Modern South Asian History

This special issue of the Journal of Hindu Studies explores Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava engagement with key facets of colonial modernity and its role in shaping modern Hindu discourse. The issue's publication, it is hoped, will serve to both nurture the growing sub-field of Modern Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava Studies and, more broadly, encourage greater attention to the important contributions of other such sampradāyic Hindu currents to the texture and dynamics of modern Hinduism.

Did the promulgation of the Indian constitution on 26 January 1950 make a difference to the lives of most Indians? This article argues that contrary to existing scholarly and popular belief, the adoption of a written constitution with a bill of rights and judicial review transformed the relationship between the citizen and the state and emerged as a new field of practice. It does so by mapping the growth of judicial review of executive action through a series of similar challenges under Articles 32 and 226. Examining the trial of rebels and malcontents in Bengal, Hyderabad, Bombay, and Saurashtra during the early years of the postcolonial republic, it teases out how colonial governmentality responds to the institution of a written constitution. The article demonstrates that the constitution came to be utilized as a resource and a venue to challenge the continuation of the colonial practice of special tribunals and exceptional procedures. Judicial remedies made constitutional governance a two-way process, where citizens could insert themselves into a conversation on state practice. Constitutional law became grounded in uncertainty as the results in very similar cases varied widely. However, it was this uncertainty about constitution law that gave it legitimacy and attracted widespread participation by the state and citizens.

The central orientation of this article is organised around
Dalit identity politics and their implications on the
project of writing history in postcolonial India. It critically
engages with the Subaltern Studies project as a school
of postcolonial historiography that claims to represent
the voice of the marginalised and yet stops short of
acknowledging caste and caste-based oppression as
worthy of historical analysis. In particular, it engages
with Dipesh Chakrabarty’s reflections on Dalit identity
politics in postcolonial India and argues that Dalits,
while demanding sociopolitical equality and a dignified
identity, also challenge the epistemologies of the nation
and demand its historical narratives to be egalitarian
and inclusive.

From as early as the 1880s until today, electrical power has served as a useful medium for ushering an urban industrial era throughout the world. This article examines the process of electrification in a colonial setting—Calcutta, the capital of British India till 1911. Access to electricity depended upon economics and technological advances, as well as a combination of local community and regional characteristics such as location, landscape, demographics, politics and culture. Western techno-scientific discourse occupied an extremely important place in the colonization of India. It is known that Western technology and ideas manipulated various technological projects in the colony, including electrification. Was there something unique about Calcutta and its plan that led to the elec-trification of a colonial metropolis almost simultaneously with other Western industrial nations? By the middle of the twentieth century, electricity, with its elaborate infrastructure of wires, generation stations and poles, emerged as the industrial era's most prominent symbol of progress in Calcutta. The Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation Ltd (CESC), with its head office in London, played the most vital role, debating and resolving various technical questions, such as load factor, fuel sources, operating generation stations and electricity supply to industry, traction and population centres. This article, based on extensive archi-val research, shows how, despite colonial derivatives, the resulting electrical systems were locally initiated and customized to the needs and characteristics of the region.

Edited volume summary:  This volume is one of the first comprehensive contributions to the rapidly developing cross disciplinary scholarship that connects visual studies with South Asian historiography. The key purpose of the book is to introduce scholars and students of South Asian and Indian history to the first in-depth evaluation of visual research methods as a valid research framework for new historical studies. The volume identifies and evaluates current developments in visual sociology and digital anthropology relevant to the study of contemporary South Asian constructions of personal and national identities.

Owing to its wide-ranging theoretical methodology, from concepts of visual perception to media semiotics, Visual Histories of South Asia covers a rich thematic agenda with contributions ranging from ethnographic research to gender studies, fine arts analyses, theoretical and methodological questions, economic structures, international politics and contemporary cultural patterns.

In charting the theoretical and historical advances in visual and historical studies dedicated to South Asia, and by addressing issues of private and national memory within regional, national, and contemporary South Asian iconography, from the mid-seventeenth century to the early twenty-first century, and the thirteen contributions selected for this volume are of immediate relevance to visual theorists and historians, sociologists and cultural anthropologists, as well as to students and scholars of South Asian history and culture.

