Britische Herrschaft auf indischem Boden: Landwirtschaftliche Transformation und okologische Destruktion des "Central Doab," 1801-1854.

• Author: Berkemer, Georg

The author describes in eight very dense chapters a dark side of British rule in India. Taking his material from the records of seven districts of the Ganges-Jumna Doab, he provides a study of the ecological consequences of the extension of cash-crop cultivation, which was forced upon the peasants in the first half of the 19th century, causing environmental changes severely affecting the inhabitants of the area.

The first two chapters are introductory and sketch the research undertaken so far. The main section is divided into three parts, the first (ch. III) containing a historical account of the military endeavors and fiscal experiments undertaken by the British East India Company in Bengal and the Gangetic plain, mainly focussing on the policy against the Nawab of Oudh. This chapter discusses the causes behind the measures of the early British administrators, and finds them rooted in the necessity of financing the Napoleonic wars in Europe by establishing a "second empire." Mann outlines this against the background of the "utilitarian" ideology prevalent in England in the first decades of the 19th century. The second part of the book (ch. IV) introduces the basic principles of the relevant short-term geological phenomena such as erosion, deforestation, and salinization of soils. It points out the parallels between the events in the Doab and recent cases of deforestation, e.g., in Brazil. The third part (chs. V-VIII) describes the "Transformation of the Indian Agrarian Economy" from the Mughal system around 1800 to its state in the pre-Mutiny years. It is argued that the forced expansion of the area under cultivation and the change from foodgrains to cash-crops - mainly cotton, sugar-cane,and indigo...