Showing papers in "Modern Asian Studies in 1970"

The North-east Frontier of India

Abstract: The north-east frontier of India has today become a controversial issue between India and China. It is well known that this frontier is inhabited by many tribes. They are different from the plainsmen of Assam and, like the Tibetans, Mongoloid in origin. This has led some people to argue that they are far closer to Tibetans than to Indians, or that they are not Indian in any sense of the word. Such arguments are based on the assumption that the people of India do not include people of Mongoloid origin. But there are many Indians who are Mongoloid, especially those who live in the hills of Assam south of the Brahmaputra. And in such important respects as religion, dress and methods of building, the people of the north-east frontier of India are far closer to the hilimen living south of the Brahmaputra than to Tibetans. On ethnic grounds therefore it cannot be said that this frontier area is a part of Tibet rather than of India.

The Last Thousand Years of Chinese History

Abstract: It is immediately apparent to anyone who juxtaposes those two massive works of scholarship and patient investigation, Sudō Yoshiyuki's History of Land Tenure Systems in China, which is mostly concerned with the Sung dynasty, and John Lossing Buck's Land Utilization in China, which describes the early 1930s, that in the intervening thousand years the character of Chinese rural society changed, and changed radically.

The Malaysian General Election of 1969: A Political Analysis

Abstract: Contemporary comparative political science has regarded Malaysia as the most developed politically of the new of Asia and Africa. A good measure of Malaysia's imputed political development derived from its ‘competitive’ electoral process which had several parties vying freely and actively for political representation and, ultimately, power. Impressive as political performances as they have been, elections are really relatively new to Malaysia, the first having been held at the municipal level as late as 1952. General Elections were first held only in 1955, and then for a small majority of the Colonial Legislative Council. Since then General Elections have taken place for a fully-elected Federal Dewan Ra'ayat (House of Representatives) every five years, in 1959, 1964 and again in May 1969. Although one party, the Alliance, consistently won overwhelming Parliamentary majorities and formed the Government, Malaysian General Elections continue to exhibit a high degree of political vitality. At every election a number of more-or-less well organized political parties and independents competed vigorously for electoral support from the plural political community that is Malaysia.

Punjabi in Lahore

Abstract: Under the terms of a Fellowship at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, the author was given study-leave for the academic year 1967–68 to go to Pakistan and India in order to improve his knowledge of Urdu and Punjabi. Having chosen Lahore as the most suitable place to pursue the concurrent study of these two languages, he lived there from September 1967 until April 1968, during which time he became increasingly conscious of, and interested in, the rather peculiar socio-linguistic position of Punjabi in the city's life. This article is a sunnary of the observations he was able to make about this, and of the thoughts to which he was led.

The nature of provincial political authority in late Ch'ing times : Chang Chih-tung in Canton, 1884-1889

Abstract: After the Taiping Rebellion, Governors-General and Governors had access to resources and performed functions which were formerly outside their purview. These resources were mainly the new provincial armies which had defeated the Taipings, and the likin taxes which had been invented to sustain the armies. Leading provincial officials such as Li Hung-chang also found themselves initiating and implementing, on a local basis, ‘self-strengthening’ economic projects ranging from arsenals to mines. They tended to be stationed longer in the same posts, and to have a certain amount of say in the appointment of their subordinates.

The French Catholic Mission in China during the Opium War

Abstract: The First China War of 1839–1842, commonly called the Opium War, has been and continues to be the subject of a considerable body of literature.

Some Land-Use Problems of North-east Thailand

Abstract: BOTH in terms of area and populatiorl, the fifteen changwads of the North-east constitute the largest of the four basic regions in the Kingdom of Thailand. Recent census data indicate that 37.9 per cent of the 3.2 million Thai farm households live in this region cultivating a similar proportion ofthe country's 69.7 million rai (I rai = o.3gs acre) of land in agricultural holdings. However, the region seems to have more than its fair share of the problems which stand in the way of the Government's efforts to accelerate the country's economic development. At present, the solution to the 'North-east Problem' remains as elusive as it was a decade ago. In spite of the impressive amount of public expenditure already poured into the region for improving the infrastructure and providing a wide range of rural facilities, together with an ever-increasing amount of services rendered by national and international agencies for planning and implementing the processes of growth, the per caput income of the North-easterner still lags as far behind that of his fellow countryman residing elsewhere in the kingdom as it did in the recent past. This article attempts to analyse the interaction of the physical conditions and socio-economic problems which are bound up in the existing land-use system of the North-east.

