Routledge Handbook of the History of Colonialism in South Asia

535 Pages·2021·5.827 MB·English

by  Harald Fischer-Tiné, Maria Framke

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ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF THE
HISTORY OF COLONIALISM IN SOUTH ASIA
The Routledge Handbook of the History of Colonialism in South Asia provides a comprehensive overview of the
historiographical specialisation and sophistication of the history of colonialism in South Asia. It explores
the classic works of earlier generations of historians and offers an introduction to the rapid and multi-
faceted development of historical research on colonial South Asia since the 1990s. Covering economic
history, political history, and social history and offering insights from other disciplines and ‘turns’ within
the mainstream of history, the handbook is structured in six parts:
• Overarching Themes and Debates
• The World of Economy and Labour
• Creating and Keeping Order: Science, Race, Religion, Law, and Education
• Environment and Space
• Culture, Media, and the Everyday
• Colonial South Asia in the World
The editors have assembled a group of leading international scholars of South Asian history and related dis-
ciplines to introduce a broad readership into the respective subfields and research topics. Designed to serve as
a comprehensive and nuanced yet readable introduction to the vast field of the history of colonialism in the
Indian subcontinent, the handbook will be of interest to researchers and students in the fields of South Asian
history, imperial and colonial history, and global and world history.
Harald Fischer- Tiné is Professor of Modern Global History at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
in Zurich (ETH Zürich), Switzerland. He has published extensively on South Asian colonial history and
the history of the British Empire. His research interests include global and transnational history, the history
of knowledge, and the social and cultural history of colonial South Asia. His many publications include
Low and Licentious Europeans: Race, Class, and ‘White Subalternity’ in Colonial India (2009) and Shyamji
Krishnavarma: Sanskrit, Sociology and Anti- Imperialism (2014).
Maria Framke is a historian at the Leibniz-Z entrum Moderner Orient (ZMO), in Berlin, Germany. She
works on the history of imperial, international, and nationalist politics, humanitarianism, and ideologies
in the twentieth century. She is also the author of Engagement with Italian Fascism and German National
Socialism in India, 1922– 1939 (2013).
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ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK

OF THE HISTORY OF
COLONIALISM IN
SOUTH ASIA
Edited by Harald Fischer- Tiné and Maria Framke
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First published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 selection and editorial matter, Harald Fischer- Tiné and Maria Framke;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Harald Fischer- Tiné and Maria Framke to be identified as the authors of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978- 1- 138- 36484- 4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978- 1- 032- 05248- 9 (pbk)
ISBN: 978- 0- 429- 43101- 2 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/ 9780429431012
Typeset in Bembo
by Newgen Publishing UK
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This volume is dedicated to David Washbrook and Satadru Sen, two great scholars of South Asian history;
both were involved in different ways in this project, but had to leave us before its completion.
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CONTENTS

List of illustrations xii

List of contributors xiv

List of abbreviations xvi

Introduction: The history of colonialism in South Asia: Cutting out
paths through the historiographical jungle 1

Harald Fischer- Tiné & Maria Framke
PART I
Overarching Themes and Debates 7
1 Caste in British India: Between continuity and colonial construction,
and beyond 9

Dwaipayan Sen
2 The political economy of colonialism in India 23

David Washbrook
3 State formation in India: From the Company state to the
late colonial state 36

Michael Mann
4 Nationalisms and their discontents in colonial India 48

William Gould
5 Reordering religion in colonial South Asia 62

Brian A. Hatcher
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Contents
6 Reconstituting masculinities/ femininities: Modern experiences 77
Tanika Sarkar
7 Contested history: The rise of communalism and the Partition of
British India 92
Ian Talbot
8 The Raj’s uncanny other: Indirect rule and the princely states 105
Teresa Segura- Garcia
PART II
The World of Economy and Labour 117
9 The emergence of a ‘modern’ urban- industrial workforce in
India, 1860– 1914 119
Aditya Sarkar
10 Military labour markets in colonial India from the Company
state to the Second World War 134
Gavin Rand
11 Merchants, moneylenders, karkhanedars, and the emergence of the
informal sector 145
Sebastian Schwecke
12 Indian big business under the Company and the Raj 156
Claude Markovits
13 Revenue extraction in colonial South Asia 167
Hayden Bellenoit
PART III
Creating and Keeping Order: Science, Race, Religion, Law,
and Education 179
14 The science and medicine of colonial India 181
David Arnold
15 Race in colonial South Asia: Science and the law 193
Projit Bihari Mukharji
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Contents
16 ‘A race apart’? The European community in colonial India 206

Satoshi Mizutani
17 Christian missionary agendas in colonial India 218

Heike Liebau
18 Penal law, penology, and prisons in colonial India 230

Michael Offermann
19 Terrorism and counter- terrorism in colonial India 241

Joseph McQuade
20 Schooling the subcontinent: State, space, and society, and the dynamics
of education in colonial South Asia 252

Michael Philipp Brunner
PART IV
Environment and Space 267
21 Of lives and landscapes: The environmental history of
colonial South Asia 269

Arnab Dey
22 Questioning ‘railway- centrism’: Infrastructural governance and
cultures of the colonial transport system, 1760s– 1900s 281

Nitin Sinha
23 Colonial port cities and the infrastructure of empire: Tracing the
geography of alcohol in British colonial India 294

Swati Chattopadhyay
24 Site of deficiency and site of hope: The village in colonial South Asia 309

Sanjukta Das Gupta
25 Imperial sanctuaries: The hill stations of colonial South Asia 319

Nandini Bhattacharya
26 The agrarian history of colonial South Asia 331

Nikolay Kamenov
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