The Growth of Rural Industries in India and Burma from the 1920s to 1950s : A Statistical Analysis

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The purpose of the project was to prove the assumption that some small-scale and/or rural industries aimed at the domestic markets in India and Burma developed to some extent in 1930s while the export of agricultural products plunged.It had been considered that export-oriented industries, such as rice mills, groundnut oil mills and cotton ginning mills, declined during the tough period dating form 1920s in India, but Yanagisawa proved that these industries grew up in response to the increasing demand of local people.Kiyokawa focused on the technological development of ginning industry during the same period. He verified that employment of female laborers increased in the rural ginning mills according to the mechanization of the industry.Oishi pursued Muslim-Japanese networks in match industry form the late 19th century. Corresponding to the increase of custom duties in 1920s, Muslim merchants shifted from trades with Japanese to joint venture productions with Japanese, but those operations induced conflicts with local Hindu match producers. He analyzed this antagonism from the viewpoint of economic history as well as political economy.Takahashi tried the parallel data for Burma with the above. However, it was impossible to find and collect enough data to make the same analysis in the same period. It seems that Burma was too specialized in rice and teak production to develop rural industries other than rice mills. Development of rural industries in Burma from 1920s to 1950s remains unknown.Instead, Takahashi surveyed cottage industries in Burma and showed that some of them have developed under the socialist regime in spite of many difficulties in getting materials from abroad, finding markets and securing funds for business.