Our image and knowledge of the Vietnam war come predominantly from American sources, which all stress the unusual character of that war. From the despatch of the first combat units to Vietnam in 1960 to the fall of Saigon and the takeover by the North Vietnamese in 1975, it was America's longest war. American literature from Vietnam depicts the war as being waged not only against the enemy (particularly as it was often difficult to determine who and where the enemy was) but also against the elements — heat, rain, jungle, mosquitoes, leeches, dust and mud. The moral confusion surrounding this war and the disillusionment among the soldiers are well documented and portrayed in numerous films and stories. In examining, therefore, Japanese writing on the Vietnam war, it seemed sensible to concentrate on those aspects which were different, not only in order not to repeat the obvious, but also in the hope of bringing into focus the different perspective on the conflict which this writing offers.

In July 1997, when Hong Kong reverted to Chinese sovereignty, this former British colony became a new kind of place: a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People's Republic of China (PRC). In the several years leading up to the 1997 transition, a sudden outpouring of Mainland Chinese scholarship stressed how Hong Kong had been an inalienable part of China since ancient times. Until then, however, Hong Kong had rarely figured in Mainland Chinese scholarship. Indeed, Hong Kong suffered from what Michael Yahuda has called a “peculiar neglect”: administered by the British but claimed by China, it was “a kind of bureaucratic no-man's land.” Only one university in all of China had a research institute dedicated primarily to studying Hong Kong. As part of this new “Hong Kong studies” (Xianggangxue), in 1997 China's national television studio produced two multi-episodic documentaries on Hong Kong: “One Hundred Years of Hong Kong” (Xianggang bainian) and “Hong Kong Vicissitudes” (Xianggang cangsang). The studio also produced two shorter documentaries, “One Hundred Points about Hong Kong” (Xianggang baiti) and “The Story of Hong Kong” (Xianggang de gushi). The “Fragrant Harbor” that PRC historians had generally dismissed as an embarrassing anachronism in a predominantly postcolonial world suddenly found its way into millions of Mainland Chinese homes.

Despite theoretical justifications and empirical evidence that state-owned enterprises have played an important role in late development, as well as over three decades of evidence that privatization programmes since the 1980s have had mixed results at best, international financial institutions continue prescribing privatization as a panacea for developing countries. Pakistan is an interesting case to understand why privatization is still considered desirable, because it is one of a set of developing countries that have whole-heartedly implemented Washington Consensus policies. In this context, we analyse privatization in two key economic sectors in Pakistan: energy and banking. Using qualitative and quantitative data, we describe the motivations behind these privatizations, the process by which they were carried out, and analyse the post-privatization performance of these organizations and sectors. We find that in both cases (a) the privatizations failed not only with respect to their stated aims, leading to a decline in national productive capabilities, but also had adverse distributional consequences, shifting the rewards to the buyers while the risks and costs remained with the public sector, and (b) the suboptimal outcomes of the privatizations went largely unchallenged aided by a prevalent neoliberal view amongst the country's economic policy makers and intelligentsia. Our analysis sheds new light on the process by which privatization in the absence of a state with the capacity to discipline business interests has enabled these interests to obtain state-sponsored rents without bringing any of the associated benefits for economic development.

Wildlands have attracted the attention of national governments, not only for the natural resources they contain, but also as land available for settlement or as the home of marginalized populations, a potential source of disorder. Some countries have attempted to maintain control over wildlands and their resources by excluding people from them. The historical record of government policies towards wildlands in Late Imperial China Shows that wildlands had more symbolic and strategic value to the authorities than economic value. In this case, policies adopted an alternative strategy of filling the ‘strategic space’ represented by wildlands, bringing them more closely into the cultural and economic orbit of the centre by settlement–the policy of inclusion.

In January of 1853, the Lt Governor of the North-Western Provinces, James Thomason, inaugurated a new building in Banaras, situated perhaps halfway between the European cantonment and the ghats which line the sacred river Ganga. Designed in a high Gothic style by Major Kittoe, this was to be the new home of the Benares College, which incorporated one of the largest, and most symbolically important, Sanskrit departments of any British educational institution in north India. The building itself, which is now incorporated into Sampurnanand Sanskrit University, somewhat resembles a Christian church, for it is a long structure with high vaulted ceilings and a large stained glass window in the wall opposite the main entrance doors. Inscribed into the walls are verses in English and Hindi; one counsels that ‘the lips of truth shall be established forever, a lying tongue is but for a moment.’ Under this roof, it was intended that the knowledges of East and West would, in some sense, be united, for the College's Superintendent during the mid-nineteenth century, James Ballantyne, was pursuing a pedagogy which was intended to demonstrate to the learned Hindu elite that the truths of European philosophy and science, while constituting a significant advancement upon Hindu learning, might also be reached by way of the latter's sound, yet undeveloped, premises. As such, Thomason spoke to the audience present that day of the Benares College as a beacon in the midst of a waning brahmanical system, from which enlightenment would spread forth: ‘one instrument in the mighty change.’

