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The Interwar Slump in India: The Periphery in a Crisis of Empire

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The World Economy and National Economies in the Interwar Slump

Abstract

India’s encounter with the Great Depression has unfortunately been of greater interest to students of the country’s history than to students of the interwar world economy. Historians of India have conventionally regarded the Depression as a turning point in the country’s political and economic history. Nationalist opposition to colonial rule intensified in the 1930s partly because of growing support from a peasantry burdened by falling prices and fixed rent and revenue liabilities. Thus, according to one view, the Depression ‘precipitated the end of empire’ (Rothermund, 1992). Nearly two decades later, the Depression also seemed to justify India’s resort to a strategy of import-substituting industrialization sustained by sales in the domestic market.

I am grateful to Theo Balderston for helpful comments on a earlier draft of the chapter.

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Authors
  1. G. Balachandran
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Manchester, UK

    Theo Balderston (Senior Lecturer in Economic History) (Senior Lecturer in Economic History)

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© 2003 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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Balachandran, G. (2003). The Interwar Slump in India: The Periphery in a Crisis of Empire. In: Balderston, T. (eds) The World Economy and National Economies in the Interwar Slump. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230536685_6

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