India?s post-independence political economy, at least until the late 1980s or early 1990s, generally frowned upon the idea of rapidly increasing consumption as a means to promote economic growth. The focus was always on the production side and in particular on the state?s role in attaining the ?commanding height?s ?of the economy. Interestingly, even much of Indian history written during the post independence years by Indian scholars, barely examines the consumption patterns/habits of the people of India, something that is of immense historical value. Economic historians in the Marxist mould that have dominated writing on the subject have also almost exclusively looked at production?both agricultural and industrial?but not consumption. Towards a History of Consumption in South Asia, a fascinating collection of academic essays on consumption in the subcontinent between 1750 and 1947, therefore plugs an important gap in India?s written history.
This book isn?t of course a treatise on the economic history of the subcontinent. Because analysing consumption patterns reveal much more than interesting economic facts?it also reveals interesting societal, cultural trends?on the youth, on gender on the rural-urban divide and so on. That is what makes this book even more valuable than a narrower book dealing just with the much discussed economic themes of trade and industry.
The first chapter of the book by HV Bowen analyses the consumption of British manufactured goods in India between 1765 and 1813?the latter being the year the East India company lost its commercial monopoly. Most other work on the penetration of British goods in India begins where this chapter ends. Interestingly, a big majority of the clientele for British goods in India during this period may have been Europeans. Rich Indians with social and geographical proximity to the British may have also been a niche market. Later in the late 19th and early 20th century a larger class of Indians took to consuming goods that the British did almost as an aspirational goal.
The chapter titled ?Of Soaps and Scents? by Harminder Kaur sheds interesting light on how Indians took to European notions of cleanliness that included bathing with soaps (as we know them today). The chapter also tells an interesting story about how British soap was actually indiginised to meet the tastes and preferences of the Indian middle class. This combined European manufacturing expertise with Indian traditions on cosmetics and scents (sandalwoods and aguru for example). Scientist-entrepreneur, Prafula Chandra Ray led this indigenisation by the establishment of his Bengal Chemical and Pharmaceutical works. His project was motivated by the aim of trying to re-establish the self- worth of the nation.
Prashant Kidambi, in his chapter titled ?Consumption, Domestic Economy and the Idea of the Middle Class in Late Colonial Bombay? has a fascinating exposition on how the middle class, led by the clerks in Bombay, tried to differentiate themselves from the working class. This was even when the working class often earned higher salaries. But the middle class of clerks sought to separate themselves by their ?superior mental culture? and the specific consumption needs that entailed.
Perhaps the most interesting chapter in the entire book is the one written by Douglas Haynes on ?Creating the Consumer? Advertising, Capitalism and the Middle Class in Urban Western India, 1914-40?. The chapter is worth reading just to know about how companies advertised their products in the period between the two world wars, mostly in newspaper. This was really the first time that marketers tried to create a consumer culture among a certain class of Indians in British India. The targeting of women as consumers in some advertisements is also revealing.
Of course, all the authors are quite well aware that the ?middle class? defined in whichever way was relatively tiny in this period, and that poverty was the rather more dominant feature of the average Indian?s life. But since it was essentially members of the middle class that in many ways led the struggle for freedom, it is particularly interesting to know more about the material aspects of their life rather than simply the intellectual and political dimensions which form the focus of most works of history of this period. This book, therefore, fills an important gap. Of course, it is an academic work and will therefore restrict itself to a narrow band of interested readers. Perhaps one or more of the contributors will consider writing a popular version of the history of consumption in colonial India. It?s a subject that deserves to be more widely read.