Showing papers in "Modern Asian Studies in 1994"
TL;DR: The first reason for the coup is the act of corruption as discussed by the authors, and the second reason is that the national administrative party [i.e., the civilian government] has taken the opportunity to make use of its political posts and authority to vigorously and unprecedentedly seek benefit for itself and its companions.
Abstract: The first reason [for the coup] is the act of corruption. The national administrative party [i.e. the civilian government] has taken the opportunity to make use of its political posts and authority to vigorously and unprecedentedly seek benefit for itself and its companions. It has become normal practice for most of the cabinet ministers to seek money to build up their status and wealth in order to support their political power base. During the consideration of potential large-and medium-scale projects, politicians at the government level played a role in pushing for them to materialize by claiming that the public will benefit from each project. In fact, it is only a sophisticated way to seek benefits. Despite knowledge of extensive corruption among the politicians at the Cabinet level and among government officials and certain high-ranking state enterprise officials, the prime minister as head of the government has not seriously attempted to solve the problem. Moreover, the prime minister has even committed such inappropriate acts himself, by claiming various reasons to conceal corruption…. Corruption has escalated quickly and vigorously, beyond anyone's ability to stop its spread…
91 citations
TL;DR: In the West it is commonplace to regard sport as either an extracurricular form of leisure, or else as a business enterprise as discussed by the authors. But the connection between physical power and national prowess is often nothing more than a weak metaphor with considerable emotive power.
Abstract: In the West it is commonplace to regard sport as either an extracurricular form of leisure, or else as a business enterprise. Games and contests of all kinds are a form of distraction; and for some a very lucrative form at that (Smith 1978). Almost by definition sports direct our attention away from 'real life' to some form of fantasy world where there is high drama but little by way of the material or ideological substance of productive, pragmatic and 'rational' labor (cf. Rojek 1985; Simon I985). Hand in hand with such a notion of marginal utility goes a folk attitude that sport is meaningless by virtue of its being purely and simply fun, as though pleasure and purpose are somehow antithetical. However, sports in general and athletic training in particular have been accorded a prominent place in the ideological rhetoric of various kinds of nationalism. The athlete is made into a symbol who unambiguously stands for his or her country (Bernett 1966; Riordan i977). But the connection between physical power and national prowess in such an equation is often nothing more than a weak metaphor with considerable emotive power. That is, the connection between politics and the body is left to the imagination rather than worked out in any great analytical detail. In part I think this is because Western sports and physical culture are divorced from the infrastructural base of economic productivity, ownership, and the attendant relationships which these utilitarian factors engender. In so far as the athlete is not burdened with the worker's essential pragmatism he or she can very easily become a symbol of epic power. When the individual embodies fantastic ideals such as teutonic might or knightly courage rather than labor power, then strength, energy and vitality become political metaphors rather than simple measures of values. Fitness
60 citations
TL;DR: The literature on the new international division of labour (NIDL) highlights the rapid growth of the electronics industry in East and Southeast Asia as discussed by the authors, but the Indian electronics industry has received less attention because of its traditional emphasis upon import substitution and relatively weak articulation with the prevailing global division of labor.
Abstract: The literature on the new international division of labour (NIDL) highlights the rapid growth of the electronics industry in East and Southeast Asia. By contrast, the Indian electronics industry has received less attention because of its traditional emphasis upon import substitution and relatively weak articulation with the prevailing global division of labour. Moreover, the application of the microchip technology in India is still in its early stages, though government interest and support for it suggest a promising future. Nevertheless, in computer software India is emerging as a competitive location for software development and exports.
49 citations
TL;DR: One of the most innovative aspects of forest policy in colonial Burma was the employment of shifting cultivators in order to create teak plantations as mentioned in this paper, which represented an farsighted attempt to establish teak production on a long-term basis.
