Patrons, Clients, and Empire
Patrons, Clients, and Empire

Author: Colin Newbury

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2003-01-02

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 0191555258

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Patrons, Clients, and Empire challenges the stereotypes of despotic imperial power in Asian, African, and Pacific colonies by analysing the relationship between rulers and rulers on both sides of the imperial equation. It seeks an answer to the question: how were European officials able to govern so many societies for so long? Rejecting the usual explanations of 'collaboration' and indirect rule', this study looks to pre-imperial structures in the indigenous hierarchies which supplied patrimonial models of chieftaincy for territorial government. For nawabs, chiefs, emirs, sultans, and their officials and followers there were dynastic and economic advantages in accepting the terms of European over-rule, as well as the threat of deposition. For European officials, few in numbers and with limited military and financial resources, there were ready-made systems of local government that could be co-opted, reformed, or left relatively untouched. Both sides played politics as patrons and clients within a dual system of administration based on a mixture of force and self-interest. Surveying a wide variety of cases and employing a patron-client model, this study embraces pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial politics in new states. It covers the chronology of early European dependency on local rulers; the reasons for reversal of status among chiefs and administrators; the longer period of political bargaining over access to local resources in terms of land, labour, and taxes; and the ultimate fate of indigenous rulers in the period of party politics leading to independence.

Birth of a Colonial City
Birth of a Colonial City

Author: Ranjit Sen

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2019-03-04

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 0429638981

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Long before Calcutta was ‘discovered’ by Job Charnock, it thrived by the Hugli since times immemorial. This book, and its companion Colonial Calcutta, is a biographical account of the when, the how and the what of a global city and its emergence under colonial rule in the 1800s. Ranjit Sen traces the story of how three clustered villages became the hub of the British Empire and a centre of colonial imagination. He examines the historical and geopolitical factors that were significant in securing its prominence, and its subsequent urbanization which was a colonial experience without an antecedent. Further, it sheds light on Calcutta’s early search for identity — how it superseded interior towns and flourished as the seat of power for its hinterland; developed its early institutions, while its municipal administration slowly burgeoned. A sharp analysis of the colonial enterprise, this volume lays bare the underbelly of the British Raj. It will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of modern history, South Asian history, urban studies, British Studies and area studies.

Employment, Poverty and Rights in India
Employment, Poverty and Rights in India

Author: Dayabati Roy

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-05-23

Total Pages: 199

ISBN-13: 1351065408

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In comparison to other social groups, India’s rural poor – and particularly Adivasis and Dalits - have seen little benefit from the country’s economic growth over the last three decades. Though economists and statisticians are able to model the form and extent of this inequality, their work is rarely concerned with identifying possible causes. Employment, Poverty and Rights in India analyses unemployment in India and explains why the issues of employment and unemployment should be the appropriate prism to understand the status of wellbeing in India. The author provides a historical analysis of policy interventions on behalf of the colonial and postcolonial state with regard to the alleviation of unemployment and poverty in India and in West Bengal in particular. Arguing that, as long as poverty - either as a concept or as an empirical condition - remains as a technical issue to be managed by governmental technologies, the ‘poor’ will be held responsible for their own fate and the extent of poverty will continue to increase. The book contends that rural unemployment in India is not just an economic issue but a political process that has consistently been shaped by various socio-economic, political and cultural factors since the colonial period. The analysis which depends mainly on ethnography extends to the implementation of the ‘New Rights Agenda’, such as the MGNREGA, at the rural margin. Challenging the dominant approach to poverty, this book will be of interest to scholars working in the fields of South Asian studies, Indian Political Economy, contemporary political theories, poverty studies, neo-liberalism, sociology and social anthropology as well as development studies.

Churchill's Secret War
Churchill's Secret War

Author: Madhusree Mukerjee

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2010-08-10

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 046502260X

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A dogged enemy of Hitler, resolute ally of the Americans, and inspiring leader through World War II, Winston Churchill is venerated as one of the truly great statesmen of the last century. But while he has been widely extolled for his achievements, parts of Churchill's record have gone woefully unexamined.As journalist Madhusree Mukerjee reveals, at the same time that Churchill brilliantly opposed the barbarism of the Nazis, he governed India with a fierce resolve to crush its freedom movement and a profound contempt for native lives. A series of Churchill's decisions between 1940 and 1944 directly and inevitably led to the deaths of some three million Indians. The streets of eastern Indian cities were lined with corpses, yet instead of sending emergency food shipments Churchill used the wheat and ships at his disposal to build stockpiles for feeding postwar Britain and Europe. Combining meticulous research with a vivid narrative, and riveting accounts of personality and policy clashes within and without the British War Cabinet, Churchill's Secret War places this oft-overlooked tragedy into the larger context of World War II, India's fight for freedom, and Churchill's enduring legacy. Winston Churchill may have found victory in Europe, but, as this groundbreaking historical investigation reveals, his mismanagement -- facilitated by dubious advice from scientist and eugenicist Lord Cherwell -- devastated India and set the stage for the massive bloodletting that accompanied independence.