Changes in Consumption Pattern and the Growth of Small-Scale and Traditional Industries in India : 1860-1950

1.该项目于2005年12月在印度浦那举办了题为“南亚消费史：1850-1950年”的国际讲习班，来自五个国家的16名学者发表了论文。这些论文将由印度一家领先的学术出版商出版。该项目的主要发现是：(1)在印度，消费模式因社区和阶层而异。自19世纪末以来，这些传统图案发生了变化。这些变化不是简单的西方化，而是复兴和创造一部分传统习俗。(2)消费方式的变化受到社会结构变化的影响。农村和城市社会下层阶级的解放导致他们的消费项目多样化，部分采用了传统上被认为是上层阶级习惯的消费模式。(3)印度城市和农村的大多数人扩大了对廉价种类的现代工厂产品的消费，如袜子商品和火柴。(4)传统行业的工匠通常采用新的机器和技术，并组织成一个新的生产系统，在这个系统中，商人可以迅速地将市场信息和新的设计传达给工匠。因此，这些所谓的传统产业可以适应新的环境，开始新的发展，以满足新的需求。(5)两次世界大战期间，除孟加拉等外，农业劳动力的工资水平有所提高。(6)印度与亚洲国家的贸易刺激了普通民众消费方式的新变化，例如从日本和中国进口纺织品和其他杂项商品，从缅甸进口大米，而不是从欧洲进口。在某种程度上，亚洲各国人民似乎都有一个共同的消费习惯变化模式。

1. The project organized an international workshop titled "Toward a History of Consumption in South Asia : 1850-1950" at Pune, India in December 2005, where 16 scholars from five countries presented their papers. These papers will be published by a leading academic publisher in India.2. The main findings the project has made are :(1) In India, consumption patterns had differed by community and class. These traditional patterns changed since the end of the 19th century. The changes were not simply towards westernization but also towards reviving and creating a part of "traditional" customs.(2) The changes in consumption patterns were influenced by transformations in social structure. The emancipation of lower classes in rural and urban societies led them to diversify their consumption items and partly to adopt consumption patterns that had been traditionally considered upper classes' customs.(3) The most people in urban as well as rural India expanded their consumption of cheap varieties of modern factory products like hosiery goods and matches.(4) Artisans in traditional industries generally adopted new machines and technologies, as well as organized themselves into a new system of production in which merchants could quickly communicate market information and new designs to artisans. Thus adapting themselves to the new environment, these so-called traditional industries could start a new development catering to newly created demands.(5) The inter-war period witnessed an increase in wage level of agricultural laborers except for Bengal etc.(6) These changes towards new patterns of consumption among common people were stimulated by India's trades with Asian countries as exemplified by imports of textiles and other miscellaneous goods from Japan and China and of rice from Burma rather than by imports from Europe. Peoples in Asia seem, to some extent, to share a common pattern of changes in their consumption customs.