The May Fourth Movement Redefined

Abstract: The May Fourth Movement of 1919 was an epochal event in modern Chinese history. It marked the beginning of China's modern revolutionary era, and a new stage after the Republican Revolution of 1911. It was both anti-imperialist and anti-warlord, and represented the reaction of the Chinese people to the turbulent new forces unleashed by the First World War. In specific protest against the terms of the Versailles Peace Treaty as they affected China, and against the terms of Japan's infamous ‘Twenty-one Demands’, huge student demonstrations were held in Peking on 4 May 1919 to denounce the pro-Japanese Peking government. This revolutionary tide soon spread rapidly throughout China, spearheading a rapid growth of mass consciousness and cultural change, and culminating in the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921, in the reorganization of the Kuomintang in 1924, and the establishment of a united front between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party. It is the very importance of the May Fourth Movement (MFM) as well as its manifold repercussions and ramifications, which have complicated the problems of defining, interpreting, and evaluating the movement per se. The definition of its true nature and character, the clear identification of its actual leadership, and the realistic appraisal of its scope and achievements have all become matters of dispute. Ideological commitment, political ties, or professional interest have too often clouded the objectivity of individuals who have studied the movement—and hence their interpretations of it.

Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan's Contribution to the Development of Muslim Nationalism in India *

Abstract: By a general consensus among historians, the modern age is characterized as the age of nationalism. Despite this general agreement, however, the phenomenon of Muslim nationalism in India, which finally fulfilled itself in establishing the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, has remained misunderstood. In the first decade after the partition of India, the creation of Pakistan was explained away in terms of the divide and rule policy of the British and/or the religious fanaticism of the Muslims. This was so because Indian nationalists of all descriptions had assumed that Indian nationalism was a single and unified movement working for the unity or homogeneity of Indian civilization.

Land Ownership and Economic Prospects of Malayan Peasants

Abstract: In Malaya, as in many underdeveloped nations, problems of the peasantry form a source of continual anxiety. One of the most intractable of these was described by the Malayan Government as ‘the unsatisfactory situation [of] overcrowding on the land and the frustration of ambitions to acquire land.’ How this situation has come about is the initial concern of this paper, which explores the historical record of agricultural development and land ownership in one area of western Malaya. By tracing changes that have taken place since 1890, it is hoped to demonstrate how and at what rates limited resources of land have become partitioned among increasing numbers of people, a process that, being the very antithesis of development, has been termed ‘agricultural involution’ by Geertz. The information is then supplemented with modern records from other areas to show typical features of ownership in the Malayan peasant sector of today. The findings suggest how traditional Malay society has responded to modern economic pressures, and may generate practical methods for dealing with some of the problems facing development planners today.

The Parsi Panchayat in Bombay City in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract: From the Middle Ages each of the great merchant castes and communities of Gujarat possessed its own guild (Mahajan) to regulate trade, and a Panchayat to regulate caste matters. The migration of members of these castes to the British city of Bombay in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries caused considerable disruption in the traditional methods of regulating caste affairs. In the Mofussil control over almost every aspect of mundane life had been exercised by the leading shets of the caste. In Bombay, however, the precedence of certain Mofussil villages and Mofussil families was no longer unequivocally recognized. Western-educated caste members began to demand in all areas of life ‘the inauguration of a new era, showing that opinion had taken the precedence of mere hereditary authority’. Even to those without Western education the proximity of the British law courts gave confidence in an appeal against traditional obedience. The fear of the interference of the courts on behalf of an excommunicated man limited the sanctions available to the caste shets to enforce their authority. All these factors circumscribed the power the caste heads could exercise through their traditional Panchayats, and by the middle of the nineteenth century it seemed that the cohesiveness of many castes and communities was breaking down. But there was another side to the coin. While the bonds of caste discipline and authority were being loosened, awareness of communal identity was being heightened by the competitiveness of urban life. Castes and communities became aware of the need to reorganize themselves in order to present a united front on questions affecting the community, and of the need to put caste funds to the best use to maximize the possibilities of secular achievement for the members of the community.

