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Indigenous and Colonial Origins of Comparative Economic Development: The Case of Colonial India and Africa

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  • C. A. Bayly

Abstract

This paper concerns the institutional origins of economic development, emphasising the cases of 19th-century India and Africa. Colonial institutions – the law, western style property rights, newspapers and statistical analysis – played an important part in the emergence of Indian public and commercial life in the 19th and 20th centuries. These institutions existed in the context of a state that was extractive and yet dependent on indigenous cooperation in many areas, especially in the case of the business class. In such conditions, Indian elites were critical in creating informal systems of peer-group education, enhancing aspiration through the use of historicist and religious themes, and in creating a ‘benign sociology’ of India as a prelude to development. Indigenous ideologies and practices were as significant in this slow enhancement of Indian capabilities as transplanted colonial ones. Contemporary development specialists would do well to consider the merits of indigenous forms of association and public debate, religious movements and entrepreneurial classes. Over much of Asia and Africa, the most successful enhancement of people’s capabilities has come through the action of hybrid institutions of this type.

Suggested Citation

  • C. A. Bayly, 2008. "Indigenous and Colonial Origins of Comparative Economic Development: The Case of Colonial India and Africa," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 5908, GDI, The University of Manchester.
  • Handle: RePEc:bwp:bwppap:5908
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    Cited by:

    1. Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay & Elliott Green, 2011. "The Reversal of Fortune Thesis Reconsidered," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(7), pages 817-831, December.
    2. Florian Becker-Ritterspach & Tico Raaijman, 2013. "Global Transfer and Indian Management," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 141-166, February.
    3. Richens, Peter, 2009. "The economic legacies of the ‘thin white line’: indirect rule and the comparative development of sub-Saharan Africa," Economic History Working Papers 27879, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    4. Hartmann, Simon, 2012. "The conceptual flaws of the new EU development agenda from a political economy perspective, or why change is problematic for a donor-driven development policy," Working Papers 35, Austrian Foundation for Development Research (ÖFSE).
    5. Cordelia Onyinyechi Omodero & Michael Chidiebere Ekwe & John Uzoma Ihendinihu, 2018. "The Impact of Internally Generated Revenue on Economic Development in Nigeria," Accounting and Finance Research, Sciedu Press, vol. 7(2), pages 166-166, May.
    6. Miguel Laborda Pemn, 2011. ""Hombres que entre las raíces": Plantation colonies, slave rebellions and land redistribution in Saint Domingue and Cuba at the late colonial period, c. 1750 c. 1860," Documentos de Trabajo de la Sociedad de Estudios de Historia Agraria 1102, Sociedad de Estudios de Historia Agraria.
    7. Gareth Austin, 2008. "The 'reversal of fortune' thesis and the compression of history: Perspectives from African and comparative economic history," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(8), pages 996-1027.

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