Hi, Actually the speech he gave before Justice Broomfield should be read by everyone.Also what the judge told him.SOmething ot the effect that a man like him was not likely to come to his court ever again. skpande __________________________________________________________ Sent from Yahoo! Mail. A Smarter Email http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html

Gandhi was sued for sedition in Ahmedabad (Gujrath) 12 Jun 2008 AHMEDABAD: It is known in the history of the British Raj as 'The Great Trial'. This was a case of sedition heard in a court in Ahmedabad, leading to the Mahatma Gandhi's first imprisonment in India in 1922. It was the British government's answer to Gandhi's challenge when he wrote revolutionary articles in 'Navjivan' and 'Young India'. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-3121428,prtpage-1.cms --- Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar Nagpur, India

This is a test. Charles Dique in Hawaii **************Vote for your city's best dining and nightlife. City's Best 2008. (http://citysbest.aol.com?ncid=aolacg00050000000102)

Hi, I ahve a copy of this book but it will have to be searched out., skp __________________________________________________________ Sent from Yahoo! Mail. A Smarter Email http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html

Hi, During the IInd war ,a lot of american locomotives ,of MAWD /AWd(american war deptt) were purcahsed for use in Assam when China was being supplied thru Assam. These were made in Philadelphia. In fact the line from Gauahati to Lekhapani was taken over by the Americans.they scrapped the absolute block system and ran trains on time interval. skp __________________________________________________________ Sent from Yahoo! Mail. A Smarter Email http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html

Dear Listers, The Bhawal Sanyasi case has been one of the strangest among judicial cases in British India. (In the Hindu way of life, a Sanyasi is a person who has taken 'Sanyas', or entered the final stage of his life in which he is to seek the Truth and turn his back upon the material word. In more popular parlance, any garden-variety sadhu or mendicant may be called a sanyasi.) Bhawal was a large zamindari near Dacca. It was, as with the case of many similar Zamindaries, closely supervised by the British bureaucracy. It had an Englishman as a manager. After the Zamindar died, it passed to his three sons. All led lives of ease. The second son, Ramendra, died in Darjeeling in 1905, apparently due to syphilis, and was believed to have been cremated. He left his widow, Bibhavati, behind him. Several years later, in 1921, a Sadhu appeared in Dacca. Soon people noticed many resemblances between him and the supposedly dead Ramendra. Jyotirmayee, one of his sisters was convinced that the sadhu was indeed her brother. Several educated Indians too were convinced of his identity. The British official world, on the other hand, looked upon him as a pretender. Bibhavati refused to accept him as her husband. The claimant claimed his 1/3rd share from the revenues of the zamindari. The Court of Wards which was administering the zamindari refused the claim and the matter went to the court. From the very beginning there was a clear division between the British officialdom and the Bengali elite, the latter siding with the claimant. The claimant filed a suit in 1930. The judgment in the first trial went in favor of the claimant. The Curt of Wards appealed to the Calcutta High Wards. After some delay caused by the Second World War, which kept one of assigned judges stranded in London, the High Court too found in favor of the claimant in 1940. Bibhavati appealed to the Privy Council in London. The Privy Council ruled in favor of the claimant on July 30, 1946. The judgment was telegraphed to Calcutta the next day. That very day the winner/claimant went to the Kali temple to offer prayers upon his victory and suffered a stroke there. He died two days later, which, according to Bibhavti, was the divinely ordained punishment for the imposter. More details about this strange case may be seen at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhawal_case. For a more detailed treatment, see the limited view book by Partha Chatterjee - A Princely Impostor? - The Strange and Universal History of the Kumar of Bhawal (2002), available at http://books.google.ca/books?id=qjv-pyCt-T4C&pg=PA174&dq=%22Calcutta+to+Darjeeling%22&lr=&as_brr=3&ei=RdRPSNqtCYXuswP0n4RE&sig=KLFtM3XnSo5Ms_rQBmTAw_0BixM#PPA178,M1 or http://tinyurl.com/6ox5zv. The Privy Council's judgment may be read at http://www.privy-council.org.uk/files/other/DEVIVR-rtf.rtf Arvind Kolhatkar, Toronto, June 11, 2008.

