Trade and Political Dominion in South India, 1750–1790: Changing British—Indian Relationships

1979 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Arasaratnam

The English East India Company's Coromandel trade provided a spectacle of steady, if unspectacular, growth from its first inauguration early in the seventeenth century. It was not subject to the violent ups and downs, or the extremes of great success and utter failure that characterized the Company's trade in some other regions of India and Southeast Asia. An expanding trade on this coast was matched by an expanding presence. By the end of the century it was well-founded in two substantial Forts (St George and St David) and a number of residencies in important ports of outlet from Vizagapatnam in the north to Cuddalore in the south. By investment and enterprise, by diplomacy and force, English interests and influence on the coast grew and their settlements became nodal points of Indo-British exchange and interaction. The timely demonstration of controlled power, both when faced with threats from the ‘country’ powers of the hinterland and from European rivals on the seafront, helped in the growth of these settlements beyond mere centres of trade. Providing, as they did, not merely trade and investment, but also security of person and property, they were naturally an attraction to many groups in Indian society in the hinterland.

Author(s):  
Richard Lyman Bushman

Plantation agriculture in the western hemisphere extended from Brazil northward through the Caribbean to the northern boundary of Maryland. This geography created a line in North America noted by seventeenth-century imperial economists. The southern colonies produced crops needed in the home land making the South far more valuable to the empire than the North. Plantation agriculture stopped at the Maryland-Pennsylvania border because the climate made slavery impractical north of that line. Only farmers who produced valuable exports could afford the price of slaves. Tobacco, though it could be grown in the North, was not commercially feasible there. The growing season had to be long enough to get a crop in the ground while also planting corn for subsistence, allow the tobacco to mature, and harvest it before the first frost. Tobacco was practical within the zone of the 180-day growing season whose isotherm outlines the areas where slavery flourished. Within this zone, the ground could be worked all but a month or two in winter, giving slaves plenty to do. Cattle could also forage for themselves, reducing the need for hay. Southern farmers could devote themselves to provisions and market crops, increasing their wealth substantially compared to the North where haying occupied much of the summer. Differing agro-systems developed along a temperature gradient running from North to South with contrasting crops and labor systems attached to each.


2021 ◽  
pp. 185-228
Author(s):  
Christophe Jaffrelot ◽  
Pratinav Anil

This chapter analyses the asymmetrical impact of the central policies on states. Federal structure and geographical distance meant that the spatial reach of these policies was not uniform. The arbitrary powers of the Emergency were a stronger presence in the Hindi belt than in the South, and in the states ruled by the Congress than in the holdouts. This was due to various factors such as the strengths and weaknesses of local Congresses vis-à-vis the opposition and the party at the centre; the strategies of state elites and bureaucracies; electoral considerations; factional competition; lobby influence; and the solipsism of the regime in Delhi. These were all determinants in the spread of the geography of tyranny which, on the whole, resulted in the Emergency being felt more strongly in the capital, its neighbouring states, and the Hindi belt than in states ruled by the opposition—the North East and South India.


Inner Asia ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 361-373
Author(s):  
Elke Studer

AbstractThe article outlines the Mongolian influences on the biggest horse race festival in Nagchu prefecture in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR).Since old times these horse races have been closely linked to the worship of the local mountain deity by the patrilineal nomadic clans of the South-Eastern Changthang, the North Tibetan plain. In the seventeenth century the West Mongol chieftain Güüshi Khan shaped the history of Tibet. To support his political claims, he enlarged the horse race festival's size and scale, and had his troops compete in the different horse race and archery competitions in Nagchu. Since then, the winners of the big race are celebrated side by side with the political achievements and claims of the central government in power.


