Editorial Note, Nov-Dec, 2019

The lead article by Utsa Patnaik in the current number of Social Scientist presents a striking argument about colonial India that is both unconventional and counter-intuitive. The colonial period, as is well-known, had witnessed a substantial and systematic drain of surplus from India to Britain. This took the form of Britain keeping India’s export surplus earnings in foreign exchange in London, and paying the domestic exporters the equivalent amount of rupees out of the tax revenue of the colonial government; in effect, therefore, the country’s own tax revenue was being used to buy goods and export them for foreign exchange that Britain appropriated without a quid pro quo.