Arvind are you aware of a more recent book titled "Hanklyn-janklin" by Nigel Hankin and published by Tara Press Delhi in 2003.Nigel JHankin died last November. Noel Lakin ----- Original Message ---- From: Arvind Kolhatkar <akolhatkar@rogers.com> To: india-british-raj@rootsweb.com; india@rootsweb.com Sent: Tuesday, 10 June, 2008 11:25:25 PM Subject: [INDIA-BRITISH-RAJ] Glossary of Indian Terms Dear Listers, While browsing the internet, I came across, at http://www.archive.org/details/glossaryofjudici00wilsuoft , this book with the impressive title <A glossary of judicial and revenue terms and of useful words occurring in official documents relating to the administration of the government of British India, from the Arabic, Persian, Hindustani, Sanskrit, Hindi, Bengali, Uriya, Marathi, Guzarathi, Telugu, Karnata, Tamil, Malayalam and other languages. Compiled and published under the authority of the Honorable the Court of Directors of the East-India Co> printed in 1855 and created by Wilson, H. H. (Horace Hayman), 1786-1860, Librarian to the EIC and Boden Professor of Sanskrit at the Oxford University.  It is available in several formats and, in my view, the format DJVU is the most user-friendly. Like the later and more well-known Hobson-Jobson, it can be consulted to find the meaning of Indian terms.  Unlike the digitalized Hobson-Jobson, it is not searchable.  The terms are arranged according to the English alphabetical order. Arvind Kolhatkar, Toronto, June 10, 2008. ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to INDIA-BRITISH-RAJ-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message __________________________________________________________ Sent from Yahoo! Mail. A Smarter Email http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html

Dear Listers, While browsing the internet, I came across, at http://www.archive.org/details/glossaryofjudici00wilsuoft , this book with the impressive title <A glossary of judicial and revenue terms and of useful words occurring in official documents relating to the administration of the government of British India, from the Arabic, Persian, Hindustani, Sanskrit, Hindi, Bengali, Uriya, Marathi, Guzarathi, Telugu, Karnata, Tamil, Malayalam and other languages. Compiled and published under the authority of the Honorable the Court of Directors of the East-India Co> printed in 1855 and created by Wilson, H. H. (Horace Hayman), 1786-1860, Librarian to the EIC and Boden Professor of Sanskrit at the Oxford University. It is available in several formats and, in my view, the format DJVU is the most user-friendly. Like the later and more well-known Hobson-Jobson, it can be consulted to find the meaning of Indian terms. Unlike the digitalized Hobson-Jobson, it is not searchable. The terms are arranged according to the English alphabetical order. Arvind Kolhatkar, Toronto, June 10, 2008.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Buyers_lap_up_India-oriented_art_works_at_Sothebys/articleshow/3112029.cms or http://tinyurl.com/6ca4b9 ooroo If you don't hear the knock of opportunity - build a door. Anon.

