Colonial India Research Articles

Empires of Light: Vision, Visibility and Power in Colonial India by Niharika Dinkar

Empires of Light: Vision, Visibility and Power in Colonial India by Niharika Dinkar

Legal Limbo and Caste Consternation: Determining Kayasthas’ Varna Rank in Indian Law Courts, 1860–1930

Abstract This article explores how colonial law in India interacted with the construction of caste rank (varna) between 1860 and 1930. It specifically tracks contestations over Kayasthas’ legal varna rank in northern and eastern India through various inheritance disputes, threading them together to shed light on how courts sought to anchor their interpretations of Hindu law around the Indian jurisprudential conceptions of varna. It examines the successes and failures of Kayasthas to have favorable legal rulings that would uphold their status as “twice-born”/dvija, demonstrating that colonial law was limited in its ability (and often indifferent) to construct caste ranks. Inconsistent ruling in provincial courts pushed Kayasthas to seek taxonomic recognition as “twice-born” in the colonial census, demonstrating how colonial law and taxonomy intersected in novel ways. This article argues that by taking a novel approach to Indian social history through the prism of law, we can enrich our understanding of how modern notions of caste and social rank were constructed in colonial India.

Interweaving influences and adaptations: sartorial endeavors of Okakura Kakuzō and M. K. Gandhi

AbstractUniversalism, as a historical category, played an important ideological role in forging political solidarities beyond national boundaries in the modern period. The paper traces this idea in modern Asia through the sartorial styles of two intellectuals, Okakura Kakuzō and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Clothing as a medium of inquiry offers a unique scholarly perspective to articulate the role of universalism vis-à-vis nationalism in colonial India and modern Japan. Since dress politics existed in Eastern and Western societies, it allows us to study lived experiences through a transregional dialog. Both men recognized clothing as an effective political lexicon to fashion the self and creatively include others within the ideological space. Due to their early exposure to various cultures, the clothing style adopted by Okakura and Gandhi was founded on notions of plurality and belonging to multiple places and people. Their positionality enabled them to establish a dialog with both national and imperial politics and dress in a style that was self-made and world-aware. The paper uses their photographs and writings from a period that engendered the practice of universalism and challenged the narratives of nationalism.

Military system during British period in India and its impact on post independent India

Britain's globe empire was supported by the British Indian Army, founded in 1895 from the East India Company's presidency troops. Much has been written about the Indian Army's colonial and worldwide campaigns as a vehicle of imperial power, but less about its transfer from British to Indian authority after the Second World War. While independence meant the transition of the force from imperial rule to civilian oversight by India's new national leadership, the Dominion of India inherited thousands of former colonial soldiers, including two generations of British and Indian officers indoctrinated in military and cultural practises developed in the UK, colonial India, and the British Empire. This paper examines the British Empire's impact on the Indian Army's narrative, ethos, culture, tactics, and strategies from 1945, when the army began to transition from British to Indian rule, to 1973, when the government of India reinstated the imperial rank of Field Marshal. The Indian Army's first thirty years after independence saw it fight four major wars and see the final departure of white British officers. While it became a truly national army at this period, its history as an arm of imperial authority was contested and eventually evolved into a crucial part of military identity in the post-colonial age.

The prison-handicraft complex: Convict labour in colonial India

AbstractPrison labour was an integral part of the penal order in colonial India in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Especially in Bengal, such coerced labour, overwhelmingly male, was increasingly deployed in handicrafts production rather than in extramural construction projects, a regimen that led to the development of a prison-handicraft complex. Colonial efforts to refine this system focused largely on increasing the severity of the conditions of incarceration and indoor work, but also on the conflicting goal of maximizing the profits of its handiwork. Prisons thus emerged as effective sites of handicrafts production, with the products of their forced labour facilitating the revival of the crafts industry whose growth is generally attributed to the rise of an international arts and crafts movement in Britain and India.

