https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7680-7877
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ABSTRACT
Ports offer key vantage points from which to write a global history, as their trade connects people, goods, and capital to far reaching parts of the world. Instead of focusing on trade connections, this article proposes studying the spatial frameworks of comparison in free port and free zone planning. Using reports from ports, ministries, and chambers of commerce, this article analyses these shifting frameworks for comparison in Bombay’s port planning from the 1830s to the 1980s. Port planners, merchants, and ministry experts placed these ports and zones within shifting spatial frameworks, which determined which zones or ports could and could not be compared. These comparisons informed policy changes. Uncovering India’s free port and zone debates reveals the plurality of concepts and policy models, not a single original zone that has spread around the world. This article asks how these actors understood the world, its changing spatial formats, and the role of free ports or free zones in these constellations.
Acknowledgements
I wrote the majority of this article while guest researcher at the European University Institute, and in that context, I am thankful for the support of Corinna Unger. I am grateful to the colleagues who commented on this article, Geert Castryck, Katja Castryck-Naumann, Antje Dietze, Lasse Heerten, and Steffi Marung, as well as the editors of this journal issue, Koen Stapelbroek and Corey Tazzara, and its reviewers.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Examples include: Takeo, ‘Free Trade Zones’, 30; Wong and Chu, ‘Export Processing Zones and Special Economic Zones as Generators of Economic Development’, 1; Guangwen, ‘The Theory and Practice of Free Economic Zones’; Wang and Olivier, ‘Port-FEZ Bundles’, 1487; Ong, Neoliberalism as Exception, 103; Amitendu and Bhattacharjee, Special Economic Zones in India, 1; Bach, ‘Modernity and the Urban Imagination in Economic Zones’, 98–99; Aggarwal, Social and Economic Impact of SEZs in India, 15–36; Easterling, Extrastatecraft, 25–69; Khanna, Connectography, 279–280; Moberg, The Political Economy of Special Economic Zones, 3.
2 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), ‘World Investment Report 2019’, 2019. https://worldinvestmentreport.unctad.org/world-investment-report-2019/chapter-4-special-economic-zones/.
3 Neveling, ‘Free Trade Zones, Export Processing Zones’.
4 Neveling, ‘Export Processing Zones, Special Economic Zones and the Long March of Capitalist Development’.
5 Neveling, ‘The Global Spread’.
6 Maruschke, ‘Zones of Reterritorialization’.
7 Zhou, ‘Leveraging Liminality’.
8 Ogle, ‘Archipelago Capitalism’; Palan, ‘International Financial Centers’. Palan, like Ogle, brings the free trade zone within a spectrum of offshoring: Offshore World. Importantly, Dara Orenstein in Out of Stock situates zones not just in offshoring, but as participants in and drivers of new forms of assembling that broke apart the manufacturing process (chapters 4 and 5).
9 Neveling, ‘Export Processing Zones, Special Economic Zones and the Long March of Capitalist Development’.
10 Orenstein, Out of Stock.
11 Slobodian, Crack-Up Capitalism, 35; Benton, A Search for Sovereignty.
12 Maruschke, ‘Zones of Reterritorialization’ and Portals of Globalization, 77–101.
13 Orenstein, Out of Stock, 2.
14 Miller, ‘From Foreign Concessions to Special Economic Zones’; Orenstein, ‘Foreign Trade Zones and the Logic of Frictionless Production’, 39–41.
15 We should not confuse spatial formats with ideal types. For a larger discussion, see: Middell, ‘Category of Spatial Formats: To What End?’ 21–22.
16 Bombay was officially renamed Mumbai in 1995.
17 Espagne, Les Transferts Culturels Franco-Allemands; Adam, Intercultural Transfers and the Making of the Modern World.
18 Espagne, ‘Comparison and Transfer’, 48–51; Middell, ‘The Intercultural Transfer Paradigm in its Transnational and Transregional Setting’.
19 Epple, Erhart, and Grave, Practices of Comparing. For postcolonial perspectives on comparative practices, see: Melas, All the Difference in the World. For comparison as a global instrument today and the relations between connections and comparisons: Heintz and Werron, ‘Wie ist Globalisierung möglich?’
20 Möhring, Pisarz-Ramirez and Wardenga, Imaginationen.
21 For a methodological perspective, see: Baumman, Dietze and Maruschke, ‘Portals of Globalization’; Middell and Naumann, ‘Global History and the Spatial Turn’, 162–163. For a focus on ports, see: Heerten, ‘Ankerpunkte der Verflechtung’.
22 Lasse Heerten’s translated and revised article ‘Mooring Mobilities’ gives an overview of this scholarship and its new directions in global urban studies and labour histories.
