‘The Real Value of the Lands’: The Nawabs, the British and the Land Tax in Eighteenth-Century Bengal

2004 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 517-558 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. R. TRAVERS
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Mughal Empire ◽  
Revenue Collection ◽  
British Rule ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
Real Value ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

Ever since the late eighteenth century, no subject has been more prominent in histories of ‘the transition to colonialism’ in south Asia, than the issue of taxation. In particular, the complex system of agrarian taxation that was developed under the Mughal empire, and further elaborated by various post-Mughal regimes, has often been seen as the defining institution of both the pre-colonial and colonial states. What the British called ‘land revenues’, which included taxes on land proper (mal) and taxes on trade and markets (sair), were the main source of income for both Indian and British rulers. Assessments of the impact of colonial rule have often depended on supposed changes in the tax regime. Since the nineteenth century historians have tended to focus their attention on the relationship between the land tax and structures of agrarian property. They have generally argued that British rule both substantially increased the tax burden, and modified structures of agrarian tenure by splicing together rights of revenue collection and private property in land. But they have focused much more on early colonial policies with regard to private landed property, and less on the issue of the actual tax assessment. This paper takes up the issue of the land tax demand (known as jama in the terminology of Mughal and post-Mughal administration) tracing British debates about tax assessments through the first three decades of colonial rule in Bengal.

From Little King to Landlord: Property, Law, and the Gift under the Madras Permanent Settlement

1986 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas B. Dirks
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Property Law ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Social Forms ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
The Gift ◽  
Permanent Settlement ◽  
The Impact

In the last few years, modern historians of India have pushed the historical frontier of their field backwards in time. Colonialism is no longer considered the great watershed it once was thought to be. Historians who concern themselves with economic processes such as protoindustrialization tend in particular to minimize the impact of the consolidation of colonial rule in the late eighteenth century. Changes viewed as significant by these historians usually begin with the introduction of capitalism and the early encroachment of a world system, both of which predate the full political realization of colonialism. Historians who concern themselves with political changes tend in the other direction, although increasingly they have proposed major continuities between the ancien régime and the early colonial state. Historians concerned with social change view colonialism as significant but invoke various new forms of dualism to account for the limited effects of colonialism on local social forms. Whatever their differences, all of these historians agree that the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are crucial for viewing later changes in economy, polity, and society, and, from their varying theoretical and ideological perspectives, delight in excoriating traditional views of India as static and “traditional” before the arrival of the British.

Tribe, Diaspora, and Sainthood in Afghan History

2008 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nile Green
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
National Identity ◽  
The State ◽  
Mughal Empire ◽  
Alternative Models ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

Before the founding of the state of Afghanistan in the eighteenth century, the main centers of political and cultural gravity for the Pashtuns lay in India, where numerous Pashtuns migrated in pursuit of commerce and soldiery. Amid the cosmopolitan pressures of India and its alternative models of self-knowledge and affiliation, Pashtun elites elaborated a distinct idiom of “Afghan” identity. With the Afghans' absorption into the Mughal Empire, earlier patterns of accommodation to the Indian environment were overturned through the writing of history, whereby the Afghan past and present were carefully mapped through the organizing principle of genealogy. While the Afghan religious world was being reshaped by the impact of empire, in response, tales of expressly Afghan saints served to tribalize the ties of Islam. With the decline of Mughal power, the collective “Afghan” identity of the diaspora was transmitted to the new Afghan state, where the relationship of this tribal template of Afghan authenticity to the non-Pashtun peoples of Afghanistan remains the defining controversy of national identity.

Analysis and the hierarchy of nature in eighteenth-century chemistry

2002 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
JONATHAN SIMON
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Chemical System ◽  
Plant Analysis ◽  
Mathematical Concepts ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Elementary Analysis ◽  
Vegetable Kingdom ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Elementary Chemical

What was the impact of Lavoisier's new elementary chemical analysis on the conception and practice of chemistry in the vegetable kingdom at the end of the eighteenth century? I examine how this elementary analysis relates both to more traditional plant analysis and to philosophical and mathematical concepts of analysis current in the Enlightenment. Thus I explore the relationship between algebra, Condillac's philosophy and Lavoisier's chemical system, as well as comparing Lavoisier's analytical approach to those of his predecessors, such as Baumé and Bucquet. With reference to the aims of vegetable analysis, I show how the dominance of elementary analysis devalued a tradition that sought to isolate immediate principles (plant extracts), marginalizing the chemical practices of many doctors and pharmacists in the context of the new chemistry in France.

