Did the Poona Pact Disenfranchise the ‘Depressed Classes’? An Analysis of the 1936–1937 and 1945–1946 Provincial Elections

2021 ◽  
pp. 232102302110430
Author(s):  
Sujay Biswas
Keyword(s):  
Primary Elections ◽  
British India ◽  
Substantive Representation ◽  
Conventional View ◽  
Cumulative Voting ◽  
The Government

This article contests the conventional view that the ‘Depressed Classes’ lost out on representation by agreeing to joint electorates in the Poona Pact. It analyses the results of the elections to the provincial legislatures in British India that took place in 1936–1937 and 1945–1946 under the Government of India Act, 1935, to concretely appraise the working of the Poona Pact. The article argues that reserved seats, primary elections and cumulative voting redeemed the ability of the Poona Pact to provide both descriptive and substantive representation for the ‘Depressed Classes’.

Overcoming Stereotypes

2008 ◽  
pp. 110-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Yakovlev
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
Economic Problems ◽  
Conventional View ◽  
The Government ◽  
High Uncertainty

Using the data of SU-HSU enterprises surveys and internal statistics of KPMG company the paper provides a non-conventional view on three economic problems which have recently been in the center of expert discussions in Russia: competitiveness of firms, corruption in the government and level of taxation. The paper argues the necessity of pragmatic approach to economic phenomena, especially under conditions of high uncertainty caused by the increasing global financial crisis.

scholarly journals LIBERALISM, LOCAL GOVERNMENT REFORM, AND POLITICAL EDUCATION IN GREAT BRITAIN AND BRITISH INDIA, 1880–1886

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 181-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
BENJAMIN WEINSTEIN
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Political Education ◽  
Government Reform ◽  
British India ◽  
The Government

AbstractThis article attempts to shed new light on the character of late Victorian Liberalism by investigating its political priorities in British India. It takes as its particular focus the debates which raged between 1881 and 1883 over the Government of India Resolution on Local Self-Government. Along with the Ilbert Bill, the Resolution comprised the centrepiece of the marquis of Ripon's self-consciously Liberal programme for dismantling Lytton's Raj. When analysed in conjunction with contemporaneous Liberal discourse on English local government reform, the debates surrounding the Resolution help to clarify many of the central principles of late Victorian Liberalism. In particular, these debates emphasize the profound importance of local government reform to what one might call the Liberal project. Beyond its utility in effecting retrenchment, efficiency, and ‘sound finance’, local government reform was valued by Liberals as the best and safest means of effecting ‘political education’ among populations, in both Britain and India, with increasingly strong claims to inclusion within the body politic.

The importance of Macaulay

1990 ◽  
Vol 122 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-94
Author(s):  
Kenneth Ballhatchet
Keyword(s):  
English Education ◽  
Radical Change ◽  
British India ◽  
The Government ◽  
Forward Looking

In J.R.A.S. 1988/2 Robert E. Frykenberg assails what he calls the “myth” that Macaulay's minute on education in British India was the occasion for a radical change in policy which imposed English education on an unwilling people. He puts forward three main arguments. First, there was no radical change in policy, for the government continued to support “Oriental” education and scholarship as well as English education. Secondly, Macaulay's advocacy of English education was a recognition of the views of “forward-looking gentry in India”. Thirdly, his minute was “one more salvo in a long and running set of encounters in which the positions of some protagonists were often much more blurred than has been properly realised by later generations of historians”. What is new in all this?

The Crime–Terror Nexus and its Fallacies

2019 ◽  
pp. 365-382
Author(s):  
Vanda Felbab-Brown
Keyword(s):  
Organized Crime ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Violent Conflict ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Conventional View ◽  
Policy Interventions ◽  
Negative Side Effects ◽  
The Government ◽  
Criminal Groups ◽  
External Actors

The focus on organized crime, illicit economies, and the multiple threats they pose to states and societies intensified after 9/11, when it became obvious that belligerent groups, such as the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan and the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria, derived extensive financial profits and other benefits from participating in illicit economies. The conventional view of the crime–terrorism nexus holds that in order to defeat insurgents, it is necessary to take away their money by suppressing the illegal economy, such as by eliminating drug smuggling or eradicating poppy fields. Yet policy interventions to combat organized crime and illicit economies—whether linked to violent conflict or in the absence of one—have rarely been highly effective. Eradication alienates rural populations from the government and thrusts them into the hands of the insurgents. Conversely, partnering with quasi-criminal actors has often turned out to be counterproductive with respect to other objectives, such as mitigating violent conflict, fostering good governance, and promoting human rights, and at times even counterproductive with respect to very direct objectives, such as weakening criminal groups and their linkages to terrorist organizations. Thus, as much as external actors may condemn tacitly or explicitly permitting illicit economies, such practices are often crucial for winning hearts and minds and ending conflict or for giving belligerent groups a stake in peace. Development-based policies aimed at reducing illicit drug production are crucial for avoiding such negative side-effects while maximizing the chance for peace and social justice.

