bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Ideology of Tribal Economy and Society: Politics in the Jharkhand, 1950–1980
Authors: corbridge Stuart
Published: November 2008

In this paper I want to explore the implications of the rise and fall of Jharkhandi ethnoregionalism from the point of view of tribal policy and tribal politics in Independent India. More especially I want to examine an ideology of tribal economy and society which informs most existing accounts of Jharkhandi politics and which makes the case for a specifically ‘tribal’ policy. The main propositions of this ideology are recounted in Section One of this paper. They are (1) that the concept of a tribe is given and uproblematical; (2) that the tribals of South Bihar are the original inhaitants of the Jharkhand, where they still predominate (see Figure I); and (3) that tribal politics and tribal policies are effective because individual tribes are themselves undifferentiated, united and geographically concentrated. (A corollary of this third proposition is that any decline in Jharkhandi ethnoregionalism since the mid-1960s must be due to factional disputes within the tribal leadership and/or to inter-tribal clashes, perhaps along denominational lines). These three propositions are examined in Sections Two, Three and Four of the paper, where they are measured against the recent historical experience of India's Jharkhand. The implications of any shortcomings in the ideology of tribal economy and society are taken up in the concluding section of the paper where comments are offered, too, on an alternative ‘model’ of tribal policy and politics in the Jharkhand.
Banker's Trust and the Culture of Banking among the Nattukottai Chettiars of Colonial South India
Authors: Rudner David
Published: November 2008

The notion of ‘banker's trust’ has a paradoxical quality, like ‘burning cold’ or ‘military intelligence.’ Common sense (another paradoxical notion) tells us that bankers have no trust. Perhaps this explains the appeal of Marxist and Weberian assumptions that capitalist economies tend to destroy pre-capitalist social formations based on trust. From the classic perspective, ‘primordial’ social ties mandate relations of trust (or something like them) in kin groups and castes only so long as the members of these groups do not operate directly—as bankers do—within a capitalist economic system.
Mughal Diplomacy in Gujarat (1533–1534) in Correia's ‘Lendas da India’
Authors: DesouliÈres Alain
Published: November 2008

The object of this paper is to comment and analyse some passages of Correia's Lendas da India, Book III, Year 1534, relating to Mughal diplomacy and diplomatic letters immediately before the Gujarat campaign by the Mughal emperor Humayun, against Bahadur Shah Gujarati in 1534–35.
The Pillars of Empire: Indigenous Assistance and the Survival of the ‘Estado da India’ c. 1600–1700
Authors: Scammell G. V.
Published: November 2008

If the establishment of the Estado da India in the early sixteenth century owed much to indigenous aid, its survival in the ensuing two hundred years owed even more. The centuries after 1600 were indeed sad ones for imperial Portual. The mother country itself was under Spanish rule until 1640, whilst its colonies and colonial trades were everywhere attacked, and more often than not annexed by European rivals. Nowhere was the picture more depressing than in Asia where the heirs of da Gama and Albuquerque had to contend frist with the English and the Dutch and then with a whole host of indigenous opponents ranging from the ever formidable Japanese to the Mughals and the Marathas under the redoubtable Shivaji, once innocently hailed as another Ceaser, but soon identified as the ‘new Attila’. Portuguese correspondence is full of eloquent descriptions of the lamentable condition of the Estado. Trade was at a standstill; war was ubiquitous; food was at the mercy of enemies; manpower was inadequate; the funds inevitably exhausted. In fact, under competent management, the surviving fragments of empire might well show a profit, as was the case in 1680. But not for long. Four years later there was talk of quitting Goa, too large and vulnerable to defend, and by the end of the century it was gloomily reported that all that remained of the erstwhile imperial glories were Goa, its local seaborne commerce, and what was described as ‘the convoy of the China boats’.
Postscript to an Odyssey: More Light on Manuel Godinho
Authors: Correia-Afonso John
Published: November 2008

A decade has passed since there appeared the fourth and latest edition of that great classic of travel literature, the Relaçāo do Novo Caminho Que Fez por Terra e Mar Vindo da India para Portugal no Ano de 1663 o Padre Manuel Godinho da Companhia de Jesus. It is a very methodical and elegant composition, the work of a man of culture who was also a keen observer. As the censor's certificate of approval in the first edition says, it can provide ‘useful recreation’ and also serve as ‘a guide-map for similar journeys, as in the case of navigations the experience of others has left us sailing charts.’
Persians, Pilgrims and Portuguese: The Travails of Masulipatnam Shipping in the Western Indian Ocean, 1590–1665
Authors: Subrahmanyam Sanjay
Published: November 2008