There have been numerous occasions throughout history where the exploitation of a single commodity has transformed the fortunes of institutions, communities and even nations that have sought to benefit from its control. Middle Eastern oil, rubber from the former Belgian Congo or gold in South America provide a few striking case studies. For the eastern Indonesian island of Timor, the long-term struggle for the control and trade of high quality white sandalwood (Santalum album L) holds this pre-eminent position. The history of Timor, for perhaps the last millennium, has been intimately linked to the shifting fortunes of sandalwood production and trade. Over the centuries, the attraction of sandalwood and the fine scented oil produced from its heartwood, has encouraged an extraordinary array of diverse trading interests that jostled and warred for influence and a share of the lucrative profits from its exploitation and sale across Asia. For indigenous Timorese too, participation in sandalwood politics frequently lay at the heart of endemic struggles for power and wealth. The capacity to exert control over sandalwood production and trade from the interior of the island was a direct measure of political authority and standing among rival Timorese indigenous domains. To control the production and trade in sandalwood was to control the polity, at least to the extent that the situation remained uncontested. The converse also held true; namely that the holders of effective political power within Timorese domains were well placed to monopolise available sandalwood stocks. Thus to a significant degree the fortunes of Timorese society are mirrored in the history of sandalwood politics.

Ecologies of production and state classifications shaped Chinese imperial frontier policies. In Chinese classical debates about the effect of environment on human character, the dominant view held that all peoples could become civilised, but a dissenting view held that barbarians could never change their ways. Nomadic pastoralists likewise debated whether to adopt certain Han cultural practices or reject them. Chinese dynasties often accepted diversity, but at certain times tried to eliminate difference by persuasion or by force. Three cases illustrate these processes during the Qing period: the relationship between Manchus and Mongols, Qing policies towards aboriginal peoples and the settlement of Taiwan, and Qing policies towards southwestern mountain peoples. In each case, policies came out of the interaction of ethnic categorization, views on cultural transformation and frontier environments. When Qing rulers lost the ability to recognise such cultural distinctions, they lost a key to the endurance of the empire.

I. Introduction

Since the 1990s, academic fashion has rediscovered and revamped theories of the ‘clash of civilizations’ (or rather, of the solipsism of cultures) that had already been popularized successfully in the early years of our ‘age of extremes’ by conservative ideologues like the German Oswald Spengler. Indian ‘indigenism’ appears to be another subsidiary branch of that ideological current. Recent writings on India's colonial period thus often tend to disconnect its precolonial from its colonial past, in order to construct incompatible exogenous and indigenous ‘principles’ of social organization. The imposition of ‘alien’ discourses on the Indian context is presented as the disruption of a communitarian social system that has been painted sometimes in pastel colours. ‘Indigenism’, as has been rightly remarked, tends to harmonize the precolonial past. The obsession with abstract cultural ‘principles’ (or, to use Spengler's term, ‘Urphänomene’, i.e. ‘primordial phenomena’) is often accompanied by a lack of interest in empirical research that is concerned with the material conditions of human existence and with the relations between human beings emerging from these concrete historical conditions. These trends notwithstanding, this paper is concerned with elementary aspects of social praxis, which rendered, for all their apparent ‘triviality’, members of South India's society, to use an expression of Marx, ‘actors and authors of their own history’. Hence, an analysis is attempted of labour relations in Madras City and its hinterland in the late eighteenth century, in the transitional period between the precolonial and colonial regimes. The discussion of the source material will highlight the problem of continuity and change—it is intended to identify ancien régime forms of subordinating labour that proved to be compatible with colonial conditions and to distinguish them from forms that did not survive or were newly created.

One hundred and seventy five years ago a shy young Fellow of Jesus College in this University asked a question which still remains just as relevant and just as urgent today. He asked, if I may paraphrase him in the language of today, whether economic development was possible, or whether it would be frustrated by the growth of population.

