ABSTRACT
This volume collects papers on the rural economy of India, all written by Japanese scholars. They were originally presented in London at the School of Oriental and African Studies, as part of an extensive investigation of agriculture and economic organisation, undertaken by historians and economists from India, North America and Europe. The proposition was that there is a need for a new vocabulary to describe Indian conditions. We kept the Japanese papers separate then, and do so again in this book, because our inquiry was partly into concepts and different ways of understanding data. And these papers do reveal some distinctive features. First, their implicit model derives from what happened in Japan, not in the West. This aspect is discussed in most of the papers, in the second introduction, and in special comparisons. Secondly, the papers show an eagerness to collect, adjust and then calculate from quantitative data. This contrasts with the scepticism often shown, at least by Western-trained historians of India, about the value of such records. 2 Thirdly, the papers tend to focus on the actuality of production decisions and processes—often, that is, on micro- rather than macroeconomic aspects. 3 Finally, the papers disaggregate decisions and identify roles at different levels of the society and in production. 4 The last two of these characteristics together comprise one common aspect of the papers on which my introduction will concentrate. They provide, I suggest, important perspectives especially on the connection between social and institutional structures and economic development. This introduction offers a personal view of the findings: it will not cover all aspects or try to treat all of the papers in equal depth. It is one reading of the texts, and not intended to preclude others.
