ARC Report on E-Governance (Summary)

e-Governance or ‘electronic governance’ is basically the application of Information and Communications Technology to the processes of Government functioning in order to bring about ‘Simple, Moral, Accountable, Responsive and Transparent’ (SMART) governance. This would generally involve the use of ICTs by government agencies for any or all of the following reasons: (a) Exchange of information with citizens, businesses or other government departments (b) Speedier and more efficient delivery of public services (c) Improving internal efficiency (d) Reducing costs / increasing revenue (e) Re-structuring of administrative processes and (f) Improving quality of services.

Stages of e-Governance:-

The Indian experience demonstrates that the onset of e-Governance proceeded through the following phases:-

a) Computerisation :-  The use of computers in the government offices began with word processing, quickly followed by data processing.

b) Networking :- In this phase, some units of a few government organizations got connected through a hub leading to sharing of information and flow of data between different government entities.

c) On-line presence :- creation of web pages of different departments having organisational structures, contact details of officials and vision and statements of the respective government entities.

d) On-line interactivity :- The main aim at this stage was to minimize the scope of personal interface with government entities by providing downloadable Forms, Instructions, Acts, Rules etc. In some cases, this has already led to on-line submission of Forms. Most citizen-government transactions have the potential of being put on e-Governance mode.

Types of Interactions in e-Governance:-

e-Governance facilitates interaction between different stake holders in governance.These interactions may be described as follows:-

G2G (Government to Government) –  In this case, ICT is used to restructure the governmental processes involved in the functioning of government entities, to increase the flow of information and services within and between different entities. This kind of interaction is only within the sphere of government and can be both horizontal i.e. between different government agencies as well as between different functional areas within an organisation, or vertical i.e. between national, provincial and local government agencies as well as between different levels within an organisation. The primary objective is to increase efficiency, performance and output.

G2C (Government to Citizens) – In this case, an interface is created between the government and citizens which enables the citizens to benefit from efficient delivery of a large range of public services. This expands the availability and accessibility of public services on the one hand and improves the quality of services on the other.  The primary purpose is to make government, citizen-friendly through 24x7 access.

G2B (Government to Business) – Here, e-Governance tools are used to aid the business community – providers of goods and services – to seamlessly interact with the government. The objective is to cut red tape, save time, reduce operational costs and to create a more transparent business environment when dealing with the government. The G2B initiatives can be transactional, such as in licensing, permits, procurement and revenue collection. They can also be promotional and facilitative, such as in trade, tourism and investment. These measures help to provide a congenial environment to businesses to enable them to perform more efficiently.

G2E (Government to Employees) – This interaction is a two-way process between the organisation and the employee. Use of ICT tools helps in making these interactions fast and efficient on the one hand and increase satisfaction levels of employees on the other.

Benefits of e-Governance:-

e-Governance is about reform in governance, facilitated by the creative use of ICT. It is expected that this would lead to:-

a) Better access to information and quality services for citizens:- timely and reliable information, one point access to services.

b) Simplicity, efficiency and accountability in the government:- simplification of complicated processes, weeding out of redundant processes, simplification in structures and changes in statutes and regulations,  enhanced decision making abilities and increased efficiency across government--- leading to more accountable government, which in-turn will result in more productive and efficient administration in all sectors of governance.

c) Expanded reach of governance:-  Expansion of telephone network, rapid strides in mobile telephony, spread of internet and strengthening of other communications infrastructure would facilitate delivery of a large number of services provided by the government. This enhancement of the reach of government – both spatial and demographic – would also enable better participation of citizens in the process of governance.

e-Governance : Initiatives in India

Recognising the increasing importance of electronics, the Government of India established the Department of Electronics in 1970. The subsequent establishment of the National Informatics Centre (NIC) in 1977 was the first major step towards e-Governance in India as it brought ‘information’ and its communication in focus. However, the main thrust for e-Governance was provided by the launching of NICNET in 1987 – the national satellite-based computer network. This was followed by the launch of the District Information System of the National Informatics Centre (DISNIC) programme to computerize all district offices in the country for which free hardware and software was offered to the State Governments. NICNET was extended via the State capitals to all district headquarters by 1990.

A National Task Force on Information Technology and Software Development was constituted in May 1998. While recognising Information Technology as a frontier area of knowledge per se, it focused on utilizing it as an enabling tool for assimilating and processing all other spheres of knowledge. It recommended the launching of an ‘Operation Knowledge’ aimed at universalizing computer literacy and spreading the use of computers and IT in education. In 1999, the Union Ministry of Information Technology was created. By 2000, a 12-point minimum agenda for e-Governance was identified by Government of India for implementation in all the Union Government Ministries/Departments. The agenda undertaken included LAN, training, pay roll accounting and use of software for day-to-day operation, web page creation of departments and ministeries, web enabled grievance redressal mechanism, digitalization of all circulars, rules and regulations, development of Hindi version of the content of the web, development of package by each department of ministeries for e-service delivery etc.

