Organizing Empire , livre ebook

Duke University Press - Bose Purnima Bose

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293 pages

English

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Organizing Empire critically examines how concepts of individualism functioned to support and resist British imperialism in India. Through readings of British colonial and Indian nationalist narratives that emerged in parliamentary debates, popular colonial histories, newsletters, memoirs, biographies, and novels, Purnima Bose investigates the ramifications of reducing collective activism to individual intentions. Paying particular attention to the construction of gender, she shows that ideas of individualism rhetorically and theoretically bind colonials, feminists, nationalists, and neocolonials to one another. She demonstrates how reliance on ideas of the individual-as scapegoat or hero-enabled colonial and neocolonial powers to deny the violence that they perpetrated. At the same time, she shows how analyses of the role of the individual provide a window into the dynamics and limitations of state formations and feminist and nationalist resistance movements.From a historically grounded, feminist perspective, Bose offers four case studies, each of which illuminates a distinct individualizing rhetorical strategy. She looks at the parliamentary debates on the Amritsar Massacre of 1919, in which several hundred unarmed Indian protesters were killed; Margaret Cousins's firsthand account of feminist organizing in Ireland and India; Kalpana Dutt's memoir of the Bengali terrorist movement of the 1930s, which was modeled in part on Irish anticolonial activity; and the popular histories generated by ex-colonial officials and their wives. Bringing to the fore the constraints that colonial domination placed upon agency and activism, Organizing Empire highlights the complexity of the multiple narratives that constitute British colonial history.

Sujets

Histoire

20th century

History of Asia

India

Informations

Publié par	Duke University Press
Date de parution	08 septembre 2003
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780822384885
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,1398€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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o r g a n i z i n g e m p i r e

purnima bose

orga ni z i ng e mp i re

Individualism, Collective Agency, and India

duke university pressΔ& london 2003 durham

∫2003 Duke University Press

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper$

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for basana and bibhuti basu,

in loving memory

∞

≤

≥

∂

c o n t e n t s

Acknowledgments, ix

Introduction, 1

Rogue-Colonial Individualism: General Dyer, Colonial Masculinity, Intentionality, and the Amritsar Massacre, 29

Feminist-Nationalist Individualism: Margaret Cousins, Activism, and Witnessing, 74

Heroic-Nationalist Individualism: Kalpana Dutt, Gender, and the Bengali ‘‘Terrorist’’ Movement, 128

Heroic-Colonial Individualism: Raj Nostalgia and the Recuperation of Colonial History, 169

Notes, 223

Bibliography, 251

Index, 265

a c k n o w l e d g m e n t s

This project started as a dissertation under the guidance of Barbara Harlow, with the able assistance of Elizabeth Butler Cullingford, Bernth Lindfors, Ann Cvetkovich, and Richard Lariviere. I consider myself par-ticularly fortunate to have studied with Barbara Harlow, whose geopoliti-cal and institutional analyses, intellectual fearlessness, and generosity of spirit continue to serve as a model. Without her persistent reminders of the necessity of examining the writing of Dutt and Cousins, combined with her ubiquitous deadlines, this project could not have been con-ceptualized or completed. Its central concern with organizing was very much inﬂuenced by the activist climate at the University of Texas at Austin during the late 1980s and early 1990s. A number of activists and academ-ics, in some cases both, commented on the manuscript at an early stage; for such input, I am grateful to Hossam Aboul-Ela, Danica Finley, Rachel Jennings, Laura E. Lyons, Luis Marentes, Louise Meintjes, Louis Men-doza, Supriya Nair, and S. Shankar. Other activists—in Austin and in Bloomington, Indiana—helped formulate the organizational questions which inform this study through their example, including Pedro Bustos-Aguilar, Steve Carr, Milton Fisk, Amber Gallup, Carrie Hattic, Suzanne Henry, Charley MacMartin, Kathy Mitchell, Hatem Natsheh, Ana Sisnett, Sandy Soto, and John Zuern. I am indebted to Bipasa Bose Nadon for aiding me with the legal research for chapter 1, Joginder and Harbans Bhola for generously pro-viding source material on the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, Jane Manaster for introducing me to tombs and tomes, Sangeeta Ray for her extremely helpful suggestions on chapter 3, and Fred Kameny for his excellent editorial advice. A number of my colleagues at Indiana University read and meticu-