The peasant production of opium in nineteenth-century India

Bauer, Rolf

The peasant production of opium in nineteenth-century India - New Delhi Manohar Publishers 2024 - xiii, 220 p.:ill. Includes bibliographical references and index

The Peasant Production of Opium in Nineteenth-Century India is a pioneering work about the more than one million peasants who produced opium for the colonial state in nineteenth-century India. Based on a profound empirical analysis, Rolf Bauer not only shows that the peasants cultivated poppy against a substantial loss but he also reveals how they were coerced into the production of this drug. By dissecting the economic and social power relations on a local level, this study explains how a triangle of debt, the colonial state’s power and social dependencies in the village formed the coercive mechanisms that transformed the peasants into opium producers. The result is a book that adds to our understanding of peasant economies in a colonial context.



https://brill.com/display/title/39327?language=en

9789360809652


Opium trade - India - history -19th century
Peasants - India - economic conditions
Economic history - British colonies

338.17375 / B2P3