Biswamoy Pati

Legitimacy, Power and Subversion Colonial Orissa, c.1800–1940

This article explores the diversities involved with the process of power and legitimacy and highlights its interactive and dynamic characteristics. What is rather well known is the way the colonial state and the internal ruling classes (viz., princes and zamindars) devised rituals to legitimise their rule. Thus, these ranged from the associations that were sought to be established with ‘cults’, myths and caste to practices involving complex, ritualised negotiations with the adivasi (tribal)/outcaste population. However, what is normally not taken into account by historians is the way the common people re-worked some of these practices to not only undermine the position of the ruling classes but even challenge and attempt to subvert their dominance. Besides being intimately asso-ciated with the day-to-day survival strategies of the poor, some of these had long-term implications since they were distinctly associated with popular anti-colonial/feudal aspirations.

Shireen Moosvi, ed., Facets of the Great Revolt (New Delhi: Tulika Publishers), 2008, pp. xi+146. Rs 225

Indian Historical Review, 37, 2 (2010): 311–345 sometime, the Sultan enquired about the condition in the Shaikh’s Khanqah and was told that more money was spent on the langar and people were fed in a larger number. The Sultan realised that he was wrong (pp. 203–04). All this explodes the myth created by the later writers that the Sultan was bent upon doing harm to the Shaikh but was murdered by his own favourite, Khusrau Khan, attributing the cause of murder to the spiritual power possessed by the Shaikh. In short, the Khairul-Majalis forms an important part of the source of information about the life and culture in the Sultanate of Delhi. This work not only helps us analyse the elements of change and continuity in history but also shifts our focus from preoccupation with battles, factionalism and intrigues at the royal court. It provides us with insights into problem and tensions faced by people in medieval Indian society. Its translation from Persian into English makes it accessible to the scholars who could not utilise it in Persian. The translators have fulfilled the need and deserve to be congratulated. The Persian text was edited by K.A. Nizami and published by the Department of History, Aligarh Muslim University in 1956.

Subalterns and Sovereigns: An Anthropological History of Bastar (1854–2006)

as a response to the nationalist arguments, thereby raising many new questions and issues. We get a glimpse of new interpretations which challenge some of the older and accepted tenets of Indian economic history under colonial rule, particularly with reference to R.C. Dutts emphasis on Indo-British economic relations which excluded Indias commercial links with Asia and Africa, the drain theory of the nationalists and the implications of the external Iiabilities of colonial India when translated into domestic liabilities. An important question that arises from the revisionist critique is whether they have underestimated the significance of Indias subordinate political position and de-emphasized the importance of its exclusion from policy making. These and other issues have been highlighted in this volume which brings to readers the current research in this field. One wishes that the volume could have included essays relating to an earlier period of colonialism, during the early nineteenth century, a time when the Indian economy played a vital role in sustaining Britains world-wide trade. Nevertheless, the volume adequately sums up the present state of historical knowledge of the period selected. The volume is useful for both students and scholars as well as general readers interested in colonial economic history.

Social and Religious Reform: The Hindus of British India (Debates in Indian History and Society)

This book includes an Editorial Note followed by a selection of writings by social reformers, creative personalities, leaders associated with the anti-imperialist struggle and, finally, contemporary scholars. To quote the General Editor, the Series is “an exploration in the discourse of history to focus upon the diversity of interpretations.. .[which] encourages the interrogation of history, as distinct from the tendency to present history as a collection of ‘given’ facts”. As suggested, the present volume’s effort is to locate contestations centred around reform initiatives in Hindu society, along with several other features associated with intellectual, cultural and social history (emphasis added) (p. xii).