ABSTRACT
The indicated period in the chapter’s title from the mid-nineteenth to the end of the twentieth century is unusual in the historiography of South Asia. In general the period is divided between the era of the British Raj from 1858 to 1947 whilst the states of India, Pakistan and Ceylon that followed the subcontinent’s independence are commonly denoted as the “post-colonial” narrative. The year 1858 undoubtedly stands as a dramatic watershed in modern Indian history as the territorial possessions of the EIC were declared to be a British crown colony. This watershed also included the brutal suppression of the Great Rebellion and dismissal of the Timurid dynasty, events that produced a profound rupture in the self-understanding and awareness of many “Indians”. However, independence of British India in 1947 was no less of a dramatic caesura. Indeed, the increasing distance between the tragic humanitarian events and the serious political changes that the division of British India brought with it made the structural continuities of the colonial state in the successor states of Pakistan and India all the more conspicuous and, for decades following independence, the post-colonial states remained cognate to their former colonisers. It seems that it was the “emergency” (1975-7) of Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi, daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, which triggered a political development of India ultimately overcoming the “post-colonial state”. Political change included a multi-party parliamentary system hitherto unthinkable since Congress had held the majority of votes and seats for decades. Gradual liberalisation of the Indian economy through the deregulation of several industrial sectors, which had so far been dependent on government licences, did not commence abruptly and unexpectedly in 1991, but was rather part of the economic transformation which had taken place since the beginning of the 1980s. Furthermore, since the “emergency” it is the “religious moment” which came to play an ever increasing role in Indian politics. Moreover, in Pakistan the politics of “Islamisation” began in 1977. However, political, societal and economic changes also occurred in Sri Lanka from 1984 onwards, as well as in Nepal. It seems historiographically reasonable to set 1998 as a major caesura of South Asian history since transformation processes seem to have, inter alia, culminated in the ignition of an atomic bomb in both Pakistan and in India and it is during
this year that the assassinations of Sri Lankan politicians reached unprecedented numbers. In this book, the histories of Nepal and (Sri) Lanka since the eighteenth
century are dealt with in separate sections as both current states were not part of British India. During the eighteenth century, large parts of Ceylon (as per colonial terminology) were free from colonial rule, only coming under British rule in 1818. When Ceylon gained independence in 1948, it retained its Dominion status within the British Commonwealth, similar to Canada and Australia, until 1972. In many ways continuities with the colonial system, especially in Ceylon, are to be observed far beyond the formal independence of the country. Whilst Nepal never belonged to the British Empire, a residency was established in Kathmandu, yet its functions were limited. An essential part in its formal independence was the fact that Nepal’s foreign policy had been crafted independently, unlike the monarchies and principalities in British India.
