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A Local History of Global Capital
This chapter is in the book A Local History of Global Capital
201NotesIntroduction1.Jute’s monopoly in global packaging gradually eroded after the mid-twentieth century, with the rise of synthetic fibers, cardboard cartons, and, most significantly, the aluminum container. The aluminum shipping container was first used in Newark, New Jersey, in 1956 and is now as ubiquitous as jute used to be in global shipping. Marc Levinson, The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006.2.The jute-growing districts of the Bengal delta—Mymensingh, Rangpur, Faridpur, Dacca, Tipperah, Pabna, and Bogra—consistently produced more than 80 percent of the world’s jute from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Its share of global production fell after partition and the creation of Pakistan in 1947, though it remained around 50 percent until the 1970s. After 1947 jute cultivation began in neighboring regions—the postcolonial Indian states of Assam, Bihar, Tripura, and Orissa—as well as in Brazil, China, Thailand, and Vietnam. Today, the Bengal delta, the nation-state of Bangladesh, produces around 25 percent of the world’s jute.3.Tara Sethia, “The Rise of the Jute Manufacturing Industry in Colonial India: A Global Perspective,” Journal of World History, 7(1), Spring 1996, p. 82. In addition to Dundee and Calcutta, there were significant jute manufacturing industries in Germany, France, Belgium, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and the United States. A.Z.M. Iftikhar-ul-Awal, The Industrial Develop-ment of Bengal, 1900–1939, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1982, p. 165.4.The acreage figures here and in the remainder of the book are unreliable and imprecise. The colonial state started collecting statistics on jute acreage in 1888, but their numbers were notoriously unreliable and were the subject of frequent and scathing criticism from jute traders and manufacturers who desired reliable statistics as to the estimated crop. M. W. Ali estimated that 50,000 acres were sown with jute in 1850, in Ali, Jute in the Agrarian History of Bengal, 1870–1914, Rajshahi, 1998. The second figure of 3.9 million acres is from Department of Statis-tics, Estimates of Area and Yield of Principal Crops in India, 1914–15, Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing Press, 1915, p. 11.5.Report on the Administration of the Custom Department in the Bengal Presidency for the Year 1874–5 and 1909–10, Calcutta: Printed at the Bengal Secretariat Press.6.The figures for Ghanaian cocoa are from Beverly Grier, “Underdevelopment, Modes of Production, and the State in Colonial Ghana,” African Studies Review, 24(1), 1981, p. 32; for Senegalese peanuts, Bernard Moitt, “Slavery and Emancipation in Senegal’s Peanut Basin: The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” International Journal of African Historical Studies, 22(1),
© 2018 Princeton University Press, Princeton

201NotesIntroduction1.Jute’s monopoly in global packaging gradually eroded after the mid-twentieth century, with the rise of synthetic fibers, cardboard cartons, and, most significantly, the aluminum container. The aluminum shipping container was first used in Newark, New Jersey, in 1956 and is now as ubiquitous as jute used to be in global shipping. Marc Levinson, The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006.2.The jute-growing districts of the Bengal delta—Mymensingh, Rangpur, Faridpur, Dacca, Tipperah, Pabna, and Bogra—consistently produced more than 80 percent of the world’s jute from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Its share of global production fell after partition and the creation of Pakistan in 1947, though it remained around 50 percent until the 1970s. After 1947 jute cultivation began in neighboring regions—the postcolonial Indian states of Assam, Bihar, Tripura, and Orissa—as well as in Brazil, China, Thailand, and Vietnam. Today, the Bengal delta, the nation-state of Bangladesh, produces around 25 percent of the world’s jute.3.Tara Sethia, “The Rise of the Jute Manufacturing Industry in Colonial India: A Global Perspective,” Journal of World History, 7(1), Spring 1996, p. 82. In addition to Dundee and Calcutta, there were significant jute manufacturing industries in Germany, France, Belgium, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and the United States. A.Z.M. Iftikhar-ul-Awal, The Industrial Develop-ment of Bengal, 1900–1939, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1982, p. 165.4.The acreage figures here and in the remainder of the book are unreliable and imprecise. The colonial state started collecting statistics on jute acreage in 1888, but their numbers were notoriously unreliable and were the subject of frequent and scathing criticism from jute traders and manufacturers who desired reliable statistics as to the estimated crop. M. W. Ali estimated that 50,000 acres were sown with jute in 1850, in Ali, Jute in the Agrarian History of Bengal, 1870–1914, Rajshahi, 1998. The second figure of 3.9 million acres is from Department of Statis-tics, Estimates of Area and Yield of Principal Crops in India, 1914–15, Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing Press, 1915, p. 11.5.Report on the Administration of the Custom Department in the Bengal Presidency for the Year 1874–5 and 1909–10, Calcutta: Printed at the Bengal Secretariat Press.6.The figures for Ghanaian cocoa are from Beverly Grier, “Underdevelopment, Modes of Production, and the State in Colonial Ghana,” African Studies Review, 24(1), 1981, p. 32; for Senegalese peanuts, Bernard Moitt, “Slavery and Emancipation in Senegal’s Peanut Basin: The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” International Journal of African Historical Studies, 22(1),
© 2018 Princeton University Press, Princeton

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. Contents vii
  3. Acknowledgments ix
  4. Maps xiii
  5. Introduction 1
  6. 1. Cultivating Jute 21
  7. 2. Consumption and Self- Fashioning 37
  8. 3. The Spaces of Jute 67
  9. 4. Immiseration 94
  10. 5. Agrarian Forms of Islam 108
  11. 6. Peasant Populism 137
  12. 7. Pakistan and Partition 168
  13. Conclusion 194
  14. Abbreviations 199
  15. Notes 201
  16. Index 233
  17. A NOTE ON THE TYPE 247
Readers are also interested in:
https://doi.org/10.23943/9781400889280-013

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. Contents vii
  3. Acknowledgments ix
  4. Maps xiii
  5. Introduction 1
  6. 1. Cultivating Jute 21
  7. 2. Consumption and Self- Fashioning 37
  8. 3. The Spaces of Jute 67
  9. 4. Immiseration 94
  10. 5. Agrarian Forms of Islam 108
  11. 6. Peasant Populism 137
  12. 7. Pakistan and Partition 168
  13. Conclusion 194
  14. Abbreviations 199
  15. Notes 201
  16. Index 233
  17. A NOTE ON THE TYPE 247
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