United Provinces Research Articles

The Jews and the Reformation by Kenneth Austin

Reviewed by: The Jews and the Reformation by Kenneth Austin David H. Price Kenneth Austin. The Jews and the Reformation. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020. 288 pp. Providing substantially more than the title promises, Kenneth Austin’s The Jews and the Reformation surveys Christian theological and political reflection on Judaism, Jews, and Hebrew Scripture from the late fifteenth century to the end of the seventeenth century. This is a long and complex period, one that marks the nadir of Jewish fortunes in western Europe (before the Holocaust) as well as the significant, if uneven, improvement in the conditions for Jewish life in many places, a turning point that began in the final decades of the sixteenth century. The great value of this new book is its simultaneous focus on Catholic and Protestant writers and governments across central and western Europe; its impressive scope encompasses the Iberian expulsions, the inquisitions (especially in Spain, Portugal, and Rome), the humanist movement (especially the Jewish book controversy and Christian Hebraism), Luther and his movement, the radical Reformation, Reformed Protestantism (especially Calvin and the biblical scholar Immanuel Tremellius), and the Tridentine Catholic response to Judaism as well as the early history of the new Jewish communities in the United Provinces and in England during the Commonwealth. Austin, admirably, is reluctant to draw general conclusions as to which Christian denominations were more or less favorably disposed to supporting legal toleration. Nonetheless, his inclination to strike a “balanced” position occasionally results in apologetic tendencies. For example, he claims that “Portugal proved a much more hospitable home for Jews” (125), just one sentence before mentioning the traumatic bloodshed of the 1506 Lisbon massacre (which cost ca. 1,000 to [End Page 188] 4,000 Jewish lives), as if it were an inconvenient historical detail. There is also a reluctance to fully acknowledge the harshness of the end of Sicut Judeis (the medieval protection of Jewish rights under canon law) initiated by Paul IV, a transformation that ultimately resulted in censorship, expulsions, strict ghettoization, and expanding papal support for inquisitional persecution. Austin does not mention the horrifying execution of twenty-four Jewish Marranos in papal Ancona in 1556 (nor the emergence of substantial, but temporary, Jewish resistance to the papacy organized by Gracia Mendes Nasi). The overall analysis adopts Kenneth Stow’s valuable but one-sided position that papal policy changed in order to promote conversion to Christianity, and also the commonly expressed view that Jewish culture was able to thrive to a limited degree under ghettoization in Italy, at least for a while and especially in Venice. Austin sees considerable impact from Christian Hebrew studies. This is an exceedingly difficult innovation to assess because Christian Hebraists used their expertise variously to create benevolent portrayals of Judaism and also to construct anti-Jewish polemics, sometimes of great severity. One of the harshest and most substantial anti-Jewish books ever published—Johann Andreas Eisenmenger’s Entdecktes Judentum (1700; Judaism Uncovered)—goes unmentioned, even though the author was a major Calvinist Hebrew scholar and the text’s extreme hostility provoked intense theological and political controversy at the highest levels of power in the empire. Similarly, on the other side of the ledger, the strongly favorable and influential accounts of Judaism by the great Catholic biblical scholar Richard Simon (who also translated and promoted Leon Modena’s History of the Jewish Rituals) are not mentioned. In some cases, Austin’s optimistic portrayal of Christian Hebraism is not accurate. He claims, for instance, that Johannes Reuchlin, the founder of Christian Hebrew studies, “persuaded the emperor to reverse his position” (3) on the stunning policy initiative to confiscate and destroy all Hebrew books in the empire except the Bible. In fact, the emperor reversed his position under pressure from the Frankfurt Jewish community. Reuchlin’s defense of Jewish writings, which resulted in a heresy trial (he was convicted of being “impermissibly favorable to Jews”), galvanized Europe but ultimately contributed only modestly to a gradual shift in Maximilian’s policy of eradication of Jews back to a more traditional one of legal toleration in return for fiscal exploitation. The portrayal of imperial politics overall seems somewhat constrained. Austin does not comment on the...

