This book provides a reinterpretation of the major themes of sovereignty, authority and social reform in colonial South Asian history by examining the shifting pragmatic, political, moral and ideological forces which underpinned British policies on and attitudes to sati. The author illuminates the complex ways in which East India Company officials negotiated the limits of their own authority in India, their conceptions of nature and the extent of Indian princely sovereignty, and argues that and the so-called ‘civilising mission’ was often dependent on local circumstances and political expediencies rather than overarching imperial principles; the book also evaluates Indian responses to the supposed modernising Enlightenment discourse.
This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of South Asian history as well as British colonial studies.
Andrea Major is Lecturer in Wider World History at the University of Leeds. She is author of Pious Flames: European Encounters with Sati, 1500-1830 and editor of Sati: A Historical Anthology.