1757: Continuation or Rupture?

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1757 Continuation or Rupture?
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Effects of the Re-assessment of 18th Century
Debate

• If, as the research of Richards and Frank Perlin
  suggested, 18th c. South Asia continued to be
  economically robust through the early 18th c.
  when does the economy begin to weaken?
• Why does it do so?
• Attempts to question the idea of the Plassey
  Revolution as point of modernity
• This approach sees 1757 as a watershed

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Old view of Battle of Plassey

• Young Nawab of Bengal attacks EIC factory in
  Calcutta as it attempts to fortify in fear of
  French attacks
• Calcutta is captured and prisoners put in Black
  Hole
• Major Robert Clive sent to Calcutta from Madras
  to negotiate with Nawab Siraj-ud-daulah
• Negotiations fail and the EIC under Clive
  heroically wins against a much larger Bengali
  force

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Lord Robert Clive
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Old Viewafter Plassey

• Bengal passes into British rule as a bankrupt
  statebut who is responsible for this?
• Some problems with corruption acknowledged
• Death of 1/3 of population blamed on weather
• EIC attempt to rehabilitate and modernize Bengal
• Permanent Settlement of 1793 gives zamindars and
  local elite ownership of land
• Interaction with western concepts of rational
  thought leads to Bengal Renasissance in 1830

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Trends in Bengal after 1757

• Increased dispossession of peasants, since their
  rights to the land no longer exist
• Increased revenue farming, economic strains on
  new EIC gov. due to military costs of further
  expansion
• 1/3 of population dies during late 1770s-early
  1780s
• Trade suffers, competitors of EIC displace, era
  of monopoly trade (opium, salt) begins

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Problems with the Old view of 1757

• Always had problems since the allegations of
  Clives acceptance of bribes had been well known
  in his own time
• Contemporary records indicate an economic
  collapse after Plassey rather than beforeseems
  to be more widespread than the direct cause of
  droughts of 1783
• Researchers interested in understanding why
  Bengal, one of the richest provinces prior to
  1757, was so vulnerable to British takeover

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Cartoon of Lord Foxs India Bill Plays with ideas
of Oriental Despotism Raises concerns about The
influence of new money From India and of
nabobs like Clive
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New Researchthe origins of new communities and
spheres of influence

• Focuses on the relations between EIC and other
  trading companies and their Indian agents,
  financiers, advisors prior to 1757
• Pays more attention to the relationship between
  these merchant groups (S. Asian/other) and the
  new states.
• But is also very controversialwhy?

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Interaction with Old Histories

• Orientalist/Imperial questions their motives,
  raises issues of racial bias, and the silencing
  of the agency of S. Asian people
• Nationalistnew approach does not fit into an
  easy paradigm of colonial oppression/indigenous
  resistance. Shows interaction, even
  collaboration between European and S. Asian
  merchant groups
• Marxist similar reasons as 2but also because
  it complicates an oversimplified notion of
  class-oppression and is looking at the
  interaction of groupsthose with power/without
  power across numerous levels of activity

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What to watch for in next readings

• Note what kinds of sources author is using
• Do Chaudhuri/Spear have any noticeable biases?
• Does their biases influence their reasoningto
  what extent?
• Does the argument hold together or not?
• Is one argument more convincing than the other?