Making of Modern South Asia SS-0167

In this course we will engage with the historical constitution of South Asia during colonial and post-colonial times. Beginning with the early impetus of the East India Company in the late eighteenth century, we move through the subsequent phases of colonial intervention and rule. We will address the question of continuities and discontinuities between the colonial and post-colonial moments. By late nineteenth and early twentieth century, categories such as religion, caste and kingship were deployed to govern colonized people with immense consequences for the ways in which social and political life was subsequently organized in South Asia. One of the objectives of the course will be to engage, what the French philosopher Michel Foucault has called the "history of the present"; in other words, the aim will be to re-trace the historical formation of the social and political frameworks that constitute "the present" in South Asia, and the ways in which these frameworks constrain or enable possible futures. EXP, MCP, PRS, REA, WRI

Syllabus
n/a