Schools for Muslim Girls -A Colonial or an Indigenous Project? A Case Study of Hyderabad

Abstract

Since several years the discussions on Eduard Said's interpretation of oriental ism mark the dispute on the character and the importance of colonialism in South Asia. This has led to very interesting research on the relationship between colonial power and the production of knowledge on the colonies, notably on the ways in which indigenous institutions and traditions have been reinterpreted and thus re-formed by the British. While indigenous resistance is glorified, it nevertheless does not seem to have had much of an effect, as according to this position, both the power to interpret the world and the agency to change it re mained exclusively colonial. Challenging this all too sharp dichotomy between the omnipotent coloniser and the helpless colonised which in a strange way rejoins contemporary British images notably the Cambridge School and Chris Bayly have pointed out the many different forms of interaction, through which colonial knowledge on India was formed and reality transformed. Emphasising reciprocities and cross-fertilisa tions, Jamal Malik has recently shown that much of the 18tn and early 19th cen tury can also be read as a history of 'mutual encounters'1 between British and Indians.