This paper discusses the commercial history of the Java sugar industry in the interwar decades of the 1920s and 1930s. Java's late colonial industry had a uniquely exogenous character, in that, amongst the world's major producers of cane sugar in the late colonial era, it was singularly devoid of metropolitan or quasi-metropolitan markets. Instead, it sought its markets pre-eminently on the Asian ‘mainland’ to its north and northwest. The Indian subcontinent formed one such market, but East Asia formed the second, and it is the Java industry's fortunes in China and Japan that provide the focus of the present paper. This focus highlights the extent to which the partial collapse of the industry in the mid-1930s related to factors altogether more complex than a simple fall in consumption and drop in prices associated with the interwar Depression. Fundamentally, it was evolving economic autarchy throughout east Asia, encouraged by Depression conditions, which lay at the heart of the Java sugar industry's problems in this sector of its market. Key factors were Java's ambivalent relationship with an expanding but crisis-ridden Japanese sugar ‘empire,’ and the effect on its long-standing links with British sugar refineries in Hong Kong because of the latter's increasing difficulties in the China market. In tandem, they underscored the commercial hazards inherent in Java sugar's exogenous situation.

For over a millennium before the 20th century, the Korean state had maintained a system of household registration, or hojok. In the Choson dynasty (1392-1910), these registers, through their specification of each household head's status either as a tax-paying commoner or tax-exempt aristocrat or low-born, reinforced the hereditary status delineation of each locality and in turn determined everything from tax and service obligations to the courtesies and behaviors of social interaction. Within the span of a few years at the turn of the 20th century, however, this stalwart institution of household registration, which proved so central to both the strengths and problems of the Choson government, was thoroughly reorganized, revealing the myriad facets of the state's changing relationship with the populace.

Located along Pakistan's central Asian margins, the high mountain region of Gilgit-Baltistan borders Afghanistan and India, and since 1969 has connected Pakistan to China. In this article, I argue that over the last 50 years, expanding forms of connectivity between Pakistan and China were localized in Gilgit-Baltistan through three processes: (1) from 1969, overland connectivity between Gilgit-Baltistan and western China has enabled Pakistan to imagine and project expansive ties—and geopolitical aspirations—that transcend the border areas where the cross-border trade was initially localized; (2) unfolding ties between the two countries were accompanied by new material exchanges: initially barter trade and regulated caravans, followed by private commerce in the mid-1980s and, finally, economic corridor development under the Belt and Road Initiative; and (3) Chinese investments in Pakistan were part of a new cycle of global accumulation. Concurrently, in the wake of transnational investments, local governance in Gilgit-Baltistan adopted neoliberal administrative measures: the prioritizing of investment capitalism, the privatization of public goods and services, and securitization.

This article examines intersections between sexuality, migration, and citizenship in the context of cross-border and cross-region marriage migration in Kutch, Gujarat, to underscore that women's mobility across borders is one site on which national cultural and political anxieties unfold. It argues that contemporary cross-region marriage migration must be located within the larger political economy of such marriages, and should take into account the historical trajectories of marriage migration in particular regions. To this end, it examines three instances of marriage migration in Kutch: the princely state's marriages with Sindh, nineteenth-century marriages between merchants from Kutch and women from Africa, and contemporary marriage migration into Kutch from Bengal. The article asks whether the relative evaluation of these marriages by the state can be viewed in relation to the settlement policies undertaken after partition, where borderlands were to be settled with those who were deemed loyal citizens. Finally, by historicizing marriage—as structure, but also aspirational category—it seeks to move away from the singularity of marriage as framed in the dominant sociological discourse on marriage in South Asia.

When we think about the history of the international refugee regime, why is it that—with a few carefully delineated exceptions—there were no non-European ‘refugees’ until the 1950s? This article offers a critical examination of existing scholarship on the history of the international refugee regime and suggests some alternative pathways for future research. The article has three broad objectives. The first is to propose an outline for an alternative history of the international refugee regime, one in which the non-European and colonial worlds are not invisible or peripheral but rather central to the main narrative. The second is to ask what place Chinese migrants might occupy in such an alternative history of human displacement, stretching over the course of the twentieth century. Finally, this article tries to show that the period from 1945 to the early 1960s was an especially critical one in the history of the international refugee regime, one in which refugee movements both out of and into the People's Republic of China were critical in generating the kinds of tensions and contradictions that emerged when the international refugee regime was transposed from Europe onto colonial and post-colonial Asia.

