Showing papers in "Studies in History in 2006"
TL;DR: This paper used the colonial project of settling the convict in the penal colony on the Andaman Islands as an entry point into the social life of the co-operative society of the islands.
Abstract: The social history of convicts is an area of study which has hitherto remained an uncharted territory. The muted convict voice makes an ephemeral appearance in most colonial histories as ‘convict resistance’, which is seen as the sum total of the convict's life experience. On the other hand, colonial records and monographs oscillate between two extremes in the categorization of the convict's social life. There is either a romanticization of the idyllic penal colonies where the convicts have the appearance of reformed savages, peacefully going about their daily chores, no different from the Indian peasants; or the convicts are seen as conniving brutes obsessed with the idea of ‘escape’, where the state of unfreedom that they are subjected to is seen as the most defining characteristic of their life in the penal settlement. Breaking out of these moulds, this essay has used the colonial project of settling the convict in the penal colony on the Andaman Islands as an entry point into the social life of the co...
16 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines the process by which an occupational field that consisted of traditional intellectuals, hereditary practitioners and religious specialists attempted to reorder the public status of their learning and began to emerge with a self-conscious, corporate identity.
Abstract: This article examines the process by which an occupational field that consisted of traditional intellectuals, hereditary practitioners and religious specialists attempted to reorder the public status of their learning and began to emerge with a self-conscious, corporate identity. Situated in colonial Punjab in the 1930s, it traces the responses of Ayurvedic practitioners or Vaids to the ideas and assumptions buttressing scientific, Western medicine and its validation of colonial rule. It argues that indigenous practitioners began to construct a discourse on indigenous science in the public sphere in Punjab that was mediated by the vernacular press and by newly formed corporate bodies. The attributes of Ayurvedic learning were gradually recast in the political idiom of language-based alignments and the claims of a tradition of indigenous science in turn legitimized a unified, singular Hindu nation. However, this process was constantly challenged by alternative interpretations of its vocabulary and competin...
16 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors deal with factors that led to the outbreak of the Great Bengal Famine of 1943-44, which claimed more than an estimated 3 million lives and demonstrates the government's inability to provide adequate relief and rehabilitation measures to the victims of starvation during and after the official termination of food scarcity.
Abstract: This article deals with factors that led to the outbreak of the Great Bengal Famine of 1943–44, which claimed more than an estimated 3 million lives. Dealing with the extensive literature on the causes of the famine, it provides both administrative and statistical data on the role of both central and provincial governments in its aggravation. The timely installation of a proper mechanism for the prevention of the food crisis could have effectively checked spiralling of prices and hoarding of rice. It demonstrates the government's inability to provide adequate relief and rehabilitation measures to the victims of starvation during and after the official termination of food scarcity. The establishment of a new procurement system by the government proved abortive, especially due to bureaucratic delays and refusal to acknowledge in the early stages of the famine that there was a serious danger of food shortage in Bengal. Bureaucratic red tapism also took its toll on efforts at conceptualization and implementat...
9 citations
TL;DR: A relatively recent thrust in Indian historiography has been on explorations of the making and functioning of various ideological structures through which the state in early India derived legitimac... as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: A relatively recent thrust in Indian historiography has been on explorations of the making and functioning of various ideological structures through which the state in early India derived legitimac...
8 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines the question of whether colonial rule signalled the arrival of "perspective" as a compulsory site of viewing in the modern period and argues that the decisive defeat of earlier ways of seeing and staking a claim to legitimacy took far longer than the military conquest, leading to the emergence of a Mysore traditional style alongside forms of realism.
Abstract: The military defeat and death of Tipu Sultan in the Fourth Mysore War (1799) paved the way for the establishment of British rule over most parts of India. This event may also be considered a turning point in the history of visual practices in India. The British struggle to defeat this indomit-able enemy on the battlefield was re-enacted within the realm of the visual. This essay examines the question of whether colonial rule signalled the arrival of ‘perspective’ as a compulsory site of viewing in the modern period. Through a comparison of two sets of ‘history painting’, the essay argues that the decisive defeat of earlier ways of seeing and staking a claim to legitimacy took far longer than the military conquest, leading to the emergence of a Mysore traditional style alongside forms of realism that echoed the split between real (colonial) and de jure (Wodeyar) power in the princely state of Mysore.
