Rhetoric and Ritual in Colonial India

The Shaping of a Public Culture in Surat City, 1852-1928

Douglas E. Haynes

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9780520067257
• eBook ISBN:
  9780520909489
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia asiática

This book explores the rhetoric and ritual of Indian elites undercolonialism, focusing on the city of Surat in the Bombay Presidency. It particularly examines how local elites appropriated and modified the liberal representative discourse of Britain and thus fashioned a "public' culture that excluded the city's underclasses. Departing from traditional explanations that have seen this process as resulting from English education or radical transformations in society, Haynes emphasizes the importance of the unequal power relationship between the British and those Indians who struggled for political influence and justice within the colonial framework. A major contribution of the book is Haynes' analysis of the emergence and ultimate failure of Ghandian cultural meanings in Indian politics after 1923. The book addresses issues of importance to historians and anthropologists of India, to political scientists seeking to understand the origins of democracy in the "Third World, " and general readers interested in comprehending processes of cultural change in colonial contexts.

Table of contents

• CONTENTS
• PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• PART ONE. Colonial Domination and the Culture of Politics
• ONE. Introduction
• TWO. Colonialism, Language, and Politics
• PART TWO. Surat City and the Larger World
• THREE. The Urban Economy
• FOUR. The Inner Politics of the City
• FIVE. The Outer Politics of the City
• PART THREE. Public Culture
• SIX. The Colonial Context
• SEVEN. The Notables and Public Culture
• EIGHT. The English-educated Elite and Public Leadership
• NINE. World War I and the Crisis in Urban Authority
• PART FOUR. The Gandhian Interlude
• TEN. The Rise of the Gandhians
• ELEVEN. The Restoration of Hegemony
• TWELVE. The Politics of Communalism
• Conclusion
• APPENDIX
• NOTES
• GLOSSARY
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX