Showing papers in "Modern Asian Studies in 1992"

The Invention of the ‘Jummas’: State Formation and Ethnicity in Southeastern Bangladesh

Abstract: This paper deals with socio-cultural innovation in the hills of southeastern Bangladesh. Outsiders have always been struck by the ethnic diversity of this area. The literature—written mainly by British civil servants, Bengali men of letters, and European anthropologists—presents a picture of twelve distinct ‘tribes’, all practising swidden or shifting agriculture, locally known as jhum cultivation. In addition, there are Bengali immigrants who do not engage in swidden cultivation.

The Politics of Indian Secularism

Abstract: Indian newspapers and academic journals assault their readers with stories of large-scale communal violence and of the communalization of India's political institutions. These stories are frequently accompanied by pious editorials which enact the well-known Indian ritual of paying lip-service to the concept of ‘secularism’. Secularism is one question on which intellectuals have made common cause with social workers and politicians, joining them in meetings and seminars, even participating in the peace marches which are commonly organized in the aftermath of communal riots. There have even been occasions in which individuals who are known to have been involved, directly or otherwise, in communal battles, have participated in these rites of secularism.

Bombay Films: The Cinema as Metaphor for Indian Society and Politics

Abstract: It is difficult to distinguish between art and life in South Asian society; they no longer imitate each other but appear to have merged. Political philosophies, social values, group behaviour, speech and dress in society are reflected in the cinema and, like a true mirror, reflect back in society. Furthermore, film stars cross over from their fantasy world into politics to emerge as powerful figures guiding the destiny of millions. It is thus possible to view the cinema as a legitimate metaphor for society; this perception helps us to understand society better.

Indigenous Cooperation and the Birth of a Colonial City: Calcutta, c. 1698–1750

Abstract: It is a truth that from the western extremity of California to the eastern coast of Japan, there is not a spot where judgement, taste, decency and convenience are so grossly insulted in that scattered and confused chaos of houses, huts, sheds, streets, lanes, alleys, windings, gullies, sinks and tanks which jumbled into an undistinguished mass of filth and corruption, equally offensive to human sense and health, compose the Capital of the English Company's Government in India.

Strategic Space: Exclusion and Inclusion in Wildland Policies in Late Imperial China

Abstract: Wildlands have attracted the attention of national governments, not only for the natural resources they contain, but also as land available for settlement or as the home of marginalized populations, a potential source of disorder. Some countries have attempted to maintain control over wildlands and their resources by excluding people from them. The historical record of government policies towards wildlands in Late Imperial China shows that wildlands had more symbolic and strategic value to the authorities than economic value. In this case, policies adopted an alternative strategy of filling the 'strategic space' represented by wildlands, bringing them more closely into the cultural and economic orbit of the centre by settlement--the policy of inclusion. Wildlands and the State Wildlands are lands which are believed to be predominantly in their original state, before human settlement. They are usually in mountainous, arid, or waterlogged areas. They tend to be marginal in terms of productivity and in terms of their populations who are often ethnic minorities closely dependent on the surrounding natural resources, or migrants displaced from the lowlands and more densely populated regions. Wildlands have been, and they continue today to be, a 'strategic space' and a potential source of disorder, but they are also a potential source of unexploited essential resources. In spite of their remoteness and low productivity, wildlands have attracted the attenoo26-749X/92/$5.oo + .00 ) 1992 Cambridge University Press

European Exiles, Renegades and Outlaws and the Maritime Economy of Asia c.1500–1750

Abstract: For centuries Europeans were fascinated by rumours and legends of the wealth and wonders of the Orient and by stories of the supposed existence there of realms free from all those tiresome taboos and restrictions that prevailed in the West. Long before the arrival of Vasco da Gama, renegades were serving the Mongols in Iran and Marco Polo had been in the entourage of the Grand Khan himself. The Portuguese pioneers were disconcerted to encounter in 1501 a certain Benvenuto de Abano who had spent the previous twenty-five years sailing the seas of Asia, and his contemporary, the Muslim Khoja Safar Salmâni, an erstwhile Genoese or Albanian. But this was nothing compared with the flow that followed western penetration of the maritime economy of the East, scattering European adventurers and outlaws throughout the Orient anywhere from the shores of the Persian Gulf to those of the Pacific Ocean. And very soon these hopefuls were joined by European pirates, some working from ports in their mother countries, some from the Caribbean and North America, and some from bases in the Indian Ocean, of which Madagascar was, according to taste, the most celebrated or the most notorious. Such men, frequently of remarkable skills and fearsome abilities, exercised a considerable influence on the maritime history of the East in the early modern centuries, and it is with the origins, aspirations and activities of these elusive—indeed often anonymous—but nevertheless highly significant figures that this paper is concerned.

Individuality and Achievement in South Indian Social History

Abstract: One of the unresolved issues of Indian anthorpology is how to characterize and weigh the social importance of individuality and achievement in Indian social history. Of course, the individual as ‘empirical agent’ exists in India as everywhere (Dumont 1970a:9), yet because Hindu culture stresses collective identities over those of the individual, individual achievement, which is a measure of individuality, has been overlooked and sometimes outrightly rejected as a cause of history and social order (Dumont 1970a:107; 1970b; cf. Silverberg 1968). In consequence, the motivations underlying achievement that might explain historic action have also been ignored. This undervaluing of individuality and achievement has given rise to a long debate among South Asianists about the role of the individual in Indian society (e.g., Marriott 1968, 1969; Tambiah 1972:835; Beteille 1986, 1987), a debate that raises questions in wider arenas about the nature of society and culture in relation to individuals (e.g. Brown 1988; Mines 1988).

Jawaharlal Nehru and Planning, 1938–41: India at the Crossroads

Abstract: The modern state is interventionist, and planning is an effective means to ascertain its control over the entire social process. As an operational tool, planning seems formidable to structure the role of the state in accordance with its ideological underpinning. Therefore, not only is planning as an instrument tuned to economic regeneration, it is inextricably tied to the regime's political preference as well. The aim here is not to argue for a deterministic network between planning and the ideological slant of the regime and its leadership and viceversa, but to show the complex interdependence which entails, at the same time, an interplay of various pulls and pressures in a rapidly changing social fabric. Colonial India provides us with a political system embedded in both the age-old and primordial value system and various other cultural influences which, inter alia reflected the system's absorption of alien value preferences. This obviously was not a smooth process, for India which drew on loyalties based on primordial ties strove to absorb new stimuli which had their roots in a completely different socio-political and economic environment; the result being tension among those presiding over the destiny of the country which had its reflection in the political discourse of the day. By concentrating on planning which, among other things, strove to transform India from a traditional to a modern society, the paper seeks to explain the difficulty facing the Congress stalwarts, Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose in particular, despite their confidence in planning as the only instrument to rejuvenate India after the British withdrawal.

Health and Nationalist Reconstruction: Rural Health in Nationalist China, 1928–1937

Abstract: In I928, the newly established Nationalist government faced the formidable task of rebuilding the country after years of political disintegration. The central concern was national strengthening and modernization, and the government embarked on various programs of political, social and economic reconstruction. Medical modernization was part of this process. A study of the Nationalist efforts in this area is crucial to our understanding of the complexity of health developments in modern China since the Nationalist decade of I928-I937 was the only period in pre-i949 China when a central government was able to assert some measure of control over the nation and preside over the construction of a modern health system. This process would include not only the initiation of new programs but also the consolidation and coordination of efforts on the part of individual reformers and groups. The examination of the evolution of such a system will illuminate a much neglected but important aspect of social and institutional developments in the Republican period. It will also lend historical perspective to the understanding of health developments after i949. This essay focuses on the development and implementation of rural health programs in the Nationalist decade as well as the factors affecting the establishment of a viable health care system in the countryside.1

Big fish in small ponds: The exercise of power in a nineteenth-century philippine municipality

Abstract: The basic administrative unit in the Spanish Philippines was the pueblo or municipal township. The pueblo encompassed both settled and unsettled districts within its geographical boundaries. The town centre Known as the poblacion was the largest single residential zone within the municipality but was surrounded by smaller satellite communities. Beyond these areas of settlement were the sparsely populated regions of swamp, forest, plain or mountain. Size varied enormously both in geographical extent and population density from a few hundred families clustered in a single village or barangay in frontier areas to many tens of thousands of persons spread over a number of settlements in the lowland provinces of Luzon and the central Visayas.2 The administrative boundaries of one pueblo, however, bordered upon another so that all areas under Spanish suzerainty fell within one or other of these municipalities.

