The black hole of empire history of a global practice of power /
When Siraj, the ruler of Bengal, overran the British settlement of Calcutta in 1756, he allegedly jailed 146 European prisoners overnight in a cramped prison. Of the group, 123 died of suffocation. While this episode was never independently confirmed, the story of "The black hole of Calcutta�...
| Main Author: | Chatterjee, Partha, 1947- |
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Princeton, N.J. :
Princeton University Press,
[2012]
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| Physical Description: |
xiv, 425 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm. |
| Subjects: |
| Summary: |
When Siraj, the ruler of Bengal, overran the British settlement of Calcutta in 1756, he allegedly jailed 146 European prisoners overnight in a cramped prison. Of the group, 123 died of suffocation. While this episode was never independently confirmed, the story of "The black hole of Calcutta' was widely circulated and seen by the British public as an atrocity committed by savage colonial subjects. "The Black Hole of Empire" follows the ever-changing representations of this historical event and founding myth of the British Empire in India, from the eighteenth century to the present. Partha Chatterjee explores how a supposed tragedy paved the ideological foundations for the civilizing force of British imperial rule and territorial control in India. Chatterjee takes a close look at the justifications of modern empire by liberal thinkers, international lawyers, and conservative traditionalists, and examines the intellectual and political responses of the colonized, including those of Bengali nationalists. The two sides of empire's entwined history are brought together in the story of the Black Hole memorial: set up in Calcutta in 1760, demolished in 1821, restored by Lord Curzon in 1902, and removed in 1940 to a neglected churchyard. Challenging conventional truisms of imperial history, nationalist scholarship, and liberal visions of globalization, Chatterjee argues that empire is a necessary and continuing part of the history of the modern state. |
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| Item Description: |
Includes bibliographical references and index. List of Illustrations -- Preface -- Chapter 1. Outrage in Calcutta -- Travels of a Monument -- Old Fort William -- A New Nawab -- Fall of Calcutta -- Aftermath of Defeat -- "Genuine" Narrative -- Reconquest and More -- Whose Revolution? -- Chapter 2. A Secret Veil -- Conquest in History -- Age of Plunder -- Early Histories of Conquest -- Modem State and Modem Empires -- Nabobs Come Home -- Critique of Conquest -- Chapter 3. Tipus Tiger -- A Bengali in Britain -- Contemporary Indian Histories -- Early Modern in South Asia -- Early Modern as a Category of Transition -- Niti versus Dharma -- An Early Modern History of Bengal -- Tipu as an Early Modern Absolute Monarch -- Tiger of Mysore -- Mysore Family in Calcutta -- Chapter 4. Liberty of the Subject -- New Fort William -- Early Press in Calcutta -- Strength of Constitution -- Making of Early Modern Citizens -- Other Early Modern Institutions -- Chapter 5. Equality of Subjects -- Falsehood of All Religions -- Colonization of Barbarous Countries -- Citizens of Character and Capital -- Unsung End of Early Modernity -- Chapter 6. For the Happiness of Mankind -- Founding of a Myth -- Utility of Empire -- Morality of Empire -- Myth Refurbished -- Chapter 7. Pedagogy of Violence -- Law of Nations in the East -- Dalhousie and Paramountcy -- Awadh under British Protection -- Road to Annexation -- Awadh Annexed -- Imperialism: Liberal and Antiliberal -- A Chimerical Lucknow -- Chapter 8. Pedagogy of Culture -- Contradictions of Colonial Modernity -- City and the Public -- New Bengali Theater -- Shedding a Tear for Siraj -- On the Poetic and Historical Imaginations -- Siraj and the National-Popular -- Dramatic Form of the National-Popular -- Surveillance and Proscription -- Chapter 9. Bombs, Sovereignty, and Football -- New Memorial -- Scramble for Empire -- Normalization of the, Nation-State -- Violence and the Motherland -- Early Actions -- Strategies and Tactics -- Igniting the Imagination -- Football as a Manly Sport -- Football and Nationalism -- Official Responses -- Later Phase -- Chapter 10. Death and Everlasting Life of Empire -- A Gigantic Hoax -- We Are Kings of the Country, and the Rest Are Slaves -- Siraj, Once More on Stage -- Endgames of Empire -- Empire Today -- Afterword -- Notes -- References -- Index. When Siraj, the ruler of Bengal, overran the British settlement of Calcutta in 1756, he allegedly jailed 146 European prisoners overnight in a cramped prison. Of the group, 123 died of suffocation. While this episode was never independently confirmed, the story of "The black hole of Calcutta' was widely circulated and seen by the British public as an atrocity committed by savage colonial subjects. "The Black Hole of Empire" follows the ever-changing representations of this historical event and founding myth of the British Empire in India, from the eighteenth century to the present. Partha Chatterjee explores how a supposed tragedy paved the ideological foundations for the civilizing force of British imperial rule and territorial control in India. Chatterjee takes a close look at the justifications of modern empire by liberal thinkers, international lawyers, and conservative traditionalists, and examines the intellectual and political responses of the colonized, including those of Bengali nationalists. The two sides of empire's entwined history are brought together in the story of the Black Hole memorial: set up in Calcutta in 1760, demolished in 1821, restored by Lord Curzon in 1902, and removed in 1940 to a neglected churchyard. Challenging conventional truisms of imperial history, nationalist scholarship, and liberal visions of globalization, Chatterjee argues that empire is a necessary and continuing part of the history of the modern state. |
| Physical Description: |
xiv, 425 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm. |
| Bibliography: |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: |
9780691152004 0691152004 9780691152011 0691152012 |