Caught In-Between: Coerced Intermediaries in the Jails of Colonial India

AbstractThis article analyses the role coerced intermediaries had on colonial power and authority in the prisons of British India. Coerced intermediaries in this context were convicts placed in positions of control by the colonial prison administration as warders, overseers, and night watchmen and night watchwomen, summarized here under the term “convict officers”. These convict officers were employed by the colonial authorities to maintain a coercive order and became essential to the exercise of colonial authority and control in the prisons of British India. The article argues that with their employment, the colonial administration created a third group within its prisons, situated between the colonial administration and the inmates. This contradictory practice blurred the lines of colonial control and authority and raises larger questions about intermediation by unfree and coerced people in unfree and coerced colonial contexts. The focus here is not so much on what intermediation is but on what it does. At the same time, the article relates the system of convict officers as intermediaries to the theoretical concepts used by Foucault and Goffman and questions the binarity used in most of their theories.

Alternative forms of bilingual education in colonial India – a prologue to the methods era (1811-1920)

ABSTRACT Learning English was popular in 18th- and 19th-century colonial India because, as Chaudhary (2012) depicts, the East India company’s offer of employment for Indians who knew English made English learning and thereby bilingualism much sought after. Citing examples of bilingual grammars and textbooks from the early 18th century, Chaudhary (2012, 10) notes how, despite demand, it was difficult to obtain these books until the early 19th century. By sourcing facts from scholarly work like this and looking at some available bilingual teaching material, this paper argues that although history weaves a narrative of colonial education as a monolithic, spearheaded imperialist endeavour, colonial education, specifically BELT, was a sporadic, heterogeneous, most times inclusive rivulet of colonial pedagogy which cannot be summarised as a uniform teaching method as specified in the later methods era. Specifically, the paper looks at English-Telugu bilingual teaching/learning material used in the Madras Presidency and English-Odiya bilingual learning material used in parts of Odisha in the Bengal Presidency.

Book review: Jessica Hinchy. 2021. Governing Gender and Sexuality in Colonial India: The Hijra, c. 1850–1900

Jessica Hinchy. 2021. Governing Gender and Sexuality in Colonial India: The Hijra, c. 1850–1900. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press. xviii + 305 pp. Figures, bibliography, index. ₹895 (paperback—ISBN: 9781009010177).

Governing Gender and Sexuality in Colonial India: The Hijra, c. 1850–1900

Governing Gender and Sexuality in Colonial India: The Hijra, c. 1850–1900

Interrogating Orientalism: Hindu Festivals and Travellers’ Tales in the Colonial Indian Ocean

ABSTRACT Thimithi – the Tamil Hindu fire-walking ceremony has always attracted the attention of the curious and the thrill seeker and remains a tourist attraction as well as the performance of a solemn vow in many parts of the world where it continues to be enacted. A source of much speculation as to the participants’ apparent ability to withstand the pain of walking over hot coals, travellers’ often exaggerated accounts of eye witness attendance at such events regularly graced the columns of western journals in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This article focusses on an unusual investigation carried out in colonial Mauritius in mid-1874. The enquiry resulted from a published description of thimithi written by Nicolas Pike, former American consul on the island which caused concern at the colonial office in London, who asked for an explanation. This produced a set of reports, firstly by British police officers, and secondly, but more remarkably, by leading members of the Tamil community on Mauritius. Their detailed and occasionally humorous responses to the western orientalist gaze deftly unpick the absurdities and hypocrisies of the so-called ruling caste whilst their very involvement serves to complicate our understanding of the relationship between white settler and Indian ‘subject’ in the mid-Victorian colonial empire.

Megan EatonRobb: Print and the Urdu Public: Muslims, Newspapers, and Urban Life in Colonial India. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021; pp. xi + 247.

Megan EatonRobb: Print and the Urdu Public: Muslims, Newspapers, and Urban Life in Colonial India. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021; pp. xi + 247.

Dock Labour and a Connected History of Workers in Early Twentieth Century Calcutta


 
 
 This article argues that class formation and labour radicalism in the industrial cities of colonial India need to be located in connected histories of workers, which go beyond analysis of single industries. It shows that the horizontal mobility of workers in early twentieth-century Calcutta was a result of a pervasiveness of casual work, both among the ‘unskilled’ and the skilled. Skill levels and occupations were crucial in defining the boundaries of not one, as is frequently posited, but several labour pools. It was in this form that the reserve army of labour was ever-present in the city, which gave workers networks beyond one workplace, one neighborhood and frequently, even one industry. The special role of segments of skilled workers has rarely been studied in relation to labour militancy and politics. The article sustains an emphasis on the role of industrial centres, such as the docklands, through which a high degree of interconnectedness across industrial processes in terms of shared occupations and skills across several industries and neighborhoods, can be excavated and mapped onto episodes of labour militancy. The neighbourhood, the trade unions, and nationalist events have all hitherto been studied to understand the shaping of workers’ protest. This article, by contrast, focuses on other crucial elements: the workplace and the industrial processes, which tied workers together in concrete, everyday, and proximate relationships.
 