8 citations
TL;DR: The authors explored the representation of feminine character types textually located in the city of Kolkata and found that the gaṇikas and the kulastrī provide a useful frame of binaries to unravel the extraordinary literary grasp of patriarchal constructs, as well as contradictions and contraventions, worked into the treatment of app...
Abstract: Most historiographical attempts to draw on early Indian narrative literary works, specifically kāvyas, for insights into the past remain circumscribed either by the apprehension that such literature contains conventional, idealized and stereotyped descriptions that are historically sterile, or by the very opposite tendency to take these descriptions at face value and come up with uncritical, historically thin accounts. Diverging from both these approaches, this article proceeds with the proposition that kāvyas are a potentially rich and complex source of history, provided these are handled in ways sensitive to literary logic. Working in the main with a number of classical Sanskrit kāvyas, this article explores the representation of feminine character types textually located in the city. Of these, the gaṇikā and the kulastrī provide a useful frame of binaries to unravel the extraordinary literary grasp of patriarchal constructs, as well as contradictions and contraventions, worked into the treatment of app...
6 citations
TL;DR: This article explored the representation of female sexuality as depicted in the ayurvedic discourse of the early medieval period, and showed how this representation was a gendered one, and how women were marginalized, if not altogether excluded.
Abstract: This article explores the representation of female sexuality as depicted in the ayurvedic discourse of the early medieval period, and shows how this representation was a gendered one. Within this discourse, women were marginalized, if not altogether excluded. The woman's body, in health and pleasure, had no autonomy of expression and was dependent on the male guardian/physician for its manifestation. The only depiction of the female body framed within this male discourse is what was of significance to men. Thus, the only occasion when women's diseases are discussed is in the context of the uterus (grabhavyāpata) and genital tract (yonivyāpata), and the men's concern for it is not because of women's health per se, but because a healthy uterus was crucial for child-birth. This asymmetry between the concerns for men's and women's health is also reflected in dealing with the old age of the two sexes. The virilification therapy (vājikaraṇa) as discussed in ayurvedic texts focuses solely on men; in contrast, th...
2 citations
TL;DR: The early medieval period in peninsular India as mentioned in this paper was a period of large-scale political, economic and cultural changes, which led to the emergence of territorial kingships and their consolidation into imperialistic concerns, such as the Cola empire in Tamil Nadu.
Abstract: The early medieval period in peninsular India—from the sixth to the thirteenth centuries A.D.—was a period of large-scale political, economic and cultural changes, which led to the emergence of territorial kingships and their consolidation into imperialistic concerns, such as the Cola empire in Tamil Nadu. This was a change from the early historical forms of kin-based chiefdoms in the region. Political patronage to the institutionalized form of temple religion oriented towards devotion to a personal god played a significant role in this socio-political acculturation. The creation of various forms of temple iconography—both narrative and iconic in nature—was an integral part of this process. This was also a period of the beginning of the creation of the Agamic texts, which were canonized much later. These Agamic texts provided the guidelines for the making of the temple and its icons, and also for the worship system. However, this was a two-way process. The Agamas were in their evolutionary stage at this t...
1 citations
TL;DR: Art and inscriptions from the Jamālpur site in the southern section of Mathurā city help characterize an early Buddhist monastic community and its relationship with lay patrons of non-royal backgrounds.
Abstract: Art and inscriptions from the Jamālpur site in the southern section of Mathurā city help characterize an early Buddhist monastic community and its relationship with lay patrons of non-royal backgrounds. Although named after Huviska, a powerful ruler of the Kusāna dynasty in the mid–second century CE, the monastery at this site was supported by monks, local administrators and members of professional groups such as actors. Monks specialized in textual interpretations, recitations and meditative practices, but were also successful fund raisers who actively influenced Buddhist imagery. Figures of lay worshippers carved in a naturalistic style are privileged in sculptures from this monastery. Visiting monks were instrumental in introducing elements of Kusāna royal symbolism into local art production. The role of this monastery was primarily to help local political elite to gain legitimation through their association with the Kusāna name and royal symbols on the one hand, and on the other, with a local nāga cul...
1 citations