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The Peasant Production of Opium in Nineteenth-Century India
Series: - Library of Economic History, Volume: 12
Author:
Winner of the 2019 Michael Mitterauer-Prize for best monograph
The Peasant Production of Opium in Nineteenth-Century India is a pioneering work about the more than one million peasants who produced opium for the colonial state in nineteenth-century India. Based on a profound empirical analysis, Rolf Bauer not only shows that the peasants cultivated poppy against a substantial loss but he also reveals how they were coerced into the production of this drug. By dissecting the economic and social power relations on a local level, this study explains how a triangle of debt, the colonial state’s power and social dependencies in the village formed the coercive mechanisms that transformed the peasants into opium producers. The result is a book that adds to our understanding of peasant economies in a colonial context.
The Peasant Production of Opium in Nineteenth-Century India is a pioneering work about the more than one million peasants who produced opium for the colonial state in nineteenth-century India. Based on a profound empirical analysis, Rolf Bauer not only shows that the peasants cultivated poppy against a substantial loss but he also reveals how they were coerced into the production of this drug. By dissecting the economic and social power relations on a local level, this study explains how a triangle of debt, the colonial state’s power and social dependencies in the village formed the coercive mechanisms that transformed the peasants into opium producers. The result is a book that adds to our understanding of peasant economies in a colonial context.
Rolf Bauer, PhD (2018), University of Vienna, is currently a lecturer in Economic and Social History, South Asian Studies and International Development at that university. He has previously published on the opium industry in nineteenth-century India.
Read more about this book in the BBC News article '
How Britain's opium trade impoverished Indians' by Soutik Biswas, 5 September 2019.
Read the article on the website of Austria’s radio channel number 1 (Ö1) here. A short radio feature can be found here.
Read the article on the website of Austria’s radio channel number 1 (Ö1) here. A short radio feature can be found here.
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations and Tables
Glossary
Units of Measurement
1 Introduction
2 The Creation of a System
2.1 A Chronology of the British Opium Monopoly in India
2.2 A Further Note on Bengal and Malwa: Two Opium Economies Intermingled
2.3 Keystone of Empire
2.4 Opium and China
2.5 Auctions
2.6 The Sudder Factories
3 The Functioning of a System
3.1 The Opium Department: A Centralised Bureaucratic Structure
3.2 The Settlement
3.3 Laws and Fines
3.4 Local Collaboration
4 A Local-Level Analysis of an Opium District: Saran
4.1 Topography and General Aspects Related to Agriculture
4.2 The People of Saran
4.3 Distribution of Land Proprietorship and Tenancy
4.4 Crops
5 The Costs and Benefits of Poppy Cultivation
5.1 Poppy within Bihar’s Agriculture
5.2 Agricultural Operations of Poppy Cultivation
5.3 Who Cultivated Poppies?
5.4 Costs and Benefits: An Assessment
6 The Mechanics of a System: Incentives, Coercion and Dependence
6.1 The System of Advance Payments
6.2 Sarkar—By Order of the Government
6.3 Zamindar—Triadic Relations
7 Conclusion
Appendix
Bibliography
Index
List of Illustrations and Tables
Glossary
Units of Measurement
1 Introduction
2 The Creation of a System
2.1 A Chronology of the British Opium Monopoly in India
2.2 A Further Note on Bengal and Malwa: Two Opium Economies Intermingled
2.3 Keystone of Empire
2.4 Opium and China
2.5 Auctions
2.6 The Sudder Factories
3 The Functioning of a System
3.1 The Opium Department: A Centralised Bureaucratic Structure
3.2 The Settlement
3.3 Laws and Fines
3.4 Local Collaboration
4 A Local-Level Analysis of an Opium District: Saran
4.1 Topography and General Aspects Related to Agriculture
4.2 The People of Saran
4.3 Distribution of Land Proprietorship and Tenancy
4.4 Crops
5 The Costs and Benefits of Poppy Cultivation
5.1 Poppy within Bihar’s Agriculture
5.2 Agricultural Operations of Poppy Cultivation
5.3 Who Cultivated Poppies?
5.4 Costs and Benefits: An Assessment
6 The Mechanics of a System: Incentives, Coercion and Dependence
6.1 The System of Advance Payments
6.2 Sarkar—By Order of the Government
6.3 Zamindar—Triadic Relations
7 Conclusion
Appendix
Bibliography
Index
All readers interested in the economic and social history of British India, the history of drugs, and anyone concerned with peasant studies and coercive labour relations.