- Discuss the elements of continuity and change in eighteenth century Indian economy and society.
The eighteenth century forms a unique twilight zone in Indian history, which was a witness to the decline of the Mughal Empire and the ascendancy of the British. The predominant nineteenth-century view of the eighteenth century as a ‘period of anarchy between the age of Mughal hegemony and the imposition of Pax Britannica’ (Bose and Jalal) persisted until very recently. The eighteenth century occupies an important position in its own right as an era of change and continuity in Indian society, polity, and economy. According to CA Bayly, since any single notion of the fall of empire and the rise of colonialism is inadequate, various factors need to be studied in order to understand the complex historical processes at work in the eighteenth century. The presupposed correlation between the decline of imperial power and general socio-economic and cultural decline needs to be reexamined. The eighteenth century in Indian historiography has been a field of study that has evoked a considerable degree of scholarly attention. It has been suggested that the political flux of the century was indicative not of the last days of a decaying Mughal empire but rather the emergence of regeneration and growth under regional authorities. Therefore, the notion of the eighteenth century as a Dark Age needs to be reexamined. This essay attempts to analyze the main trends in the 18th century economy, society and polity in light of recent historiographical debates.
When we study the situation of the eighteenth century, three dates serve as landmarks. The first was the death of Aurangzeb in 1707. Aurangzeb has often been seen as the harbinger of Mughal decline. Although the Mughal Empire reached its territorial climax during his reign, Aurangzeb’s military campaigns were a severe financial drain. The outbreak of agrarian revolts led by Marathas, Jats, Sikhs and others and the assertion of autonomy by many provincial governors was becoming a threat to central authority. Control of the peripheries soon began to lapse into the hands of regional and local elites. Meanwhile the mansabdari crisis intensified factional conflict within the nobility. The invasion of Nadir Shah in 1739 and then the raids of Ahmad Shah Abdali between 1751 and 1752 dealt a further blow to the tottering Mughal Empire.
A number of views have been put forward to explain the great number of popular revolts under Aurangzeb. Early twentieth century historians like Jadunath Sarkar see these uprisings as ‘Hindu reactions’ to Aurangzeb’s orthodox policies. Irfan Habib explains the popular reaction in terms of the oppression of the peasantry. Another view also points to the withdrawal of financial support to the empire in crisis by the great banking firms. The latest research, by Muzaffar Alam, emphasizes the regional aspect of the motivation of revolt, where control of the peripheries by the Mughal centre was sought to be replaced by the manipulation of central authority by regionally-based power. The Mansabdari crisis was another contributing factor.
These multiple internal and external factors resulted in the rapid diminution of Mughal hegemony during the 18th century. The Mughal emperor was not even able to directly participate in the Battle of Panipat (1761) in which the Afghans routed the Maratha army. This defeat was a major setback for the Marathas, potential inheritors of India’s imperial mantle, just at a time when the English were beginning to shift from trade to dominion. Maratha power however had a brief revival under their great leader Mahadaji Scindia in the 1770s and 1780s. In 1784 Scindia won acknowledgment as protector of the Mughal emperor. It was only after overcoming fierce Maratha resistance that the British occupied Delhi in 1803
The second defining date of the eighteenth century is 1757, the year of the Battle of Plassey, between the Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah of Bengal and the British East India Company. With this victory the East India Company acquired effective political control of Bengal and Bihar. Following the Battle of Buxar in 1764 the Company acquired the diwani (the right to the revenues) of Bengal to the company in 1765.
The third date, which perhaps symbolically caps the period would be 1799, when Tipu Sultan, the ruler of Mysore and opponent of British annexationist drives in South India died defending Seringapatnam, effectively signalling the advent of a new military player in the Indian subcontinent – the East India Company.
The decline of the Mughal Empire is an irrefutable fact, but, this should not be confused with a general collapse of political authority, endemic warfare and uncontrollable anarchy. It is now argued that the British rule was built, not on Indian collapse, but on the emergence of a new order in the eighteenth century India based on stable regional authorities. The eighteenth century saw politically, an increasing devolution of power to lower levels of sovereignty – regional rulers, small potentates and even little rajas of villages. Mughal legitimacy however proved to be longer lasting than Mughal power. The eighteenth century regionally-based state system retained important elements of Mughal administrative practice in addition to respecting Mughal authority.
