Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T03:29:54.303Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Business, Ethnicity, Politics, and Imperial Interests: The United Planters' Association of Southern India, 1893–1950

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 April 2014

K. Ravi Raman
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The United Planters' Association of South India (UPASI), formed in 1893 at the zenith of British colonial rule in India, was an organization dedicated to the interests of British planters, mainly tea planters, of South India. In the first half century of its history, UPASI enjoyed an unusual degree of effectiveness and control. Its authority and reach owed to the fact that, unlike many other planters' organizations of the time, such as the Ceylon Planters' Association and the Planters' Association of Malay, UPASI was an “association of associations,” a cartel of cartels, its members being district associations. But its power also derived from the homogeneous ethnic composition of the firms that constituted and managed this body, making it an exclusive association of Europeans in an Indian world. In this article, I show how this combination of ethnicity and cooperation, dynamics that manifested across the entire range of modern businesses started in colonial India, proved to be both a source of strength and a point of weakness.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 88 , Issue 1: Business, Networks, and the State in India , Spring 2014 , pp. 73 - 95
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Greif, Avner, Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy: Lessons from Medieval Trade (Cambridge, U.K., 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Alesina, Alberto, Baqir, Reza, and Easterly, William, “Public Goods and Ethnic Divisions,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 114, no. 4 (1999): 1243–84Google Scholar.

3 For a survey of the Indian literature especially, see Roy, Tirthankar, Company of Kinsmen: Enterprise and Community in South Asian History, 1700–1940 (New Delhi, 2010)Google Scholar.

4 Olson, Mancur, particularly The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge, Mass., 1965)Google Scholar and The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities (New Haven, 1982)Google Scholar. Olson argues that the essentially exploitative nature of cartels is shared by “any combination of individuals or firms for collusive action in the market place, whether a professional association, a labor union, a trade association or an oligopolistic collusive group.” Olson, The Rise and Decline of Nations, 44.

5 For a useful discussion of these issues, see Markovits, Claude, Merchants, Traders, Entrepreneurs: Indian Business in the Colonial Era (Basingstoke, U.K., 2008)Google Scholar.

6 See the following by Bagchi, Amiya Kumar: Private Investment in India, 1900–1939 (Cambridge, U.K., 1972)Google Scholar; “European and Indian Entrepreneurship in India, 1900–30” in Entrepreneurship and Industry in India, 1800–1947, ed. Ray, Rajat Kanta (New Delhi, 1992), 157–86Google Scholar; “De-industrialisation in India and the Nineteenth Century: Some Theoretical Implications,” Journal of Development Studies 12, no. 2 (1976): 135–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also see Tomlinson, B. R., The Political Economy of the Raj, 1914–1947: The Economics of Decolonization in India (London, 1979)Google Scholar; Markovits, Claude, Indian Business and Nationalist Politics, 1931–1939: The Indigenous Capitalist Class and the Rise of the Congress Party (Cambridge, U.K., 1985)Google Scholar; Ray, Entrepreneurship and Industry, 1–69; Mukherjee, Aditya, Imperialism, Nationalism and the Making of the Indian Capitalist Class, 1920–1947 (New Delhi, 2002)Google Scholar; Marika Vicziany, “The Deindustrialisation of India in the Nineteenth Century: A Methodological Critique of Amiya Kumar Bagchi,” and Bagchi, Amiya Kumar, “A Reply,” Indian Economic and Social History Review 16, no. 2 (1979): 105–46Google Scholar.

7 Morris, Morris D., “Indian Industry and Business in the Age of Laissez Faire,” State and Business in India: A Historical Perspective, ed. Tripathi, Dwijendra (New Delhi, 1987)Google Scholar. For an engagement with the debate and a technological-productivist argument, see Roy, Tirthankar, “De-Industrialisation: Alternative View,” Economic and Political Weekly 35, no. 17 (2000)Google Scholar; Roy, Tirthankar, Traditional Industry in the Economy of Colonial India (Cambridge, U.K., 1999)Google Scholar.

8 However, Gupta refuted this argument by maintaining that the Europeans specifically entered the jute industry in view of its “fabulous profits” to the tune of 60 to 70 percent, which could hardly mean that the Europeans were opposed to high profits as a race. P. S. Gupta, “State and Business in India in the Age of Discriminating Protection,” State and Business in India, 157–216; Also see Chakrabarti, Manali and Chatterjee, Biswajit, “Business Conduct in Late Colonial India: European Business in Kanpur, 1900–1939,” Economic and Political Weekly 41, no. 10 (2006)Google Scholar.

