"Capitalising on Turbulence: The Genesis of Portland Cement in the History of South Asia (1900-1945)"

First introduced by the British military engineers at the turn of the twentieth century, the popularity of artificial or Portland cement grew steadily through the turbulences of the War (1914 to 1919), the Depression, and the subsequent War (1939 to 1945) in the space of South Asia. I seek to trace the genesis and development of early cement manufacturing in the subcontinent along these epochs of crises. In this paper, I present business history at intersection with the history of technology and military history, using of a wide range of archives- including government reports and correspondences, treatises of civil engineering, technical journals, advertisements, etc. I propose to explore the following research questions in my paper: Firstly, the complex relation between socio-economic crises and the experiences of specific business sectors. The trajectory of the cement industry in South Asia reveals that the two did not necessarily coincide. The Wars unfolded remarkable opportunities of growth for the industry as the state became its steady customer in the times of uncertainty. I argue that this study poses a challenge to the notions of essential causal link between political stability and growth of businesses. Secondly, apart from responding in more obvious ways to the crises of the Depression, like forming associations and demanding protection against imports, the cement industry diversified itself in more complex ways to pave way for sustained demands, one of which was to promote technical expertise and awareness about the material. Here, I mean to explore the ways in which technical training in handling cement interacted with commercial interests of the manufacturers. Lastly, while the colonial state apparatus often served as a vehicle for technological transfers, contradictions of colonialism haunted the growth of business in South Asia. The refusal of the colonial government to grant protection to the domestic cement companies in 1925 exemplified these tensions. Hence, the commodity history of cement, I suggest, is also telling of the fickle courses along which South Asia witnessed capitalist development; a trajectory imbued with turbulences.