Terre, pouvoir et marché : la naissance du marché foncier dans la plaine du Gange (XIXe-XXe siècles)

摘要

Land, power, markets : the formation of a real-estate market in the Ganges Plain (19th and 20th centuries) The emergence of a market for land in the 19th century has been a crucial factor of social change in India. At the outset of British rule, the idea of private property in land was still wholly foreign to the traditional mind, and the hierarchy of rights in land was one with the social distribution of power in the countryside. As a result of relentless British efforts to create the conditions of a modern market economy in India, notably through land and debt legislation, land gradually became a freely saleable commodity, which meant its emancipation from the sphere of power. This evolution was further accelerated by the growing demographic pressure on the soil and the increasing commercialization of the colonial economy. But the minds of men were slower to change. This modernization from above was achieved in the face of enduring resistance on the part of the traditional power holders, who seriously hampered the free play of market forces right up to the early decades of this century.