IMPACT OF EARLY COLONISATION 65 bute to our understanding of the role of caste in these formations. 88 R C Dutt, The Economic History of India Under Early British Rule, 1901. p 67. 89 Karl Marx, Capital, Vol 3, p 325. 40 R &Dutt, op. cit., p 102. 41 Ibid,? 97. 42 This is the opinion of R C Dutt. He remarks that the ryotwari -was a system of "human cattle-farm." " Ibid., p 20. 41 Mill's History of British India, H H Wilson's Continuation, Book I. 45 Here we like to make clear that this statement has nothing to do with Andre Gunder Frank^s understanding of the Development of the underdevelopment of Capitalism.' For his view, See Capitalism and underdevelopment in Latin America, Penguin Books, 1971. 46 This expression is used by Bipan Chandra, tc Colonialism and Modernisation,'5 Presidential Address: Section III, Indian History Congress, Thirty-Second Session, December 1970, p 8. 47 See Bhowani Sen, Evolution of Agrarian Relations in India, People's Publishing House, for the statement : "On the eve of British conquest, the productive forces in Indian society were much more developed than in contemporary Britain. There is ample historical testimony in support of this contention. Money economy and merchant capital had also grown in India to a great extent.5' (p 56). Assertions like this belong to the genre of chauvinism in historical writing. An attempt to impose a mechanical pattern of socio" economic development (which is seen as even more applicable to India than to any other part of the world) without concrete historical study is characteristic of this part of the Indian historical tradition. It was a similar attempt by Dange to import a 'model' system of slavery that was denounced and labelled a string of atrocious untruths by the great scientist, D D KLosambi. 48 Irfan Habib, Enquiry, Winter 1965, p 66. 49 The relationship between town and country in pre-colonial times is discussed briefly by Irfan Habib in Agrarian System of Moghul India, pp 75-81. Habib's remark : ^The towns had not only to be fed by the countryside but to be supplied also with raw materials for their manufactures. It may be noted, however, that since there is no evidence that the villages depended in any way upon urban industry, the raw materials brought into the towns were probably confined only to those required for the luxury trades or for the ultimate use of the urban population." (p 77). [This paper was presented at the seminar on the "Transformation of the Medieval Indian Economy into Colonial Economy", March 10-12, 1972, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh.]