Abstract
In the space of a short book review it is difficult to do justice to this voluminous and groundbreaking study. Resembling a magnum opus most scholars would only contemplate at the end of a long and successful career, Yazdani has produced a remarkable tour de force, using his linguistic skills to cover published, as well as unpublished, primary archival research over three centuries in several countries, and dispassionately summarizing a secondary literature of vast proportions in the main text as well as in a multitude of footnotes. The bibliography alone runs to 66 pages, followed by a useful index of persons, subjects, and places at the end of the book. It also includes a very helpful glossary and several maps to orient those readers who may be less familiar with South Asian geography. It is meticulously organized into several themes and subthemes.
The 65-page introduction carefully reviews existing scholarship that has attempted to confront the complex issue of why modernity emerged in Europe and not, in this case, South Asia, and the extent to which both areas of the world were already diverging during the 17th, 18th or 19th centuries. The first chapter summarizes Yazdani’s findings on the state of India’s science, technology, and culture during what he calls ‘middle modernity’; a rather ambiguous chronological term he uses throughout the book. The second chapter provides us with his interpretation of the socioeconomic history of Mysore (especially the 18th century under the rule of Tipu Sultan), not only paying attention to agriculture and commerce but also administration, military capabilities, education, foreign relations, and political institutions (the attempts to create an Islamic theocracy was especially interesting for this reviewer). It ends, not surprisingly, with British colonization. The third chapter deals with developments in Gujarat, with a focus on its socioeconomic characteristics, agriculture, technology, infrastructure, legal and political practices, the status of women and the impact of caste and religion. It also ends with British colonization in the 19th century and a fascinating discussion of the impact of British rule.
The fourth and last, but also surprisingly brief, chapter is an epilogue ‘Transition from middle to late modernity’. In this bitter debate on what constitutes the ‘prime mover’ for the great divergence, Yazdani does not embrace an ideological position, but provides an even-handed overview of sources as well as discussion of previous scholarship on this topic. In essence, Yazdani attempts to undermine Eurocentric scholarship by emphasizing remarkable South Asian economic and technological developments, either through policies enacted by the state (in Mysore) or more organic Smithian growth (Gujarat), suggesting the potentialities for modernization and industrialization prior to the colonial takeover. Yet he also challenges the anti-Eurocentrics for neglecting the reality of endogenous underdevelopment (such as the lack of modern universities, secularism, a printing press, institutionalized power structures for merchants within an assertive central state promoting economic developments, and a relatively weak civil society).
Despite this remarkable scholarly achievement, some minor criticisms can be formulated. Though well informed by theoretical debates, it is not always clear whether Yazdani is at times focusing on the Industrial Revolution, Merchant Capitalism (as a stage), capitalism or ‘modernity’ as an explanandum. Since he also chooses to critique Eurocentric scholars focused on traditions and obstacles that prevented modernity and who question the possibility of an endogenous South Asian transition towards capitalism, he suggests that the transition from ‘middle to late modernity’ had sufficient potentiality to bring about industrialization and recurring economic growth. Perhaps without interference from European powers and subsequent colonialism, this might have been the case. The fact that European merchants (the Dutch East India Company, the British East India Company, etc.) were able to subvert endogenous developments and, more importantly, their South Asian counterparts could not do to Europe what Europe did to them, challenges Yazdani’s model of a ‘world historical period of late modernities’ (p. 353). Moreover, when mentioning the ‘cases’ of Belgium, Germany, Japan, Russia and China as different forms of transitions towards industrial modernity, some methodological nationalism seems to creep in (p. 160, p. 352). From the point of view of this reviewer, the fact that Europeans were able to colonize South Asia (and other parts of the world) over several centuries was constitutive of the emergence of global capitalism, creating modernity, and inequality in global power relations as we know it.
Despite these minor, mostly theoretical, reservations, Yazdani ought to be commended for producing a book which greatly deepens our understanding of pre-colonial South Asia, and its dynamic relationship with European merchants as well as states. It is a terrific exercise in comparative social science that will hopefully inspire other young scholars to embark on similar studies elsewhere in the world.