Sovereign Spheres

Summary: The book “Sovereign Spheres” is written by Manu Bhagavan, a historian and a specialist on
modern India. This book was first published in 2003.The book contains five chapters and each of these
chapters possesses descriptive information about the initial protest raised in different states against the
British and the ruling system. The book starts with the political situation of Mysore and Baroda at the
time of the fall of Tipu Sultan. Tipu Sultan was the king of Maratha. Maratha had been weakening
because of internal dissension and in addition to the fall of Mysore and the breaking down of the
alliance of Hyderabad with the British. The defeat of Tipu Sultan and the gradual decline of Maratha
supremacy made the British the strongest powerhouse of the subcontinent, a position that led to the
heavy handed policies of lops and annexation. Maharaja Sayaji Rao Gaekwad, the ruler of Baroda, was
not interested in British rule. Maharaja travelled to England due to his wife’s illness. But the Curzon
asked him to refrain from pleasure trips abroad. Consequently, Curzon played his cards and withdrew
the British sanction and support for the princes. So Sayaji Rao refused to participate but tried his best to
make his state of Baroda an ideal and modern state by going against the British. On the other hand, the
Maharaja of Mysore, Krishnaraja Wadiar's move was clearly not resistance against the British. He made
various educational reforms in his state and expanded local government. Mysore University was a
particularly contested site for modernity. Yet, elsewhere he claims that the university should be seen as
a radical step against imperial domination. Even then, the official British response was far from hostile.
Bhagavan attributed this to the inherent contradiction of colonial education here. He argued that, this
episode demonstrated, through a subtle war of propaganda that modernity was not necessarily the
exclusive domain of the British. The Mysore government ended up rejecting the demands of both
Madras University. Bhagavan noted here the motive of an emerging Asian Progressivism. Again,
demanding a university in Baroda were intertwined with the push for democratic reform and modernity.
Manubhai Mehta, the dewan of Baroda mentioned multiple non-British sources on modernity and its
interpreters citing Voltaire, Cleveland, Abraham Lincoln, Rousseau and other western intellectuals. He
used these insights combined with Indian traditions to contest western modernity. The push for a
university in Baroda without British interference and influence advocates a new and refashioned
modernity. American and German education system was also significant in this case as it subtly
challenged British rule and was an exclusive harbinger of modernity. Baroda University finally came to
be in 1948 which constituted the actual resistance to British domination. Princely states and the colonial
paradigm of the reforms of the first three decades of the twentieth century centered around the
movements for universities were clearly targeted strikes against specific sites of British domination.
Mysore was reformed in the second decade to keep people of the state under control. Maharaja took
initiative to create chances and educate the non-Brahmins by establishing university and as a gesture of
appreciation the British granted the initiative because of Mysore's silence at the time of the Baroda
movement. The non-Brahmin movement as distinct of non-Brahmin courses and interests, these steps
were little more than self interested elites out to increase their own power. But also in some cases,
some Maharajas and universities also played significant role to get independence from the British and
their aggressive colonial rule.