At a social level, the weakening of the Mughal emperor and nobility enabled the strengthening of other groups who were the products of dynamic processes of social mobility and change. Among these were Hindu and Muslim revenue farmers, mostly Hindu and Jain merchants and bankers, and mostly Muslim service gentry. The merchants and bankers in particular provided critical financial sustenance to the regional states of the eighteenth century which paved the way for a process of commercialization of political power and social relations.
A typology of Mughal successor states would reveal at least three distinctive forms. The first were the independent kingdoms where provincial governors had asserted de facto autonomy such as Bengal, Awadh, Hyderabad, Arcot. The second were the warrior states of the Sikhs, Jats and Marathas that were distinguished by their non-Muslim religious-symbolism and adoption of military fiscalism; and thirdly there were the compact local kingdoms whose sovereignty had acquired more substance in the 18th century. These included the Rajput states, Telugu speaking warrior clans, Afghan Sultanates etc. These states resorted to military fiscalism within compact domains, achieving varying degrees of success in extracting revenues from trade and production. It is also important to note that the state was only one of many political formations in pre-colonial India, and a large part of the population subsisted through petty carrying, plunder and pastoralism. These successor states maintained the outward forms of Mughal rule since the Mughal Emperor continued to be the ‘highest manifestation of sovereignty’ (C.A. Bayly), but simultaneously began to effectively extract resources from agriculture and trade. This led to the emergence of new, more centralized state formations that had greater control over resources within their territories.
The eighteenth century was witness to recurrent warfare for revenue appropriation. Earlier, since most revenue payers were Mughal officials, who could challenge central authority directly, a threat of use off force was sufficient for revenue appropriation. Increased fortification, cavalry, artillery, standing armies and platoons were required, leading to a substantial increase in military expenditure. Burton Stein has even compared these changes in the eighteenth century South Asian states to ‘military fiscalism’ in early-modern France. Military fiscalism referred to the increase in taxation by centralizing states in order to maintain armies. This led to the development of a symbiotic relationship between the army and the revenue system. An important economic repercussion was that the upward flow of the revenue to the state was intercepted and diverted by intermediary groups.
While scholars like Irfan Habib are of the opinion that the period of the eighteenth century was characterized by an agrarian crisis, it should be noted that had 18th century India been reduced to a wasteland, a British empire in India was hardly conceivable. British rule was nurtured by Indian wealth and built on the foundations laid by regional states (P.J. Marshall). The rise of regional foci of power may in fact have been a necessary prerequisite for the rise of British power. The military and fiscal needs of regional rulers allowed the British to gain a political and economic foothold. The British gradually usurped political dominance and control, taking over the administrative structures created for the regional states and making them work for their own purposes.
Burton Stein argues that a ‘structural contradiction’ in pre-British state formations was between the ‘centralizing, militaristic regimes’ and numerous local lordships. The British entered the local systems not as distant aggressors, but as part of the political system. The colonial state resolved the contradiction in favour of the centralizing tendency of ‘military fiscalism’ inherited from previous regimes. Thus the early colonial state maintained a continuum with its past.
According to KN Chaudhury, the growth of European demand led to an increase in artisanal production from the late seventeenth century onwards. This demand peaked in the eighteenth century and began to decline only in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Decline was more a result of the conquest of Bengal by the British, especially after the Battle of Buxar led to the acquisition of ‘diwani’ rights in 1765. While the fall of the Mughal Empire had no ramifications in terms of European demand, administrative inefficiency combined with Maratha incursions in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa disrupted economic life. Nationalist historians like Irfan Habib, NK Sinha, and RK Mukherjee believed in colonialism as a destructive one which marked a decisive break in Indian history. This force was seen as foreign and associated with imperialism, capitalism, and drain of wealth.
Revisionist historians like Bayly, Subramanyam and Marshall, however do not accept Chaudhury’s model and see imperialism and capitalism, not as a sudden development but a long-drawn historical process. They see the eighteenth century as a period of transition involving collaboration and accommodation and not a break. They argue that the early colonial regime may be seen as a logical extension of processes with distinctly indigenous origins. According to Bayly this new perspective treats the Indian people as subjects of history and not mere objects of colonial rule. Indians responded to this conquering thrust, not as mere passive victims but as active collaborators in the creation of colonial India. Thus Bayly employs the concept of ‘indigenous origins’ in two senses, firstly to indicate that the pattern of European penetration of the subcontinent was limited and determined by the structure of Indian Commercial society, and secondly, to show that Indian social groups supported the emerging company and the later colonial state. This transitory phase, also called ‘indigenous origins of colonialism’ or ‘portfolio capitalism’ had an expansionary effect with craft production and specialization and commercialization of agriculture. Different regions developed and agricultural commercialization extended along the Ganges with production for the market.