scholarly journals Pomiędzy relacyjnością a ambiwalentnością. Rozwój idei własności i wolności w warunkach politycznych samodzierżawia rosyjskiego w XIX wieku jako lejtmotyw w twórczości naukowej Richarda Pipesa

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-169
Author(s):  
Mikołaj Tarkowski
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
Scientific Activity ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

The article illustrates that property rights, including in particular property and the relationship between property rights and the category of freedom in the nineteenth-century Russian Empire, was one of the most important areas of scientific activity of Richard Pipes. For centuries, both the institution of freedom and property were highly politicised. Based on Richard Pipes’ findings, it can be concluded that the relationship between ownership and freedom manifested itself in the feature of relativity or ambivalence, depending on the time and individual parts of the Russian Empire. In the 19th century, the former mainly influenced the development of the monetary economy, while the latter strengthened the idea of samoderzhavyie in the political system. Richard Pipes noticed the sources of the antinomy between the idea of freedom and property in nineteenth-century Russia in the dynamically developing economic life and the “stillness” of the autocratic political power system. Following this concept, the article presents the doubts appearing among the St Petersburg ruling elite as well as provincial officials related to establishing the personal freedom of peasants in Russia, which finally took place in 1861. The system of tsarist autocracy in Russia, which was developing throughout history, noticed significant links between property and freedom. A good example of this process was the confiscation of land property. In this regard, the article mentions political premises, the impact of the phenomenon of “paradox and tragedy,ˮ as well as the socio-economic calculations carried out in the field of confiscating private property in the western governorates of the Russian Empire, after the January Uprising of 1863.

scholarly journals Kuća u Splitskom statutu – građenje, održavanje, rušenje

Ars Adriatica ◽  
2015 ◽  
pp. 67
Author(s):  
Josip Belamarić
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Urban Planning ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Town

It can be said that the town statute of Split and the stipulations concerning the everyday life in this medieval town are not characterized by the aim to create an ideal city and, in this, they are far from the long-range urban planning contained in the statute of Dubrovnik. The fact that less than five per cent of the stipulations in the statute of Split relate to urban planning ought to be understood as indicating that the town, set in Diocletian’s Palace and determined by its structures, had already been defined to a large extent and that it functioned well and fulfilled the needs of its inhabitants. Thirty chapters of the statute deal with different aspects of the development of medieval Split and its everyday maintenance. This article focuses on the relationship between the local government and private property, that is, with the cases of private spaces being transformed into public spaces and the ‘ritualistic erasures’, that is, the demolition of houses whose owners committed treason and broke the law. This phenomenon of demolition as setting example was not limited to medieval Split but was recorded in other Dalmatian communes (in Omiš and Dubrovnik as late as the eighteenth century) and this discussion of it is based on the examination of a wider set of primary sources.

scholarly journals The Grain Market between the Reigns of Alexey Mikhailovich and Catherine the Great: Was there a ‘Price Revolution’?

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur Mustafin
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Supply And Demand ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Grain Market ◽  
The Impact ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Regions Of Russia ◽  
Grain Prices

The author of this article attempts to reveal and systematise archival data on grain prices in Russia between the 1650s and 1700s and analyse their dynamics by comparing them with data for the eighteenth century. The study is based on a wide range of archival sources from the funds of the RSAAA (RGADA), CSA of Moscow (TsGA of Moscow), DM NLR (OR RNB), and SFI CANNR (GKU TsANO). The data from these sources make it possible to construct time series describing rye and oat price dynamics in the northern and central non-black earth regions of Russia. The author substantiates the homogeneity and reliability of the data received and determines the real prices. The resulting numbers make the author doubt the “price revolution” in eighteenth-century Russia. Throughout the eighteenth century, the average real prices remained below the level of the 1660s and 1670s. Only in the 1790s did prices briefly exceed this level. Overall, the Russian grain market was characterised by long-term price fluctuations. The author aims to explain this dynamic by analysing supply and demand in the grain market. More particularly, for the first time in the historiography, the author examines the connection between Russian grain prices and yield in the second half of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is established that in most cases, the relationship between these indicators was direct: as grain yield increased, prices did too. The article explains this seeming paradox. The data published by the author help not only to estimate the impact of various factors on grain prices during the period in question, but also solve practical tasks regarding various price indicators in grain equivalents.

