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E-book The Audacious Raconteur : Sovereignty and Storytelling in Colonial India

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Penilaian

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Over the next two centuries, the Company grew rapidly, often exploiting tensions between competing powers—the Mughals, the Marathas, the naw-abs of Awadh and Bengal, and the French in India. The year 1764 was espe-cially pivotal. In the battle of Buxar, Company officer Robert Clive defeated the combined forces of the weakened Mughals, and the Mughal emperor was forced to grant the Company the diwani, the right to collect tax from the provinces of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa. The nawab of Bengal, who con-trolled these extraordinarily wealthy provinces, remained the administrative head, but the Company appointed itself his “revenue minister.” Brazen loot-ing, territorial expansion, and overseas deposits rather than local investment fueled the Company’s growth. Rampant corruption raked in fortunes for the Company’s officers, who became known as “nabobs”; from just the spoils of wars, Clive transferred hundreds of millions of pounds to the Company and himself made millions of pounds. Stories of the rapacity of Company offi-cers reached the English public, and the Company’s directors, in response to public opinion, appointed in 1772 a “governor-general” who would oversee the governance of its Indian territories. The gleam of personal wealth was no less a reason for this shift in administration. This new system of governors-general and its official infrastructure sanctioned a rule of bloody conquest. Princely territories were ruthlessly annexed, draconian laws were drawn up, and India’s wealth was steadily siphoned off. After the Indian Uprising of 1857–58, when the Company received its first jolt, direct “Crown rule” replaced Company rule. India became the most prized of Britain’s colonies. Indeed, by the 1880s, the British had come to believe that their empire was at its summit. Most of India had been colonized and surveyed.5 Beyond the northern rim of India, the sacred and ancient Himalayan peak Chomolungma, also known as Sagarmatha, had been measured and renamed Mount Everest after an Englishman.6 Imperial and provincial gazetteers and census handbooks described and catalogued nearly every corner and community. Ancient Sanskrit and Pali texts were translated into English. Languages and laws were codified. Those who advocated for European knowledge as the best means to educate Indians triumphantly imagined that Indian universi-ties and colleges had successfully produced a surplus of brown clerks, the cogs of the wheels of a colonial administration. The field of anthropology began to conceive itself as a “science” and a “discipline,” and professional societies such as the Royal Anthropological Institute (1871) and the Folk-Lore Society (1878) now stamped as bona fide the collection and publication of knowledge about Indian culture.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

790.2 PRA t

Penerbit

New York : Cornell University Press., 2022

Deskripsi Fisik

219 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9781501752285

Klasifikasi

790.2

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

The Performing Arts

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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