 

Nautch, Thuggee and Criminality in Nineteenth-Century Colonial India

Nineteenth-century colonial India witnessed the much-hyped anti-thuggee campaign, instrumental in creating an elaborate archive of frequent commentaries, opinions on banditry, prisoners and their trials, approvers’ accounts, administrative studies as well as fictional narratives. Re-reading such archival sources, this article explores how nautch, a hybrid form of dance, once glorified and later criminalised by the colonial powers, became a point of intersection between the Europeans in India and local thugs, who often benefitted from such dancers. The article shows the precarious position of the nautch performers as instrumental in collaborating with the colonial rulers and the outlawed thugs for controlling perceived ‘crime’ in the Indian subcontinent, while ending up as victims, too.

Memory, history, and casteless consciousness: Tamil Buddhists in modern South India

ABSTRACT The study of memory and caste-based oppressed communities in India and in the Indian diaspora is largely an unexamined field. If caste was an imposition of the self-privileging groups then, how do we understand the memory and history of the subalternized communities? Likewise, if those Indians who were oppressed by the brahminical invention of untouchability were actually not untouchables, then in what ways do marginalized Indian communities re-member and sustain their intrinsic cultural and historical identities? Do their language, literature, philosophy, and knowledge practices present alternative perspectives about their memory and history beyond caste? This paper aims to address of some of these questions by focusing on the Buddhist movement of the Tamils, who had been marginalized as outcastes, Parayars/Paraiyars/Pariah. It examines the varying ways Tamil Buddhist cultural and communicative memory affirms their casteless and anticaste identity in colonial India. Furthermore, it argues that a direct consequence of such a retention and revival of Buddhist memory in modern India was that these subordinated communities could sustain alternative ways of identifying, representing, and centering themselves beyond brahminical valorizations of caste.

Visualizing Peasant and Bovine Self-Sustenance in the Famine Tracts of Colonial India

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the British Raj sponsored cattle competitions across India to educate peasants in responsible bovine husbandry practices to mitigate famine. Photographs of these competitions, which demonstrate the fraught convergence of economic liberalism and colonial humanitarianism, aimed to constitute model peasants and cattle of measurable self-improvement. Simultaneously, the photographs reveal traces of bovine-peasant relationships that unsettle these newly conceived colonial subjects and that speak to the manner in which cattle’s bodies were sites of competing political and affective inscription.

Women Liberty through Colonial Oppression: A Short Study on M. K. Gandhi and R. S. Hossain

The point of the current paper is to reveal insight into women's condition within Indian Subcontinent during the colonial period. The investigation will fixate on the gendered place that women had to take, and on the male developed generalizations to which they were oppressed from an Enlightenment Feminist viewpoint. Begum Rokeya brought the social condition of women into mindfulness how a lady was obliged to comply with social built biases which made of her an item; all chances for education, prospect, freedom and improvement were shut to her. When the people of colonial India could feel the independence, they could realize the essence of women education. Colonialism not only depress men but also became the key factor to trap the women into a case-house. The permission of women’s education did not come automatically, but with a long struggle and well leading campaign. Only for Hindus, Mahatma Gandhi played an imperative part to support the dignity of women folk by stating that women were neither mere figures in the hands of male nor their opponents. Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, for both Muslims and Hindus, shouted the women's consciousness and women's freedom through education could play a vital issue to strengthen the man's heart for colonial freedom. They, both, wanted women's empowerment and equality in society; at the workstation; at the community, and even at family for sustainable-development of a nation. Their activism inspired modern women gliding to economic, political and mental growth. Nowadays, women is involving in all sphere of national or international sectors in the Indian Subcontinent

Moving from Fear to Freedom: A Quest for Love, Respect, Freedom and Acceptance by LGBTQ Community Through Indian Cinema