scholarly journals POLICING PEDDLERS: THE PROSECUTION OF ILLEGAL STREET TRADE IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY DUTCH TOWNS

2015 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 367-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
DANIELLE VAN DEN HEUVEL
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Informal Economy ◽  
Local Power ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Street Vendors ◽  
Street Vending ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Source Materials

AbstractStreet vending was a common feature in many towns in early modern Europe. However, peddlers and hawkers often operated outside the official framework, lacking permission from governments and guilds. The impact of their informal status has hitherto not featured very extensively in historical studies. This article assesses the impact of policing of street vendors by looking at familiar source materials in a new way. Rather than solely focusing on those people who were ultimately punished, this article investigates the full process of policing and prosecution of street traders in eighteenth-century Dutch towns. It exposes that apart from those receiving a formal punishment, many more traders could suffer from policing activities, and that particular groups of street vendors were more vulnerable than others due to the specific dynamics of local power relations. As such, this article provides new insights into policing and social control, while also offering wider lessons for our understanding of the relationship between the formal and informal economy in pre-industrial Europe.

Early British Rule and Social Classification in Lanka

2004 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 625-647 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN D. ROGERS
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
South Asians ◽  
Communal Identity ◽  
Colonial Modernity ◽  
Modern Politics ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
British Rule ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
Social Classification ◽  
Epistemological Break

Recent scholarship has put forward two distinct interpretations of the origins of modern national and communal identity in South Asia. One sees colonial modernity as a radical epistemological break and judges the content of pre-colonial pasts irrelevant for understanding modern politics. According to this view, modern identities are responses to colonial constructions of Asian ‘tradition’. The other approach sees continuities between the late pre-colonial and early colonial periods. For these writers, the origins of modern national and communal identities lie not only in colonial interventions, but also in non-colonial eighteenth-century social formations and in early colonial interaction between the British and South Asians.

Liberal Leviathan or Imperial Outpost? J. S. Furnivall on Colonial Rule in Burma

2010 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 759-790 ◽  
Author(s):  
NEIL A. ENGLEHART
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Market Forces ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
British Colonialism ◽  
British India ◽  
Modern Economy ◽  
British Rule ◽  
Colonial Economy ◽  
The Impact

AbstractJ. S. Furnivall, in his influential account of the impact of British rule in Burma 1824–1948, argues that British officials laid down a Liberal administration that exposed the colony to market forces, monetized the economy and devastated communities. However, there is little evidence that British administrators actually thought in Liberal terms: they relied heavily on institutions inherited from the Burmese monarchy, and when they introduced new administrative methods these were drawn from other parts of British India and only indirectly influenced by Liberalism. Furnivall's view of the ideological origins of British administration, in turn, distorts his reading of the impact of British rule, as illustrated by recent work on the pre-colonial economy showing that it was in fact more monetized and commercialized than he claims. If his account of the pre-modern economy is not viable, Furnivall's claims about the impact of British colonialism in Burma demand re-evaluation.

The Rise of Nationalism in Colonial Africa: The Case of Colonial Malawi

1968 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 142-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger K. Tangri
Keyword(s):  
Social System ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Language Group ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
African Society ◽  
Institutional Form ◽  
Deep Roots ◽  
British Rule ◽  
The Relationship

The years of colonial rule in Malawi (formerly Nyasaland) were characterised by the imposition of a political and social system whereby a superior European authority attempted to exercise its will over a territory already populated by Africans. This enforced colonial relationship determined the pattern of political change within the Protectorate, so that any variation in the fundamentals of the relationship was bound to have important repercussions on the total colonial situation. From the earliest years of British rule in Malawi, Africans sought to modify or alter the colonial relationship and it is this sort of African sentiment and activity in reaction to alien control and domination that has come to be regarded as manifestations of nationalism not only in colonial Malawi but also in the other ex-colonial territories of Africa. Thomas Hodgkin, for example, has lumped under the general rubric of ‘nationalism’ “any organisation or group that explicitly asserts the rights, claims and aspirations of a given African society (from the level of the language-group to that of ‘Pan-Africa’) in opposition to European authority, whatever its institutional form and objectives”. Others, however, although appreciating the deep roots of nationalism have tended to confine the use of the term to the post-1945 period with its emergence of nation-wide movements seeking self-government and independence. They have argued that to include every social movement of protest against alien rule as a part of nationalism obscures the political meaning of the concept, blurs the important distinctions that can be made among African responses to the colonial situation, and makes comparative analysis difficult.

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