Small Town Capitalism In Western India

This book charts the history of artisan production and marketing in the Bombay Presidency from 1870 to 1960. While the textile mills of western India's biggest cities have been the subject of many rich studies, the role of artisan producers located in the region's small towns have been virtually ignored. Based upon extensive archival research as well as numerous interviews with participants in the handloom and powerloom industries, this book explores the role of weavers, merchants, consumers and laborers in the making of what the author calls 'small-town capitalism'. By focusing on the politics of negotiation and resistance in local workshops, the book challenges conventional narratives of industrial change. The book provides the first in-depth work on the origins of powerloom manufacture in South Asia. It affords unique insights into the social and economic experience of small-town artisans as well as the informal economy of late colonial and early post-independence India.

This book charts the history of artisan production and marketing in the Bombay Presidency from 1870 to 1960. While the textile mills of western India's biggest cities have been the subject of many rich studies, the role of artisan producers located in the region's small towns have been virtually ignored. Based upon extensive archival research as well as numerous interviews with participants in the handloom and powerloom industries, this book explores the role of weavers, merchants, consumers and laborers in the making of what the author calls 'small-town capitalism'. By focusing on the politics of negotiation and resistance in local workshops, the book challenges conventional narratives of industrial change. The book provides the first in-depth work on the origins of powerloom manufacture in South Asia. It affords unique insights into the social and economic experience of small-town artisans as well as the informal economy of late colonial and early post-independence India.

A history of artisan production in colonial and post-independence India, and its role in the country's society and economics.

This book examines the emergence of professional advertising in western India during the interwar period. It explores the ways in which global manufacturers advanced a 'brand-name capitalism' among the Indian middle class by promoting the sale of global commodities during the 1920s and 1930s, a time when advertising was first introduced in India as a profession and underwent critical transformations. Analysing the cultural strategies, both verbal and visual, used by foreign businesses in their advertisements to capture urban consumers, Haynes argues that the promoters of various commodities crystalized their campaigns around principles of modern conjugality. He also highlights the limitations of brand-name capitalism during this period, examining both its inability to cultivate markets in the countryside or among the urban poor, and its failure to secure middle-class customers. With numerous examples of illustrated advertisements taken from Indian newspapers, the book discusses campaigns for male sex tonics and women's medicines, hot drinks such as Ovaltine and Horlicks, soaps such as Lifebuoy, Lux and Sunlight, cooking mediums such as Dalda and electrical household technologies. By examining the formation of 'brand-name capitalism' and two key structures that accompanied it- the advertising agency and the field of professional advertising- this book sheds new light on the global consumer economy in interwar India, and places developments in South Asia into a larger global history of consumer capitalism.

Recognising the different ways that capitalism is theorised, this book explores various aspects of contemporary capitalism in India. Using field research at a local level to engage with larger issues, it raises questions about the varieties and processes of capitalism, and about the different roles played by the state. With its focus on India, the book demonstrates the continuing relevance of the comparative political economy of development for the analysis of contemporary capitalism. Beginning with an exploration of capitalism in agriculture and rural development, it goes on to discuss rural labour, small town entrepreneurs, and technical change and competition in rural and urban manufacturing, highlighting the relationships between agricultural and non-agricultural firms and employment. An analysis of processes of commodification and their interaction with uncommodified areas of the economy makes use of the ‘knowledge economy’ as a case study. Other chapters look at the political economy of energy as a driver of accumulation in contradiction with both capital and labour, and at how the political economy of policy processes regulating energy highlights the fragmentary nature of the Indian state. Finally, a chapter on the processes and agencies involved in the export of wealth argues that this plays a crucial role in concealing the exploitation of labour in India. Bringing together scholars who have engaged with classical political economy to advance the understanding of contemporary capitalism in South Asia, and distinctive in its use of an interdisciplinary political economy approach, the book will be of interest to students and scholars of South Asian Politics, Political Economy and Development Studies.

A richly textured ethnography about knitwear manufacturers in South India that explains how peasant-workers have refined notions of place, gender, and class to create a local industrial form that succeeds in the global economy.

Studying firms and entrepreneurs over three centuries, this book unravels the historical roots of the impressive business growth witnessed in contemporary India.