Snipped from http://livefist.blogspot.com/2008/06/exclusive-reflection-by-admiral-arun.html ----- Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar Nagpur, India Monday, June 09, 2008 A Reflection by Admiral Arun Prakash on Veterans, Honour, Political Antipathy and the 6th Pay Commission IS "IZZAT-O-IQBAL"? by Adm. Arun Prakash (Retd) Political Antipathy Mahatma Gandhi's firm adherence to the noble principle of non-violence throughout India's independence struggle has no parallel in history. He was a great man with profound values, but misinterpretation of his unique vision led to the emergence of two surreal perceptions amongst India's political leadership. For one they were convinced that since a non-violent India would have no enemies, the armed forces would become redundant after independence. Their second conviction was that the Indian Army was a mercenary force which had been used as a tool by the British to suppress the freedom movement, and deserved to be shown its place. They were utterly wrong on both counts, and such myths need to be demolished, because a man in uniform can today sense the cognitive lack of empathy, if not antipathy, to his cause in the in the political establishment of all shades. Major General KM Cariappa (later the first Indian Commander-in-chief) called on Gandhiji in December 1947 and sought his advice on how he should put across the concept of ahimsa (NON_VIOLENCE) to his soldiers whose dharma (DUTY) was to fight for the nation. The Mahatma pondered over the question and replied: "I am still groping in the dark for the answer. I will find it and give it to you one day." A month later he fell to an assassin's bullet, and Cariappa never received an answer. But by then the first of our illusions had already been shattered in October 1947, when Pakistani hordes came pouring into Baramulla and it was only the Indian Army's gallantry which saved the Valley. The politicians were right that the British Indian Army, true to its salt, had served the King-Emperor loyally in both World Wars. But after the string of early British defeats in WW II, Indian prisoners of war (PoWs) in Singapore, Germany and Italy were confronted with the most awesome moral dilemma that a soldier can ever face; a choice between the oath they had given to the King and the chance to fight for freedom of the motherland, being offered by Netaji Subhash Bose. After agonizing over this veritable dharma sankat and fully recognizing the terrible consequences of either option, many Indian officers and jawans decided for their motherland, with the result that: 3000 Indian PoWs were formed into the Legion Freies Indien or Free Indian Legion as a unit of the German Wehrmacht. A unit named the Battaglione Azad Hindoustan was formed out of Indian PoWs in Italy. 40,000 out of 45,000 PoWs in Singapore joined the Azad Hind Fauj or INA as it was commonly known.. The story of these expatriate Indian warriors is a romantic but forgotten chapter in India's freedom struggle. Suffice it to say that the Arzi Hukumat-e-Azad Hind (Provisional Government of Free India) formed in Singapore by Bose in 1943 declared war on the British Empire, and the INA units fought a bitter campaign against them in Burma with "Dilli Chalo" as their inspiring slogan. In early 1946, ratings of the Royal Indian Navy mutinied, and the insurrection spread right across the country, with units of the RIAF, Army Signal Corps and EME joining their naval comrades in revolt. These events not only inspired and galvanized the freedom movement in India, but also struck fear into British hearts. General Wavell, the C-in-C admitted in a secret report: "It is no use shutting one's eye to the fact that any Indian soldier worth his salt is a Nationalist." Disciplined Services never dwell on mutinies, regardless of the cause, and that is why these events rarely find mention in our Armed Forces, but the powerful impact on the British Sarkar of these acts of great moral courage, must not be disparaged, belittled or forgotten. So anyone who says that the Indian soldier did not contribute to India's freedom movement is either ignorant or deliberately suppressing the truth. The phase immediately post-Independence too, was extremely difficult for our fledgling nation. To forget the sterling role played by the Armed Forces during the violence and turbulence of partition, and in integrating the recalcitrant princely states would be an act of rank ingratitude. Over the years, as our glaring strategic naiveté repeatedly led to adventurism by our neighbours in 1947, 1962, 1965 and 1999, it was invariably the gallantry and patriotism of the Armed Forces which saved the nation from disintegration and dishonour. [SNIP]

William Dalrymple reviews SEA OF POPPIES, a new book by Amitav Ghosh Penguin/Viking Pages: 515; Rs. 599 The Shabby-Genteel Apheem Chichis Patches of anti-colonial cliche apart, the opium trade and the entire cast under its thrall breathe life into the 1830s. Ghosh's well-crafted narrative pace intoxicates. http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20080616&fname=Booksa&sid=1 ----- Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar Nagpur, India

