The basic objective of this paper is to assess India's acquisition of nuclear weapons in light of the general debate why states ‘go nuclear’ and build nuclear arsenals. In general, analysts proffer four arguments about proliferation of nuclear weapons. They are: (1) security concerns; (2) prestige; (3) technological imperatives; and (4) domestic politics. The first posits that security concerns directly related to a state's physical security and survival might drive a state to acquire nuclear weapons. A state, when operating in an environment of anarchy and acute security dilemmas, remains very concerned with national security and survival. Depending on the intensity of security dilemmas, states often resort to developing lethal military forces, including, in some instances, nuclear weapons. For example, the ‘first generation’ nuclear powers (the USA, the USSR, the UK, France and China) and the ‘second generation’ nuclear states (India, Pakistan etc.) acquired nuclear weapons because they each faced an acute security threat from a strategic adversary.

‘It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things.’ Machiavelli, The Prince

Central Xinzheng Reform and the Twentieth-Century Chinese State

The effort of the Qing dynasty to transform itself and forge a new set of relationships with society in its last decade has been one of the less explored areas in the scholarship on modern China. Although this set of radical initiatives, collectively known as the xinzheng (‘New Policy’) reforms attracted a good deal of commentary from its contemporaries, until recently it has been relatively understudied. There are two reasons for this neglect. First, conventional periodization has divided historical turf between Qing historians (for the Qing dynasty 1644–1911), Republican historians (for the period between 1911 and 1949 ) and political scientists (who cover 1949 to the present). Second, since the dramatic narrative for the first three-quarters of the twentieth century has been largely understood as a process of ever more radical forms of revolutionary change, scholars have understandably been more taken with exploring the antecedents of revolution and/or locally based studies of elite transformation than they have been with exploring a case of seemingly bona fide failure.The central government-initiated xinzheng reform period (1902–1911) has thus borne the full brunt of a Whiggish interpretation of history; too late to command the attention of most Qing historians, too early for the majority of Republican historians, at best a prologue for the real revolution to come, and at worst an abortive failure.

This study of China's relations with Algeria and India shows that the Mao-era emphasis on the transnational function of class made it fundamentally sceptical of the privileged status of the nation-state and transformed Beijing's posture towards the Third World in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Beijing's sense of a growing matrix of transnational class forces damaged relations with India, a key Third World moderate, and spurred closer ties with non-state, revolutionary movements like the Algerian Front Libération Nationale (FLN). Thus Beijing retreated from the post-Korean War phase of moderate diplomacy during which it had eschewed support for revolution abroad under the rhetoric of the ‘Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence’. This article relates Beijing's class analysis of the growing challenges in its relations with India to the arc of interactions between the communist Chinese, the FLN revolutionaries, and the newly post-colonial Algeria. It demonstrates that because of Beijing's understanding of how the domestic class category ‘comprador’ facilitated ‘neo-colonialism’ (an emerging Third World concept), China's anti-imperialism must be understood through its perception of the transnational function of class forces. This understanding of the post-colonial dilemma—how far to maintain or sever ties with the West, which grew partly from Chinese perceptions of Indian politics—explains the curious difficulty that Beijing faced in maintaining cooperative relations with many newly independent nations like Algeria. The emphasis on transnational class struggle also provides an interpretation of Beijing's foreign policy which is intimately linked to domestic politics and affirms the contribution of ideology to the Sino-Soviet split.

This paper explores two dynamic places and spaces in the Americas, destination of several Asian diasporas—the Chinese, Japanese, and South Asian—as contact and exchange zones. One would be the ethnic enclaves commonly called ‘Chinatowns’, which stretch over time from the early sixteenth century to the present, and over space from Manila in the Spanish empire across the Pacific to all over the Americas. These Chinatowns, imagined and real and riddled with stereotypes, are well-known tropes on the American landscapes, and need no further preliminary introduction; they are also firmly located within fixed national (or colonial) entities.

The second space has not been historically associated with Asian diasporas in the Americas, although well known for different reasons. Here I refer to ‘borderlands’, the overlapping space between, over, and above two political national boundaries or borders, in particular the US-Mexican and US-Canadian borderlands, both, coincidentally, clearly marked and delineated by the mid-nineteenth century (1848 and 1846 respectively). Furthermore, as these two transnational/transborder regions are also trans-Pacific, their recognition as an integral part of Asian diasporas is belated and overdue. To make the case further, the study of Asians in the Americas has revealed that Asian migrants, labour, and capital have been historically drawn to these borderlands because they represent dynamic zones of economic development, first in the heyday of maturing American capitalism at the turn of the twentieth century, and again in the glaring eye of current late-capitalist globalization. In other words, Asians have amassed on both sides of these borders for over 100 years, where they have become adept at multiple border crossings, both trans-Pacific and transnational.

