Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

‘It All Comes From Me’: Bahu Begam And The Making Of The Awadh Nawabi, Circa 1765–1815, Nicholas J. Abbott

History Faculty Publications

This article examines the durable, yet largely overlooked, claims of Bahu Begam (1727–1815) to dynastic wealth and authority in the Awadh nawabi (1722–1856), a North Indian Mughal ‘successor state’ and an important client of the East India Company. Chief consort (khass mahal) to Nawab Shuja-ud-Daula (r. 1754–75) and mother to his successor Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula (r. 1775–97), Bahu Begam played a well-documented role in the regime’s tumultuous politics, particularly during Warren Hastings’s tenure as the Company’s governor-general (1773–85) and his later parliamentary impeachment. But despite her prominent political influence, little attention has been paid to the substance of her …

Textures Of The Ordinary: Doing Anthropology After Wittgenstein [Table Of Contents], Veena Das

Philosophy & Theory

Textures of the Ordinary: Doing Anthropology After Wittgenstein is an exploration of everyday life in which anthropology finds a companionship with philosophy. Based on two decades of ethnographic work among low-income urban families in India, Das shows how the notion of texture allows her to align her ethnography with stunning anthropological moments in Wittgenstein and Cavell as well as in literary texts from India. Das poses a compelling question – how might we speak of a human form of life when the very idea of the human has been put into question? The response to this question, Das argues, does …

Alfred Russel Wallace Notes 9: The South Asian Connection, Charles H. Smith, Sahotra Sarkar, Nirmali Wijegoonawardana

Faculty/Staff Personal Papers

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823−1913) is best known for his natural history explorations and theoretical biology, but he was also a potent social critic on subjects ranging from land tenure and colonial policy to antivaccinationism and poverty. Here, one of his emphases in the latter domain is spotlighted: his interest in South Asian affairs. This extended to a variety of subjects in the areas of politics, economics, health, literature, sociology, etc., and to a degree that may have had some influence on the development of thought of some major South Asian figures, including Mahatma Gandhi and Ananda K. Coomaraswamy.

Reading, Writing, And Religion: Institutions And Human Capital Formation, Latika Chaudhary, Jared Rubin

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

In this paper, we empirically test the role that religious and political institutions play in the accumulation of human capital. Using a new data set on literacy in colonial India, we find that Muslim literacy is negatively correlated with the proportion of Muslims in the district, although we find no similar result for Hindu literacy. We employ a theoretical model which suggests that districts which experienced a more recent collapse of Muslim political authority had more powerful and better funded religious authorities, who established religious schools which were less effective at promoting literacy on the margin than state schools. We …

The (No) Work And (No) Leisure World Of Women In Assi, Banaras, Nita Kumar

CMC Faculty Publications and Research

In the riverside neighborhood (mohalla) of Assi, in the south of Banaras, families of the following professions are to be found: the preparation and retail of foods such as: milk, sweets, tea, paan, peanuts and snacks; clerical work in offices or shops; private professional work, such as priesthood, teaching, boating, cleaning toilets; and crafts, such as masonry, weaving, making and maintaining jacquard machines, carpentry, and goldsmithy. All this work is done by men in the public sphere. In Banaras, the observable and articulated sphere of activity called "work" (kam) largely exists for men only. Men are …

Laubach In India: 1935 To 1970, S. Y. Shah

The Courier

Dr. Frank C. Laubach, missionary and adult educator, dedicated his life to the cause of literacy for development and world peace. During his travels to 103 countries, he worked toward helping some 60 to 100 million people become literate. In addition, he founded or helped found four literacy organizations, including Laubach Literacy International; wrote forty books on adult education, Christian religion, world politics, and culture; and co-authored literacy primers in more than 300 languages. He was awarded four honorary doctorates—one of them from Syracuse University.

Although Laubach worked in many other countries, it is said that his heart was always …