[Dec 2007, Volume 4 Quarterly Issue] Pdf File size - The IIPM Think ...

MORE MARKETS, LESS GOVERNMENT
at the core of all attempts to articulate
a notion of civil society in that period,
and since, has been the problematic relation
between the private and the public;
the individual and the social; public ethics
and individual interests; and individual
passions, and public concerns.’ 10
The organization of society being an endeavor
of immediate concern, the inclusion
of civil society as a building block is
as relevant and in this context plays a
normative role. Civil society as a normative
ideal emerged, as Seligman points
out to ‘as the result of a crisis in social
order and a breakdown of existing paradigms
of the idea of order.’ 11 The stress
points and crisis refers to that between
the State and individual interests. The
role of civil society has been assessed in
these contexts, and to discharge which
role civil society ‘is most usefully thought
as identifying a set of human capacities,
moral and political.’ 12 This is an effective
expression to hold on to for assessing
the impact of civil society when
functioning as a part of the triad formed
by the State, the market and the
civil society.
Spread Of Markets, Influence
Of States And The Colonial
Period In India
It is a point that is made that the state of
the economy in the earlier part of the
eighteenth century in India was not so
different as compared to that in Britain
and other European countries. It is observed
that the ‘economies of India,
China, and other Asian regions in the
early eighteenth century were not so different
– hardly less sophisticated than in
Europe’ and that ‘the economies of Britain
and Europe accelerated after 1750,
quickly outstripping those of India, China,
Japan and the rest of Asia.’ 13 The
stirrings of the early differences began
at some time during the seventeenth and
the eighteenth centuries. The case study
of India is an illustration of what occurred
as a response to the emergent
State and interactions between the State,
the market and the civil society.
The pre-colonial history of India has
a continuity that is easily segregated
from that of the beginnings of the arrival
of commercial class from Britain
and other European nation states to India
in search of markets. This early history
of travelers, merchants and those of
the East India Company officials are
that of commercial interests in search of
markets. In various ways the State in
Britain and those in other nations too
emerged as supporters that enabled a
deepening of interests. It is, however,
the cessation of the Company rule and
the initiation of the colonial rule by the
State in Britain that the changes came
into much sharper focus. This is expected
inasmuch as the rule by the colonial
State was qualitatively different from
that by commercial interests in the form
of the Company supported though the
Company was by the State. Accordingly,
while the early stages, and that prior to
the proclamation transferring power to
the State of Britain of the territory of
India, offers a fascinating story of the
manner in which the commercial class
established its presence in the country,
it is the firming up of the relationships
under the State that is of relevance here.
The response of the civil society to the
colonial State was at once sharp and often
provocative. Dadabhai Naoroji, the
forefront spokesperson of the economic
drain theory and who estimated the
drain to be to the extent of ‘30,000,000
to 40,000,000 a year’ did not find any
issues with the ‘operations of economic
laws’ as a cause behind this sorry state
of India. Instead, he identified the British
State and its policies that were the
cause. Writing in 1880, Dadabhai pointed
out that, ‘It is not the pitiless operations
of economic laws, but it is the
thoughtless and pitiless action of the
British policy; … in short, it is the pitiless
perversion of economic laws by the
sad bleeding to which India is subjected,
that is destroying India.’ 14 The point
Dadabhai Naoroji, the forefront spokesperson of the economic
drain theory and who estimated the drain to be to
the extent of ‘30,000,000 to 40,000,000 a year’ did not
find any issues with the ‘operations of economic laws’ as a
cause behind this sorry state of India
about the overreach by the State was not
restricted to identifying that it was the
role of the State, and the manner in
which the State denuded the economy
causing, that were the reason for the severe
handicap faced by the populace of
the country over which the State presided.
A further issue was raised, and it
was about the operation and influence
of the colonial State as against that of
the pre-colonial State. Dadabhai pointed
out that under the suzerainty of the
THE INDIA ECONOMY REVIEW
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