The article explores the historical trajectory of opium production, regulation, and distribution in nineteenth-century Bihar, highlighting its integral role in bolstering the British colonial economy. Numerous scholars have documented the global history of opium production, trade, and consumption; however, these accounts have often overlooked the role of local-level involvement in production and its contribution to the world economy during the nineteenth century. The article explores the historical significance of Bihar in the context of opium production as a crucial component of the British imperial economy, drawing on underutilised archival materials to provide granular regional detail. It analyses the development of opium cultivation and British colonial strategies to maximise revenue from Bengal opium. This paper offers a comparative analysis of the opium systems of Bihar and Malwa to demonstrate how differing colonial governance strategies produced distinct regional trajectories. The article posits that the colonial state’s pursuit of economic gain through the opium production in Bihar ultimately surpassed the broader objectives of the imperial economic agenda, highlighting the ‘politics of profit’ that prioritised fiscal extraction over sustainable governance.
Yadav et al. (Tue,) studied this question.