In 1968 a popular movement emerged on the streets of Pakistan which toppled the regime of General Muhammad Ayub Khan and ushered in the Pakistan People's Party (PPP). After a decade of military rule this movement was heralded as a turning point in the country's political fortunes. However, the war in 1971, the failure of the PPP to live up to its radical slogans, and Pakistan's eventual return to military rule in 1977 were seen as clear indications of the failure of both the movement and the PPP. This article focuses on the area of Kot Lakhpat in Lahore and the emergence of a worker-led court under Abdur Rehman to argue that this narrative of the failure of the movement does not leave space for local success stories which, while temporary, had an important impact on the role that the working classes imagined for themselves within the state. The Kot Lakhpat movement was part of a longer history of labour politics, and its story challenges the centrality of the PPP and shows how local structures of authority can be formed in response to the greater space for radical action opened up by a wider national resistance movement.

The seven papers in this special issue focus primarily on the development of British colonial rule between the 1780s and the 1840s. Over the course of these decades, the East India Company extended and consolidated its political and military control throughout much of the Indian subcontinent. Many of the crucial developments in the formation of the colonial state occurred during this period. These include the conquest of Mysore and the defeat of the Marathas, the implementation of the Permanent Settlement, the reforms undertaken during the Viceroyalty of Lord Bentinck, the introduction of Utilitarianism and missionary activity, the establishment of the Trigonometrical Survey, the development of the systems of control based upon indirect rule in the ‘princely states’, the emergence of new concepts of ‘race’ and social hierarchy, and the reshaping of British social life in South Asia. Outside of India, Ceylon's maritime provinces were captured from the Dutch and, in 1815, the interior Kandyan kingdom was annexed, paving the way for the island's transformation into a Crown colony focused on plantation production. In Britain, too, there was a growing interest among the public in the British territorial possessions in South Asia and an increasing awareness that this empire helped to define Britain as a great national power within Europe. For these reasons alone, this period, which begins when the Company was seeking to entrench itself as the de facto ruler of Bengal and ends shortly before the 1857 rebellions and the formal end of the Company rule, requires serious attention by historians.

Recent studies have stressed the need for micro-histories of the environment so that important differences and similarities at local, regional and national level might be revealed. This paper analyses the process and patterns of environmental degradation at regional level by taking the case of deforestation in colonial Punjab by studying its implication at the level of empire. More specifically, it examines three aspects of how the operation and expansion of railways from 1869 to 1884, a peak period of railway expansion, affected the forests of the Punjab's plains. First, the paper analyses the reasons for large-scale railway expansion in the Punjab by discussing spatial and temporal expansion. Secondly, the impact of the railway firewood demand on the Punjab's forests between 1860 and 1884 is examined, specifically, the conditions that facilitated the increased dependence of the railways on firewood. Next follows an examination of the temporally varying nature of deforestation, given that railway firewood demand was determined by railway line openings. This section also includes a discussion on the nature of the colonial state response to the deforestation crisis and its role in maintaining the fuel supply to the railways. Finally, in the context of deforestation in the Punjab, the paper discusses how and why railway fuel changed from firewood to coal.

The Reorganisation Loan, or as many Chinese writers call the Grand Loan of the Second Year of the Republic of China (Min-erh ta chiehk'uan ), arranged by the ‘Old Consortium’,1 played a significant role in Chinese internal affairs in the early twentieth century. The loan has been condemned by Chinese historians, nationalist and communist alike, as one of the ugliest crimes committed by the imperialist powers in China because it enabled Yüan Shih-k'ai to defeat the Kuo-min tang in the Second Revolution in 1913, and to rid China of all semblance of democracy up to the point in 1915 when he aspired to re-establish an empire and to occupy the dragon throne himself. Being unanimously labelled as ‘father of the warlords’, Yüan's autocratic practices and his sudden death in June 1916 have always been blamed for throwing China into the disastrous warlord period, in which the country was split into autonomous units, and in the subsequent decades experienced chaos, weakness, and humiliation.

There was nothing unusual in an indemnity per se. Indeed, an indemnity could be seen as a forward step in European civilization, replacing the regime of indiscriminate plunder which preceded it—although it could equally be argued that in their pacification of north China following the razing of the Siege of the Legations in 1900 the Allies, through their looting of the Tientsin and Peking areas in disregard of recently agreed definitions, had acquired both indemnity and plunder. Indeed the chaos was such that among the first financial and contradictory consequences of the post-Boxer period was Sir Robert Hart's successful arrangement with the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation of a loan of Ts10,000 a month for the chief Chinese negotiator, Prince Ch'ing [I-K'uang], on the one hand, while in Shansi the Protestant Church refused to accept any indemnity for the Christian lives lost; consequently the authorities voluntarily agreed to establish a University on Western lines, to be maintained by the authorities, and to operate under joint control for ten years at the annual cost of Ts 50,000.

