Showing papers in "Studies in History in 1998"
TL;DR: In this paper, the decline of wildlife raises broader questions about the nature and impact of colonial rule in South Asia and the nature of the culture of empire. But this may refer to only a small part of the picture.
Abstract: South Asia has been a major arena for conflicts between people and predators but unlike with England and North America, their history has hardly been told. Historical studies have mainly focussed on the changing attitudes and practices of the imperial rulers.2 This is inevitable given the vast corpus of literature available on shikar. Useful as this may be in understanding the culture of empire, it refers to only a small part of the picture. The decline of wildlife raises broader questions about the nature and impact of colonial rule. Such a
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TL;DR: A portrait of Augustus, the first emperor of Rome, commissioning three geographers to survey the world is shown in this paper, which derives its subject from various geographic world lists, or cosmographies, some of them anonymous, which were circulating in the later Roman Empire, and refers to the time when Julius Caesar, after the defeat of all his enemies, commissioned four Greek geographers, to go to the four corners of the earth and collect information to draw a map of the whole world.
Abstract: left-hand corner a portrait of Augustus, the first emperor of Rome, commissioning three geographers to survey the world. The picture derives its subject from various geographic world lists, or cosmographies, some of them anonymous, which were circulating in the later Roman Empire, and refers to the time when Julius Caesar, after the defeat of all his enemies, commissioned four Greek geographers to go to the four corners of the earth and collect information to draw a map of the whole world. The work was completed between 30 and 24 s.c.,’ by which time Julius Caesar was dead and his adopted son, the Emperor Augustus, had taken
19 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors show how the livelihood systems of one community, the Baiga (conventionally regarded as a group of swidden cultivators) of Eastern Central Provinces, was dependent on the complex interconnections between the local and regional economies.
Abstract: tion from, and have conflicting interests with, the local economy. In this essay, I challenge this assumption and show how the livelihood systems of one community, the Baiga (conventionally regarded as a group of swidden cultivators) of Eastern Central Provinces, was dependent on the complex interconnections between the local and regional economies. The parameters of the local economy were in turn defined by relations of production and exchange that constituted these networks. By overlooking these relationships in their analysis, scholars have often tended to overemphasize the role of practices like shifting cultivation in the study of the identity and material life of these communities. In the process, they have also tended to romanticize the relationship between people and forests. A simplistic connection between culture and ecology, often referred to as ’cultural ecology’, is evident in the twentieth century descriptions of Baiga life and livelihood of which Verrier Elwin’s The Baiga is a good example. For example, Elwin, as we shall see in this essay, goes out of his way to prove that cultural practices correspond to ecological roles. In the process, he overstresses the importance of the eco-friendly character of bewar (the Baigani
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TL;DR: In the early nineteenth century, some Bhils raided Maratha villages in the Khandesh region of western India, and carried away several cattle as discussed by the authors, and a Peshwa official reported that respectable people were sent to the Bhils to tell them that it would be well if they ceased opposing the peasants and were loyal to the state.
Abstract: In the early nineteenth century, some Bhils raided Maratha villages in the Khandesh region of western India, and carried away several cattle. A Peshwa official reported that ’respectable people were sent to the Bhils to tell them that it would be well if they ceased opposing the peasants and were loyal to the state’. The Bhils then retorted: ’We are kings of the forest, our ways are different, do you not worry your head with them’.’ Involved in incidents such as these-and they are legion in records of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century-is a postulating of difference
15 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, Kangle et al. present the date of this text as 300 B.C. and conclude that the text marks a culmination of a long period of speculation on the matter which forms the subject of the śā tr ; A.B. Keith, History of Sanskrit Literature, London, 1940, pp. 459-61, is typical of the view that proposes the work to be a product of c.D.
Abstract: Acknowledgements: An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Conference on Ecological History and Traditional Sciences organized by the Centre for Science and Environment at the India International Centre, New Delhi, 27-29 March, 1997. 1 D.D. Kosambi, The Culture and Civilization of Ancient India in Historical Outline, New Delhi, 1970, p. 140. 2 P.V. Kane, History of the Dharma ś&a acr; tr , Vol. II, Poona, 1962, p. xi assigns the date of this text as 300 B.C.; R.P. Kangle, The Artha śā tr , Pt. III, Bombay, 1965, Chap. 4, pp. 59ff. reviews the problem of the date at length and concludes to assign it to the Mauryan period. He considers that it is important (p. 10) to note that the text marks a culmination of a long period of speculation on the matter which forms the subject of the śā tr ; A.B. Keith, History of Sanskrit Literature, London, 1940, pp. 459-61, is typical of the view that proposes the work to be a product of c. A.D. 300
14 citations
TL;DR: From roughly the second half of 1923, stories began to be circulated about the oppression of Hindu women by Muslim goondas located principally in eastern Bengal as mentioned in this paper, and these reports quickly became a commonsensical point of mobilization for Hindu communalists.
