Riho Isaka, Language, Identity, and Power in Modern India: Gujarat, c. 1850-1960 (London and New ... more Riho Isaka, Language, Identity, and Power in Modern India: Gujarat, c. 1850-1960 (London and New York: Routledge, 2022), xii + 193 pp.
The East India Company troops fighting the Burmese aggression on the frontier of Bengal in Easter... more The East India Company troops fighting the Burmese aggression on the frontier of Bengal in Eastern India “freed” upper and lower Assam territories in 1825. David Scott of the Bengal Service was appointed to oversee the establishment of civil and revenue administration in these frontier territories. He established a hierarchical multiple structure of “native courts”—calledpanchayats—as the chief medium of civil and criminal justice. This was ostensibly continuing a traditional Assamese form of dispute resolution—themel; however, the British criminal jury as well as the expert assessor model animated the system. After his death in 1831, the system was brought in line with the rest of the Bengal administration based on the British court system. His experiment, paralleled in many other newly conquered and ceded districts from the Madras territories to Central India, suggests the use of this mode in post-conquest situations by British administrators in South Asia.
This is a welcome translation of Indulal Yagnik’s sixvolume Gujarati Atmakatha (Autobiography) in... more This is a welcome translation of Indulal Yagnik’s sixvolume Gujarati Atmakatha (Autobiography) into English (compiled into three volumes in the English translation). Translated by Devavrat N. Pathak, Howard Spodek, and John R. Wood, it is a crucial addition to any library with claims to document India’s twentiethcentury politics. Yagnik’s life spanned the main currents of Indian political life–from the Gandhian and peasant movements to the workers’ and regional autonomy movements (in his case Gujarat based). He was born in 1892, and worked principally as a polemicist and political organizer. He resigned from Congress in 1924, and continued to remain active as a prolific writer and publisher not only in Gujarat but also on the national stage with the Kisan Sabha (Peasant Union) of the late 1930s, and thenwith theMahagujarat Parishad (Greater Gujarat Assembly) until 1960. Throughout, he remained a freethinking and beloved politician in Gujarat and continued to be elected to the parlia...
This article applies a gender perspective to the history of social reform efforts in mid-19th cen... more This article applies a gender perspective to the history of social reform efforts in mid-19th century Bombay to help illuminate the origins of Indian modernism. In the Maharaj Libel Case, two social reformers successfully defended a libel suit after they published charges of sexual misconduct against the religious priests of the Pushtimarga Vaishnava sect. The paper contextualizes the discussion with a brief review of the rise of British education in Bombay, a note that the social reformers considered the ideal woman to be a domestic helpmate, and a sketch of the history of the devotional religious sect that worships Krishna. The libel case attracted immense public attention, and the reformers based their defense on charges that the Maharajs (priests) were immoral and exploited female devotees sexually. The priests were described as ignorant and blind while the women were considered merely passive objects subordinate to males. No woman was called to give evidence, but evidence shows that the women willingly visited the priests for sexual acts. The reformers' solution to the problem was for the women they regarded as infantilized and/or degraded to be more firmly controlled by their male kin. The conclusion that the reformers were patriarchal and not concerned about the well-being of women is supported by three cases. The reformers ignored the two in which women brought charges against priests and only urged action in the case of a rape/murder by a priest.
Amrita Shodhan explores the complex legacy of Partition in India and the difficulties faced by hi... more Amrita Shodhan explores the complex legacy of Partition in India and the difficulties faced by historians in unpicking these narratives. She re-evaluates the events of August 1947 and situates them in a longer history that forms the genealogy of the division between India and Pakistan.
The East India Company troops fighting the Burmese aggression on the frontier of Bengal in Easte... more The East India Company troops fighting the Burmese aggression on the frontier of Bengal in Eastern India “freed” upper and lower Assam territories in 1825. David Scott of the Bengal Service was appointed to oversee the establishment of civil and revenue administration in these frontier territories. He established a hierarchical multiple structure of “native courts”—called panchayats—as the chief medium of civil and criminal justice. This was ostensibly continuing a traditional Assamese form of dispute resolution—the mel; however, the British criminal jury as well as the expert assessor model animated the system. After his death in 1831, the system was brought in line with the rest of the Bengal administration based on the British court system. His experiment, paralleled in many other newly conquered and ceded districts from the Madras territories to Central India, suggests the use of this mode in post-conquest situations by British administrators in South Asia.