23 For commodity flows connecting Bombay to other ports, see: Hazareesingh, ‘Interconnected Synchronicities’.
24 For a treatment, including the role played by business chambers in Britain and India, see Webster, Twilight of the East India Company.
25 Dossal, Imperial Designs and Indian Realities, 143–144.
26 B. Doveton and W. C. Bruce to L. R. Reid, 20 January 1834, 3 (Z/E/4/14/D577, 1834–1837), India Separate Revenue Department (ISRD), General Correspondence (GC), India Office Records (IOR), British Library (BL).
27 ‘Queries for Answers,’ Fort William, 19 May, no. 5 Govt. Dept. 1834, ISRD, GC, IOR, BL.
28 For some treatment: Wong, ‘Singapore: Its Growth as an Entrepot Port’, 56–58.
29 Separate Department letter to the Court of Directors of the East India Company, 25 July 1834, ISRD, GC, IOR, BL.
30 ‘Queries for Answers’, Fort William, 19 May, no. 5. Govt. Dept. 1834, ISRD, GC, IOR, BL.
31 ‘Note prepared by the Secretary to Government in the General Department’, 25 April 1834, ISRD, GC, IOR, BL.
32 Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 1864–1865, Annual Report, Asia and Pacific Collection (APC), BL, 136.
33 Act 22 of 1855 for the Regulation of Ports and Port Dues; Act 31 of 1857 for the Levy of Port Dues and Fees in the Port of Bombay.
34 For the global condition, see: Bright and Geyer, ‘Benchmarks of Globalization’.
35 For a history of this company and other Scottish merchants and bankers in Bombay and Glasgow, see: Hazareesingh, ‘Interconnected Synchronicities’.
36 Elphinstone Land & Press Company Limited, ‘Report of the Directors to the Shareholders at the Fourth Annual General Meeting’, 1863, Asia Pacific and Africa (APA), BL, 2.
37 Milne, Trade and Traders in Mid-Victorian Liverpool, 80.
38 For how Liverpool achieved this: Milne, Trade and Traders in Mid-Victorian Liverpool, 205.
39 Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 1864–1865, Annual Report, APA, BL, 135.
40 Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 1864–1865, Annual Report, APA, BL, 127.
41 Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 1864–1865, Annual Report, APA, BL, 139.
42 Act no. V. of 1870, An act for the levy of Fees for the use of the Government Bunders, Wharves, Landing Places, Piers and Hards in the City of Bombay, Bombay Presidency Actos, IOR, BL, 12–13.
43 Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 1870–1871, Annual Report, APA, BL, 227.
44 Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 1871–1872, Annual Report, APA, BL, 127.
45 Gilcriest, ‘The Mersey Dock and Harbour Board’, 273.
46 He revived an older discussion from his time at the Elphinstone company: Elphinstone Land & Press Company Limited, ‘Report of the Directors to the Shareholders at the Seventh Annual General Meeting’, 1866, APA, BL, 12–13.
47 Elphinstone Land & Press Company Limited, ‘Report of the Directors to the Shareholders at the Seventh Annual General Meeting’, 1866, APA, BL, 12–13 and 22.
48 Bombay Port Trust, ‘Administration Report to 31st March 1879’, Bombay Port Trust Records (BPTR), IOR, BL, 64.
49 Bombay Port Trust, ‘Administration Report to 31st March 1879’, BPTR, IOR, BL, 135.
50 Bombay Port Trust, ‘Administration Report to the 31st March 1875’, BPTR, IOR, BL, 23.
51 For global history approaches to port cities in the nineteenth century that go beyond connectivity and networks, see: Heerten, ‘Mooring Mobilities, Fixing Flows’.
52 For ‘territorial thinking' (rather than imagination), see, Maier, Once within Borders, 187.
53 The 2021 Major Port Authorities Act reorganized the port trust boards into port authorities, which operate with more autonomy.
54 For an overview, Milbert, ‘Building the Economy: 1947–1980’.
55 Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India, Resolution No. 64-LW (34)/49, ‘Report of the Export Promotion Committee’, 1948, Indian Merchants’ Chamber (IMC) archives, 126–127.
56 For an analysis of the foreign-trade zone, see especially: Orenstein, Out of Stock; Orenstein, ‘Foreign-Trade Zones’.
57 Orenstein, Out of Stock, 215–226.
58 Letter No. 9-FTA (4)/48 dated 29 June 1949, from the Ministry of Commerce, Government of India to the Indian Merchants’ Chamber, in Indian Merchants’ Chamber, Annual Report for the Year 1949, IMC, 1950, 414.
59 ‘Report of the Export Promotion Committee’, 1948, IMC, 126–127; ‘Report of the Export Promotion Committee’, 1957, IMC, 47–49.