Abstract: One of the most innovative aspects of forest policy in colonial Burma was the employment of shifting cultivators in order to create teak plantations. As developed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this system of plantation forestry represented an far-sighted attempt to establish teak production on a long-term basis. Indeed, its adaptation of what many colonial officials viewed as a destructive and primitive form of agriculture to more ‘useful’ end, guaranteed its popularity in a broader imperial context. Even today, the use of shifting cultivators for commercial tree planting remains an acknowledged agroforestry technique, and is promoted as a cure for various social and ecological problems.
46 citations
TL;DR: The need formally to grant equality between the sexes and to enshrine it in the Fundamental Rights drawn up at the Karachi Congress of 1931 was recognized by Jawaharlal Nehru as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: If to Gandhi goes the credit of having drawn out Indian women from their cloistered protected environment to join the national movement for freedom, to Jawaharlal Nehru surely goes the credit for having recognized the need formally to grant equality between the sexes and to enshrine it in the Fundamental Rights drawn up at the Karachi Congress of 1931.
41 citations
TL;DR: The Indian state of West Bengal is governed and politically dominated by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M) for short) which has been in Government there since 1977 as the largest constituent party to the ruling Left Front.
Abstract: The Indian state of West Bengal is governed and politically dominated by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M) for short) which has been in Government there since 1977 as the largest constituent party to the ruling Left Front. The CPI(M)'s position in West Bengal is unique both in India and in the world in the sense that it is the only Communist party to be popularly elected and reelected to power for such a long period. Today it draws most of its electoral support from the rural areas where the party is supported by peasants of practically all socio-economic sections. It is to an interesting period in the history of Communism in Bengal that this article will turn, namely to the creation of a particular alliance of Marxists and peasants in the restlessness in that state in the late 1960s and the virtual elimination of non-Marxist forces in large areas.
31 citations
TL;DR: The Indian state can claim quite a bit of success in its project of 'nation building' -it has been able to incorporate micro-nationalist dissent of a number of peoples by using persuasive and coercive means at its disposal as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: This paper is an attempt to understand one case of 'ethnic' conflict in India-Assam. By looking closely at this one case I hope we will understand better the phenomenon of India's persistent dilemma of micro-nationalist politics that from time to time seems to be fundamentally at odds with India's macro-nationalist project. To be sure, despite the seriousness of some of these conflicts-say Punjab and Kashmir at present, or Assam until recently-the incidence of micronationalist dissent should be kept in perspective. The Indian state can claim quite a bit of success in its project of 'nation building' -it has been able to incorporate micro-nationalist dissent of a number of peoples by using persuasive and coercive means at its disposal. Moreover, even conflicts that appear stubborn at one time turn out to be surprisingly amenable to negotiated settlement. Irrespective of the Indian state's ability to manage micro-nationalist dissent, the assumption that nationalisms have a telos that inevitably leads to a demand for separation relies on a rather sloppy and lazy naturalist theory of the nature and origins of nations and nation states. What the Indian experience forces us to confront is the fate of nationalism and the nation state as they spread worldwide as a modal form. In the Indian subcontinent these new forms that privilege 'formal boundedness over substantive interelationships,'l come face to face with a civilisation that represents a particularly complex way of ordering diversity.2 In a subcontinent where the historical legacy of
22 citations
TL;DR: In the second half of the nineteenth century, railways and road transport made possible a huge expansion in cash cropping, for national and international markets, and production regimes across the subcontinent were placed in a new context of opportunity and pressure as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Although it would now seem established beyond question that agriculture in most parts of India had been exposed to commercial influences from medieval times, there can be little doubt that a variety of developments from the second half of the nineteenth century greatly strengthened those influences. Railways and road transport made possible a huge expansion in cash cropping, for national and international markets, and production regimes across the subcontinent were placed in a new context of opportunity—and of pressure. While so much would scarcely be disputed among historians, what has become—and remained—more controversial, however, is an understanding of the implications of this extended commercial logic for agrarian economy and society. Since colonial times, opinions would seem to have been divided between ‘optimists’, for whom commercialization marked progress and a growing prosperity for all; ‘pessimists’, for whom it marked regress into deepening class stratification and mass pauperization; and ‘sceptics’ who held that it made very little difference and that its impact was largely absorbed by preexisting structures of wealth accumulation and power on the land.