Contrary to traditional notions of the absolute separation of state and commercial spheres in pre-colonial India, C. Bayly and S. Subramaniyam have suggested that there were some substantial entrepreneurs who commanded sizeable resources and were able straddle the worlds of commerce and political participation. These were the ‘portfolio capitalist’, a term used for people involved with a variety of activities like internal trade, revenue-farming, warfare, military overlordship, merchant banking and international trade. However most elements did exist in pre-colonial times, like specialization of production (especially in agro-manufactures), artisan industries catering to an extensive market, and localized centres of manufactures. Bayly and Subramanyam point out that a portfolio capitalist was not necessarily a merchant, but could be from a military or administrative background. Colonialism did not entirely change the system and the role of economic agencies remained the same. They point out that these ‘portfolio capitalists’ were eventually swept away with the emergence of a colonial political economy in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In the late eighteenth century, the British took up the function of the ‘portfolio capitalists’. Thus there was no real break from the past and the goals of the pre-colonial era were taken over by colonialism which simply fitted into prefixed slots. To nationalist Marxists, the revisionists presented a smooth working model which denied the fact of colonialism as a violent exploitative force.
Bayly has also pointed out that evidence from various parts of India suggests that not only was the economic and political importance of merchants enhanced in the period of successor states, but that corporations of merchants, townsmen and religious specialists had developed an autonomy that even amounted to civic self-government in some cases. However most trades were multi-caste ventures and merchants needed common institutions that were either based on an interest in the trade on one region or on the particular function performed by merchants at different levels of the trading system. ‘Credit-worthiness’ became the overriding concern, even more than caste distinctions in the world of commerce.
Other views which emphasize the greater political influence of merchants in the emergent regional states have been expressed by scholars like Burton Stein and David Washbrook. They write that in the attempt to increase their control over resources, states were becoming increasingly dependent on merchants to implement mercantilist policies such as revenue-farming and state commercial systems. This in turn led to a thorough penetration of the state by merchant interests, which was reflected in the greater ability of merchant capital to subordinate labour.
These views have been criticized by Prasannan Parthasarthi who offers an alternative viewpoint. According to him the portfolio capitalist view obscures important distinctions between categories of merchants, leading to misinterpretations of their role in the political order. Merchants in this period were primarily involved in banking, trading and financing production. On the basis of this distinction, Parthasarthi suggests that the political power of banking interests may have increased in the 18th century successor states, but this did not imply greater power for merchants per se. The financiers of production in their turn became crucial supporters of the Company and its emerging state in South India. Parthasarthi argues that the aim of South Asian mercantilism and state commercial activities was essentially to increase the power of the state, and not to enhance the position of the merchants. According to him this exclusion from political power, may have led merchants to co-operate with the Company. In return the merchants became crucial allies of the Company state. 1790 onwards the balance of power began to shift away from labour towards merchant capital, as a result of this alliance between the Company and the merchants. Thus Parthasarthi argued that it was the rise of the Company state and not South Asian mercantilism that was reflected in the greater ability of merchants to control labour.
Having discussed the commercialization of state power in pre-colonial India, we should analyse the economic conditions in India in that period. The generally accepted view that the prosperity of the seventeenth century had drifted into penury in the eighteenth century has now been questioned. Muzaffar Alam has argued that the first half of the eighteenth century was a period of continuing economic expansion in parts of northern India. Similarly C.A. Bayly writes that there is evidence of a buoyant economy in certain areas right through the century. Bose and Jalal write that while the politics of the eighteenth century was marked more by decentralization than decline, economy and society were characterized by general buoyancy despite a few weaknesses and contradictions. The economy did well in the spheres of agriculture, inland trade and urbanization. Pockets of agricultural decline-often because of inter-state warfare-were more than counterbalanced by wider expanses of growth. The Maratha territories under Poona were noted for their low revenue rates and agricultural prosperity in the latter half of the eighteenth century. The dynamism that had characterized many agrarian regions since 1600 had not abated in the eighteenth century. States exacted tribute from systems of agricultural commodity production that tied villages to expansive networks of commercial mobility and exchange. It was this vibrant ‘tributary commercialism’, as David Ludden calls it, which .made India look attractive to European companies.