Next to agriculture, the economic condition of the largest number of people in Bengal depended on cottage industries. Yet this important branch of the economy remained neglected for a long time with the result that many cottage industries decayed and many more were in a moribund condition. The Bengal Home Industries Association, founded in 1917 by Lady Carmichael, aimed at the revival and regeneration of cottage industries of the Presidency. This article tends to explore the organization of production, marketing of products, and other activities of the Bengal Home Industries Association during 1917 to 1940.

Environmental management in colonial South Asia was at once a biological, economic, social, and political process. It is helpful, therefore, to understand its history as a pastiche: a complex interplay of post-Enlightenment political ideology, race theory, physiocratic ‘improvement’ missions, biomedical presumptions, and agro-economic maneuvers of landscapes and lives.

These principles and practices dovetailed and diverged given the priorities in India of the British Empire, which also borrowed from and jettisoned older, precolonial modes and methods of ecological management as necessary and expedient. This chapter focuses on four broad parameters – forests, water, social unrest, and animals – through which this history unfolded and materialised.

"The Industrial Development of Bengal, 1900-1939. By A. Z. M. IFTIKHAR-UL-AWWAL. Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1982. pp. 256 (Distributed in the U.S. and Canada by Advent Books, New York.) "

PREFACE:

The present work examines the industrial experience of Bengal during the period 1900 to 1939 with particular emphasis on the role of the government as the main instrument for growth. For this work, available statistical material has been utilized for the sake of precision as well as to strengthen the qualitative evidence. The book contains eight chapters. While Chapter I builds up the case for industrial development, Chapter II examines in detail the industrial policy of the Bengal government in the light of its own limitations as a subordinate authority to the Government of India and that of Whitehall. Chapter III is an investigation of the labour market in Bengal with emphasis on the supply of labour to jute, tea and coal industries in relation to wages and conditions of work. In Chapter IV, I have examined the rates of profitability and security of industrial investments. In this chapter, I have also examined the financial institutions of the time and their role in the industrial development of the province. Chapter V points to some of the difficulties experienced by Indian entrepreneurs, and in the above light looks at their contribution to the larger industrial establishments of Bengal. The next two Chapters VI and VII examine the growth and development of the two biggest manufacturing industries of our period--jute and handloom cotton weaving industries. The concluding chapter is an estimate of the industrial progress made in the province during the period under review.

This book is a slightly revised version of my Ph.D. thesis submitted to the University of London in 1978. In the preparation of this thesis, I have accumulated an enormous debt of gratitude to my Supervisor, Dr. K. N. Chaudhuri whose careful vigilance and timely intervention saved me from many factual errors and infelicities of style. My thanks are also due to Mr. I. B. Harrison, who went through some of my preliminary chapters during the absence of Dr Chaudhuri in 1975-76 and made many useful observations. I am also indebted to Dr. Sirajul Islam of Dacca University for helping me with some necessary corrections.

Here I take this opportunity also to express my deep gratitude to the UK Commonwealth Commission which offered me a scholarship for three years which enabled me to undertake this research work. Needless to say, without their financial help it would have been virtually impossible to pursue this course of studies. I also wish to thank the University of Dacca for granting me the necessary study leave.

There remains also a special group of people - without whose co-operation, patience and tolerance, this work would not have seen the light of day. In this group belong the library staff of the British Library (including the Newspaper Section at Colindale), Senate House Library, the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies, and particularly, the India Office Library and Records (including their Newspaper Section at the Bush House). I take this opportunity to thank Mr. J. Sims of the India Office Library and Records for being so helpful in tracking down apparently untraceable official documents. I wish to thank the staff of the Bangladesh Secretariat Record Room and of the Secretariat Library, Dacca for extending me all possible facilities in carrying out my research work. Finally, I owe a special debt of gratitude to my wife, Lilly whose support and constant encouragement over these years was invaluable in completing this work.

The nineteenth century was a very significant period in the history of modern India. It was during this period that the country witnessed the emergence of many intellectual currents in all aspects: religious, social, political, economic and cultural. For the colonial power, by the beginning of the nineteenth century, the empire had more or less been won. The job was to keep it, and to use it for profit. Colonialism was not the result of mere Western superiority, but of the unleashing of overwhelming force backed by technology at minimal cost. Technological changes affected the timing and location of European conquests and thus determined the economic relations of colonialism. It made European expansion swift, thorough and cheap. The new ability of Europeans in the nineteenth century to conquer other territories arose from relatively few inventions like iron-hulled steam ships, improved firearms, telegraph, railways and so on. With these tools, Europeans brought about a shift in global relations. The current study seeks to find answers as to how various technological tools and projects were used by the British in the nineteenth century Bengal and whether the relocation of Western technologies on Indian soil was really successful.