Urban Chinese Social Organization: Some Unexplored Aspects in Huiguan Development in Singapore, 1900–1941

Abstract: Immigrant associations known commonly as huiguan have long been a research area among specialists on the Overseas Chinese. Recently, the same subject has attracted increasing attention among scholars who attempt to examine urban life in late imperial China. In either case, the existing historical literature seems to have focused on the two following aspects of huiguan development: the various principles of organizational formation such as common native place, surname, occupation and the new locational identity, and how they interacted with one another and shaped the community structure; the functional relevance of huiguan firstly to the various needs of the immigrant society and the local elite, and secondly to the overriding concerns of the ruling authority, be it the Chinese imperial bureaucracy or the governing authorities in a foreign settlement. Yet few attempts have been made to delineate the longitudinal evolution of these associations over an extended period in any single locale, and above all, to provide an analytical framework to decipher the complex interplay of different forces behind organizational changes. Relying primarily on Chinese newspapers, huiguan archives and publications in Singapore,3 this paper represents a very preliminary effort along both lines. After a brief background discussion on the nineteenth century, I will try to document closely several significant features in the development of Chinese huiguan in Singapore between the turn of the century and the beginning of the Pacific War. The main thrust here is to demonstrate the possibility of going beyond number games, that pay too much attention to organizational inventory, to examine more substantive issues such as changes in organizational forms, the revamping of institutional set-ups, leadership turnover and varying functional priorities. Then the following section will seek to account for these organizational metamorphoses. It will be argued that our explanatory paradigm should at least consist of three categories of factors: domestic forces associated with community evolution; the impact of the host society; and influences emanating from China and particularly the native area.

Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market in Hindustan, 1450–1850 . By Dirk H. A. Kolff. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, England, 1990. Pp. xvi, 217.

Abstract: characterization (e.g. in the case of Li Cunxiao (p. 46) and in the case of Zhang Liang (p. 76)), which now here are credited to 'the novelist', actually derive from zqju. Very little attention is paid to the internal differentiation inside the genre of historical fiction. As the Ming approached its end, the spectrum of fiction became increasingly diversified. There is a world of difference between the Jiao chuang tongsuyanyi, a crude 'eyewitness report' on the collapse of the Ming, and the Sui Yangdiyanshi, an extremely sophisticated case study of the corruption of an intelligent man by absolute power (no doubt inspired by the behaviour of the Wanli emperor). The importance of the difference between the various versions of the same novel is completely ignored, to the extent that the opening sentences of the Sanguozhiyanyi in Mao Zonggang's critical edition of the early Kangxi years are used as the motto for a discussion of the image of the pattern of history in the Ming novel. The author points out that Andrew Plaks' The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel (1987) only appeared after she had completed her research, but readers of this monograph may profitably compare Prof. Chang's discussion of heroes and villains in the Sanguozhi yanyi and Shuihu zhuan with the much more detailed and original analysis of Prof. Plaks.

Unity and Disunity in Javanese Political and Religious Thought of the Eighteenth Century

Abstract: A central problem in both the political and the intellectual history of Java is the disparity between the ideal of a unified state and the historical reality of fragmented power and authority, between the image and the reality of pre-colonial Javanese political history. An investigation of views held by literati of the kingdom of Mataram before the middle years of the eighteenth century can elucidate this problem. Turning from historical-political to religious literature in Javanese may help to resolve it.

The Manchurian Crisis and Moderate Japanese Intellectuals: The Japan Council of the Institute of Pacific Relations

Abstract: Ever since its occurrence, the ‘Manchurian Incident’ of September 1931 has been interpreted, by both Japanese and non-Japanese writers, as a crucial event in modern Japanese and, indeed, world history. Not least, it has been identified as the beginning of Japan's ‘fifteen-year war’. Whether or not such judgements are accepted, it must be recognized that the Manchurian Incident and subsequent events significantly affected the workings of Japanese politics in the 1930s, the relationship between civil and military authorities and Japan's international image in the years leading up to the Pacific War...

