Table Of ContentLiberalism, Modernity, and the Nation
E M P I R E , I D E N T I T Y , AND I N D I A
Liberalism, Modernity, and the Nation
Peter R obb
o x f o r d
UNIVERSITY PRESS
OXFORD
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Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgements x
Introduction 1
PART I
Empire, Liberalism, and Political Organization
chapter 1
From Clive to Kipling 13
chapter 2
Towards the Nation 43
CHAPTER 3
Borders and Allegiances 58
part n
Some Boundaries and Identities
CHAPTER 4
Completing ‘Our Stock of Geography’, or
an Object ‘Still More Sublime’:
Colin Mackenzie’s Survey of Mysore, 1799-1810 93
CHAPTER 5
The Colonial State and Constructions of Indian Identity:
An Example on the Northeast Frontier in the 1880s 127
CHAPTER 6
The Impact of British Rule on a Religious Community:
Reflections on the Trial of Maulvi Ahmadullah of Patna in 1865
CHAPTER 7
Muslim Identity and Separatism in India:
The Significance of M.A. Ansari 197
Index 111
Preface
Exposing one’s past to a new audience, or once again to an older one, seem:
to imply a lack of tact. One half forgets what one has written, and suspect:
that others, if they ever read it, may have forgotten it too. But scruples can b<
suppressed, and so, though I had not considered anything of the kind, I readily
agreed when asked by Oxford University Press to republish some of my essay:
with extensive new introductions. The introduction forms Part I and th<
illustrative essays are in Part II. The invitation encouraged me to look bacl
at some of my themes and interests, re-reading those half-forgotten paper:
and writing new chapters. The work will appear in two volumes; the seconc
is titled Peasants, Political Economy, and Law.
In some ways the two volumes offer a further reflection on questions raisec
in my earlier books. There have been four main phases or elements in m]
work. The first concerned British constitutional and political policy. The seconc
(not yet abandoned) concentrated on the agrarian history of Bihar, but als<
recalled my first subject by relating colonial policy to the expansion of th<
state and to theories of governance and development. The third phase was £
kind of academic sponsorship, in which I edited and wrote introductions tc
books on diverse topics, particularly concerned with ‘South Asian meanings’
if such exist. The fourth is an ongoing study of the British Library’s Blechynder
diaries, and hence European domestic life, urban development, and pett}
administration in Calcutta from the 1790s to the 1820s. This also raise:
questions about the impact of empire on both Britain and India. In much o
this, there was a tendency—perhaps it is a temptation or an indulgence—tc
try to trace deeper connections across apparent subject boundaries. Partly foi
that reason, at least one other theme has coexisted with the others, and provide:
the focus for these books. It is colonialism and identity in a broad sense.
After I had decided on the theme, a crucial question was whether or not t(
revise the chosen essays in order to bring them up to date and, more difficult
remove any overlap and weave them into a single, unified argument. The term:
on which I was asked to produce the book implied that (if I wished) I coulc
let the essays stand as they had first been published. I decided that on the whol<
viii Preface
I would do that. Perhaps there should have been, but there was not anything
major which I felt I wanted to recant. Nor, as far as I could see, was there too
much that had been overtaken by new work. And somehow it seemed more
honest to leave the pieces alone, to represent the time and the historiography
when they were first written. Therefore, by and large I have not even added
to the original references to secondary works. I have also not tried to avoid
repetition, so that there are ideas that recur. The result is a set of historical
remnants, which (though not in chronological order) contain a record of an
evolution of ideas. Moreover, the original texts have not been bent to serve
the central theme of this book; instead, the introductory chapters set out a
context to explain how I think they contribute.
Thinking of my reading of evidence and ideas over many years, I readily
see that I have reacted subject to my own interests. There are themes that
develop continually in exchange with others but have a distinct flavour. That
much is inevitable. Viewpoints may become contentious, as is obvious from
many examples, when the subject is the juxtaposition of Britain and India. I
have lived in Britain for a long time, though not born there, and hold a post
in a British university. For those reasons, I may be expected to write more
readily about British colonialism than, say, Indian domestic life. Other choices
would have been possible, of course. To take one example among many, Walter
Hauser’s work (celebrated in a conference at which sections of the second
volume were first presented) has been profoundly concerned with political
and protest movements. His perspective was that of the underdog, as over
many years he steeped himself in the society and life of Bihar (as well as its
records) in order to explore its history. By contrast, I have focused my attention
on the colonial state, also often enough in regard to Bihar. True, I have long
argued for attention to different voices and for history from below, and against
‘directive interpretations’,1 and I have extensively studied agrarian society. Yet
I have examined the state, and done so at a time of understandable distrust
of Eurocentric exaggerations of its role (a tendency inherent in official
documents), combined with anti-colonial sentiment. In this atmosphere,
some have assumed that the state was of minimal importance, and also
monolithic. But I suggest that its history has been neglected, partly because it
1 See Peter Robb, The Evolution of British Policy towards Indian Politics,
1880-1920: Essays on Colonial Attitudes, Imperial Strategies and Bihar, New Delhi,
1992, chapter 10. My position was not always understood, even in respect of that
chapter, though it argued (originally in the 1970s) against the notion that ‘popular
agitations were brought into being by agitators’, against attributing the Shahabad
cow-protection riots to ‘positive leadership’ without attending to the ‘self-assertion’
of so-called followers, and against Judith Brown’s idea that pre-Gandhian Champaran
was politically ‘latent’.
Preface i
arouses this kind of distaste. I argue that different approaches and subject
should be regarded as complementary, not antagonistic.
This also implies a rejection of closed historiographies, the idea that Indian
alone are best able to produce ‘real’ Indian history. On the contrary, I conside
that external perspectives may be valuable, even for topics that are difficul
for most non-Indians. Above all, I object to stereotyping the subject. Everyon
starts with the disadvantage of ignorance when studying the past. Indeec
everyone has that disadvantage even in researching their own time; and t
study what one has observed presents other problems. Thus history is base
on evidence, meaning interpreted and applied information. If I have had usefi
insights, it is most importantly from reading official and other records, tryin
to understand what they mean on their own terms; and I have done what
have done from chance and curiosity and conviction, not from an obligator
matching of myself with my subject or conclusion.
I should add one other caveat. In many places in these two volumes, I wi
be reporting attitudes expressed by people in the past. I shall not be adding t
every sentence phrases such as ‘according to’, or ‘allegedly’, or ‘in this schoc
of thought’, though it will be plain from the context that I am summarizin
the views of historical actors. And when I quote, say, James Mills’s derogator
opinion of India, or Macaulay’s praise of Clive, I am not endorsing what wa
said; neither am I making moral judgments about it. Surprisingly often, thi
convention of historical reportage is misunderstood. It is assumed that ther
must be a sympathy between writer and subject. This is a fallacy of the sam
kind that privileges history written by ‘nationals’, or regards histories of th
colonial state as distasteful.
The two volumes share a common theme and purpose. This book link
liberal rhetoric, modem technology, and governance to the reinforcement c
bounded categories and to a discourse of rights. The argument is that sue'
linkages were a necessary part and an instrument of the building of identities
including the nation. The second volume looks at the same kinds o
interconnections with regard to agrarian policy, law, and economy.
This book is dedicated to Lizzie, Ben and Katy, and Tom and Emma.
London, 2006 Peter Rob