Public electricity supplies became available in Calcutta as early as the 1890s and by the 1940s had developed to become the major source of power and lighting both for industries and private use. Could the electrification of Calcutta act as an agent of industrial development? What impact did it have on the socioeconomic condition of the city? The twentieth century was to be the age of electricity. Apart from industrial use of this new technology, to realise its full practical capacities a new discipline emerged—electrical engineering. The Bengali electrical engineering community, alumni of Sibpur and Jadavpur Engineering Colleges, gradually oriented themselves towards ideas of industrial development based on Indian realities. Few trained electrical engineers entered in the business sector and became very successful. High level of technological innovation such as that of hydroelectricity was also exploited by the Bengali entrepreneurs. The credentials of the Bengali erudite and ordinary people in the field of electricity, which this article tries to explore, offer an interesting example of Indian response to the new knowledge. Modern machine helps to boost the productivity of any industry. We would request the young men of our country to learn the art of electricity, because future is here. The current industrial trend indicates the acceptance of electricity as the main motive power over other sources of energy.

This research paper is aimed at assessing the impact of major institutions on the performance of police. The research study is divided into three parts. In the first part, an attempt is made to explore how judiciary affects the performance of the police and aggravates the deteriorating situation of police. The second part deals with the dominating role of military over police and explains the repercussions of the arbitrary interference of military on police. The third and last part is an attempt to examine the historical roots of undemocratic administrative structure of governance, culminating in the disastrous effects of devolution plan of Musharraf regime. Via historiographical methods, the research tries to analyze both primary and secondary sources gathered through archival research.

Even after nearly two hundred years of British rule over Bengal, the industrial development of the province remained pitiful. Various causes such as lack of enterprise and industrial aptitude among the people, shyness of capital, want of skilled manpower, smallness of market, underdeveloped communication system, religious and social structure, lack of sufficient raw materials, uneconomic outlook of the people, etc. have been held to be responsible for the poor industrial performance of the province. However, most of these alleged inhibiting factors were not altogether irremovable ills. Armed with unlimited power, the state by undertaking a positive role could not only remove hindrances to industrial development, but also through appropriate policy decisions promote its cause.

The pioneering role of the state in the industrialisation of the West and Japan are shining examples in this direction. This was exactly what the people of India also demanded from the state. They piously hoped that by the joint cooperation of the Government and the people, there appears to be no reason why India, with all its natural advantages, should not reach equal, if not a higher standard among the manufacturing nations of the world. But were their expectations fulfilled? Did the government (government at all levels) pay heed to the needs and potential of industrial, development? If so, how large was their participation? This paper is an attempt to bring forth the amount and degree of state endeavours in resolving the basic problems of Bengal's industrialisation.

The paper is divided into five sections. Policy measures pertaining to tariff questions, stores purchase, the question of capital supply and enterprise are discussed in the first four sections, and the fifth is a general survey of the industrial activities of the government during the period under review.

The paper attempts to demonstrate that Jinnah was a charismatic leader and it was mainly because of his charismatic leadership he was able to achieve Pakistan despite all odds----including the opposition of the British and the All India National Congress

From the closing decades of the nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, Dadabhai Naoroji (1825‒1917) was India’s foremost intellectual celebrity — by the end of his career, he was known as ‘the Grand Old Man of India’. He spent most his life moving between western India and England in various capacities — as social reformer, academic, businessman, and politician. His life’s work was the redress of the inequalities of imperialism through political activism in London, at the heart of the British empire, where colonial policy was formulated. This project brought him to Westminster, where he became Britain’s first Indian member of parliament (MP). As a Liberal Party MP, he represented the constituency of Central Finsbury, London, from 1892 to 1895. Above all, he used the political structures, concepts, and language of the British empire to reshape it from within and, in this way, improve India’s political destiny.

