Routing the Commodities of the Empire through Sikkim (1817-1906) Vibha Arora

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Trading in commodities rooted and routed the British Empire, and commercial control over production and exchange of commodities facilitated political expansion globally. Landlocked Sikkim is located directly on the inland trade route between British India and Tibet and China. The paper provides a socio-historical analysis of international treaties and internal and external trade for the period 1817-1906. The administration of trade routes reveals imperial concern to circulate the commodities of the Empire through Sikkim. Expansion and empire were not distinct but interdependent processes and mutually reinforcing in Himalayan Sikkim. What were the main commodities exchanged on this trading route? What was the volume of trade in comparison to Nepal? How did the commodities of the empire provide an impetus and pretext for imperial control of the Eastern Himalayas? This paper seeks to provide answers to these questions. It is this imperative of routing the commodities of the British East India Company that explained the annexation of Darjeeling Hills from Sikkim in 1835, the transformation of Sikkim into an imperial colony of Great Britain in the 19th century, and finally into a state of British India in 1906. Political control of Sikkim facilitated capital accumulation, expansion of capitalism and funneled the British imperial engine into the Highlands of Asia.

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