Bibliography of Books, Chapters and Journal Articles on Colonialism and Imperialism Published in English in 2016

The article seeks to problematize the relationship between law and medicine by studying the tensions which accompanied the emergence of medical jurisprudence in British India during the second half of the nineteenth century. In a context of British government apprehension as to the legality of its rule in India, the article focusses on official concerns about the unmonitored circulation of toxic substances, particularly arsenic, which culminated in the Poisons Act (1904). The article investigates the role of toxic substances in historical narratives of expertise, and also traces the emergence of the idea of an autonomous native society in colonial and medical/forensic discourse, locating its articulation in exchanges between British and native salaried experts.

https://journals.openedition.org/chs/pdf/2135

Toxic matters: Medical Jurisprudence and the Making of the Indian Poisons Act (1904)

Acknowledgements 1. Introduction 2. Economic ideas and British policy towards India 3. Economic ideas and famine policy 4. Economic ideas and economic relations 5. Economic ideas and land taxation 6. Economic ideas and taxation policies 7. Political economy and a policy of economic development 8. The state and the policy for economic development 9. Conclusion Select bibliography Index.

Classical Political Economy and British Policy in India: Conclusion

The end of the nineteenth century witnessed the emergence of the idea of Indian Economics, which its proponents hoped would address the issue of the scientific method of studying the Indian economy, and help in laying out a path for economic development. Some of the best sources to study these views are textbooks written as introductions to Indian Economics during the early-twentieth century. This paper will explore the manner in which the textbooks dealt with these issues.

A Nationalistic Framework for Political Economy: Textbooks on Indian Economics during the Early-Twentieth Century

PurposeBy the mid-19th century the British colonial state introduced liberal education to India. Amongst various disciplines, political economy illustrates the concerns of the colonial state with the education of Indians, and its anxiety with quelling political discontentment. The emerging Indian nationalist intelligentsia also utilized ideas from classical political economy, first taught in educational institutions, to critique colonial policy and proposed the development of “Indian Economics”, suited to national economic interests. This paper explores the development of political economy as a specific knowledge form in Calcutta University and Bombay University, and its connection with colonial educational policy.Design/methodology/approachThis study relies primarily on university records and the proceedings of the Education Department to bring out the politically sensitive nature of the teaching of economics in colonial India.FindingsThe study finds that political economy grew from being a minor part of the overall university syllabi to becoming part of the first university departments created in early-20th-century India. The government and nationalist forces both found the discipline to be relevant to their respective agendas. The circulation of knowledge theoretical framework is found to be relevant here.Originality/valueThe history of political economy in Indian universities, especially during the 19th century, has not been dealt with in any detail. This study tries to fill this gap. The close connection between politics and the teaching of economics has also not been studied closely, which this paper does.

From classical political economy to “Indian Economics”: a case of contestation and adaptation in universities in colonial India

There have been quite a few significant studies on the relationship between political economy as a discipline and the modes of colonial governmentality in India, emphasising the contradictions that were perceived to exist between the universality of the discipline and the irreducible concreteness of local conditions. In this article, I shall try to argue that a nuanced study of these contradictions would require exploring the modalities of vernacularisation of the economic discipline in the colony. The central focus of this article will be at three Bengali textbooks of political economy, mostly inspired by the famous Irish educationist Richard Whately’s textbook for children. A close reading of these books will demonstrate how a modality of translation was operative in the second half of the nineteenth century where the equivalence between ‘illustrations’ from the original and translated texts produced curious displacements and defined the vernacular domain on the basis of an exchange-based sociality grou...

Iman Mitra

Papers

Exchanging words and things: Vernacularisation of political economy in nineteenth-century Bengal