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Commercialisation, Tribute, and the Transition from fate Mughal to Early Colonial in India 1

Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 110 067

The common view of the transition in eighteenth century India from a medieval to an early-colonial formation as a fundamental rupture overlooks several structural continuities, especially in the fiscal bases of the state. Commercial grouth underpinned the transition; the state's finances in both regimes depended on highly monetised systems of revenue extraction. Both used these resources for military-fiscal pur poses. Contrary to conventional wisdom, there wasn't much increase in the net burden of taxes to mark the early colonial regime. The dif ferences arose in the fiscal inflexibility of the new system, its success in systematising the tribute to build an efficient military apparatus. and its propensity to use politics for commercial purposes in order to transfer the profits through an elaborate global network of public and private remittances.

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