Local Self-Government in Manipur: A Case Study of Phayeng Gram Panchayat

The institutions of local government have been functioning in India since time immemorial. The village elder’s council or village panchayat as they were popularly called, were, ancient institutions and were themselves functioning like a republic system of government. This local governance system has a distinct place, without which political system in India would have no authenticity. In Manipur also, since the early period, there was village level administration for every Loi (outcasted and low caste section of Manipuri society during the native rule in Manipur) village under the leadership of village Chief locally known as Khullakpa. He was assisted by other village officials. They were under the subjection of the King of Manipur. In the traditional village level administration, the Loi villages (especially of the Chakpa Loi origin villages like Sekmai, Phayeng, Andro etc.), the number of officers and their assignments were different from one Chakpa Loi village to another Chakpa Loi village mainly due to the different in nature and occupation of each of the Chakpa Loi village. Since the institution of the Panchayati Raj system was introduced in Manipur from early 1960s, under the United Provinces Panchayati Raj Act, 1947, the Phayeng Gram Panchayat was created as one of the Gram Panchayats under the extension of this Act in Manipur. And in Manipur, panchayat election was held in 1964. Since then, like other Gram Panchayats of Manipur, the Phayeng Gram Panchayat is also has been conducting elections till date. The present paper is an attempt mainly to analyse the participation of the electorate in the panchayat elections of this Gram Panchayat. Keywords: Chakpas, Gram Panchayat, Local Self Government, Loi, Phayeng Gram Panchayat and Pradhan.

Life of a Dalit magistrate: Ideologies and politics in Dalit life in North India, 1920–1954

AbstractThis article discusses Chaudhari Mulkiram (April 1910–August 1954) and the contesting ideologies, memories, histories, and socio-political conditions surrounding his career from the 1920s to the mid-1950s. Mulkiram belonged to the Dhangar, a sub-caste of the Khatik caste in Meerut. He was the first Dalit of the United Provinces (UP) who qualified for the Public Service Commission in 1939. This article shows his socio-religious and socio-political relations and responses to the Arya Samaj, Congress, and Scheduled Caste Federation. It reveals how the representatives of these agencies portrayed his life and work. This article also discusses how his relations and responses helped and influenced his caste members in the western UP. It argues that the Arya Samaj, Harijan Sevak Sangh, and Congress used the first generation of Dalit civil servants like Mulkiram to cultivate local leaders and to mobilize local Dalits, peasants, labourers, and villagers to act in their political interests against Ambedkar’s movement. Hence, in the 1940s and early 1950s, Mulkiram presented himself as a Gandhi bhakt, Jan Neta (public leader), and Sanyasi (household monk and socio-religious reformer).

Learning How to Print in Colonial North India: The Nizami Press in Budaun and the First Urdu Manual on the Art of Lithography

Abstract This article centers on an Urdu-language manual on lithography, published in 1924 by the Nizami Press in Budaun (United Provinces), to explore how a Muslim printer-publisher in a North Indian qaṣbah tried to reform educational methods in his trade. It introduces the Nizami Press (est. 1905) and compares the manual with similar European and Indian instructional handbooks. How did Indian printers and publishers learn their craft? What were the tools and materials used for lithographic printing in colonial India? And given the popularity of lithography, why were such manuals rarely published in Indian languages? By examining the material and technical aspects of the lithographic printing process explained in the Urdu manual, this article engages with larger scholarly debates revolving around knowledge production, pedagogy, and technological developments in South Asia. Furthermore, it analyzes the manual’s language to demonstrate how printers and publishers were engaged in discourses about nationalism, modernization, and social reform.

