Search Result

Srl

Item

ID: 180616

Coolies, tea plantations and the limits of physical violence in colonial Assam: a historiographical note / Bharadwaj, Jahnu

Bharadwaj, Jahnu	Journal Article
	0 Rating(s) & 0 Review(s)

Summary/Abstract

The paper seeks to locate the violence perpetrated on the bodies of the coolies in colonial Assam. The paper observes that the existing historiography on tea plantations in colonial Assam restricts corporeal violence on the coolies within the boundaries of the plantation estates and does not talk about the permeation of such violence to spaces and coolies totally outside of the plantation production process. This paper, with the evidence from a case from nineteenth-century Assam, extends the limits of corporeal violence on the coolies beyond the physical setup of the plantations. The paper proposes that histories of corporeal violence on labour in the colonial era need to look beyond the peripheries of the plantations and towards the social regimes of power under colonialism. The paper demonstrates the complicit character of the state and newly landed and moneyed native classes in the colony, which aggravated the magnitudes of violence on labour.

Key Words

Violence ; Historiography ; Coolie ; Colonial Assam ; Tea Plantations

Links

'Full Text'

In Basket

Export

ID: 174795

Tropicality’ and wildness: experiential travel writing and ‘making up’ of land and people in nineteenth century Assam / Sarma, Bikash

Sarma, Bikash	Journal Article
	0 Rating(s) & 0 Review(s)

Summary/Abstract

The paper attempts to understand the genealogy of certain ‘spatial’ and conceptual dichotomies and categories pertaining to India’s North East. Representation of the geography, climate and simultaneously the dwellers of this space since middle of nineteenth century still reverberates in contemporary knowledge production about the region. These discursive practices for more than two and a half century had been (re)organizing and inscribing space, disciplining subjectivity. This problematic of representation was selectively incorporated into the biography of the ‘modern nation state’ in India that further accentuated the dichotomies and categories. The colonial dichotomy of ‘nature/culture’ staged, performed and articulated by the practices of representation enacted geographically determined social relations. These practices of representation operate not only at the level of discourse but also at the cultural, political, geographical and psychological domains. It would be crucial not only to understand the long sequence of representation but also to understand the material effects.

Key Words

Landscape ; Representations ; ‘Tropicality ; Colonial Assam ; Travel Gaze

Links

'Full Text'

In Basket

Export