A figure who walks larger than life through the pages of eighteenthcentury south-Indian history is Tipu Sultan Fath Ali Khan, who held power in Mysore from 1782 until his death at the hands of the British in 1799. In general, scholars of his reign have taken a mainly Eurocentric approach, essentially concentrating on his external relationships and activities, particularly with regard to the French and the British, while more recently there has been some examination of his economy and administration. Recent research into both kingship and religion in south India raises issues which suggest that it is time this ruler was reassessed in his own terms, from the point of view of the cultural environment in which he was operating.3 Little attempt so far has been made to do this.4 One matter which merits closer attention is his use of symbols, particularly in connection with the symbolic expression of kingship. Given Tipu's somewhat ambiguous status as a parvenu, whose legitimacy as ruler was questionable, this would appear to be a fruitful area for research.5 His most famous symbol was the tiger, yet while it has captured the imagination of scholars in other disciplines,6 it has not exercised the minds of historians to any extent.7 It is the aim of this paper to restore the balance by looking at this symbol in the light of the work of Susan Bayly, who has underlined the strongly syncretic nature of religion in south India. Drawing upon both written and oral material, Bayly has described the interaction which has taken place between Muslim, Hindu and Christian traditions, the result of which is a borrowing of symbols and ideas, a frequently shared vocabulary, and an interweaving of motifs within a common sacred landscape, at the centre of which is the imagery associated with the ammans or goddesses of the region.8 It is my contention that an examination of Tipu's tiger symbol will reveal that it is firmly rooted in this syncretic religious environment and that this should emphasize to us the importance of placing the Mysore ruler within his cultural context in order to understand his actions, particularly from the point of view of kingship.

The continuities between the study of the West through Dutch in Tokugawa Japan and the program of modernization in the Meiji period seem self evident. The influence of Holland through Deshima became the focus of the life work of Itazawa Takeo and others well before the war, and it received detailed discussion from Charles Boxer in 1936. Nevertheless issues of the importance and influence of Tokugawa rangaku continue to be debated, and that debate greatly enriches our feel for Japanese society then and now.

Since independence (1947), foremost among the issues related to the growth of Bombay has been the decision to build New Bombay, a new city on the mainland across from Bombay island. In this paper, I examine first, the emergence of the idea of New Bombay and the interest groups who influenced the planning process. Secondly, I examine the actual achievements of the New Bombay project and the disjuncture between planning and reality. The New Bombay case shows clearly the way the political environment can influence the planning process. Confronted with the demands of different interest groups, the state in its urban planning opted for a solution which would accommodate all of them. In the process, many of the original objectives of building the new city have remained unfulfilled.

In the field of research and studies pertaining to Malaysian rural society, there has traditionally been a dominant emphasis, especially by local scholars, on the analysis of the indigenous Malay peasantry rather than on the equally indigenous ‘tribal’ minorities, i.e. the Orang Asli. This has also meant that the new theoretical directions and perspectives developed in the various interrelated fields (such as ‘the New Economic Anthropology’, ‘Peasant Studies’, and Political Economy, including the Neo-Marxist School of Development and Underdevelopment) have been applied with rigour only to those issues arising from ‘the peasant question’ in Malaysia. To date, no scholars have as yet seriously attempted to address ‘the agrarian question’ in the context of Malaysian society by also incorporating in their theoretical analysis the position of its ‘tribal’ minorities.

The temperance/prohibition agitation represents a fascinating chapter in the social and political history of India which has been largely ignored. If any notice is taken of this movement, it is generally dismissed (or elevated) as an example of the uniquely Indian process of ‘sanskritization’ or as an equally unique component of ‘Gandhianism’—in spite of the fact that the liquor question has not been without political importance in the history either of England or of the United States. And in spite of the fact that the temperance agitation in India in the late nineteenth century and well into the twentieth century was intimately connected with temperance agitation in England. Indeed the temperance movement in India was organized, patronized, and instructed by English temperance agitators.

In an interview given in July 1974, Intiār Ḥusain, one of the most perceptive creative writers of Pakistan, had this to say about the experience of migration that was the direct outcome of the Partition of India in 1947:

A decade ago when I was talking about the experience of migration and the articles I wrote concerning it, I was in a state of great hope and optimism. It was then my feeling that in the process of the Partition we had sudenly, almost by accident, regained a lost, great experience—namely, the experience of migration, hijrat, which has a place all its own in the history of the Muslims—and that it will give us a lot. But today, after our political ups and downs, I find myself in a different mood. Now I feel that sometimes a great experience comes to be lost to a nation; often nations forget their history. I do not mean that a nation does, or has to, keep its history alive in its memory in every period. There also comes a time when a nation completely forgets its past. So, that experience, I mean the experience of migration, is unfortunately lost to us and on us. And the great expectation that we had of making something out of it at a creative level and of exploiting it in developing a new consciousness and sensibility—that bright expectation has now faded and gone.

