Grass in their Mouths

Kolff, Dirk H. A.:
Grass in their Mouths : the Upper Doab of India under the Company's Magna Charta, 1793-1830 / by Dirk H.A. Kolff. - Leiden [u.a.] : Brill, 2010. - XIV, 647 S. : Ill. - (Brill's Indological Library ; 33)
ISBN 978-90-04-18502-9 / 90-04-18502-X
EUR 174,00 / US$ 248,00
DDC: 954.2031

Beschreibung
Scholarship on the pre-Bentinck period of Indian history has taken little notice of the inevitable dilemmas of colonial rule as they became visible in the districts. This book argues that the disdain the eighteenth-century Westminster parliaments expressed both for Indians and the East India Company induced the Bengal civil service to formulate for itself a corporate identity that, because of its distant and self-centered character, prevented it to acquire an executive hold on most levels of the Indian administration. The core of the book consists of superbly-detailed studies of the ways in which, in the Ganges-Jumna doab, villagers, revenue farmers, Indian policemen and revenue officials, bankers and judges struggled to overcome or profit from this feature of the colonial administration. [Verlagsinformation]

Inhalt
Preface. ix
List of Illustrations and Maps. xi
List of Abbreviations. xiii
Introduction. 1
1. The Cornwallis system and the colonial executive. 19
2. The Gujars of the Upper Doab. 135
3. A change of system in Merath. 237
4. Beyond rules and regulations: Dehra Dun under Frederick Shore. 343
5. How the Landhaura riyāsat was dissected. 451
6. Lawlessness and legal plunder in Saharanpur. 529
Conclusion. 613
Glossary. 631
Bibliography. 635
Index. 641

Autor
DIRK H.A. KOLFF (*1938), Ph.D. (1983) in History, Leiden University, is Emeritus Professor of South Asian History, Leiden University. His publications mainly deal with the early modern history of India.

Quellen: Brill; Amazon; WorldCat; Library of Congress