The Ideological Persuasion of Chiang Kai-Shek

Abstract: In July 1928, upon the termination of the Northern Expedition, Chiang Kai-shek presented a sacrificial message to the departed leader, Sun Yat-sen, whose body reposed in the Pi-yun Temple outside the city of Peking. Sun had committed his life, Chiang declared, to the attainment of eight tasks in the rebuilding of a new China: (1) the explication of the Kuomintang's principles and the expunging of ‘unorthodox views’, (2) the constructing of a unified party through the curbing of individual freedom and the acceptance of party discipline, (3) the transfer of the national capital to Nanking to symbolize a new beginning for the nation, (4) a purposeful change in the ‘heart’ of the citizenry, (5) the psychological, economic, political and social reconstruction of the nation, (6) the disbanding of troops, (7) the termination of civil strife and a total commitment to national defence, and (8) the speedy introduction of local autonomy. These personal commitments—and public admonitions, as they were also meant to be—covered a wide range of national concerns, dealing as they did with ideology and organization, power and legitimacy, political socialization and national integration. It is noteworthy, however, that Chiang at the moment of personal triumph turned his attention above all to the ideological function of the ruling elite in the transitional Chinese society.

The Estrangement of Great Britain and Japan 1917—1935. By Captian Malcolm D. Kennedy. Manchester University Press: Manchester, 1969. Pp. 363, $7.95.

Abstract: The Estrangement of Great Britain and Japan 1917-1935By CAPTAIN MALCOLM D. KENNEDY. Manchester University Press: Manchester, 1969. Pp. 363, 57-95Captain Kennedy was seconded to Japan for language study at the end of the First World War, and was subsequently appointed as Reuters' correspondent in Tokyo. Despite its title, which may suggest an exclusive treatment of Anglo-Japanese relations in the inter-war years, this book is essentially a narrative account of Japanese foreign policy changes and domestic political developments from 1917 to 1935, incorporating information gleaned by the author during his long stay in Japan. In the chapter dealing with the end of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, Captain Kennedy emphasizes that it was opposition from the United States that led to the abrogation of the treaty. According to him, the results of abrogation were mutually disadvantageous. Japan was left in diplomatic isolation, while Britain's burden of defence costs in the Far East was greatly increased. Diplomatic isolation and resentment at being spurned by a European power, helped to propel Japan along the road to militarism. Throughout the book, and particularly in the chapters dealing with the establishment of Manchukuo, Captain Kennedy shows considerable sympathy with the Japanese predicament, and is often bitterly critical of the selfrighteousness and hypocrisy displayed by many of the member countries of the League of Nations. This willingness to understand the Japanese point of view is perhaps the most attractive feature of the book. Unfortunately, however, the straightforward narration of facts, often without adequate analysis of underlying causes, can make for rather dull reading. In dealing with domestic political developments, for instance, Captain Kennedy touches only lightly on the impact of economic depression. Further, it is surprising that the author should pay so very little attention to the rival Army factions whose machinations often dictated the course of events which he describes. Similarly, the growing inability of successive Tokyo governments to curb the excesses of the Kwantung army is not examined in sufficient depth. Captain Kennedy often succeeds in capturing the mood of Japan in the 1920s and 1930s, and those who lived and worked in the country during that critical period may well find much of interest in this book.. For the specialist, however, this is in the main a superficial account, and adds little of importance to our knowledge of Japan during the inter-war years.

Jawaharlal Nehru at Simla, May 1947: A Moment of Truth?

Abstract: An incidental aside in one of my books has become the focal point of a small controversy. Experiment with Freedom, India and Pakistan 1947 was a brief work which attempted to give a more precise and particular account of the events which led up to the transfer of power. Most attention has been paid to my interpretation of the celebrated episode at Simla in May 1947 when Nehru reacted violently to Mountbatten's plans for transferring power. I suggested that the crisis was not an external confrontation between British and Indian views over whether India should remain united, or be divided, or split into fractions, but was essentially an internal crisis in the mind of Jawaharlal Nehru. To try to explain why Nehru was so upset by a plan which he had, in all essentials, previously (however reluctantly) accepted, I made a comparison with his later reaction to Chinese activities on the Indian border. Nobody adopted the slogan Hindi-Chini-Bhai-Bhai (‘Indians and Chinese are Brothers’) more ardently than Nehru and so the revelation that they were enemies came as a profound personal shock. Speaking on the morrow of the Chinese invasion, Nehru said that he now realized that they had been ‘out of touch with reality’, in an ‘artificial atmosphere of our own creation’. The Times printed this observation under the sardonic heading ‘The Dreamers’ (26 October 1962). I suggested that at Simla Nehru exhibited ‘much the same apparent amnesia’.

The Politics of Reform in Thailand. Education in the Reign of King Chulalongkorn . By David K. Wyatt. Yale University Press: New Haven, 1969. Pp. xix+425, illustrations, $11.00.