Tapan Raychaudhuri suggests that there were no radical changes in agricultural production and assessment of land revenue in the eighteenth century. The two traditional classes of cultivators, namely owners (having hereditary and transferable rights) and the landless tillers persisted in the countryside. Revenue collection continued to be dominated by the zamindars. Raychaudhuri has also pointed out that the mid eighteenth century witnessed an increase in commercialized agriculture reflected in an increase in the production of cash crops, such as indigo, poppy and tobacco. Other concurrent trends included advance payments by buyers and increasing dependence on traders-moneylenders for the supply of seeds. In spite of stagnation in the development of technology, it seems that a high yield per acre was maintained throughout the eighteenth century could favourably compare with the average yield of wheat under scientific cultivation in the UK (Raychaudhuri). In the manufacturing sector too, there was a tendency towards specialized market oriented production. Merchant control over producers also grew via the system of ‘dadni’ or the advance of cash and raw materials.
It has also been pointed out that except for a major subsistence crisis in south India between 1702 and 1704, the first, seven decades of the eighteenth century in India were remarkably free of famine. It is difficult to generalize about the condition of rural elites and subaltern classes and the relations between them in the period immediately preceding colonial conquest. Overall, a favourable land-labour ratio had lead to increased mobility and greater negotiation power among the peasants. In fact while population, production, prices and wages tended generally speaking, to be on a gentle upward incline during the eighteenth century.
In the economic sphere when we look at trade, fragmented polities do not appear to have hampered to a great extent the development of a thriving inland trade in grain, cloth and cattle. Corporate merchant institutions transcended political boundaries in overseeing the transportation of goods and the provision of credit and insurance services. While inland trade did well, Indian shippers and merchants involved in export trade seem to have declined in the face of European advances. The port city of Surat lost its importance around 1720. There was a resurgence of demand for Indian goods in both West and South East Asia late in the eighteenth century in addition to European demand, but by now British merchants and shippers had achieved dominance at the expense of Indians and took the bulk of the profits. A large commercialized sector with a highly sophisticated market and credit structure, manned by a skilful and in instances, very wealthy commercial class had developed in eighteenth century India. It drew upon a wide range of manufactures and commercial crops to supply a domestic as well as overseas market. India’s textile trade was extremely competitive, being based on very low costs of production in the context of the imposition of protective tariffs by the British textile industry. Overall the commercialized sector of the Indian economy was expanding in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, there were signs of market integration and of increasing involvement of agricultural and rural manufacturers with exchange. A money economy and credit had become quite common in rural India by the eighteenth century. The tendency towards localization of manufacture, its organization on the basis of labour under centralized control, the adoption of the ‘joint-stock’ principle indicated a degree of dynamism and responsiveness to market forces.
Perhaps most significant for the mercantile activities of the period, are the links that it is possible to draw between these and the wider processes of state formation, and the rise of what Bayly calls intermediate classes. On the one hand the shift in the location of consumption towards more localized centres such as the qasbah and ganj meant mere reorientation of the economy rather than the decline of the economy. On the other hand the condition for the existence of the new dispensation was the intensification and further commercialization of the links between trade and agriculture.
The result of this was the rise of an intermediate economy based on the service gentry (local military-administrative elite) in the qasbahs who supported the body of artisans. The big merchants also operated credit facilities and long-distance trade. Regional and functional specialization was also a feature of the merchants with particular groups dominating trade in certain areas or commodities. However Bayly speaks of a consolidation of groups of entrepreneurs in money and credit. The disturbances of the eighteenth century pulled down the larger merchants in to the bazaars and ganjs while the local traders were pulled up to them. The basis for these developments was the fusion of trade and political control. The new nobility in the successor states was recruited from these entrepreneurs who were able to mobilize both military and capital resources. Their position, in turn was based on the networks of skill and credit created by money-lenders, stewards and service-gentry. These intermediaries showed great resilience during the eighteenth century.
