Karen Leonard

Untouchable pasts : religion, identity, and power among a central Indian community, 1780-1950

Asia is high, but there is also a considerable flexibility in this informal relationship. The nominal interest rates are often extremely high, but effective interest rates are usually lower, as the creditor must see to it that his debtor survives. David Hardiman has shed a great deal of light on the intricacies of this relationship. He begins his account in precolonial times and shows that a state dependent on land revenue collection relied throughout on the baniya (moneylender) as crucial intermediary. With the rise of tax farming and the spread of the commer- cialization of power, some moneylenders achieved great prominence, but, as Hardiman stresses, money- lenders and traders as a class never aspired to the kind of political power attained by the European bourgeoi- sie. They knew their limits. In an illuminating chapter on The Baniyas Life and Faith, he describes these limits. There was a strong solidarity among baniyas and a deep consciousness of abru, which means both honor and credit-worthiness. The peasant also cherished his abru but conceived of it in terms of his standing in his rural community. This depended on his control of land, on marrying his children well, and on his access to credit. As far as the latter was concerned, he relied on the moneylender and would normally refrain from offending him. British colonial rulers made full use of the symbiotic relationship between peasant and moneylender, be- cause it helped them to collect their land revenue. They strenghtened the grip of the moneylender by introducing a law that had fortified the security of credit in their own country. lt assumed that debtor and creditor were contracting partners of equal stature, which, of cour.se, did not apply to Indian peasants and moneylenders. Nevertheless, this theory was upheld for a long time, until peasant indebtedness and the transfer of land to moneylenders emerged as a political danger to colonial rule. Unfortunately, Hardiman does not deal with this aspect in detail. He neglects the available literature on the debates preceding the Dec- can Agriculturists Relief Act and similar measures. As a subaltern historian, Hardiman is more interested in the articulation of peasant resistance. He devotes much effort to showing that the Deccan Riots of 1875 were not riots but a peasant revolt; be also documents that this revolt was not an isolated instance but that there were similar revolts before and after 1875. In tracing the evidence for such revolts, Hardi- man is at his best. Chapter thirteen, Usury Under Late Colonial Rule, is more sketchy. Hardiman almost completely ignores the impact of the Great Depression, which forced the British to interfere with the business of the baniya in various ways by introducing debt conciliation and registering moneylenders. At the same time, the fall in prices completely ruined the British land reve- nue system. In earlier times, the peasant had been able to resort to the moneylender whenever the revenue demand was due, but this mechanism broke down. Moreover, the connection between credit and the AMERICAN HISTORICAL R EVIEW trade in grain was interrupted by panic sales at the time of the Depression. A look at the relevant litera- ture would have helped Hardiman to improve this chapter. It would have also provided some background for his interesting description of the decline of the business of village moneylenders. In his final chapter, Hardiman discusses The Meta- morphosis of Usury and arrives at the conclusion that although the old-style baniya is only of marginal importance nowadays, there has been a baniyaiza- tion of the new rural middle class, which uses credit to tighten its hold on dwarfholders who must offer their labor to richer neighbors. In conclusion, Hardiman returns to the theme of hegemony taken up in his introduction. Antonio Gramscis concept of hegemony has been debated by subaltern historians. Some of them have argued that neither any one class nor the colonial nor the postcolonial state has achieved hege- mony in India on Gramscis terms. These historians have not stated whether this finding would also make the category subaltern meaningless in the Indian context, because the subaltern is defined as one who accepts hegemony. Hardiman is careful in his use of these terms. He agrees that India never produced a bourgoisie of the European type, and instead of speak- ing of the subaltern position, he stresses the men- tality of dependence on the superior provider (p. 336). This fits in well with his study of the baniya, but he has also shown that this mentality can occasionally turn into a spirit of revolt. This spirit rarely persists for long, as the facts of life reassert themselves. The baniyas knew this; they ususally refused to give evi- dence against rebellious peasants and returned to do business as usual. By providing such insights, Hardi- man greatly enriches the knowledge of his readers. DIETMAR ROTHERMUND University of Heidelberg SAURABH D u BE. Untouchable Pasts: Religion, Identity, and Power among a Central Indian Community, 1780- 1950. (SUNY Series in Hindu Studies.) Albany: State University of New York Press. 1998. Pp. xvii, 308. Saurabh Dube aimed to produce more than an Indian history, an ethnograplhic history that works with South Asian materials, articulating a wider set of concerns to carve out a theoretical third position, apart from Eurocentric imaginings and also from anti-Enlightenment rhetoric (p. xi). He wanted to show the construction of multiple Hindu identities ... particularly by groups and communities who stood on the margins (p. 5), by exploring the past of an untouchable subcaste that is also a guru-led sect, the Satnamis of Central India, from 1780 to 1950. Dube is a captivating writer who promises much in his intro- ductory chapter. Significant tensions in Dubes endeavor needed fuller discussion. The tension between sources pro- duced by outsiders (colonial officials and interested FEBRUARY

