This course examines forms of precarious lives in the subcontinent’s history. Drawing on theories of precarity and precarious lives, it studies multiples forms of vulnerability in colonial India. While some components of the course will focus on English precarity in India, the bulk of it will be devoted to the many forms of precarious lives of the colonial subjects, and the British responses to them.

Dangerous Travels

The Englishman’s journey, especially in the 17^th century, to and within India, was a dangerous one. The texts in this section map these ‘dangerous travels’.

Texts:

Selections from John Ovington and John Fryer

Precarious Imperialisms (The British under siege)

This section contains authors who documented precarious English lives in India, from the experience of the ‘Black Hole’ of Calcutta to the 1857 ‘Mutiny’

Texts:

Selections from JZ Holwell; Lady Julia Inglis

The Science of Precarity

The British transformed the subcontinent into a natural laboratory. Studying cyclones and earthquakes, they established and expanded the boundaries of the science of these disasters, as the texts in this section will demonstrate. It examines two natural disasters documented by the British, cyclones and earthquakes

Selections from Henry Piddington; CS Middlemiss

The Precarious Colonial Subject

Imperialism, on occasion, took a palliative turn, seeking to protect the colonial subjects from assorted ‘dangers’, ranging from the wildlife to Thugs to addictions. 

Selections from James Inglis, WH Sleeman, the Famine Commission Report (1898)

*Texts may be changed depending on circumstances. A set of secondary reading materials will be supplied a week after enrolment.