Abstract: From roughly the second half of 1923, stories--disseminated mainly by newspapers-began to be circulated about the oppression of Hindu women by Muslim goondas located principally in eastern Bengal. This happened barely a year after the ebbing away of the Non-Cooperation/Khilafat movement and broadly coincided with the formulation of the Bengal Pact. These reports quickly became a commonsensical point of mobilization for Hindu communalists. So widespread did these become that a contemporary like Waliullah held this issue to be the most important factor in spreading communal ill-will in the mofussil.’ I
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TL;DR: Arazi/Zamin-i paimuda figures represent gross cultivated area along with a small proportion of the cultivable waste (cw) and uncultivable waste (ucw) as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Some scholars have taken for granted that arazi/zamin-i paimuda figures represent gross cultivated (etc) area along with a small proportion of the cultivable waste (cw) and uncultivable waste (ucw) (to the extent of 10 per cent of the arazi area according to one suggestion).1 Such a narrow understanding and thereby limited use of the A’in’s area statistics on the above lines is a direct outcome of Moreland’s hypothesis that ’the area given were drawn from the assessment returns’.2 The measured area, however, does not appear
2 citations
TL;DR: The idea of universal human redemption in Kaliyuga, although originating in standard Vaishnava textual sources, is variously interpreted by Vaishnavas themselves over space and time.
Abstract: to be the most important religious development in Bengal during this period. Some of the themes or questions addressed in this essay are not unique. At the same time, however, I have tried to build on new perspectives and insights that have emerged from a critical revaluation of older postulates. For one, there is an effort at indicating more clearly the multiple uses of religious language as well as its common base. It occurs to me that ideas and opinions may be variously interpreted not only across religious traditions but on occasions, even within a tradition. Thus, the idea of universal human redemption in Kaliyuga, although originating in standard Vaishnava textual sources, is variously interpreted by Vaishnavas themselves over space and time. For reasons discussed below, Bengal Vaishnavism preferred the possibilities of ’this-worldly’ redemption, albeit conjoined to notions of ’propitious’ conduct, to an apocalyptic end to Kaliyuga. Throughout this essay I have used binaries like ’elite’ arid ’popular’ with some reticence. At places where they have been used, linguistic and stylistic compulsions, I have to confess, have taken precedence over historicity. The terms popular culture/popular religion, as I am only too aware, have arrived in history from theology and are associated with the distinction that the medieval church made between an institutionally legitimized
2 citations
TL;DR: Sinha as mentioned in this paper places Mrinalini Sinha's book within a frame of history-writing which recovers the significance of imperial history for the formation of British national identity, and emphasizes once again that colonial governance cannot be evaluated as the product of a unilateral and monolithic orientalist discourse.
Abstract: The General Editor of this series places Mrinalini Sinha’s book within a frame of history-writing which recovers the significance of imperial history for the formation of British national identity. The proposition that crucial aspects of metropolitan culture were formed at its so-called colonial periphery has yielded rich insights in various disciplines. It also carries a political resonance for racial and ethnic minorities in the metropolis whose rights as citizens and purchase on the public sphere are bound up with the acceptance of multicultural sources of national identity. The debate reminds us that in India too the politics of national identity have instituted zones of historical erasure and neglect, harshly imposing a cultural mainstream and creating peripheries. This approach emphasizes once again that colonial governance cannot be evaluated as the product of a unilateral and monolithic orientalist discourse. Anne Stoler’s important essay.(1989) stressed that the categories of the colonizer and the colonized were never fixed and self-evident, but historically constructed and reconstructed in relation to each other. The ideology of colonial rule evolved on a terrain occupied by contending interests within the metropolis and its geopolitical extensions. The terms in which hierarchies of power, both global and national, were defended and legitimized over the nineteenth century, were changed and complicated by
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present their work, "Revising Laws of the Jungle: Changing Peasant-State Relations in the Forests of Bengal", which is based on research carried out during the period June 1992 to December 1994, as part of a dissertation project.
Abstract: Acknowledgements: This essay is based on research carried out, during the period June 1992 to December 1994, as part of a dissertation project entitled, ’Revising Laws of the Jungle: Changing Peasant-State Relations in the Forests of Bengal’. My research was assisted by a grant from the Joint Committee on South Asia of the Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies with funds provided by the Andrew W Mellon Foun-