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Chapter Three: The Political Economies of South Asia and Europe Compared
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C H A P T E R T H R E E The Political Economies of South Asia and Europe Compared Trade and Commodity Flows in the South Asian Region The more traditional gloomy representations of South Asia as a subcontinent that suffered from economic self-containment with trade primarily composed of high-valued luxuries (e.g., Gopal 1965:157; Palat 1988:283, 447), has been increasingly challenged over the last thirty years (Prakash 1971:203; Subrahmanyam 1994:12–13).1 The relative lack of South Asian sources on longdistance trade in the period a.d. 1000 to 1400 (Wijetunga 1968:497) should not imply that foreign trade was insignificant. Instead, Chinese and Arab sources confirm (Jain 1990:71–72; Gibb 1994:813) that the South Asian subcontinent’s “expansion of overseas trade was an important factor in, as well as a reflector of economic growth” (Indrapala 1971:101) during the 10th to 13th centuries (Hall 1980:111). After all, the South Asian subcontinent was “the midway location 1. Chandra claims that from the 10th century onward there was a notable “revival of towns in north India” (1997:169) that can be related to the concurrent (albeit partial) monetization of the economy in South Asia (Deyell 1990:112–132; Champakalakshmi 1995:289) and Southeast Asia (Wicks 1992:134). Throughout the Indian Ocean, “new networks of exchange, formation of trade guilds and a new phase of money production and circulation” occurred (Chattopadhyaya 1995b:325), reflecting intense interregional trade (Lewis 1976). According to Ibn Hawkal, in the 10th century, the majority of the inhabitants of the city of Daybul lived from commercial activities; al-Idrisi also noted intense trade with Oman and China in the middle of the 12th century (Kervan 1996:56). POLITICAL ECONOMIES OF SOUTH ASIA AND EUROPE COMPARED 87 between west Asia on the one hand and southeast and east Asia on the other” (Prakash 1998:12). After a severe economic downturn in the post-Gupta period (circa 600– 900) (Thakur 1989:25; Chattopadhyaya 1974), parts of the South Asian peninsula (especially the southwest) experienced “rapid urban growth and an upsurge in maritime trade” by the 11th century (McPherson 1993:107; Indrapala 1971:102). This upsurge in trade was not ‘confined to the regional market’ (Jain 1990:35).2 From the 11th century on, the Malabar and Gujarat coasts benefited from an intense trade with the Arabian peninsula. Trade from the South Asian coast to Eastern Africa was also of tremendous importance from at least the 11th century onward—from Egypt in the North (Gotein 1954) to Kilwa and Sofala in the South (Newitt 1987; Pearson 1998).3 Like in Europe, bulk commodities were widely bought and sold across various regions; grains, sugar, oils, salt, potteries, leather, timber and metal goods, rice,4 and more importantly, textiles,5 were transported in considerable quantities over large distances (Jain 1990:57–70). Trade from South Asia to Aden, for instance, included “rice, kichree, sesame, soap, cushions, pillows , table cloths, arabi cloths manufactured on the Malabar coast” while trade to South Asia included “Arabian horses and madder” (Shihab 1996: 2. Yet the regional market should not be underestimated. In the late 13th century, the South Asian continent was probably more populated than either China or Europe and the market demand this generated was considerable. Interregional trade was particularly impressive: from foodstuffs, dyes, yarn, iron, and textiles to horses, elephants, spices, and pearls (Abraham 1988:64, 123–128, 156–181). 3. In the early 13th century, “porcelain, cotton and copper were brought on Gujarati, Arab and Persian ships to Oman and the Persian Gulf and exchanged for African commodities” (Varadarajan 1987:101). These in turn were mostly “gold, ivory, and mangrove timber” (Chaudhuri 1985:57) as reflectedinthe12th-centurywritingsofal-Idrisi(Ferrand1913:1:177).TheslavetradefromNortheastern Africa to South Asia was also considerable prior to the Portuguese intrusion (Pescatello 1977:26–29). 4. According to Pearson, rice was traded by sea “within the Bay of Bengal, in Indonesia and up and down the west coast of India: Indian rice even went to Aden, Hormuz and Malacca” (1987b:75). 5. Textiles in particular were exported from South Asia to the South Arabian coast (Smith 1997:XIII:36) as well as from Gujarat to Malabar and then to China, but metals, timber, and cereals were also frequent export commodities (Jain 1990:99–104). “Artisanal production of handicraft articles, metal-working and cloth production [became] important features of the economy” in southern South Asia (Heitzman 1997:219). Gujarati, Coromandel...