THE EFFECT OF LIFE REVIEW THERAPY ON DEPRESSION IN THE ELDERLY AT UPT ELDERLY SOCIAL SERVICE BINJAI PROVINCE OF SUMATERA UTARA 2021

Life review therapy is one of therapy to reducing depression, building confidence, psychological well-being, and contentment in elderlylife. Purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of life review therapy on depression in elderly at Binjai erderly social service unit Province of North Sumatera 2021. This research method uses one-group pretest – posttest design. The sampling Technique was purposive sampling, with a sample of 30 respondents. The measuring instrument used by the Geriatric Depression Scale questionnaire. The results showed that the score before life review therapy is 7,20 (SD=2,592), and after life review therapy 4,13 (SD=2,825). Statistical test results show the life review therapy affected depression in elderly at Province North Sumatera Binjai erderly social service unit with paired t-test, ρ value = 0,001. This research is expected to be an alternative to reducing depression, improving well-being and quality of elderlylife.

Quantifying the scientific revolution.

The Scientific Revolution represents a turning point in the history of humanity. Yet it remains ill-understood, partly because of a lack of quantification. Here, we leverage large datasets of individual biographies (N = 22,943) and present the first estimates of scientific production during the late medieval and early modern period (1300-1850). Our data reveal striking differences across countries, with England and the United Provinces being much more creative than other countries, suggesting that economic development has been key in generating the Scientific Revolution. In line with recent results in behavioural sciences, we show that scientific creativity and economic development are associated with other kinds of creative activities in philosophy, literature, music and the arts, as well as with inclusive institutions and ascetic religiosity, suggesting a common underlying mindset associated with long-term orientation and exploration. Finally, we investigate the interplay between economic development and cultural transmission (the so-called 'Republic of Letters') using partially observed Markov models imported from population biology. Surprisingly, the role of horizontal transmission (from one country to another) seems to have been marginal. Beyond the case of science, our results suggest that economic development is an important factor in the evolution of aspects of human culture.

Community preferences for agroforestry patterns in supporting future forestry development

Through the selecting cropping patterns can be used as a strategy to regulate the success rate of land management it can contribute to deciding the level of the earth’s temperature through the selection of plant species. The high level of the earth’s temperature causes various impacts such as an increase in drought, which affects the agricultural industry, changes in weather that affect the success of planting, to the food crisis. Therefore, the selection of plant species must be done correctly and in accordance with the preferences of farmers. The choice of plant types that are by following the wishes of farmers can increase the motivation of farmers to maintain and caring for plants so that the success rate of planting will be higher. Therefore, it is essential to research farmers’ preferences in choosing crop types and agroforestry cropping patterns (simple agroforestry and complex agroforestry) because the amount of carbon stored by plants will depend on farmers’ preferences. The purpose of this study is to determine the preferences of farmers in choosing types of crops and agroforestry cropping patterns by using decision-making analysis methods. The study was conducted from December 2020 to February 2021 at the Batutegi Forest Management Unit, Tanggamus Regency, and Lampung Province. Research results show that the aspects considered by farmers are the aspects considered by farmers in choosing plant types and cropping patterns were production orientation (100%), time and labor (95.65%), biophysical conditions (80.43%), knowledge (80.43%) and the ability to invest in plants (36.96%). The reasons for farmers choosing crop types and cropping patterns are income (100%), productivity (88.89%), production speed (82.22%), and ease of harvesting (37.78%). As many as 73% of farmers who choose complex agroforestry cropping patterns have a more significant role in minimizing the impact of global warming. This happens because complex agroforestry cropping patterns are able to minimize the effects of global warming more optimally with larger stored carbon stocks of 765.61 tons/ha when compared to simple agroforestry planting patterns with carbon stocks of 356.21 tons/ha.

