Women and Law in Colonial India: A Social History

Book reviewed in this article: Women and Law in Colonial India: A Social History, by Srimati Basu.     

对殖民时期印度史的再认识

受政治因素影响,我国学界对印度近代史的研究,在相当长的时期内存在着一些问题。研究印度不是从印度的实际出发,而是拿中国革命作为标尺套印度。方法论不正确,得出的结论自然不少是扭曲的,与历史实际不相符。对近代史认识偏颇也直接影响着对印度现代史的研究。近年来,这种情况有所改变,一些不正确的看法开始得到扭转。然而,扭转并不是都很到位了,而且旧的认识破除后,建立新的认识是更艰巨的任务。本文是作者的点滴体会。     

History, Time, and Knowledge in Ancient India

The lack of interest in history in ancient India has often been noted and contrasted with the situation in China and the West. Notwithstanding the vast body of Indian literature in other fields, there is a remarkable dearth of historical writing in the period before the Muslim conquest and an associated indifference to historiography. Various explanations have been offered for this curious phenomenon, some of which appeal to the supposed currency of certain Indian philosophical theories. This essay critically examines such "philosophical explanations."
I argue that it is not true that there was no history in ancient India, and it is not surprising that there was no developed historiography or scientific history. It is both true and surprising that there was no real importance attached to history in ancient India. An adequate philosophical exxplanation for this historica phenomenon, however, is not to be found in appeals to the influence of indigenous metaphysical theories about time and the self. A much more plausible philosophical explanation appeals instead to certain features of classical Indian epistemology.     

James Mill's treatment of religion and the History of British India

James Mill's History of British India’ (1817) played a major role in re-shaping the English policy and attitudes in India throughout the nineteenth century. This article questions the widely held view that the ‘HBI’ heralded the utilitarian justification of colonisation found for instance in John Stuart Mill's writings. It suggests that James Mill's role as a proponent of ‘utilitarian imperialism’ has been overstated, and argues that much of Mill's criticism of Indian society arose from the continuing influence of his religious education as well as from his links with a network of Presbyterian and Evangelical thinkers. It is only after his death that the colonialist views put forward in the History of British India were re-interpreted in light of his later attachment to utilitarianism.     

印度独立以来历史教科书问题与教、俗之争

印度历史教科书问题与印度社会思潮的变化关系密切。独立初期,世俗主义思潮占据主导地位,相应地印度的历史教科书也是以世俗主义史学为主。20世纪60年代末以来,随着政治机会主义的增加和世俗政治价值观念的淡化,教派主义政治和社会思潮迅速发展,教派主义史学也影响到教育领域,力图改变世俗史学在历史教科书中的主导地位。1998年,印度人民党联合政府上台后,为了贯彻其教派民族主义的教育政策,于2001年提出修改已经使用了30多年的历史教科书,因世俗主义史学家极力抗议而未果。     

History of a renegade revolutionary: revolutionism and betrayal in colonial India

This paper highlights an understudied aspect of the history of anti-colonial resistance – the role of people who sat on the fence, displayed ambivalence, or at times played an active role in wrecking, damaging and sabotaging resistance against the state. Such people appear, if at all, in popular parlance as ‘traitors’ and in academia as ‘collaborators’, labels which carry a categorical moral bias. By examining nationalism through the lens of betrayal, this paper engages with a methodological question – is there a way of broadening the scope of the history of anti-colonial nationalism which incorporates acts of collaboration (e.g. spying, informing, perfidy, denunciation), without the implicit moral judgment embodied in each term? To tackle this question, this paper reconstructs the history of one renegade revolutionary, Hans Raj Vohra (1909–1985), a government witness who testified against his comrades, the revolutionaries of the Hindustan Socialist Republican Army in the Lahore Conspiracy Case trial (1929–30). This paper contextualizes Hans Raj Vohra's decision to become an ‘approver’, or a government witness, demonstrating the difficulties in framing his perfidy as a form of collaboration.     

印度掠影

印度绝对是摄影人的天堂,独特的风光,多姿多彩的民族文化,随处可见的名胜古迹,别具一格的民风民俗,自然古朴的乡村景色……无处不诱惑你按动快门,拍下永恒的画面,留下难忘的瞬间。     

Giving Masculinity a History: Some Contributions from the Historiography of Colonial India

Contemporary historiography, especially in North American, European and Australian history, now includes a fairly respectable body of literature on men and masculinity. While this literature has produced important contributions to the usefulness of gender as a category of historical analysis, there has also been some wariness within feminist scholarship on the grounds that the issue of the gendered organisation may be evaded. Reflecting on the question ‘what is involved in writing a history of masculinity?’, this article considers the potential contribution that the historiography of colonial India offers to the study of masculinity