SUMIT SARKAR

Modern Times: India

1880s-1950s

Environment, Economy, Culture

 Contents

Preface

Glossary

IMPERIAL STRUCTURES, POLICIES, AND IDEOLOGIES 1

Cons olidating th e Raj 2
Imperial Ceremony and Restructuring after 1857 2
Viceregal Attitudes— Liberal Rhetoric, Conservative
Compulsion 5
British Indian Foreign Policy Before Curzon 7
The Army and Military Policy 8
Financial and Administrative Pressures in the
Late Nineteenth Century 10
Local Self-Government, Council Reform, and
Divide-and-Rule 13
K nowledge and G overnance 17
Orientalism, Old and New 17
A Legal Basis for Communalism? Law and the Creation
of Religious Domains 24
Surveying an Empire: The Census and the Constitution
of Social Realities 31
Unmasking Conquest: Education, Print, and the Early
Public Sphere 38
The Missions of Empire—Christianity and the State 45
Western Science, Colonial Practice 53
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Racist and Gendered: Facets of the Empire 59
T he P rincely S tates 64
Mysore 65
Jammu and Kashmir 65
Manipur 67
Bibliography 69

2 WOODS AND TREES: THE ENVIRONM ENT AND

THE ECONOMY 75
Env ironmental Histories: Origins and Core Issues 77
Regulation and Protection as Appropriation: Forests and
‘Wastes’ in Late-Colonial India 80
Sedentarization, Property, and Order 88
Seeing the Wood through the Trees: Regional Studies 95
Bibliography 102

3 FIELDWORK: AGRICULTURE AND AGRARIAN HISTORY 106

Agricultural Production 106
Revenue, Rent, and Tenancy 110
Commercialization and Indebtedness 117
Agrarian Structures, Changes, and Continuities 131
The Forms of Labour 140
Famines and their Diagnosis 151
Bibliography 160

4 TRADE, INDUSTRY, AND THE POLITICAL ECONOMY

OF EMPIRE 167
O f D ra in s a n d T ra in s 168
Drain Inspectors? Ideas on the ‘Drain of Wealth’ and
Beyond 168
Imperial Steam: The Railways and their
Far-reaching Consequences 178
Indian and European Commerce, Finance, and
Entrepreneurship 186
 Contents ix

Bazaars, Townsmen, Rulers, and Enclaves 186

Noteworthy: Banking and Currency 191
European and Indian Entrepreneurship: Regional
Variations 198
Deindustrialization and the Traditional Industries 205
A Vexed Question: Did Handicrafts Decline? 210
Capital and Labour: Plantations, Mines, and Factories 217
Unedenic Gardens: Tea, Indigo, and Plantation Labour 225
Trouble Underground: Mines and Mine-workers 229
An Old Yarn: Jute Mills and Markets 234
Spinning Stories: Cotton Mills in Western India and
Elsewhere 243
Beyond Blacksmiths: Iron and Steel 259
Labour in the Informal Sector 261
Colonial Economic Policies 264
Demog raphy and the National Income 269
Bibliography 273

5 SOCIETY AND CULTURE 281

The Country, the City, and the New Middle Class 281
Picturing India: The Country and the City 281
The Road to Urban Spaces: Refashioning Colonial Cities 285
Hail Fellow Well Met: Urban Sociabilities from the Late
Nineteenth Century 301
Forever Rising , Forever New: The Middle Class 310
Languages and Literatures 326
Print and the Development of Vernacular Languages 327
Literatures, High and Low: Poetry, Novels, Short Stories 345
The Viewless Wings of Poesy: Poetry and Poetic Forms 352
A Various Universe: Prose, Fiction, Stories 356
The Visual and Performing Arts 372
Hybridity and Technological Change: Photography,
Theatre, Painting, and the Early Cinema 372
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Mechanical Reproductions of Art, ‘Real Life', and Sound 374
Photography: British and Indian 380
Play-acting: Theatre and the Movies 383
Music, Dance, and Dance-Drama: Devadasis,
Bhatkhande, Paluskar 398
Picturesque: Painting and the Fine Arts 406
Kalighat Paintings 409
Gendemen Artists, Realism, and Ravi Varma 412
The Bengal School—and After 418
The Beginnings of Indian Cinema 428
Bibliography 435
Index 447