22 citations
TL;DR: The notion later was taken up and developed by Times correspondent Valentine Chirol, who wrote that Bengalis had 'of all Indians been the most slavish imitators of the West, as represented, at any rate, by the Irish Fenian and the Russian anarchist' as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: of murderous methods hitherto unknown in India which have been imported from the West, and which the imitative Bengali has childishly accepted'.' This notion later was taken up and developed by Times correspondent Valentine Chirol, who wrote that Bengalis had 'of all Indians been the most slavish imitators of the West, as represented, at any rate, by the Irish Fenian and the Russian anarchist'. Chirol went on to say that 'European works on various periods of revolutionary history figure almost invariably amongst seizures of a far more compromising character whenever the Indian police raids some centre of Nationalist activity.' This indicated that Bengali revolutionary terrorism was simply a takeoff on the European variety. The only indigenous element in it was the dangerous infusion of Hindu religious fanaticism.2 Historians have long since rejected the imperialistic assumptions underlying Minto's and Chirol's assertions: but the exaggerated importance that they assigned to the Western influence on Indian revolutionary terrorism lingers on, particularly among Western writers. Some still view it as the offspring of the illegitimate union of foreign revolutionary and indigenous religious influences.3 The ques
21 citations
TL;DR: Hong Kong has been regarded as an unconventional colonial entity, an anachronism in the modern world as discussed by the authors, but others argue that the word colony is not an appropriate term to describe it, except in the most severely technical legal sense.
Abstract: Attempts to examine Hong Kong as an issue in British postwar colonial policy often emphasize the unique nature of the colony, and therefore a special case in British decolonization. Hong Kong has been regarded as an unconventional colonial entity, an anachronism in the modern world. But others argue that the word colony is not an appropriate term to describe it, except in the most severely technical legal sense, because of its spectacular industrial and economic development since the end of the Second World War. Nonetheless, Hong Kong has existed as a British crown colony since 1842, and its colonial political structures have remained more or less the same until the early 1980s. Hong Kong's special relations with China is an important factor making it an oddity in post-war British decolonization. Instead of becoming independent like most other British colonialterritories, Hong Kong's political future is linked to China. This situation of ‘decolonization without independence’ has been an important theme of academic analysis on the colony's political development.
19 citations
TL;DR: In I980, the Nilgiris of Tamil Nadu were chosen to be India's first biosphere reserve under the Man and the Environment program launched by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in an attempt to conserve for study examples of characteristic eco-systems from each of the world's natural regions.
Abstract: In I980, the Nilgiris of Tamil Nadu were chosen to be India's first biosphere reserve under the Man and the Environment program launched by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in an attempt to conserve for study examples of characteristic eco-systems from each of the world's natural regions. Scholastic interest from a broad spectrum of disciplines has turned, therefore, to the Nilgiris, and it has become apparent that although the Nilgiris have been studied extensively, anthropological attention has been uneven and parts of the region have been grossly understudied. The present paper intends to provide a foundation for filling this gap in the Nilgiri scholarship.
TL;DR: A number of papers have been written in the west on the subject of the Cultural Revolution in Inner Mongolia as discussed by the authors, focusing upon the fate of Ulanhu, the Chairman of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region who fell from power during the Cultural Cultural Revolution.
