The Transition to a Colonial Economy: Weavers, Merchants and Kings in South India, 1720-1800 (review)

Parthasarathi's study of cotton textile weavers of South India during the eighteenth century comprises an important addition to the extensive historical literature on early modern South Asia—particularly the period that witnessed the transition to the early colonial state of the English East India Company.

The principal hypothesis of this work is that contrary to the views expressed by many scholars, the conditions of weavers—and of all artisans in general—was far better in material terms in the late precolonial period than what it became later under colonial rule. Parthasarathi attributes this situation to a variety of factors: The buoyancy of the cotton textile trade in the eighteenth century enhanced the value of the skill and services provided by weavers and gave them considerable bargaining leverage vis-à-vis South Indian textile merchants. Equally important, merchants were rarely able to hold weavers to the fulfillment of contract obligations or to coerce them through the use of institutional and legal means. Weavers and other laboring groups also used the practice of mass migration to avoid pressure or oppression from merchants and other powerful interests. The most critical factor in preserving this favorable environment for weavers seems to have been the nature of the SouthIndian state during the eighteenth century and the conceptions of royalauthority and legitimacy that undergirded these regimes. In Parthasarathi's analysis, the southern Indian monarchies exercised a restricted power that permitted weavers and other artisans to enjoy significant privileges and rights.

The accession of the English East India company to a position of political authority marked the beginning of a precipitous decline in the position of weavers. Parthasarathi depicts the Company's state as a profit-maximizing concern unbound by the principles of legitimacy that had guided South Indian kings. This early colonial state tightened its control over weavers, aided textile merchants to enforce rigidly the terms in their contracts with weavers, took away the ability of laboring groups to resort to mass flight/migration by fixing them to specific locations, and even interfered in the rhythm and pattern of work followed by artisan families.

One of the book's strongest points is its deliberate effort to engage a host of other broad issues of importance and relevance not only to the history of South Indian weavers but also to that of state formation in Britain and India, of early English colonialism in India, and of debates about the nature and impact of the colonial experience on India.

In the final analysis, the well-being and decline in the condition of weavers was due to the ideology of the state in which they lived. Since this factor is given so much weight in this work, one would have expected a more in-depth discussion of the specific ideologies pursued by southern Indian kingdoms. In the last few decades, much has been written about how the Company's rule in India did not represent any significant break with the past or about the resilience of various groups within Indian society under the experience of the company's government. It is refreshing to see the opposite point of view argued so effectively and contextualized so broadly.