Whereas reformers (occasionally with intent to mislead, often because they are themselves misled) tend to describe their work as if it were a concerted, directed whole worked out with a minimal difference of attitude and opinion, historians often gravitate to the glaring points of conflict in studying the development of a reform act. From these it is easy and interesting to paint a colourful picture. One might (rather inaccurately) describe the evolution of the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms as the product of a process of conflict between the ambitious, radical, eccentric, ego-centric, Jewish, Secretary of State for India, Montagu and the Edwardian, unambitious, conscientious, self-effacing Viceroy, Chelmsford. Similarly, there is some temptation to view the growth of these reforms as the outcome of a battle between the forces of light (Montagu and Chelmsford) and the forces of darkness (the provincial governors).

Monuments, memorials and statues, so commonplace in squares and parks of late twentieth-century cities, have interesting histories and convey particular historiographies. In public arenas planned and maintained by state administrations, symbolic representations situated for the purpose of communicating messages to passersby, visitors, and residents often mark the state's attempt to control space, history and popular memory. By extension, changes in statuary or monumental architecture over time may reflect shifts in rulers and their representations of rule. As Hung (1991) demonstrates, the ‘war of monuments’ in Tiananmen Square reflected struggles for power and demands by those excluded from power for rights and access. The ‘statumania’ of post-revolutionary France personalized contests for power and representation (Agulhon 1985). On the other hand, monuments that remain fixed on landscapes can be variously interpreted over time, forming, as Young (1989:70) has noted, ‘a kind of screen across which the projected shadows of a world's preoccupations continue to flicker and dance.’

Contemporary scholars struggling to keep their work politically meaningful and efficacious often, with the best of intentions, invoke the triad of race, gender and class. But though this three-part mantra is persistently and even passionately recited, usually in the introductory paragraphs of a scholarly piece, ‘attentive listening,’ as historian Douglas M. Peers asserts, ‘reveals that class is sounded with little more than a whisper’ (825). Unlike the other two, class largely remains an under-explored and, consequently, little understood category of experience and inquiry. I can say with certainty that this is true in my own field of postcolonial studies, with its sub-discipline of colonial discourse analysis. In part because of the politically justifiable emphasis on race in postcolonial research and theory (and only later, through feminist insistence, was that emphasis broadened to include gender), we have yet to develop as sustained, various, and subtle a critique of class as that which now exists for race and gender.

While the debates about the use of a single script for rendering the Marathi language became relevant only after the advent of printing, the fast-changing social and political landscapes of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries lent their own weight to the discourse. The debates about the writing system became the venue for various competing social forces and political movements. The issues of region, caste, class, and religion—the core of today's identity politics—were all embroiled in this debate, as were both the British colonial and Indian nationalist governments. In just 150 years, Balbodh (a variant of Devanagari) emerged as the sole script for the Marathi language. At least three different arguments were used to dismiss the Modi script. The first was about printing types, and the legibility and economy of Devanagari. By the end of the nineteenth century, the social empowerment of the literati and administrative convenience were the reasons given for abolishing Modi. In the twentieth century, British resistance to nationalist efforts in western India, and then a fear of regionalism under the new nationalist independent republic, ensured that a single script able to be used for both Hindi and Sanskrit would be officially sanctioned for Marathi.

Before embarking on an analysis of Indonesia's attempt at democracy, a working definition of this term is required. This is particularly necessary in view of Herbert Feith's contention in his monumental work, The Decline of Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia, that the period of democracy stretched from December 1949 till March 1957.

