Law of Nations Theory and the Native Sovereignty Debates in Colonial India

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 373-407
Author(s):  
Zak Leonard
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
International Law ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Concerted Effort ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
The Public ◽  
High Ranking ◽  
Native Sovereignty ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
The Public Sphere

Beginning in the 1840s, high-ranking officials within the East India Company began a concerted effort to confiscate and annex princely states, citing misrule or a default of blood heirs. In response, metropolitan reformers and their Indian allies orchestrated a sustained legalistic defense of native sovereignty in the public sphere and emerged as vocal opponents of colonial expansionism. Adapting concepts put forth by both law of nations theorists and contemporary jurists, they sought to preserve longstanding treaties and defend the princes' exercise of internal sovereignty. The colonial government's failure to adequately define the basis of its modern “paramountcy” invited such creative maneuvering. Reformist opposition to the annexation of Awadh, the dispossession of the Nawab of the Carnatic, and the confiscation of Mysore demonstrates that international law did not simply function as a Eurocentric tool of subordination, but could also provide a bulwark against colonial depredations.

Between Faith and State

2019 ◽  
pp. 23-42
Author(s):  
Kathleen A. Cavanaugh
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
International Law ◽  
Mena Region ◽  
Faith And Reason ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Transformations ◽  
Legal Discourses ◽  
The Public Sphere

This chapter examines the politics of law that are mapped out in the various trends of analysis within both Islamic and international law. Disrupting the notion of a "fixedness" in these legal discourses and reimagining each in their political self is a critical first step in addressing the challenge--one that preoccupies much of the literature that looks at Islam and rights--as to how to open a space in the human rights project where faith and reason can be accommodated. In undertaking this task, the chapter discusses how the human rights project engages with religion in the public sphere before turning to how these concepts have been engaged where Islam and human rights intersect generally, and then specifically when applied to states in the Middle East. The second part of the chapter focuses on the plural readings of Islamic formulations of law and details the trends of analysis within political transformations that have unfolded (and continue to unfold) across the MENA region in the wake of the so-called Arab Spring.

Between “Public” Islam and “Private” Sufism: Producing a National Icon through Mass Mediated Hagiography

2016 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hatsuki Aishima
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Career Path ◽  
The Public ◽  
High Ranking ◽  
National Hero ◽  
National Icon ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Distinguished Scholar ◽  
Television Producers

To what extent can a national hero be a Sufi? This article examines the much contested yet still underexplored relationship between the public discourse of modernity and Sufism by looking at how television producers dealt with Sufi elements in ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm Maḥmūd’s (1910–78) biography. The Egyptian public remembers ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm Maḥ­mūd as a Shaykh al-Azhar and a distinguished scholar of Sufism of the 1970s. His biopic series broadcast on national television during the Ramadan of 2008 showed the delicate nature of exposing Sufi practices in public Islam. ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm’s career path leading up to the level of a high-ranking scholar of al-Azhar was celebrated as the result of strong faith in God. However, his Sufi practices were modified to correspond to the television producers’ understanding of correct Sufism and to show how “private” spiritual pursuits would not hinder one from being an economically productive individual in the public sphere.


Race Matters: Orientalism and Religion, India and Beyond c. 1770–1880

2007 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 471-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
SHRUTI KAPILA
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Print Culture ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
The Public ◽  
Conventional View ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Political Opinions ◽  
History Of Race

In tracing the history of the concept of race, this article revises the conventional view that race acquired significance only after the mid-nineteenth century in colonial India. Instead, it situates the history of race in the connected realms of enlightenment science in both the metropolitan and colonial worlds and in the public sphere of Indian print culture. From the 1770s onwards the emerging ‘science’ of race was intimately related to orientalism and was salient for civilisational concepts, above all, religion. Precisely because it was a capacious concept that encompassed both cultural and biological ideas, race became an inescapable category for world-comparative distinctions between human types and religions, but it also held implications for the role of empire. Phrenology was a popular dimension of this set of ideas and found votaries among both imperial and also Indian literati of radical, conservative and liberal political opinions. The Calcutta Phrenological Society became an active site of debate on these issues. Yet in the popular realm of vernacular print culture analogous notions of physical typology and distinction (particularly samudrikvidya) remained distant from such concerns. As a form of ‘insurgent knowledge’ samudrikvidya was part of the techniques for the reconstitution of an Indian selfhood. Race then was not only a powerful concept, but also one that was remarkably mutable in its meanings and uses from the eighteenth century onwards.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-39
Author(s):  
Mark Netzloff
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
The Public ◽  
Jean Bodin ◽  
Law Of Nations ◽  
State Agents ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Canonical Texts ◽  
Opening Section

The Introduction situates the study in relation to previous criticism on the role of state agents and practices of governance. The opening section returns to some canonical texts of early modern political theory, particularly the work of Jean Bodin, and explores how their theorization of sovereignty was interconnected with a reflection on the agents and practices of governance. The following section considers state formation in relation to the emergence of the public sphere, and analyzes the ways that state agents contributed to early modern publics through their writings. The latter part of the Introduction examines the extraterritorial histories of the state, looking at the conceptual impasse that resulted from efforts to theorize the place of religio-political exiles in many influential statements on the law of nations, with particular attention to the writings of the Catholic exile William Cardinal Allen.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document