Bazaar India: Markets, Society, and the Colonial State in BiharThe role of markets in linking local communities to larger networks of commerce, culture, and political power is the central element in Anand A. Yang's provocative and original study. Yang uses bazaars in the northeast Indian state of Bihar during the colonial period as the site of his investigation. The bazaar provides a distinctive locale for posing fundamental questions regarding indigenous societies under colonialism and for highlighting less familiar aspects of colonial India. At one level, Yang reconstructs Bihar's marketing system, from its central place in the city of Patna down to the lowest rung of the periodic markets. But he also concentrates on the dynamics of exchanges and negotiations between different groups and on what can be learned through the "voices" of people in the bazaar: landholders, peasants, traders, and merchants. Along the way, Yang uncovers a wealth of details on the functioning of rural trade, markets, fairs, and pilgrimages in Bihar. A key contribution of Bazaar India is its many-stranded narrative history of some of South Asia's primary actors over the past two centuries. But Yang's approach is not that of a detached observer; rather, his own voice is engaged with the voices of the past and with present-day historians. By focusing on the world beyond the mud walls of the village, he widens the imaginative geography of South Asian history. Readers with an interest in markets, social history, culture, colonialism, British India, and historiographic methods will welcome his book. |
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Common terms and phrases
agricultural AGRPD Banaras banias Bankipur Basantpur bazaar Behar Bengal Bengal Cr Bengal Rev beoparis Bettiah Bihar and Orissa Bihar and Patna British Buchanan Calcutta Champaran Chapra city of Patna cloth Colltr Commr Consltns cotton Danapur Darbhanga dealers Delhi district early nineteenth century early twentieth century economic eighteenth century fairs Ganges Gaya Ghulam Husain grain Grand Trunk Road haat Hathwa Hindu History intermediate markets Jdcl landholders late eighteenth late nineteenth century Magte marketing system Marwaris maunds melas merchants miles Mirganj moneylenders Motihari Mughal Muslims Muzaffarpur Noncooperation north Bihar north India Offg Orissa Patna Division peasants percent periodic markets petty traders pilgrimage pilgrims police political Prasad Procs Purnia Railway region religious Report Revelganj river road role rupees Rural Saran Secy settlements Shahabad Singh Siwan social Society Sonepur standard market thana thousand tion Tirhut town trade transportation University Press Veeraswamy village zamindars
Popular passages
Page 6 - They seem to last where nothing else lasts. Dynasty after dynasty tumbles down; revolution succeeds revolution; but the village community remains 'the same This union of the village communities, each one forming a separate little state in itself, has, I conceive, contributed more than any other cause to the preservation of the people of India, through all the revolutions and changes which they have suffered, and is in a high degree conducive to their happiness, and to the enjoyment of a great portion...
Page 2 - ... there is no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations.
Page 6 - ... by the descendants of those who were driven out when the village was depopulated ; and it is not a trifling matter that will drive them out, for they will often maintain their post through times of disturbance and convulsion, and acquire strength sufficient to resist pillage and oppression with success.
Page 6 - The village communities are little republics, having nearly everything they can want within themselves, and almost independent of any foreign relations. They seem to last where nothing else lasts. Dynasty after dynasty tumbles down ; revolution succeeds to revolution ; Hindoo, Patan, Mogul, Mahratta, Sikh, English, are all masters in turn ; but the village community remains the same.
Page 2 - It is a way of conceptualizing the landscape of the colonial world that makes it susceptible to certain kinds of management.