From http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnist1.asp?main_variable=Columnist&file_name=Premen%2FPremen32.txt&writer=Premen ----- Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar Nagpur, India Britain's decline foretold Saturday, June 07, 2008 by Premen Addy I have come late to Winston Churchill: The Struggle for Survival 1940-65, the diary of his personal doctor Lord Moran. As Sir Charles Wilson, he was president of the Royal College of Physicians, but his appointment as Churchill's doctor was not of Churchill's doing, it was forced upon him by certain members of his Cabinet when he became Britain's Prime Minister in May 1940, following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain. It was the country's darkest hour. Adolf Hitler's legions were cutting a swathe through much of western Europe like a knife through butter; and the health of Britain's 65-year-old leader was, therefore, of critical importance to his Government. The first entry, dated May 24, in the 864-page diary, described Moran's noon-time call on Churchill, who was in bed reading a document. The Prime Minister took no notice of the physician's presence. "After what seemed quite a long time, he put down his papers and said impatiently: 'I don't know why they are making such a fuss. There's nothing wrong with me'. He picked up the papers and resumed his reading. At last he pushed his bed-rest away and, throwing back his bed-clothes, said abruptly: 'I suffer from dyspepsia, and this is the treatment.' With that he proceeded to demonstrate to me some breathing exercises. His big belly was moving up and down when there was a knock on the door, and the PM grabbed at the sheet as Mrs Hill came into the room. Soon after I took my leave. I do not like the job, and I do not think the arrangement can last." The good doctor was wrong, as wrong as anyone can be. He was to remain with Churchill throughout the war and well beyond it as doctor, friend and confidant, keeping a record of their association, sharing in Churchill's triumphs and anxieties and black moods of depression, witnessing at first-hand the slow mental and physical decline of the great man's later years. Lord Moran accompanied Churchill to the United States for his meetings with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Washington; he was part of the Churchill entourage in Moscow, where Churchill conferred with Stalin; and he had a grandstand view of the meetings of the 'Big Three' at Tehran (November 1943), Yalta (February 1945) and Potsdam (June-July 1945). Roosevelt had died in mid-April, some three weeks before Germany's unconditional surrender, Harry Truman was the American President at Potsdam. Half-way through, Churchill, having lost his country's general election, departed and the new British Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, took his place. Lord Moran's vignettes, mostly British, naturally, but also American, Russian and French, are memorable. Every detail of worth is faithfully set against the wider canvas. These flesh and blood pages are laced with thought and reflection. Woven into a single set of covers, the work is a literary masterpiece, a wonderful portrayal of men and women at war learning to cope with the increasingly cold and difficult peace. The old order was dying on its feet, the new struggled to emerge. Where does India fit into this? India was part of the British Empire; the 2.5 million-strong Indian Army, the largest volunteer force in history, was fighting on the Allied side in ever theatre of the war. The future of the subcontinent was also at stake in this life-and-death conflict with the Axis. The vision of a free India was an anathema to Churchill, who railed at the idea before the war and would have nothing to do with it as Roosevelt unfolded his plan for the decolonisation of Asia. The American President accorded Chiang Kai-shek's China a place at the high table of the great powers, much to Churchill's annoyance. Lord Moran understood Roosevelt's reasoning: It was the future that was at stake. The weak wartime China would not be disabled forever. "It is when he talks of India or China that you remember that he (Churchill) is a Victorian," was Moran's terse comment. He was last in India in 1897 covering Britain's military campaigns on the North-West Frontier for the London Press. He also wrote for The Pioneer. As the war proceeded, Churchill sensed that Britain's two principal allies, the US and the Soviet Union, with their immense resources of men and material, would determine the course of future developments. Churchill's struggle to maintain the weight of British influence in the counsels of the 'Big Three' were doomed, as Roosevelt and Stalin started calling the shots over his head. A noticeable coolness crept into the once warm friendship between Roosevelt and Churchill. Modern British writers, too, are decidedly lukewarm in their assessment of Roosevelt. Perhaps they, too, if only subconsciously, grieve over the loss of their Indian Empire. The Victorian politician in Churchill drew on the corpus of Curzon's proconsular wisdom. One of Britain's greatest Viceroys in India, Lord Curzon wrote and spoke extensively on a subject closest to his heart: His country's imperial association with India. In a speech to the Philosophical Institute of Edinburgh in October 1908, entitled The Place of India in the Empire, Curzon said, "It was the remark of De Tocqueville that the conquest and Government of India were really the achievements that had given Britain her place in the world... Consider what would happen were we to lose India, and were some other power to take our place, for it is inconceivable that India could stand or be left alone. We would lose its unfailing markets... we would lose... the principal, indeed almost the only formidable element in our fighting strength; our influence in Asia would quickly disappear... our colonies would cut themselves off from a dying trunk: And we should sink into a third-rate power, an object of shame to ourselves and of derision to the rest of mankind. Remember, too, that India is no longer a piece, even a king or queen on the Asiatic chessboard. It is a royal piece on the chessboard of international politics." The younger Churchill was nourished on such sentiments. His country's and his own finest hours lasted from July to September 1940, when the Royal Air Force foiled the German invasion of Britain. Britain's solitary splendour in the conflict ended with the arrival of the USSR and the US. The Allied victory was assured, but its spoils were commandeered by Moscow and Washington. The rise and decline of the great powers has long been grist to the mills of history. ===============

