My choice of subject for this lecture arose from what I think might have been a matter of some interest to Kingsley Martin; as also from my own concern that the interplay between the past and contemporary times requires a continuing dialogue between historians working on these periods. Such a dialogue is perhaps more pertinent to post-colonial societies where the colonial experience changed the framework of the comprehension of the past from what had existed earlier: a disjuncture which is of more than mere historiographical interest. And where political ideologies appropriate this comprehension and seek justification from the pre-colonial past, there, the historian's comment on this process is called for. Among the more visible strands in the political ideology of contemporary India is the growth and acceptance of what are called communal ideologies. ‘Communal’, as many in this audience are aware, in the Indian context has a specific meaning and primarily perceives Indian society as constituted of a number of religious communities. Communalism in the Indian sense therefore is a consciousness which draws on a supposed religious identity and uses this as the basis for an ideology. It then demands political allegiance to a religious community and supports a programme of political action designed to further the interests of that religious community. Such an ideology is of recent origin but uses history to justify the notion that the community (as defined in recent history) and therefore the communal identity have existed since the early past.

This paper examines the arguments whereby the Brahman priests of a Hindu temple in the town of Kalugumalai, South India, claim exclusive rights to perform worship in that shrine. For comparison, it also deals briefly with the priests of a much larger temple in the nearby city of Madurai, whose arguments partly contradict those used in Kalugumalai. This discrepancy will be explained by treating both sets of arguments as strategic statements, which legitimize the self-interests of their respective protagonists.

Being the concluding part of the study on the Chinese in the nineteenth-century Straits Settlements, the inquiry has a twofold aim: to construct a social alignment pattern of the Chinese in Penang, and to compare the pattern with those in Singapore and Malacca. Altogether 14,500 names of donors from epigraphic sources were processed.

The Penang Chinese exhibited a rather unique social alignment pattern in that the Hokkiens had been very active in a number of community oriented associations. Cases of cross-dialect-group participation were few, as compared to the other two settlements, for the various dialect groups in Penang, particularly the Hokkiens, were largely attracted to the inter-provincial associations. This was a unique social alignment pattern.

The findings from Penang, together with those in Singapore and Malacca were used to reconstruct an unidimensional scale for measuring the system rigidity of Chinese voluntary associations.

In recent years there has been much evidence of an increasing trend towards the individualization of economic and social relations in Javanese village communities. The Green Revolution has been depicted as the main cause of the acceleration of this process in the present. Observations abound on labour-saving devices in rice cultivation, on the monetarization of wages and agrarian inputs, and on the commercial sale of yields (Aass 1986; Hart 1986; Hüsken 1984; Maurer 1984, 1986; Schweizer 1987, forthcoming). The roots of these monetary and commercial developments in the Javanese village economy reach far back into the past (Breman 1983; Carey 1986; Elson 1984; Knight 1982; Svensson 1983). But in the present these changes gain pace. There is evidence, too, that in the field of political relations the diffuse patron-client ties between village officials and the inhabitants in some places yield to a more rationalized, selfish style of leadership (Keeler 1985).

In the wake of their rapid advance into Southeast Asia after 8 December 1941, the Japanese began to implement a new monetary policy in the region to replace the long-established Western financial order that was being swept away. The purpose of this article is to discuss aspects of this monetary policy, in particular how it was carried out in regards to Thailand during the first year of the war, the period during which Thai–Japan wartime relations became established. In the wake of their rapid advance into Southeast Asia after 8 December 1941, the Japanese began to implement a new monetary policy in the region to replace the long-established Western financial order that was being swept away. The purpose of this article is to discuss aspects of this monetary policy, in particular how it was carried out in regards to Thailand during the first year of the war, the period during which Thai-Japan wartime relations became established. With the outbreak of war the most urgent need of the Japanese in their relations with Thailand was to convert that country into a suitable rear area for their campaign in Malaya and for the one upcoming against Burma. To this end the Japanese and Thai governments signedon 8 December an agreement permitting Japanese forces to pass through Thai territory to attack Malaya; but equally important the agreement also stipulated that Thailand would afford the Japanese forces all necessary convenience for their passage through Thailand. This stipulation was the key that opened the way for the Japanese to pursue their plans towards Thailand. By passage, of course, the Japanese did not simply mean the travel of their army through Thai territory to attack Malaya and later Burma (although superficially this is what was implied).

Things were not right in the Kantō region during the early nineteenth century. In his memoirs, Mastsudaira Sadanobu, architect of the Kansei Reforms, lamented the sorry state of the villages in Edo's hinterland:

Much land throughout the Kantō is going to waste for want of cultivators. All the people of some villages have left for Edo, leaving only the headman behind. … Many Kantō villagers are suffering great hardship. Babies are killed, the population has declined, and land has gone to waste.

An outstanding feature of the far-reaching plans for development which China has been earnestly promoting under the general rubric of the ‘four modernizations’ is the post-Mao leadership's determined effort to revive and thoroughly institutionalize a meaningful and formal legal system. There is an obvious and sharp distinction between the policies towards law pursued during the period between the mid-1950s and the mid-1970s and the more recent attempts to fashion a pivotal role for law in Chinese society. Throughout much of the course of socialist rule China's leaders have been concerned not with promoting effective legal institutions but, rather, with the direct insertion of extrinsic political norms and values into the law. During the Cultural Revolution many important legal structures ceased to function. In contrast, in the years since 1978 an important aspect of the rigorous political reaction to the uncertainty and conflict of the Cultural Revolution has been unequivocal support for the establishment of a sound legal system. The leadership now believes that systematic and regulated law-making, public awareness of the law, and proper application of the rules should be integral elements in the administration of justice in the PRC. The hope is that this approach will prevent the recurrence of arbitrary political rule, curb reliance on ‘connections’ or guanxi in bureaucratic conduct, promote economic growth and generally encourage the development of a more predictable and orderly social life.