Abstract: A number of papers have been written in the west on the subject of the Cultural Revolution in Inner Mongolia. Hyer and Heaton's (1968) account of the period in the China Quarterly deals with events up until 1968, and relies heavily upon an analysis of the news reports broadcast by Radio Inner Mongolia at that time. The paper focuses upon the fate of Ulanhu, the Chairman of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region who fell from power during the Cultural Revolution. Hyer and Heaton are concerned primarily with the power struggles within the political apparatus, and they include no first-hand or eyewitness accounts. The paper gives no indication of the effects of the Cultural Revolution upon the great bulk of the population of the I.M.A.R., either Mongolian or Han Chinese. However, the article does carefully document the rapidly changing tide of Inner Mongolian government policy and the emergence of populist groups which challenged the political establishment, over the period 1965 to 1968.
TL;DR: The role of legal tradition in the reformist rhetoric of Benthamite Utilitarianism presents a contradiction as discussed by the authors, as it is the common observation that utilitarian jurisprudence was necessarily ahistorical and rejected the past as a source of concepts for reworking the criminal justice system existing in Britain during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Abstract: The role of legal tradition in the reformist rhetoric of Benthamite Utilitarianism presents us with a contradiction. On the one hand, there is the common observation that Utilitarian jurisprudence was necessarily ahistorical and rejected the past as a source of concepts for reworking the criminal justice system existing in Britain during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. For philosophic reformers such as Bentham, contemporary British criminal justice was to be replaced by a scientific jurisprudence, abstract, universal, and secular in outlook, and antipathetic to the more conservative insistence that the foundations of the penal law continue to be tradition-based. ‘If society was to see any improvement, its law must be reformed; if its law was to be reformed it must be burned to the ground and rebuilt according to a new and rational pattern.’ On the other hand, we find that the very same Utilitarian thinkers, in works describing the state of the law in British India, were concerned with local rather than universal conceptions of criminality. In his 1782 Essay on the Influence of Time and Place in Matters of Legislation, Bentham, for instance, urged the philosophic reformer to temper change in India by fitting Utilitarian judgments about the law to the frames of local society.
TL;DR: Despite the commodification of land and labor in colonial Bombay Presidency, capitalism and its associated dynamic (modern economic growth via innovation, specialization, and so on resulting in the improved productiveness of labor) did not, by and large, develop as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Despite the commodification of land and labor in colonial Bombay Presidency, capitalism and its associated dynamic (modern economic growth via innovation, specialization, and so on resulting in the improved productiveness of labor) did not, by and large, develop.The colonial state reformed the property structure, bringing the notion of a single owner for each property, ending the overlapping property rights of the pre-colonial regimes. Capital was freely deployed to make profits of alienation, if not profits of enterprise. Yet, small-scale family-labor farms continued as the backbone of Bombay agriculture. The peasantry could not sustain capitalist-style growth but did maintain a tenacious hold on the land with the help of the state, and its own capacity to endure horrendous levels of exploitation and poverty; the former symptomized by high land prices and low crop prices paid to the producer; the latter by mass peasant insolvency. The power of capital was in direct proportion to the peasants' desperate need for land and loans. The colonial state was fully aware that this kind of relationship was inimical to development, but did little to bring capital into a productive relationship with landed property. The colonial state came to resemble a classic agrarian bureaucracy rather than a capitalist state. Despite some commitments to modernization, it ruled over an impoverished agrarian society. This paper attempts to locate this result in the specific interests and interactions of the major social agents of rural Bombay: the state, capital and the peasantry.
TL;DR: The vital importance of the Indian Army as the guardian of the imperial order in India was never more evident than during the interwar years as discussed by the authors, when state authority was being challenged by a mounting nationalist movement, and public order was frequently disrupted by civil disobedience campaigns, as well as recurrent outbreaks of communal violence.