>The captain, I am happy to say, was awarded a DSO in the Western Desert. He rose to the rank of Lieut-Gen but was passed over for the chief's post because he had fallen foul of the then PM, Mrs Indira Gandhi, possibly because he was not sufficiently subservient to her. Both he and his wife died several years ago< I wonder who this was ? Really can't make out who. Mandeep ----- Original Message ----- From: "Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar" <bosham@gmail.com> To: <india-british-raj@rootsweb.com> Sent: Saturday, June 07, 2008 10:07 PM Subject: [INDIA-BRITISH-RAJ] The marriage market > Something different for a change for this weekend: > > ----- Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar > Nagpur, India > > >>From http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20070122/edit.htm > > Monday, January 22, 2007, > > The marriage market > by Raj Chatterjee > > Sixty or seventy years ago, the prospective sons-in-law rating was > somewhat > like this: ICS, Indian Army, IP, then called 'Imperial Police' followed by > the > other All-India services. Professional young men like doctors, lawyers, > accountants came rather low on the list. > > At the time of which I write, there were about a dozen or so Indians in > foreign > firms, mostly British. Most of them held Oxford or Cambridge degrees and > some of them had attended British public schools. They started on the same > salaries as the ICS besides which they had numerous perks and non-taxable > allowances unheard-of in the Services. And yet, strange to say, eagle-eyed > mothers-in-law on the prowl looked upon them as second or third best. They > lacked "status" and they were "box-wallahs" though they did not actually > stand behind a counter. > > The situation changed after World War II and, with all due respect to the > IAS > and their less prestigious brethren, the wheel seemed to have turned full > circle. Judicious parents with nubile daughters began casting glances at > young > men in British, or once-British firms. > > It was different in my time, as the following anecdote will show. As a > young > box-wallah I had a lot of travelling to do by road, rail or, believe it or > not, > even in bullock carts! > > On a visit to Bannu (NWFP) in the summer of 1938 I was dining with a > captain and his charming wife. The captain, I am happy to say, was awarded > a DSO in the Western Desert. He rose to the rank of Lieut-Gen but was > passed over for the chief's post because he had fallen foul of the then > PM, > Mrs Indira Gandhi, possibly because he was not sufficiently subservient to > her. Both he and his wife died several years ago. > > We were having coffee when another officer, a major, dropped in with his > wife and daughter. Such after-dinner visits were in fashion those days, > especially in lonely outposts of the Empire where the only other > distractions > were the club and the garrison cinema. > > To cut a long story short, I fell hook, line and sinker for the daughter > who > was pretty as a Peshawar peach. She was on a visit to her parents from > Murree > where she taught at a convent. > > After the visitors had departed I lost no time in making my feelings known > to my host and his wife. They seemed quite taken up with the idea of > arranging > a match. > > On my return to Lahore, where I was posted at the time, I wrote to my > captain friend urging him to press my suit with all possible haste. There > was no reply to my letter. I wrote again and followed up my letter with > another visit to Bannu despite the sizzling heat. > > "Sorry, old boy," said my friend. "The girl's parents have other plans > for her. I didn't write because I thought you would get over your > 'infatuation'." > > "But what's wrong with me?" I asked with a sinking feeling in the > pit of my stomach. > > "Nothing," said my friend except that you are not in the ICS or the army." > > Well, the girl got her ICS husband soon after the Bannu episode. I was > pretty cut up at the time but, very soon, as my friend had hoped, I got > over my "infatuation". > > The story has a happy ending. Twenty years later my "lost love" and I, > both > married to different partners, found ourselves in the same station. By > that > time, as I have said, government service had lost some of its glamour. At > the lady's urgent request, I managed to get her son a job in