Capitalism in South Asia

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

This course examines the colonial transformations of the South Asian economy between 1750 and 1950. We begin by examining the nature of capital and labour in South Asia and the wider Indian Ocean world during the eighteenth century, prior to British dominance. We examine historiographic debates about whether colonialism was built atop existing South Asian economic structures and institutions, or whether it represented a fundamental rupture. We will then move on to examine three economic communities in South Asia: the peasantry, industrial workers, and traders. The course concludes by examining the place of economic thought in the Indian and Pakistani nationalist movements.