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Chapter 6 - Thinking as liberals

historicism, race, society and economy, c.1840–1880

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

C. A. Bayly
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Summary

This chapter extends the analysis in the previous chapter by considering mid-nineteenth-century Indian liberals’ views on history, race, political economy and law. The constitutional liberal moment of the 1820s and 1830s had been followed by an intellectual and political shift that produced a discourse of popular empowerment linked to a sense of racial and class oppression in Asian port cities and their hinterlands. This chapter moves on to the emergence of fuller patterns of Victorian Indian thought that were characterised by an emphasis on the two forms of knowledge that I have called global historicism and statistical liberalism. These were in turn inflected by the rhetoric of benign sociology and counter-preaching developed by Keshub Chunder Sen and his coevals described in Chapter 5. Before doing so, however, I want to allude to the South Asian order of knowledge more generally.

The majority of the figures discussed here, including major writers, were all political economists of a sort. They tried to turn travel narratives, statistical debates or early sociological investigations into means of empathising with the lands and peoples of Southern Asia. Yet they were also deeply interested in Asian religious life and civilisation. R. C. Dutt, for instance, filled his riverboat with British government blue books, but also took copies of the Vedas and Shastras when he travelled through rural Bengal as a district officer in the 1870s. He wrote simultaneously about the Bengal economy and the spirituality of ancient India.

Type
Chapter
Information
Recovering Liberties
Indian Thought in the Age of Liberalism and Empire
, pp. 161 - 187
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

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References

East India AssociationSpeeches and writings of the Honourable Sir Pherozeshah M. MehtaAllahabad 1905 100Google Scholar
Third reading of Bombay municipal franchise billTimes of India 30 1888
The Bengalee millionaireGhose, ManmathanathSelections from the writings of Grish Chunder Ghose, founder and first editor of the BengaleeCalcutta 1912 1
Sinha, N. K.Bengal Past and Present 92 1970 301

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  • Thinking as liberals
  • C. A. Bayly, University of Cambridge
  • Book: Recovering Liberties
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139012140.009
Available formats
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  • Thinking as liberals
  • C. A. Bayly, University of Cambridge
  • Book: Recovering Liberties
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139012140.009
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Thinking as liberals
  • C. A. Bayly, University of Cambridge
  • Book: Recovering Liberties
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139012140.009
Available formats
×