A Local History of Global Capital: Jute and Peasant Life in the Bengal Delta—A Must-Read for Anyone Interested in South Asian History

I knew since childhood that we are the country of golden fibre. We had a jute carpet in our house. I have always loved young jute leaves with garlic and dried red chillies fried in mustard oil. And, I have a vague memory of my father telling me how they escaped the Pak army on a dinghy, lost in the maze of tall jute plants half-submerged in the fresh monsoon water.

As a young adult, I read a powerful story—I don’t remember by who—about jute farmers abandoning their crops in the haat in exasperation because the price was so low. That's when the people behind jute, the farmers, first surfaced in my mind, and their picture, a scene of an intense tragedy, got stuck with me forever. Later, in my early years as a development worker, I had an opportunity to work with jute farmers and observe their lives up close, in an audacious attempt to brighten some of their lives one more time, long after jute lost its glory in the global market.

But never did I imagine how profound the impact of jute and jute farmers was in the course of our nation—how they shifted the political trajectory of Bengal through the most volatile phases of our history, how they transformed the cropping pattern in this deeply agrarian land, and how they nourished the first urban centres in this delta backwater and influenced the cultural and intellectual flourishing of its people.

Of course, I knew nothing about how it all began (after the Crimean war in 1854-56 disrupted the supply of flax from Russia). How did the rise and fall of the global empire of jute—and the response of the colonial masters to this market force—create and destroy the story of the jute farmers?

I did not know how the quick economic accession and the subsequent freefall of the jute farmers gave rise to a curiously utilitarian, not necessarily progressive, form of agrarian Islam and a mercantile mentality among them. I did not know how these newly formed identities came to a direct clash with the Swadeshi movement, which inspired, often by force, to shun all foreign products including the ones the newly rich farmers came to love—bottled drinks, European confectionary, and clothes made in power loom. Needless to say, I did not know how these clashes, at least partly, turned into the sad, bloody Hindu-Muslim riots that would eventually spread like a flash flood across and beyond the Bengal Delta.

I came to learn about all these in a captivating book by a young Bangladeshi historian Tariq Omar Ali. In his book, A Local History of Global Capital: Jute and Peasant Life in the Bengal Delta, published in 2018, Tariq tells the story of jute and jute farmers from the beginning till the end with absolute mastery. Not only does he lay out a fascinating, useful, and thorough account of what happened, he weaves them together with his own analysis and nuanced interpretation of why and how they happened.  By doing so, he helps you clearly connect the global phenomena to those of the grassroots, the time to space, the economy to ecology, and the market forces to the minds of the people living on the land.

My historical knowledge is vastly inadequate. So, I cannot claim that the book gives you the complete history of jute. Perhaps it is impossible to give one. But Tariq's book would certainly help you develop an appreciation of its richness and complexities and its significance in what we are today, as Bangladesh and Bangladeshis.

Tariq is a master storyteller. I was engrossed in the book, and, as I read, it played in my head like a movie. Maybe my prior familiarity and fascination with the topic have something to do with it, but as an EB White fan, I would say that it has more to do with his writing style. His writing is clear and direct, easy flowing, and elegant. As a non-academic reader, I appreciate his deliberate attempt to avoid over-theorization and to concretize abstract ideas with useful examples and details, a fine example of classical prose, an ability to see things from a reader's point of view and take them into account in writing.

I also appreciate the fact that he tries to establish his interpretations with solid facts and sound logical reasoning and avoid potential ideological traps. His analysis is dispassionate and nuanced. Perhaps history is supposed to be and is told like that. But the kind of empathy and passion of the writer that is evident throughout the book, we must commend his sincere effort to remain impartial.

From his book, I finally learned about why the desperate farmers had to leave their crops in the haat. It is not just that the price was low, it is also the forces, market and the colonial policies grounded in extraction, gradually moving them away from producing rice for sustenance to make room for jute and exposing their lives to the global market defined by volatility. When the price was low, and farmers had no rice in their houses, they became indebted to feed their families. And when the price continued to fall, and rice was in short supply due to war and droughts, they died in scores, and the fortunate ones became landless.

I was curious about the book because it was recommended by Amartya Sen. And it opened up a new world to me. Tariq's book took me a bit closer to my identity as a person from the Bengal Delta.

Thank you!