The Armed Police and Colonial Rule in South India, 1914—1947

Abstract

In recent years, studies of the mechanics of European colonialism in Asia and Africa have largely focused on the creation of collaborative systems and dependent economic structures within the colonized societies. The part that troops played in carving out a colonial territory and crushing primary resistance is often described, but seldom do accounts of colonial rule examine in detail the means of coercion employed to maintain a favourable political and economic environment. If, however, it is even partly true that power grows out of the barrel of a gun, then discussion of colonial situations must take into consideration the role that the régime's armed agencies played in containing indigenous political movements and in themselves constituting one of the principal pillars of collaboration.