De la fin du xixe siècle jusqu’au début du xxe siècle, Dadabhai Naoroji (1825-1917) fut l’une des principales figures intellectuelles de l’Inde – à la fin de sa carrière, il était surnommé « the Grand Old Man of India ». Il évolua durant la plus grande partie de son existence entre l’ouest de l’Inde et l’Angleterre, en qualité de réformateur social, d’universitaire, d’hommes d’affaires et de politicien. Il consacra sa vie à corriger les inégalités inhérentes à l’impérialisme en menant des actions politiques à Londres, cœur de l’Empire britannique et foyer d’élaboration de la politique coloniale. Cet objectif le conduisit à Westminster, où il devint le premier Indien à siéger au Parlement britannique. En tant que membre du parti libéral, il représenta les électeurs de Central Finsbury, Londres, de 1892 à 1895. Mais il utilisa surtout les structures politiques, les concepts et le vocabulaire forgés par l’Empire britannique pour remodeler ce dernier de l’intérieur et, ainsi, améliorer le sort politique de l’Inde.

Kaveh Yazdani’s seven-hundred-page volume is an ambitious, imaginative expansion of the author’s PhD dissertation. The book’s aim is to address a longstanding historiographical conundrum: why did the modernity-capitalism nexus develop and thrive in Europe, but not in the rest of the world? In his concern with locating the historical roots of the rise of the West, Yazdani partially follows Kenneth Pomeranz’s The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (2000). While Pomeranz sought answers in China’s lower Yangzi delta, Yazdani’s path takes him to South Asia. This geographical shift constitutes a refreshing development, as most explorations of the Great Divergence have not strayed far from East Asia. Yazdani’s focus is on two regions of South Asia that, because of their social, political, and commercial dynamism, make for particularly compelling case studies: Mysore and Gujarat.

Maharaja Sayaji Rao Gaekwad III of Baroda (1862‒1939) was one of the most extraordinary Indian princes of the colonial period. From 1875 to 1939 he ruled Baroda, western India’s preeminent princely state — and one of the most important ones in the subcontinent, along with Hyderabad and Mysore. Despite being selected and educated by the British, he used his power and influence to participate not just in imperial politics — as was expected of him, as a “model” Indian prince raised to be an ally of the British empire — but also in India’s growing anticolonial movement. Crucially, across his six-decade political career he carried out this double political engagement both in the Indian subcontinent and abroad. One of India’s most well-travelled rulers, he completed twenty-eight international tours. These tours to Europe, North America, East Asia and Africa allowed him to participate in imperial and diasporic anticolonial politics, while placing Baroda and India’s princely states on the world stage.

Le maharaja Sayaji Rao Gaekwad III de Baroda (1862-1939) fut l’un des princes indiens les plus remarquables de la période coloniale. De 1875 à 1939, il dirige le Baroda, le principal État princier de l’ouest de l’Inde, et l’un des plus importants du subcontinent, avec ceux d’Hyderabad et de Mysore. Choisi et éduqué par les Britanniques, il n’en utilise pas moins son pouvoir et son influence pour prendre part non seulement à la politique impériale – ce qui est attendu de lui en tant que prince « modèle » allié de l’empire britannique – mais également au mouvement anticolonial indien. Durant les soixante années que dure sa carrière politique, il remplit ce double engagement aussi bien en Inde qu’à l’étranger. Avec 28 tournées internationales à son actif, le maharaja compte parmi les dirigeants indiens ayant le plus voyagé. Ses séjours en Europe, en Amérique du Nord, en Asie orientale et en Afrique lui permettent de prendre part aux mouvements anticoloniaux dans tout l’empire, tout en conférant au Baroda, et plus largement aux États princiers de l’Inde, une visibilité internationale.

Este ensayo explora los términos del/los modernismo(s) en el subcontinente indio. Me concentro en los momentos modernistas críticos, atravesando las formas estéticas del sur de Asia durante el siglo xx. Están en juego reclamos para superar el pasado que aparece variadamente influido por el imperio y la nación, el comunitarismo y el nacionalismo, la memoria y la historia, lo mítico y lo primitivo, una independencia fracturada y una Partición violenta, el género y la sexualidad, el cuerpo y el dolor, así como lo épico y lo contempo-ráneo. En conjunto, se ofrecen temporalidades de modernismos que son heterogéneas, pero superpuestas. Estas consideraciones son acla-radas por medio de imágenes formidables de Savi Sawarkar, un artista expresionista y dalit. Aquí, las demandas, contenciones y contradic-ciones de un sujeto moderno particular sacan a relucir ansiedades, ambivalencias e identidades engendradas por la modernidad y sus sujetos.