my firm. Even > before he was confirmed in his appointment, he had received half a dozen > proposals of marriage. Very wisely, he accepted none of them. He waited > till he was nearly 30 years of age and then married a girl of his own > choice > from outside his community. > ========================================================== > > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > INDIA-BRITISH-RAJ-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Something different for a change for this weekend: ----- Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar Nagpur, India >From http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20070122/edit.htm Monday, January 22, 2007, The marriage market by Raj Chatterjee Sixty or seventy years ago, the prospective sons-in-law rating was somewhat like this: ICS, Indian Army, IP, then called 'Imperial Police' followed by the other All-India services. Professional young men like doctors, lawyers, accountants came rather low on the list. At the time of which I write, there were about a dozen or so Indians in foreign firms, mostly British. Most of them held Oxford or Cambridge degrees and some of them had attended British public schools. They started on the same salaries as the ICS besides which they had numerous perks and non-taxable allowances unheard-of in the Services. And yet, strange to say, eagle-eyed mothers-in-law on the prowl looked upon them as second or third best. They lacked "status" and they were "box-wallahs" though they did not actually stand behind a counter. The situation changed after World War II and, with all due respect to the IAS and their less prestigious brethren, the wheel seemed to have turned full circle. Judicious parents with nubile daughters began casting glances at young men in British, or once-British firms. It was different in my time, as the following anecdote will show. As a young box-wallah I had a lot of travelling to do by road, rail or, believe it or not, even in bullock carts! On a visit to Bannu (NWFP) in the summer of 1938 I was dining with a captain and his charming wife. The captain, I am happy to say, was awarded a DSO in the Western Desert. He rose to the rank of Lieut-Gen but was passed over for the chief's post because he had fallen foul of the then PM, Mrs Indira Gandhi, possibly because he was not sufficiently subservient to her. Both he and his wife died several years ago. We were having coffee when another officer, a major, dropped in with his wife and daughter. Such after-dinner visits were in fashion those days, especially in lonely outposts of the Empire where the only other distractions were the club and the garrison cinema. To cut a long story short, I fell hook, line and sinker for the daughter who was pretty as a Peshawar peach. She was on a visit to her parents from Murree where she taught at a convent. After the visitors had departed I lost no time in making my feelings known to my host and his wife. They seemed quite taken up with the idea of arranging a match. On my return to Lahore, where I was posted at the time, I wrote to my captain friend urging him to press my suit with all possible haste. There was no reply to my letter. I wrote again and followed up my letter with another visit to Bannu despite the sizzling heat. "Sorry, old boy," said my friend. "The girl's parents have other plans for her. I didn't write because I thought you would get over your 'infatuation'." "But what's wrong with me?" I asked with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. "Nothing," said my friend except that you are not in the ICS or the army." Well, the girl got her ICS husband soon after the Bannu episode. I was pretty cut up at the time but, very soon, as my friend had hoped, I got over my "infatuation". The story has a happy ending. Twenty years later my "lost love" and I, both married to different partners, found ourselves in the same station. By that time, as I have said, government service had lost some of its glamour. At the lady's urgent request, I managed to get her son a job in my firm. Even before he was confirmed in his appointment, he had received half a dozen proposals of marriage. Very wisely, he accepted none of them. He waited till he was nearly 30 years of age and then married a girl of his own choice from outside his community. ==========================================================