The ‘Great Firm’ Theory of the Decline of the Mughal Empire

Most historians of the Mughal empire currently emphasize economic factors in their attempts to locate and measure the causes of imperial decline in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century India. Recent articles reiterate a standard set of tensions: those between monarch, military and service nobles ( mansabdars ), landholders ( zamindars ), and peasants. Existing theories attribute the Mughal decline to the nature of the monarchy, the breakdown of the mansabdari administrative system, and the challenges from newly established regional rulers. One influential analysis points to the increasing burden of taxation and consequent zamindar -peasant rebellions throughout the empire as the fundamental cause of decline. The nobility and the mansabdari system have received most attention, however. Historians have emphasized the strains caused by numerical expansion, inflation of noble ranks, and the ‘aristocratization’ of the mansabdars through conspicuous consumption and hereditary control of positions.

The Hyderabad Political System and Its Participants

Differing both in structure and operation from its parent Mughal model, the political system which came to be known as Hyderabad State developed in the Deccan in the second half of the eighteenth century. The major structural difference lay in the great power of two hereditary daftardars , the keepers of the central revenue records—these men could usurp the Diwans (Chief Ministers) traditional control of government finances. Without overemphasizing contrasts with the Mughal model, for few behavioral studies have been made of Mughal administration, other apparent differences lay in Hyderabads complete reliance on private contractors for revenue collection, the customary treatment of jagirs (land grants) as inheritable, and clear functional distinctions within the mansabdari system. Loosely structured patron-client relationships and the use of vakils or intermediaries characterized the operation of the system. The participants—nobles, local rulers, military men, bankers, record-keepers—were of diverse origins. The recruitment and composition of the Hyderabad nobility reflected the flexibility of the political system, as illustrated by an examination of the career patterns of the acknowledged “ten leading families” of the Hyderabad nobility.

Reassessing indirect rule in hyderabad: Rule, ruler, or sons-in-law of the state?

Modern Asian Studies 37, 2 (2003), pp. 363–379.