Decomposition of Income Inequality in Rural Bangladesh

Abstract: Until the recent past, the analysis of economic inequality in a country was essentially a macro level exercise. Currently, it has been well recognized that macro level inequality measure is inadequate for assessing a country's economic development and its distributional pattern. To have a clear understanding of the nature, structure and factors responsible for inequality decompositions of aggregate inequality into sectors, sources and determinants of income are essential. The concept of decomposition of inequality signifies that if the population of income recipients is partitioned into a number of subpopulations, the total inequality of the population can be expressed as sum of the inequality within the sub-populations and of the inequality between them. During the last couple of years, development economists emphasized the need to analyse the contribution of various components towards the total inequality in lieu of measuring the inequality at macro level only. Many empirical works on decomposi

From Landgrabbing to Landhunger: High Land Appropriation in the Plantation Areas of Sri Lanka during the British Period'

Abstract: In this contribution I propose to examine an aspect of Sri Lankan agrarian history which is often alluded to but rarely studied in depth: the process of high land appropriation for the development of coffee, tea, rubber and coconut plantations. The development of a land market in the Indian subcontinent is becoming a promising field of research for the study of imperial impact as a process at work in specific contexts.The Sri Lankan case differs from the Indian one in that land appropriation was originally meant for and followed by large scale land alienation to outsiders–the planters. This process has attracted the interest of most historians writing on the history of the Raj in Ceylon, but usually the only aspect stressed has been the appropriation by the Colonial State of forest and chena(land devoted to slash-and-burn cultivation) for sale to British planters.

Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections. By Jessica Rawson. 2 vols; the Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, Washington DC and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; distributed by Harvard University Press, 1990.

Abstract: establish itself as the rulers of China. There is a fascinating, if brief, description of its role in the federated, provincial self-government movement (liansheng zizhi yundong) which Bergere sees as a movement through which the bourgeoisie sought autonomously to govern their communities. But not for long. The bourgeoisie's need for a centralized state (especially in the face of the political strife of the 1920s), the narrative continues, drove it into the arms of Chiang Kai-shek who, in turn, sacrificed it at the altar of statecapitalism. The narrative, especially as it is developed in the last two chapters, works with a remarkably cohesive subject whose plausibility, however, is not warranted by the fore-going social analysis. I am not suggesting that Bergere's narrative is wrong. Indeed, it allows us to see the work of Eastman, Coble and Fewsmith in a more persuasive historical perspective. Rather, my point is that if we extend the social historical mode to the political narrative, we need to ask several other questions: For which segment of the bourgeoisie is the narrative most true? Even more: How does such a socially indistinct group come to develop such a distinct political self-awareness? What are the conceptual mechanisms we have to develop to transit from social analysis to political narrative and back? Perhaps it is not fair to make the kinds of demands upon an individual scholar that are more appropriately made on the field as a whole. And especially not upon a scholar whose book is rightly regarded in many circles as a sufficient achievement by itself. And yet, to whom, if not to creative scholars like Bergere herself, should we turn to take the next step in deepening our understanding of the historical process?

British Policy in the Far East 1933–1936: Treasury and Foreign Office

Abstract: The nature of British interests in the Far East in the 1930s meant that both the Treasury and the Board of Trade were necessarily closely involved with the making of foreign policy. While Foreign Office officials resented this intrusion into their domain, they were themselves disdainful of so-called ‘technical’ considerations connected with tariffs or currency reform, and were willing to leave them to the specialists. Under the dynamic impetus of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Neville Chamberlain, and the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, Sir Warren Fisher, the Treasury, encouraged by the apparent abnegation of the Foreign Office, made a bold and aggressive foray between 1933 and 1936 into realms of foreign policy-making hitherto regarded as the exclusive sphere of the professional diplomat.

