REVIEW: India in The Shadows of Empire

REVIEW
India in The Shadows of Empire: A Legal and Political History (1774-1950)
Mithi Mukherjee
OUP
Rs. 750
Pp 316
ISBN: 0198062508
Hardcover

Blurb
"The pioneering research offers a sweeping new interpretation of the complex and seemingly contradictory nature of Indian democracy and polity. In contrast to much of existing scholarship, it joins the colonial and postcolonial periods in Indian history into a seamless narrative.

The book explains the postcolonial Indian polity by presenting an alternative historical narrative of the British Empire in India and India's struggle for independence. It pursues this narrative along two major trajectories.

On the one hand, it focuses on the role of imperial judicial institutions and practices in the making of both the British Empire an the Anti-Colonial Movement under the Congress, with the lawyer as political leader. On the other hand, it offers a novel interpretation of Gandhi's Non-Violent Resistance Movement as being different from the Congress. It shows that the Gandhian Movement, as the most powerful force largely responsible for India's independence, was anchored not in western discourses of political and legislative freedom but rather in Indic Traditions of renunciative freedom, with the renouncer as leader.

This volume offers a comprehensive new reinterpretation of the Indian Constitution in the light of this historical narrative. The book contends that the British Colonial idea of justice and the Gandhian ethos of resistance have been the two competing and conflicting driving forces the have determined the nature and evolution of the Indian polity after independence.

Ambitious, original, and thought-provoking, this book will be indispensable for students and scholars of Indian history, the British Empire, legal-constitutional history, political science and sociology. It will also interest anybody seeking a broad understanding of the mainsprings of modern Indian history and politics."

Review
Revenue wrongs Hindu
At around the same time as the conflict between the British Parliament and American colonies was heating up, another affair in another corner of the world was beginning to occupy the attention of the English people, writes Mithi Mukherjee in the opening chapter of ‘India in the Shadows of Empire: A legal and political history 1774-1950’ (www.oup.com). “This involved the increasing financial and political influence in Parliament of the East India Company, a mercantile body that, on the basis of its trade monopoly in the East, derived from a charter from the British Parliament, had amassed enormous fortunes from India…”

Registered with the London Stock Exchange, this trading company that had also become the government in India was effectively directed by a group of jobbers and brokers, who for all practical purposes had become legislators for India, determining policies for the Company’s government on behalf of the shareholders of the company, the author narrates.

'Sonia would have been a housewife if..'

Dr Ramachandra Guha is much more than just a historian and biographer. An Indo-American Community Visiting Professor at the University of California at Berkeley, his books include a pioneering environmental history, The Unquiet Woods, and an award-winning social history of cricket, A Corner of a Foreign Field.

Dr Guha, 49, is also the author of India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy, published by a division of HarperCollins.For long, he was respected among the intelligentsia for being a historian. But his frequent television appearances that reflected his young attitude and clarity of developing history made him popular among the masses. His passions include the environmental movement in India, cricket and Indian history. With sheer eloquence and passion, Dr Guha took the analysis of cricket and cricketers to a higher pitch.

''The Congress, historically, has been inclusive' In Part-I of an exclusive interview to rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt, Dr Guha, in his own masterly ways, explains the making of Congress party, its historic journey and, deciphers the nuances of its core philosophy. Read Dr Guha's views to know what lies in future for the party and for India.

What kind of thoughts come to your mind as the Congress completes 125 years?
I would like to separate my views and prejudices about today's Congress, and, my sentiments as a citizen of India from the perspective of a historian. For the historian, the first thing to remember about the Congress is, of course, that it is the most important political party in the history of modern India. Globally, the Republicans in America and Conservatives of Britain and the Congress party of India are three of the most important, most durable and most influential political parties in the history of the world. The Labour party in Britain was born after the Congress in India. So, the Congress is the most important political party in the non-Western world. It had a profound impact on national liberal movements in Asia and Africa. It wasn't restricted to India. In fact, the African National Congress took its name from the Indian National Congress.

Full interview here Mynews