BOOK REVIEW:Forging the Raj: Essays on British India in the Heyday of Empire, by Thomas R. Metcalf andThe Lion and the Tiger: The Rise and Fall of the British Raj, by Denis Judd

2006 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 172-175
Author(s):  
Philip J. Stern
Keyword(s):  
British India ◽  
British Raj

Federating the Raj: Hyderabad, sovereign kingship, and partition

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
SUNIL PURUSHOTHAM
Keyword(s):  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Decisive Factor ◽  
British India ◽  
Indian States ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
British Raj ◽  
Princely State ◽  
Muslim Majority

AbstractThis article explores the idea of federation in late-colonial India. Projects of federation sought to codify the uncodified and fragmented sovereign landscape of the British Raj. They were ambitious projects that raised crucial questions about sovereignty, kingship, territoriality, the potential of constitutional law in transforming the colonial state into a democratic one, and India's political future more broadly. In the years after 1919, federation became a capacious model for imagining a wide array of political futures. An all-India Indian federation was seen as the most plausible means of maintaining India's unity, introducing representative government, and overcoming the Hindu–Muslim majority–minority problem. By bringing together ‘princely’ India and British India, federation made the Indian states central players in late-colonial contestations over sovereignty. This article explores the role of the states in constitutional debates, their place in Indian political imaginaries, and articulations of kingship in late-colonial India. It does so through the example of Hyderabad, the premier princely state, whose ruler made an unsuccessful bid for independence between 1947 and 1948. Hyderabad occupied a curious position in competing visions of India's future. Ultimately, the princely states were a decisive factor in the failure of federation and the turn to partition as a means of overcoming India's constitutional impasse.

scholarly journals Muslims preaching movements in British-India: An appraisal of the Tablighi Jamaat and its competitors

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 356-371
Author(s):  
Kausar Ali ◽  
Huang Minxing
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Muslim Community ◽  
British India ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
Islamic Schools ◽  
British Raj ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
British Rule ◽  
The World

The article examines emergence of the Tablighi Jamaat (henceforth TJ) in colonial India. It discusses the emergence of Tablighi Jamaat in light of the proselytizing (Tablighi) competition among various Islamic schools that emerged soon after the failure of the 1857 war. This article answers the question of why Maulana Ilyas founded the TJ in undivided India? This study aims to understand the emergence of the TJ in light of the deprivation and Maududian theory of Islamic revivalism. The discussion is based on qualitative analysis of the existing secondary sources in the form of books, research articles, and reports, etc. This study finds that TJ was founded because several Tablighi Jamaats belonged to different Islamic sects during British rule, responded to the challenges of the Muslim community. The Deobandi, Barailvi, Ahl-i-Hadith, and Shi’a Muslims established their proselytizing societies. This study concludes that the Deobandi Tablighi Jamaat emerged not only in response to the anti-Islamic campaigns of Hindus and Christians. The TJ was also founded in response to the preaching struggles of other Islamic schools in the British Raj. It is recommended that the TJ works to implement the Deobandi version of Islam in the world should be further studied

Materialism, Mutiny and Modernization in British India

2000 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 545-580 ◽  
Author(s):  
IRA KLEIN
Keyword(s):  
Complex Analysis ◽  
Social Engineering ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Rapid Progress ◽  
British India ◽  
British Raj ◽  
Past Generation ◽  
British Rule ◽  
Career Opportunities ◽  
Poverty Levels

British rule in India probably was in the reformist van of colonial regimes, but by Independence relatively few among the Indian populace had benefited notably from Western ‘modernization’. Although praised lavishly by a past generation of English historians for equipping India for ‘rapid progress’ under ‘the rule of law’, British policies hardly represented exemplary social engineering or ‘transformed’ the prosperity, health, well being, education or career opportunities of most Indians. Early in its sway the British raj conceived of implanting on the subcontinent modes of development responsible for England's rapid progress and prosperity and the advance of its peoples. Why, then, was the success not greater of Western programs, and why did policies of economic development leave at mid-twentieth century a majority of Indians living below poverty levels drawn close to subsistence? Was Western ‘reformism’ materially exploitative, or promising but checked by the regime's major political disturbance, the ‘Mutiny’ or Revolt of 1857, or were British policies culturally suppressive, or is more complex analysis needed to comprehend the Western impact?