**** London is home to people of every race and faith. More than 300 languages are spoken here, and whilst some cultural groups have been here for centuries, 30% of Londoners today were born abroad. This site -- Untold London -- searches for the histories that relate to all the cultures of London. We focus on London museums, but also look at archives, galleries and the history work of communities themselves. **** http://www.untoldlondon.org.uk/index.html Visit this page and search for India. Interesting. ----- Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar Nagpur, India

Snipped from http://www.chapatimystery.com/archives/univercity/some_observations_on_library_for_indian_travelers.html Some Observations on Library for Indian Travelers June.03.08 Edward Eastwick (1814-1883) joined the East India Company in 1836 as a cadet but was soon promoted because of his capacity for language acquisition. In 1845 the East India Company appointed him to the post of professor of Urdu at their officer-training school at Haileybury. He continued to serve the India Office in a number of diplomatic missions through the 60s until his election to House of Common. His translations of Sa'di's Gulistan and Kashifi's Anvar-i Suhaili were popular texts in the East India Company corpus. He also wrote several handbooks on various cities and edited or prefaced a number of books by the natives (published for English audiences). In his 1859 Handbook for India: Being an Account of the Three Presidencies, and of The Overland Route; Intended as A Guide For Travellers, Officers, and Civilians; With Vocabularies and Dialogues of the Spoken Languages of India with Travelling Map and Plans of Towns, he lists the essential books one needs to know India before getting to India. I assume that this list was exhaustive. [snip] (An extensive list of books follows.) =================================================== ----- Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar Nagpur, India

June 03 2008 FARANGI MAHAL: The Nursery that incubated Freedom by MOIN ANSARI **** A history of Islamic Society in India and study of The Sufi role in the struggle for independence Remembering the forgotten guardians: The Sufi, Deobandi, Chisti, Barelvi, Qadiri and Nizammiya institutions that germinated our freedom fighters in India and Pakistan **** http://moinansari.spaces.live.com/default.aspx http://moinansari.spaces.live.com/?_c11_BlogPart_BlogPart=blogview&_c=BlogPart&partqs=amonth%3d6%26ayear%3d2008 ----- Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar Nagpur, India

British identity was forged by imperial overseas encounters snipped from http://www.turkishweekly.net/news.php?id=55908# As the United Kingdom debates immigration and assimilation, what does it mean to be British? This column explores the formation of British identity during the early twentieth century, when British multinational enterprises constituted an informal empire engaging many foreign cultures. History shows a far more complicated sense of "Britishness" than some assume. Formal and informal Empire In a recent paper, I examined the substantial foreign footprint of British multinationals in the heyday of formal and informal empire in the early twentieth century, when employees of business formed an important population of British abroad. These British expatriates were in direct contact with non-Europeans, principally through the direct employment of tens of thousands of local people. Their cross-cultural encounters form a significant, previously untapped body of evidence on the nature of "Britishness". British company expatriates sought to create and affirm their British identities overseas. But on further examination, it can be seen that this approach used "British" norms that were in fact not British at all, but which were themselves often the product of previous colonial encounters, hybrids of adaptation and compromise to a foreign environment. My research shows that British identity was forged from transnational interaction with non-British peoples overseas, whose own cultures and identities influenced and helped to form ideas of Britishness. Foreign encounters A good example of this is the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, or BP, as it is now known. Formed in 1909 in order to develop a huge oil find in southern Persia (now Iran), the company looked first to India, jewel of the British Imperial crown and on the border with Persia, for a model as to how to run its operations. The company took the imperial culture and hierarchical relations it found in the familiarity of British India, and introduced them to its company town and operations in Persia. The influence from India was indeed pervasive. From India came both white management staff, steeped in imperial experience and, crucially, Indian skilled and semi-skilled workers, viewed by the company as loyal and trustworthy. These Indians worked in the oil field operations, but Indian influence was not confined to the workplace. In the domestic sphere, household servants were often Indians, many ex-Indian Army. Indian terms and borrowings from Indian languages were used so frequently in everyday company correspondence that staff in London complained that they could not understand them. Indian influences were also evident in physical culture. In its choice of housing for staff, the company chose the Indian bungalow, as well as housing estates inspired by imperial architect Edwin Lutyens' work at New Delhi. Over time, Anglo-Persian developed a lifestyle that resembled life in the British Raj more closely than that of its headquarters city, London. These cross-cultural encounters, which seem on the surface to be traditionally dominant ones of coloniser over colonised, were in fact far more complex and compromised. In reality, there was input from coloniser and colonised and adaptation to changing circumstances over time, so that the "British" culture underwent a process of continuous reinvention. [snip] =============================================== ----- Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar Nagpur, India

