Book Summary Series, Part 1: Bengal Agriculture 1920–1946 by M. Mufakharul Islam

A Quantitative Milestone in Bangladesh’s Economic History

As a student of agricultural and environmental economic history, I often find it frustrating how neglected these topics are in mainstream development economics—especially when it comes to Bangladesh. Most of the Bangladeshi research published in economics journals tends to focus on randomized controlled trials (RCTs). That’s a whole different story, let’s talk about Bangladeshi RCT on some other day!

So - to fill this gap in my reading, I turned to historians. Over the past five years, I’ve read a range of historical works that offer deeper insights into the region’s agrarian and ecological past and historical roots of underdevelopment. This Substack series is my attempt to share some of those readings.

I will start with M. Mufakharul Islam, whose work stands out as one of the few quantitative studies of the agricultural history of Bangladesh.

Why This Book Matters

Economic history books on Bangladesh are few—and those that do exist or get popularity often remain rooted heavily on religious-political divides ending in 1947. Few works engage with the structural economic history of the region, especially through a data-driven lens. Yet there are some important and fascinating books that have largely gone unnoticed in economics, perhaps because they were written by historians…

I begin with Bengal Agriculture 1920–1946 by M. Mufakhurul Islam. Professor Islam was a faculty member at the University of Dhaka, and this book originated as his PhD thesis in 1968. Published in the Cambridge South Asian Studies series, it offers one of the very few quantitative histories of Bengal’s agrarian economy—and arguably the only one of its kind with this level of empirical ambition.

Central Argument: Stagnation in a Commercializing Economy

Islam’s inquiry centers on a puzzle: despite the significant expansion of agricultural markets and export demand (especially for jute) in late colonial Bengal, agricultural productivity remained largely stagnant. He argues that this stagnation was not due to peasant backwardness or lack of market exposure, but rather due to structural bottlenecks—absence of industrialization, a weak base of capital formation, technological inertia, and the persistent control of land by rent-seeking landlords. Although acreage under cash crops expanded slightly, overall cultivated area grew marginally and yield per acre remained flat—leaving food production unable to keep pace with population growth.

A Two-Part Structure: From Data Revision to Agrarian Analysis

The book is structured in two parts. The first addresses the quality and reliability of official crop statistics in Bengal, highlighting chronic overestimation of yield and underestimation of acreage. Drawing on sources such as Indian Statistical Institute surveys, district settlement reports, and independent field data, Islam reconstructs a corrected time series for output, acreage, and yield between 1920/21 and 1945/46. In the second part, he uses these revised figures to explore the determinants of agricultural performance, including rainfall patterns, land use decisions, cropping intensity, plough and livestock usage, and the role of credit institutions and landlords.

This approach allows Islam to uncover regional variation in productivity and land use, identify the differential trends between food and cash crops, and interpret cropping decisions in relation to price incentives and technological constraints. Jute and autumn rice emerge as the most price-responsive crops, while winter rice—the dominant food grain—shows stagnant yields and sensitivity mainly to rainfall. Capital inputs such as ploughs and animal labor declined over the period, suggesting diminishing investment. Yet cultivators still adjusted crop choices in rational ways, favoring crops with better returns in relative price or yield.

The Deeper Problems: Credit, Landlords, and Technological Stasis

Islam traces much of the stagnation to deeper institutional failures. The rural credit system remained dominated by moneylenders, with the Co-operative Credit Movement reaching only a fraction of cultivators. Even where credit existed, it was rarely linked to productivity-enhancing inputs or innovation. Landlords, meanwhile, lacked the incentive to invest in agriculture due to inelastic markets and secure rents. The state offered only superficial reforms—granting some tenancy protections but never redistributing land or surplus. In short, the forces needed for agrarian modernization—technological, financial, institutional—remained absent or weak.

Conclusion

The final picture is of an agrarian economy trapped in a low-level equilibrium: acreage remained static, yield growth was negligible, and productivity gains were limited by the exhaustion of traditional methods. Yet this was not a story of irrationality. Bengal’s cultivators, constrained by limited access to credit, technology, and secure land rights, still made rational choices—shifting land to more profitable crops where possible.

In my reading, Islam’s most valuable contribution—and what I appreciate most—is his careful attention to data quality and his commitment to revising official statistics to produce a more accurate and credible picture of Bengal’s agrarian economy.

Reference:
Mufakharul, I. M. (2007). Bengal Agriculture 1920-1946: A Quantitative Study (Vol. 22). Cambridge University Press.