Number of words: 271

Today, at a time when the ‘economy’ and ‘business’ are thought to be insulated spheres that function according to their own laws, it has become customary to lionize merchants and businessmen for their shrewdness and entrepreneurialism. But the real lesson to be learnt from the commercial world of western India is that political and military support have always been crucial to the flourishing of business and enterprise in the modern era. If private enterprise was able to thrive in western India, but not in the east, it was ultimately because the Maratha kingdoms were able to fight off the predatory colonial power for much longer than the states of the Gangetic plain. The credit for western India’s entrepreneurial prowess is ultimately due not only to the financial acumen of its businessmen but also to the foresight and acuity of the political and military leadership of the Maratha states. The years in which they held back the inexorable British advance eventually made an enormous difference to their region.

The critical value of military power in relation to capitalist enerpe was perfectly well understood by the British, who, despite fcases trumpeting of the virtues of ‘Free Trade’, constantly sad face armed forces to create business opportunities and to tions. These practices have remained essential to the functioning of modern imperialism to the present day. Not for nothing one of the founders of the contemporary global economy, Jan Pieterszoon Coen, utter the famous words: “There can be no trade without war, and no war without trade.”

Excerpted from Pages 115 to 117 of Smoke And Ashes: A Journey Through Hidden Histories by Amitav Ghosh