2 - Bazaar Goods “Made in Germany”

Summary

German business in India advanced not only in the business-to-business sector, as seen in the previous chapter, but also in the Indian bazaar, and many observers testified to the universally available and very visible products “Made in Germany.” Chapter 2 shows how German exporters entered the Indian bazaar by tracing two of the most competitive export industries in detail: cutlery and gramophones/recorded music. In both, German and British manufacturers went head to head, with competition unfolding over price, distribution channels, product specifications and (legal battles over) trademarks. The label “Made in Germany,” forcefully introduced by the British in the 1880s to stigmatize German low-quality products, eventually turned into a political advantage when anticolonial protests increased the perceived value of “non-British” products in some areas of India, most notably in Bengal during the anti-partition protests. While short-lived and with limited immediate impact on business, the nationalist upheaval in the bazaars taught German firms that presenting themselves as “outsiders” of the British-Indian colonial economy had advantages for them and inspired first debates about a strategy that leveraged the Indian nation’s history, aspirations and relationship to Britain.