60 Letter no. 1257, 2 April, 1952, from the Indian Merchants’ Chamber to the Government of India, and Letter no. 6-TP(P)(2)/50, 9 May 1951, from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to the Chamber, in Indian Merchants’ Chamber, Annual Report, 1952, IMC, 469–471.
61 Ministry of Transport, Government of India, ‘Report of the West Coast Major Port Development Committee regarding the possibility of siting a major port on the coast covered by Kathiawar and Cutch’, 1949, Annual Reports (AR), India Official Department (IOD), Central Secretariat Library (CSL), 11.
62 Although debates began around the same time, eventually ‘New Bombay’ city (Navi Mumbai) was founded with its own port on the other side of the same body of water as Bombay Port, but this new port took almost forty years after discussion to complete (now Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust or Nhava Sheva port).
63 Maruschke, ‘Zones of Reterritorialization’.
64 Ministry of Finance, Department of Revenue, Government of India, ‘Report of the Customs Reorganisation Committee’, 1958, AR, IOD, CSL, 69.
65 Transport Research Division, Ministry of Shipping and Transport, Government of India, ‘India Ports and Shipping Statistics 1970’, AR, IOD, CSL, 50.
66 See Orenstein, ‘Foreign-Trade Zones’.
67 Engerman, ‘The Political Power of Economic Ideas?’
68 Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India, ‘Report of the Export Promotion Committee’, 31 August 1957, IMC, 47–49. ‘Report of the Export Promotion Committee’, 1949, IMC, 26–27.
69 One of the last references is in a pre-1965 report regarding a failed project in Maharashtra: Maharashtra Economic Development Council, ‘Report on Free-Trade Zone in Maharashtra’, 1964 (reprinted 1970), General Reference Collection, BL.
70 The Ministry of Commerce did not systematically collect standardized statistics on India’s zones during these decades, but KFTZ’s early progress and construction is noted in Kandla Port Trust reports (which fell under the Ministry of Transport).
71 Kumar, India’s Export Processing Zones. Selections of Kumar’s findings are evaluated in: Neveling, ‘Structural Contingencies and Untimely Coincidences in the Making of Neoliberal India’. Neveling’s article does not mention the kinship networks central to Kumar’s argument. Maruschke, ‘Zones of Reterritorialization’ and Portals of Globalization, 112–133.
72 Maharashtra Economic Development Council, ‘Report on Free-Trade Zone in Maharashtra’, 1964, reprinted 1970, BL.
73 For the Eastern Bloc as a spatial format and its relationship with territorial states and transnational and international politics, see: Marung, Müller, and Troebst, ‘Monolith or Experiment?’
74 Maruschke, ‘Zones of Reterritorialization’. Patrick Neveling identifies the 1970s as a period of consolidation: ‘The Global Spread’.
75 For an analysis, see Neveling, ‘Export Processing Zones, Special Economic Zones and the Long March of Capitalist Development’.
76 Thomas Kelleher, ‘Handbook on Export Free Zones’, UNIDO, 1976, 42.
77 Fröbel, Heinrichs, and Kreye, The New International Division of Labor.
78 As outlined in the introduction to this article, see Neveling, ‘Export Processing Zones, Special Economic Zones and the Long March of Capitalist Development’.
79 The port and zone are not on the same site, though near each other. Their oversight also falls under the purview of two separate ministries, transport and commerce.
80 Ministry of Shipping, Government of India, Kandla Port Trust, 1978, AR, IOR, CSL, 22; Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India, ‘Problems hindering the growth of KFTZ’, Report of the committee appointed under the chairmanship of Shri P. K. Kaul, 1978, IOR, CSL; Ministry of Steel, Minas & Coal, Government of India, ‘Report of the review committee on electronics’, 30 September 1979, IOR, CSL; ‘Committee on Export Strategy 1980s’, New Delhi: Ministry of Commerce, Government of India, 1980, in Committees and Commissions in India, 1979, 17, B, compiled by Virenda Kumar, New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company, 1994, 437–473.
81 ‘Report of the Review Committee on Electronics’, 45.
82 Indian Merchants’ Chamber, Annual Report, 1984, IMC, 155.
83 ‘Report of the Review Committee on Electronics’, 156–159.
84 Kumar, India’s Export Processing Zones, 116.
85 Kumar, India’s Export Processing Zones, 42.
86 Kumar, India’s Export Processing Zones, 99–100.
87 Kennedy, The Politics of Economic Restructuring in India, ch. 5. See also, Aggarwal, Social and Economic Impacts of SEZs, which gives a federal policy background; Jenkins, Kennedy, and Mukhopadhyay, Power, Policy, and Protest gives a state-by-state account of zones in India’s federal system.