vol. 55, 1786, Copy Proceedings and Correspondence relative to the State and Condition of the Country of Oude and its Dependencies, and of the Reigning Family thereof; including the Charges made by Mr. Hastings against Mr. Bristow, &c. &c. &c., p. 30.

37 Stavorinus, J. S., Voyages to the East Indies (London: J. Robinson, 1798), Vol. 1 (of 3), p. 498Google Scholar.

38 Lewin, B., Bowring Rulers of India: Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1893), p. 78Google Scholar.

39 Alavi, Seema, ‘The Company Army and Rural Society: The Invalid Thanah 1780–1830’, Modern Asian Studies, 27 (1), 1993, pp. 147178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

40 Crowell, Lorenzo M., ‘Military Professionalism in a Colonial Context: The Madras Army, circa 1832’, Modern Asian Studies, 24 (2), 1990, pp. 249273.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41 These achievements were short term. Accounts of the prehistory of the mutiny suggest an atrophy of the incentive and reward structures and a hardening of racial hierarchy in the 1840s.

42 It is possible to argue that, whilst it could vary positively with population density, relatively wages should fall. A large and sparsely populated territory could raise both types of cost.

43 Sykes, W. H., Special Report on the Statistics of the Four Collectorates of Dukhin under the British Government (London: John Taylor, 1838), pp. 218, 295Google Scholar.

44 BPP, Vol. XVII.85, 1823, An Account of the Revenues and Charges of India, in each year from 1812/13 to 1821/22; India, Statistical Abstract relating to British India, from 1840 to 1865 (London: HMSO, 1867).

45 Leonard, Karen, ‘The Hyderabad Political System and its Participants’, Journal of Asian Studies, 30 (3), 1971, pp. 569582.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

46 Macfarlane, History, p. 163.

47 Sutherland, J., Sketches of the Relations Subsisting Between the British Government in India and the Different States (Calcutta: Military Orphan Press, 1837), p. 45Google Scholar.

48 McLane, John, Land and Local Kingship in Eighteenth-Century Bengal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

49 Gordon, Stewart, ‘The Slow Conquest: Administrative Integration of Malwa into the Maratha domain, 1720–1760’, Modern Asian Studies, 11 (1), 1977, pp. 140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

50 Kist, a word of Arabic roots, refers to the land revenue installments payable at different times of the year.

51 Anon. (‘An Officer in the Service of the East India Company’), Origin of the Pindaris (London: John Murray, 1818), p. 141.

52 Guha, Nikhiles, Pre-British State System in South India: Mysore 1761–1799 (Calcutta: Ratna Prakashan, 1985).Google Scholar

53 Anon., British India Analyzed: The Provincial and Revenue Establishments of Tipu Sultan (London: E. Jeffrey, 1793), Vol. 1, p. 90.

54 Francis, Philip, Original Minutes of the Governor-General and Council of Fort William on the Settlement and Collection of the Revenues of Bengal (London: J. Debrett, 1782).Google Scholar p. 152.

55 Ibid., p. vii.

56 Ibid., p. 12.

57 Ibid., p. 16.

58 Chaudhuri, B. B., ‘Agrarian Relations: Eastern India’, in Kumar, Dharma (ed.) The Cambridge Economic History of India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), Vol. 2, p. 94Google Scholar.

59 Khan, Seir Mutaqharin, Vol. 3 (of 3), p. 387.

60 Nadkarni, Rise and Fall, p. 355.

61 Ibid., p. 136.

62 Anon., Origin of the Pindaris, p. 127.

63 ‘An Account of the Battle of Paniput’, p. 105.

64 For a study of the Indian military labour market in early eighteenth century Bengal, see Dasgupta, Ratan, ‘Mercenaries and the Political Economy of Bengal: 1727–63’, Social Scientist, 13 (4), 1985, pp. 1730.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

65 Bowring, Rulers, p. 213.

66 Barua, Pradeep, ‘Military Developments in India, 1750–1850’, Journal of Military History, 58 (4), 1994, pp. 599616.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also for a similar view, Gordon, Stewart, ‘The Limited Adoption of European-style Military Forces by Eighteenth Century Rulers in India’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 35 (3), 1998, pp. 229245.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

67 Kolff, Dirk, Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy. The Ethnohistory of the Labour Market in Hindustan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).Google Scholar

68 This part of the military strategy had been criticized by insiders which they saw as a dangerous compromise of military order. After the Anglo-Burma wars of 1824–1826 and a mutiny amongst Indian soldiers in Barrackpore in 1824, disillusionment with the social policy set in; and reforms in the barracks gave up the privileging of Indian tradition in favour of hierarchy based on a mixture between military order and racialist ideas. There were other factors that undermined the finely balanced caste system inside the barracks. The upper caste soldiery lost some of their status due to a fall in real wages, whereas in the Burma campaigns, low-caste recruits were paid higher wages. Peers, Douglas M., ‘“The Habitual Nobility of Being”: British Officers and the Social Construction of the Bengal Army in the Early Nineteenth Century’, Modern Asian Studies, 25 (3), 1991, pp. 545569.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

69 Cooper, Randolf G. S., ‘Beyond Beasts and Bullion: Economic Considerations in Bombay's Military Logistics, 1803’, Modern Asian Studies, 33 (1), 1999, pp. 159183.CrossRefGoogle Scholar