Kingship and Political Practice in Colonial India

by Pamela G. Price

Overview

In a cultural history that considers the transformation of southern Indian institutions under British colonial rule, Price focuses on the two former "little kingdoms" of Ramnad and Sivaganga, which came under colonial governance as revenue estates. She demonstrates how rivalries among the royal families and the disintegration of indigenous institutions contributed to the development of nationalism. The author also shows how religious symbols and practices going back to the seventeenth century were reformulated and acquired a new significance in the colonial context.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521552479
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	03/14/1996
Series:	University of Cambridge Oriental Publications , #51
Pages:	244
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.67(d)

Table of Contents

List of illustrations; Acknowledgements; Glossary; Introduction; 1. Honour, status and state formation in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Maravar country; 2. Cosmological fragmentation in the public sphere; 3. Domain formation in mid-nineteenth-century Ramnad; 4. Human and divine palaces in the fragmentation of monarchical cosmology; 5. Ritual performances, the ruling person and the public; 6. Raja Baskara Setupati and the emergence of a new political style; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

'Kingship and Political Practice in Colonial India is a solid piece of scholarship. Professor Price is at her best when she treats the litigation of the nineteenth century and its effects on the kingdoms of Ramnad and Sivagangai … a useful reminder that present day politics in India (or for that matter much of the rest of the world) have deep roots that go directly back to precolonial times.' Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society

'Overall, her book is compelling and original, and will force scholars to examine afresh the nature of south Indian kingship as it is transformed under British colonial rule.' The Journal of Asian Studies

'The strength of Price's book is to consider honour and ritual not as means to a political end, but as independent ends in themselves … the text is the product of careful research … Using methodological insights from Weberian sociology and steeped in the anthropology of South Asia, Price has produced a cultural history which argues, contra Dirks, for the continuity and evolution of royal symbols and values under colonial rule and in contemporary south India.' Social Anthropology

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