To ‘tear the mask off the face of the past’

Archaeology and politics in Jammu and Kashmir

Dados Bibliográficos

ID8961300
AutoresMridu Rai (Yale University, autor correspondente)
Ano2009
Volume46
Fascículo3
Páginas401-426
Data de publicação2009-07-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe Indian Economic & Social History Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0019-4646 • E-ISSN: 0973-0893
EditoraSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/001946460904600306
OpenAlexW2155267321
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas20

This article examines the historical and political course followed by a colonial discipline, namely the British-initiated archaeological project, as it was extended to the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir in the early twentieth century. It examines how and in what circumstances colonial archaeology was adopted both by the Dogra-Hindu rulers and their preponderantly Muslim subjects in this indirectly governed part of the British Indian Empire. This article argues that the adoption of this project emanated not so much from interest in the discipline of archaeology qua discipline, but in its ancillary political effects. It demonstrates that whereas the Hindu princely rulers modified colonial archaeology in ways that could enable them to use it buttress their sovereignty, their Kashmiri Muslim subjects appropriated it to strip the legitimacy off that very sovereignty. In the process, this article also highlights the capacity of various indigenous actors to recast aspects of colonial projects to serve their own several purposes

Ancient history · Archaeology · British Empire · Colonialism · Empire · Face (sociological concept · Hinduism · Indigenous · Legitimacy · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Sovereignty · State (computer science · Archaeological Research and Protection · History · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies · South Asian Studies and Conflicts · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies