Meat–Eating,Masculinity, and Renunciation in India: A Gandhian Grammar of Diet

This paper focuses on the writings and the autobiography of one of the century’s most prominent vegetarians, who was almost as noted (or notorious) for his alimentary and sexual experiments as for his political ones. A consideration of diet is, I argue, in many ways central rather than marginal to a Gandhian gendered ethics and a Gandhian politics. The accounts of the eating and abjuration of meat in the Gandhian oeuvre can serve as a useful point of entry into the investigation of two linked loci of Gandhi’s dietary practices: the question of meat and modernity, and the question of meat in the context of the patriarchal vegetarian household. These accounts are fascinating for their profoundly conflictual ethical logic, and they help establish the intimate and unexpected links among meat–eating, modern formations of masculine identity, and the gendered dynamics of the patriarchal Hindu household. Using the evidence of Gandhi’s autobiography, correspondence, journalism, and public addresses, in conjunction with the writings of his contemporaries, I map therefore a trajectory of his gastropolitics, from the carnophilic mandate of the early years (during which he associated meat–eating with nationalist duty and access to a kind of culinary virility), to the diasporic discovery of vegetarianism in London, and finally to the carefully elaborated alimentary rigours and public fasts of the later years. All of this helps to underline how profoundly somatic Gandhi’s ‘experiments in truth’ were, and how pronounced was his belief that the purification of the body was inseparable from the purification of the mind necessary for swaraj (self–rule).     

18th- and 19th-century shipyards at the south-east entrance to the West India Docks, London

Archaeological fieldwork in 1997 on the Isle of Dogs, at the south-east entrance to the West India Docks, recovered evidence of 17th- to 19th-century shipyards, associated activities and foreign trade. Reused timbers may be the remains of the 17th-century Rolt's yard. Reclamation along the natural inlet was accompanied by the construction of a timber dry dock probably in the late 18th century. This soon fell out of use and was filled in with the construction of new dry docks to the south in 1806 by Thomas Pitcher. Much of the debris dating to the first half of the 19th century from ship repairing and building and from a range of ancillary crafts, together with ceramics from Iberia and the Far East, probably came from Pitcher's yard.     

Microbiology of Concretions, Sediments and Mechanisms Influencing the Preservation of Submerged Archaeological Artifacts

Research conducted at deep-ocean ship wreck sites in the North Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea and in the Gulf of Mexico have revealed that microorganisms play a significant role in both the preservation and loss of submerged artifacts. Research to be reported concentrates on the influence of microbiologically induced concretions on the survival of maritime artifacts. Rusticles, a common form of concretion, have been found to provide valuable information to archeology (Garzke et al. 1997, Proceedings of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers). The role of rusticles in the preservation of recalcitrant materials such as coal and glass fragments that become embedded within these growths, as well as forensic chemical analysis can be used to determine the nature of goods or munitions being carried by the ship at the time of its sinking, and will form examples.     

Book reviews

C. Skinner (ed. and tr.) Ahmad Rijaluddin's Hikayat perinteh negeri Benggala. vi, 198 pp. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982. (Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal‐, Land‐ en Volkenkunde. Bibliotheca Indonesica, 22.)

J. A. de Moor (camp.). Indisch Militair Tijdschrift (1870–1942) a selective and annotated bibliography. [i], xiv, 236 pp. The Hague: Sectie Militaire Geschiedenis van de Landmachtstaf; Leiden: Centre for the History of European Expansion, 1983. (Bijdragen van de Sectie Militaire Geschiedenis No. 15; Intercontinenta, No. 4). Guilders 24.

A. Teeuw and S. O. Robson (ed. and tr.). Kuñjarakarna dharmakathana, Liberation through the law of the Buddha: an Old Javanese poem by Mpu Dusun. With a contribution on the reliefs of Candi Jago by A. J. Bernet Kempers. ix, 230 pp., 24 plates. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981. (Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal‐, Land‐ en Volkenkunde. Bibliotheca Indonesica, 21.) Guilders 90.

W. van der Molen. Javaanse tekstkritiek: een overzicht en een nieuwe benadering geillustreerd aan de Kunjarakarna. ix, 316 pp. Dordrecht: Foris Publications, 1983. (Verhandelingen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal‐, Land‐ en Volkenkunde, 102.) Guilders 30.

Jan B. Avé and others. West Kalimantan: a bibliography. By Jan B. Avé, Victor T. King, and Joke G. W. de Wit. x, 260 pp. Dordrecht: Foris Publications, 1983. (Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal‐, Land‐ en Volken‐kunde. Bibliographical Series, 13.) Guilders 30.     

State Expenditures and Policy Outcomes in Environmental Program Management

Comparative state environmental research seeks to explain the factors contributing to intergovernmental environmental management. In pursuing the answer to this query, researchers have relied on either fiscal (expenditures) or nonfiscal (ranking) measures of state environmental effort. Respecting the debate surrounding state policy outputs and fiscal versus nonfiscal measures, we evaluate comprehensive state environmental management comparing spending and ranking measures in our analysis. Though pronounced differences do exist between the two models, we find pollution and state size to be the primary factors affecting a state's environmental effort no matter which measure is used.