A cornerstone of Wallerstein's (1974) theory of the capitalist world system is that economic development occurs in certain (core) regions of the world system at the expense of development in other (peripheral) regions. This thesis, accepted in one form or another by scholars following a dependency, neo-Marxist, or unequal exchange conception of economic development (as, for example, Amin 1976 or Laclau 1971; see discussion in Foster-Carter 1973 and Kahn 1980: 203ff) provides the foundation for their avowal of the ‘development of underdevelopment.’ The development of the core industrial capitalist nations required, so they argue, the distorted and repressed economic development of the third world.

This study offers a conceptual analysis of the social economy in China within the context of institutional transition. In China, economic reform has engendered significant social changes. Accelerated economic growth, privatization of the social welfare system, and the rise of civil society explain the institutional contexts in which a range of not-for-profit initiatives, neither state-owned nor capital-driven, re-emerged. They are defined in this research as the social economy in China. This study shows that although the term itself is quite new, the social economy is no new phenomenon in China, as its various elements have a rich historical tradition. Moreover, the impact of the transition on the upsurge of the Chinese social economy is felt not only through direct means of de-nationalization and marketization and, as a consequence, the privatization of China's social welfare system, but also through various indirect means. The development of the social economy in China was greatly influenced by the framework set by political institutions and, accordingly, legal enabling environments. In addition, the link to the West, as well as local historical and cultural traditions, contribute towards explaining its re-emergence. Examining the practices in the field shows that the social economy sector in China is conducive to achieving a plural economy and an inclusive society, particularly by way of poverty reduction, social service provision, work integration, and community development. Therefore, in contemporary China, it serves as a key sector for improving welfare, encouraging participation, and consolidating solidarity.

Immobility raises awkward questions for theorists of migration. From their standpoint, migration is unusual behaviour that requires explanation. Its obverse—staying in place—is seen as an ‘obvious’ state of affairs that calls for no explanation. Yet assumptions about the ordinariness of immobility are insecure. For one thing, we know a great deal more about the mobile societies of early modern Asia; for another, Asian mobility in the era of high imperialism is much better understood. Yet despite these cumulative gains in our understanding of the scale of mobility in early-modern and modern Asia, and its acceleration in ‘the age of migration’, immobility continues to be seen as the ‘obvious’ state of affairs. This article suggests some preliminary answers to ‘the immobility paradox’, based on a study of the greater Bengal region. By analysing the impact of the intensifying links, in the late colonial era, between Bengal and the global economy, it shows that this varied widely for different people, in ways that had a profound bearing on their capacity to move. The article develops the notion of ‘deficits’ which worked to inhibit the mobility of particular groups and individuals. Physical frailty and obligations of care, it shows, were crucial factors in shaping immobility. Relations of gender and generation, and the inequalities embedded in these relations, produced ‘overabundances’—of obligations to people and places—that tied certain people down. Finally, it hints at the reasons why, and the ways in which, stayers-on have grown poorer.

For the debate on orality, literacy and memorization, India provides some striking evidence. In his comparative analysis of ‘oral aspects of scripture’, Graham gives the Hindu tradition a special place, for the ‘ancient Vedic tradition represents the paradigmatic instance of scripture as spoken, recited word’ (Graham 1987:68). The Vedas, the oldest texts of Hinduism, have been transmitted orally for three thousand years or more, despite the very early implementation of writing, and it is the Vedas as recited from memory by Brahmans that are alone authoritative. A corollary of the spoken word's primacy is that in teaching the Vedas and other texts, although ‘written texts have been used’, ‘a text without a teacher to teach it directly and orally to a pupil is only so many useless leaves or pages’ (ibid.: 74).

It may be expected of the Kingsley Martin lecturer that he addresses a theme of topical relevance. This is as it should be, for the modern history of South Asia offers an exceptionally wideranging choice of themes for reflection and inquiry. It will, then, seem strangely inappropriate to go to the other end of the time scale, to the early beginnings of Indian civilization. It would be vain to try and advance an excuse for this turn-about — such excuses would be too easily tainted by special pleading. It is just the romantic lure of a world that was irredeemably lost long ago. Or was it? It may be nearer to us than we care to admit.