Abstract: The vital importance of the Indian Army as the guardian of the imperial order in India was never more evident than during the interwar years. The period from 1919 to the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 was a testing time for the Raj; state authority was being challenged by a mounting nationalist movement, and public order was frequently disrupted by civil disobedience campaigns, as well as recurrent outbreaks of communal violence. In maintaining public order the colonial state had always been prepared to rely on that ultimate guarantee of its authority and power–the Indian Army. However, in frequent discussions of the deployment of the military in 'aid of civil power', the continued loyalty of the bulk of the army the Indian soldiers and officers, was never questioned, and seemed to be taken for granted.2 Yet, both the Government of India and the to be taken for granted.2 Yet, both the Government of India and the Army Headquarters were well awar that the 'loyalty' of the Army could never be guaranteed, and that it was conditional upon a stable and pacified recruiting base; if that base were to be 'subverted', then the Indian Army, or portions of it, would not only cease to be of use as an instrument of state power, but could ultimately pose a threat to the Raj itself
TL;DR: According to the view current among most Japanese today, the samurai lost their last hope of surviving as a distinct social or political group when Saigō Takamori died in the autumn of 1877 as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: According to the view current among most Japanese today, the samurai lost their last hope of surviving as a distinct social or political group when Saigō Takamori died in the autumn of 1877. In fact, the fate of the samurai class had been sealed as early as 1866, when Satsuma and Chōshū joined forces to destroy the only institutional order in which the samurai had any functional meaning. Their disappearance from the Japanese stage was brought about by forces that Saigō helped to set in motion, but over which neither he nor any other individual could possibly have exerted much control. In the end he had no significant effect on the fate of the samurai.
TL;DR: The issue of who constituted the workforce employed in the Java sugar industry during the late colonial era remains a controversial one as mentioned in this paper, and the waters of debate have become a great deal murkier.
Abstract: The issue of who constituted the workforce employed in the Java sugar industry during the late colonial era remains a controversial one. Almost thirty years ago one leading Indonesian scholar made the eminently plausible suggestion that ‘on the whole, those who sought work in the sugar industry… were those who had no land. They were for the greater part recruited from the landless… who were eager to sell their labour to anyone prepared to pay wages’ [Selosoemardjan 1962: 271]. Since that time, however, the waters of debate have become a great deal murkier. In particular, the legend that the industry's workers remained ‘peasants’ is one which dies hard [e.g. Knight 1989]. Indeed, if there can be said to be a single image illustrative of the prevailing orthodoxy concerning the relations between labour and capital in late colonial Java, it is that of the peasant-worker who ‘persisted as a community-oriented household farmer at the same time that he became an industrial wage labourer’ and who ‘had one foot in the rice terrace and the other in the [sugar] mill’ [Geertz 1963: 89]
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the development of trade unions in one specific industry: refined sugar production and examined the circumstances surrounding the establishment of these unions, along with their leaders and members, ideological leanings and political and industrial objectives.
Abstract: Comparatively little of a scholarly nature has been written about Indonesian trade unions, particularly on the two decades from 1945 to 1965 when, like the political parties to which so many of them were affiliated, the unions had their heyday. This paper focuses on the development of trade unions in one specific industry: refined sugar production. The period to be examined—1945 to 1949—runs from the proclamation of Indonesian independence by Sukarno and Hatta, through the revolution fought against the returning Dutch, to December 1949 when the Netherlands finally acknowledged Indonesian independence. It was during this period that the major post-war sugar industry unions were established. The circumstances surrounding the establishment of these unions will be examined, along with their leaders and members, ideological leanings and political and industrial objectives.
TL;DR: The Muslim League's stance is contrasted with the Congress which addressed economic issues from a largely Socialist perpective as mentioned in this paper, and it is generally believed that it lacked a distinctive economic programme and unequivocally favoured private enterprise.
Abstract: Most studies have concentrated on the Muslim League's political activities and objectives. It is generally believed that it lacked a distinctive economic programme and unequivocally favoured private enterprise. The radical economic ideas produced by its Punjab and Bengal branches are attributed to a handful of activists who received short shrift from the High Command. The League's stance is thus contrasted with the Congress which addressed economic issues from a largely Socialist perpective.