ROLE OF ARYA SAMAJ IN DALIT UPLIFTMENT: A CRITICAL STUDY (C . 1875-1947 AD)

Nowadays major sociological concern relates to minorities, gender disparities and depressed classes. The Dalit issue has emerged as one of the major arena of research. It is in this regard it become significant to study the beginning of efforts for the Dalits emancipation. Arya Samaj appears to be the pioneer of such efforts so chosen for the following Endeavour. Arya Samaj was one of the earliest movement to take into account the question of untouchables, who later come to be known as the Dalits. Founded by Swami Dayanand Saraswati in 1875, the movement worked for the emancipation of the Dalits. But genuineness of these efforts come under question because of the circumstances under which the efforts were made. How much the Samaj was concerned with the Upliftment of the Samaj? There are questions that how much the Arya samaj wanted the Dalits to flourish and Why did Arya Samaj take the backstep when the aspirations of the Dalits rose further and they yearned for equality? The Aim of this paper is to trace the views of Swami Dayanand Saraswati on the Caste system. Paper also attempts to analyse critically the efforts of Arya Samaj in emancipation of the Dalits. The paper will examine the impact of the Arya Samaj in United Province of India . At the same time it also aims to study the Dalit response to these efforts and their own exertions for their emancipation

“Union of Earth and Water”: Blocking of the Scheldt by the Republic of the United Provinces in 1587–1795

This article considers the blocking of the Scheldt River mouth, i.e., the blockade of navigation on the Lower Scheldt between Antwerp and the sea. Organized by the Republic of the United Provinces during the war between the Netherlands and Spain in the late sixteenth century, it continued throughout the entire existence of the Republic. The blockade had a significant impact on the development of the United Provinces’ (first of all, on the province of Zeeland) economy and affected the economy of the Southern Netherlands, mainly Antwerp, becoming one of the reasons for the decline of this once powerful centre of trade. At the turn of the twenty-first century, studying new materials, Dutch and Belgian researchers gradually returned to examining the blockade of the Scheldt, which had not been sufficiently studied so far. As for national historiography, this article is the first attempt at covering this topic. The author briefly outlines the background of the “blockade” of the Scheldt and traces how it was legally formed based on contractual acts of the seventeenth–eighteenth centuries. She describes the purpose of the blockade of the river mouth and the mechanism for regulating navigation in its lower part. The blockade of the Scheldt mouth prevented vessels from freely passing the Lower Scheldt to and from the southern Dutch ports, but this did not mean the blockade of trade. It was about changing its rules: the introduction of mandatory transshipment of goods in the ports of Zeeland from ships of the Southern Netherlands to Dutch lighters that delivered goods along the Scheldt to Antwerp. The Dutch forts of Lillo and Liefkenshoek played an important role in admitting ships to Antwerp and levying taxes for the Republic’s treasury. Using visual material — a map of the first half of the seventeenth century by Willem Blaeu — the article gives an idea of the Scheldt near Antwerp and the South Dutch fortifications located along the banks.

England's Military Role in the United Provinces (1585-1625)

يتناول البحث الدور العسكري الإنكليزي في حماية المدن الساحلية للمقاطعات المتحدة التي عرفت(هولندا) فيما بعد ، وخضوع الاخيرة لقرارات ملوك أنكلترا واستغلال ما يقدمونه من مساعدة عسكرية لها, لحاجة المقاطعات المتحدة للحماية من غزوات الإسبان وتهديدهم المستمر لأراضيها، وبذلك اتسم الدور الإنكليزي في هولندا بجانبين سياسي وعسكري, وإلزام الهولنديين بدفع مستحقات الحماية العسكرية الإنكليزية لمناطقها، في الوقت نفسة كانت انكلترا تشجع بين الحين وآلاخر الصراعات العسكرية داخل تلك المقاطعات المتحدة لجعلها ضعيفة وبحاجة مستمرة للدعم الإنكليزي

Identifying Place Names in Johan Nieuhoff’s First Dutch Embassy to China from 1655 to 1657

The paper aims to identify place names in illustration titles in John Nieuhoff’s An Embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Grand Tartar Cham Emperour of China (English in 1669, Dutch in 1665). Nieuhoff’s text was very popular with the 17th century European public. After its first publication in Dutch it was translated into French, German, Latin and English and reprinted fourteen times in many European countries. In particular, his illustrations were highly appreciated because they provided realistic and vivid images of China to Europeans at a time when there had been little information about China. It had a great influence on the fever for Chinese style in Europe in the 18th century. Nieuhoff’s illustrations were frequently applied to everyday painted objects such as furniture, screens, wallpaper, textiles, and dishes. About 80% of illustrations present scenery in the area where the Dutch embassy anchored or passed by on their journey from Guangdong to Beijing. However, the place names which were transliterated into Dutch and other European languages are a major obstacle for following Nieuhoff’s travelogue. It is not easy to infer the Chinese regional names from either the Dutch or the English text. Therefore, the paper identifies Chinese regions in the text by mainly comparing Nieuhoff’s information and transliteration with Martino Martini’s Novus Atlas Sinensis (1655).

