Manu Bhagavan

Princely states and the making of modern India: Internationalism, constitutionalism and the postcolonial moment

This article examines discussions that took place regarding princely states at the moment of transition from colonial to postcolonial India. It argues for a rethinking of Nehrus vision for ‘the integration of states’, locating his intellectual position in his broader concerns with the United Nations and a framework of international rights. For Nehru, the relationship between princely states and independent India existed reciprocally with that between the new postcolonial state and the UN. The purpose of the article, then, is to understand what ‘princely states’ meant to the imagination of India, and, more broadly, the idea of postcoloniality itself.

Toward a Better Future

In late 1949, as the Human Rights Commission began to deal with a covenant of Human Rights in earnest, Nehru made a trip to the United States, accompanied by his daughter and future prime minister, Indira, and his sister, Madame Pandit, now India’s ambassador to Washington. Up until early that year, Madame Pandit had been serving as ambassador to Moscow, though Gandhi had informed her shortly before he died in January 1948 that she would soon be transferred to the United States.1 Pandit’s position in the capitals of the two superpowers reflected the signal importance that Nehru attached to bridging relations between the two sides of the world. Pandit’s diplomatic and debating skills were unmatched, and she enjoyed a reputation on the international stage that was equally unparalleled. Her appointments were meant to reflect the status that India accorded both the Soviet Union and America: it held them in comparably high regard. This was, of course, a political move as much as anything else, since the point was to build trust among foes.

The New Hope

In 1946, Britain’s vice-like grip over its colonies began to loosen. Thoroughly exhausted by the war, which by the end of the conflict had consumed over half the country’s Gross National Product (GNP), the United Kingdom was a ravaged land, if not one as thoroughly devastated as its continental neighbors. Unlike during the First World War, this time around Great Britain had been forced to cannibalize its own resources and thus had a weak hand with which to rebuild, a troubling scenario when faced with the reality of the loss of 30 percent of its total housing, 3.5 million homes in London alone.1 Combined with ceaseless pressure from the Americans to give up its overseas possessions, Britain no longer possessed the will nor the way to maintain its empire.

Showdown in San Francisco

As Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit was landing in New York, President Roosevelt was consumed by preparations for meetings between the Big Three, the United States, Russia and Great Britain, that would take place in Yalta, in the Crimea. The Yalta Conference was meant to follow up on an earlier 1943 conclave in Tehran, where the overall camaraderie between Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill had produced fruitful dialogue. In Tehran, the three had tentatively agreed that some kind of post-war world organization was necessary to maintain the peace.1 The Allies needed to meet again to discuss this matter in greater detail, in the context of the latest developments in the war.

India in New York

Among those who were jailed as a result of the Quit India Resolution was Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, Nehru’s younger sister, the middle of three siblings. This was not her first confinement. A committed, if less famous, nationalist fighter and Gandhian, Nan, as she was affectionately known, had spent several terms in prison for her political activism. After the 1935 Act that created a new constitutional framework, she had stood for election and won, becoming the first woman cabinet minister in India, holding portfolios on local self-government and medical and public health in the Government of the United Provinces (present-day Uttar Pradesh). She was talented and respected, and unbelievably courageous,1 but few knew in the 1930s just what a force she would become.

Cultures of Servitude: Modernity, Domesticity, and Class in India, by Raka Ray and Seemin Qayum

This is a book that focuses on a category of work that is fundamental to life in India, and to South Asia generally, but that is rarely discussed: domestic service. Ray and Qayum have focused their energies on Kolkata (Calcutta) in the northeastern state of Bengal, where they surveyed 500 households and conducted numerous in-depth interviews with employers of domestic help on the one hand, and those who provide this service on the other (pp. 53–4). InKolkata, as inmost of the rest of India, domestic helpers are known as ‘servants’ in English, even though its Bengali equivalent (chakor) has been replaced with kajer lok (one who works). Since the English word percolates in and out of other Indian languages, it is considered the normative descriptive for workers of this type in India. Employers range from upper to lower middle class, a pattern generally less familiar in theWest, where the ability to hire domestic assistance is most often limited to, and seen as the purview of, the well-off. The book is laid out across six chapters, along with an introduction and a conclusion. Across this landscape, the authors discuss such issues as: the changing nature of the space in which domestic servitude operates, from colonial mansions to modern flats; changing demographics of servants, from men to women, and from life-long single family retainers to part-time workers who move between several employers; the rhetoric of love which bonds (or doesn’t) employers and workers in a fictional family, tied together by notional ideas of caring; the centrality and shortcomings of patriarchy in the lives of employers and servants; and the critical importance of maintaining a sense of distinction between the types of people who employ and serve. The introduction is by far the most difficult to read, as the authors try to locate their work in existing academic literature. In many ways, the writing style of this opening section is unfortunate because, while it certainly reveals the authors’ familiarity with the field, it belies the narrative ease of the rest of the book. This is a book about everyday people, and the complexities and humiliations of domestic labor. For the people who are the clear tragic heroes of this volume, the ‘servants’, this is also a hopeful intervention: some clearly participated in the study with the aim of changing their situation for the better. This political goal is also clearly the desire of the authors. Yet the role of this kind of scholarly work is one that many a servant rightly questions, as one of them does explicitly at the end of the sixth chapter: ‘Who will read this book? You won’t really educate them [employers]. . . . I know what social problems are, but

A Review of “Fascinating Hindutva: Saffron Politics and Dalit Mobilisation”

The last two decades have seen the remarkable rise of two striking, if very different, forces in Indian popular politics: right-wing Hindu nationalism (Hindutva) on the one hand and lower caste—Dal...