Colonial Landmarks in Mysuru
Colonial Landmarks in Mysuru

Author: Gouri Satya

Publisher: Notion Press

Published: 2020-07-19

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 1648509959

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Many British dignitaries visited Mysore during the period of the Maharajas, from Lord Wellesley, who fought against Tipu Sultan, to Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, who visited Mysore soon after India became independent. There are landmarks built by the Maharajas to commemorate the visits of some of these dignitaries, and also to mark celebrations related to them. Some landmarks relate to the Europeans who were in Mysore during the period of the Wadiyars. Although we may be familiar with these places or structures, we know little about these men and their visits to Mysore. This book is an attempt to highlight their visits, recall their contributions and how the Maharajas of Mysore accorded royal receptions to them. This book is also a record of the British personalities – Commissioners, Viceroys, Princes, and Residents – and throws light on the administration of the Mysore State of over a century and a half, from 1799 to 1957. In all, 15 landmarks of the British era in Mysore have been covered in this book, beginning from the earliest. As far as we know, no attempt has been made to bring these landmarks in one book.

Colonialism and Wildlife
Colonialism and Wildlife

Author: Velayutham Saravanan

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-08-22

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 100092324X

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This book delves into the history of the commercialization of wildlife in India. It examines the colonial strategies that were employed in the commodification of wildlife resources specifically for lucrative domestic and international trade during the early nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. It looks at how and why the colonial administration paid special emphasis on hunting and game sports which largely contributed to commodity capitalism in the form of taxidermy and wildlife exports. The author also critically analyses the wildlife laws and regulations promulgated by the colonial administration, such as the elephant protection act, birds and fisheries act, the forest acts, and studies how they have systematically brought wildlife under state control with a commercial motive. An important contribution to the environmental history of India, this book is an essential interdisciplinary resource for scholars and researchers of history, colonialism, wildlife studies, economic history, ecological studies, environmental history, Indian history, South Asian studies, and development studies.

The Buddha's Tooth
The Buddha's Tooth

Author: John S. Strong

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2021-10-22

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 022680187X

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John S. Strong unravels the storm of influences shaping the received narratives of two iconic sacred objects. Bodily relics such as hairs, teeth, fingernails, pieces of bone—supposedly from the Buddha himself—have long served as objects of veneration for many Buddhists. Unsurprisingly, when Western colonial powers subjugated populations in South Asia, they used, manipulated, redefined, and even destroyed these objects to exert control. In The Buddha’s Tooth, John S. Strong examines Western stories, from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, surrounding two significant Sri Lankan sacred objects to illuminate and concretize colonial attitudes toward Asian religions. First, he analyzes a tale about the Portuguese capture and public destruction, in the mid-sixteenth century, of a tooth later identified as a relic of the Buddha. Second, he switches gears to look at the nineteenth-century saga of British dealings with another tooth relic of the Buddha—the famous Daḷadā enshrined in a temple in Kandy—from 1815, when it was taken over by English forces, to 1954, when it was visited by Queen Elizabeth II. As Strong reveals, the stories of both the Portuguese tooth and the Kandyan tooth reflect nascent and developing Western understandings of Buddhism, realizations of the cosmopolitan nature of the tooth, and tensions between secular and religious interests.

Escape Artist
Escape Artist

Author: Joseph McAleer

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-07-31

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 0192514075

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The life of Sir Harry Perry Robinson (1859-1930) unfolds like a Boy's Own adventure. Born in India and educated at Oxford, Harry fled to the United States to make his name and fortune. After a stint in the gold mines of the American West, he became a major force in the railroad industry and helped to elect a U.S. President. Returning to England, Harry had a celebrated career as a book publisher (discovering the American author Jack London) and as a journalist for The Times, serving as the oldest correspondent during the First World War and going on to have one of the scoops of the century: the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1923. Harry's incredible journey unfolds against the background of his equally adventurous and accomplished family. His father, Julian, was an Indian Army chaplain and newspaper editor. His aunt was a suffragette and personal friend of both Disraeli and Gladstone. Brother Philip was a dashing foreign correspondent, arrested as a spy during the Spanish-American War. Brother Edward ('Kay'), founder of the British Empire Naturalists' Association, gave Rudyard Kipling his first writing job. And troubled sister Valence was rumoured to end her days living in a barrel on a roadside in Bulawayo. From the White House to Buckingham Palace, the American West to the Western Front, the sands of Egypt to the shores of India, the board room to the bedroom, Harry was a master of reinvention, and each of the nine 'lives' he assumed allowed an 'escape' from one experience into the next. His innate wanderlust was both a blessing and a curse, but it made for a splendid adventure, and Harry's was a grand life lived in history's shadow.

Making Kantha, Making Home
Making Kantha, Making Home

Author: Pika Ghosh

Publisher: University of Washington Press

Published: 2020-07-15

Total Pages: 275

ISBN-13: 0295747005

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In Bengal, mothers swaddle their infants and cover their beds in colorful textiles that are passed down through generations. They create these kantha from layers of soft, recycled fabric strengthened with running stitches and use them as shawls, covers, and seating mats. Making Kantha, Making Home explores the social worlds shaped by the Bengali kantha that survive from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the first study of colonial-period women’s embroidery that situates these objects historically and socially, Pika Ghosh brings technique and aesthetic choices into discussion with iconography and regional culture. Ghosh uses ethnographic and archival research, inscriptions, and images to locate embroiderers’ work within domestic networks and to show how imagery from poetry, drama, prints, and watercolors expresses kantha artists’ visual literacy. Affinities with older textile practices include the region’s lucrative maritime trade in embroideries with Europe, Africa, and China. This appraisal of individual objects alongside the people and stories behind the objects’ creation elevates kantha beyond consideration as mere handcraft to recognition as art.