Official discretion, errors, and oversights: legal bureaucracy and the question of justice in twentieth-century India

AbstractLate colonial juridical practice in India was prone to bureaucratic errors and shared with the police a fundamental disinterest in the liberty of ordinary people. This article tells the politically marginal but highly revealing story of how a series of errors during the arrest and subsequent detention of an elderly man called Peter Budge—an innocent bystander in a situation of heightened communal tensions—led to a momentary scandal in the United Provinces administration in the year 1947–48. Peter's case disappeared between the cracks of bad record-keeping, leading to his lengthy and unlawful detention. It raises important questions about the complementary relation between law and violence, and the fictitious nature of public-order laws. In contrast to the scholarship that has discussed the spectacular violence of the state, this article looks at the ‘other’ acts of violence of the state and argues that the everyday reality of public-order enforcement is key to understanding the nature and operations of the late colonial and post-colonial state.

Los juegos de la política: Las independencias hispanoamericanas frente a la contrarrevolución

In Los juegos de la política, Marcela Ternavasio invites the reader to ponder what would have happened to the Spanish American processes of independence if the Portuguese and Spanish armies had formed an alliance to defeat them. While Luso-Spanish alliance never came to fruition, the question allows the author to dwell on “what happened in the context of what could have happened” (p. 13). Sitting at the intersection of Atlantic politics, war, and diplomacy, Los juegos de la política unearths the history of expectations, fears, and calculation that the move of the Portuguese royal family to Brazil, the restoration of Ferdinand VII to the Spanish throne, and Napoleon's defeat in France generated on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.The book is divided in three parts, each addressing one specific conjuncture and the potential scenarios that this conjuncture enabled. In the first part, Ternavasio compares and contrasts the diplomatic correspondence of different agents of the Portuguese and Spanish crowns to exhume the myriad political calculations that surrounded the fate of the expedition led by General Pablo Morillo. The author shows how the final destination of the expedition (New Granada) emerged from a politization of European diplomacy in which the role of colonial agents in Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro, and Buenos Aires was central. The second part explores the diplomatic negotiations over a double marriage between the Braganzas and the Bourbons and the feverish political realignments and speculation that this possibility elicited. Certainly, dynastic marriages were an established part of European diplomacy, but Ternavasio's analysis reveals the significant role that princesses, Carlota Joaquina specifically, played in forging these alliances (p. 114). Moreover, Ternavasio highlights the role that the Portuguese invasion of the Banda Oriental (present-day Uruguay) played in the international diplomatic arena by influencing the fresh political realignments that the Congress of Vienna had made possible. Finally, the third part traces how the declaration of independence of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata forced a resolution of the Luso-Spanish alliance. The intense negotiations over the type of government that the United Provinces would adopt—a republic or a monarchy—show the significant role that local powers played in the international diplomatic arena. In the end, the book dissects a political game that all players involved would end up losing. In the Banda Oriental, after building one of the most radical political alternatives of the era, the leader José Gervasio Artigas lost his political ascendance and went into exile. Moreover, in the United Provinces, the internal divisions among different regional leaders resulted in the implosion of the central government in 1820. The European powers did not fare well either. The Portuguese royal family had to leave Brazil after a liberal revolution took place in Portugal. Ferdinand VII of Spain faced the revolt of Rafael de Riego, which not only derailed a military expedition to the Río de la Plata but also reinstated a constitutional monarchy under the liberal principles of the Constitution of Cádiz.Ternavasio's methodological choices aid in the reconstruction of a highly convoluted political scenario. The author utilizes the present tense to stress the contingency of each conjuncture and to recover the level of fear, excitement, and scheming that those conjunctures generated among the European nations and the revolutionary elites in Spanish America. Likewise, the author utilizes the metaphor of politics as a game to highlight the capital importance that calculation had in the decisions that the actors made and the actions that they performed. Ternavasio successfully reveals the complicated and convoluted trajectory that absolutist and independence ideas had. In an ever-changing political and military scenario, political players constantly measured their ideological choices against hypothetical alliances that could ultimately secure political and military victory. Ultimately, Ternavasio's methodological choices reveal the profound impact that the Spanish American processes of independence had in international diplomacy. The Congress of Vienna had created a new balance of power within Europe that the revolutionary experiments in Spanish America questioned. As Ternavasio shows, the wars of independence in Spanish America forced the European powers to broaden the geographical scope of political negotiation outside Europe. In doing so, the wars played a significant role in the construction of a global and interdependent concert of nations.This book complements and expands the ideas explored in Ternavasio's previous book, centered on the figure of Carlota Joaquina. Written in agile prose, Los juegos de la política will make a fantastic addition to any graduate-level class on Latin American history. More importantly, it is a fantastic example of the potential benefits that a new diplomatic history of Latin America can offer, not just for Latin American history but for global history as well.