The Incredible Adventure of Shrimp Paste Snipped from http://adambalic.typepad.com/the_art_and_mystery_of_fo/2008/06/rachel-laudan-r.html **** Recently I have been reading as much as I can find on Anglo-Indian foods and customs. It is a fascinating area of research in its own right, but it also often throws unexpected light on other aspects of food history. One of the centers of Anglo-Indian activity in London was The Oriental Club, which seemed to be entirely populated by ex-colonial stereotypes. One interesting recipe published in a small cookbook titled "Indian Cookery" (1861) by Richard Terry, the club's chef is called "Bullachong": "Pick and clean 2 quarts of shrimps, or prawns, pound them well in a mortar, rub them through a coarse wire sievve; place them again in the mortar, add 1-oz. of glaze, 2 cloves of garlic, or green ginger, if to be had, 4 chillies pounded very fine, 1 tablespoonfull of tomata sauce, and the juice of half a lemon: beat all well together add 4 tablespoonsfull of ghee, melt 4 pats of butter in an omelette pan, pour in the bullachong, and fry, keeping moving the whole time; place it on your dish, pour gravy round, and serve. This may be kept some time by placing it in bottles, and keeping well corked" This shrimp paste was most likely intended as a relish to go with other dishes, but what interested me was the resemblance in the name with the modern Malay "Belacan". As part of the 19th century expansion of the British Empire, parts what is now modern Malaysia were formerly the colonies of British Malaya. Prior to this period the British had a huge presence in this region. So is "Bullachong" simply a British adaption of a Malay dish? Are there earlier English references to this dish? Obviously there are numerous references, two of the earliest are of particular interest: **** [snip] =============== ----- Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar Nagpur, India

June 4, 2008 First, take a dozen parrots . In the Luxique city guide to Sydney, Australia, we extol the quality of the food on offer. Yes, Australian cuisine has certainly come a long way - as demonstrated by an exhibition in Sydney of cookbooks from the 19th century. It's clear the hard-up British colonists of that time were prepared to eat anything from bandicoots (small striped marsupials) to black swans. Perhaps the least appetising recipe was for 'slippery bob,' which consisted of kangaroo's brains mixed with flour and water and then fried in emu fat. Even the author conceded that you needed 'a good appetite and excellent digestion.' There's also a stew for which the main ingredient is 'a dozen parrots, well-picked and cleaned.' The early cookbooks contain many traditional British meals but also some recipes for curries - a reflection of India's influence on the eating habits of the British Empire. The exhibition of cookbooks is on now at the State Library of New South Wales. Australian Cookbooks A rich tradition of Australian cookery books began in the mid 1860s and has continued to the present day. From the years of abundance to the austerity of the war years, there have been books to meet every need. Colonial era works, while retaining traditional British fare, contained creative new recipes which made use of the country's plentiful local produce. The rationing during World Wars I and II, large-scale immigration and health issues are among factors which have affected Australian cookery book production. Works promoting exotic cuisine from around the globe and special dietary needs all surged in demand. Technology has had an impact on cooking habits. This display features reproductions of a selection of items from the Library's vast cookery book collection. If you are interested in learning more, a collection guide is available online, or at the information desks in the reading rooms. Currently on display in Macquarie Cases http://www.luxique.com/blog/?p=163 and http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/events/displays/2008/cookbooks/index.html ----- Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar Nagpur, India