The creation of Assam as a new province in 1874 and the transfer of Sylhet from Bengal to Assam provided a new twist in the shaping of the northeastern region of India. Sylhet remained part of Assam from 1874 to 1947, which had significant consequences in this frontier locality. This paper re-examines archival sources on political mobilization, rereads relevant autobiographical texts, and reviews oral evidence to discover the ‘experienced’ history of the region as distinct from the ‘imagined’ one. The sub-text of partition (Sylhet) is more intriguing than the main text (Bengal), because events in Sylhet offer us a micro-level study. Generations of historians—writing mostly in Bengali and relying on colonial archives—have tended to overlook the mindset of the people of Sylhet. This paper, on the basis of an examination of combined sources, argues that the new province was implicated in overlapping histories, across Bengal-Assam borders. The voice of the indigenous—mostly Hindus but partly Muslim—elites were dominant from 1874 onwards. However, the underdogs—particularly ‘pro-Pakistani’ dalits (lower-caste Hindus) and madrasa-educated ‘pro-Indian’ maulvis—emerged as crucial players in the referendum of 1947. Hardly any serious study, however, has focused on the Sylhet referendum—a defining moment in the region. This study of the Sylhet referendum will reveal a new dimension to the multiple responses to these issues and provide a glimpse of the ‘communal psyche’ of the people in this frontier district, rather than a binary opposition between ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ forces.

The ‘downward sweep’ of Japan after Pearl Harbor has been widely noted for its long-term effects in Southeast Asia. The rule of the established colonial masters was shattered, and those failing to escape disappeared into the camps of the Kempeitai. In Burma and Java, in particular, Japanese rule promoted local organizations, local administratiors, the indigenous language and, in Burma, a ‘national’ government and a ‘national’ army, under Japanese supervision: the one thing Japan did not bring was freedom and independence. Yet the greatly-increased social mobility and political, military and administrative experience had long-term consequences: none of the post-war attempts at colonial restoration proved viable.

In December 1875, the Tokyo press was full of rumours that there would soon be a new Japanese-language newspaper on sale. At the end of the month, there came the not-unexpected announcement that the Nisshin Shinjishi (Reliable Daily News), founded some years previously by a Yokohama journalist, J. R. Black, would cease publication on 31 December.

. . . according to Manu, for slandering a Vaisya or a Shudra the fines are only twenty-five or twelve panas, respectively. For members of the lower orders who slander their betters the penalties are much more severe . . . the equality of the law was never admitted in ancient India, and was quite contrary to most Indian thought. (A. L. Basham, The Wonder That Was India, 1954: 120).

The orthodox approach to a criticism of early Indonesian novels has always been to see the novel as an expression of the clash between adat and modernism, between the old conservative traditions upheld by the elders of the village community and the new Weltanschauung of the members of the younger generation. The latter have been exposed to Western traditions of thought, and their desires and ambitions refuse to be contained by the traditional patterns of a society to which they feel close but whose narrowness they regard as crippling to their own personal development. This conceptualization of the problems of Indonesian society between the wars has gone almost unchallenged; nearly all discussion of its literature has been framed within its reference. Professor A. Johns's article in Quadrant is perhaps the most recent formulation of this approach. The intellectual, educated elements of society which Johns sees summed up in the figures of Kartini, the champion of women's rights, and Goenawan Mohammed, a contemporary literary figure, seek to develop ideas and attitudes which have no currency in traditional society. Their attempts to modernize society arouse opposition, but it is not this which pains them so much as their being misunderstood and their unwillingness to break with the society of their fathers to which they feel a close attachment.

The social context of land endowed for the maintenance of temples in the Kandyan region of Sri Lanka has long been recognized by scholars as an important topic for historical and sociological research. Most historical writing on the subject is concerned with changes in government policy towards temple endowments after the imposition of British control in 1815. The first forty years of British rule have received more attention than any later period; consequently emphasis has been placed on the gradual of process British disengagement from the pre-colonial policy of close official involvement in the administration of temple land. This research has fruitfully illustrated tensions inherent to colonial rule in the early nineteenth century, especially the conflict between the religious beliefs of the colonizers and the desire to avoid unrest among non-Christians. However, little detailed research has been carried out on either official or popular attitudes towards temple endowments after the colonial government formally gave up its responsibility for their administration in the middle of the nineteenth century. As a result, the uneven and partial official movement towards a reassertion of government control in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is usually portrayed as official recognition of earlier mistakes concerning disestablishment. This view does not take into account the considerable economic importance of the endowments. Changing official attitudes towards religion, as well as internal developments within Buddhism, did indeed influence government policy, but changes in economic policy and in the control and use of land were also important.

