Indigo Plantations and Science in Colonial India

354 Pages·2012·2.863 MB·English

by  Professor Prakash Kumar

Indigo Plantations and Science in Colonial India
Prakash Kumar documents the history of agricultural indigo, explor-
ing the effects of global processes on a colonial industry in South Asia.
Kumar discusses how the knowledge of indigo culture thrived among
peasant traditions on the Indian subcontinent in the early modern
period. Caribbean planters and French naturalists then developed and
codii ed this knowledge in widely disseminated texts. European plant-
ers who began to settle in Bengal with the establishment of British rule
in the third quarter of the eighteenth century drew on this network
of information. Through the nineteenth century, indigo culture in
Bengal became more modern, science based, and expert driven. When
a cheaper and purer synthetic indigo was created in 1897, the planters
and the colonial state established laboratories to i nd ways to cheapen
the cost of the agricultural dye and improve its purity. This indigo sci-
ence crossed paths with the colonial state’s effort to develop a science
for agricultural development and the effort by the Indian intelligentsia
to develop a science for the nation. For two decades, natural indigo
survived the competition of the industrial substitute. The indigo indus-
try’s optimism faded only at the end of the First World War, when the
use of German synthetic indigo for textile d yeing and printing became
almost universal.
Prakash Kumar is Assistant Professor of South Asian History at
Colorado State University.
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Indigo Plantations and Science in
Colonial India
PRAKASH KUMAR
Colorado State University
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© P rakash Kumar 2012
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no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2 012
Printed in the United States of America
A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data
Kumar, Prakash, 1967–
Indigo plantations and science in colonial India / Prakash Kumar.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-107-02325-3 (hbk. : alk. paper)
1. Indigo industry – India – Bengal – History. 2. Plantations – India –
Bengal – History. 3. Indigo – India – History. 4. Crop science – India –
History. 5. Agriculture – India – History. 6. India – History – British
occupation, 1765–1947. I. Title.
HD9019.I32I445 2012
338.1′7337–dc23 2012016494
ISBN 9 78-1-107-02325-3 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs
for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not
guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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Dedicated to the memory of my father,
Akhileshwar Prasad Sinha
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Contents
List of Figures page viii
List of Maps i x
List of Tables x
Preface xi
Acknowledgments x iii
Introduction: T he Odyssey of Indigo 1
1. T he World of Indigo Plantations: Diasporas and
Knowledge 25
2. T he Course of Colonial Modernity: Negotiating
the Landscape in Bengal 77
3. C olony and the External Arena: Seeking Validation
in the Market 1 28
4. L ocal Science: Agricultural Institutions in the
Age of Nationalism 178
5. T he Last Stand in Science and Rationalization 2 26
6. A Lasting Dei nition of Improvement in the Era of
World War 270
Conclusion 2 97
Bibliography 3 09
Index 3 27
vii
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Figures
1. Front cover of Elias Monnereau’s I ndigo Maker , 1769 page 35
2. Roxburgh’s experimental design using the indigenous
process 73
3. Sowing of indigo, or chitani , in Bengal on river islands 8 6
4. The planter’s boat (b howalea ) 86
5. Planter’s bungalow, India 133
6. Seet , or indigo refuse, being spread in Tirhut agricultural
i elds as manure 136
7. Indigo factory, India 138
8. Indigo beaters, India 138
9. Indigo drying house, India 1 39
10. P ortrait of Adolf von Baeyer 149
11. F . M. Coventry’s advertisement for Natal-Java seed 1 74
12. P layne’s advertisement challenging the chemists 2 48
13. I ndigo Box (From the Cargo of the German U-Boat
“Deutschland” that made Two Trips to the United States
in 1916 at the Behest of an Hoechst Importer) 291
viii
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Maps
1. I ndigo manufacturing districts in Bengal in the
early nineteenth century page 3
2. I ndigo tracts of Tirhut showing the four prominent
districts, 1870 131
ix
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Tables
1. I ndigo production in Bengal and adjoining territories
between 1795–6 and 1831–2 page 7 9
2. I ndigo imported into England from Bengal and
other parts of the world between 1783 and 1800 80
3. Account of the expense and proi t of a concern
using the g aud culture in Aligarh 96
4. Eugene Schrottky’s patents registered in Calcutta 1 22
5. Export of indigo from Tirhut to various destinations 1 42
6. Quantity and value of natural indigo into London,
1896–1902 1 62
7. Indigo output in Bengal, 1894–1903 1 63
x
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