Gandhi, Ambedkar and British Policy on the Communal Award: A Response to Sujay Biswas

This article considers the proposition, advanced by Sujay Biswas, that the British ‘manufactured’ the demand for a separate ‘Untouchable’ electorate in the Communal Award of 1932. First, the evidence cited by Biswas is closely examined. His proposition is then assessed in the context of the deliberations of the colonial authorities in India, the provincial administration in the United Provinces (UP) and the Cabinet of the United Kingdom (UK). It is concluded that while communal electorates generally may have been used deliberately to divide Indians, there are no grounds for thinking that it was the case in that of the Depressed Castes.

Of Poets, Prophets, and Printers

Abstract This article identifies the personalities and circumstances behind two previously unknown heterodox religious publishing projects of the seventeenth century. The first was based in Leiden in the United Provinces, while the second originated in Dresden in Electoral Saxony. The Leiden project was likely led by the German jurist Johann Angelius Werdenhagen, who in 1628 had Jacob Böhme’s Weg zu Christo and Anna Ovena Hoyer’s Gespräch Eines Kindes mit seiner Mutter printed in Leiden at the presses of Govert Basson. This project demonstrates Werdenhagen’s centrality in the early distribution of Böhme’s theosophical doctrines in the United Provinces. The Dresden project was funded by Rosine Vogtin, who from 1642 commissioned the office of Gimel Bergen to print works by Jacob Böhme and Ludwig Friedrich Gifftheil.

Water and Dalits: A Historical Study of United Provinces (1900Ð1950)

Water has been a critical resource for the survival of the biotic world. This paper explores the relationship between Dalits and access to water in the United Provinces. It documents the social condition and economic status of Dalits and their impact on livelihood structure. The fact is that the Dalit community is dependent critically on water and other natural resources due to its involvement with labour and agriculture. This paper seeks to explore the historical dimension of Dalit’s struggle to gain access to water in the United Provinces. The history of the relationship between water and Dalits in the United Provinces shows the way social exclusion manifested in the domain of access to water. This paper has been divided into four sections, the first section provides general information about Dalits, and the second section proposes a brief review of the literature. The third section attempts to trace the relationship between water and Dalits in the process of exclusion and inclusion of Dalits from natural resources in North India and the final section provides an illation of this paper.

