Fluid landscapes, fixed boundaries : British Expansion into Northern East Bengal in the 1820s

Abstract

The lecture is framed within the larger questions of the formation of new polities and ruler–subject relations as a result of British colonial conquest of northern east Bengal and neighbouring states from the perspective of ecological and climatic structuring conditions. It is a contribution to research on changing spatial intra- and transaction, transforming hill–plain relations, and synoptic political visions and identifications of particular landscapes, people and governance. Particular attention is given to the time and place bound formation of law for the control and access of land and natural resources.

The intention is to explore the tense relationship between a fluid landscape and the fixed notions of boundaries, government control and polities held by the EIC and which they strove to implement into military and fiscal control in northern east Bengal in the early nineteenth century. I will argue that the means and principles by which bureaucratic control was established formed the basis for a form of fiscal citizenship. In this specific ruler–subject relationship, the subject was acknowledged as a person with rights and was thereby in communication with government. Such control was intended for the former Nawab’s territories which mainly consisted of plains and therefore landscapes that were aimed at becoming agrarian. I will tentatively suggest that when the neighbouring independent states and autonomous villages were brought under EIC rule, this was done by other means which in turn shaped different ruler–subject relations and eventually paved the way for the formation of dual polities under one government.

Speaker

Gunnel Cederlöf, Uppsala University

Organisers

Department of Ecology, French Institute of Pondicherry

Venue

Jawaharlal Nehru Conference Hall, French Institute of Pondicherry, 11, Saint Louis Street, Pondicherry - 605 001

Time

2.30 pm