Tax administration departments both at the Union and State levels were among the first to use ICT to improve their internal working. ICT was used to have better reporting systems, preventing leakages and faster processing of returns.

Examples of some e-governance initiatives in India:-

1) Bhoomi Project in Karnataka : Online Delivery of Land Records

Bhoomi is a self-sustainable e-Governance project for the computerized delivery of 20 million rural land records to 6.7 million farmers through 177 Government-owned kiosks in the State of Karnataka. It was felt that rural land records are central conduits to delivering better IT-enabled services to citizens because they contain multiple data elements: ownership, tenancy, loans, nature of title, irrigation details, crops grown etc. In addition to providing the proof of title to the land, this land record is used by the farmer for a variety of purposes: from documenting crop loans and legal actions, to securing scholarships for schoolchildren. These records were hitherto maintained manually by 9,000 village officials. Through this project, computerised kiosks are currently offering farmers two critical services - procurement of land records and requests for changes to the land title. About 20 million records are now being legally maintained in the digital format. To ensure the authenticity of data management, a biometric finger authentication system has been used for the first time in an e-Governance project in India. To make the project self-sustaining and expandable, Bhoomi levies user charges.

2)  Gyandoot (Madhya Pradesh)

Gyandoot is an Intranet-based Government to Citizen (G2C) service delivery initiative. It was initiated in the Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh in January 2000 with the twin objective of providing relevant information to the rural population and acting as an interface between the district administration and the people. The basic idea behind this project was to establish and foster a technologically innovative initiative which is owned and operated by the community itself. Initially, computers were installed in twenty village Panchayat centres and connected to the District Rural Development Authority in Dhar town. These were called Soochanalayas which were operated by local rural youth selected for this purpose (called Soochaks). No fixed salary or stipend was paid to them. Later, 15 more Soochanalayas were opened as private enterprise. The Soochanalayas are connected to the Intranet through dial-up lines. The services offered through the Gyandoot network include

i. Daily agricultural commodity rates (mandi bhav)

ii. Income certificate

iii. Domicile certificate

iv. Caste certificate

v. Public grievance redressal

vi. Rural Hindi email

vii. BPL family list

viii. Rural Hindi newspaper.

3) Lokvani Project in Uttar Pradesh

Lokvani is a public-private partnership project at Sitapur District in Uttar Pradesh which was initiated in November, 2004. Its objective is to provide a single window, self sustainable e-Governance solution with regard to handling of grievances, land record maintenance and providing a mixture of essential services. As 88 per cent of the District population resides in villages and the literacy rate is only 38 per cent, the programme had to be designed in a way which was user-friendly and within the reach of the people both geographically as well as socially. To achieve this, the programme format uses the local language, Hindi, and is spread throughout the district to a chain of 109 Lokvani Kiosk Centres. These Kiosks have been established by licensing the already existing cyber cafes. The services offered by Lokvani are:

a. Availability of land records (khataunis) on the internet

b. Online registration, disposal and monitoring of public grievances

c. Information of various Government schemes

d. Online availability of prescribed Government forms

e. Online status of Arms License applications

f. GPF Account details of Basic Education teachers

g. Details of work done under MPLAD/Vidhayak Nidhi

h. Details of allotment of funds to Gram Sabhas under different development    schemes

i. Details of allotment of food grains to Kotedars (fair price shops)

j. Other useful information of public interest.

National e-Governance Plan

The National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) has been formulated by the Department of Information Technology (DIT) and Department of Administrative Reforms & Public Grievances (DAR&PG). The Union Government approved the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), comprising of 27 Mission Mode Projects (MMPs) and 10 components on May 18, 2006. The NeGP aims at improving delivery of Government services to citizens and businesses with the following vision:

“Make all Government services accessible to the common man in his locality, through common service delivery outlets and ensure efficiency, transparency & reliability of such services at affordable costs to realise the basic needs of the common man.”

PUNCHHI COMMISSION REPORT (SUMMARY) - 1

The Constituent Assembly – The Debates

The elections to the Constituent Assembly were held in July, 1946. Its first meeting took place on December 9, 1946.  The long debate on the Objectives Resolution highlighted the fact that a large section of the Constituent Assembly felt the need for a centralized republic with a strong Centre. Nevertheless, it was willing to accept the scheme of a limited Centre and autonomous units with residuary powers, envisaged in the Objectives Resolution, in order to secure the co-operation of the Muslim League in the task of framing the Constitution for a united India. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was cheered by the House when he declared that so far as he was personally concerned, he would like to have a strong Centre as envisaged in Government of India Act of 1935. He recognized, however, that “these wishes have no bearing on the situation at all.”

