The Uses of History in Indian Economic Thinking

While there is a long tradition of both historical and economic thinking in the Indian subcontinent, modern economic history may be dated from the late nineteenth century. From the early pioneers of economic history, including Mahadev Govind Ranade and Romesh Chander Dutt, the field reached a high level in India, giving rise to a stellar set of practitioners and an impressive body of scholarship, ranging from Irfan Habib’s studies of the Mughal empire to Amiya Bagchi’s analyses of the colonial economy.

In the last century and a half, three main lines of thinking may be identified in Indian economic history. The first is the early nationalist school inaugurated by Ranade and Dutt. The turn to history for these thinkers was part of an agenda to develop an “Indian economics,” which was attuned to the peculiarities of India. A historical approach was essential to this intellectual project. The search for an Indian economics went largely into decline from the 1930s and in faculties of economics the study and teaching of economic history was of secondary importance for several decades. The second line of economic history may be dated from the 1950s and emerges from a growing influence of Marxism, whose enormous impact was felt by both economists and historians. The final line emerged in the 1960s at the great powerhouse of both economics and economic history in recent decades, the Delhi School of Economics. This represented to some extent a revival of economic history within the ranks of economists. 

The flourishing state of economic history in India in the 1960s and 1970s represented a confluence of different forces. Similarly, the decline of economic history from its highpoint of those years is due to multiple factors as well as broad changes in both historical practice and economic thinking.