TL;DR: The Philippines in the immediate post-war years may be described as a nation in search of an identity as discussed by the authors, and a sudden interest in the research and discussion of things Filipino: Filipino dance, theater, literature, language, music, art and cultural traditions.
Abstract: The Philippines in the immediate post-war years may be described as a nation in search of an identity. This preoccupation with what one journalist has dubbed ‘the question of identity’ spurred a sudden interest in the research and discussion of things Filipino: Filipino dance, theater, literature, language, music, art and cultural traditions. After four hundred and fifty years of colonial rule the Filipino intelligentsia began to wonder if indeed the western legacy of colonial rule was the annihilation of the very essence of Filipino culture. Under the aegis of American rule Filipinos were adamant about proving to their colonizers that they had been good pupils in western democratic ideals and were fit to govern themselves. From the 1920s to the early 1940s, the Filipino had become a sajonista (pro-American). The Japanese colonizers who replaced the Americans in the second world war were appalled not only at the pro-Americanism of the Filipino but at the magnitude of American influence absorbed by Filipino culture. In fact it was the Japanese who promoted the use of Tagalog and the ‘revival’ and appreciation of Filipino cultural traditions as part of the policy of ‘Asia for the Asians’. Once independence was achieved at last in 1946, the focus shifted. The nagging question was no longer ‘Are we western enough to govern ourselves?’ but its opposite—‘Have we become too westernized to the point of losing ourselves?’.
TL;DR: The contrast between Whitehall's relatively hands-off attitude to Indian tariff policies, and its insistent hands-on approach to monetary policy issues in the colony is discussed in this paper.
Abstract: A puzzling feature of interwar Anglo-Indian economic relations is the contrast between Whitehall's relatively hands-off attitude to Indian tariff policies, and its insistent hands-on approach to monetary policy issues in the colony. Both sets of issues were, at various times, equally contentious. But while Britain's strategic objectives in India paved the way for the Fiscal Autonomy Convention, the road towards a similar monetary ‘convention’ was never taken. Rather, thanks to Britain's external financial problems, the interwar decades saw initially a tightening, and later a refinement, of London's control over Indian monetary policies. This paper hopes to set out the processes at work more clearly than has been attempted before, and to account for them. The interpretation offered here is consistent with the ‘gentlemanly capitalism’ explanation of British imperialism during the interwar years, and of the postwar de-colonization process.
TL;DR: Sabah (previously known as British North Borneo) occupies the whole of the northern portion of the island of Sabah, covering an area of 76, 115 square kilometres as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Sabah (previously known as British North Borneo) occupies the whole of the northern portion of the island of Borneo, covering an area of 76, 115 square kilometres. Its immediate neighbours are Brunei, Sarawak and Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo). From 1882 to 1942, Sabah was administered by the British North Borneo (Chartered) Company. The territory possessed three main attractions: its timber, its reputed minerals and its land. Timber has now grown to be amajor export commodity, second only to petroleum. With the exception of deposits of coal and some gold, economic resources of other sought-after minerals were not proven during the period. The land proved to be the most valuable asset. Many crops were experimented with: tobacco, sugar cane, coffee, coconuts and rubber and they laid the basis for the economic development of the territory. The expansion of these crops was largely assisted by the introduction of a modern transport system which supplemented the original means of communication, the rivers. The railway in particular provided the impetus for the rubber boom on the west coast. In turn, this resulted in the emergence of an export-oriented economy, specializing in rubber, timber, copra and tobacco. From 1942, Sabah was occupied by the Japanese until its liberation in 1945. After a brief period under military administration, it became a British Colony in 1946. Under colonial rule from 1946 to 1963 the previous pattern of economic exploitation continued.
TL;DR: A survey of travel literature relating to Southeast Asia during the period of massive transformation dating approximately from the 20S to the 50S of this century can be found in this article, which is not intended to be comprehensive, but representative of the major landmarks of that literature along with some lesser-known works of particular interest.
