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Abstract
Inherent in colonialism was the idea of self-legitimation, the most powerful tool of which was the colonizer's claim to bring the fruits of progress and modernity to the subject people. In colonial logic, people who were different because they were inferior had to be made similar - and hence equal - by civilizing them. However, once this equality had been attained, the very basis for colonial rule would vanish. 'Colonialism as Civilizing Mission' explores British colonial ideology at work in South Asia. Ranging from studies on sport and national education, to pulp fiction to infanticide, to psychiatric therapy and religion, these essays on the various forms, expressions and consequences of the British 'civilizing mission' in South Asia shed light on a topic that even today continues to be an important factor in South Asian politics.
Harald Fischer-Tiné is Professor of History at the ETH Zürich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich).
Michael Mann is Assistant Professor and Senior Lecturer at the Fern Universitaet, Hagen.
Ranging from studies on sport and national education and pulp fiction to infanticide, psychiatric therapy and religion, these essays on the various forms, expressions and consequences of the British 'civilizing mission' in South Asia shed light on a topic that even today continues to be an important factor in South Asian politics.
'What is intellectually stimulating is the variety that this volume offers - the ways in which individual essays bring into light a new body of archival sources as well as the manner in which eash essay offers a specific geographical-cultural episode of a larger pan-Indian narrative around the colonial "civilizing mission."' —Srirupa Prasad, 'Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History'
Table of Contents
| Section Title | Page | Action | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cover | 1 | ||
| Front Matter\r | 2 | ||
| Half Title\r | 2 | ||
| Title\r | 4 | ||
| Copyright\r | 5 | ||
| Contents\r | 6 | ||
| 'Torchbearers Upon the Path of Progress': Britain's Ideology of a 'Moral and Material Progress' in India. An Introductory Essay, by Michael Mann\r | 8 | ||
| 1. An Ideology Turned Upside-down\r | 8 | ||
| 2. The Initial Phase of the Civilizing Mission\r | 11 | ||
| 3. The Progress of History: The Political Utility of Historiography\r | 17 | ||
| 4. Issues of 'Material Progress': Technology, Public Health and Economic Development\r | 20 | ||
| 5. Issues of 'Moral Progress': Education, Character Building, and the Fight Against 'Social Evils'\r | 24 | ||
| 6. The British 'Civilizing Mission' in India: A Success Story?\r | 30 | ||
| Main Body\r | 34 | ||
| Part I: Trial and Error\r | 34 | ||
| Chapter 1. Dealing with Oriental Despotism: British Jurisdiction in Bengal, 1772-93, by Michael Mann\r | 36 | ||
| 1.1 The Idea of Reform\r | 36 | ||
| 1.2 The Taming of the Despot\r | 39 | ||
| 1.3 The Usurpation of Control of Capital Punishment\r | 43 | ||
| 1.4 The Dissemination of Civilization \r | 48 | ||
| 1.5 The Idea of Improvement\r | 53 | ||
| Chapter 2. 'A Race of Monsters': South India and the British 'Civilizing Mission' in the Later Eighteenth Century, by Margret Frenz\r | 56 | ||
| 2.1 British Ideas of Sovreignty\r | 58 | ||
| 2.2 Transforming a South Indian 'Way of Life'\r | 60 | ||
| 2.3 Roots of Conflict\r | 68 | ||
| 2.4 Conclusion\r | 72 | ||
| Chapter 3. Between Non-interference in Matters of Religion and the Civilizing Mission: The Prohibition of 'Suttee' in 1829, by Jana Tschurenev\r | 75 | ||
| 3.1 Admiration, Pity and Abhorrence: 'Suttee' in European Travellers' and Missionaries' Accounts\r | 79 | ||
| 3.2 The Suttee Practice: a Religious Custom, Enforced by Hindu Law\r | 81 | ||
| 3.3 Defending and Opposing Concremation\r | 88 | ||
| 3.4 Lack of Social Morality vs. Superiority of Hinduism\r | 93 | ||
| 3.5 A Post-colonial Modernizing Project Following the Colonial Civilizing Mission?\r | 96 | ||
| Part II: Ordering and Modernizing\r | 100 | ||
| Chapter 4. 'The Bridge-Builders': Some Notes on Railways, Pilgrimage and the British 'Civilizing Mission' in Colonial India, by Ravi Ahuja\r | 102 | ||
| 4.1 Introduction \r | 102 | ||
| 4.2 Engineer as Civilizer: Rudyard Kipling's Short Story 'The Bridge-Builders'\r | 103 | ||
| 4.3 'The Bridge-Builders' and the Limits of the Colonial 'Civilizing Mission'\r | 105 | ||
| 4.4 Colonial Images of the Pilgrimage to Jagannath\r | 110 | ||
| 4.5 'Public Works' Beyond Public Control: Pilgrims and Colonial Traffic Policy in Orissa\r | 113 | ||
