Social Capital and Its Limits in Fortune Making Joseph Stephens’ Enterprises in India and Scandinavia, 1859–69

Abstract

The significance of the ‘contract system’ in Indian colonial railway construction has been hotly debated among historians. In the 1860s, the British government decided to continue the practice in spite of heavy criticism against its bad performance. On the basis of historical documents in Joseph Stephens Archive, Maharashtra State Archives, and the National Archives of India, this chapter traces the logic of the longevity of the system. The author argues that British imperial rule justified its acts by an ideological rational, which projected itself as a provider of ‘justness’, legality, and order. Therefore, the peculiar nature of the socio-economic relations during railway construction may have impacted on the decision to continue with the contract system. At the time, the railway project depended on formal and deeply informal social and professional networks and transactions. They were simultaneously a necessary and uncomfortable ‘underbelly’ of railway construction in India. The government’s need to justify its means and ends found it judicious to construct a convenient and carefully maintained distance between itself and the messy, everyday world, which constituted the contract system. The ‘informality’ of the system would not have worked well with a scheme of direct and immediate government control, which necessitated the system.