Federal Structure of the Constitution

The Constitution seeks and defines India to be ‘Union of States’ with a federal structure. Although the term ‘federal’ does not appear in the Constitution, it often arose in Constituent Assembly debates. The founding fathers based their logic on pragmatic considerations and wanted the Constitution to be federal if necessary but not necessarily federal. Indian federation, according to experts, approaches most closely to what has been called ‘co-operative federalism’. This new phrase, which had emerged largely after the Second World War, was explained by A.H. Birch as: “the practice of administrative co-operation between general and regional governments, the partial dependence of regional governments upon payments from the general governments, and the fact that general governments, by the use of conditional grants, frequently promote developments in matters which are constitutionally assigned to the regions.” This concept is “a general approach rather than a specific programme and it is characterized by increasing interdependence of federal and regional governments, a development that does not destroy the federal principle. This concept is generally applicable to India.”

The Centre, as also the States, enjoy plenary powers in administrative, legislative and financial fields in their respective spheres. They derive their powers and authority from the Constitution, the supreme law of the land, itself. The Constitution defines the Indian Union as a composite whole, the integrity and sovereignty of which must be maintained by each structural limb of the government.

 It includes some special integrated features such as:-

•  a single Constitution (excepting Jammu and Kashmir),

•  single citizenship,

•  a single integrated judicial system, a detailed outlining of structures and processes at the Union and State levels, as well as panchayats and municipalities.

•  It has a unique model of All India Services where the Union recruits the members of these Services, but they are placed under various State cadres with responsibility to serve both the State and the Union. This arrangement was made in order to provide administrative cohesion in the federal-union system of governance.

The Constitution of India generates a highly complex notion of a strong federal union. It assigns certain exclusive powers in terms of legislative initiative and executive controls to the Central Government, the exercise of which can have a transforming impact on the polity. But, interestingly, these powers are made subject to varying degrees of federal concurrence, with an in-built constitutional mechanism of checks and balances, and parliamentary accountability. The organic Constitution, as it is, allows re-organization of the States and provision of state-hood to Union Territories. For example, the Parliament has, by virtue of Article 3 of the Constitution, the exclusive power to form federal units. However, any legislative proposal in this regard cannot be introduced without obtaining prior Presidential (i.e., Central Government) sanction, which, in turn, must ascertain the views of the affected States before approving the introduction of such a bill in the Parliament. In practice it is rarely possible for the Parliament to ignore the views of the States. The Central Government, in effect, cannot concede to the demands of regional groups/communities for a separate State unless such a proposal is received from the State(s) in which these groups are currently located.

Indian federalism is known for the “differential loadings” and varied arrangements of power distribution. The Seventh Schedule to the Constitution broadly divides and distributes competences, treating States on an equal basis. Articles 370, 371, 371A-G further modify this generality in order to provide for special arrangements of power distribution between the Central Government and a particular category of States. The purpose of this is to accommodate features of regional and ethnic governance. The Fifth and Sixth Schedules to the Constitution provide for the creation of autonomous councils for tribal and ethnic people. Regional or district autonomous councils so created are supposed to share the legislative, administrative and financial domains of the concerned State.

The Constitution of India empowers the Union, and not the States, to initiate and effect changes in the Constitution. However, many Constitutional provisions cannot be amended unless they are ratified by no less than one-half of the States of the Union. These include the election of the President, the extent of the federal government’s executive powers, Presidential powers to promulgate Ordinances during a Parliamentary recess, organizational powers and the authority of the Supreme Court and the High Courts, distribution of legislative powers among the federal government and the States, the representation of the States in Parliament, and Article 368 relating to the amendment procedure.

As added through the 73rd and 74th Constitutional amendments in 1993, when the provisions of Article 243-243 ZG, already in process in varying degrees in different states, become fully operational, the local body institutions at the district level and below will usher in the third-tier of governance in an effective manner. This will make India a multi-level federation, even if these bodies do not have law enforcement (police) or judicial powers.