The Coromandel port of Masulipatnam, at the northern extremity of the Krishna delta, rose to prominence as a major centre of maritime trade in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. Its growing importance after about 1570 is explicable in terms of two sets of events: first, the consolidation of the Sultanate of Golkonda under Ibrahim Qutb Shah (r. 1550–1580), and second, the rise within the Bay of Bengal of a network of ports with a distinctly anti-Portuguese character, including the Sumatran centre of Aceh, the ports of lower Burma, of Arakan, as well as Masulipatnam itself. Round about 1550, Masulipatnam was no more than a supplier of textiles on the coastal network to the great port of Pulicat further south, but by the early 1580s its links with Pegu and Aceh had grown considerably, causing not a little alarm in the upper echelons of the administration of the Portuguese Estado da Índia at Goa. The ‘Moors’ who owned and operated ships out of Masulipatnam did so without the benefit of carlazes from the Portuguese captains either at São Tomé or at any other neighbouring port, and while developing an intense trade within the Bay of Bengal, strictly avoided the Portuguese-controlled entrepot at Melaka. The Portuguese in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries were heavily involved in it in western India and a recent study has marshalled evidence from Portuguese sources on the mechanics of that trade in a port on the Kanara coast.2 In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with the entry into the Indian Ocean of the large Chartered Companies, evidence on the grain trade is substantially increased, enabling us to see it in sharper focus in the broad canvas of Asian trade. the port was no more than a minor nuisance, and in the engagements that ensued, the Portuguese frequently had the worst of it, subsequently negotiating to recover prisoners lodged at Masulipatnam or at the court in Golkonda.2 However, by about 1590, the tenor of the relationship between the viceregal administration at Goa and the court at Golkonda had begun to show signs of change
Las Yslas de Esperar en Dios: The Jesuit Mission in Moro 1546–1571
Authors: Villiers John
Published: November 2008

The numerous and voluminous reports and letters which the Jesuits wrote on the Moro mission, as on all their missions in Asia, are perhaps of less interest to us now for what they reveal of the methods adopted by the Society of Jesus in this remote corner of their mission field or the details they contain about the successes and failures of individual missionaries, than for the wealth of information they provide on the islands where the Jesuits lived and the indigenous societies with which they came into contact through their work of evangelization. In other words, it is not theprimary purpose of this essay to analyse the Jesuit documents with a view to reconstructing the history of the Moro mission in narrative form but rather to glean from them some of the informationthey contain about the social and political conditions in Moro during the forty years or so in the sixteenth century when both the Jesuit missionaries and the Portuguese were active in the regio Because the Jesuits were often in close touch with local rulers and notables, whether or not they succeeded in converting them to Christianity, and because they lived among their subjects for long
periods, depending upon them for the necessities of life and sharing their hardships, their letters and reports often show a deeper understanding of the social, economic and political conditions of the indigenous societies and, one suspects, give a more accurate and measured account of events and personalities than do the official chroniclers and historians of the time, most of whom never ventured further east than Malacca and who in any case were chiefly concerned to glorify the deeds of the Portuguese and justify their actions to the world.
Of Fortresses and Galleys the 1568 Acehnese Siege of Melaka, after a Contemporary Bird's-eye View
Authors: Manguin Pierre-Yves
Published: November 2008

The city of Melaka, owing to her occupation by the Portuguese, has the privilege of being the most thoroughly described sixteenth and early seventeenth-century Southeast Asian urban centre, both in textual and iconographic sources. There are some ten to twelve known Portuguese sketches depicting various aspects of the city; ground plans of the fortress, plans of the whole city, maps of the city and its surroundings, or else panoramic views representing specific events in Melaka's history, such as the sieges by Aceh in 1568 or in 1629.
Female Roles in Pre-colonial Southeast Asia
Authors: Reid Anthony
Published: November 2008

Relations between the sexes are one of the areas in which a distinctive Southeast Asian pattern exists. Even the gradual strengthening of the influence of Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and Confucianism in their respective spheres over the last four centuries has by no means eliminated this common pattern of relatively high female autonomy and economic importance. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the region probably represented one extreme of human experience on these issues. It could not be said that women wereequalto men, since there were very few areas in which they competed directly. Women had different functions from men, but these included transplanting and harvesting rice, weaving, and marketing. Their reproductive role gave them magical and ritual powers which it was difficult for men to match. These factors may explain why the value of daughters was never questioned in Southeast Asia as it was in China, India, and the Middle East; on the contrary, ‘the more daughters a man has, the richer he is’ (Galvão, 1544: 89; cf. Legazpi, 1569: 61).
Jawaharlal Nehru and Planning, 1938–41: India at the Crossroads
Authors: Chakrabarty Bidyut
Published: November 2008