On 15 August 1950, just as India was celebrating its third independence anniversary, an earthquake of 8.6 magnitude struck the remote northeastern state of Assam and its surrounding borderlands. Rivers burst their banks and landslides blocked Himalayan valleys, destroying towns, villages, roads, fields, and tea gardens in their wake. Beyond the disaster's shattering impact on the physical geography of the region, this article explores how it participated in another reconfiguration—that of Assam's place within India's political geography and national imaginary. The Indian public had hitherto known very little about India's remote ‘northeast frontier’; the cataclysm and subsequent relief measures served to carve out a space for it on Indian mental maps. Simultaneously, by forcing a large-scale encounter between Indian authorities and the people of the scarcely controlled eastern Himalayas, post-earthquake relief and rehabilitation led to unprecedented state expansion in this newly strategic borderland. Yet in the same breath, the aftermath of the disaster fuelled stereotypes about Assam and its hinterland that would eventually further their marginality within India and undermine their continued unity. The crystallization of Assam's image as a place irreducibly subject to the whims of nature and, more importantly, incapable of taking care of itself (and hence, of its highland dependencies), would poison centre–state relations for decades to come. Imperfect and contradictory, the reordering of this border space from a colonial frontier to a component of independent India's national space did not end marginality, but instead reinforced it.

In 1928, the newly established Nationalist government faced the formidable task of rebuilding the country after years of political disintegration. The central concern was national strengthening and modernization, and the government embarked on various programs of political, social and economic reconstruction. Medical modernization was part of this process. A study of the Nationalist efforts in this area is crucial to our understanding of the complexity of health developments in modern China since the Nationalist decade of 1928–1937 was the only period in pre-1949 China when a central government was able to assert some measure of control over the nation and preside over the construction of a modern health system. This process would include not only the initiation of new programs but also the consolidation and coordination of efforts on the part of individual reformers and groups. The examination of the evolution of such a system will illuminate a much neglected but important aspect of social and institutional developments in the Republican period. It will also lend historical perspective to the understanding of health developments after 1949. This essay focuses on the development and implementation of rural health programs in the Nationalist decade as well as the factors affecting the establishment of a viable health care system in the countryside.

This article explores the origins and development of the Kuomintang (KMT, the Chinese Nationalist Party) party's enterprises in Taiwan. Because the KMT party's enterprises are categorized in the private sector in all the statistical data, we should be very careful when we discuss the contributions of private enterprise to economic growth in Taiwan.

This article aims to inspect the scale of the party's enterprises, the reasons why KMT runs its own enterprises, and what influence they exert on the economic growth and political democratization of Taiwan. Obviously, these questions are significant for further economic and political reforms in Mainland China.

Islamic almsgiving is on the rise among Muslims in India, as charitable donations by individuals come to supplant landed endowments as the lifeblood of many Islamic associations. Techniques of mass fundraising in India by Islamic revivalist movements such as Deoband facilitated their expansion across the subcontinent. Such fundraising depended on documentary practices such as verification letters, lists of donors, and receipts for donations. This article illustrates how charity receipts and other documents that change hands in ritual Islamic almsgiving are also a key part of new Indian Muslim collective identities. Moral ties as well as money circulate in this Islamic charity economy. Financial documents are Islamic philanthropy's answer to ‘print capitalism’, serving as material rituals of symbolic community across vast distances. Moreover, the use of documents in traditional Islamic almsgiving is also inflecting pious Muslims’ spiritualities. Islamic charity receipts in particular are contributing to the individualization of religiosity among Lucknow Muslims. New modes of accounting (originally intended to ensure financial compliance) also allow Muslim almsgivers to ‘account’ for accrued piety in a perceived spiritual merit economy.