Abstract: King Chulalongkorn has always had his meed of praise from historians. In Thailand this has passed beyond adulation into reverence: to contemplate the achievements of his reign is an act of patriotic piety. Every 23 October, on the anniversary of his death, floral tributes are heaped around his statue and ranks of students and schoolchildren kneel on the plaza, awaiting the signal to do homage. It is reassuring, then, after being introduced to the Education Department of 1885 within the new Ministry of Public Instruction (formalized in 1892) and to the respective incumbents, together with other princes, nobles and farang pedagogues as well as the king himself, to find that it is King Chulalongkorn who emerges as the man with the right ideas from the start and, of course, in an absolute ruler, the supreme initiative. Yet, notwithstanding the gratitude of those thousands of students and children, this is not a success story. A cynical view—and a fashionable one just now— would be that by 1910 there was nothing but elitism and tokenism to show for all the reign's imputed high-mindedness. Elitism was indeed the word for Bangkok's uniquely developed secondary schools, catering to the princes and nobility, and feeding a booming bureaucracy. Tokens of concern for literacy can be recognized in the recourse to the sangha in country temples, under the aegis of the Interior Ministry, to promote rudimentary reading and writing where—and only where—there was a co-operative abbot and a drive among better-off neighbours to get provincial schools started with their own scheme for funds.

Yokoi Shōnan's Response to the Foreign Intervention in Late Tokugawa Japan, 1853–1862

Abstract: This Article deals with the turbulent years in Japan from 1853 to 1862, during which Yokoi Shōnan, a middle-ranking scholar–samurai from Kumamoto in Higo province in central Kyushu, was to gain national renown as a fearless, forthright thinker. This was Japan's first desperate crisis from abroad since the Mongol invasions in the late thirteenth century, a crisis which was to set in motion the final disintegration of the once mighty Tokugawa power in Japan.

Pakistan's Development: Social Goals and Private Incentives. By Gustav F. Papanek. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Mass., 1967. Pp. xxii + 354, statistical appendix, $8.95.

Abstract: This is an excellent and well-written study of the choices facing industrial planners in four Indian industries: aluminium, caustic soda, cement and fertilizers. All these industries feature economies of scale, and the analysis of decisions about such industries, either through the market or by planning, is one of the chronic weaknesses of current economic techniques. Manne (for the book is largely his work) makes several ingenious contributions here, some of them presented with quite simple mathematical tools. The main conclusion is that plants are too small. 'Regional politics lead to demands for \"fair shares\" ' in each programme—fertilizers, cement, etc.— and hence 'high-cost plants'. Manne convincingly argues for 'fair shares in the overall investment budget rather than in each particular industry'—cement in Bihar and Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, caustic soda in Maharashtra and Madras, and so on. His view that temporary excess capacity matters little, however, depends on his assumption that the rate of return foregone (on the tied-up capital) is implausibly low (10 per cent). Further, the industries where Manne's plant-size recommendations are far in excess of the Fourth Plan's—aluminium, caustic soda, cement—are (like steel) untypical, in that the small role of labour in the production process absolves the planner from siting plants where workers are plentiful in the categories required.

Culture Change and the Conduct of Conflicts among Filipino Tribesmen

Abstract: The Position of the tribal minorities in the Philippines is fundamentally different from that of comparable populations in other parts of Asia. The manner in which they have been enabled to run their own affairs and retain many features of their traditional culture while simultaneously acquiring Western education and familiarity with certain modern technological achievements is indicative of an approach to minority problems which distinguishes the Philippines from most other Asian countries. Whereas in the former colonial territories of Britain, France and the Netherlands a centrally controlled service of professional administrators endeavoured to impose on all populations, advanced as well as backward, a minimum respect for law and order as seen by the colonial power, in the Philippines neither the Spanish rulers nor the American authorities set up a type of district administration such as existed, for instance, in British India. When in 1898 the Americans replaced the Spanish regime, they did not give high priority to establishing throughout the islands an administration capable of dealing effectively with problems of law and order. In the lowlands they could build on a political system set up by the Spanish, but in the mountains of Northern Luzon, the area with which I am here concerned, they found not even the skeleton of a colonial administration. The entire hill-region was inhabited by warring tribes, torn by feuds and passionately addicted to the practice of head-hunting. Faced with a similar situation in such areas as the Naga Hills on the Assam—Burma border, the British had set about pacifying the tribes, stage by stage, and area by area, establishing outposts of military police and creating administrative units in charge of high-powered and specially selected members of the Indian Civil Service. Village elders were made responsible to these district officers, who administered summary justice in their capacity of magistrates, and this paternalistic system worked well as long as British rule lasted, but was hardly intended to prepare the ground for a system of representative democracy.