| 4.6 Appropriating the Railways: Pilgrimage and Steam Technologies of Transport\r | 117 | ||
| 4.7 'Innundated with Complaints': The Politics of Colonial Railway Administration \r | 119 | ||
| 4.8 Conclusion\r | 122 | ||
| Chapter 5. Taming the 'Dangerous' Rajput; Family, Marriage and Female Infanticide in Nineteenth-century Colonial North India, by Malavika Kasturi\r | 124 | ||
| 5.1 Introduction\r | 124 | ||
| 5.2 Domesticating 'Unbridled' Masculinities in the Public Space \r | 128 | ||
| 5.3 The Lineage, Marriage, and Female Infanticide \r | 131 | ||
| 5.4 From Reform to Repression: Female Infanticide and Early British Objectives\r | 137 | ||
| 5.5 The 'Civilizing State': the Female Infanticide Act and the 'Domestic Space'\r | 140 | ||
| 5.6 Towards Some Conclusions\r | 145 | ||
| Chapter 6. What Is Your 'Caste'? The Classification of Indian Society as Part of the British Civilizing Mission, by Melitta Waligora\r | 148 | ||
| 6.1 Survey of the Literature\r | 149 | ||
| 6.2 The Role of Colonial Ethnographers\r | 151 | ||
| 6.3 Conclusion\r | 166 | ||
| Part III: Body and Mind\r | 170 | ||
| Chapter 7. Sporting and the 'Civilizing Mission' in India, by Paul Dimeo\r | 172 | ||
| 7.1 Introduction\r | 172 | ||
| 7.2 Sport and the 'civilizing mission'\r | 173 | ||
| 7.3 'Rice-eating, Malaria-ridden, Bare-footed Bengalis...'\r | 177 | ||
| 7.4 Legacies of the Sporting Civilizing Mission\r | 182 | ||
| Chapter 8. 'More Important to Civilize Than Subdue'? Lunatic Asylums, Psychiatric Practice and Fantasies of 'the Civilizing Mission' in British India 1858-1900, by James H Mills\r | 186 | ||
| 8.1 Reading Reform in Psychiatric Records\r | 187 | ||
| 8.2 Organizing Reform in Psychiatric Practice\r | 192 | ||
| 8.3 Conclusion\r | 196 | ||
| Chapter 9. The Sympathizing Heart and the Healing Hand: Smallpox Prevention and Medical Benevolence in Early Colonial South India, by Niels Brimnes\r | 198 | ||
| 9.1 European and Indian Medicine in the Early Colonial Period\r | 199 | ||
| 9.2 Advertising the Campaign against Smallpox\r | 203 | ||
| 9.3 Conceptualizing Indigenous Resistance\r | 207 | ||
| 9.4 Concluding Remarks\r | 211 | ||
| Chapter 10. Perceptions of Sanitation and Medicine in Bombay, 1900-1914, by Mirdula Ramanna\r | 212 | ||
| 10.1 J A Turner: 'The Missionary of Sanitary Work'\r | 213 | ||
| 10.2 Local Organizations\r | 215 | ||
| 10.3 Reactions to Epidemic Control Measures\r | 217 | ||
| 10.4 'Obstacles to Malaria Prevention'\r | 221 | ||
| 10.5 Bureaucratic and Financial Impediments\r | 222 | ||
| 10.6 Views of Indian Doctors\r | 224 | ||
| 10.7 Instruction on Public Health\r | 225 | ||
| 10.8 Triumph of Western Medicine: Registration of Medical Practitioners Act, 1912\r | 226 | ||
| 10.9 'Knowledge of the People'\r | 229 | ||
| 10.10 Conclusion\r | 230 | ||
| Part IV: The Civilizing Mission Internalized\r | 234 | ||
| Chapter 11. National Education, Pulp Fiction and the Contradictions of Colonialism: Perceptions of an Educational Experiment in Early-Twentieth-Century India, by Harald Fischer-Tiné\r | 236 | ||
| 11.1 Introduction\r | 236 | ||
| 11.2 Grappling with 'Uncompromising Hostility to British Rule': the Conservative Imperialist Discourse\r | 240 | ||
| 11.3 In Search of the Loyal Native: the 'Liberal Imperialist' Discourse\r | 242 | ||
| 11.4 'Colonial Consenters'?- Self-perception of the Gurukul Spokesmen\r | 249 | ||
| 11.5 Summing up\r | 253 | ||
| Abbreviations\r | 254 | ||
| Chapter 12. In Search of the Indigenous: J C Kumarappa and the Philosophy of 'Gandhian Economics' by Benjamin Zachariah\r | 255 | ||
| 12.1\r | 255 | ||
| 12.2\r | 256 | ||
| 12.3\r | 259 | ||
| 12.4\r | 262 | ||
| 12.5\r | 271 | ||
| 12.6\r | 274 | ||
| Chapter 13. The Civilizational Obsessions of Ghulam Jilani Barq, by Markus Daechsel\r | 277 | ||
| 13.1 The Mullah 'Turned Inside Out'\r | 278 | ||
| 13.2 Islam and History\r | 280 | ||
| 13.3 'Gharbzadegi'\r | 285 | ||
| 13.4 Weakness and Strength\r | 287 | ||
| 13.5 Taming an Apocalyptic Universe\r | 291 | ||
| 13.6 Conclusion\r | 296 | ||
| End Matter\r | 298 | ||
| Notes\r | 298 | ||
| Notes: 'Torchbearers Upon the Path of Progress'\r | 298 | ||
| Notes: Chapter 1 | 302 | ||
| Notes: Chapter 2\r | 307 | ||
| Notes: Chapter 3\r | 313 | ||
| Notes: Chapter 4\r | 318 | ||
| Notes: Chapter 5\r | 323 | ||
| Notes: Chapter 6\r | 331 | ||
| Notes: Chapter 7\r | 333 | ||
| Notes: Chapter 8\r | 334 | ||
| Notes: Chapter 9\r | 336 | ||
| Notes: Chapter 10\r | 339 | ||
| Notes: Chapter 11\r | 343 | ||
| Notes: Chapter 12\r | 349 | ||
| Notes: Chapter 13\r | 354 | ||
| Index\r | 358 |