Linked to the changes in trade patterns were the patterns of urbanization. The Dark Age argument has always presupposed a decline in urban centres. According to revisionist historians, though Indian cities changed in the eighteenth century, there was no large-scale deurbanization. While this period witnessed the decline of commercial centers like Surat, Maslipatnam and Dhaka had degenerated colonial port cities like Bombay, Madras and Calcutta began to rise. At the same time, the decline of the Mughal capitals, Delhi and Agra was offset by the rise of regional capitals, such as Lucknow, Hyderabad, various Maratha cities, and Seringapatam. This indicated that the trajectories of development of different cities followed their own course and there was no one general trend applicable to all regions. Bose and Jalal have concluded that the level of urbanization in fact was clearly higher in 1800 than a century before. What had changed in the urban centers was the relative balance of power between rulers and merchants. In some instances, commercial and financial magnates were starting to appropriate some powers of the state.
On the whole it appears that the Indian economy in the eighteenth century remained a traditional agrarian one with dominant subsistence sectors coexisting and interacting with a complex world of commerce and manufactures. India’s economic situation, especially in terms of agriculture was not comparable to Western Europe on the eve of the Industrial Revolution. Moreover merchant control over production was quite limited by contemporary European standards. It therefore appears improbable that a movement towards industrialization existed in the eighteenth century in India. However once the British had entrenched themselves, Indian intermediary capital was quickly reduced to an inferior position. The British now resorted to a form of ‘conquistador imperialism’ (Jalal and Bose) which was a major causal factor of early nineteenth century economic stagnation.
The absence of the development of capitalism in India has been a subject of focus among scholars. According to Irfan Habib, despite the presence of large surplus in seventeenth and eighteenth century India, capitalism could not develop due to the nature of demand, which was primarily for luxury goods, and did not facilitate mass production. The state maintained ‘karkhanas’ or centres of production of goods for conspicuous consumption and therefore, could not serve as institutionalized transitional forms. In addition Habib refers to the political subordination of the merchants to the Mughal state as yet another hindrance to the development of capitalism.
A theory of cultural failure is postulated by Athar Ali, according to whom interest in science in India was not matched by interest in technology, due to which the production process remained stagnant. This theory however does not hold when we see that in this period, the state did sponsor the development of technology in shipping and horticulture.
In an interesting study of pre-colonial India and pre-industrial Britain, Parthasarthy compared the British and Indian textile industry of specific regions (in terms of productivity, wages and living standards) and concluded that the textile industry and labour of South India compared favourably with their British counterparts. This was due to the high agricultural productivity in India that enabled artisans to survive on a lesser wage and gave the industry a competitive edge in terms of cost of production and price. Parthasarthy also went on to argue that the Industrial Revolution was in part born out of the British desire to compete with the Indian textile industry thereby reducing the export of bullion to India.
The social history of the eighteenth century entails the observation of the position of women, caste and education in society. Here, the argument of a stagnant, unchanging and backward society does not stand. The complexity of Indian society would make it difficult to arrive at definite conclusions, but it appears that the eighteenth century was not merely an inert and unconscious continuation of early traditions. Although eighteenth century society exhibited the prevalence of the caste system, a patriarchal family system and even practices such as purdah and sati, it should be remembered that these so-called backward practices were not peculiar to the eighteenth century. The emergence of local and regional regimes and the attendant redistribution of labour, capital and investment of political elites led to the social advancement of certain groups, particularly the organizations of Indian traders and bankers, administrative and military personnel and religious persons as wells. Bayly writes that in the eighteenth century, the monetization of agrarian relations and the emergence of the free market was challenging the dominance of the caste-system in the economic sphere. Secondly, traditional elites in need of money were forced to admit men of commerce in to the political sphere as well.
Susan Bayly in her study of caste during the nineteenth century has noted that the institutions and beliefs which are the basic elements of ‘traditional’ caste were only just beginning to take shape in the early eighteenth century. This was the period of rapid state formation which accompanied the collapse of the Mughal Empire. At one level the immense amount of trade, travel, war etc. meant that interaction between various groups would create consciousness about classification and social boundaries. At the same time, the search by the royal patrons and subsequently the British for literate and scribal groups meant that there were material benefits in delimitations and assertions of caste identities. The pan-sub-continental recognition of castes now meant that it could benefit traders to assert such identities.