Transnationalism, Diaspora, Translation

Sikh Formations, Vol. 3, No. 1, June 2007, pp. 51– 66 Karen Leonard TRANSNATIONALISM, DIASPORA, TRANSLATION Comparing Punjabis and Hyderabadis abroad Themes and theories Comparing the Punjabi diaspora to the US and the Hyderabadi diaspora worldwide is more than an intellectual exercise investigating issues of transnationalism, cosmopo- litanism and translation studies. An ethnographic comparison illuminates the ways in which migrants define and represent themselves and their experiences over time and in different contexts. Both diasporas represent the decline, at different points in time, of lingering Mughlai or Indo-Muslim societies in South Asia, I argue. The words and phrases used by immigrants show the disintegration of Punjabi and Hyder- abadi plural societies, and they also show slippages, or possible slippages, into com- munities narrowly based on religion. In both cases, the words used to identify and locate self and other in the shifting landscapes testify to significant translations. The comparison is more than a two-way one, since both diasporas have internal contrasts as well. The Punjabi diaspora took place in two distinct historical periods. A few hundred speakers of the Punjabi language in India’s northwestern region migrated to the United States in the early twentieth century, to be followed after the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act by many thousands of Punjabis. Fol- lowers of the Sikh religion were prominent in both movements, although the first diaspora consisted primarily of farmers, rural men who settled in the farming valleys of California and adjacent western states, while the second diaspora featured well-educated professional people moving in family units to cities all over the United States. The Hyderabadis too were internally differentiated. Hyderabadis is a name given chiefly to those from Hyderabad city who had been mulkis (countrymen) or citi- zens of the princely state ruled by the Nizam of Hyderabad, a state incorporated into independent India in 1948. Again there was an earlier diaspora, of Muslims to Paki- stan in 1947– 48, followed by another, beginning in the 1960s, of emigrants to the United States and elsewhere. These later Hyderabadi migrants came from many reli- gious backgrounds (Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Parsi and Christian), although, like the ISSN 1744-8727 (print)/ISSN 1744-8735 (online)/07/010051-16 # 2007 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/17448720701332592

From Goswami rajas to Goswami caste in Hyderabad

Much has been written about Goswamis or Gosains as ascetics, but little has been written about their evolution into a caste, an endogamous marriage network with women and children. Coming from northern India to Hyderabad as sanyasis, male ascetics tracing lines of spiritual succession from guru to chela, Goswamis lived in maths, ostensibly without women or biological heirs. Goswami lineages established themselves as banking houses in Begum Bazar and leading Goswamis were termed Rajas because of their participation in the Nizam’s Mughlai administration and court culture. As modern educational and legal systems developed in Hyderabad and north Indian Goswami practices in British India began to influence Hyderabad’s Goswamis, they moved from Goswami law governing guru-chela successions and inheritances to Hindu family law governing marriage and inheritance. The nominally ascetic bankers and their dependents became householders following new occupations, developing an endogamous marriage network and self-identifying as a caste. Evidence about Gosains in Mirzapur and Varanasi strengthens the argument that educational and legal alternatives helped empower the women and children associated with the maths and develop a Goswami caste in Hyderabad.

Hindu temples in Hyderabad: state patronage and politics in South Asia

This article argues that Hindu temples in Hyderabad, a city in a territory ruled by Muslims from the fourteenth century until the 1948 incorporation of the princely state of Hyderabad into independent India, were resources in a multi-religious landscape, institutions that reflected the political power of their patrons and often performed functions for the state. Temples were built and managed as part of the Indo-Muslim or Mughlai urban court economy in Hyderabad, and temple patronage reflected the shifting patterns of prominence as one high-ranking Hindu noble or official replaced another and secured state support for major temples. Rather than defending Hyderabad states policies and practices with respect to Hindu institutions and events, this article shows the development and implementation of an Indo-Muslim ruling tradition as Muslim rulers interacted with non-Muslims to become part of a distinctively South Asian tradition of secularism or pluralism. Rather than syncretism or synthesis, I emphasize ‘translation’, appropriate to the time and place, as the concept best able to capture the pluralism of Indias historical Indo-Muslim cultures.