European Community Development Assistance to Asia: Policies, Programs and Performance

Abstract: The European Community is distinctive among the donors of international development assistance. Although it is categorized officially as a multilateral aid institution, the Community differs in structure, purpose and role compared to other, more familiar organizations of that genre. Like other multilaterals, the European Community derives its aid budget, as well as its other financial resources, from the fiscal contributions of its Member states (each of which provides its own bilateral assistance to developing countries). Yet, to be sure, the Community represents more than just a multilateral economic union, since it also constitutes a supra-European governmental authority in the making. Indeed, the European Community has begun to evolve a common foreign policy, which is reflected in its role in Official Development Assistance (ODA). Its aid effort, in giving expression to the Community's common international purpose, has taken on most of the attributes of government-to-government assistance. It is this combination of multilateral and quasi-bilateral characteristics that sets the European Economic Community (EEC, as the Community is styled in its ODA role) apart as a uniquely meta-national participant in international development cooperation.

Migration Linkage of a New Town and its Significance in Town Planning: Case Study—Durgapur (India)

Abstract: This paper provides empirical evidence from Durgapur (a post-Independence, industrial new town of eastern India) which tends to support the Harris–Todaro model of migration and introduces the concept of how the age of a town and growth of its indigenous population may affect a potential migrant's expected probability of finding a job. Thus a new town like Durgapur can be expected to experience distinct phases of labour force migration with different proportions of different types of employment certainties which in turn will guide the growth of squatter colonies in the town.

Two dimensions of a national crisis: population growth and refugees in Pakistan.

Abstract: Recent demographic trends in Pakistan are analyzed and the countrys position in the demographic transition is assessed. The author notes that a rapid decline in mortality has been achieved while fertility levels remain high causing rapid population growth. He also observes that such growth far exceeds the rate of socioeconomic development and describes the problems resulting from the presence of some 4 million refugees from neighboring Afghanistan. (ANNOTATION)

State and Concentration in Korea's First Republic, 1948–60

Abstract: Rapid growth among a few large firms distinguished the early years of cotton manufacture in South Korea. A review of expansion and concentration in the industry, and case studies of the T'aech'ang and Kyungbang firms, provide evidence of extensive structural support managed by the state, and also of favoured access to such support for the larger cotton mills. In contrast to earlier studies critical of the state role, I argue that the agencies and protectionist legislation of the state under Syngman Rhee played a productive, indeed decisive, role in promoting concentration and productivity among the early mills.

Trade and Darbar Politics in the Bengal Subah, 1733–1757

Abstract: The history of India's trade has attracted the attention of researchers for several decades now. But in the seventies and eighties our knowledge of the history of India's trading world has been especially enriched by a spate of literature on the subject. Among the issues that have received special attention from historians, the relationship between merchants and politics must be singled out as a theme that has recurred in the investigations and analyses of scholars. This issue of the connection between merchants and politics has yielded different conclusions depending on the regional and chronological dimensions of each study, as well as on the specific circumstances that molded the history of the regions that have figured in studies of Indian trade history.

Azad Dastas and Dacoit Gangs: The Congress and Underground Activity in Bihar, 1942–44

Abstract: This paper attempts to examine the nature of underground activity in Bihar in the 1940s. It outlines, for the first time, the dynamics of the Congress underground movement as it emerged after the imprisonment of Gandhi and the established Congress leadership in 1942. No historian has, to my knowledge, attempted to study the nature of the underground activity and its implications for the Congress organization in Bihar, or elsewhere, in this period. Most of the studies of the Quit India movement examine only the few days in August when the mass movement erupted with full force and then neglect the more significant following period. This includes the studies of Stephen Henningham and Max Harcourt who have examined the nature of popular protest in Bihar in some detail. This neglect is surprising, for the underground movement was very active and proved to be a major ‘law and order’ problem to the British well into 1944. As an underground activist, Havildar Tripathi, told me in an interview in Patna in March 1986, ‘The mass movement lasted for only 2 weeks in August, we carried it much beyond that’.

