The Despotic State? : The Nature and Role of 18th Century Mughal Administration in the Great Divergence (original) (raw)
Why Europe grew rich and 'Asia' became poor is the substance for the fiercely contested 'Great Divergence' debate where the prevailing Eurocentric view posits that European exceptionalism was responsible for the former's success. The essence of the picture painted in the arguments against 'oriental states' is a despotic and extractive one that hinders commercial activities. This paper tries to address this debate through looking at the nature and role of Mughal the administrative machinery and challenge image of despotic hegemony. In order to address the issue of commensurability of sources, the present author has only used European accounts and correspondences produced by the English East India Company and the Dutch VOC. The paper argues that the Eurocentric perspective essentially paints an ahistorical picture of the Mughal state by investigating European responses to the deaths of important Mughal emperors (Jahangir, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb) and the economic consequences following it. Additionally, this paper also provides evidence of a strong role of bankers in the internal commercial system further undermining the image of the extractive state and supporting the 'Great Firm theory' of Karen Leonard. In conclusion, it is argued that the European-exceptionalism theory is fundamentally based on an orientalist imagination of South Asia and essentially suffers from the pitfalls of the 'historiography of decline' that plague the history of other 'Asian' empires such as the Qing and the Ottomans. Eighteenth century South Asia shows considerable similarities with early modern Europe and its commercial viability and agility does not appear to be dependent on the central government or the abilities of the emperor. Introduction-A Raging Debate Why India became the posterchild of oriental poverty and Europe emerged as the leading economic superpower in the nineteenth century is the substance matter for the fiercely fought Great Divergence debate within the field of global economic history. As Prasannan Parthasarathi elaborates, most arguments by Eurocentric historians and scholars since the 19 th century (e.g., Marx, Weber etc.) that have tried to explain this phenomenon, have essentially claimed that Europe was, in some ways exceptional, which set them on a path to economic prosperity while 'Asia,' (more specifically, the Ottoman Empire, China and India) were doomed to be a commercial failure due to their own political-economic arrangements and institutions such as caste, despotic, extractive states etc. 2
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