1924 ◽  
Vol 56 (S1) ◽  
pp. 213-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. J. Thoma

Although a great deal has been written concerning St. Thomas's connexion with India, it has so far resulted only in barren controversies and inchoate theories. The finding of the “Gondophares.” coins in the Cabul region raised great hopes of a final settlement of the problem; but apart from the (itself doubtful) identification of a single name in the Ada Thomae, it has shed little light on the mysteries of Christian origins in India. Nay, it has had positively injurious results, inasmuch as it diverted the attention of scholars into fields far remote from the familiar haunts of the Thomistic tradition. South India is the quarter from which we should expect fresh evidence: the north has no known claims to any connexion with the Apostle. In the south live the Christians of St. Thomas—the so-called “Syrians” who for more than a thousand years have upheld their descent from the Apostle's disciples. There also we have what has been believed from immemorial antiquity to be the tomb of St. Thomas, with various lithic remains of pre-Portuguese Christianity around Madras. South India has a remarkably ancient tradition of St. Thomas; and it is a living tradition, not a dead legend. It can be traced back at least to the sixth century a.d., and it still lives in popular memories, not only of Christians, but of others not recognizing the claims of Christianity. The existence of this tradition is known and recognized; but no organized attempt has yet been made to explore it.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (03) ◽  
pp. 50-58
Author(s):  
Erik MOBRAND ◽  
Hyejin KIM

Southeast Asia’s significance to the Korean peninsula is growing. South Korea has deepening trade, investment and assistance relationships in the region, while ASEAN’s non-judgmental approach to diplomacy is useful in dealing with Pyongyang. Beyond hosting summits between American and North Korean leaders, Southeast Asia is in a position to mediate North Korea’s greater international engagement and to assist in the acceleration of interaction between the North and the South.


1990 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 761-786 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mattison Mines ◽  
Vijayalakshmi Gourishankar

Although there has been great interest in how properly to conceptualize the person in Indian culture, few have explored Indian perceptions of leadership, achievement, and agency as valued features of individuality (Singer 1972; Mines 1988; Fox 1989). Indeed, since Dumont (1970a,b) forcefully argued that the values of equality and liberty that support the Western notion of the individual were absent from Indian society, the important roles that personal uniqueness, volition, and achievement play in Indian history have been largely overlooked or understated. This paper reconsiders an Indian sense of these roles by examining the south Indian concept of the “big-man” (periyar, periyavar), a notion of individuality and instrumentality that is central to the politics of south India and crucial to an understanding of the dynamic relationship that exists between action and organization in Indian society (cf., Fox 1989).


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mattias Skat Sommer

AbstractDanish reformer Niels Hemmingsen was a Lutheran, but owing to Pan-Protestant sentiments that became apparent in his later writings, he found an appreciative audience in non-Lutheran Western Europe during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. This article argues that the early modern European reception of Hemmingsen and his theology should be seen as an attempt to construct him as part of a Protestant memory. It also argues that in order to understand the dynamics behind the reception of Hemmingsen’s ideas, one has to consider the geopolitics of early modern Denmark. Due to her strategic setting in Northern Europe, Denmark played a vital role in controlling commerce and politics between the North and Baltic Seas. Arguing for a “Western” perspective, the article shows how Hemmingsen’s case substantiates that the Danish Reformation involved both importing Lutheranism from the South (Saxony), and exporting it to the West (The Low Countries, England).


