Imperial Culture and Hunting in Colonial India

2018 ◽  
pp. 38-78
Author(s):  
Vijaya Ramadas Mandala
Keyword(s):  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Colonial Administration ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
East Indian ◽  
Imperial Culture ◽  
Indian Company ◽  
British Military ◽  
The World ◽  
Game Hunting ◽  
Big Game Hunting

This chapter offers a brief account of the institution of the hunt, or shikar, and its significance as an allegory of rule in pre-colonial and colonial India, by illustrating the transition of hunting from the Mughals to the East Indian Company period. Further, this study moves away from the purely recreational focus on hunting, and places it within the world of everyday colonial administration and rule. It firmly establishes the link between shikar and governance, particularly how the British positioned and employed big-game hunting and conservation at various levels, and in different situations, aimed at the establishment and stabilization of colonial rule, and in ordering and redrawing Indian marginal territories. Another key aspect is how shikar served as an essential platform, where power and rule operated in a recreational situation. Here, the chapter illustrates the way the hunting field aided and enabled the British to formulate their political and imperial agendas in an expedient way. The sporting lives of the Company administrators like John Malcolm and James Outram are studied in detail to demonstrate the nature of high imperial decades and British military credence in the Indian hunting field.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
Vijaya Ramadas Mandala
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
Masculine Identity ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
Historical Literature ◽  
Game Hunting ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
Big Game Hunting

The introductory chapter opens the debate on why there is a need to write a book on shikar in South Asia. It makes a compelling case for taking the symbolism and practice of big-game hunting as central to the expression of rule and making of authority in colonial India. The reader would learn about the historical developments of hunting as a political practice, and an enactment of ritual authority and masculine identity from ancient societies down to medieval and modern ones. In discussing these developments, the chapter charts out the framework of big-game hunting and conservation in relation to the historical literature in the field, often drawing comparisons and juxtaposing the same with Britain and other parts of the colonial world.

Nimrods on the Hills—Hunting, Environment, and Its Fauna

2018 ◽  
pp. 79-160
Author(s):  
Vijaya Ramadas Mandala
Keyword(s):  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
Wild Fauna ◽  
The North ◽  
British Military ◽  
Fresh Perspective ◽  
The Nilgiris ◽  
Game Hunting ◽  
The Hill ◽  
Historical Antecedents

Drawing on rich archival material, sportsmen’s memoirs and colonial documents, this chapter develops the argument that hill-sport was another important feature of British social and cultural life in colonial India. Hill-sport played a significant role in shaping and transforming their cultural identity from the beginning of the nineteenth century. While scholarship to date has not touched upon this subject, chapter two traces the historical antecedents of the British military conquest, which led to exploration and the discovery of new geographies, that is, mountain and hill terrains in the north and south of India. It is possible to argue that the Nilgiris and the Doon Valley had the advantage of favourable climatic conditions and better hunting grounds, and therefore plentiful opportunities for hill-sport, which in turn provided the healthier lifestyle to the Britons living on the hill stations. In such mountain peripheries, there emerged aesthetic preferences among the colonial sporting fraternity, which were born out of their hunting experiences in the cultural geography of the Himalayas and the Nilgiris. Furthermore, this chapter also suggests that the British hunters in colonial India also created a dichotomy of difference in terms of the ecology and wild fauna of the mountains, which also influenced their development of different genres of hill-sport. In addition, this chapter offers a fresh perspective on the notions of masculinity and virile energy enshrined in the big-game hunting tradition in relation to mountain geographies in colonial India.

scholarly journals Parasitic infections in wild ruminants and wild boar

2011 ◽  
Vol 65 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 419-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamara Ilic ◽  
Igor Stojanov ◽  
Sanda Dimitrijevic
Keyword(s):  
Wild Boar ◽  
Parasitic Infections ◽  
Zoonotic Infections ◽  
Wild Ruminants ◽  
The World ◽  
Parasitic Gastroenteritis ◽  
Game Hunting ◽  
Big Game Hunting ◽  
Wild Deer ◽  
Important Branch

Wild ruminants and wild boar belong to the order Artiodactyla, the suborders Ruminantia and Nonruminantia and are classified as wild animals for big game hunting, whose breeding presents a very important branch of the hunting economy. Diseases caused by protozoa are rarely found in wild ruminants in nature. Causes of coccidiosis, cryptosporidiosis, toxoplasmosis, sarcocystiosis, giardiasis, babesiosis, and theileriosis have been diagnosed in deer. The most significant helminthoses in wild ruminants are fasciosis, dicrocoeliasis, paramphistomosis, fascioloidosis, cysticercosis, anoplocephalidosis, coenurosis, echinococcosis, pulmonary strongyloidiasis, parasitic gastroenteritis, strongyloidiasis and trichuriasis, with certain differences in the extent of prevalence of infection with certain species. The most frequent ectoparasitoses in wild deer and doe are diseases caused by ticks, mites, scabies mites, and hypoderma. The most represented endoparasitoses in wild boar throughout the world are coccidiosis, balantidiasis, metastrongyloidiasis, verminous gastritis, ascariasis, macracanthorhynchosis, trichinelosis, trichuriasis, cystecercosis, echinococcosis, and less frequently, there are also fasciolosis and dicrocoeliasis. The predominant ectoparasitoses in wild boar are ticks and scabies mites. Knowledge of the etiology and epizootiology of parasitic infections in wild ruminants and wild boar is of extreme importance for the process of promoting the health protection system for animals and humans, in particular when taking into account the biological and ecological hazard posed by zoonotic infections.

