Tribe British Relations In India

This book discusses the colonial history of Tribe-British relations in India. It analyses colonial literature, as well as cultural and relational issues of pre-literate communities. It interrogates disciplinary epistemology through multidisciplinary engagement. It presents the temporal and spatial dimensions of tribal studies. The chapters critically examine colonial ideology and administration and civilization of tribes of India. Each paper introduces a unique context of Tribe-British interactions and provides an innovative approach, theoretical foundation, analytical tool and methodological insights in the emerging discipline of tribal studies. The book is of interest to researchers and scholars engaged in topics related to tribes.

The sixty years between 1773 and 1833 determined British paramountcy in India. Those years were formative too for British Eurasians. By the 1820s Eurasians were an identifiable and vocal community of significant numbers particularly in the main Presidency towns. They were valuable to the administration of government although barred in the main from higher office. The ambition of their educated elite was to be accepted as British subjects, not to be treated as native Indians, an ambition which was finally rejected in the 1830s.

An innovative account of how distinctive forms of colonial power and knowledge developed at the territorial fringes of British India. Thomas Simpson considers the role of frontier officials as surveyors, cartographers and ethnographers, military violence in frontier regions and the impact of the frontier experience on colonial administration.

This book presents multidisciplinary critical engagement in Tribe-British relations, the interfacing between colonial mind and tribal worldview, and some of their contemporary implications to conceptualise tribal space and mobilisation at national, regional, and native levels. The approach, argument, and theoretical underpinnings introduce a new perspective dimension of enquiry in tribal studies and enlarge its scope as a distinct academic discipline. It provides theoretical and methodological insights and an innovative analytical frame for a grand intellectual engagement beyond the boundary of conventional disciplines but within the interactive matrix of India’s social, cultural, political, religious, and economic space. The book is a pioneering work in the emerging field of tribal studies and a vital reference point for students and academics and non-academics alike who are engaged in tribal issues.

An extensive and authoritative report from 1884, written by a civil servant in Bengal during the British colonisation of India.

An immersive portrait of the lives of the British in India, from the seventeenth century to Independence Who of the British went to India, and why? We know about Kipling and Forster, Orwell and Scott, but what of the youthful forestry official, the enterprising boxwallah, the fervid missionary? What motivated them to travel halfway around the globe, what lives did they lead when they got there, and what did they think about it all? Full of spirited, illuminating anecdotes drawn from long-forgotten memoirs, correspondence, and government documents, The British in India weaves a rich tapestry of the everyday experiences of the Britons who found themselves in “the jewel in the crown” of the British Empire. David Gilmour captures the substance and texture of their work, home, and social lives, and illustrates how these transformed across the several centuries of British presence and rule in the subcontinent, from the East India Company’s first trading station in 1615 to the twilight of the Raj and Partition and Independence in 1947. He takes us through remote hill stations, bustling coastal ports, opulent palaces, regimented cantonments, and dense jungles, revealing the country as seen through British eyes, and wittily reveling in all the particular concerns and contradictions that were a consequence of that limited perspective. The British in India is a breathtaking accomplishment, a vivid and balanced history written with brio, elegance, and erudition.

Waziristan, a region on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, has in recent years become a flash point in the so-called 'War on Terror'. Hugh Beattie looks at the history of this region, examining British attempts to manage the tribes from 1849 until Pakistan's declaration of independence in 1947. He explores British attempts to divide the frontier region into separate British and Afghan spheres of influence. In the minds of British policymakers, this demarcation would secure the position of the Empire, and so Beattie highlights the various policy initiatives towards the frontier region over the period in question. Crucially, he analyses how the British perceived the local tribes, what constituted authority within tribal frameworks, and the military and political ramifications of these perceptions. As he also explores the contemporary relevance of this region, taking into account the resurgence of the Taliban in Waziristan, Beattie's analysis is vital for those interested in the history and security implications of the Afghan frontier with Pakistan.