9 This is in conformity with the dynamics of some other sectors such as shipping, automobiles, locomotives, chemicals, banking, and insurance. See Mukherjee, Aditya and Mukherjee, Mridula, “Imperialism and Growth of Indian Capitalism in the Twentieth Century,” Capitalist Development: Critical Essays, ed. Shah, Ghanshyam (Bombay, 1990), 77–114Google Scholar; Mukherjee, Imperialism.

10 Ray, Rajat Kanta, Industrialization in India: Growth and Conflict in the Private Corporate Sector, 1914–47 (New Delhi, 1982).Google Scholar

11 While discussing the politics of business associations in the developing world, John Lucas elaborates on Richard Doner's concept of a “growth coalition,” which acknowledges the role of cooperative relationships between state and businesses in the achievement of development goals. However, collaboration is much preferable to collusion, the latter bringing in a deterioration of affairs in place of progress.

12 Ville, Simon, “Rent Seeking or Market Strengthening? Industry Associations in New Zealand Wool Broking,” Business History Review 81, no. 2 (2007): 297–321Google Scholar; Merrett, David, Morgan, Stephen, and Ville, Simon, “Industry Associations as Facilitators of Social Capital: The Establishment and Early Operations of the Melbourne Woolbrokers Association,” Business History 50, no. 6 (2008): 781–94.Google Scholar

13 Carlos, Ann M. and Nicholas, Stephen, “‘Giants of an Earlier Capitalism’: The Chartered Trading Companies as Modern Multinationals,” Business History Review 62, no. 3 (1988): 398–419.Google Scholar

14 Das, Rajani Kanta, History of Indian Labour Legislation (Calcutta, 1941), 11–41.Google Scholar

15 Report of the Southern India Planter's Inquiry Committee (Madras, 1896), 24–33, Cover System File Numbers 15781, 1878, Directorate of Archives, Government of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram.

16 Although the colonial government was typically reluctant to intervene in such matters, it often had to bow to political, social and economic pressures, including those from organized interest groups.

17 UPASI Proceedings, 1894, 6–7; Mayne, W. Wilson, “The Story of UPASI,” UPASI, 1893–1953, ed. Speer, S.G. (Coonoor, 1953)Google Scholar, 6.

18 Southern India Planter's Report, 37–39.

19 Muthiah, Subbiah, A Planting Century: The First Hundred Years of the United Planters' Association of Southern India, 1893–1993 (New Delhi, 1993)Google Scholar.

20 The development and implementation of the law of contract held major implications for master-servant and labor relations (as opposed to labor law) within colonial India, a topic touched upon by many authors both with respect to India and more generally. See particularly Robb, Peter, ed., Dalit Movements and the Meanings of Labour in India (New Delhi, 1993)Google Scholar; Raman, K. Ravi, Global Capital and Peripheral Labour: History and Political Economy of Plantation Workers in India (London, 2010)Google Scholar; Behal, Rana P. and van der Linden, Marcel, eds., Coolies, Capital and Colonialism: Studies in Indian Labour History (Cambridge, U.K., 2006)Google Scholar.

21 Muthiah, A Planting Century.

22 Frederick James, “Political Relations,” in UPASI, 1893–1953, 240–51.

23 Joseph, E. K., “Introduction,” The Central Travancore Planters' Association Centenary Souvenir, 1874–1974 (Kottayam, 1974), 5–6.Google Scholar

24 CSF, Political, Numbers 198, 1914, Directorate of Archives, Government of Kerala, Travancore.

25 Brown, Hilton, Parry's of Madras (Madras, 1954), 187–88.Google Scholar

26 Griffiths, Percival, History of the Indian Tea Industry (London, 1967), 542–43Google Scholar; Rege, Dattatraya V., Report on an Enquiry into the Conditions of Labour in Plantations in India (Simla, 1946)Google Scholar, 183.

27 Mayne, “The Story of UPASI,” 101.

28 Royal Commission on Labour in India, Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India (London, 1931)Google Scholar, 349.

29 Tharian, George K. and Tharakan, P. K. Michael, “Penetration of Capital into a Traditional Economy: The Case of Tea Plantations in Kerala, 1880–1950,” Studies in History 2, no. 2 (1986): 199–229.Google Scholar

30 See various correspondences in Proceedings of the Travancore Sri Chitra State Council (PTSCSC), Kerala University Library, Thiruvananthapuram, and Kanan Devan Papers, compiled by the Government of Kerala, n.d. Kerala University Library, Thiruvananthapuram.