The modern state is interventionist, and planning is an effective means to ascertain its control over the entire social process. As an operational tool, planning seems formidable to structure the role of the state in accordance with its ideological underpinning. Therefore, not only is planning as an instrument tuned to economic regeneration, it is inextricably tied to the regime's political preference as well. The aim here is not to argue for a deterministic network between planning and the ideological slant of the regime and its leadership and viceversa, but to show the complex interdependence which entails, at the same time, an interplay of various pulls and pressures in a rapidly changing social fabric. Colonial India provides us with a political system embedded in both the age-old and primordial value system and various other cultural influences which, inter alia reflected the system's absorption of alien value preferences. This obviously was not a smooth process, for India which drew on loyalties based on primordial ties strove to absorb new stimuli which had their roots in a completely different socio-political and economic environment; the result being tension among those presiding over the destiny of the country which had its reflection in the political discourse of the day. By concentrating on planning which, among other things, strove to transform India from a traditional to a modern society, the paper seeks to explain the difficulty facing the Congress stalwarts, Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose in particular, despite their confidence in planning as the only instrument to rejuvenate India after the British withdrawal.
Bombay Films: The Cinema as Metaphor for Indian Society and Politics
Authors: Ahmed Akbar S.
Published: November 2008

It is difficult to distinguish between art and life in South Asian society; they no longer imitate each other but appear to have merged. Political philosophies, social values, group behaviour, speech and dress in society are reflected in the cinema and, like a true mirror, reflect back in society. Furthermore, film stars cross over from their fantasy world into politics to emerge as powerful figures guiding the destiny of millions. It is thus possible to view the cinema as a legitimate metaphor for society; this perception helps us to understand society better.
Fang Zhimin, Jingdezhen and the Northeast Jiangxi Soviet
Authors: Dillon Michael
Published: November 2008

In June 1930, units of the 10th Red Army, which had been formed in northeastern Jiangxi by Fang Zhimin and Shao Shiping, entered the ancient porcelain town of Jingdezhen. The capture of the town brought the modern revolutionary politics of the Chines Communits Party (CCP) into contact with the local government and trades union organizations of a conservative, traditionally-minded town. Jingdezhen remained under the influence of the Red Army from 1930 until the strategic withdrawal from the Northeast Jiangxi Soviet in 1933 which was the forerunner of the complete withdrawal from the Jiangxi base areas and the Long March. There is ample information on the organization of the N.E. Jiangxi Soviet base and its best-known leader, Fang Zhimin, but most studies concentrate on the political structure of the Soviet government, the career and personality of Fang and the peasant milieu in which the Soviet emerged.1 Jingdezhen was not a peasant society or a major city: it was an intermediate small town world with part of the population permanently resident and many seasonal workers from the rural areas who provided a link with peasant communities.
European Exiles, Renegades and Outlaws and the Maritime Economy of Asia c.1500–1750
Authors: Scammell G. V.
Published: November 2008

For centuries Europeans were fascinated by rumours and legends of the wealth and wonders of the Orient and by stories of the supposed existence there of realms free from all those tiresome taboos and restrictions that prevailed in the West. Long before the arrival of Vasco da Gama, renegades were serving the Mongols in Iran and Marco Polo had been in the entourage of the Grand Khan himself. The Portuguese pioneers were disconcerted to encounter in 1501 a certain Benvenuto de Abano who had spent the previous twenty-five years sailing the seas of Asia, and his contemporary, the Muslim Khoja Safar Salmâni, an erstwhile Genoese or Albanian. But this was nothing compared with the flow that followed western penetration of the maritime economy of the East, scattering European adventurers and outlaws throughout the Orient anywhere from the shores of the Persian Gulf to those of the Pacific Ocean. And very soon these hopefuls were joined by European pirates, some working from ports in their mother countries, some from the Caribbean and North America, and some from bases in the Indian Ocean, of which Madagascar was, according to taste, the most celebrated or the most notorious. Such men, frequently of remarkable skills and fearsome abilities, exercised a considerable influence on the maritime history of the East in the early modern centuries, and it is with the origins, aspirations and activities of these elusive—indeed often anonymous—but nevertheless highly significant figures that this paper is concerned.
Big Fish in Small Ponds: The Exercise of Power in a Nineteenth-century Philippine Municipality
Authors: Bankoff Greg
Published: November 2008

The basic administrative unit in the Spanish Philippines was thepuebloor municipal township. The pueblo encompassed both settled and unsettled districts within its geographical boundaries. The town centre Known as thepoblaciónwas the largest single residential zone within the municipality but was surrounded by smaller satellite communities. Beyond these areas of settlement were the sparsely populated regions of swamp, forest, plain or mountain. Size varied enormously both in geographical extent and population density from a few hundred families clustered in a single village or barangay in frontier areas to many tens of thousands of persons spread over a number of settlements in the lowland provinces of Luzon and the central Visayas.2 The administrative boundaries of one pueblo, however, bordered upon another so that all areas under Spanish suzerainty fell within one or other of these municipalities.
Strategic Space: Exclusion and Inclusion in Wildland Policies in Late Imperial China
Authors: Menzies Nicholas K.
Published: November 2008