This paper attempts to see how a particular labour market (domestic service), a traditionally male domain, became segregated both by gender and age in the post-partition Indian state of West Bengal, and mainly in its capital city Calcutta. It argues that the downward trend in industrial job opportunities in post independent West Bengal, accompanied by the large scale immigration of men, women and children from bordering East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), led to a general decline in wage rate for those in domestic service. Poor refugee women, in their frantic search for a means of survival, gradually drove out the males of the host population who were engaged in domestic service in urban West Bengal by offering to work for a very low wage and often for no wage at all. As poor males from the neighbouring states of Bihar, Orissa and the United Provinces constituted historically a substantial section of Calcutta domestic workers, it was mainly this group who were replaced by refugee women. The second stage in the changing profile of domestic service since the 1970s in urban West Bengal was arguably set by migrating girl children from different parts of the state to Calcutta city in search of employment. This is probably why West Bengal had the highest girl children's work-participation rate in urban India in 2001.

The land of Dai Viet, whose political and cultural heartland lay in what is now northern Vietnam, followed patterns somewhat analogous to those posited in other Eurasian ‘rimland’ states. The fifteenth to nineteenth centuries saw administrative centralization, territorial expansion, population growth, economic elaboration, a greater emphasis on textuality and moral orthodoxy, and growing cultural standardization. In contrast to France and West European states, however, the Vietnamese achieved this integration less by refining patterns established during the prior ‘charter age’ (c. 900–1400 c.e.) than by adopting a radically new model, that of the contemporary Ming government in China.

This paper discusses shifts within Islamic life, ritual and practice in the town of Amroha in the United Provinces of India, during the eventful period of approximately 1860–1930. Based primarily upon Urdu writings produced about or by Muslim residents of the town during this period, it examines the ways in which wider religious reformist movements such as those associated with Aligarh, Deoband and Bareilly were received and experienced within nearby smaller, supposedly marginal urban settlements. The paper argues that broader currents of religious reform were not unquestioningly accepted in Amroha, but were often engaged in a constant process of dialogue and accommodation with local particularities. The first section introduces Amroha and its sharif Muslim population, focusing upon how the town's Islamic identity was defined and described. The second section examines a plethora of public religious rites and institutions emerging during this period, including madrasas and imambaras, discussing how these were used by eminent local families to reinforce distinctly local hierarchies and cultural particularities. A third section considers public debates in Amroha concerning the Aligarh movement, arguing that these debates enhanced local rivalries, especially those between Shia and Sunni Muslims. A final section interrogates the growing culture of religious disputation in the town, suggesting that such debate facilitated the negotiation of religious change in a transitory social environment.

Secularism has been a defining norm for the modern, liberal Indian state. The constitutionally secular Gujarat state is believed to have undergone a paradigmatic shift in 2002, when it supported a massacre of Muslim citizens. This article investigates the empirical as well as normative state in situations of inter-religious violence. It traces the journey of the secular norm over a 45-year period, in the context of contests over identity, political ideology and socio-political dominance. The picture that emerges is much more nuanced than that projected by stark pronouncements of paradigm shifts and the inauguration of a Hindu rashtra.2

Japan, in contrast to other industrialized democracies, has enjoyed a falling or steady crime rate for much of the post-war period. This has been despite the potentially adverse effects of rapid industrialization and urbanization. The low crime rate and high clearance rates shown in the official statistics are seen as both a result and a reflection of the development of successful policing techniques in Japan. Even allowing for the dark figure of unrecorded crime, this record is impressive, and it is claimed that it has been achieved using fewer resources in manpower terms than those available to European and North American forces. Explanations for this phenomenon of a relatively low crime rate and high clearance rates in Japan have focused on three main areas of concern. The most popular approach has been to examine the organization and intelligence-gathering activities of the Japanese police at a local level through studies of the system of satellite police boxes: the kōban in urban areas and the chūzaisho (residential police boxes) in rural districts.

The current article examines temple building and shifting monastic patronage in twentieth and twenty-first century Sri Lanka. Drawing heavily on fieldwork conducted in two separate upcountry villages over the past five years, the author argues that far from passively accepting the failings of local monastics, lay Buddhists are actively and directly involved in shaping their own religious experiences. In examining closely numerous conversations centered on temple construction, this article pays particular attention to how notions about ideal ritual performance, caste discrimination, and merit-making provide lay donors with the needed impetus for building new monastic institutions and, thus, establishing a choice of temple patronage where little or no such choice previously existed.