In The Indian Bourgeoisie, David Lockwood examines what, from the logic of classical Marxist theory, would seem to be a curious paradox: the fact that by 1947 Indian capitalists had come to endorse a policy of extensive state intervention and to back a nationalist leadership committed to socialism and state planning. In this study, Lockwood conducts a sweeping history of the politics of the Indian “bourgeoisie” from the beginning of the twentieth century up through independence. For a brief period, when the exigencies of the First World War created strong pressures for greater military supplies, British imperial actors supported a policy of industrial development favored by Indian businessmen. But after the war, Lockwood demonstrates, they backed away from this position, and capitalists on the subcontinent came to align themselves increasingly with Indian nationalists, who were often willing to advocate positions promoting industrialization. Lockwood's study is based upon in-depth research in English-language sources in imperial archives and in the papers of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.

For the South Asian specialists who will be the main readers of a review in JAS, the chief value of this book will be its effort to chart the political actions and political stances of Indian capitalists over the whole course of the first half of the twentieth century. Lockwood's long-term perspective allows us to understand reasons for the shift in allegiances of Indian businessmen from a pro-imperialist to a staunchly nationalist and statist perspective over time. He goes over ground that will be familiar to specialists but that has usually not been covered in such a comprehensive way. The general argument and framework of the book, however, is pitched more to scholars with an interest in the history of bourgeoisies worldwide than it is to South Asianists. Lockwood demonstrates that the capitalist class of India was hardly in charge of the process of state-making, in contrast to its supposed role in “classical” bourgeois revolutions. Indian businessmen in effect “subordinated” (p. 196) themselves to the Congress, which possessed considerable political resources of its own, and even developed commitments to the principles of a state-directed economy. Such arguments probably will seem unremarkable to South Asian political and economic historians but they do have significant value in placing India in a comparative perspective and in challenging any assumption that capitalists must exert a controlling influence in countries that do not experience social revolutions.

Despite the title of the book, Lockwood does relatively little to flesh out the Indian capitalist class or the process of its formation. The book actually starts with a discussion of imperial policy toward industry, not with the background of Indian industrialists, their businesses, their ideological commitments, or their political organizations. These issues emerge somewhat sketchily and only after the narrative is well under way. Later in the book, we observe a small number of actors—like the members of the Tata family, Purshotamdas Thakurdas and Ghanshyamdas Birla—mainly at moments when they took political stances. We learn relatively little of their general sociopolitical perspectives, a feature of the book that often leads to an emphasis on economic interests at the expense of ideology and cultural values. The issue of whether or why these various individuals came to form a capitalist “class” or a “bourgeoisie” is taken for granted rather than examined. Actors other than the capitalists, imperialists, and nationalists are given scant attention; the role of “subalterns” and small-scale entrepreneurs, whose actions certainly influenced the political stances of the big industrialists, are rarely mentioned.

The narrow focus of the book sometimes also leads to problematic conclusions. While it is true that the imperial state did not back the development of armaments production during World War II, it did encourage industry in other areas, such as the manufacture of consumer goods (which were needed because of the substantial reduction in imports). It is also clearly mistaken to argue from an examination of imperial policies alone that “what was not happening [during the war] … was industrialization” (p. 152). Indian producers took advantage of wartime conditions to intensify their activities in major and multiple ways; overall the war resulted in significant expansion of Indian capital at the expense of British business.

The strength of this work instead is in focusing on the dynamics of interaction between various kinds of elite figures at the highest levels and in discussing the reasons Indian industrialists came to support the Congress and its economic policies. Despite its limitations, these strengths make The Indian Bourgeoisie well worth reading.