Peasant Labour and Colonial Capital: Rural Bengal since 1770: 03 (The New Cambridge History of India) - Tapa dura

This book is a critical work of synthesis and interpretation on one of the central themes in modern Indian history - agrarian change under British colonial rule. Sugata Bose analyses the relationships between demography, commercialization, class structure and peasant resistance unfolding over the long term between 1770 and more recent times. By integrating the histories of land and capital, he examines the relationship between capitalist 'development' of the wider economy under colonial rule and agrarian continuity and change. Drawing most of his empirical evidence from rural Bengal, the author makes comparisons with regional agrarian histories of other parts of South Asia. Thus, this study stands on its own in the field of modern Indian social and economic history in its chronological sweep and comparative context and makes the complex subject of India's peasantry accessible to students and the interested non-specialist.

The last two decades have witnessed 'the return of the peasant' to South Asian history. New empirical research and innovative methodologies have enabled this historical reconstruction of agrarian economics, politics and society in colonial and post-colonial India. In this key volume in the New Cambridge History of India, Professor Sugata Bose presents a critical synthesis of existing scholarship and offers a new interpretation of agrarian continuity and change from 1770 to the present. The author examines the related themes of demography, commodity production, agrarian social structure, and changing forms of peasant resistance. Agrarian relations are addressed along lines of gender and generation as well as class and community. By focussing on 'peasant labour', Bose integrates the histories of land and capital. He also explores the relationship between capitalist development of the economy under colonial rule and elements of both change and continuity at the point of primary production and appropriation. Although the author draws most of his empirical material from rural Bengal, he makes important comparisons with regional agrarian histories across India and beyond. Peasant Labour and Colonial Capital: Rural Bengal Since 1770 is essential reading for the understanding of rural India's colonial and post-colonial experience. It is also of relevance to all those interested in agrarian societies in the developing world and debates about the origins and character of agrarian capitalism.