Although the Constituent Assembly did not completely lack in championing the cause of State autonomy, the overwhelming majority of its members stood for a powerful Centre. During the British period there was a steady process of centralization in administration and legislation with such relaxation of central control as might appear unavoidable from time to time. This system had the effect of mitigating the evils of separatism and bringing all the different regions within the focus of one common administration. Introduction of the English education and the development of the modern means of communication further strengthened this unifying force. The setting up of the railways was a remarkable event in the history of our country. It linked up distant regions and promoted mobility between them. It was also instrumental in the development of national markets and stimulated the growth of large-scale industries, The political and economic unity, which synchronized with the British rule, was subsequently accompanied by a consciousness of National unity or Nationalism. The emphasis in our liberation movement from its very beginning was on National unity. Thus, the centralizing forces, which were the product of the British administration and the National Movement, largely influenced the nature of the Indian federalism.  Besides, there were certain other factors which had an impact upon the framers of the Constitution in preferring strong to a weak Centre. One such factor was ‘common concern or anxiety for the future’. The Constitutionmakers were anxious of any possible repetition of Indian history which was full of fratricidal wars between regions and communities. Any such repetition would inevitably destroy the very basis of Indian Nationality. Loyalties to region, language and religion had deep roots in Indian history, and the possibility of these multifarious loyalties striking a deadly blow at the root of National unity could not be overruled.

Secondly, the idea of welfare state, which found a significant place in the programme of the National Movement, largely contributed to the centralizing tendency in India. The greatest challenge which our National leaders had to confront immediately after the achievement of Independence was poverty. Rapid economic development, equitable distribution of National wealth among all sections of the people, accelerating the pace of industrialization and widening the base of social justice, among others, were urgently required. There was no denying the fact that only a welfare state with centralised authority could effectively undertake the task of National reconstruction. As the welfare state ideal was incorporated in our Constitution, enshrined in the Preamble and the Directive Principles of State Policy, the Constitution makers had no choice but to make the Centre powerful. An essential pre-condition for the successful implementation of the welfare programme was and it was rightly conceived to endow the Centre with effective control over the economic and fiscal fields.

Declining Oil Price in The Global Market

The price of Brent Crude has fallen by more than half — from $115 a barrel in June to around $40 last week and the financial company Goldman Sachs thinks that it will fall below $20. This comes after a period of relative stability since around 2010. Currently, the nominal price is almost touching its post-crisis low in March 2009 (Chart 1). This price collapse has triggered debate on the factors responsible for the precipitous decline.

Oil Price Determination:-

The oil price is partly determined by actual supply and demand, and partly by expectation. Demand for energy is closely related to economic activity. It also spikes in the winter in the northern hemisphere, and during summers in countries which use air conditioning. Supply can be affected by weather (which prevents tankers loading) and by geopolitical upsets. If producers think the price is staying high, they invest, which after a lag boosts supply. Similarly, low prices lead to an investment drought. OPEC’s decisions shape expectations: if it curbs supply sharply, it can send prices spiking. Saudi Arabia produces nearly 10m barrels a day—a third of the OPEC total.

Four things are now affecting the picture. Demand is low because of weak economic activity, increased efficiency, and a growing switch away from oil to other fuels. Second, turmoil in Iraq and Libya—two big oil producers with nearly 4m barrels a day combined—has not affected their output. The market is more sanguine about geopolitical risk. Thirdly, America has become the world’s largest oil producer. Though it does not export crude oil, it now imports much less, creating a lot of spare supply. Finally, the Saudis and their Gulf allies have decided not to sacrifice their own market share to restore the price. They could curb production sharply, but the main benefits would go to countries they detest such as Iran and Russia. Saudi Arabia can tolerate lower oil prices quite easily. It has $900 billion in reserves. Its own oil costs very little (around $5-6 per barrel) to get out of the ground.

Generally, supply-demand balance is provided as the cause for the decline of oil prices as the global recession and weakening of growth in most economies especially in China lowered the demand for crude oil. However, this has some role in this but statistics shows that from February 2011 to August 2014, the price of Brent Crude Oil was above $100 a barrel despite having  the global recession.

Articles Review

Martin, Emily. 1991. "The egg and the sperm: How science has constructed a romance based on stereotypical male-female roles." Signs 16:485-501.

Brown, Jessica Autumn and Myra Marx Ferree. 2005. "Close Your Eyes and Think of England: Pronatalism in the British Print Media." Gender & Society 19:5-24.

Iyer, Radha. 2009. "Entrepreneurial identities and the problematic of subjectivity in media-mediated discourses." Discourse & Society 20:241-263.

Liechty, Mark. 2005. "Carnal Economies: The Commodification of Food and Sex in Kathmandu." Cultural Anthropology 20:1-38.

Messner, Michael A. 2000. "Barbie Girls versus Sea Monsters: Children Constructing Gender." Gender and Society 14:765-784.