Investments for Capacity Expansion: Size, Location and Time-Phasing . Edited by Alan S. Manne The M.I.T. Press: Cambridge, Mass., 1967. Pp. 239, $10.00.

Abstract: This is an excellent and well-written study of the choices facing industrial planners in four Indian industries: aluminium, caustic soda, cement and fertilizers. All these industries feature economies of scale, and the analysis of decisions about such industries, either through the market or by planning, is one of the chronic weaknesses of current economic techniques. Manne (for the book is largely his work) makes several ingenious contributions here, some of them presented with quite simple mathematical tools. The main conclusion is that plants are too small. 'Regional politics lead to demands for \"fair shares\" ' in each programme—fertilizers, cement, etc.— and hence 'high-cost plants'. Manne convincingly argues for 'fair shares in the overall investment budget rather than in each particular industry'—cement in Bihar and Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, caustic soda in Maharashtra and Madras, and so on. His view that temporary excess capacity matters little, however, depends on his assumption that the rate of return foregone (on the tied-up capital) is implausibly low (10 per cent). Further, the industries where Manne's plant-size recommendations are far in excess of the Fourth Plan's—aluminium, caustic soda, cement—are (like steel) untypical, in that the small role of labour in the production process absolves the planner from siting plants where workers are plentiful in the categories required.

Kamaraj: a Study in Percolation of Style

Abstract: A Complex stratified polity such as that of India, containing a variety of political cultures and a great diversity of political structure, inevitably produces a multitude of styles of political behaviour. Such styles may be the product of different political cultures and processes of recruitment and training, and they interact with each other in significant ways. In particular, the new integrated political system encourages what I call the ‘percolation of style’ from one stratum of the system to another. The percolating process flows in two-ways—from the national arena to the local, and vice versa—and the process itself affects the nature of political styles. A style which was appropriate and effective in one arena will need adaptation if it is to meet the distinctive challenges of a different stratum in the political system. Percolation thus involves modification of style, and the whole process may be viewed as the gradual development of new styles responsive to the demands of new situations. Inevitably this leads to multitudinous tensions, destructive or creative, but the process is thus an integral part of political change and an understanding of stylistic percolation is an important key to the understanding of the nature and direction of political development.

Reconstructing late Ch'ing Fengt'ien

Abstract: It is generally recognized that modern knowledge of the functioning of Chinese society is radically imperfect, and that this is increasingly the case as the topic of discussion is the more limited in locality and the more confined to the domestic details of native Chinese civilization. As the study of the complexities and subtleties of local social and economic organization in our own cities and countrysides has grown and developed, together with that of many other parts of the world with infinitely shorter histories and weaker societies than those of China, students of China have become increasingly aware of the great gulf which resides between what it would be satisfying to know about the China of the past (and the present), and the little which is known in detail, and with any degree of certainty, about these topics.

The World of Southeast Asia: Selected Historical Readings . By Harry J. Benda and John A. Larkin. Harper & Row: New York, 1967. Pp. xvi + 335, $4.95, 47s.

Abstract: Few scholars of South-east Asian studies have not, at one time or another, felt the frustration of not having the basic source materials assembled in a single library to which they have immediate access. The problem is aggravated for those who have to prescribe some background reading materials in introductory courses on South-east Asian topics. Furthermore, in this field of study, one often finds it difficult to obtain a balanced viewpoint on the diverse trends and interpretations unless one is familiar with several occidental and oriental languages. This collection of eighty key passages reprinted from a wide range of publications and translations, which have long been regarded as standard reference works, goes a long way in overcoming this series of apparently intractable problems. This is a book that should be included in any private or public collection. The authors have done a splendid job in selecting what must be to the general reader the most relevant works that cover the tremendous time span of sixteen centuries of development in South-east Asia, ranging from the perilous journey of Fa-hsien in the fourth century A.D. to the contemporary description of a Sumbawan village in Indonesia. The gift and experience of the authors as university teachers have enabled them to convey the gist of each voluminous work included by a few well-chosen paragraphs. The readability of this collection is further enhanced by the way in which the material is organized into six sections, each with a written prefatory statement stressing some of the significant underlying themes. A brief individual introductory paragraph is also provided for each of the passages incorporated. Thus, they have placed in their debt beginners and professionals alike.