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British consumerism
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It was India, and the Coromandel Coast in particular, that launched consumerism, especially the quest for luxuries, in Britain 300 years ago
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LIBERALISM AND a growing Western influence have triggered the consumer boom that has overtaken India in the last decade. But it was India, and the Coromandel Coast in particular, that launched consumerism, especially the quest for luxuries, in Britain 300 years ago. That's a theme that Maxine Berg of the University of Warwick has been working on and which she presented to a small group of heritage enthusiasts in Madras recently.
The `painted' cottons of the Coromandel, the muslins of Bengal, the diamonds of Golconda and the pearls of the Fisheries Coast, the lacquer ware of central India and the silks and ceramic ware of China were taken to Britain in the early days of the l8th Century and, initially, met an upmarket demand for luxuries. But as supplies increased, with East India Company merchants and free-traders financing greater manufacture in India and China, and offering the local craftsmen designs to suit European tastes, a much wider consumer market was developed.
The numbers, for the time, were mind-boggling. In l73l, for instance, seven million pieces of porcelain were shipped from China to Britain, more that 80 per cent of them made to order! Handmade goods in such numbers called for special production techniques — and world-class techniques were in place in India and China at the time, with specialists in different areas of manufacture, Berg holds.
That's when we find David Hume's theory taking over. Hume in l752 held, "If we consult history, we shall find that in most nations, foreign trade has preceded any refinement in home manufactures, and given birth to domestic luxury. Thus, men acquainted with the pleasures of luxury, and the profits of commerce, and the delicacy and industry being once awakened, carry them on to further improvements in every branch of domestic as well as foreign trade; and this perhaps is the chief advantage, which arises from a commerce with strangers. It rouses men from their indolence; and, presenting the gayer and more opulent part of the nation with objects of luxury which they never before dreamed of, raises in them a desire of a more splendid way of life than what their ancestors enjoyed. Imitation soon diffuses all those arts, while domestic manufacturers emulate the foreign in their improvements, and work up every home commodity to the utmost perfection of which it is susceptible."
It was to meet the increasing demand for such goods as were arriving from Asia that British industry began developing. For instance, Wedgwood, that famous name in ceramic ware, went into business in l767 to compete with porcelain from China. Ironically, as costs of production grew at home, Wedgwood today manufactures in China, tapping ancient skills that come at a lower cost, points out Berg.
Urging India to look to the past for new opportunities in the future, Berg sees immense potential in the handicrafts of the country making a mark in international markets again. If business houses harnessed the ancient skills and the advanced production techniques of the past, marrying them with modern design and marketing techniques, there was no reason why Indian handicrafts and handlooms could not have the same impact they had on the West in the l8th Century. Perhaps it's time to take another look at history.
S. MUTHIAH
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