Abstract: Some write because they travel, and some travel because they write. A large number of progessional writers, not just travel-writers, have derived inspiration from travel: equally, a large number of travellers, who are not professional writers, have nevertheless often felt compelled to encapsulate their experience in literary form. It is the aim of this paper to survey such British travel literature relating to Southeast Asia during the period of massive transformation dating approximately from the ‘20S to the ’ 50S of this century. It is not intended to be comprehensive, but representative of the major landmarks of that literature along with some lesser-known works of particular interest.
TL;DR: This article argued that the CCP earnestly bid for American friendship and support as a counterweight to pressure from the Soviet Union, and that it was only after their bids for American support were rejected by Washington that the Communists had to choose the "lean-to-one-side" policy.
Abstract: In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Sino-Soviet conflict intensified and at the same time the Sino-American rapprochement was well under way. When the Americans began to search for an answer to the question of ‘Why Vietnam’, some US foreign relation documents in the later 1940s were released, which indicated that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had made certain friendly overtures toward the United States. Since then, it has become a widely-accepted interpretation among scholars that Washington ‘lost a chance’ to win over the CCP from Moscow in the late 1940s. The fundamental premise of this interpretation is that the CCP earnestly bid for American friendship and support as a counterweight to pressure from the Soviet Union. It is argued that the CCP sincerely sought the US recognition right up to the middle of and that it was only after their bids for American support were rejected by Washington that the Communists had to choose the ‘lean-to-one-side’ policy. In short, Washington's shortsighted policy in 1949 ‘forced Beijing into Moscow's embrace’, and therefore set in motion a train of disastrous events: the Korean War and the Vietnam War. A promising postwar Asian balance in favour of the US was ruined.
TL;DR: This volume is capped by a very useful introduction with explanations distinguishing the different types of reports, how they came to be written, and their respective value for the historian as mentioned in this paper, which should, in this reviewer's opinion, be a standard companion for all wishing to carry out research on British Punjab.
Abstract: This volume is capped by a very useful introduction with explanations distinguishing the different types of reports, how they came to be written, and their respective value for the historian. In the introduction readers are also provided with a concise analysis of the intellectual impulses which had influenced and informed the writings of a generation of settlement officers in the later part of the nineteenth century. Dr Dewey, who started compiling this bibliography in the course of his own research on the agrarian structure of the Punjab, has done an important service to scholars in his field, and his handsomely produced handbook should, in this reviewer's opinion, be a standard companion for all wishing to carry out research on British Punjab. National University of Singapore TAN TAI YONG
TL;DR: Smith's The Epic of Pabuji (1991) as mentioned in this paper is one of the most important works in the field of folklore and it is a fair, up-to-date, and scholarly account of the story and its role in the local culture of Rajasthan.
Abstract: Few books are exemplars of real hard work sustained over a lengthy period of time as is John Smith's The Epic of Pabuji(1991). Starting his investigation of the scroll of cloth painting in 1973, a huge structure measuring fifteen feet by four, locally termed par, before which this epic is sung by a special caste of people, lower in hierarchy, called Naik Bhopa, Smith in a span of eighteen years has accomplished a work of lasting stay in the ethnographic tradition of south Asia as well as the discipline of folklore in general. Before this book was published, he had also contributed some important papers (in 1986 and 1989) on Pabu-ji. As far as I know, it is rare that Sanskritists, which Smith is at Cambridge, pay attention to ‘popular (or “non-Sanskritic”) traditions’ of people, and if at all they do, introducing the anthropological method of fieldwork in their study, their works are still laden with Indological references and scholarship where the actual voice of people is lost in oblivion or relegated to the back seat. But it does not happen with Smith; he is not only committed to listening to people's voice in its own right and place, but also provides a fair, up to date, and scholarly account of Pabu-ji's story and its role and niche in the local culture of Rajasthan. Therefore, his work is also of considerable interest to anthropologists, especially those working on the sociology of cult, popular religion, and non- literate traditions and their meanings.
