The Imperial Security State: British Colonial Knowledge and Empire-Building in Asia

313 Pages·2012·6.898 MB·English

by  James Hevia

The Imperial Security State
The Imperial Security State investigates an important but under-
explored dimension of British imperialism – its information system
and the close links between military knowledge and the maintenance
of empire. James Hevia’s innovative study focuses on route books and
military reports produced by the British Indian Army military intelli-
gence between 1880 and 1940. He shows that together these formed a
renewable and authoritative archive that was used to train intelligence
ofi cers, to inform civilian policymakers, and to provide vital infor-
mation to commanders as they approached the battlei eld. The stra-
tegic, geographical, political and ethnographical knowledge that was
gathered not only framed imperial strategies towards colonized areas
to the east but also produced the very object of intervention: Asia
itself. Finally, the book addresses the long-term impact of the secur-
ity regime , revealing how elements of British colonial knowledge have
continued to inl uence contemporary tactics of counterinsurgency in
twenty-i rst-century Iraq and Afghanistan.
JAMES HEVIA is Professor of International History at the University
of Chicago. His research interests have centered on European imperi-
alism in Asia from the late eighteenth century onwards, and his pre-
vious publications include E nglish Lessons: The Pedagogy of Imperialism
in Nineteenth-Century China (2003).

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Critical Perspectives on Empire
Editors
Professor Catherine H all
University College London
Professor Mrinalini S inha
University of Michigan
Professor Kathleen Wilson
State University of New York, Stony Brook
Critical Perspectives on Empire is a major series of ambitious, cross-d isciplinary
works in the emerging i eld of critical imperial studies. Books in the series
explore the connections, exchanges and mediations at the heart of national and
global histories, the contributions of local as well as metropolitan knowledge,
and the l ows of people, ideas and identities facilitated by colonial contact. To
that end, the series not only offers a space for outstanding scholars working at
the intersection of several disciplines to bring to wider attention the impact of
their work; it also takes a leading role in reconi guring contemporary historical
and critical knowledge, of the past and of ourselves.
A full list of titles published in the series can be found at: www.cambridge.org/
cpempire
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The Imperial Security State
British Colonial Knowledge and
Empire-Building in Asia
James Hevia
University of Chicago

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CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Singapore, Sã o Paulo, Delhi, Mexico City
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, C ambridge CB2 8RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press,
New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521896085
© J ames Hevia 2 012
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2012
Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
Hevia, James Louis, 1947–
The imperial security state : British colonial knowledge and
empire-building in Asia / James L. Hevia, Professor of
International History, University of Chicago.
pages cm. – (Critical perspectives on empire)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-521-89608-5
1. Military intelligence–Great Britain–History. 2. Military
intelligence–Asia–History. 3. Great Britain. Army. British Indian
Army–History–Sources. 4. National security–Great
Britain–History. 5. Internal security–Asia–History. 6. Great
Britain–Colonies–Asia. 7. Asia–Colonial inl uence.
8. Imperialism–History. 9. Great Britain–Military policy. I. Title.
UB251.G7H48 2012
355.3′432094109041–dc23
2012013668
ISBN 9 78-0-521-89608-5 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or
accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet websites referred to in
this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is,
or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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Contents
List of i gures page v i
Acknowledgments vii
1 I ntroduction 1
2 T he military revolution of the nineteenth century 1 7
3 I mperial state formation, the professionalization
of the army and the making of experts 3 4
4 F orming intelligence, making an archive 5 3
5 D isciplining the space of Asia: triangulation
and route books 7 3
6 R egulating the facts of Asia: military reports
and handbooks 107
7 T he uses of intelligence 1 52
8 The effects of the imperial security regime
in Asia and Great Britain 193
9 I mperial security and the transformation of Asia 249
Bibliography 2 70
Index 2 94
v
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Figures
5.1 P age from Bell’s Turkey in Asia (1889) page 7 7
5.2 U se of prismatic compass, from Mockler-Ferryman 8 1
5.3 Plane table and proper use, from Mockler-Ferryman 8 2
5.4a E xample of a boundary pillar, from the Pamir Commission 9 8
5.4b Synopsis of boundary markers from House of Commons
Sessional Papers 99
6.1 S ketch map showing gun emplacements
of Tung-Liang-Shan Fort 141
6.2 P anoramic view of the country east of Chin-kiang City 142
6.3 H siang Shan from the summit of Yu Shan 143
6.4 B attery no. VI Kiang-yin 143
6.5 F ield of i re of guns at Chen-kiang 144
6.6 Gun crew loading cannon at Battery No. III,
Hsiang Shan 1 45
6.7 C hart showing kinds of guns at Hsiang Shan 1 46
8.1 B uddha, from the Pamir Commission 2 14
8.2 Mad Mullah – T he Graphic September 18, 1897 234
8.3 Burning a fanatic – The Graphic February 8, 1879,
p. 140 236
8.4 F anatics in chains – T he Graphic November 28, 1896,
p. 678 237
8.5 D estruction of Shelan – The Graphic August 28, 1897,
p. 280 2 38
8.6 Assault – I LN , December 18, 1897, p. 875 2 39
8.7 Sniper i re from above – I LN , December 18, 1897,
p. 882 240
8.8 M assacre of cut-off soldier – I LN , December 18, 1897,
p. 883 241
8.9 B urning villages – The Graphic February 5, 1898, p. 4 242