Geld voor het garnizoen. Een verkenning van de Maastrichtse stadsfinanciën, 1600-1795

Money for the garrison. The Maastricht government finances explored
 Already before 1600 war had destroyed what was left of the prestigious Maastricht medieval textile industry. The city’s income was generated largely by levies on the transport on the river Meuse. As a blessing in disguise came the upscaling of the military presence and the fortifications in particular after 1632, when Dutch troops conquered the town to make Maastricht one of the most important strongholds of the Dutch Republic. Economic life within the city walls adapted to the presence of the numerous soldiers, their families and servants. Their numbers fluctuated depending on the military operations in the region. Yet these people contributed largely to the municipal tax income. Money for building projects, soldier’s payments and equipment for warfare poured into the local economy. The citizens were by tradition obliged to provide housing and furniture for the troops for free and this burden shifted gradually from the private purse to the towns treasury. However, the bulk of the cost of the military presence was paid for by the United Provinces of the Dutch Republic and not by the city of Maastricht. Maastricht successfully exploited its new status as a military stronghold. From the early 17th century local tradespeople created a living by servicing the garrison and supplying the surrounding countryside. This earnings model persisted far into the 19th century.

‘The Bhangi and the Chamar should be Called to the Councils of Empire’: Lord Lothian, the Indian Franchise, and the Untouchables

ABSTRACT The franchise enquiry led by Lord Lothian (Philip Kerr) was a central component in the Indian constitutional reform process of the 1930s. This article examines the general context of the enquiry, as well as the specific circumstances, under which it was conducted in both the United Kingdom and the sub-continent. Lothian’s investigation paid special attention to the means by which increased numbers from untouchable caste groups could be enfranchised. The article explores the ways in which the position of the untouchables became a principal concern in discussions about the franchise and more general political reform. It also examines the close involvement of Lothian in the Round Table movement and its influence on his thinking about expanding the electorate and constitutional change in the subcontinent. A detailed focus is the effort made by Lothian to determine the potential number of untouchable voters in the United Provinces. Here, in one of the most populous provinces of British India, Lothian encountered multiple problems as he attempted to estimate the population of untouchable caste groups. The article argues that many of the difficulties he confronted had their origins in an earlier reticence on the part of the authorities in the province to recognise the untouchables as a minority that should be given any special political consideration. It was, ironically, Lothian’s colleagues in the Round Table who had laid the foundations for this perspective and thus contributed to many of the difficulties and quandaries with which he subsequently wrestled.

The Author of Origin of April-Day and Its Sources

THE Lady’s Magazine; or, Entertaining Companion for the Fair Sex (1791, XXII) contains a short story entitled ORIGIN of APRIL-DAY. This story is scattered with Japanese names, in an obvious attempt to suffuse it with an ‘Oriental’ atmosphere. Source hunting will help make it clear if the short story is an original or a translation; will help establish the derivation and meaning of each of the Japanese names; and will enable better understanding of how they are used to create the far-eastern flavour of the short story. It is to be noted that the Japanese names are intermingled with non-Japanese names. The Japanese names (except for Japan itself) are Chiekock, Inocamosamma, Camosamma, Fusinogamma, Ciongock, Saykock, ‘Namu Amida, Isum, Ongasauwara-sinano, I’Scamma and I’Sintsia.1 These names are also found in Arnoldus Montanus’s famous syncretic work, Gedenkwaerdige Gesantschappen der Oost-Indische Maatschappy in’t Vereenigde Nederland, aan de Kaisaren van Japan (1669).2 The German version of this work, Denckwürdige Gesandtschafften, was published in the same year, followed in 1670 by its English translation Atlas Japannensis: Beign Remarkable Addessses by Way of Embassy from the East-India Company of the United Provinces, to the Emperor of Japan3 and its French version Ambassades Mémorables (1680). The Japanese names employed in its various versions are the same except for some slight differences in spelling. For example, the Japanese names used in Gedenkwaerdige Gesantschappen are Chiekock, Chiekok, Juocamosamma, Fusinojammma, Ciongock, Saykock, Namu Amida, Ysum, Ongas-sauwara Sinano, Tsiamma, and Sintsia, while the Japanese names in Atlas Japannensis are Chiekok, Chikoko, Ivocomasamma, Fusinojamma, Ciongok, Saycock, Saykok, Namu Amida, Yzum, Ongasauwara Sinano, Tsiamma, and Sintsia. This evidence makes it reasonable to assume that the short story in The Lady’s Magazine is indebted to Montanus.