Health and Healing: Retention of the Popularity of Ashtavaidya Tradition during the Colonial Regime

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maya Vinai ◽  
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
British India ◽  
Traditional Practice ◽  
Early 19Th Century ◽  
The Public ◽  
British Raj ◽  
Public Consciousness ◽  
Health And Healing ◽  
Popular Image ◽  
Century Health

During the early 19th century, health and medical care was one of the avenues of contestations whereby the British Raj sought to establish their hegemony. With the introduction of western epistemic framework, allopathic medicine became the official medical system of British India. Licenses, charters, permits and acts, colonial hospitals and doctors came together to disparage the indigenous system of medicine and healthcare. Assailed as using “unscientific Oriental procedures’ several folk healers lost their traditional practice and livelihood. However, amidst all these colossal manoeuvres, the popularity and relevance of the Ashtavaidya tradition, practiced by eighteen Namboodiri families in Kerala remained unscathed. The medical practices customized by the Ashtavaidyans who themselves were an “outcaste” within the Namboodiri community was highly codified and has remained a closely guarded secret within their lineage. This essay probes into the multiple reasons behind how the Ashtavaidya tradition retained its relevance, despite the colonial gambit to repudiate the indigenous practices. Through the legends and mythical stories woven around the healing practices of Ashtavaidyans in Aithihyamala by the court scribe of 19th century, Kottarathil Sankunni, the essay argues that the relevance of the Ashtavaidyans could be due to the transformation of Ashtavaidya tradition as markers of cultural pride and the popular image generated by various myths and legends that got registered in the public consciousness.

The Baroda Crisis of 1873–77: A study in Governmental Rivalry

1968 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. F. S. Copland
Keyword(s):  
British India ◽  
British Raj ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
Administrative History ◽  
The Government ◽  
Freedom Of Action

A Feature which has long characterized the study of Indian administrative history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has been the tendency of scholars to identify the British Raj with the Government of India, or more narrowly still, with the Governor-General in Council. Certainly one would not write a general history of British India and ignore the pronouncements of Calcutta. Yet by the same token one should not overlook the actions and attitudes of the several provincial governments, and especially of the Presidencies of Bombay and Madras, which, though under the general suzerainty of Calcutta, enjoyed substantial freedom of action within the limits of their own jurisdiction.

The Frontier Crimes Regulation and Frontier Governmentality

2015 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 369-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin D. Hopkins
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
British India ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
North West ◽  
Imperial Authority ◽  
British Raj ◽  
The North

From the invention of imperial authority along the North-West Frontier of British India, subjects were divided between the “civilized” inhabitants populating the cultivated plains and the “wild tribes” living in the hills. The problem of governing this latter group, the “independent tribes,” proved a vexed one for the British Raj. The mechanism developed by imperial administrators to manage the frontier inhabitants was the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR), first promulgated in 1872 and still in effect today. The FCR was designed to exclude the Frontier's inhabitants from the colonial judiciary, and more broadly the colonial sphere, encapsulating them in their own colonially sanctioned “tradition.” Exploring the use of the FCR as an instrument of governance from its first inception into the twentieth century, this article argues that it was key to shaping the nature of frontier rule, which in turn shaped the very nature of the colonial state itself.

The Frontier in British India

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Simpson
Keyword(s):  
British India

cAbdullah Yūsuf cAlī & Muhammad Asad: Two Approaches to the English Translation of the Qur'an

2000 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muzaffar Iqbal
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
Academic Career ◽  
British India ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
English Translations ◽  
Political Milieu ◽  
The Times

This article attempts to present a comparative study of the role of two twentieth-century English translations of the Qur'an: cAbdullah Yūsuf cAlī's The Meaning of the Glorious Qur'ān and Muḥammad Asad's The Message of the Qur'ān. No two men could have been more different in their background, social and political milieu and life experiences than Yūsuf cAlī and Asad. Yūsuf 'Alī was born and raised in British India and had a brilliant but traditional middle-class academic career. Asad traversed a vast cultural and geographical terrain: from a highly-disciplined childhood in Europe to the deserts of Arabia. Both men lived ‘intensely’ and with deep spiritual yearning. At some time in each of their lives they decided to embark upon the translation of the Qur'an. Their efforts have provided us with two incredibly rich monumental works, which both reflect their own unique approaches and the effects of the times and circumstances in which they lived. A comparative study of these two translations can provide rich insights into the exegesis and the phenomenon of human understanding of the divine text.

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