GEORGE ELIOT AND THE COLONIES

2001 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 413-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy Henry
Keyword(s):  
George Eliot ◽  
Buenos Aires ◽  
New South ◽  
High Yield ◽  
Plain Language ◽  
British India ◽  
Foreign Investments ◽  
Cape Of Good Hope ◽  
South Wales ◽  
The Government

Women are occasionally governors of prisons for women, overseers of the poor, and parish clerks. A woman may be ranger of a park; a woman can take part in the government of a great empire by buying East India Stock.— Barbara Bodichon, A Brief Summary in Plain Language, of the Most Important Laws Concerning Women (1854)ON OCTOBER 5, 1860, GEORGE HENRY LEWES VISITED a solicitor in London to consult about investments. He wrote in his journal: “[The Solicitor] took me to a stockbroker, who undertook to purchase 95 shares in the Great Indian Peninsular Railway for Polly. For £1825 she gets £1900 worth of stock guaranteed 5%” (qtd. in Ashton, Lewes 210). Thus Marian Evans, called Polly by her close friends, known in society as Mrs. Lewes and to her reading public as George Eliot, became a shareholder in British India. Whether or not Eliot thought of buying stock as taking part in the government of a great empire, as her friend Barbara Bodichon had written in 1854, the 5% return on her investment was a welcome supplement to the income she had been earning from her fiction since 1857. From 1860 until her death in 1880, she was one of a select but growing number of middle-class investors who took advantage of high-yield colonial stocks.1 Lewes’s journals for 1860–1878 and Eliot’s diaries for 1879–80 list dividends from stocks in Australia, South Africa, India, and Canada. These include: New South Wales, Victoria, Cape of Good Hope, Cape Town Rail, Colonial Bank, Oriental Bank, Scottish Australian, Great Indian Peninsula, Madras. The Indian and colonial stocks make up just less than half of the total holdings. Other stocks connected to colonial trade (East and West India Docks, London Docks), domestic stocks (the Consols, Regents Canal), and foreign investments (Buenos Aires, Pittsburgh and Ft. Wayne) complete the portfolio.2

Justice Mahmood and English Education in India

2011 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan M. Guenther
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
English Education ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
British India ◽  
Government Service ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Knowledge Formation ◽  
Education In India ◽  
The Government

This article traces the motif of English education in Justice Syed Mahmood’s intellectual history and demonstrates the dialogical nature of knowledge formation in British India. While his own educational experience at Cambridge University had a profound and lasting impact on his own conception of the nature and purpose of education, Mahmood transformed and adapted that experiential knowledge to serve his predominant public concerns. He was increasingly committed to arresting the perceived decline in social standing, political influence and above all educational competence of the Muslim community in India. Seeing government service as the birthright of the ashraf Muslim classes, he encouraged the creation of institutions that would facilitate the training of young men from fine families to become effective bureaucrats in the government machinery of British India. In all these endeavours, Mahmood considered the promotion of English education to be the key to real progress for individuals and for the Muslim community.

scholarly journals Coalition-Based Gender Lobbying: Revisiting Women's Substantive Representation in China's Authoritarian Governance

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-33
Author(s):  
Xinhui Jiang ◽  
Yunyun Zhou
Keyword(s):  
State Power ◽  
Authoritarian Regimes ◽  
The State ◽  
State Agency ◽  
Substantive Representation ◽  
The Government ◽  
Political Agents ◽  
Interaction Approach

Abstract While research on women's substantive representation in legislatures has proliferated, our knowledge of gender lobbying mechanisms in authoritarian regimes remains limited. Adopting a state-society interaction approach, this article addresses how women's interests are substantively represented in China despite the absence of an electoral mandate and the omnipresence of state power. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, this article maps out the intertwining of key political agents and institutions within and outside the state that mobilize for women's grievances and demands. We find that representation of women's interests in China requires the emergence of a unified societal demand followed by a coalition of state agency allies navigating within legislative, executive, and Party-affiliated institutional bodies. The pursuit of women's interests is also politically bounded and faces strong repression if the lobbying lacks state alliances or the targeted issue is considered “politically sensitive” by the government.

