Colonization Through Municipalization: The Politics of Sanitation and Municipal Governance in the ‘Mofussils’ of Colonial Bengal, c. 1870–1940s

2021 ◽  
pp. 025764302110421
Author(s):  
Sudipto Basu
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
Provincial Government ◽  
The Other ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Private Enterprises ◽  
Municipal Governance ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Rural Character

How does a state govern a territory which has seen a sudden spurt in population and become the most densely populated regions of the province? How does the state account for the governance of a place which very recently has seen the transition from a rural or a semi-rural tract to a town? And most importantly, how does the state govern a place where the main source of power resides with the proprietors of private enterprises? These were some of the questions which the colonial state had to deal with when it was faced with the prospect of administering some of the most rapidly ‘urbanizing’ or expanding regions of Bengal, that is, the industrial belt or the riparian municipalities of the districts of 24 Parganas and Hooghly and the mining and railway junctions of Ranigunj and Asansol from the last quarter of the nineteenth century. How was their administration going to be any different from the other mofussil municipalities, which also had a semi-rural character? This article will look at these questions and try to understand how through the process of municipalization the colonial state was trying to control the newer territories and how the locals reacted to these attempts. This article will investigate and hence argue that any attempt at improvement in these mofussil municipalities was being throttled due to the lack of understanding, on the part of the provincial government, of the local socio-economic conditions and the ineffectiveness of the local self-government in these towns.

Colonization through Municipalization: The Politics of Sanitation and Municipal Governance in the ‘Mofussils’ of Colonial Bengal, c. 1870–1940s

2021 ◽  
pp. 025764302110691
Author(s):  
Sudipto Basu
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
The State ◽  
Provincial Government ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Private Enterprises ◽  
Municipal Governance ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Rural Character

How does the state govern a territory which has rapidly grown to become one of the most densely populated regions of the province? How does the state account for the governance of a place which has only recently transitioned from a rural or a semi-rural tract to a town? Most importantly, how does the state govern a region where the main source of power resides with the proprietors of private enterprises? These were some of the questions the colonial state had to deal with when it was faced with the prospect of administering some of the most rapidly ‘urbanizing’ or expanding regions of Bengal. This included the industrial belt—the riparian municipalities of the districts of 24 Parganas and Hooghly—and the mining and railway junctions of Ranigunj and Asansol, which developed from the last quarter of the nineteenth century. How did their administration differ, if at all, from other mofussil municipalities which also had a semi-rural character? This article will examine these questions and try to understand how, through the process of municipalization, the colonial state was trying to control newer territories. It shall also analyse how local communities reacted to these attempts. This paper will argue that any attempt at improvement in these mofussil municipalities was hindered by alack of understanding, on the part of the provincial government, of the local socio-economic conditions and the ineffectiveness of the local self-government in these towns.

scholarly journals A Tryst with the Tribes: A Comparison of State – Tribe Relations in Pre-Colonial and Colonial India

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sagnik Bhattacharya
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
The State ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
Police Reports ◽  
Indian State ◽  
Theory Of History ◽  
The Relationship

It is well-known that the relationship between the colonial State and the Tribes in nineteenth century India had been particularly conflict-ridden and interrupted by periodic ‘insurrections’ or rebellions. This paper studies the relationship between the pre-colonial Mughal State and its tribes and juxtaposes it against the colonial state’s management of the Khonds and the Santals, and explores what can be known about the nature of the nineteenth century ‘Indian’ state that is fundamentally different from its earlier avatars. Employing police reports and legal court files, this paper concludes, that the uniqueness of the colonial State lay in its unilateral interactions with the tribes that is a product of the transition from a state that exercised ‘narrative sovereignty’ over its territories to one that aspired to enforce ‘actual sovereignty.’ This categorical change in the nature of the state, this paper argues, employing Marshall Sahlins’ ‘possible theory of history,’ caused structural changes in the tribe-state relationship—the breakdown of which then became irreconcilable and the tribes reacted by performing rituals such as the meriah and the bitlaha which now assumed political functions. These rituals in their novel incarnation earned the label of ‘insurrection.’

2. Politics and the State

2020 ◽  
pp. 25-48
Author(s):  
Robert Garner
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
New Right ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
Empirical Typology ◽  
Distribution Of Power

This chapter explains why the state and sovereignty are relevant to the study of politics. It first provides an empirical typology of the state, ranging from the minimalist night-watchman state, approximated to by nineteenth-century capitalist regimes at one end of the spectrum, to the totalitarian state of the twentieth century at the other. It then examines the distribution of power in the state by focusing on three major theories of the state: pluralism, elitism, Marxism, as well as New Right theory. The chapter seeks to demonstrate that the theories of the state identified can also be critiqued normatively, so that pluralism, for instance, can be challenged for its divisive character, as exemplified by identity politics. It then goes on to review different views about what the role of the state ought to be, from the minimalist state recommended by adherents of classical liberalism, to the pursuit of distinctive social objectives as recommended, in particular, by proponents of communitarianism. Finally, it discusses empirical and normative challenges to the state and asks whether the state’s days are numbered.

scholarly journals The Relationship between the State and Universities in the Czech Lands 1849–1939

2022 ◽  
Vol 124 ◽  
pp. 181-206
Author(s):  
Lukáš Fasora
Keyword(s):  
Academic Staff ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Privileged Position ◽  
State And Society ◽  
Day To Day Operations ◽  
The One ◽  
Czech Lands ◽  
The Relationship

