Self-Rule and the Problem of Peoplehood in Colonial India

2019 ◽  
Vol 114 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
NAZMUL S. SULTAN
Keyword(s):  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Moral Self ◽  
Indian People ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Self Rule ◽  
Indefinite Future

This article theorizes the colonial problem of peoplehood that Indian anticolonial thinkers grappled with in their attempts to conceptualize self-rule, or swaraj. British colonial rule drew its legitimacy from a developmentalist conception of the colonized people as backward and disunited. The discourse of “underdeveloped” colonial peoplehood rendered the Indian people “unfit” for self-government, suspending their sovereignty to an indefinite future. The concept of swaraj would be born with the rejection of deferred colonial self-government. Yet the persistence of the developmentalist figuration of the people generated a crisis of sovereign authorization. The pre-Gandhian swaraj theorists would be faced with the not-yet claimable figure of the people at the very moment of disavowing the British claim to rule. Recovering this underappreciated pre-Gandhian history of the concept of swaraj and reinterpreting its Gandhian moment, this article offers a new reading of Gandhi's theory of moral self-rule. In so doing, it demonstrates how the history of swaraj helps trace the colonial career of popular sovereignty.

scholarly journals Art. XVII.—The Nāgas. A Contribution to the History of Serpent-Worship

1901 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 461-473
Author(s):  
C. F. Oldham
Keyword(s):  
The Sun ◽  
Indian People ◽  
Social Customs ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
Vedic Period ◽  
Epic Poems

It is well known that between the Vedic period, and that described in the epic poems, great modifications occurred in the religion and social customs of the Indian people. Since the Epic period, further changes have taken place; so that the orthodox Hinduism, of the present day, differs much from that represented in the Mahābhārata. Religious vicissitudes have also occurred outside the Brahmanic pale. The Buddhist religion has become extinguished in India. Vast numbers of the people, too, have been converted—many of them forcibly—to the faith of Islām. Notwithstanding all this, however, many of the old deities still live. The Nāga rajas are worshipped as demigods; the sun, the cedar, and the serpent are held sacred; and Indra and his Devas have still their worshippers and their temples, as they had in the days described in the Mahābharāta.

‘Natural Justice, Equity and Good Conscience’: History, Politics and Law in Nigeria, 1900–1966

2019 ◽  
pp. 12-25
Author(s):  
Katherine Isobel Baxter
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Natural Justice ◽  
History Of ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Good Conscience ◽  
Politics And Law ◽  
Colonial Government ◽  
Indirect Rule

Chapter One provides an account of the history of colonial and postcolonial Nigeria, focusing particularly on politics and law. The chapter recounts the long history of British colonial presence in West Africa and explains the introduction of indirect rule as a system of colonial government from the turn of the century. Some of the impacts of indirect rule are considered through reference to Obafemi Awolowo’s memoir, Awo, and Chinua Achebe’s novel, Arrow of God. The chapter also sketches out the divisions that indirect rule fomented and the resistance to which it gave rise. Finally, the chapter explains the implications of indirect rule for the implementation of law in Nigeria both during colonial rule and following independence.

scholarly journals “Imperium in Imperio”: The Corporation, Mining, and Governance in British Southeast Asia, 1900–1930

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
DAVID BAILLARGEON
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
State Model ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
State Regulations ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
History Of ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Corporate Ventures

This article examines the history of mining in British Southeast Asia during the early twentieth century. In particular, it focuses on the histories of the Burma Corporation and the Duff Development Company, which were located in British-occupied Burma and Malaya, respectively. It argues that despite being represented as “rogue” corporate ventures in areas under “indirect” colonial rule, the contrasting fates of each company—one successful, one not—reveal how foreign-owned businesses operating in the empire became increasingly beholden to British colonial state regulations during this period, marking a shift in policy from the “company-state” model that operated in prior centuries. The histories of these two firms ultimately demonstrate the continued significance of business in the making of empire during the late colonial period, bridging the divide between the age of company rule and the turn toward state-sponsored “development” that would occur in the mid-twentieth century.

THE RAJ AND THE PARADOXES OF WILDLIFE CONSERVATION: BRITISH ATTITUDES AND EXPEDIENCIES

2015 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
VIJAYA RAMADAS MANDALA
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Sensitivity ◽  
Wildlife Conservation ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Game Species ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
Infrastructural Development ◽  
Colonial Economy ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Wild Predators

AbstractThis article throws light on how the issue of conservation stood in tension with imperial hunting and exploitation in colonial India. The indiscriminate slaughter of wildlife and the declining numbers of game species in nineteenth-century India gave rise to a need for conservation, but with a caveat. Wildlife conservation, consequently, was aimed at the expansion of colonial economy and infrastructural development. Thus, in colonial India, wild predators that posed a threat to such interests were ruthlessly decimated and those animals that were useful for the smooth functioning of the British colonial rule were overlooked. This, in part, was also necessitated by the British seeking to establish their credentials as rulers, which explains the reason the colonial government's conservation programme was fundamentally selective and guided by expediency. The comparative perspective on elephants and tigers elucidates how the former were protected by the law because of the critical role they played in the colonial economy and administration, whilst the latter were ruthlessly exterminated for the threat they posed to the same. This article especially argues that the reasons for conserving elephants and decimating tigers in colonial India were more practical and economic than a mere reflection of cultural sensitivity on the part of the colonizers.