Wildlands have attracted the attention of national governments, not only for the natural resources they contain, but also as land available for settlement or as the home of marginalized populations, a potential source of disorder. Some countries have attempted to maintain control over wildlands and their resources by excluding people from them. The historical record of government policies towards wildlands in Late Imperial China Shows that wildlands had more symbolic and strategic value to the authorities than economic value. In this case, policies adopted an alternative strategy of filling the ‘strategic space’ represented by wildlands, bringing them more closely into the cultural and economic orbit of the centre by settlement–the policy of inclusion.
The Politics of Indian Secularism
Authors: Upadhyaya Prakash Chandra
Published: November 2008

Indian newspapers and academic journals assault their readers with stories of large-scale communal violence and of the communalization of India's political institutions. These stories are frequently accompanied by pious editorials which enact the well-known Indian ritual of paying lip-service to the concept of ‘secularism’. Secularism is one question on which intellectuals have made common cause with social workers and politicians, joining them in meetings and seminars, even participating in the peace marches which are commonly organized in the aftermath of communal riots. There have even been occasions in which individuals who are known to have been involved, directly or otherwise, in communal battles, have participated in these rites of secularism.
The Freerider and the Cartel: Siam and the International Tin Restriction Agreements, 1931–1941
Authors: Hillman John
Published: November 2008

Resource cartels face a fundamental organizational problem. While production control can secure higher prices, these are enjoyed by all producers, regardless of whether they are members of the cartel or not. Those who take the benefits without making a contribution to its costs are freeriders, and they can destroy the conditions under which effective collective action is possible. If resource cartels are to make an important contribution to improving the terms under which peripheral nations participate in the world economy, it is important for them to find ways of resolving the freerider issue.
The Seventeenth-Century Crisis in Southeast Asia
Authors: Reid Anthony
Published: November 2008

The notion that the series of alarming events in Europe in the first half of the seventeenth century might be connected goes back at least as far as Voltaire. Professional historians of Europe during the past forty years have fixed on this period as the principal case to test the idea that societies can undergo a ‘general crisis’, in which agricultural, demographic, climatic, economic, military and political factors are interrelated (Hobsbawm 1954; Trevor-Roper 1959; Aston 1965; Parker and Smith 1978; Parker 1979). For some this was the crisis of the transition to capitalism, for others that of the absolutist state, while more recent commentators have put more emphasis on climatic and environmental factors. The causal connections between the various factors remain the most puzzling unresolved problem.
Transport and Territorial Development in China 1949–1985
Authors: Comtois Claude
Published: November 2008

In recent years, China has adopted new strategies for economic development. These strategies seek increased productivity and effectiveness in the use of resources. Spatially regions specialize in the lines of production for which they have comparative advantages. And the coastal areas are experiencing an accelerated economic growth. The policy, however, operates under various constraints. First, the material base for development is a finite one and resources are very unevenly distributed across the landscape. Second, this development strategy depends to a certain extent on a substantial increase in China's foreign trade. As a result important investments are conceded to the transport sector. In the present context, is this strategy optimizing the use of available resources? The answer which is tentatively accepted here as a working hypothesis rests on the contradictory aspect of the concept of accessibility. Essentially all systems of transport and their networks generate territorial contradictions; and the resolution of these contradictions points to the direction of territorial development. The present analysis will focus on the geographic environment of China as a determining factor in the establishment of transport networks, followed by the history and performance of China's transport system within the confines of this paradigm. The objective of this paper is twofold: first, toexplore the role of transportation in territorial development, and second, to understand that transport systems do not solely reflect the physical conditions of a territory as an objective reality but also political ideologies which are forged to a certain extent by this reality.
Mass Movement, Famine and Epidemic A Study in Interrelationship
Authors: Kooiman Dick
Published: November 2008

Meenakshipuram is a small, dusty village in Tamilnadu's Tinnevelly (Tirunelveli) district, very close to the south Kerala border. In 1981 this inconspicuous place, and several other villages in its immediate vicinity, made big headlines in the Indian daily papers when thousands of harijans or ex-untouchables decided to leave Hinduism and to embrace Islam. This spectacular case of mass conversion created a terrible shock among caste Hindus and threatened to upset the always precarious communal balance. Rumours circulated about Arabian sheikhs who had come to give tangible expression to the immense richness of Islamic belief by handsome distributions of oildollars. More serious investigation, however, showed that the harijans in this region had been suffering from oppression by aggressive landlords, harassment by police authorities and acute prejudices by caste Hindus for a very long time. A growing awareness of this social degradation has led many of these harijans to convert to Islam.
Coping with the World Depression: The Nationalist Government's Relations with Chinese Industry and Commerce, 1932–1936
Authors: Wright Tim
Published: November 2008

The relationship between state and society has recently attracted increasing interest (Skocpol 1985). In many cases, particularly in Asia and the ‘third world’, the question has been posed in terms of how far the state's economic policies reflect the (real or perceived) interests of the capitalist class, or whether the state and its personnel act as an autonomous force above society pursuing policies irrelevant or even inimical to capitalist interests.
The Karakoram Highway: The Impact of Road Construction on Mountain Societies
Authors: Kreutzmann Hermann
Published: November 2008

The opening up of regions in the high mountains for motorized traffic has led world-wide to consequences concerning the penetration of these formerly remote areas.