With regard to the position of women, the practice of sati seemed to have been undermined in Indian society. There was in fact an increased incidence of sati in Bengal, after the British took over Bengal. This was probably done by the people to prove their high status or to prevent the transfer of their property to a widow. Thus, we see a gradual deterioration in the position of women with changing political circumstances. In the field of education, it was the Indian rulers who had a system of extensive primary education in order to train people to take up revenue or accounting jobs. At the same time a tremendous development in regional languages and culture was also observed.
In the sphere of culture, clearly India in the eighteenth century retained its cultural vitality despite the fading of Mughal grandeur. Chris Bayly writes, “The tendency was towards greater richness of religious and cultural traditions rather than homogeneity”. Parallel political and economic developments affected every sphere of life. If we look at religion, we find that various devotional cults increased in popularity both among the Hindus and Muslims and this can partly be traced to their patronisation by regional rulers. An example is that of the Marathas who supported the old shrine of Sheikh Muinuddin Chisti at Ajmer. Vaishnavite bhakti flourished in Nadia under the nawabs of Bengal. The usu!i or rationalistic branch of Shia jurisprudence also seems to have developed to a high point at Awadh. The exodus of southern Brahmins to Benaras also helped in enriching Hindu philosophy. KN Pannikar accedes to the fact that Hindu religion was ridden with ritualism, polytheism and idolatry in the eighteenth century. However, the emergence of heterodox sects in the entire country at this time is seen as an implicit rejection of this degenerated form of Hinduism and an attempt to purify religious life. Pannikar therefore sees a greater complexity in religious and cultural life.
This was also the period when the Carnatic School of music began to crystallize in the courts. Prominent musicians of this school included Tyagaraja, Muthuswami Dikshitar and Syama Shastri. In art as well there was a departure from Mughal miniature painting, where focus shifted from mere court scenes to more naturalistic themes. A shift in centres of patronage often revitalized art, as is amply demonstrated in miniature paintings of Bundi and Kishangarh schools of Rajputana and those of the Kangra School in Punjab.
It was in the field of literature that the most far-reaching developments were witnessed. There was a gradual shift towards more popular forms of literature and the vernacular languages seem to come into their own, especially under the patronage of indigenous rulers of successor states. Bengali literature was influenced by Romanticism in the late nineteenth century, and the compilation of Bengali-English dictionaries and translated texts made their appearance in response to British impetus. An important role was also played by missionaries in keeping with their desire to spread their message to a wider native audience. Literary life was characterised by the spread of Urdu and the revival of Malayalam literature. Urdu grew as a language of military camps and bazaars initially and later became the administrative language for much of North India. Eighteenth century Kerala saw the development of Kathakali literature, drama and dance. Prominent figures were Kunchan Nambiar the poet-laureate of Kerala, Dayaram, the famous lyricist of Gujarat, Tayaumanavar, a famous exponent of sittar poetry in Tamil. In Assam too, literature developed under the patronage of the Ahom kings. Even Punjabi as well, we have the work of Warris Shah who composed ‘Heer Ranjha’, the famous romantic epic. Shah Abdul Latif, Sachal and Sami were the great Sindhi poets of the age.
Therefore in conclusion we can say that in spite of the political upheavals and the drastic change in political authority the eighteenth century did not witness any great change in terms of society and economy. While the two were definitely influenced by political developments, there was a definite continuity of old processes. At the same time associating political and imperial decline with an overall economic and social decline prevents one from appreciating the new processes which emerged in the period, albeit not in a pan-Indian context, but in a more regional fashion. . Recent research and fresh evidence have helped to dissolve some of the hardiest perennials of pre-colonial historiography with respect tot he ‘Dark Age’ of Indian history. The eighteenth century needs to be viewed in a more autonomous manner and not just as a dark and decadent period of transition between two great imperial authorities in India.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- S Bose and A Jalal – Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy
- Seema Alavi (ed.) – The Eighteenth Century in India
- Prasannan Parthasarathi – ‘Rethinking Wages and Competitiveness in the 18th century Britain and South India.
- Tapan Raychaudhuri – ‘The Mid-Eighteenth century background’ – Cambridge Economic History of India, Volume III
- CA Bayly – Rulers, Townsmen and Bazars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, 1770-1870.
- Susan Bayly – Caste, Society and Politics in India
- PJ Marshall – The Eighteenth Century in India
- Muzaffar Alam – Aspects of Agrarian uprisings in North India in Early Eighteenth century