Our use of language in everydayness is culturally mediated. This mediation brings prejudicial notions of categories. This can be studied aptly through critical discourse analysis and it is, in all these 5 articles, the common methodology used to see stereotypes in the languages or texts. Through these discourses, the politics of representation and the power imbalances of our society can be seen through languages that is used in scientific and newspaper writings and words in common usage. In the two articles namely, “Entrepreneurial identities and the problematic of subjectivity in media-mediated discourses” and “Carnal Economies: The Commodification of Food and Sex in Kathmandu”, the discourses on gender is shown with the development of neo-liberal economy and how the ideas of patriarchy is shown in the binary of tradition/modernity, new women/old women, old times/new times etc.. In the article "The egg and the sperm: How science has constructed a romance based on stereotypical male-female roles", Emily Martin (1991) shows the proliferation of gender stereotypes produced by culture in the biology textbooks to define the reproductive capacity of men and women through gendered lens. Michael Messner (2000) in his article "Barbie Girls Versus Sea Monsters: Children Constructing Gender" demonstrates how a ‘multilevel analysis’ might reveal various levels of meaning that give insights into everyday social construction of gender through children’s world. Brown and Ferrie (2005) in their article "Close Your Eyes and Think of England: Pronatalism in the British Print Media" talk about the prophecy of print media to create a consciousness of crisis due to decreasing fertility and move beyond ‘potential economic logic’ to reflect a threat to culture and civilisation.

Iyer (2009) draws on the concept of ‘governmentality’ given by Foucault to show how media operates through subtle manipulation of individual subjectivities by regulating ‘the conduct of conducts’ through control on networks of power such as production practices, creation of new genres and dominant discourses. She uses the concept of ‘being’ and ‘becoming’, given by Delueze and Guattris (1987), where ‘being’ shows the overarching control of patriarchal and colonial kinds over women in media industry and ‘becoming’ shows the resistance at a molecular level through ‘self-governance’ and multiple subject positions. She used 46 articles of various Indian newspaper and popular magazine from 1988 to 2002 to show discourses on femininity, patriarchy (microstructure) and oppositional discourse of ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ (macrostructure). She selects the time frame to properly accommodate the pre-liberalisation and post liberalisation discourses. However, her data is more skewed in post-liberalisation phase as the liberalisation of Indian economy was done in 1991. Further, she mainly focuses on headlines of the article to show these discourses which seems problematic in the modern age of rapid transfer of news items, where catchy-phrases are used to attract viewers. She does not compare news on gender discourses with other news items where same tactics is used for attracting attention. Further, when she talks about the oppositional discourse of ‘becoming’ then she does not take notice of women of many other industries where they have performed well like the success of entrepreneurs Indra Nooyi, Chanda Kochhar etc. whose educational background and efficient decision makings were popularised by media. She does not bring the ‘class-location’ of these successful entrepreneurs, who resisted the microstructures of these discourses like of femininity, patriarchy etc.  However, Mark Liechty (2005) brings these dimensions in his research of food and sex market of Kathmandu, Nepal.

Mintz, Sidney Wilfred. Sweetness and power. New York: Viking, 1985. Pp. xxx+274; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $20.00.

Sugar is one of the central elements of the food basket in the world. The centrality of sugar consumption, however, is a recent phenomenon. The idea of sweetness is present from the ancient times but the consumption of it as a necessity reveals the development and deployment of new meanings to sugar and the changes in the economic and social conditions. It is a valid curiosity to know how sugar became the object of mass consumption across all society and all classes. But, it is not only about sugar as material object rather it is mainly about the essence of sweetness in the social world. The idea of taste is socially determined. It is related with the physiological propensity for certain kinds of taste and the need for certain minerals in our body but the presence of various objects having same taste makes the popularity of some foods a historical and an anthropological question of inquiry. The historical inquiry sees the trends in the changing use of cultural objects but anthropological inquiry is more concerned about the effects and its movement in the social strata through meanings and motives. Taking cue from anthropology, social history emerged as a new discipline or a new way of inquiring the patterns of social changes in our society.   

In the contemporary anthropological studies, the study of food habits became a powerful tool to study the society or community to understand the social arrangements. Our food habits are determined socially, geographically and biologically. Food choices also provide the distinctions of age, sex, status, culture and even occupation. Sydney Mintz, in the book Sweetness and Power, provides a detailed account of the appropriation of sugar in the diet of United Kingdom and he treats ‘sugar’ as a cultural object to see how people of different strata provided meaning to the use of sugar. He also sees the development of capitalism with the rise in the production and consumption of sugar. In this explanatory work, he analyses the concept of “power” and “meaning” to explain the change in the status of sugar from luxury to medicine to decorative object to necessity. This book is divided into five chapters namely “Food, Sociality, and Sugar”, “Production”, “Consumption”, “Power”, and “Eating and Being”. Mintz shifts the focus from the production to the consumption part to understand the phenomenon of the rise of sugar use as most of the studies on food is mainly concerned for the production processes. The history of technological accomplishments is Europe centred and he tries to break away from this tradition to provide an objective understanding of the technical achievements of Arab worlds. The western world does not provide attention to the technical achievements of orient rather they are more concerned about the aesthetics and given reference in putting the great inputs of labour (the pyramids, the sun temple, the great wall etc). Mintz provides the example of Moorish conquest of 

Spain as much as technical and military as economic, political and religious.

