sugata bose, peasant labor and colonial capital

(2): concern with change/continuity of forms of labor extraction, together with obvious change at the level of the larger economy

(4-5): shift emphasis away from bhadralok to labour

(5): "from about 1820 rural India became subject to the influence... of a wider capitalist economy..."

chapter 1--demography

(9): population as independent or dependent variable?

(12): W. Bengal delta moribund, E. Bengal delta fertile

(12): jute from the 1870s

(13): areas with highest density of roads/railways showed highest incidence of malaria

(14): three demographic cycles (rough):

1. 1770-1860: shared in all-India trend of population increase
2. 1860-1920: W. Bengal stagnant, E. Bengal secular rise in population, area cultivated
3. 1920-1990: population rose, but relatively stagnant productivity
   

(16): neo-Malthusian position would have tough time making sense of these demographic cycles

(16): discussion of roughly Marxist approach to deficit/surplus population in rural areas--useful (absolute deficit population, relative deficit population, absolute surplus population)

(17-18): famine of 1770 not a Malthusian event--there was a relative deficit of labour. entry of Company's government as a buyer of grain contributed to inflationary pressures. revenue collection went up.

(20): review of cross-India population trends

(21): post-1770, population increase did not match output b/c:

1. high revenue demand
2. general malaise in the grain market

(22): discussion of increasing land-population ratio in the 1800s. this may have encouraged some turn to intensive, cash-crop cultivation. but noting that this was also forced (in the case of indigo)

(23): dominant relations of surplus appropriation were revenue (to the State) and rent (to the zamindar) [until now the discussion has remained 'outside' of social relations of production]

(24-25): 1860-1920, recurring pattern of malaria epidemics in W. Bengal kept population levels depressed (declining population per square mile ratios, in parts). mortality highest amongst the poor.

(27): 1860-1920, E. Bengal saved from population crunch by switch to intensive cultivation and by out-migration to Assam

(29): 1920-1970, defined by declining output in the context of an absolute surplus population

(32): 1943 famine--record harvest, "entitlement failures" rather than a problem of food availability.

(32): in this period, demographic pressures did not work to spur increases in technological productivity

(34): close analysis of population-production linkage undermines Malthusian naysayers (since population pressures can induce innovation, though they didn't do this consistently)

(34, 36-37): 'high fertility regime' in the context of absolute surplus population is best understood as a poor peasant survival strategy

(35): in short, cautioning against a Malhthusian techno-determinism or demographic determinism--only saw correlation between population and production in 1770-1860, and even that doesn't tell us about causation. (1) especially after 1820s, agrarian reality was shaped by the market (not by population, production autonomously); (2) evidence also indicates that innovation was blocked by social and political institutions, even as it might have been encouraged by demographic pressures

chapter 2--commercialization and colonialism

(39): against Alavi's treatment of this as a separate mode of production--want to consider 'articulations,' instead

(41-42): imp, no easy typology of what happens to agrarian relations under capitalism; both progression and retrogression. (1) commercialization associated with increased accumulation--plantation agriculture, etc. (tea plantations in Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri); (2) subsistence commercialization, poor peasants seeking out cash crops (jute in E. Bengal); (3) dependent commercialization, foreign merchant capital which brings agricultural production under its sway but "stops short of capitalist accumulation and consolidation of land" (indigo production in W. Bengal)

(48): bonded labor, indebtedness, and indigo production

(49-51): effect of 1840s depression on India taking a severe toll on the indigo-based economy of Bengal

(52): the rise of the railways had an inflationary effect on prices (wages jumped too, but this didn't help the smallholders). this set the context for a revolt against indigo planting in the 1860s (and the end of 'dependent commercialization', he's suggesting)

(52-55): imp, expansion of jute production in Bengal, from the 1850s to the 1930s (tea was also important in value terms--but for the vast majority, jute was what affected them the most). it was part of a subsistence strategy for poor peasants, which left them very vulnerable to market fluctuations--80% of cultivators grew equivalent of 2 acres!

(57): after 1906, credit entered in a major way, in effort to guarantee procurement stability

(59): even rice was heavily exchanged, even if not imported/exported--44% of the crop, in 1941

(59): growth of agricultural income had been sluggish around the turn of the century (but, those who had opted for jute were 'substantially' better off).

(60): WWI "broke the idyll", but recovery after 1922