Pre-independence India Research Articles

Cross-Cultural Sisters? Eleanor Rathbone and the Indian Feminist Movement in the 1930s

This article examines the private correspondence between Eleanor Rathbone, a leading early twentieth century British feminist and Indian feminists within the historical context of pre-Independence India. Rathbone was the first British feminist to take cognizance of the need to listen to Indian women's own voices on the question of their reform. The letters that she exchanged with contemporary Indian feminists bear testimony to her attempts to break away from imperial feminism's traditional assumptions about the silence of Indian women and to have a dialogue with them over the question of their enfranchisement. The paper also examines the limits of this dialogic process by looking at the problematic aspects of Rathbone's interest in the question of the Indian women's franchise and how these often clashed with the Indian feminists' own ideological commitments. This dialogue has been placed within its complex historical moment in order to enable a more nuanced understanding of gender and its relations within the Empire.

Rethinking the Politics and Ethics of Consumption: Dialogues with the Swadeshi Movements and Gandhi

This article attempts to create the space for rethinking the politics and ethics of consumption by initiating dialogues with Swadeshi movements and Gandhi in order to transform the spaces ofproduction transcending the concern for consumption choices. Analysing the history of Swadeshi movements in pre-independence India, especially Bengal, and drawing inspiration from Gandhi 's Swadeshi movement and his principles of swaraj and satyagraha, an attempt has been made here to provide an aesthetic, ethical and spiritual foundation for the present version of the Swadeshi drive in India, which is substantively immersed in the logic of market capitalism and mindless consumption. The article explores pathways of improvement of quality of life, experi ences in happiness and fulfilment, both individual and collective, by creating a culture of self-development, responsible consumption and community building efforts on the basis of sharing and concern for others.

Bearing Witness: Rape, Female Resistance, Male Authority and the Problems of Gender Representation in Popular Indian Cinema

Indian cinema in its preoccupation with rape shows a parallel between feminist resistance and nationalist resistance. While Mirch Masala (1985), set in pre-Independence rural India, is able to draw upon a mythology of nationalist resistance, which also, at the same time, 'sanctions and mediates the potentially subversive politics of female resistance', later films like Zakhmi Aurat (1988) and Damini (1993) qualify women's autonomous resistance by including male partners to witness, support and legitimise their actions. We conclude that in popular cinema 'the more radical the gesture of resistance, the more conservative the resolution'. All the same, as fanta sised reactions to rape enacted by women, they engage the politics of female resistance in ways that are relevant to our feminist understanding.

In Search of the Collective Self: How Ethnic Group Concepts were Cast through Conflict in Colonial India

When the concept of Western nationalism travelled to India in the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century it was carried by British officialdom and an increasingly mobile and articulate Indian élite that was educated in English and in the tradition of British society. Not only did it inspire the all-India nationalist movement, but it encouraged regional politics as well, mainly in ethnic and religious terms. Most of today's ethnic and religious movements in South Asia could be traced back to their antecedents before independence. Looking closer at the three major regional movements of pre-independence India, the Pathans, the Sikhs and the Tamils, one finds a striking similarity in patterns of mobilization, conflict and concept irrespective of their association with the national movement (Red Shirt movement of the Pathans, Sikh movement of the Akalis) or independent existence in opposition to Congress (non-Brahmin/Tamil movement)

Women, Education, and Family Structure in India.Carol Chapnick Mukhopadhyay and Susan Seymour, eds

<i>Women, Education, and Family Structure in India.</i>Carol Chapnick Mukhopadhyay and Susan Seymour, eds

Tata Steel and higher technical education in India: The Padshah Plan, 1916–21

By the end of the nineteenth century, indigenous pressures on the Government of India to develop new schemes for scientific research and higher technical education were intense. None were more substantial and prominent than those exerted by J. N. Tata (1839-1904) and his sons, Dorab (1859-1932) and Ratan (1871-1918). While the Tatas' industrial accomplishements have been chronicled and reported, the extent of their educational proposals, and the official reactions to them, have been largely ignored. This note on their unsuccessful attempt to gain imperial status for the technical institute opened at the Tata steel works in Jamshedpur in 1921 offers further evidence of the Tatas' interest in education and scientific research, and its significance in interpreting official educational and industrial policies in pre-Independence India.

The Ordeal of Love: C.F. Andrews and India.

A biography of C.F. Andrews, who came to India as an Anglican priest in 1904 and was respected in Indian nationalist circles, as well as by British officials. The text analyses Andrews's role in pre-Independence India, and his fight against oppression in Africa.

Agricultural Credit Cooperatives in Madras, 1893-1937: Rural Development and Agrarian Politics in Pre-independence India

Agricultural Credit Cooperatives in Madras, 1893-1937: Rural Development and Agrarian Politics in Pre-independence India

More on India's Sacred Cattle

Previous articleNext article No AccessDiscussion and CriticismMore on India's Sacred CattleCorry Azzi, Howard Weizmann, and Marvin HarrisCorry Azzi Search for more articles by this author , Howard Weizmann Search for more articles by this author , and Marvin Harris Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Current Anthropology Volume 15, Number 3Sep., 1974 Sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/201478 Views: 8Total views on this site Citations: 2Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1974 The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological ResearchPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Nazima Parveen In the Name of Cow: Legal–Constitutional Discourse and the Contours of Contemporary Indian Politics, Studies in Indian Politics 8, no.22 (Nov 2020): 214–229.https://doi.org/10.1177/2321023020963519EZRA RASHKOW Resistance to Hunting in Pre-independence India: Religious environmentalism, ecological nationalism or cultural conservation?, Modern Asian Studies 49, no.22 (Dec 2014): 270–301.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0026749X14000110

The Shaping of Secondary Education in Pakistan

The purpose of this paper is to trace some of the educational developments in British India which later shaped the thinking of educators in Pakistan and to discuss the educational aspirations of Pakistan within the broader context of Pakistan society. The first section contains a description of some educational reform plans prepared in pre-independence India. The second section deals with the circumstances of the partition of the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent from the standpoint of Pakistan and with the political and economic conditions which appeared to influence educational reforms in Pakistan. In the final section, some salient recommendations for educational advancement in Pakistan are examined and it is noted that the government of Pakistan has conceived of its schools as instruments for the reconstruction of Pakistani society.