This text summarises the results of extensive research into the relationship between the state and universities in 1849–1939, i.e. between the so-called ‘Thun reform’ and the closure of Czech universities by the Nazis. The focus is on the state’s respect for the privileged position of universities and the monitoring of tensions arising from the clash between legislation and the universities’ day-to-day operations, resulting mainly from satisfying the economic needs of universities on the one hand, and the interpretation of the responsibility and discipline of their academic staff towards the state and society on the other. The research shows the advancing erosion of the so-called Prussian (Humboldt’s) concept of an autonomous national-oriented university and the difficult search for a democratic alternative in interwar Central Europe’s unstable political and economic conditions.

scholarly journals Artur Hazelius, Nordiska museet och ansvaret för kulturarvet

1970 ◽  
pp. 105
Author(s):  
Magdalena Hillström
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
State Responsibility ◽  
Construction Of Meaning ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Heritage Politics ◽  
Voluntary Organisations

The thesis traces and analyses important changes in cultural heritage and museum politics during the nineteenth century. It tells two overlapping narratives. One is about the creation and expansion of Nordiska museet, and about the museum founder, Artur Hazelius. The other concerns the indecisive construction of meaning and organisational forms for state responsibility for the cultural heritage. The nineteenth century is commonly described as a time when cultural heritage became a concern of the state. This thesis instead sheds light on the uncertainties involved in the construction of national cultural heritage politics. It emphasises the crucial role played by voluntary organisations. It observes the significance of histories and of counter-histories in the controversies obout the ownership of the cultural heritage and responsibility for maintaining it. The thesis also focuses on the emergence of a museum profession and its implications for the development of Nordiska museet and for museum politics in general.

Unmasking the ‘personality’ of the state—Max Weber, Staatsrechtslehre, and the modern state

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Conceptual Understanding ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Legal Positivist ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Comparative Manner

This chapter examines Max Weber's rejection of an idea central to nineteenth-century Staatsrechtslehre. This is the notion that the state itself is a ‘personality’. After outlining some of the main tenets of this tradition, the chapter seeks to show how Weber, borrowing from the work of Georg Jellinek in particular, retains a conceptual understanding of the state that stresses its position at the apex of political life. He nevertheless rejected the formalism of Jellinek's modified legal-positivist argument, which had resulted in his famous two-sided (one legal, the other political-sociological) account of the state. Weber insisted that the state could only be properly discussed as a relationship of domination, and in an empirical-sociological and comparative manner at that.

Merchants and Mariners

2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lars U. Scholl
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Maritime Trade ◽  
International Context ◽  
Loss Of Life ◽  
State Regulations ◽  
The Core

This book presents twelve essays by historian David M. Williams, in order to pay tribute to his career. The essays stretch from 1807 through to the end of the nineteenth century, and address both economic and social themes. Topics include maritime trade, deployment of merchant ships, the state regulations concerning shipping, shipwrecks and loss of life, passenger cargoes, slavery, cotton, timber and coffee trades, and the working conditions of seamen over the course of the century. The plight of the maritime labourer is at the core of this collection. The essays primarily focus on British shipping, and firmly places it within an international context. The book is introduced by Lars U. Scholl, followed by two tributes to Williams’ career, one by Peter N. Davies, the other by Lewis R. Fischer. Scholl concludes the volume with a thorough bibliography of Williams’ maritime writings: books, chapters, and articles.

S. R. Welch and His History of the Portuguese in Africa, 1495–1806

1960 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. R. Boxer
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Dark Continent ◽  
History Of

The lack of an adequate work in English—or indeed in any other language—on the history of the Portuguese in Africa before the nineteenth century has long been felt by those interested in what is still, in many respects, the Dark Continent, in so far as its past is concerned. In Africa as in Asia, the Portuguese pioneered the expansion of Europe; and their accounts of the indigenous peoples whom they successively discovered will always be of value as showing the state of those peoples before they were affected by contact with white rule. The reactions of the Portuguese to the African environment, whether in Morocco, Guinea, the Congo, Zambesia, or in Abyssinia inevitably affected not only the inhabitants of those regions but set precedents which were followed to a greater or lesser degree by the other Europeans who came after them.

Combating ‘Filth’: The temple, the state, and urbanization in late nineteenth-century Puri

2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (06) ◽  
pp. 1849-1891
Author(s):  
UJAAN GHOSH
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
The State ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Infrastructural Development ◽  
Public Body ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Temple

AbstractThis article interrogates the urbanization of Puri at the time of the cholera epidemic in the latter half of the nineteenth century. In the wake of the epidemic the colonial state took serious steps to reorder the urban landscape of the pilgrim town in general and Puri in particular. However, in Puri the narrative of infrastructural development is slightly complicated by the presence of the temple of Jagannath which acted as an alternative public body. Thus, on every occasion the colonial state had to negotiate with the temple in order to facilitate urban governance in Puri. As a result, I argue, Puri's urban landscape could only develop through interaction and negotiation between the temple and the state.

scholarly journals Iceland in the Eighteenth Century: An Island Outpost of Europe?

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Agnarsdóttir
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Government Policy ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
European Continent ◽  
European Languages ◽  
The Enlightenment

The aim is to define Iceland’s relationship with Europe during the eighteenth century. Though Iceland, an island in the mid-Atlantic, was geographically isolated from the European continent, it was in most respects an integral part of Europe. Iceland was not much different from western Europe except for the notable lack of towns and a European-style nobility. However, there was a clearly – defined elite and by the end of the eighteenth century urbanisation had become government policy. Iceland was also remote in the sense that the state of knowledge among the Europeans was slight and unreliable. However, in the spirit of the Enlightenment, Danish and French expeditions were sent to Iceland while British scientists began exploring the island with the result that by the early nineteenth century an excellent choice of books was available in the major European languages giving up-to-date accounts of Iceland. On the other hand the Icelanders were growing ever closer to Europe, by the end of the century for instance adopting fashionable European dress. Iceland’s history always followed western trends, its history more or less mirroring that of western Europe.

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