Palmer and Company: an Indian Banking Firm in Hyderabad State

c Cambridge University Press 2013 Modern Asian Studies 47, 4 (2013) pp. 1157–1184. doi:10.1017/S0026749X12000236 First published online 16 January 2013 Palmer and Company: an Indian Banking Firm in Hyderabad State KAREN LEONARD University of California, Irvine, USA Email: kbleonar@uci.edu. Abstract Although the misreading of Hyderabad’s early nineteenth century banking firm, Palmer and Company, as scandalous, illegal, and usurious in its business practices was contested at the time in Hyderabad, and at the highest levels of the East India Company in both Calcutta and London, such conspiracy theories have prevailed and are here challenged. The Eurasian William Palmer and his partner, the Gujarati banker, Benkati Das, are best understood as indigenous sahukars or bankers. Their firm functioned like other Indian banking firms and was in competition with them in the early nineteenth century as Hyderabad State dealt with the increasing power of the British East India Company and its man-on- the-spot, the Resident. Historians need to look beyond the English language East India Company records to contextualize this important banking firm more accurately. The Problem Palmer and Company, a banking firm in Hyderabad in the early nineteenth century, has been seriously misread. The ‘Palmer Affair’ has gone down in history as ‘one of the scandals of British Indian history;’ the firm was indicted and is known today for ‘making illegal usurious loans to the Nizam of Hyderabad’. 1 Although this interpretation was contested at the time in Hyderabad and at the highest levels of the East India Company in both Calcutta and London, conspiracy theories have prevailed but need to be challenged. The Zubaida Yazdani, Hyderabad During the Residency of Henry Russell 1811–1820: A Case Study of the Subsidiary Alliance System (Oxford: by the author, 1976), 4; Anthony Webster, The Richest East India Merchant: the Life and Business of John Palmer of Calcutta 1767–1836 (Rochester, New York: The Boydell Press, 2007), 103.

South Asian American millennial marriages: Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims

ABSTRACT South Asian American millennial Sikhs, like millennial Hindus and Muslims, demonstrate a widening range of partner choices, marriage rituals, and celebratory practices. For young Sikh Americans, the roles of the bride and groom in planning their weddings are increasingly important, as are the cultural or secular aspects of the weddings. Furthermore, rather than considering community, the young people are emphasizing individual choice. These conclusions point to adaptation and cultural translations at the level of the couples, families, religious or regional diasporic communities, and diasporic communities more broadly defined (as Indian, Pakistani, South Asian), translations that reflect the changing context in America and the American cohorts of which these young people are members.

Desi Dreams: Indian Immigrant Women Build Lives Across Two Worlds

304 / Contributions to Indian Sociology 48, 2 (2014): 279–305 Ashidhara Das. 2012. Desi Dreams: Indian Immigrant Women Build Lives Across Two Worlds. New Delhi: Primus Books. xviii + 162 pp. Tables, bibliography, index. `795 (hardback). DOI: 10.1177/0069966714525296 The title indicates that the book will be about immigrant women from India and their dreams, and the reader does find some material in that regard. The book is gracefully written and is generally informative but scholars will be disappointed since the book is a hotchpotch of theory, statistical data and interview material. Information about the key informants is limited and the material presented from them is still more limited. The book poses some interesting questions and makes provocative generalisations as the author presents her own views as well as those of her subjects. Das opens by presenting her hypotheses about the various identities and selves of professional Indian women. She argues for a three-stage model of identity formation: a first stage—two years of shock of acculturation upon arrival; a second stage of growing familiarity with the American way of life; and a third stage, for those residing at least a decade in the US, a phase of achievement of the American dream but also a reassertion of Indian ethnic identity. These, apparently, are her actual findings and they are repeated several times throughout the book and in the conclusion. The reasoning given for the third outcome, although never systematically evidenced by statements from her interviewees, seems to be twofold. Her informants believe that although they have become Americans, they are still pigeonholed by others as Indian; in other words, a full assimilation is not possible. Further, they resist categorisation as a racial minority group in the US and prefer to identify as diasporic or transnational Indians. It is often hard to distinguish the author’s views from those of her informants because, as she says in the preface, she and they are so similar. This appears to be a revised PhD dissertation and Das moves on in her first chapter to discuss the relevant theoretical literature on migration and diaspora, and summarise census data on Asian Indian immigrants in the US. She ends the first chapter with brief remarks about her fieldwork and methodology. She conducted 60 detailed interviews. She writes that 40 were with professional Indian immigrant working women in the San Francisco Bay Area, 10 with non-working Indian immigrant women in the same area and 10 with professional working women resident in India (defined as ‘the sending community’). The next sentence states, however,