Empire, Politics and the Creation of the 1935 India Act
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A01=Andrew Muldoon
Author_Andrew Muldoon
bridge
British colonial policymaking analysis
bureau
carl
Category=JHM
Category=N
Category=NH
Category=NHF
Category=NHTQ
Category=QDTS
chaura
chauri
colonial administration
constitutional reform India
Cotton Lobby
CUA
ECB
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
gandhi
Gandhi Irwin Pact
imperial information networks
INA
India Act
India Bill
India Defence League
India Office
indian
Indian nationalism
Indian Political Behavior
Indian Reform
Indian Secretary
Indian Tariffs
intelligence
interwar British policy
IRA Attack
Jawaharlal Nehru
Nehru
office
political intelligence
Poona Pact
Priya Satia
Round Table
Round Table Conference
secretary
Secretary Of State
Tej Bahadur Sapru
Wild Men
Young Men
Product details
- ISBN 9780754667056
- Weight: 453g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 24 Aug 2009
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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The 1935 Government of India Act was arguably the most significant turning point in the history of the British administration in India. The intent of the Act, a proposal for an Indian federation, was the continuation of British control of India, and the deflection of the challenge to the Raj posed by Gandhi, Nehru and the nationalist movement. This book seeks to understand why British administrators and politicians believed that such a strategy would work and what exactly underpinned their reasons. It is argued that British efforts to defuse and disrupt the activities of Indian nationalists in the interwar years were predicated on certain cultural beliefs about Indian political behaviour and capacity. However, this was not simply a case of 'Orientalist' policy-making. Faced with a complicated political situation, a staggering amount of information and a constant need to produce analysis, the officers of the Raj imposed their own cultural expectations upon events and evidence to render them comprehensible. Indians themselves played an often overlooked role in the formulation of this political intelligence, especially the relatively few Indians who maintained close ties to the colonial government such as T.B. Sapru and M.R. Jayakar. These men were not just mediators, as they have frequently been portrayed, but were in fact important tacticians whose activities further demonstrated the weaknesses of the colonial information economy. The author employs recently released archival material, including the Indian Political Intelligence records, to situate the 1935 Act in its multiple and overlapping contexts: internal British culture and politics; the imperial 'information order' in India; and the politics of Indian nationalism. This rich and nuanced study is essential reading for scholars working on British, Indian and imperial history.
Dr Andrew Muldoon of Metropolitan State College of Denver, USA