TL;DR: Mehta's Foundations of Indian Political Thought as mentioned in this paper is an interpretative study of Indian political thought, focusing on the theoretical underpinning of the ideas which appear crucial in grasping the complex interplay of factors involving the individual thinker, his immediate socio-economic compulsion and other extraneous considerations.
Abstract: Recently, scholars with different ideological persuasion, have been drawn to the complex world of Indian political thought. So far, there have been two types of attempts: There are (a) studies seeking to locate the streams of thought in the context of a constantly changing socio-economic environment. To show the continuity of thought over a broad span of time, authors belonging to this genre generally place the thinkers in a chronological sequence and an effort is constantly made to ascertain, as it were, a deterministic linkage between the ideas and the contemporaneous influences. On the other hand, there are (b) attempts to find out the stark continuity and the growing sophistication of ideas through the ages both in form and content. These studies are not merely descriptions of the prevalent ideas but also interpretations with reference to a theory; what is attempted here is to identify the theoretical underpinning of the ideas which appear crucial in grasping the complex interplay of factors involving the individual thinker, his immediate socio-economic compulsion and other extraneous considerations. Partha Chatterjee's Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World (London, 1986) is probably the most sophisticated endeavour in this direction. Drawing on Gramsci's theory of passive revolution, Chatterjee discovers a unity of thought between Bankim, Gandhi and Nehru despite differences on various counts among these thinkers. V. R. Mehta's Foundations of Indian Political Thought is also interpretative following, however, the first type of studies. The present book constitutes the foundation of his earlier work entitled Ideology, Modernization and Politics in India (New Delhi, 1983) which, in the context of present day India 'seeks to suggest alternative structures so that the unity in diversity in the structural arrangements of society not only becomes more real but also lines of communication between polity, economy and society clearer and more enduring'. In order to unravel the dynamics of 'the evolution of the Indian social and political thought, particularly in the context of the state, through an exposition of the ideas of some representative thinkers', Mehta situates the Indian political thought in a broad canvas stretching between the ancient, medieval and modern times. The book has thirteen chapters which can be divided into three parts each dealing with a particular phase of history; for instance, in the first part (between chapters two and six), the author delves into the ancient political thought highlighting the evolution of the notion of state in the writings of the representative thinkers; between chapters eight and twelve, Mehta concentrates on the modern thinkers, while there is a
TL;DR: In the 1970s, the Gandhian movement split over fundamental philosophical issues and twenty years later it has not yet recovered as mentioned in this paper, while the generally presented reasons for the decline of the movement since Gandhi's death show substantial depth of analysis, they nevertheless overlook one essential aspect.
Abstract: In the 1970s the Gandhian movement split over fundamental philosophical issues and twenty years later it has not yet recovered While the generally presented reasons for the decline of the Gandhian movement since Gandhi's death show substantial depth of analysis, they nevertheless overlook one essential aspect They focus on issues such as whether a movement that was effective against a specific enemy, for example the British, can continue when the focus of the movement has been removed, and whether such a movement that stresses selfsacrifice can survive in an emerging consumerist and ‘democratic’ society, whether it is really anachronistic and inapplicable as we move towards the twenty-first century Or perhaps, it is argued, that the movement was not able to survive the passing of a charismatic leader, especially when that leader's philosophy was adopted by the populace as a policy because of its instrumental value rather than as a creed and, further, that the leader was determined not to set up a sect of the chosen faithful around himself
TL;DR: The Chinese in Sarawak, like their counterparts in other parts of Southeast Asia (Nanyang), were staunch advocates of education where every Chinese community had its own school which was built, managed and financed by local resources, and largely independent of government control.
Abstract: The Chinese in Sarawak, like their counterparts in other parts of Southeast Asia (Nanyang), were staunch advocates of education where every Chinese community had its own school which was built, managed and financed by local resources, and largely independent of government control.