Peter Robb

The Colonial State and Constructions of Indian Identity: An Example on the Northeast Frontier in the 1880s

This is an essay about the establishment and expanding roles of the colonial state in India, and their probable correlation with developments of Indian identity. As I have argued elsewhere, identities are always multiple, contingent and continuously constructed, so that traditions, also continually reinvented, are shared and reiterated practices and beliefs which reflect the collective memories of previous constructions. There is no analytical contradiction therefore between long-term civilizational continuities and emerging forms of ‘constructed’ identity. This paper is about a particular form of identity that is currently associated with concepts of public space and rights, and with the nation-state, or at least political and territorial units. For convenience I refer to it as ‘modern Indian identity’ because it has been defined and been growing in significance in the modern era; but no inference should be drawn that I consider it to be the only form in India.

The Challenge of Gau Mata: British Policy and Religious Change in India , 1880–1916

That people get the governments they deserve is a saying born out of the expectation of citizens to influence the choice of rulers, or that societies mould states. Perhaps, conversely, when governments are imposed on people, especially by outsiders, they are likely to be more than usually influential. Certainly, in India, social and religious changes are thought to have occurred under British rule. Official records provide much of the evidence for this. Yet British policy and attitudes in this area have not been very fully analysed. This essay is an attempt to start closing the gap, and it is hoped will provide some insight indirectly into how the records were produced and what was seen of social and religious change in the later nineteenth century—both matters ultimately of importance to the understanding of the period. Special attention will be paid to the cow-protection movements between 1880 and 1916.

Law and Agrarian Society in India: The Case of Bihar and the Nineteenth-Century Tenancy Debate

David Washbrooks original treatment of the question of law and society, to which the title of the present paper refers, has not yet stimulated the response which might have been expected. It is a wideranging study; only part of it will be taken up in this paper, namely its arguments about landed property rights in the nineteenth century. Washbrook states that in the first half of the century private property in land remained a ‘pure farce’ in India because of continued state involvement in the economy, excessive revenue demands, the persistence of personal law (as codified), and the weakness of the system of courts. He emphasizes the political implications of the co-option of dominant groups for revenue collection and other purposes of British administration. For the second half of the century, Washbrook proposes an improvement in the position of landed and powerful interests, as the law at last ‘beat back the frontier’ of personal law and disentangled private property rights from family and communal fetters.

Completing our "Stock of Geography", or an Object "Still More Sublime": Colin Mackenzie's Survey of Mysore 1799-1810

To facilitate & promote all enquiries which may be calculated to enlarge the boundaries of General Science is a Duty imposed on the British Government in India by its present exalted situation & the discharge of that Duty is in a more especial manner required from us when any material addition can be made to the Public Stock of useful knowledge without involving considerable expence. ... [T]his desirable object will never be attained unless it shall be made the Duty of some Public Officer properly qualified for this Service to collect information & to digest & publish the results of his researches.1 This paper is concerned with an aspect of the colonial contribution to the construction of modern India, namely definitions of place in relation to goals of government.2 It will argue that there was considerable continuity, not in the execution of policy or in all its objectives, but in some of the available aims and rhetoric, relating scientific understanding to public welfare and state-sponsored improvement. Such ideas were developing in Europe from at least the seventeenth century, and familiar to many in the service of the East India

Credit, work and race in 1790s Calcutta: Early colonialism through a contemporary European view

diary kept by an English builder and town-surveyor, Richard Blechynden (1760-1822).’ He travelled to India as a midshipman, arriving in 1782, and died there, having served as Calcutta’s Superintendent of Roads. This essay, referring only to the 1790s,2 discusses some of the themes which his diary allows us to explore. The diary, a neglected source, is unique in its daily detail and in the milieu it describes. William Hickey’s celebrated memoirs, for example, were written after the event and refer to more affluent and well-connected levels of non-official society, at least for the 1780s and 1790s~ Blechynden provides a rich record of the banalities of life among the unofficial orders of Europeans-people who had reached Calcutta as a result of what Peter Marshall described as ’an indiscriminate migration to Bengal during the eighteenth century of Europeans of all kinds’.4 This was

Hierarchy and Resources: Peasant Stratification in Late Nineteenth-Century Bihar

The rural history of modern India has been and is being written for the most part within the terms of that dictum of Louis Dumont, that ‘a certain hierarchy of ideas, things and people, is indispensable to social life’. Even the scholar who has most recently questioned the distributions of power between sections of the community in North India, arguing for inter-dependence of landlords, peasantry and traders, has still emphasized village controllers, and ‘momentum towards social differentiation’, ‘to produce groups of rich peasants, or rather to continue their existence’. The identity of such rich peasants remains obscure or at least specific to the region being studied; but obviously it would be very useful to have similar generalizations about social stratification in the study of modern Bihar. Hitherto the foundation at least of political histories there has been caste or caste groups, yet economic hierarchy, that related but more enigmatic pecking-order, is surely equally important. In this paper I seek a basis for making such generalizations. Grave difficulties stand in the way. My conclusion throws doubt on the applicability to Bihar of the idea of stable hierarchies, and suggests an alternative approach.

The Government of India and Annie Besant

THE British government in India had two replies to Indian political activity. One was repression; the other was conciliation. There were also two faces to British rule: one of a permanent autocracy, and the other of an agency preparing Indians for future self-government under British suzerainty. It would be possible to argue that repression was the weapon of autocracy, and conciliation a necessary corollary to the approval of future self-government. The later history of the British period would then be seen as a struggle between two opposed goals, two different paternalisms. These polarities are useful as a framework, but otherwise are too facile. They would encourage a tendency to divide viceroys and their councillors into heroes and rogues, or statesmen and bigots. Yet governments with very different policies or reputations often had personnel and principles in common. There was never a simple division and conflict between repression preserving autocracy and conciliation leading to the transfer of power. Always both elements coexisted in the same administration. If repression sometimes found a place alongside the promise of self-government, the reason was not necessarily that the promise was false, held out by cynical bureaucrats who had no intention of relinquishing power. Even the most ardent official advocate of self-government insisted that progress must be gradual, and that in the

Mr Upjohn’s Debts: Money and Friendship in Early Colonial Calcutta

The paper discusses the effective operation of money and credit among Europeans in Calcutta around 1800, arguing for the importance of informal processes and ties of friendship that facilitated, regulated and enforced agreements, helping both to tide over individuals in times of economic stress and to underwrite the provision and transfer of capital. The argument is advanced by a detailed case study in regard to debts owed by one resident, Aaron Upjohn, to another, Richard Blechynden, amidst a web of acquaintance, officialdom and law that variously ensured that the debts were honoured. It is defined as ‘a support system among acquaintances, necessitated in part by shortage of money and abundance of risk’.

Labour in India 1860-1920. Typologies, Change and Regulation

In recent years several important books have discussed aspects of labour in India. Some have been significant in their fields more generally, and the subject as a whole can be seen to be changing. This essay reflects on four works, a three-volume collection of documents published by the Indian Council for Historical Research, and Gyan Prakashs monograph on Bihar, which together might be taken as representing the transition in Indian labour studies.

Bihar, the Colonial State and Agricultural Development in India, 1880-1920

Two points may be made about state intervention in ’ the Indian rural economy.’ First, it grew continually, at least from the seventeenth century, but began to change significantly in nature and extent between 1880 and 1920.~ Secondly, state influence presented specific distortions in economic development. This paper discusses some aspects of these propositions, in order to elucidate the circumstances and motivation behind the interven-