The impact of Railway on Indian Market and Merchants
Posted by davidson on Jul.10, 2010, under Indian History
The colonial economy mainly represented itself through overseas trade and provides an opportunity to the subcontinent to get merged with the larger global economy. At the same time the internal trading network acted as a base of Indians export trade and for the subsequent development of Indian economy. Prior to the First World War India’s indigenous merchant communities remained largely confined to what Rajat ray has called the world of the bazaar, which was different from the world of modern business and industry but remain closely inter-related. The bazaar was aligned to internal trade, especially to the marketing of agricultural produce, the financial of inland trade in commodities, the facilitation of movements of artisan production and peasant crops. Operating the bazaar were bankers or shroffs and commission agents. The history of India is records which substantiate the fact that India’s inland trade had strong links with maritime trade. The opening of the country through the railway network made the links even stronger. During the colonial period development of India’s internal railway network greatly benefitted the merchants because it expanded and diverted the movement of goods in the interior. For instance, the great Indian peninsular railway diverted cotton traffic that had in the eighteenth century moved along the Ganges River to Bengal was diverted from Nagpur in central India to Bombay. In the process old routes dried up. Boat and steamer traffic down the Ganges and Yamuna dwindled as the East Indian railway ran up to the Gangetic valley to Agra. The inland trade of India came to flow through the railway network that was eventually oriented to the export trade controlled by imperial interests, and which enabled the two leading foreign firms Ralli Brothers and Volkant Brothers to set up buying organizations, far into the interior of the country. Even though admittedly, the railway network was intended to facilitate the operations of the European export interests, the establishment of a far reaching network of distribution channels stood Indian merchants and middlemen in good stead as they worked in the capacity of brokers and upcountry dealers. It is also a true fact that the foreign firms had the pick of the business. On the other hand indigenous firms tended to operate in areas where foreign firms found it more risky on not sufficiently lucrative to operate. The trade in agricultural, industrial and other type of products were done by the help of railways network. Indian internal trade was predominantly dependent upon the railway network from the last half of the 19th century. The configurations of the Indian trading economy in the high noon of imperialism were determined by the communication and transport revolution that accompanied colonial rule in the nineteenth century. Dramatic changes took place in sectors like shipping and transportation embodied by the railway and stream shipping fundamentally altered the organization and France of Asian trade and gave western capital mastery around the 1870s. The expansions of railway networks provide wide opportunities to the large European firms to extend their grip over the commerce of the east. Not only the European merchant, Italian merchants especially the Marwari’s were benefitted from the expansion of railway network. Volume of trade was increased with exploration of new markets. Beside easy accent and benefits like quick transportation also encouraged Indian merchants to do business on a variety of products other than the most essential and the accustomed one. New avenues were opened up for trade and business inside India. The accumulation of capital and skill and commercial intelligence enabled indigenous merchants to discover new avenues of commercial gain and discover new possibilities for export business that was at one level, outside the strict confines of the colonial economy and at another was part of the integrative operations of the capitalist world.
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