The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India

In The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India, Rajnarayan Chandavarkar presents the first comprehensive study of the relationship between labour and capital in India's economic development in the early twentieth century. Hitherto the working class has been largely overlooked in Indian history. By focussing upon the economy of labour in Bombay city from 1900 to 1940, Dr Chandavarkar makes a major contribution to redressing this imbalance. The author explores the emergence of industrial capitalism in the region, the development of the cotton-textile industry, its particular problems in the 1920s and 1930s and both the millowners' and the state's responses to them. He also investigates how a labour force was formed in Bombay - its rural roots, urban networks, industrial organization and the ways in which it shaped capitalist strategies. In a subject dominated by the assumption of unities, Rajnarayan Chandavarkar convincingly demonstrates the fragmentation of class, on the side of capital as well as labour. Their interaction, indeed industrial development, sometimes exacerbated their internal differences: but the author also explores on what terms, to what ends and under what circumstances solidarities could be forged between workers. . The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India examines the social processes of both industrialization and class formation. Its relevance extends not only to other cases of 'developing' societies, but also to the larger study of social change within 'advanced' capitalist societies. This study will therefore be of interest to students and specialists of Indian history, development economics, social change and labour movements.