Riho Isaka, Language, Identity, and Power in Modern India: Gujarat, c. 1850-1960 (London and New ... more Riho Isaka, Language, Identity, and Power in Modern India: Gujarat, c. 1850-1960 (London and New York: Routledge, 2022), xii + 193 pp.
The East India Company troops fighting the Burmese aggression on the frontier of Bengal in Easter... more The East India Company troops fighting the Burmese aggression on the frontier of Bengal in Eastern India “freed” upper and lower Assam territories in 1825. David Scott of the Bengal Service was appointed to oversee the establishment of civil and revenue administration in these frontier territories. He established a hierarchical multiple structure of “native courts”—calledpanchayats—as the chief medium of civil and criminal justice. This was ostensibly continuing a traditional Assamese form of dispute resolution—themel; however, the British criminal jury as well as the expert assessor model animated the system. After his death in 1831, the system was brought in line with the rest of the Bengal administration based on the British court system. His experiment, paralleled in many other newly conquered and ceded districts from the Madras territories to Central India, suggests the use of this mode in post-conquest situations by British administrators in South Asia.
This is a welcome translation of Indulal Yagnik’s sixvolume Gujarati Atmakatha (Autobiography) in... more This is a welcome translation of Indulal Yagnik’s sixvolume Gujarati Atmakatha (Autobiography) into English (compiled into three volumes in the English translation). Translated by Devavrat N. Pathak, Howard Spodek, and John R. Wood, it is a crucial addition to any library with claims to document India’s twentiethcentury politics. Yagnik’s life spanned the main currents of Indian political life–from the Gandhian and peasant movements to the workers’ and regional autonomy movements (in his case Gujarat based). He was born in 1892, and worked principally as a polemicist and political organizer. He resigned from Congress in 1924, and continued to remain active as a prolific writer and publisher not only in Gujarat but also on the national stage with the Kisan Sabha (Peasant Union) of the late 1930s, and thenwith theMahagujarat Parishad (Greater Gujarat Assembly) until 1960. Throughout, he remained a freethinking and beloved politician in Gujarat and continued to be elected to the parlia...
This article applies a gender perspective to the history of social reform efforts in mid-19th cen... more This article applies a gender perspective to the history of social reform efforts in mid-19th century Bombay to help illuminate the origins of Indian modernism. In the Maharaj Libel Case, two social reformers successfully defended a libel suit after they published charges of sexual misconduct against the religious priests of the Pushtimarga Vaishnava sect. The paper contextualizes the discussion with a brief review of the rise of British education in Bombay, a note that the social reformers considered the ideal woman to be a domestic helpmate, and a sketch of the history of the devotional religious sect that worships Krishna. The libel case attracted immense public attention, and the reformers based their defense on charges that the Maharajs (priests) were immoral and exploited female devotees sexually. The priests were described as ignorant and blind while the women were considered merely passive objects subordinate to males. No woman was called to give evidence, but evidence shows that the women willingly visited the priests for sexual acts. The reformers' solution to the problem was for the women they regarded as infantilized and/or degraded to be more firmly controlled by their male kin. The conclusion that the reformers were patriarchal and not concerned about the well-being of women is supported by three cases. The reformers ignored the two in which women brought charges against priests and only urged action in the case of a rape/murder by a priest.
Amrita Shodhan explores the complex legacy of Partition in India and the difficulties faced by hi... more Amrita Shodhan explores the complex legacy of Partition in India and the difficulties faced by historians in unpicking these narratives. She re-evaluates the events of August 1947 and situates them in a longer history that forms the genealogy of the division between India and Pakistan.
The East India Company troops fighting the Burmese aggression on the frontier of Bengal in Easte... more The East India Company troops fighting the Burmese aggression on the frontier of Bengal in Eastern India “freed” upper and lower Assam territories in 1825. David Scott of the Bengal Service was appointed to oversee the establishment of civil and revenue administration in these frontier territories. He established a hierarchical multiple structure of “native courts”—called panchayats—as the chief medium of civil and criminal justice. This was ostensibly continuing a traditional Assamese form of dispute resolution—the mel; however, the British criminal jury as well as the expert assessor model animated the system. After his death in 1831, the system was brought in line with the rest of the Bengal administration based on the British court system. His experiment, paralleled in many other newly conquered and ceded districts from the Madras territories to Central India, suggests the use of this mode in post-conquest situations by British administrators in South Asia.