EAST INDIAN AND OTHER DOCKS IN LONDON: IMPERIAL ARCHITECTURE, COLONIAL TRADE AND POSTCOLONIAL MEMORY

2020 ◽  
pp. 190-205
Author(s):  
S. E. Sidorova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Historical Memory ◽  
Visual Image ◽  
East Indian ◽  
Architectural Representation ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Postcolonial History ◽  
The City

The article concentrates on the colonial and postcolonial history, architecture and topography of the southeastern areas of London, where on both banks of the River Thames in the 18th–20th centuries there were located the docks, which became an architectural and engineering response to the rapidly developing trade of England with territories in the Western and Eastern hemispheres of the world. Constructions for various purposes — pools for loading, unloading and repairing ships, piers, shipyards, office and warehouse premises, sites equipped with forges, carpenter’s workshops, shops, canteens, hotels — have radically changed the bank line of the Thames and appearance of the British capital, which has acquired the status of the center of a huge empire. Docks, which by the beginning of the 20th century, occupied an area of 21 hectares, were the seamy side of an imperial-colonial enterprise, a space of hard and routine work that had a specific architectural representation. It was a necessary part of the city intended for the exchange of goods, where the usual ideas about the beauty gave way to considerations of safety, functionality and economy. Not distinguished by architectural grace, chaotically built up, dirty, smoky and fetid, the area was one of the most significant symbols of England during the industrial revolution and colonial rule. The visual image of this greatness was strikingly different from the architectural samples of previous eras, forcing contemporaries to get used to the new industrial aesthetics. Having disappeared in the second half of the 20th century from the city map, they continue to retain a special place in the mental landscape of the city and the historical memory of the townspeople, which is reflected in the chain of museums located in this area that tell the history of English navigation, England’s participation in geographical discoveries, the stages of conquering the world, creating an empire and ways to acquire the wealth of the nation.

Palaeolithic Big Game Hunting at HP766 in Wadi Umm Rahau, Northern Sudan

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Achilles Gautier ◽  
Daniel Makowiecki ◽  
Henryk Paner ◽  
Wim Van Neer
Keyword(s):  
Late Prehistoric ◽  
Large Mammals ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Large Size ◽  
Animal Bone ◽  
Game Hunting ◽  
Big Game Hunting ◽  
Bone Remains

HP766, discovered by the Gdansk Archaeological Museum Expedition (GAME) in the region immediately upstream the Merowe Dam in North Sudan and now under water, is one of the few palaeolithic sites with animal bone remains in the country. The archaeological deposits, the large size of the site, the lithics and the radiocarbon dates indicate occupation of a silt terrace of the Nile in late MSA and perhaps LSA times. Large and very large mammals predominate markedly among the recovered bone remains and it would seem that the palaeolithic hunters focused on such game. They could corner these animals on the site which is partially surrounded by high bedrock outcrops. Moreover swampy conditions of the site after the retreat of the annual Nile flood may have rendered less mobile the prey animals. According to this scenario, HP766 would testify to the ecological skills and generational memory of late prehistoric man in Sudan.

Women and Agency in Bankim’s Rajmohan’s Wife and Tagore’s The Home and The World

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Manju Dhariwal ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Self ◽  
Indian English ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
English Novel ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Status Of Women

Written almost half a century apart, Rajmohan’s Wife (1864) and The Home and the World (1916) can be read as women centric texts written in colonial India. The plot of both the texts is set in Bengal, the cultural and political centre of colonial India. Rajmohan’s Wife, arguably the first Indian English novel, is one of the first novels to realistically represent ‘Woman’ in the nineteenth century. Set in a newly emerging society of India, it provides an insight into the status of women, their susceptibility and dependence on men. The Home and the World, written at the height of Swadeshi movement in Bengal, presents its woman protagonist in a much progressive space. The paper closely examines these two texts and argues that women enact their agency in relational spaces which leads to the process of their ‘becoming’. The paper analyses this journey of the progress of the self, which starts with Matangini and culminates in Bimala. The paper concludes that women’s journey to emancipation is symbolic of the journey of the nation to independence.

Archiving the British Raj

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabyasachi Bhattacharya
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Historical Records ◽  
The Public ◽  
British Raj ◽  
National Archives ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Central Archive

The archives are generally sites where historians conduct research into our past. Seldom are they objects of research. Sabyasachi Bhattacharya traces the path that led to the creation of a central archive in India, from the setting up of the Imperial Record Department, the precursor of the National Archives of India, and the Indian Historical Records Commission, to the framing of archival policies and the change in those policies over the years. In the last two decades of colonial rule in India, there were anticipations of freedom in many areas of the public sphere. These were felt in the domain of archiving as well, chiefly in the form of reversal of earlier policies. From this perspective, Bhattacharya explores the relation between knowledge and power and discusses how the World Wars and the decline of Britain, among other factors, effected a transition from a Eurocentric and disparaging approach to India towards a more liberal and less ethnocentric one.

The Great Eastern Crisis (1875–1878) as a global humanitarian moment

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Adrian Ruprecht
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
The World ◽  
Global Spread ◽  
Global Movement

Abstract This article explores the global spread of the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement to colonial India. By looking at the Great Eastern Crisis (1875–78) and the intense public ferment the events in the Balkans created in Britain, Switzerland, Russia and India, this article illustrates how humanitarian ideas and practices, as well as institutional arrangements for the care for wounded soldiers, were appropriated and shared amongst the different religious internationals and pan-movements from the late 1870s onwards. The Great Eastern Crisis, this article contends, marks a global humanitarian moment. It transformed the initially mainly European and Christian Red Cross into a truly global movement that included non-sovereign colonial India and the Islamic religious international. Far from just being at the receiving end, non-European peoples were crucial in creating global and transnational humanitarianism, global civil society and the world of non-governmental organizations during the last third of the nineteenth century.

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