Taking Callon to Calcutta: did economist-administrators make market in the colony?

Abstract

Using archival evidence, this paper tries to use Callon's idea of ‘embeddedness of the economy in economics’ in order to understand the process of economization of India under the East India Company. The Company's state self-consciously tried to construct an economic terrain by using their coercive power, but the rise of the market did not lead to the proliferation of ‘calculative agencies’. The paper seeks to explore the reasons behind this by delving deeper into the history and politics of marketization in colonial India and by reflecting on some unexamined presuppositions of the process of economization.

Keywords:

• India
• economization
• performativity
• East India Company
• Adam Smith
• market
• commensuration

Acknowledgements

This paper owes a lot to Sudipta Sen and his work – it is dedicated to him. Thanks to Partha Chatterjee, John Hutnyk, Raminder Kaur and Scott Lash for their support. The customary disclaimer applies.

Notes

1 In 1867, Sen wrote: ‘We are experiencing spiralling food-grain prices for some time in the past. But most of us are unable to comprehend its reason. People indulge in absurd speculations. Some say “alpashashyacha medini” [the earth has become infertile], some blame the officers of the government, some think that the cause is an increase in number of the Brahmos [a reformist religious cult], some put the blame on the increasing access of the Vedas to the Sudras, some think that it has to do with Kaliyug and others indulge in more absurd speculations …’, (Sen, 1867, p. 24). More outlandish views on the causes of the putative decline of Bengali agriculture can be found in Mukhopadhyay (1943).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bhaskar Mukhopadhyay

Bhaskar Mukhopadhyay teaches Postcolonial and Global Studies at the Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London. His most recent publication is: The rumor of globalization: Desecrating the global from vernacular margins (2013, New York, NY: Oxford University Press).