The Mortal God: Imagining the Sovereign in Colonial India

ISBN-13: 9781107166561 / Angielski / Twarda / 2018 / 450 str.

Milinda Banerjee

Opis

This work explores how colonial India imagined human and divine figures to battle the nature and locus of sovereignty.

Recenzje

'The Mortal God is a thoughtful contribution to an emerging literature on the global and comparative histories of sovereignty. Banerjee proceeds from the vantage of Bengali political thought to examine the intimacy between claims about the singular figure of the king and the democratic figure of the people. His inclusion of agrarian and caste-based political movements within the scope of this intellectual history is one of the book's most refreshing features. This is a work that advances the agenda of both global intellectual history and comparative political theory.' Andrew Sartori, New York University

Spis treści

Acknowledgements; Note on transliteration; Abbreviations; Note on documents used; Introduction; 1. 'Caesar of India': debating the British monarchy and colonial rulership; 2. State is the household vastly enlarged: imagining sovereignty through the princely states; 3. 'One law, one nation, one throne': debating national unity; 4. 'One has to rule oneself': collectivising sovereignty in peasant politics; 5. 'God's kingdom has come': messianic sovereignty in late colonial India; Conclusions and further thoughts; Index.