The Dutch in Western India 1601-1632- A Study of Mutual Accommodation (An Old and Rare Book)

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The appearance of the joint-stock trading company at the onset of the 17th century was a function of European economic change and growth. Although all trading companies aimed at profit through trade, institutional framework of the different companies and the orientation of the governing bodies and who represented the companies as factors were dissimilar, reflecting the economic, social & political environment of the country in which they were established. The individual characters of the Dutch, English and Portuguese were different and they had different fates in India.

A comparison of the Dutch experience in western India with those on the Coromandel coast will enable the reader to gain insights into the particular characteristics of the commercial operations and structures of western India, a clearer view of the diversity that existed within the V.O.C., and an appreciation for the interplay of economic and non-economic variables in the commercial relationships between the Dutch merchant-traders and their Asian colleagues.

This is a deeply absorbing book which earned for its author Ph. D. of the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Ann Bos Radwan has selected one nationality-the Dutch-out of the many which visited India and stayed here for varying periods, some of them outstaying their welcome. She has chosen one locale-Western India-out of the wide expanse of this sub-continent. And she has focussed on one-third of a century-1601-1632-out of the fifty frozen centuries of our history. But the one corner of our nation's crowded story which is here illumined, is lighted by a laser beam. It is a bird's eye view, but the eye is that of an eagle.

The work is marked by intensive scholarship. It is laborious learning transmuted into a brilliant cameo. Unfailing logic and precision mark the thought and the language.

The dry bones of history stir as the author unfolds the human tale. She draws striking vignettes of the fascinating scene- the elements in the Hindu and the Muslim psyche: the king as the preserver of order; the venal administrative set-up and the vulnerable military machine; the policy of benign neglect towards commerce; the emergence of adatyas (brokers), shroffs and hundies; the proliferation of firmans and the growth of factories: the rivalries between the Portuguese, the Dutch, the English and the Gujarati traders, and the intriguing situations which exemplified the difficulty of perceiving who was the friend and who the enemy; the shaky Anglo-Dutch Treaty which rested more on hatred of the Portuguese than on affinity between the signatories; the European demand for indigo and saltpeter, spices and textiles, which changed the political map of India; the music, the colour, the glory, the gold of Surat and Broach; the drought of 1629 followed by the famine of 1630 which made bread so dear and flesh and blood so cheap, which emptied villages and left weaving-looms without weavers; the relations between the Dutch and the Mughals alternating between distrust and hostility, and regulated by diplomacy which was "a combination of explicit amiability and implicit bellicosity".