South Asian Resistances in Britain, 1858 - 1947

Description

This volume offers an alternative way of conceiving the history of Britain by excavating and exploring the numerous ways in which South Asians in Britain engaged in radical discourse and political activism from 1858 to 1947, before their more permanent migration and settlement. The book focuses on a tumultuous period of resistance against the backdrop of high imperialism under the reign of Victoria, through the turmoil of two World Wars and Partition in 1947. As well as addressing resistances against empire and hierarchies of race, the authors investigate how South Asians in Britain mobilized to campaign for women's suffrage (the Indian princess Sophia Duleep Singh), for example, or for an international socialism (the Communist MP Shapurji Saklatvala), thereby contributing to and complicating notions of freedom, equality and justice. This volume reframes these pioneers as social and political agents and activists and shows how Britain's contemporary multicultural society is rooted in their mobilization for equality of citizenship.

Rehana Ahmed is Lecturer in English Studies at Teesside University, UK. She specialises in postcolonial literature. Sumita Mukherjee is an historian of South Asia and the British Empire. She is the author of Nationalism, Education and Migrant Identities: The England-Returned (2009).

This fine volume engagingly reveals the experiences and aspirations of diverse South Asian men and women who lived and worked in Britain during the British Raj. Highlighting the varied nature of Asian resistance to racism and other forms of oppression, the editors and contributors present us with the latest insights and developments of the field. -- Michael H. Fisher, Danforth Professor of History, Oberlin College, US All of the essays in this volume are thoroughly scholarly, well-written, and fascinating. They combine fresh and deep archival research with a clearly articulated analysis of their significance in the light of contemporary (then and now) contexts, and the book as a whole brings a significant new understanding of how various individuals, classes, and groups creatively and productively resisted British imperial culture and politics...This volume is an important intervention in historical and cultural scholarship about Britain and postcolonial studies. -- Lyn Innes, Emeritus Professor of Postcolonial Literatures, University of Kent, UK