Not only have running-times and means of transport been reduced through the modern routes, but also radical developments in the mountains have been induced. In this context physio-geographical and socio-political frame conditions are of predominant importance for the installation of functional communication systems. Especially in the high mountain regions of Asia relief, snow-covers in passes, glacial movements, earthquakes, water level fluctuations of rivers at fords and limited possibilities of fuel, fodder and foodstuff supplies all restrict the chances for the development of major trade routes.
The Control of Fate and Fortune: The Origins of the Market Mentality in British Administrative Thought in South Asia
Authors: Rabitoy Neil
Published: November 2008

One basic phenomenon characterized administrative development in the Bombay Presidency between 1800 and 1820: a fundamental transformation in the British administrative mentality. In brief, this transformation amounted to a shift, completed by 1813, from a cautious conservatism to one of innovation for the sake of administrative regularity. This shift can in part be explained as the natural product of the territorial cessions by the Marathas to the Bombay Government in 1802–3: Bombay ceased from that date to be solely a commercial presidency and became a government with territorial responsibility. It took about a decade for this new role to be fully accepted and to be reflected in the attitudes of Bombay administrators.
Social Support Base and Electoral Politics: The Congress in Colonial Southeast Punjab
Authors: Chowdhry Prem
Published: November 2008

The weakest hold of the Indian National Congress in the colonial period was in the province of Punjab. The strength and domination of the National Unionist Party and the limited support and response afforded to the various nationalist movements highlight the weakness of the Congress especially in its southeast region, now known, after being carved out as a separate state on the 1st of November 1966, as Haryana.
‘Communities at the Polls’: Electoral Politics and the Mobilization of Communal Groups in Travancore
Authors: Chiriyankandath James
Published: November 2008

Modern Kerala presents us with a paradox: the state, best known to the outside world for its association with communism, is also where communalism has, arguably, found its most complex political expression. This raises tantalizing questions about the part considerations of class and community have played in the evolution of state politics. The aim of this paper is shed light on a little explored aspect of the background to the Kerala conundrum—the way in which politicians before independence mobilized communal support in elections.
Whither Indian Secularism?
Authors: Madan T. N.
Published: November 2008

The present paper seeks ‘to explore the nature of Indian secularism, the difficulties it has run into, and the ways in which it may be revised’. This is a large undertaking for a short text, originally written as public lecture, particularly because the issues posed do nopt readily translate into plain questions. The most that I can hope to do is to raise some doubts and make a few suggestions for rethinking the issues involved.
The Hanafi Law of Interstate Succession: A Simplified Approach
Authors: Carroll Lucy
Published: November 2008

There is no part of the sacred law … which is regarded with such pride by Muslims, or has been worked out by their jurists in such extravagant detail, such meticulous precision or such a spirit of religious devotion. There is even a famous dictum attributed to the Prophet that a knowledge of the shares allotted to the various heirs under this system is equivalent to half the sum total of human knowledge.
The Ideological History of the Sri Lankan ‘Peasantry’
Authors: Moore Mick
Published: November 2008

The Sri Lankan rural economy has long been categorized into a plantation sector producing tea, rubber and some coconuts for export, and a smallholder sector producing mainly food, especially rice, for domestic consumption. While incomplete, this dichotomy is still usable. One of the significant features of Sri Lankan rural history over the past half century has been a partial transfer of tea and rubber production from the plantation sector to the smallholder sector. In this and in related respects the traditional plantation-smallholder dichotomy has been weakening. Yet in another important respect there has been no convergence between the two sectors. The plantation sector has remained fully capitalist in the commonsense meaning of that term, while capitalist relations of production appear to have made few further inroads into the smallholder sector. True that a great deal of the labour used in smallholder production is hired. But that has long been the case. The evidence suggests that since World War Two the small family farm has at least held its own as the dominant form under which land is owned and managed. This has happened despite rapid population growth on a terrain already densely populated.
Technology Transfer in Modern China: The Case of Railway Enterprise (1876–1937)
Authors: Jui-Te Chang
Published: November 2008

Most contemporary scholars involved in economic development research think that the government should be playing an important role in the technology transfer being carried out in developing countries. However, during the end of the Ch'ing Dynasty no plan for large-scale technology transfer was made owing to financial difficulties, and railways were the only enterprise which proceeded at a constant rate. At the end of the Ch'ing Dynasty railways, in the eyes of government officials and the gentry, would widely promote the development of various sectors as well as benefit the national defense to help reach the objective of making China strong and wealthy. After more than half a century of development railway construction made considerable progress in China, and according to statistics in 1933 a total mileage of more than 10,000 kilometers covering 19 provinces had been constructed. Assets reached $860 million yuan and liabilities were more than 1.2 billion. Although still a very minor operation compared to other industrialized countries, this was the largest enterprise in modern China, transporting 45 million passengers and 27 kilotons of cargo annually, employing 120,000 people. Operating income reached $148 million yuan and output, $160 million yuan.
On Estimating the Employment Implications of European Trade for the Eighteenth Century Bengal Textile Industry—A Reply
Authors: Prakash Om
Published: November 2008

