The ‘Great Divergence’ In Bengal- An Illustration Of The Early Modern Cotton Textile Industry

Bengal was one of the leading producers of high-quality textile during the early modern centuries and played a very nodal role in the intra-Asian and global trade. After 1500, with the descending of the European traders on its shores, the cotton textile industry boomed. It accounted for nearly two-fifths of all textile exports to Europe from Asia. I attempt, in this essay, to understand the ‘Global Divergence’ debate in South Asia with a focus on Bengal and its trade and production in cotton textiles. I situate Bengal as a central region of cotton production and trade in the early modern global economy with regards to not only Europe but also to other parts of Asia and within the sub-continent itself. I reiterate Prasannan Parthasarathi’s contribution to the ‘Great Divergence’ debate to argue that Bengal hosted a thriving cotton textile industry deep into the late eighteenth century. I echo that the destruction of the textile industry occurred in the high days of colonialism in the latter half of the nineteenth century. I attempt to substantiate this by trying to understand Om Prakash’s analysis of the methods of procurement of production before and after the ascendency of the Europeans as political administratorsin Bengal; when production by weavers was market driven and when it was driven by coercion and impunity, respectively. I finally conclude by commenting on the limitation of this analysis and the further research scope it holds.