scholarly journals Reconstruction of Dhaka City in the 18th Century by the Nawab Family in the Light of Islamic Civilization

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-68
Author(s):  
Mutasim Billah ◽  
Md. Sadequzzaman ◽  
Md Kaosar
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Public Welfare ◽  
Dhaka City ◽  
British India ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Modern Education ◽  
The People ◽  
The Government ◽  
Islamic Civilization ◽  
The City

The Khwaja family of Dhaka having obtained the title of 'Nawab' from the Government of British India reconstructed the city of Dhaka in the 18th century following the light of Islamic civilization. ‘Knowledge’ and ‘charity’ were the basic foundation of Islamic civilization. Similarly, In islamic civilization it was the regular activities to maintain sustainable public welfare oriented architecture. The contemporary period of the Nawab family, they made name and fame for themselves to perform their humanitarian activities. Through business income they developed a waqf system and spent it for various welfare purposes such as: patronage of modern education, institutions, medicine and technology; assistance to the people who were suffering in natural calamities in national and international arena, and they maintained friendship with government bureaucrats. In Islamic civilization we see various attributes such as: human rights, freedom of thought and practicing religion, Muslim family bondage, social welfare, medicine, orphanage, architecture, aesthetics of utensils, library, beauty of modern and scientific discoveries, beauty of environment, gardening, characteristic beauty, fine taste etc. In the eighteenth century, we found similar characteristics in Dhaka City which inspired us to compare the ‘Dhaka city’ reconstruction according to the light of ‘Islamic civilization’. If we see the nature of muslim’s city in medieavel period around the globe, then we found similar features. In this article we try to learn the hidden power of the Nawab family which led them to ‘reconstruct’ the `Dhaka city' through the exploration of various historical books, to see the current activities of their organization, trustees and observing their way of life.

The Colonial Context

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.S. Grewal
Keyword(s):  
Human Resources ◽  
Economic Change ◽  
The Political ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
British India ◽  
Administrative Structure ◽  
Religious Reform ◽  
The Government ◽  
New System

The British evolved an elaborate administrative structure to ensure peace and order for exploiting the material and human resources of the Punjab. The new means of communication and transportation based on western technology served their economic, political, and administrative purposes. A new system of education was introduced chiefly to produce personnel for the middle and lower rungs of administration. The Christian missionaries were closely aligned with the administrators in this project, primarily for gaining converts to Christianity. The socio-economic change brought about by the colonial rule led to a number of movements for socio-religious reform, followed by a new kind of political awakening in the Punjab as in the rest of British India. The political aspirations of Indians were met only partially by the Government of India Act, 1919.

scholarly journals SALT AND SOVEREIGNTY IN COLONIAL BURMA

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
JAGJEET LALLY
Keyword(s):  
State Power ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
British India ◽  
Administrative Capacity ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The Government ◽  
Fiscal Administration ◽  
The One ◽  
Knowledge Deficits

Abstract Across monsoon Asia, salt is of such vital necessity that controlling its production or supply has historically been connected to the establishment and expression of political authority. On the one hand, rulers maintained the allegiance of their subjects by ensuring their access to salt of suitable price and sufficient quantity. On the other hand, denying rebels their salt was a strategy of conquest and pacification, while the necessity of salt meant it could reliably be taxed to raise state finances. This article first sets out this connection of salt and sovereignty, then examining it in the context of colonial Burma, a province of British India from its annexation until its ‘divorce’ in 1935 (effected in 1937), and thus subject to the Government of India's salt monopoly. Focusing on salt brings into view two aspects of the state (while also permitting analysis of ‘Upper Burma’, which remains rather marginal in the scholarly literature). First, the everyday state and quotidian practices constitutive of its sovereignty, which was negotiated and contested where indigenes were able to exploit the chinks in the state's administrative capacity and its knowledge deficits. Second, in turn, the lumpy topography of state power. The state not only failed to restrict salt production to the extent it desired (with the intention that indigenes would rely on imported salt, whose supply was easier to control and thus tax), but conceded to a highly complex fiscal administration, the variegations in which reflected the uneven distribution in state power – thicker in the delta and thinnest in the uplands.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document