Economic Outcomes from Contrasting Colonial Strategies by the East India Company and British Raj at an Inter-Regional Level Between 1757-1947

My anticipated (general) area of research focus: Literature around the economic impact of British interference in India at a national level is abundant, however inter-regional variations, especially covering the western Tribal Areas and Balochistan have been relatively sparsely covered. On the one hand, the East India Company established the port cities of Madras, Bombay and Calcutta with the commercial opportunities here attracting the migration of many Indians (especially merchants and bankers). Eventually, institutions such as colleges and universities were established there making English language the lingua franca of the region, producing highly skilled doctors, civil servants and lawyers. The British Raj then expanded the access of these Indian merchants to overseas markets and the volume of trade through these three ports increased fivefold between 1863-1913. Other regions such as the United Provinces, Gujrat and Punjab experienced vast agricultural development with cultivated acreage across these regions increasing by a factor of 2.11 between 1600 and 1910, according to research by Professor Stephen Broadberry. In contrast, the Tribal Areas of western British India mainly experienced British military aggression and by 1947, there were no schools, hospitals, railways or other infrastructure within these Tribal Areas, except for those used exclusively by the British. In fact, the Waziristan region is reported to have had more troops stationed there in 1936 than anywhere else in the entire subcontinent. Other regions such as Bihar witnessed significant economic deindustrialisation in the 19th century. Balochistan and the Tribal Areas were given significant autonomy, although without any plans for economic development or institution building. This view is supported by Professors Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson who argue that colonisers less likely to settle in a specific region (possibly because of facing higher mortality like the British faced in the Tribal Areas and Balochistan), were more likely to establish extractive states there. These extractive states then determine the quality of institutions and the subsequent economic performance of the region. I would like to use regional British and Indian military mortality figures as a proxy for institutions, investigating heterogeneity across British Indian regions and then comparing it to the economic performances of these regions today to evaluate Acemoglu et al.'s hypothesis. Moreover, the Tribal Areas and Balochistan mainly consist of the Pashtun tribes of Mohmand, Shinwari, Achekzai and Kakar amongst many others, who were involuntarily separated from their fellow tribespeople between Afghanistan and British India in the late 19th century. I would like to compare the modern economic performances of these tribes settled in Balochistan and the Tribal Areas who have experienced the legacy of British colonial rule with their fellow identical tribespeople in Afghanistan who lived under the Durrani and Barakzai empires. This comparison can then hopefully be used as a robustness check of the overall long-term economic impact of the British colonial rule. By focusing on the economic impact of inter-regional variations of colonial strategies and covering the Tribal Areas and Balochistan amongst other British Indian regions, I will hopefully be filling up a gap within the academic discourse. Being natively fluent in Pashto and understanding Dari and Urdu, I would like to use primary and secondary sources in these languages to contribute to my research and to the wider academic discourse, from a non-European perspective.