Breaching the Nadu: Lordship and economic development in pre-colonial South India

In this article I present a new framework for the analysis of the South Ind ian economy over the medieval and early modern epochs, centred on the effec ts of social property relations. I argue that the overall pattern was one o f steady economic development, but with a marked increase in trade and comm odity development in the early modern era. This is explained through a tran sformation of intra-class relations that followed the fall of the Vijayanag ara Empire. Whereas in the medieval period, economic growth had been subjec t to the constraints imposed by effective lordly cohesion, which squeezed p easant income and limited trade, this cohesiveness gave way under the hamme r blows dealt to it by Vijayanagara rulers. As the South entered the early modern era, lords found themselves without the traditional mechanisms of cl ass organisation, and producers were able to capitalise on their weakness f or economic gain. Nevertheless, production still remained peasant based, an d, pace some of the more ambitious claims of recent historiography, was ori ented toward the minimisation of risk, and not the maximisation of profit. Hence, though there was an increase in the circulation of commodities, this was an artifact of a change within a pre-capitalist regime, and not a harb inger of a transition to capitalism.