Elsewhere in this number, Sushil Chaudhury has provided a critique of a part of Chapter VIII of my book The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal 1630–1720 (Princeton University Press, 1985). An earlier version of this part of the chapter had appeared as ‘Bullion for Goods: European Trade and the Economy of Early Eighteenth Century Bengal’ in The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 1976. Chaudhury is worried about the bad influence I have had on fellow researchers such as Michael Twomey who have found it useful to follow in their own work the methodology that I had developed. Chaudhury is even more concerned about the use of my work and of the conclusions I had arrived at by fellow scholars such as Peter Marshall, Niels Steensgaard and John Richards.
Chinese Communist Policy Toward the United States and the Myth of the ‘Lost Chance’ 1948–1950
Authors: Sheng Michael M.
Published: November 2008

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Sino-Soviet conflict intensified and at the same time the Sino-American rapprochement was well under way. When the Americans began to search for an answer to the question of ‘Why Vietnam’, some US foreign relation documents in the later 1940s were released, which indicated that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had made certain friendly overtures toward the United States. Since then, it has become a widely-accepted interpretation among scholars that Washington ‘lost a chance’ to win over the CCP from Moscow in the late 1940s. The fundamental premise of this interpretation is that the CCP earnestly bid for American friendship and support as a counterweight to pressure from the Soviet Union. It is argued that the CCP sincerely sought the US recognition right up to the middle of and that it was only after their bids for American support were rejected by Washington that the Communists had to choose the ‘lean-to-one-side’ policy. In short, Washington's shortsighted policy in 1949 ‘forced Beijing into Moscow's embrace’, and therefore set in motion a train of disastrous events: the Korean War and the Vietnam War. A promising postwar Asian balance in favour of the US was ruined.
Foreign Influences on Bengali Revolutionary Terrorism 1902–1908
Authors: Heehs Peter
Published: November 2008

Writing to John Morley, the Secretary of State for India, a few days after the first terrorist bomb was thrown by a Bengali, the Viceroy Lord Minto declared that the conspirators aimed ‘at the furtherance of murderous methods hitherto unknown in India which have been imported from the West, and which the imitative Bengali has childishly accepted’.This notion later was taken up and developed byTimescorrespondent Valentine Chirol, who wrote that Bengalis had ‘of all Indians been the most slavish imitators of the West, as represented, at any rate, by the Irish Fenian and the Russian anarchist’. Chirol went on to say that ‘European works on various periods of revolutionary history figure almost invariably amongst seizures of a far more compromising character whenever the Indian police raids some centre of Nationalist activity.’ This indicated that Bengali revolutionary terrorism was simply a takeoff on the European variety. The only indigenous element in it was the dangerous infusion of Hindu religious fanaticism.
Towards a ‘Hindoo Marriage’. Anglo-Indian Monetary Relations in Interwar India, 1917–35
Authors: Balachandren G.
Published: November 2008

A puzzling feature of interwar Anglo-Indian economic relations is the contrast between Whitehall's relatively hands-off attitude to Indian tariff policies, and its insistent hands-on approach to monetary policy issues in the colony. Both sets of issues were, at various times, equally contentious. But while Britain's strategic objectives in India paved the way for the Fiscal Autonomy Convention, the road towards a similar monetary ‘convention’ was never taken. Rather, thanks to Britain's external financial problems, the interwar decades saw initially a tightening, and later a refinement, of London's control over Indian monetary policies. This paper hopes to set out the processes at work more clearly than has been attempted before, and to account for them. The interpretation offered here is consistent with the ‘gentlemanly capitalism’ explanation of British imperialism during the interwar years, and of the postwar de-colonization process.
Yokoi Shōnan's Response to the Foreign Intervention in Late Tokugawa Japan, 1853–1862
Authors: Miyauchi D. Y.
Published: November 2008

This Article deals with the turbulent years in Japan from 1853 to 1862, during which Yokoi Shōnan, a middle-ranking scholar–samurai from Kumamoto in Higo province in central Kyushu, was to gain national renown as a fearless, forthright thinker. This was Japan's first desperate crisis from abroad since the Mongol invasions in the late thirteenth century, a crisis which was to set in motion the final disintegration of the once mighty Tokugawa power in Japan.
The North-east Frontier of India
Authors: Choudhury Deba Prosad
Published: November 2008