The LGBT community is subject to gender-based violence and other violations of human rights since these laws are invisible to the public. Film has unquestionably been important to the LGBT movement in India. Like many contemporary movements, the queer movement in India seeks to change ingrained social mores, notably the pervasive notion that sexual orientation is merely a phase. Film is viewed as a social cycle in which audience members interpret signs or messages that are broadcast to them using their aural and visual senses. The movies have become much too popular a tourist attraction. Dramatic cinematography and sound film in an exhibition of copying not only shocks us but also holds our attention. Film has the power to captivate audiences, educate viewers, and shift the collective conscience. This huge growth of Bollywood in India and overseas is described by “Jaikumar (2006)” in his book ‘Film Towards the End of Empires’. Bollywood, an Indian film industry powerhouse, mimics and analyzes the public's credit, complexity, genuine elements, and deceptions via a variety of narrative perspectives. As a result, our worldview and general awareness are shaped by Bollywood This Research paper sets out to examine the mainstream treatment of homosexuality in Hindi films, with a focus on how the LGBT community is depicted. And how they fight for their rights for freedom, love, respect and acceptance in the society. The arrival of cinema in India's LGBT community was unquestionably a game-changer. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender persons are all part of the sexual minority. Among the numerous nations where homosexuality is still frowned upon one is India. In colonial India, the British enacted Section 377 of the Indian Criminal Code, which still exists today and criminalises homosexuality. In this paper, we have shown Hindi cinema’s representation of the LGBTQ community in films like Badhaai Do, Kapoor & Sons, Dear Dad, Ek Ladki ko Dekha to Aisa Laga, Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan and their struggle and acceptance in the society in the 21st century.

Decoding Crime and Punishment in Colonial India: Analysing Surjatamashi, Nibarsaptak, and Thugee or Thug

Crime has been an intrinsic part of human society since its inception and has eventually shaped itself as a social phenomenon. Crime follows punishment even though not in all cases but both are considered to be intertwined with one another closely and the latter happens as a consequence of the former. Crime is a behaviour that is not socially acceptable and despite the viciousness associated with it, crime is a transgression of the social rules as to how humans need to conduct themselves. The advent of the British as a colonial power introduced India to western thoughts, ideals, and scientific and technological advancements. The dwellers of the Western world came with not solely what was desirable but also that which a healthy human society does not find worth welcoming. Criminal propensities of the human disposition in the Western world were perpetuated into Indian society with their arrival.

Mahashweta Devi-The Mouthpiece of Indigenous Crave for Identity and Existence

Mahasweta Devi has explored the unexplored world of subjugated Adivasis. She was a legend in the regional Adivasis literature, explaining the causes of tribal displacement, resistance and marginality. In a true sense, she had taken the responsibility to give the voices to the marginalized Adivasis who were suppressed for centuries by the imperialist mentalities. Devi’s translated novels Chotti Munda and His Arrow and Arenyer Adhikar were path-breaking novels in the Indian English Novel Writing. For the first time Birsa Munda, the legendary martyr and icon of whole Adivasis in India was known through her magnificent novel to all. The present research paper peeps into mainstream literary writing and representation of the realism of the Adivasis struggle and survival issues including the demeaning of tribal life. The research paper tries to examine the issues of displacement, acculturation and disparity of Adivasi life came out from the writings of Mahashweta Devi and regrets that hundreds of Adivasi revolts took place in colonial India but hardly those revolts could not become the subjects of literary, social and political discourses in India.

Rise of Siddha medicine: causes and constructions in the Madras Presidency (1920-1930s).

This essay aims to situate the emergence of Siddha medicine as a separate medical system in the erstwhile Madras Presidency of colonial India within a broader socio-economic context. Scholars who have worked on Siddha medicine have stressed more on political dimensions like nationalism and sub-nationalism with inadequate attention to the interplay of various (other) factors including contemporary global developments, changes in the attitude of the colonial State and especially to the new promises held by the greater deference shown to indigenous medical systems from the 1920s. If the construction of 'national medicine' based on the Sanskrit texts and the accompanying marginalisation of regional texts and practices were the only reasons for the emergence of Siddha medicine as presented by scholars, it leaves open the question as to why this emergence happened only during the third decade of the twentieth century, though the marginalisation processes started during the first decade itself. This paper seeks to find an answer by analysing the formation of Siddha medical identity beyond the frameworks of nationalism and sub-nationalism. Further, it explicates how material factors served as immediate cause along with the other, and more ideational factors related to the rise of the Dravidian political and cultural movement.