The Muslim World in Modern South Asia: Power, Authority, Knowledge (By Francis Robinson)

Reviewed by: The Muslim World in Modern South Asia: Power, Authority, Knowledge by Francis Robinson Ali Altaf Mian (bio) The Muslim World in Modern South Asia: Power, Authority, Knowledge Francis Robinson Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2020. 419 Pages. This volume attests to British historian Francis Robinson's prolific contributions to the study of Muslim traditions in South Asia and the history of Islam more broadly. This collection of essays and book reviews serves as a companion to two earlier edited volumes of his previously published materials namely, Islam and Muslim History in South Asia, and Islam, South Asia, and the West (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007). Scholars and students of Islam in South Asia will also recall Robinson's three monographs: Separatism among Indian Muslims: The Politics of the United Provinces' Muslims, 1860–1923 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1974); The 'Ulama of Farangi Mahall and Islamic Culture in South Asia (London: C. Hurst & Co., 2001; New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001); and Jamal Mian: The Life of Maulana Jamaluddin Abdul Wahab of Farangi Mahall, 1919–2012 (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2017). Other readers will be more familiar with Robinson's Atlas of the Islamic World since 1500 (New York: Facts on File, 1982) or The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Islamic World (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996) or his volume titled, The Mughal Emperors and the Islamic Dynasties of India, Iran, and Central Asia, 1206–1925 (London: Thames & Hudson, 2007). This brief bibliographical summation of Robinson's multifaceted scholarship serves to highlight an important point that the reader of The Muslim World in Modern South Asia should bear in mind: the author analyzes some subjects as a generalist but others as a specialist. In the latter capacity, he has illuminated two facets of Islam in modern South Asia: (1) the predicaments faced by colonialera Muslim modernists in their struggles to create either a pluralist nationalist society or a separatist Muslim state; and (2) the cultural as well as intellectual world of Lucknow's Farangi Mahallis, a group of religious scholars or 'ulama' renowned for their mastery of subjects such as logic, theology, and legal theory. Robinson's assessments of certain Muslim institutions and figures from colonial and postcolonial South Asia are perceptive and I value the insights I have learned from Robinson the specialist. At the same time, I find problematic some of his reductive generalizations about religious authority and his narrow comparative apparatus, not to mention some historical simplifications (such as the idea that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk abolished in 1924 the same institution that had [End Page 142] embodied the Prophet Muhammad's religious authority since the early days of Islam! (p. 154). While Robinson seeks to situate Islam in South Asia in the broader framework of the history of Islam, his objects of specialization often overdetermine the gestalts he constructs in his capacity as a generalist. In other words, the life-worlds of elite modernist and traditionalist Muslim men mainly from colonial North India do not cover the full range of subject matters that need to be illuminated when dealing with such broad categories as "the Muslim world" and "modern South Asia" or wide-ranging themes such as power, authority, and knowledge. The issue is not just nomenclature, to opt for "Muslim-majority societies" instead of "the Muslim world," for example. The spatial, temporal, and conceptual categories we use and the comparisons we pursue need to be accompanied by a cautious ethical-political analytical sensibility that remains cognizant of the geopolitical implications of our categories and comparisons. Whose analytical objectives and political interests are served through the category, "the Muslim world," and the comparison between the Islamic Revival and the Protestant Reformation? Unfortunately, Robinson does not address such meta-analytical questions. Instead, he takes for granted civilizational blocs, even when trying to counter claims about the clash of civilizations. Let me now examine two problematic assumptions that undergird the substantial essays of The Muslim World in Modern South Asia. First is Robinson's idea that the religious authority of the 'ulama' has waned in modernity, and second is his analogical tying together of the Islamic Revival and the Protestant Reformation. Both...