vi
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Acknowledgments
The bulk of the research for this project was completed over a six-year
period at two venerable London repositories of the ofi cial records of
the British Empire, the National Archives at Kew and the Indian Ofi ce
Archives at the British Library. I am grateful for the kindness and pro-
fessional courtesy of the staff and archivists of these indispensible
public institutions. Also of great help was Donald Clay Johnson at the
Ames Library at the University of Minnesota, where many rare Indian
Army sources can be found. The inter-library loan department of the
Regenstein Library, University of Chicago deserves special thanks for
all their help, as do Zhou Yuan, James Nye, and Bruce Craig, directors
of the library’s East Asian, South Asian, and Middle East collections
respectively.
I am also grateful to the College of the University of Chicago, espe-
cially its Dean, John Boyer, for providing funds that helped make trips
to London possible. Although only one part of this book has appeared
in print before, I have been invited to present talks on this research at
a number of institutions, including Sichuan, Beijing, Harvard, Bristol,
and Ball State Universities, the University of Chicago, University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
and the 2011 Association for Asian Studies convention. On these occa-
sions, I have benei ted from the questions and comments by the scholars
who participated. I am also fortunate to have colleagues at Chicago who
have been willing to help me sort out my thinking. I am especially grate-
ful to Bruce Cumings, Mark Bradley, James Ketelaar, Ramon Martinez,
and Moishe Postone, all of the History Department, and Joseph Masco,
Julie Chu, and Michael Fisch of the Anthropology Department.
It is also worth recalling that Bernard Cohn stimulated many of us
to pursue the study of colonial knowledge. Among Barney’s students,
Antoinette Burton has provided me with sound criticism.
Stacie Hanneman did a wonderful job of proofreading my initial
submission, identifying typos, redundancies, and i nding many, many
errors.
vii
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viii Acknowledgments
Portions of Chapter 9 appeared as “Small Wars and Counterin-
surgency” in the volume edited by John Kelly, Beatrice Jauregui,
Sean Mitchell and Jeremy Walton and entitled A nthropology and
Global Counterinsurgency (University of Chicago Press, 2010).
As always, Judith Farquhar tirelessly read the draft and asked the
critical questions that led to revision and rethinking. Thank you seems
an insufi cient way of expressing just how lucky I am.

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1 I ntroduction
From Great Games to imperial security
Late one night in northwest India, as a newspaperman was about to
call it a day, two men arrived at his ofi ce and asked if they could speak
with him briel y. The tall, red-haired one introduced himself as Daniel
Dravot and the other as Peachy Carnahan . In explaining their visit,
Dravot said that he and Carnahan were fed up with the governing class
in India and had decided to go to Kai ristan to become kings. Neither
of them knew very much about Kai ristan , however, other than that
it had “two and thirty idols.” Nor were they certain where it was or
how to get there. They had come to the newspaper ofi ce in the hopes
of gaining information on the nature of the place and its geographic
location. Thereupon, the newspaperman “uncased the big thirty-two-
miles-to-the-inch map, and two smaller Frontier maps, hauled down
volume INF-KAN of the Encyclopaedia Britannica,” brought out a
i le containing an address by Henry W. Bellew 1 on Kai ristan , and laid
before them Wood’s S ources of the Oxus .2 Dravot and Carnahan began
their studies and soon discovered that they were familiar with at least
part of the route to Kai ristan – they had campaigned with “Roberts’
Army” in the region. 3
1 Henry Bellew was a surgeon in the Bengal Army who published extensively on the
tribes and races of the Northwest Frontier of India and Afghanistan. He learned
Pashtu, the language of the Pathan tribes of Afghanistan and present day Pakistan,
and published a grammar and dictionary of the language. His linguistic expertise
led to his inclusion on a political mission to Afghanistan in 1857 and to Kashgar
in Chinese Turkestan in 1873–4. The lecture in question appeared under the title
“Kafristan and the Kai rs,” J ournal of the United Service Institution of India v. 8, no. 41
(1879).
2 Probably Captain James Wood, A Journey to the Source of the River Oxus published by
John Murray in London 1872.
3 General Frederick Roberts , who commanded the Indian Army in the Second Afghan
War.
1
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