NUS, Conference 'Reflections on Partition of India and Palestine 70 years on', 2018
(Reworked from paper presented at Singapore International Workshop on Reflections on Partition in... more (Reworked from paper presented at Singapore International Workshop on Reflections on Partition in India And Palestine, 15 Aug, 2018.)
Abstract:
How does partition of land between ‘nations’ inhabiting a single colonial territory seem like a sensible solution in 1947/1948 British India and Mandate Palestine? The paper suggests that the sociology of colonial knowledge provides some answers. The colonial construction of unitary, fundamentally defined, but politically governed communities occurred over different time spans but in similar ways in both regions. Within this broad formulation, this paper examines the history of legal governance, and democratic representational practices.
British adjudication and laws replaced local authorities and systems of governance in socio-religious groups. This replacement is a complex and negotiated process between the British authorities and local elite. It occurred over a longer period in India than Palestine, but followed similar processes in Palestine emanating from British experience of governing in India. The second area in which British had to deal with what they saw as the important groups in society was in the attempt to develop representation - power sharing under colonial authority in the two regions. The paper suggests that in the process of legal administration and representation, multiple ‘fuzzy’ religious groups of the early colonial period were forged into highly nationalised, singular religious communities at the time of devolution and partition. Seeing these processes comparatively will help elucidate British colonial legalities and highlight the common nature of these processes and links across colonial territories.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869 – 1848) described as the man who shook the mighty British Empire... more Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869 – 1848) described as the man who shook the mighty British Empire with a pinch of salt, he provokes political controversy, ambivalence and opposing judgements. He is revered as a political saint and reviled as a mascot of the bourgeoisie, hailed as a critical anti-imperialist and rejected as a betrayer of the peasants, celebrated as an apostle of non-violence and castigated as creating the Hindu – Muslim divide. Gandhi led and was considered to be the chief architect of one of the most effective anti-imperialist movements in the world-the movement to gain independence for India from the British Empire. On 14 th and 15 th August 1947, British India was partitioned into two countries-Pakistan and India. While he was completely determined to overthrow the British empire, he has himself argued that the goal was to attain perfect self control (swaraj) rather than national control (swatantra) over the Government of India. Thus his anti-imperial ideas were based on a sense of individual duty to the common good and local welfare, rather than control over the national state granting rights to citizens.
This long-awaited monograph on the making of Gujarati linguistic identity in the context of devel... more This long-awaited monograph on the making of Gujarati linguistic identity in the context of developments in modern India fulfils the expectations built up by the author's celebrated Cambridge thesis and subsequent articles over the last two decades. The history of linguistic development is remarkable for its depth and detail, also for its sensitivity of presentation. Isaka explores the relationship between the languages, people and territory of Gujarat as dynamic and evolving, never putting people and things in boxes, always aware of the exception, the ambiguity and fluidity with which people exercise power. This blend of scholarship and sensitivity is exceptional in the present age of name-calling, labelling and identity politics. Isaka's studies have appeared in journal articles and bilingually, in Japanese and English, over the last few years. This volume thoughtfully collects many of them in a monograph, with many updates in the arguments. It will be most useful not only to students of Gujarati modernity but also to readers trying to understand the relationship of the regional to the national in India. Isaka begins with 12 pithy pages of introduction, covering the modern history of Gujarat, briefly and expertly, yet with graphic detail. She marks the formation of Gujarat from the Solanki dynasty of the eleventh century to the present, focusing on the dynasts, their languages, social bases, castes and material developments. The chapter ends with a succinct outline of the complex linguistic situation in early-nineteenthcentury Gujarat. The author clearly identifies her nineteenth-century lenses for her study of early modern history. Focusing on the colonial sources, she identifies how Gujarati struggled to gain existence, from Premanand (1636-1714) wanting a high status for Gujarati, competing with various high-status languages, Prakrit, Persian, Arabic, Sanskrit and Gujari. This assists a deeper understanding of the multilingual colonial regional elite in the mid-nineteenth century. Chapter 2 covers the complex educational picture of Bombay Presidency with a focus on Gujarat, showing how that impacted on the standardisation of Gujarati. It examines the relationships between vernacular languages and English at the turn of the century among the elite and trading communities. The situation was complicated by religion, caste and gender in an overlapping interrelated manner, with Parsi, Muslim and Brahman men and women of different generations using and advocating different forms of Gujarati. For example, Suleimani Bohra matriarchs continued to speak Gujarati, while the children