As Inspector General of the Maritime Customs Service, Robert Hart (1835–1911), born in County Armagh in Ireland, was a chief fiscal administrator of the Chinese Empire. Hart was a British citizen, yet he was employed by the Chinese government and was responsible for hundreds of Western (mostly British) and thousands of Chinese employees. His ability to straddle cultures has been noted by the historians Bruner, Fairbank and Smith who refer to a trait of cultural sensitivity that was unusual among the merchants of the treaty ports in China. The source of this cultural sensitivity is of interest and some insights can be gleaned from his Irish origins. The employment under Hart of many persons from Ireland, family and others, in the Chinese Maritime Customs (CMC) has also raised questions about nepotism and favouritism. We will see that Hart did not only favour his family but was generally well disposed to long-standing acquaintances, whether they were Irish or not. Furthermore, his Irish contacts in both Ireland and China were of advantage to him in his career and his attainment of higher social status. Our examination of Hart's network of Irish contacts and his ideas about Ireland also reveal his multi-national identity. This seemed to allow Hart to be both pro-British while also retaining a critical perspective, as might be expected by someone who by place of birth, social class and religion was not from the heart of the English establishment.

To what extent was the underdeveloped world caught up in the vortex of the Great Depression? Did the crisis of 1929–33 leave a particular imprint upon the course of the economic history of the Third World during the inter-war period? Can the years spanning this quinquennium be fairly regarded as constituting a distinctive phase within the broader perspective of much longer-run trends? These questions, together with a whole host of related issues concerning the experience of particular areas, communities and industries, have recently been brought into much sharper focus than has hitherto been so. Although this reawakening of concern can be partly put down to the usual workings of the ‘scholarly cycle’, a far more satisfactory explanation may be found in relating it to the current round of public and academic discussion on the impact of the present-day depression. It is surely no coincidence that since the late 1970s there has been a considerable upsurge of interest in the events of that time; indeed it would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that the subject is forcing its way up the agenda of research priorities at a rate that would have been unthinkable even a decade ago. Over the last few years an increasing number of scholars have been busily engaged in the twin task of purposively re-examiningand reassessing a segment of intellectual territory that was once taken very much for granted and virtually shunted off to the sidelines. Thus by the end of 1986 at least three major international conferences will have been convened on the subject, and no less than fifty separate papers will have been presented.

Through engaging with everyday practices among student activists in contemporary Indian campus politics, this ethnographic study examines the breadcrumb trail between the left and self-fashioning. It focuses on a performative modality of political representation in Indian democracy by tracing the formation of biographical reconfigurations that implement subject-oriented techniques. The article charts their relevance in producing political legitimacy. It engages with the way in which personal reconfigurations are mobilized to recruit and appeal to both subaltern and privileged communities, thus generating universalistic representative claims and political efficacy.

The study discusses self-presentations among leading left activists who are members of five contending Marxist student organizations that are active in Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University campus. It shows that reconfigurations are a hallmark of practices of social ‘downlift’ which echo the notion of declassifying, a concept developed by philosopher Jacques Rancière. While embracing secularism and the legacy of political martyrs, the analysis illustrates how self-fashioning attempts to erase signs and habits attached to economic and social privileges through subverting and engaging creatively with sacrificial and ascetic tropes. Conversely, such practices find themselves critically questioned by activists at the bottom of the social ladder who aspire to social upliftment, including members of lower castes and impoverished Muslim communities. I find that the biographical effects of left activism are both long-lasting and renegotiable, shaping campus lives and subsequent professional careers. While such reconfigurations are not inspired by world renouncers of the Hindu mendicant tradition, these practices of the self might exemplify the historical cross-fertilization between long-standing cultural idioms and the Indian Marxist praxis.

In north India in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries several great landed estates played a crucial part in the consolidation of imperial rule and in the support of the social and economic order. These estates have attracted considerable scholarly attention, but previous research has concentrated primarily on their relations with the colonial administraton and on their general intermediary role in north Indian society. The only study directly concerned with their internal affairs is Dr. P. J. Musgrave's ‘Landlords and Lords of the Land: Estate Management and Social Control in Uttar Pradesh 1860–1920’ (Modern Asian Studies, 6, 3 (1972), pp. 257–75), in which official sources are used as the basis for an account of the internal operations of the great estates in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. Hitherto the major obstacle to the examination of the administration of the great estates has been the absence of comprehensive estate records. Fortunately the extensive and well-organized archives of the Raj Darbhanga of Bihar recently have been opened to scholars. In this paper the Raj archives have been drawn upon to provide evidence for an account of the structure and operation of the administration of the Raj Darbhanga during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The paper argues that despite substantial difficulties the Raj Darbhanga effectively pursued its interests by means of a bureaucratic system of management and that therefore Dr Musgrave's conclusions concerning the limited power of the great landed estates need substantial qualification and correction.