Visions of Salvation: a Thai Buddhist Experience of Ecumenism

Abstract: Migration from the countryside to urban provincial centres and capital cities is a major reason why rural communities in southeast Asia suffer extensively from acute poverty and ill health. In Thailand, as elsewhere, it is principally the young and able who move to the cities in search of jobs, and whose departure impoverishes even more their home communities. The Thai Sangha has traditionally accommodated this pattern of migration by providing educational opportunities for those who ordain at an early age, but in recent years a variety of schemes has enabled monks to learn secular skills which equip them to become 'practitioners of development' in their home regions. This training has gone hand in hand with attempts by leading scholar monks to reformulate Buddhist teaching to emphasize the importance of living in self-reliant communities which are alert to the most up-to-date scientific information available on health care and environmental protection. Ecumenical visions of salvation which fulfil even a modest list of desirable criteria-inclusiveness, compatibility with the most up-todate scientific information, the generation of appropriate ethical action, for example-are few in number, and their very newness in certain parts of Asia exposes them to unfavourable comparison with more established traditions (e.g. Cao Dai in southern Vietnam, Contribution to US Social Science Research Council conference on the theme 'Communities in Question: Religion and Authority in East and Southeast Asia,' 4-8 May 1989. oo26-749X/92/$5.oo + .oo ? 1992 Cambridge University Press 31 isions of Salvation: a Thai Buddhist xperience of Ecumenism This content downloaded from 207.46.13.101 on Sat, 08 Oct 2016 06:08:57 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Brotherhood of the Pure: The Poetics and Politics of Cultural Transgression

Abstract: The spring month of Māgh heralds festivals, pilgrimages and popular rituals in the north Indian countryside. In 1872, the small village Bhaini, in Ludhiana district, was the scene of feverish activity. Participants in a millenarian community popularly known as Kukas had collected there in connection with the spring festivities on the 11 and 12 of January. They had, however, very little to celebrate. In the past four months nine of their numbers had been hanged by the colonial authorities on charges of attacking slaughter houses and killing butchers, others had been imprisoned, and many more were subjected to increasing surveillance and restrictions. British officials nervously shifted their views of the Kukas. Earlier seen as religious reformers within the Sikh tradition, they were now deemed to be political rebels. As those present felt heavily suspect in the eyes of the administration, the atmosphere at Bhaini must have been tense and unnerving.

Australian Defence Contacts with Burma, 1945–1987

Abstract: To most Australians, Burma is still associated with the Second World War, and in particular the infamous ‘death railway’ from Thailand. In May 1942 some 3,000 Australian prisoners of war (POWs) were sent from Singapore, to provide labour for the construction of an airfield at Tavoy. They were subsequently joined by another 1,800 or so Australians from Java, making a total in southern Burma of 4,851 men. Together with other Allied prisoners and Burmese levies they were later put to work building a railway line over Three Pagodas Pass, to link Burma with the Siam-Malaya railway system. Before the project was completed in November 1943, 771 Australian POWs (nearly 16 per cent of those on the Burma side of the border) had died from disease, malnutrition and the brutality of their Japanese captors. Casualties among the POWs working on the railway in Thailand were even higher.

Political Mobilization in the Localities: The 1942 Quit India Movement in Midnapur

Abstract: Following the adoption of 8 August resolution at Gowalia tank in Bombay, Indian masses rose to revolt, which became famous as the Quit India movement. It was a call for freedom. ‘Nothing less than freedom’, to quote Gandhi. Unlike the 1920–21 Non-cooperation and 1930–32 Civil Disobedience movements which were basically peaceful campaigns against the British rule in India, the Quit India movement was the ultimatum to the British for final withdrawal, a Gandhi-led un-Gandhian way of struggle since the Mahatma exhorted the people to take up arms in self-defence, and resort to armed resistance against a stronger and well-equipped aggressor.

Yang Xianzhen's Critique of the Great Leap Forward

Abstract: Kang Sheng—a veteran counter-intelligence official and close political ally of Mao Zedong's—is said to have remarked in the winter of 1959 that among the critics of the Great Leap Forward (GLF) there was ‘One soldier’ and ‘One civilian’ whose criticisms were ‘in close harmony’. The soldier was Peng Dehuai, China's Minister of Defence, who had clashed with Mao at the Lushan Conference that summer, and whose criticism of the GLF had subsequently been denounced by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee as an ‘attempt at splitting the Party´ and ‘a ferocious assault on the Party Center and Comrade Mao Zedong's leadership’. The civilian was Yang Xianzhen, the President of the Central Party School, who had aroused Kang's wrath by condemning the GLF as hopelessly Utopian, and by claiming that it already had brought on starvation and might yet bring about the collapse of the CCP.