Manchester University Press
2 Containing crisis
Abstract
The native volunteer controversy, as Briton Martin Jr. has pointed out, was a 'lost opportunity' to mobilise native elites behind Viceroy Lord Dufferin's administration. The native volunteer movement was followed by the creation of an all-India nationalist platform for elite Indian public opinion. The native volunteer movement was a powerful testimony to the continued investment of Indian elites, despite the criticism of specific colonial policies, in the colonial social structure. In sharp contrast, volunteering in India was deliberately promoted as an exclusive privilege. It was the native volunteer movement of 1885-86 that finally brought to a head the developing crisis in the colonial mix of the racial and the class dimensions of martial traditions in India. The intersection of racial and class politics suggests that the colonial ideology of martial traditions had at least as much to do with the construction of hegemony in Britain as in India.
Abstract
The native volunteer controversy, as Briton Martin Jr. has pointed out, was a 'lost opportunity' to mobilise native elites behind Viceroy Lord Dufferin's administration. The native volunteer movement was followed by the creation of an all-India nationalist platform for elite Indian public opinion. The native volunteer movement was a powerful testimony to the continued investment of Indian elites, despite the criticism of specific colonial policies, in the colonial social structure. In sharp contrast, volunteering in India was deliberately promoted as an exclusive privilege. It was the native volunteer movement of 1885-86 that finally brought to a head the developing crisis in the colonial mix of the racial and the class dimensions of martial traditions in India. The intersection of racial and class politics suggests that the colonial ideology of martial traditions had at least as much to do with the construction of hegemony in Britain as in India.
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- General editor’s introduction vii
- Acknowledgements ix
- Dedication xi
- Introduction 1
- 1 Reconfiguring hierarchies 33
- 2 Containing crisis 69
- 3 Competing masculinities 100
- 4 Potent protests 138
- Conclusion 181
- Index 187
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- General editor’s introduction vii
- Acknowledgements ix
- Dedication xi
- Introduction 1
- 1 Reconfiguring hierarchies 33
- 2 Containing crisis 69
- 3 Competing masculinities 100
- 4 Potent protests 138
- Conclusion 181
- Index 187
