Consumer practices and ‘consumerism’ in late colonial India

This chapter seeks to establish the significance of material practices in late colonial India. It begins by outlining the rise of consumer product industries, discussing the growing availability of branded commodities manufactured both by multinational firms and by thousands of small Indian businesses. It then turns to explore consumer practices in different social strata reaching across the subcontinent: European expatriates, the Indian middle class, the working class and other urban groups, and the rural population. Overall, the chapter demonstrates that consumption became central to South Asian social identities, but it also stresses the limited embrace of any kind of ‘consumerism’.