Sabyasachi Bhattacharya - The Colonial State: Theory and Practice

The Colonial State

THEORY AND PRACTICE

Sabyasachi Bhattacharya

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AGRA AHEMEDABAD BENGALURU COIMBATORE DEHRADUN GUWAHATI HYDERABAD JAIPUR JALANDHAR KANPUR KOCHI KOLKATA MADURAI MUMBAI PATNA RANCHI VARANASI

Sabyasachi Bhattacharya 2016

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First published 2016

ISBN: 978-93-84092-01-6 (hardback)

ISBN: 978-93-84092-05-4 (POD)

ISBN: 978-93-84092-06-1 (e-book)

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Preface

T HE COLONIAL STATE as a subject of study has been in the margins of scholarly attention. In the rather meagre literature on the subject, one may see two tendencies: those specializing in political theory tend to think that historians merely narrate what happened, and historians are prone to dismiss mere theory. Bearing that in mind, in this book, I chose a narrative strategy which is quite different from that of the ones I have authored earlier. I have tried to focus on different aspects of the colonial state, to offer in each chapter, a detailed narration of the developments in that area, and to situate those specific historical particularities in relation to the generalizable.

There were two possible paths one could take. One of these alternatives would have been to assemble a series of abstract generalizations about the attributes of the state in British India, with quotations from British ideologues or writings by civil servants, without looking at what happened on the ground. The other approach would have been the well-trodden path, which is to arrange a narrative of what happened in a chronological sequence without looking at the theoretical premises of action. Even if it were possible to adopt one of these approaches in a meaningful way to answer the questions I address, that would have been rather predictable and boring. The agenda in this work will be to present a series of interconnected studies, each narrativizing the specificities of a chosen field in the manner historians are expected to do, with a view to aggregating them into a generalizable theoretical perspective on the colonial state. An attempt is made here to weave together the discourse of state theory and the narrative of state practices. This approach is based on my argument in this volume, that theory was not something out there to guide practice. Empirical evidence suggests a more complex picture of interaction, where, within parameters structured by theory, the practice in turn produces and structures theory at each conjuncture.

The present work gives me an opportunity to draw upon and extend my research on various aspects of the history of the colonial state since I published in 1971, my book on the finances of the colonial state in the years following 1857. The Introduction will explain how the book is organized and provide an outline of the major arguments. In some chapters, I review and draw upon essays I published earlier in various journals or collections of papers, and I am grateful to the journals and editors for allowing me to do so. The appropriate acknowledgements will appear subsequently. I also wish to express my indebtedness to scholars I interacted with at conferences, where earlier versions of the arguments of this book were presented.

In India, in times bygone, there used to be a pushpika or a colophon at the end of a manuscript declaring the authors individual identity, his signature, and an acknowledgement of his debts. Although in our times, the production and publication of academic research has become in some ways mechanical, there is still space for that human touch in the authors dedication of his or her work. I offer this book to the memory of my father Nirmal Chandra Bhattacharya (18961986), who studied in 1914 20, what used to be called in those days political economy, at Presidency College in Calcutta, and devoted his life to the study of political ideas.

Kolkata

S ABYASACHI B HATTACHARYA

Abbreviations

Introduction

I T IS A PARADOX that although historical writings on modern India recognize that the state was the chief instrument for the creation of colonialism, the theory of the colonial state has received very little scholarly attention. Some of the important constitutive elements of colonialism have been studied in the form of the description and documentation of the apparatuses and activities of the colonial Indian government, and the narrativization of the political history of the struggle against that governmentthat is to say, in the form of administrative history and history of the nationalist and associated political movements. Arguably, there remains a doubt about the sufficiency of that enterprise so far as the question of characterization of the colonial state is concerned. There remains a question that needs to be addressed. What are the historical specificities of the colonial state as distinct from other state forms?