Forging the Raj

This set of essays written over a span of forty years from 1961 to 2002, examines the structure and working of the British Raj in India during the first half of Crown Rule (1858-1914). The essays are grouped under three general headings: land tenure and land policy, colonial architecture, and migration. Two themes dominate. One is an assessment of what the British thought theu were doing in India, and second, how India ought to be ruled. In these essays, Thomas Metcalf examins British policies towards India and the way the British, as rulers, endeavoured to sustain and legitimate the imperial structure. He also explores the consequences of the ideas and policies as they affected the lives of ordinary Indians, from the landed elite to lowly policemen and labourers. Many of the essays- both those that examine policy and those that assess its consequences- take as a central turning point the revolt of 1857. The essays provide insight into varied ways in which the massive strucutre of the British Raj in India functioned in the heyday of empire. They give the reader some sense of the Raj as a functioning imperial government, and at the same time attempt to critically assess the various strategies that it devised to justify its rule.

Table of Contents:
INTRODUCTION; PART 1 LAND; 1. The Influence of the Mutiny of 1857 on Land Policy in India; 2. "Laissez Faire" and the Tenant Right in Mid-Nineteenth Century India; 3. From Raja to Landlord: the Oudh Talqdars, 1850-1870; 4. "Landlords Without Land": theu U.P. Zamindars Today; 5. Rural Society and British Rule in Nineteenth century India; PART II ARCHITECTURE; 6. Architecture and the Representation of Empire: India, 1860-1910; 7. Architecture and Empire: Sir Herbet Baker and the Building of New Delhi; 8. Monuments and Memorials: Lord Curzon's Creation of a Past for the Raj; 9. Past and Present: Towards an Aesthetics of Colonialism; 10. Architecture in the British Empire; PART II MIGRATION; 11. Indian Migration to South Africa; 12. "Hard Hands and Sound Healthy Bodies": Recruiting "Coolies" for Natal, 1860-1911; 13. Sikh Recruitment for Colonial Military and Police Forces, 1874-1914; 14. Empire Recentred: India in the Indian Ocean Arena

Review :
"Metcalf has rendered a valuable service to those interested in the Raj, South Asia, and colonial history and historiography by collecting and publishing his essays in a single volume. Readers, from the scholar to the articulate layman, will learn much about British attitudes and policies as well as conditions of life in South Asia during the half-century following the mutiny when the British were seeking to sustain and legitimate the Raj."--John L. Gordon Jr., History: Reviews of New Books