Believing as the British did in the exclusive notions of state authority contrary to 'divisible' or 'discrete' perception of authority practised by Indians, the British Raj tried from the very inception to impose their absolute supremacy on Indian society by establishing law and order. In so doing, they showed their utmost concern in collective criminal actions which were perceived as most threatening to their existence in India. Dacoity, which was considered as the most defiant form of collective action against state authority and which was widespread in the then Bengal, was at once thought to be a challenge and a reflection on the empire's ability to rule. Moerover, collective actions of this kind was susceptible to stimulation by widespread economic and social unrest over such matters as famines, scarcities, tenancy grievances, onerous burden of taxation and the like. Hence, to contain open violence before it became contagious, and of course, to impose the will of the state, the British government in Bengal from the onset adopted vigorous measures to stamp out the crime of dacoity.

In this article, an attempt will be made to throw some light on the activities of the Dacoity Commission instituted in April, 1852 for the suppression of dacoity in Bengal. Part I is a background leading to the institution of the office of the Dacoity Commissioner along with a short account of the early efforts at controlling dacoity. It also discusses the organizational set-up of the Office of Dacoity Commissioner and the methods employed for the apprehension and committal of criminals. The drive against the suppression of professional gangs, both in land and in water, in the various districts of Bengal is the subject-matter of Part II. The results of the campaign is discussed in Part III, along with a brief commentary on the reasons for the abolition of the Office of Dacoity Commissioner.

The chapter examines the overarching themes and debates that have emerged in the study of the Indian princely states from the 1970s to the present. The overview of these territories under indirect British control unfolds along three central questions that have defined the historiography on the princely states in the past decades: their origins and the nature of British control in these territories, the pursuits of Indian rulers and their subjects, and the connections that linked the states with the political, social, and cultural world beyond their borders.

The goal of this article is to provide conceptual and historical orientation useful for thinking about the emergence of philanthropy in modern South Asia. Conceptually, the article suggests the need to approach the expression of philanthropy in early colonial Bengal in terms of processes of imitation. To do so, we must overcome the stigma attached to the idea of imitation within both nationalist and post-colonial thought. In the particular context of early colonial Calcutta, local actors entered into intimate relationships with Europeans and these relationships provided occasions to borrow, translate, and retool a range of ideas and practices relevant to new modes of public charity. The importance of attending to historical context is suggested by reading such early colonial developments against the grain of late nineteenth-century perspectives—a time when Bengalis grew anxious about cultural imitation. Rather than deferring to these late-colonial anxieties over imitation, we need to situate them within a critically informed historical framework. To do this, the present article draws on the writings of the Brāhmo intellectual Rajnarain Bose, who pondered the relationship between an earlier colonial moment (‘then’) and his own late-colonial ‘now’. Close reading of Bose allows us to plumb the nature of late-colonial anxiety about cultural borrowing while opening up a new perspective on imitation and intimacy in early colonial Bengal that is not predicated on the teleology of the late-colonial modern.

A pesar de la relevancia demográfica y geoestratégica de los principados de la India, la historiografía sobre estos territorios de la India no británica no los ha considerado hasta el momento como espacios determinantes en la configuración de categorías de raza, género y adscripción religiosa en el subcontinente. Las aún persistentes dicotomías entre “tradición” india y “modernidad” británica han relegado a los principados al rol de islas de conservadurismo, meros contrapuntos políticos e ideológicos a una India británica de categorías fluidas y cambiantes. El objetivo de este texto es sugerir una línea de investigación que entienda a los principados como espacios en los que se imaginó y se puso en práctica una modernidad india. El punto de partida de esta investigación se encuentra en el principado de Baroda, donde en las primeras décadas del siglo XX el maharajá Sayaji Rao Gaekwad III impulsó una serie de reformas sociales que buscaban forjar un hinduismo “moderno” a base de descartar algunas prácticas religiosas y promover otras. Esta modernidad no europea, ejercitada tanto en el terreno del discurso como en el de las prácticas corporales, suponía un desafío cultural y político a la continuidad del poder británico en la India.