31 Baak, Paul, “Planter's Lobby in Late Nineteenth Century: Implications for Travancore,” Economic and Political Weekly 27, no. 33 (1992): 1747–53Google Scholar.

32 Bagchi, Amiya Kumar, Private Investment in India, 1900–1939 (Bombay, 1975), 170–74.Google Scholar

33 Sivaswami, K. G., “Non-Indian Concentration in the Tea Industry,” Report of the Plantation Inquiry Commission. Part I, Tea (New Delhi, 1956)Google Scholar, 348.

34 Washbrook, D. A., The Emergence of Provincial Politics: The Madras Presidency, 1870–1920 (Cambridge, U.K., 1976)Google Scholar, 246. This is not to deny the many natural barriers to entry in shipping particularly in terms of capital costs and skills.

35 Muthiah, S., A Planting Century: The First Hundred Years of the United Planters' Association of Southern India, 1893–1993 (New Delhi, 1993)Google Scholar, 226.

36 Jeffery, Roger, “Merchant Capital and the End of Empire: James Finlay, Merchant Adventurers,” Economic and Political Weekly, 17, no. 7 (1982): 241–48Google Scholar; James Finlay and Co., Ltd., Manufacturers and East India Merchants, 1750–1950 (Glasgow, 1951)Google Scholar.

37 Jones, Geoffrey, Multinationals and Global Capitalism: From the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century (New York, 2005)Google Scholar; Jones, Geoffrey, ed., British Multinationals: Origins, Management and Performance (Aldershot, 1986)Google Scholar; Jones, Geoffrey and Wale, Judith, “Merchants as Business Groups: British Trading Companies in Asia before 1945,” Business History Review 72, no. 3 (1998): 367–408Google Scholar; Jones, Geoffrey and Wale, Judith, “Diversification Strategies of British Trading Companies: Harrisons & Crosfield, c.1900–c.1980,” Business History 41, no. 2 (1999): 69–101.Google Scholar

38 PTSCSC 10, 24 Nov. 1926, 230–33.

39 Local representatives in the Sree Moolam Popular Assembly also now opposed the sale of lands to Europeans and argued in favor of natives. Proceedings of the Sri Moolam Prajasabha, 28 Feb. 1928, 16; 26 Feb. 1929, 25; University of Kerala Library, Thiruvananthapuram.

40 Joseph, Usha, “History of the Central Travancore Planters' Association,” The Central Travancore Planters' Association Centenary Souvenir (Kottayam, 1970), 7–16Google Scholar, 10.

41 PTSCSC 9, 8 Aug. 1927, 520.

42 Editorial, “Thiruvithamkotte Theyilathottangal” [Tea Plantations in Travancore] Malayala Manorama, 22 July 1916, 2.

43 Ibid.

44 Innes, C. A., Malabar District Gazetteers, Malabar, vol. 1 (Madras, 1951)Google Scholar, 243. There were a large number of cases in which the local papers expressed their dissenting views.

45 Gupta, Bishnupriya, “Collusion in the Indian Tea Industry in the Great Depression: An Analysis of Panel Data,” Explorations in Economic History 34, no. 2 (1997): 155–73.Google Scholar

46 See Rothermund, Dietmar, India in the Great Depression, 1929–1939 (New Delhi, 1992).Google Scholar

47 “New Planting of Tea in India,” Tea and Rubber Mail, 6 Jan. 1944, 23.

48 Sivaswami, “Non-Indian Concentration in the Tea Industry,” 351.

49 Mukherjee, Imperialism.

50 Ibid, 40.

51 Mayne, “The Story of UPASI,” 134.

52 Tharakan, P. K. Michael, “Dimensions and Characteristics of the Migration of Farmers from Travancore to Malabar,” Journal of Kerala Studies 5, no. 2 (1978): 287–89Google Scholar; Raman, K. Ravi, “In-Migration vs. Out-Migration: The Case of Kerala,” Mass Migration in the World-System: Past, Present and Future, ed. Jones, Terry-Ann and Mielants, Eric (Boulder, 2010), 122–43Google Scholar; Raman, K. Ravi, “‘Currents and Eddies’: Indian-Middle East Migration Processes,” Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 5, no. 2 (2012): 189–206.Google Scholar

53 “Rubber and Tea Estates Purchased,” Capital, 30 Mar. 1944, 495.