Mintz provides the historical evidences of the presence of the idea of sugar from the ancient times in the India and later in the Mediterranean region. However, this work takes Mediterranean region as the starting point of sugar production, then moves to colonies of Spain, and then finally goes to Caribbean region to see the development of capitalistic mode of production in the sugar industry. The history of sugar production in Mediterranean region is present in many historical acts but the earlier works differentiated it naively from the sugar production in Christian region with slavery. However, Mintz provides the evidences of use of slavery in Morocco and East African countries through the historical accounts of slave revolts in these areas. He takes this idea further and says that Spain learnt the use and necessity of slave labour in this labour intensive industry from the experiences of the Muslim world.  In the colonies of Spain, the experiment of sugar production was unsuccessful due to chronic lack of capital, and unproductive, tribute taking and labour-squandering role in America. However, the Spanish obsession of precious metal provided sugar industry a big blow after its conquest of the Mexico and the Andes. The sugar industry of Mediterranean region declined due to inferior local administration, which caused decimation of the effective irrigation system and labour allocation. However, the colonisers continued sugar production at some places in the region Sicily is one of the examples.

After the decline of the sugar industry in the Mediterranean and Spanish colonies, British industry has no rival to face and the age of continued growth in the sugar production became reality in the British colonies. Mintz, here, engages in a debate about the mode of production of sugar industry in this initial phase of industrialisation. Here, he differentiates between the “new world” and the “old world” meaning the transfer from Mediterranean to Atlantic islands. He also investigates plantation as it is agricultural or it is industrial or a combination of both. The increasing use of machinery and division of labour made the plantation agriculture a synthesis of field and factory. The labour in the industry was constituted of both slave and the wage labour. Since, the labour was not free to sell his labour power so many scholars are of the view that it was not capitalistic industry. However, he compares it with the modern forms of “agro-industry” and finds certain feature of sugar industry in the modern world. These features are:-- plantation and processing were under one authority, the organisation of the labour force was on the basis of skilled and semi-skilled linked with the organization goals, the system was time-conscious, the separation of production from consumption and the separation of the worker from his tools. 

Therefore, Mintz sees a trajectory of transformation to capitalistic order and concludes that it was not capitalistic. However, looking at the functioning of capitalism, this idea is problematic.  Mere freedom of labour to sell his/her labour power does not make any system capitalistic. The notion of “freedom” attached here is illusionary. The main point of arguments in examining any system as capitalistic or not should come from the separation of the worker and the tools of production. All these sugar industries of the new world were working with single motive of profit accumulation and the rise in the wealth of the sugar estates.  As in the book also, Mintz finds that the replacement of the discipline of slavery could only be done with the discipline of hunger. So, the “free labour” in this phase had no other option of livelihood. However, one can argue that free labour had any option to quit the job but what option they were left with?

The production process of sugar was in-sync with the consumption process and it was arranged in a way to reap maximum profit. The British developed two “triangles of trade”, both of these arose in 17th century and matured in the 18th century. The first triangle linked Britain to Africa and to the new world: finished goods were sold to Africa, African slaves to the Americas and American sugar to the Britain or her importing neighbours. This triangle was working on the Mercantilist model. The second triangle was working in contradiction to the first and it started from New England to Africa. Rum was exported from New England to Africa and slaves from Africa to West Indies, whence molasses back to New England to make Rum. The only “false commodity” in these two triangles were slave as human being is not an object even treated one. The wealth created in the different parts of this triangle were taken back to New England. The production and consumption of sugar increased in 18th century and the poverty of resources led people to go for starch based food.  The process of increasing consumption and for this process use of microphysics of power by the groups at upper level in Britain is interesting.

The power machinery was first used to make sugar accepted in religious rites. The religion in  the United Kingdom did not allow eating or consuming spices in the religious fast however, sugar became the first exception in this category. It was permitted to consume sugar in the religious fast. Further, the laws and rules were changed/amended to make sugar cheaper in the United Kingdom. Political leaders, religious groups, judges, physicians, military officials, businesspersons and other “progressive” people showered intemperate praise of sugar. This had effect on the legal systems of the Britain. This in simultaneity with the heightened productivity of labouring class, the radically altered conditions of their lives, the evolving world economy, and the spread of capitalistic spirit made sugar a necessity among all classes of the country.  The change in the use of sugar from medicine to spice to necessity can be seen through the mechanisms of power and how the meanings were created. 