The north-east frontier of India has today become a controversial issue between India and China. It is well known that this frontier is inhabited by many tribes. They are different from the plainsmen of Assam and, like the Tibetans, Mongoloid in origin. This has led some people to argue that they are far closer to Tibetans than to Indians, or that they are not Indian in any sense of the word. Such arguments are based on the assumption that the people of India do not include people of Mongoloid origin. But there are many Indians who are Mongoloid, especially those who live in the hills of Assam south of the Brahmaputra. And in such important respects as religion, dress and methods of building, the people of the north-east frontier of India are far closer to the hilimen living south of the Brahmaputra than to Tibetans. On ethnic grounds therefore it cannot be said that this frontier area is a part of Tibet rather than of India.
Indigenous Assistance in the Establishment of Portuguese Power in Asia in the Sixteenth Century
Authors: Scammell G. V.
Published: November 2008

The rapid expansion of European power throughout much of the world in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was a matter of wonder at the time, just as its causes have remained a subject of contention ever since. To pious contemporaries it was simply the natural triumph of the True Faith over pagan and infidel. Hernán Cortés, the conqueror of Mexico, wrote of his ‘just war’ against the tyrant Aztec emperor and his people addicted to unspeakable practices. Freedom to navigate the Indian Ocean, maintained João de Barros, the chronicler of Portuguese triumphs, was properly denied by his compatriots to those ignorant of Christianity and Roman Law. More recently, subtler explanations have come into fashion. The penetration by Portugal (with about 1,500,000 inhabitants) of the maritime economy of Asia (sustaining populations of millions), and the destruction by Castile (with a population of about 7,500,000) of the Aztec empire, some 27,000,000 strong, were the victories of superior morale. Europeans, with their will to win, overcame the adherents of stoic, passive and pessimistic religions, or, as M. Chaunu unkindly puts it, quality triumphed over quantity.3 Equally all-embracing is the thesis that meat-eating Iberian warriors had a natural advantage over the troops of civilizations whose grain-based diets were deficient in protein, or that Europeans, with their superior technology-their firearms and their sailing ships mounting artillery— were the predestined winners in any conflict with the less technologically advanced.4 The aim of this paper is to suggest that such arguments have little to commend them, and that European success very largely came from the adept exploitation of conflicts and divisions in indigenous societies, and from the securing of indigenous aid. Such behaviour reflects the pragmatic approach of European commanders in the field, typified by Afonso de Albuquerque, the captor of Goa–future capital of the Estado da India–who there pressed into service all from local dancing girls and musicians to war elephants and mercenaries.5 But such proceedings also reflect the attitudes of an age highly conscious, through resurgent knowledge of the classics, of the virtues of statecraft, just as they reflect, of course, the willingness of some elements in non- European societies to come to terms, for a variety of reasons, with alien intruders.
Yoshizawa Kenkichi and the Soviet—Japanese Non-aggression Pact Proposal
Authors: Bridges Brian
Published: November 2008

While the developments leading up to the signature of the Soviet—Japanese Neutrality Pact in April 1941 have received considerable attention from scholars, the antecedents of this pact, the discussions between Japan and Soviet Russia over non-aggression or neutrality agreements from the mid-1920s onwards, are less widely known. The most significant of the earlier initiatives came in December 1931, when Soviet Foreign Commissar, Maxim Litvinov, proposed a pact of non-aggression to the Japanese Foreign Minister designate, Yoshizawa Kenkichi. Subsequently, at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, a Soviet legal expert was to argue that the Japanese refusal to accept this proposal was proof of their aggressive plans for war on the Soviet Union.
Japan's Position before the Outbreak of the European War in September 1939
Authors: Sato Kyozo
Published: November 2008

In the years leading up to the outbreak of war in Europe in early September 1939 Japan had been busy tackling the commitments she had made in North China at first and then in the whole of China. Although war was not declared, Japan had been at war with China since July 1937. It was a war of attrition; both Japan and China claimed to be winning, yet neither could, on any occasion, see any prospect of a final and definite victory. So long as Japan's military operations were confined to the area of North China, the war was named the ‘North China Incident.’ It was called the ‘China Incident’ after her successive and more or less successful operations had spread to Central and South China. And when a war broke out in the Pacific in December 1941 the Sino-Japanese war became an inseparable part of the ‘Greater East Asia War’ (Dai-tōa sensō), a name rarely heard by now, since it soon gave way to the ‘Pacific War’ (Taiheiyō sensō) in the sense of Japan waging the war of the Ocean, or to the ‘Second World War’ in the global sense.
The Imperial Coronation of 1819: Awadh, the British and the Mughals
Authors: Fisher Michael H.
Published: November 2008