Indian geography is a jigsaw puzzle, constantly under construction through the rise and fulfilmen... more Indian geography is a jigsaw puzzle, constantly under construction through the rise and fulfilment of demands, made to the state by diverse groups, advocating redefinition of borders along with evolution of certain identities. Most often these group identities emphasise certain ethnic and linguistic cleavages and then seek recognition from the centre through physical redefinition of states. Remapping India is a close study of state reorganisation during the new millennium. In eight chapters Tillin explores specifically the history, politics and social atmosphere that contributed to the fracturing of the Hindi belt into Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. The introductory chapter indicates that the mobilisation of ethnic or linguistic identity had little to do with these geographic alterations. Three key developments occurred in Indian politics post-1970 to spearhead the reorganisation of North India: the accommodation of social movements into electoral politics as a result of the Congress's loosening grip, the declining political influence of the upper castes in the Hindi belt and lastly the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) reassessment of its perspective on federalism. The second chapter provides a detailed history of India's territorial definitions and highlights the provisions made for altering India's internal boundaries both before and after Independence, specifically the States Reorganisation Act of 1956 and parliamentary discretion regarding the creation of new states. Tillin closely examines the reasons behind the lack of reorganisation, until the millennium, in the populous North Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, and then traces the recent reorganisation processes. The development of the BJP as a serious alternative to the Congress emerges as the major contributory factor for reorganisation of the country, as the party constantly reassessed and reasserted its support for the creation of new states. Ties forged under the quest for representation at the national level by two opposite fragments of Indian society, Hindu nationalists and intermediate castes, first presented their support to social movements in North India and then significantly changed the political atmosphere of the region. The third chapter offers a comparative study of the social movements and statehood demands in Jharkhand and Uttarakhand. Despite the existence of historical demands for a tribal state, movements such as the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha gravitated towards that goal only much later. Their preliminary aim was
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India “freed” upper and lower Assam territories in 1825. David Scott of the Bengal Service was
appointed to oversee the establishment of civil and revenue administration in these frontier territories.
He established a hierarchical multiple structure of “native courts”—called panchayats—as the chief
medium of civil and criminal justice. This was ostensibly continuing a traditional Assamese form of
dispute resolution—the mel; however, the British criminal jury as well as the expert assessor model
animated the system. After his death in 1831, the system was brought in line with the rest of the
Bengal administration based on the British court system. His experiment, paralleled in many other
newly conquered and ceded districts from the Madras territories to Central India, suggests the use of
this mode in post-conquest situations by British administrators in South Asia.
India “freed” upper and lower Assam territories in 1825. David Scott of the Bengal Service was
appointed to oversee the establishment of civil and revenue administration in these frontier territories.
He established a hierarchical multiple structure of “native courts”—called panchayats—as the chief
medium of civil and criminal justice. This was ostensibly continuing a traditional Assamese form of
dispute resolution—the mel; however, the British criminal jury as well as the expert assessor model
animated the system. After his death in 1831, the system was brought in line with the rest of the
Bengal administration based on the British court system. His experiment, paralleled in many other
newly conquered and ceded districts from the Madras territories to Central India, suggests the use of
this mode in post-conquest situations by British administrators in South Asia.
Abstract:
How does partition of land between ‘nations’ inhabiting a single colonial territory seem like a sensible solution in 1947/1948 British India and Mandate Palestine? The paper suggests that the sociology of colonial knowledge provides some answers. The colonial construction of unitary, fundamentally defined, but politically governed communities occurred over different time spans but in similar ways in both regions. Within this broad formulation, this paper examines the history of legal governance, and democratic representational practices.
British adjudication and laws replaced local authorities and systems of governance in socio-religious groups. This replacement is a complex and negotiated process between the British authorities and local elite. It occurred over a longer period in India than Palestine, but followed similar processes in Palestine emanating from British experience of governing in India. The second area in which British had to deal with what they saw as the important groups in society was in the attempt to develop representation - power sharing under colonial authority in the two regions. The paper suggests that in the process of legal administration and representation, multiple ‘fuzzy’ religious groups of the early colonial period were forged into highly nationalised, singular religious communities at the time of devolution and partition. Seeing these processes comparatively will help elucidate British colonial legalities and highlight the common nature of these processes and links across colonial territories.