Winner of the 2021 Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay–NIF Book Prize The definitive biography of Dadabhai Naoroji, the nineteenth-century activist who founded the Indian National Congress, was the first British MP of Indian origin, and inspired Gandhi and Nehru. Mahatma Gandhi called Dadabhai Naoroji the “father of the nation,” a title that today is reserved for Gandhi himself. Dinyar Patel examines the extraordinary life of this foundational figure in India’s modern political history, a devastating critic of British colonialism who served in Parliament as the first-ever Indian MP, forged ties with anti-imperialists around the world, and established self-rule or swaraj as India’s objective. Naoroji’s political career evolved in three distinct phases. He began as the activist who formulated the “drain of wealth” theory, which held the British Raj responsible for India’s crippling poverty and devastating famines. His ideas upended conventional wisdom holding that colonialism was beneficial for Indian subjects and put a generation of imperial officials on the defensive. Next, he attempted to influence the British Parliament to institute political reforms. He immersed himself in British politics, forging links with socialists, Irish home rulers, suffragists, and critics of empire. With these allies, Naoroji clinched his landmark election to the House of Commons in 1892, an event noticed by colonial subjects around the world. Finally, in his twilight years he grew disillusioned with parliamentary politics and became more radical. He strengthened his ties with British and European socialists, reached out to American anti-imperialists and Progressives, and fully enunciated his demand for swaraj. Only self-rule, he declared, could remedy the economic ills brought about by British control in India. Naoroji is the first comprehensive study of the most significant Indian nationalist leader before Gandhi.

Chandra explores how English became an Indian language during the colonial period of 1850-1930. Using archival and literary sources, she focuses on elite language education for girls and women.

This book tells a story of radical educational change. In the early nineteenth century, an imperial civil society movement promoted modern elementary 'schools for all'. This movement included British, American and German missionaries, and Indian intellectuals and social reformers. They organised themselves in non-governmental organisations, which aimed to change Indian education. Firstly, they introduced a new culture of schooling, centred on memorisation, examination, and technocratic management. Secondly, they laid the ground for the building of the colonial system of education, which substituted indigenous education. Thirdly, they broadened the social accessibility of schooling. However, for the nineteenth century reformers, education for all did not mean equal education for all: elementary schooling became a means to teach different subalterns 'their place' in colonial society. Finally, the educational movement also furthered the building of a secular 'national education' in England.

Why and how do debates about the form and disposition of our Earth shape enlightened subjectivity and secular worldliness in colonial modernity? Sumathi Ramaswamy explores this question for British India with the aid of the terrestrial globe, which since the sixteenth century has circulated as a worldly symbol, a scientific instrument, and not least an educational tool for inculcating planetary consciousness. In Terrestrial Lessons, Ramaswamy provides the first in-depth analysis of the globe’s history in and impact on the Indian subcontinent during the colonial era and its aftermath. Drawing on a wide array of archival sources, she delineates its transformation from a thing of distinction possessed by elite men into that mass-produced commodity used in classrooms worldwide—the humble school globe. Traversing the length and breadth of British India, Terrestrial Lessons is an unconventional history of this master object of pedagogical modernity that will fascinate historians of cartography, science, and Asian studies.

A provocative account of the development of modern national culture in India using classical music as a case study. Janaki Bakhle demonstrates how the emergence of an "Indian" cultural tradition reflected colonial and exclusionary practices, particularly the exclusion of Muslims by the Brahmanic elite, which occurred despite the fact that Muslims were the major practiti oners of the Indian music that was installed as a "Hindu" national tradition. This book lays bare how a nation's imaginings--from politics to culture--reflect rather than transform societal divisions.

"The Parsis of India" examines a much-neglected area of Asian Studies. In tracing keypoints in the development of the Parsi community, it depicts the Parsis' history, and accounts for their ability to preserve, maintain and construct a distinct identity. For a great part the story is told in the colonial setting of Bombay city. Ample attention is given to the Parsis' evolution from an insular minority group to a modern community of pluralistic outlook. Filling the obvious lacunae in the literature on British "colonialism," Indian society and history, and, last but not least, "Zoroastrianism," this book broadens our knowledge of the interaction of colonialism and colonial groups, and elucidates the significant role of the Parsis in the commercial, educational, and civic milieu of Bombay colonial society.

The Parsis of India examines a much-neglected area of Asian Studies. In tracing keypoints in the development of the Parsi community, it depicts the Parsis’ history, and accounts for their ability to preserve, maintain and construct a distinct identity. For a great part the story is told in the colonial setting of Bombay city. Ample attention is given to the Parsis’ evolution from an insular minority group to a modern community of pluralistic outlook. Filling the obvious lacunae in the literature on British colonialism, Indian society and history, and, last but not least, Zoroastrianism, this book broadens our knowledge of the interaction of colonialism and colonial groups, and elucidates the significant role of the Parsis in the commercial, educational, and civic milieu of Bombay colonial society.

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