Author(s):  
Evgenij Vodyasov

В статье публикуются итоги исследований мусульманских захоронений на могильнике «Тоянов городок», который является одним из самых ранних памятников ислама в Нижнем Притомье. Делается вывод, что в середине – второй половине XVII в. на кладбище сосуществовали две разные группы мусульманских захоронений. Первая группа мусульманских захоронений объединяет безынвентарные погребения с положением умерших головой на северо-запад с доворотом лица направо. Сделан вывод, что эта традиция не характерна для погребального обряда Нижнего Притомья и является привнесенной с территории Тарского Прииртышья. Появление на «Тояновом городке» захоронений с северо-западной ориентацией связано с переселением в окрестности Томска чатских татар в первой трети – середине XVII в. Для второй группы характерно соблюдение киблы положением умершего головой на юго-восток с доворотом лица налево. Инвентарь в этих захоронениях присутствует, что отражает пережитки доисламских верований. Происхождение этой группы захоронений объясняется трансформацией местного погребального обряда. Во второй половине XVII в. происходит исчезновение курганного способа захоронения, и растет количество безынвентарных погребений в связи с укреплением новой веры. При этом в обряде фиксируются пережитки доисламских верований, что само по себе закономерно для распространения любой религии в мире. Автор приходит к заключению, что на рубеже XVII–XVIII вв. исчезает обычай укладывать умерших головой на юго-восток, и «северо-западная» кибла вытесняет местную традицию. В начале XVIII в. в погребальном обряде происходят существенные перемены: окончательно исчезают курганные насыпи, могилы становятся глубже, появляются ниши (подбои), чего не отмечалось в более ранних мусульманских некрополях. Перемены связаны с прибытием мусульманского населения из Поволжья и Предуралья и их расселением в Татарской Слободе. С начала XVIII в. вплоть до рубежа XIX–XX в. мусульманский обряд унифицировался и существовал в неизменном виде.The article presents the results of research on Muslim burials in the hillfort named ‘Toyanov gorodok’ – one of the oldest Islamic sites in the Lower Tom region. The conclusion is drawn that in the middle to the second half of the seventeenth century, two different groups of Muslim burials coexisted here. The first group of the Muslim burials encompasses graves with no inventory, with the deceased placed with their heads to the north-west and their faces turned to the right. It is concluded that this tradition is not consistent with the burial rite spread in the Lower Tom and was brought in from outside, namely, the Tar Irtysh region. The emergence of such burials in the Toyanov Gorodok was associated with the settlement of the Chat Tatars on the outskirts of Tomsk in the first third to the middle seventeenth century. Characteristic of the second group was the placement of the deceased according to the Qiblah, with the head turned to the south-east and the face turned to the left. Some inventory was found in these burials, which is indicative of pre-Islamic beliefs. The origins of this group are accounted for by the transformation of the local burial rite. In the second half of the seventeenth century, the kurgan type of burials disappeared, whereas the number of burials with no inventory grew due to the strengthening of the new faith. At the same time, the vestiges of pre-Islamic beliefs can be seen in the burial rite, which in itself is natural for the spread of any religion in the world. The author concludes that at the turn of the seventeenth to the eighteenth centuries, the rite of placing the deceased with their heads to the south-east ceased to exist, and the ‘Qiblah north-west orientation’ replaced the local tradition. In the early eighteenth century, the burial rite changed significantly: the kurgan type of burials ceased to exist completely, the graves became deeper, and grave niches started to appear which were not reported to be found in older Muslim necropolises. These changes were connected with the arrival of the Muslim population from the Volga and the Ural regions and its settlement in the Tatar Sloboda. From the early eighteenth century up until the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries, the Muslim rite was consolidated and remained unchanged since.


1978 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 455-482 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor B. Lieberman

We commonly find in the literature on pre-colonial mainland Southeast Asia a tendency to treat the principal ethnic groups—Burmese, Mons, Siamese, Cambodians, Vietnamese—as discrete political categories. This tendency is particularly marked in the historiography of the Irrawaddy valley, where the recurrent north—south conflicts of the eleventh to the eighteenth centuries have usually been interpreted as ‘national’ or ‘racial’ struggles between the Burmese people of the north and the Mon, or Talaing, people of the south. In writing of the last major ‘Mon—Burmese’ war, that of 1740—57, historians have characterized the 1740 uprising at the southern city of Pegu as an expression of ‘Mon nationalism’. The ensuing conflict reportedly became a struggle between Mons and Burmese each ‘fighting for the existence of their race’; and Alaùng-hpayà, said to be a champion of ‘Burmese nationalism’, allegedly made vigorous efforts to destroy the Mon culture and people once he had triumphed.


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