The use of sugar as medicine has a contested history in the 18th century Europe and some of this contestation came from the idea that the Arabs knew most of the medicinal use of sugar. In contesting Arabian progress in the use of sugar and projecting an advanced knowledge of medicine, it went to the extremes as Mintz cites the work of Slare where he talks about using sugar powder to drop in the eyes to treat eye-ailment (107). However, the use of sugar as a medicine diminished in the late 18th and 19th century as it transformed into sweetener and preservative and assimilated into a new function—a source of calories. At the same time, tea became household name in Britain. It supplanted cold beer in their diet. The use of sucrose in the tea made it more satisfying. The consumption of sugar increased and it led to surplus expenditure on food items in 18th century Britain. One of the cause for the increasing consumption of tea relates to the over exploitation of tea workers in the India. East India Company, which started with the export of Chinese tea, produced a large quantity of Indian tea and it decreased the price of tea drastically in Britain. Tea became cheaper than coffee and chocolate and entered into the household of workers and middle class. However, the popularity of tea is not the only reason for the increase in the consumption of sugar rather the use of sugar in another form in the pastries, sweetened custard, and creams were the other reasons for this. The diet of the English people signalled the linkage of the consumption habits of every Englishman to the world outside England, particularly to the colonies.

Culture is marked by behavioural and attitudinal differences in a complex hierarchized society. When cultural material or cultural objects move upward or downward, the meaning of the object does not change with the movement. In the movement of cultural objects, wealth, authority, influence and power affect the way diffusion occurs. Mintz also sees these factors in the movement of sugar in use from the lords to the commoners. People knew the use of sugar as preservative from the 15th century onwards and its use as medicine and decoration provided legitimacy of its use. He brings the notion of “aspiration” to explain the increasing use of sugar in the Britain. He says that the middle class did not use because it was costly and rare until 17th century. With the decrease in the cost, people accepted it in the diet and provided cultural meanings. However, this idea is problematic. He does not see the variation of sugar use among different regions of the country and in the different classes. Without looking at these dimensions, it would be a generalisation to accept the hypothesis that all in United Kingdom had luxury to use sugar.  He discusses the different consumption patterns for men and women but he does not explore two things—a) the cause for less consumption of calorie diet among women and b) the women’s role in the development of capitalism through the lens of the development of sugar industries.

However, this consumption process of sugar needs more emphasis. The working class did not use it through the process of imitation of high class. Even the meanings attached with sugar changed with time. It was not merely seen as a status symbol, which was the case with the use of it by the elites. Here the concept of “intensification” can provide us with the probable causes for this. When tea was accepted as the British drink, the use of sugar increased in the diet of people. With this increase in the use of the sugar, it became one of the main source of the calorie. Therefore, it was more than the status question for the commoners. However, one can see the power dimension in this process. Those, in the power, made sugar available and maintained low price for the mass consumption. The control over the spread of ‘internal meanings’ associated with any cultural objects and the simultaneous control over food availability in the region provide the evidence for certain forms of domination in the society. As the price of sugar depends upon the duty, the ruling government fix. The imperial government decreased the duty to make it cheaper and to increase its consumption and production. After the end of protectionist regime, the consumption and production of sugar increased more as many Asian and African countries started growing sugar canes. One of the differentiating phenomenon in this period was the increase in beat production. After some years, beat production surpassed sugar cane production in the world.

There were two changes in this period—first relates to the status of sugar as an essential commodity and second the centrality of the production of sugar, molasses, and rum for the power in British society. At the same time, British experienced rival markets in the world economy and accepted the policy of “free trade” to compete with Americans and other powers lobbies of the world. However, Sydney Mintz’s focus on these power blocs for the meaning acquired by sugar in the working class seems problematic. His whole conception of “power” in this case is problematic. He says that availability of sugar by the British political and economic elites increase the consumption of sugar in the United Kingdom. But, this can be seen through another lens—the lens of poverty of resources, which he touches but does not explore. Clifford Geertz says that human beings are caught in the web of significations they themselves have spun. Therefore, one should think the world to be able to see it rather than accepting the ideas inhered by the world. People do not accepted the meanings provided by other groups rather they judge it with their pre-existing cultural symbols and then responds to it. In this case, also, people were not just accepting the meanings comings from the ruling elites rather it was the social conditions of the common people of Britain, which were providing affinity or distance to cultural objects. 