Primary Materials

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 565-583
Author(s):  
Nida Rehman
Keyword(s):  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
History Of ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Model Improvement ◽  
Garden Plants ◽  
The City ◽  
Primary Materials

Abstract This article explores plants, seeds, soils, and other nonhuman actors as archival and architectural agents within the history of Lahore's urban landscape, as seen from the ground. It traces the halting efforts of the Agri-Horticultural Society of Punjab to enact regional improvement through the development of agricultural and botanical expertise at the advent of British colonial rule in the province, focusing on the materialization of this work in the society's gardens in Lahore. Foregrounding the contingencies of everyday garden making and maintenance, the article posits nonhuman ecologies as a materially diverse and ephemeral architecture and archive of landscape. It argues that, in helping assemble and modulate the society's efforts to model improvement, conduct plant testing, and develop an ornamental garden, plants, seeds, and soils become unlikely and sometimes unruly aesthetic and historical actors, furthering but also unsettling improvement discourse while relocating its historical effects from the region to the city, and providing new readings of the colonial urban landscape.

India-Pakistan Relationship: A Case of Perpetual Instability

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanzeela Khalil
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Personal Involvement ◽  
Bilateral Relations ◽  
Course Of Action ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Two Sides

The study aims to dispassionately analyze what the future holds for Indo-Pak relations. The two sides have maintained strained relations since their independence from the British Colonial rule in 1947. It appears unlikely that India will change its course of action owing to the US support and resultant dismissiveness towards Pakistan’s peace overtures. The current security situation between India and Pakistan is presumed to be unprecedented because of Prime Minister (PM) Modi’s history of personal involvement in actions against Muslims and Pakistan. Therefore, the improvement in bilateral relations cannot be expected until the time some major compromises are made by the leadership on both sides. The lack of convergence in how each side views its security along with a long history of mistrust, are the root causes of this strained relationship. Although the broader dynamics of the Indo-Pak relationship cannot be analyzed in isolation from the very presence of nuclear weapons in the region; however, the occurrence or non-occurrence of crisis between India and Pakistan is not primarily subject to the presence or absence of nuclear weapons. The actual causes of conflict remain the non-resolution of outstanding disputes. To this end, India lacks a demonstrable and consistent political will to resolve conflicts through a spirit of accommodation, compromise, and reconciliation.

Mountstuart Elphinstone in South Asia

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shah Mahmoud Hanifi ◽  
William Dalrymple
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Civil Servant ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
British Imperialism ◽  
History Of ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Conducting Research

Mountstuart Elphinstone (1779-1859), Lowland Scottish traveller, East India Company civil servant and educator, was one of the principal intellectual architects of British colonial rule in South Asia. Imbued with liberal views, such that Bombay's wealthy founded Elphinstone College in his memory, he pioneered the scholarly, scientific and administrative foundations of imperialism in India.  Elphinstone's career was launched when he was picked to lead the inaugural British diplomatic mission to the Afghan court. His Account of the Kingdom of Caubul (1815) became the main source of British information about Afghanistan. He is best known for his periods as Resident at Poona and Governor of Bombay in the 1810s and 1820s, when he instituted innovative and lasting policies in administration and education while also conducting research for his extremely influential History of India (1841).  This volume examines Mountstuart Elphinstone's intellectual contributions and administrative career in their own right, in relation to prominent contemporaries including Charles Metcalfe and William Moorcroft, and in the context of later historical study of India, Afghanistan, British imperialism and its imperial frontiers.

Conclusion: Torture in a State of Exception

2021 ◽  
pp. 179-188
Author(s):  
Deana Heath
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
State Of Exception ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Nationalist Movement ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
High Profile ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Primary Form

Colonial Terror concludes by exploring how the attempts of the British colonial regime in India, in the decades following the Madras torture commission, to deny the ongoing prevalence of torture in the Indian police began to unravel in the early twentieth century thanks to the emergence of a voluble Indian press and a mass nationalist movement. But it was not until 1909, following the failures of a series of high-profile ‘conspiracy’ trials due to the ongoing reliance of the police on extorted confessions as their primary form of evidence, combined with pressure exerted by yet another group of reformist MPs, that torture once again erupted into scandal. The Indian and British governments were thus forced to act, but although the actions they took exposed the sheer scale of police torture in colonial India, they did little, once again, to attempt to eradicate it, since eradication was impossible thanks to the importance of torture to the maintenance of colonial rule. They endeavoured, instead, to make it disappear by renaming it, as well as to transform India into a fully-fledged state of exception in which police torture could continue to flourish, freed from the constraints placed on it by the rule of law.

Popular Sovereignty versus State Sovereignty: Haiti, Popular Equality and the Birth of the Neocolonial State

2021 ◽  
pp. 002190962110558
Author(s):  
Michael Neocosmos
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Global South ◽  
Popular Sovereignty ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Core ◽  
Saint Domingue ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
Core Characteristics

Through a review of the two works below, I discuss how the Saint Domingue/Haiti Revolutions clarify the history of the opposition between popular sovereignty and state sovereignty. The people and the state developed as distinct political actors throughout the nineteenth century in particular. The former constructed a completely new society founded on egalitarian norms influenced by African cultures. The latter failed to establish its sovereignty and reverted to a colonial form, thus illustrating the core characteristics of the neocolonial state now widespread in the Global South in general and in Africa in particular.

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