The interaction among the expanding British, the regional rulers of the Gangetic plain, and Mughal Emperors stands central to Indian history during the first half of the nineteenth century. Each of these three groups determined to advance its own political and cultural values in the face of the conflicting expectations and assumptions of the other two. The English East India Company regarded itself as under the authority of the British Parliament and the sovereignty of the British crown. At the same time, the Company continued nominally to acknowledge the sovereignty of the Mughal Emperor, at least in India. The various regional rulers of north India, most prominently the rulers of the province of Awadh, acted and apparently perceived themselves as de facto independent of the Mughals while also symbolically submitted to Mughal sovereignty. The Mughal Emperors, whose power to command armies had faded to nothingness during the last half of the eighteenth century, continued to pretend to absolute sovereignty over virtually all of India until 1858. Each of these three groups wished to see the 1819 imperial coronation by the Awadh ruler as an overt proof of their own cultural values and of their understanding of their relationships to the others.
Joining the Club: the Japanese Question and Anglo-American Peace Diplomacy, 1950–1951
Authors: Buckley Roger
Published: November 2008

The Japanese question was denned by British diplomats as the search for the earliest possible international agreement by which Japan might regain its sovereignty. It proved to be a protracted task with ramifications for Anglo-American cooperation elsewhere in east Asia. The evidence from newly available British and American records suggests that previous views on the international aspects of the Japanese peace process may have to be revised and that the degree of amity displayed by both sides on occasion deserves to be noted. The British files partly bear out President Truman's remark on being presented with a progress report on Anglo-American peace conversations that it was refreshing to learn of one Asian issue on which the two powers appeared to be working together.
Political Parties, Factions, and Corruption in Thailand
Authors: Ockey James
Published: November 2008

The first reason [for the coup] is the act of corruption. The national administrative party [i.e. the civilian government] has taken the opportunity to make use of its political posts and authority to vigorously and unprecedentedly seek benefit for itself and its companions. It has become normal practice for most of the cabinet ministers to seek money to build up their status and wealth in order to support their political power base. During the consideration of potential large-and medium-scale projects, politicians at the government level played a role in pushing for them to materialize by claiming that the public will benefit from each project. In fact, it is only a sophisticated way to seek benefits. Despite knowledge of extensive corruption among the politicians at the Cabinet level and among government officials and certain high-ranking state enterprise officials, the prime minister as head of the government has not seriously attempted to solve the problem. Moreover, the prime minister has even committed such inappropriate acts himself, by claiming various reasons to conceal corruption…. Corruption has escalated quickly and vigorously, beyond anyone's ability to stop its spread…
The Nilgiri Tribal Systems: A View From Below
Authors: Bird-David Nurit
Published: November 2008

In 1980, the Nilgiris of Tamil Nadu were chosen to be India's first biosphere reserve under theMan and the Environmentprogram launched by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in an attempt to conserve for study examples of characteristic eco-systems from each of the world's natural regions. Scholastic interest from a broad spectrum of disciplines has turned, therefore, to the Nilgiris, and it has become apparent that although the Nilgiris have been studied extensively, anthropological attention has been uneven and parts of the region have been grossly understudied. The present paper intends to provide a foundation for filling this gap in the Nilgiri scholarship.
The Impact of the Cultural Revolution in China on the Mongolians of Inner Mongolia
Authors: Sneath David
Published: November 2008

A number of papers have been written in the west on the subject of the Cultural Revolution in Inner Mongolia. Hyer and Heaton's (1968) account of the period in the China Quarterly deals with events up until 1968, and relies heavily upon an analysis of the news reports broadcast by Radio Inner Mongolia at that time. The paper focuses upon the fate of Ulanhu, the Chairman of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region who fell from power during the Cultural Revolution. Hyer and Heaton are concerned primarily with the power struggles within the political apparatus, and they include no first-hand or eyewitness accounts. The paper gives no indication of the effects of the Cultural Revolution upon the great bulk of the population of the I.M.A.R., either Mongolian or Han Chinese. However, the article does carefully document the rapidly changing tide of Inner Mongolian government policy and the emergence of populist groups which challenged the political establishment, over the period 1965 to 1968.
The Thin End of the Wedge Medical Relativities as a Paradigm of Early Modern Indian–European Relations
Authors: Pearson M. N.
Published: November 2008

The Rise of the West, the creation of the Third World, the beginnings of disparity between Asia and Europe, or whatever other phrase is used, is obviously the great event of world history; hence the attempts to explain and date it, going back to the time when the Rise was actually beginning in the later eighteenth century. The literature is vast, complex and mostly of high quality. Some of it is concerned with causation—how did ‘the West’ get ahead, why did ‘Asia’ fall back or perhaps just stay the same? Others are interested in trying to date the beginnings of inequality—when can we see the beginnings of dominance, where did this occur and in which sectors of human life was this first to be seen? The first matter is, of course, the more important for an historian. It has been argued that, in the most general way, the fundamental cause of the beginnings of inequality is the series of changes in western Europe, and at first in England, known collectively as the Industrial Revolution. I will use this term as a shorthand for these collective changes, which Marshall Hodgson called the ‘Great Western Transmutation.’ Put most crudely, western Europe advanced and changed in a paradigmatic way, while Asia did not. At the most, Asia kept doing what it had been doing for centuries; Europe changed basically.