Eric Hobbsbawm (1999) points out that “neither economic theory nor the economic practice of the early Industrial revolution relied on the purchasing power of the labouring population, whose wages, it was generally assumed, would not be far removed from the subsistence level”  (52). Therefore, workers need to get calorie from any cheapest food available in the market. Further, sugar got acceptance in the religious arena. Therefore, people accepted it as a calorie rich substance. Mintz says that the low price of sugar was the product of policies of political elites and they did it to increase the consumption of sugar. However, Britain had no option but protectionist regime in the sugar industry. Otherwise, there voyage of sugar production would had same end as the Spanish attempts to make sugar had. When they feel threatened by the rival forces in the sugar production, they went for free market economy as they had more resources at their ends in comparison to rival forces.  Further, British appropriated all the money in this process. Also, if we relate the consumption with the increasing wage of the labour then other economic factor should also be considered. It is common assumption in classical and neo-classical economics that people go for “luxury goods” with the increase in the purchasing power. However, any conclusion based on it should be considered taking into account the rise and fall of the “necessary goods”. Therefore, the acceptance of sugar as necessary goods in the 18th century United Kingdom needs more research and insights.

Further, Mintz’s focus on power is also one-dimensional. He is Foucauldian in this approach as he only sees the discourse of the people of higher status. However, people shows resistance to any discourse coming from other groups. That is why not all discourses from dominant group becomes dominant in our society. Mintz does not talk about the resistance of people to the dominant discourse about sugar. He does not talk about the revolt, protest, or strike of slaves in the Caribbean sugar industry. The scale of exploitation in the sugar industry was very high. Therefore, it was preeminent that there must have been some protests in the Caribbean sugar industry. As in the British India, the workers of tea plantation protested in different ways. They even staged hartal in solidarity with the nationalist movements. He also does not see the resistance from the colonized people of the Caribbean islanders against the destruction of other industries and means of subsistence. He tries not to bring Eurocentric history but he at the end provides us the same. He only talked about the technical expertise of Mediterranean people in the pre-industrial era but he does not pay any attention to the involvement of labour in the Caribbean sugar industry.

The typical-ideal notion of modernity supposes the persistence of only one view of the changes, as they do not see the counter-currents prevailing at the same time when the project of modernity was unleashed. Therefore, many anthropologists and historians see the abolition of slavery as the attempt to establish the capitalistic economic system. However, slavery was just not the result of the good conscience of republican values and the progressive forces of capitalism. W. E. Du Bois argues that slaves are protagonists of their own emancipation in the United States and determine the outcome of civil war. Further, he writes, slaves set in motion an exodus, “a general strike that involved directly in the end perhaps a half million people”. One thing that slave resistance makes clear is that although slaves may undergo what Orlando Patterson calls a “social death”, they remain alive in their resistance.  

Mintz also proposes the idea that Tobacco, tea and sugar were the first objects within the capitalism that conveyed with their use the complex idea that one could become different by consuming differently. However, looking at food as social behaviour, it is very farfetched idea. Certainly, the system of economy influences food behaviour but it is not the only determinant. Taking the example from India, we can see that food as a social behaviour has more influence of the construction of culture. The changes in the meaning of cultural objects, which is not per-se, determined by economy only, affects the way people perceive new foods. The food chain of McDonalds in India is not determined by the culture of the place of its origin rather it is determined on the basis of the culture of the consumers. McDonald’s food chain has notice, “It does not serve beef”. Therefore, despite the system of capitalism the culture influenced by religion, economy, and politics determines the food behaviour.

Food determines self in the society. The notion of ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ serves the path for the change in the meanings of the cultural objects. Food is related with the rituals. It relates with birth, life, death and so on. The use of rice in India on the forehead for tilak exemplifies prosperity. Also, in India people celebrate any auspicious occasion with sweets. The phrase Mooh meetha karwao (Sweeten the mouth) depicts the centrality of sweetness with the culture. Mintz in the start of the book very clearly identifies the fact that it is not the sugar but the ‘sweetness’, which is his matter of investigation but he trapped in the web of signification he himself has spun. His focus changed from ‘sweetness’ to sucrose. He touches many important points but he left that. As he talks how Americans rejected tea and choose coffee and how sugar consumption in France is less compared to British but he did not investigate or provides a comparative study. Why people could not attach same meaning in the France and America as people of Britain attached.

This book provides insights about the socio-historical development of production, consumption, tool used for its popularity and social meanings of sugar. This book deals with many important questions with regard to the development of sugar industry and its relation with the changing economic mode of production, sociality and power mechanisms. As we move from one page to another, Sydney Mintz carefully demonstrates the machination of capitalism in exploiting the labour in the Caribbean and exploitation of the British for the weakness for sweetness. One very important takeaway point from this book is the use of consumption to see social change. It establishes groundwork for the concept of “new consumerism” and new scholars are indebted to Sydney Mintz for this. As Miller (1995) argues that, the first world wife is a “dictator” over the third world producers. 

References:-

Hobsbawm, Eric J., and Chris Wrigley. Industry and empire: from 1750 to the present day. The New Press, 1999.

Miller, D. "Acknowledging consumption: a review of new studies." Material cultures Show all parts in this series (1995).

Mintz, Sidney Wilfred. Sweetness and power. New York: Viking, 1985.