Business and Politics in the 1930s Lancashire and the Making of the Indo-British Trade Agreement, 1939

Abstract

During the inter-war years there were significant developments in Indo-British economic and political relations. It is in the context of these developments that this paper will seek to study the complex relationships between the different fractions of businessmen, British and Indian, the Government of India, the Home Government and the Indian National Congress. The major theme of this paper is the attempts made in the 1930s by governments and businessmen to reorganize the economic relations between Britain and India to take account of changes wrought by the first world war, the world depression, and the ascent of Indian nationalism. One question which dominated these negotiations was the long-standing issue of duties on cotton goods imported into India. This issue served to bring into sharp focus the different views of the imperial rulers, British businessmen in India, Indian businessmen of different sorts, and nationalist politicians, on the immediate future of the economic link between Britain and India. The question of cotton duties dogged the talks on economic cooperation from the tariff negotiations of the early 1930s, through the period of the Ottawa agreement and Lees-Mody pact, to the Indo-British Trade Agreement of 1939.