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Book Reviews by RITESH K U M A R JAISWAL
Papers by RITESH K U M A R JAISWAL
Points ( Joint Blog of Alcohol and Drugs History Society, American Historical Association and the American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, American Association for the History of Medicine), 2023
The movie Night on Earth of 1992 raises several questions pertinent to writing global history: Wh... more The movie Night on Earth of 1992 raises several questions pertinent to writing global history: What can we learn about the tangential meeting and drifting apart of ordinary people in taxies or elsewhere? Are their lives in different world regions disconnected from each other, or are their experiences, which occur at precisely the same time, comparable due to wider encompassing formations? Using five vignettes of creative non-fiction, we explore the fate of people who use drugs in different places on one night on earth in 1929, marked by crucial transformations in global industrial productivity and work regime, to consider these questions.
The India Forum, 2022
Sri Lankan politics bears the mark of a century of anti-Tamil policies. A majoritarian outlook ha... more Sri Lankan politics bears the mark of a century of anti-Tamil policies. A majoritarian outlook has helped Sinhalese groups gain power, grow corrupt and weaken democracy. In its attempt to break out of this indefinite loop of crisis and chaos, Sri Lanka would do well if it learned lessons from its past.
Scroll, 2022
If the Sri Lankan politicians revert to policies favouring the Sinhala majority to appease the do... more If the Sri Lankan politicians revert to policies favouring the Sinhala majority to appease the dominant ethnic group, it would have devastating consequences. Understanding this history of exclusion is crucial to uncover current complexities.
Independent Journal of Burmese Scholarship, 2022
The Great Depression was a moment of rupture and dispossession in the history of the plantation e... more The Great Depression was a moment of rupture and dispossession in the history of the plantation economy and colonial Indian migration in the Bay of Bengal. The developments of this period provide important insights into the shifting patterns of Indian migration, labor regimes, (im)migrant-native relations, and the rise of xenophobic politics in the region. Given the historical importance of migration and the persistence of xenophobia in Burma, a study of migrant labor within the emerging nationalist politics of the interwar period is crucial. This period witnessed provocative but well-established questions concerning Indian migration: whether Indian migrants were supplementary or surplus, whether they were filling a void or generating local competition, whether colonial policies regarding Indian migration and their work and life in the colony were exclusionist or assimilatory, whether Indians shared a harmonious relationship of peaceful co-existence with the ‘indigenous’ community, and whether they were they ‘well off’ in Burma. This article focuses on the interwar interactions between empires, colonies, and capital in the Bay of Bengal rim and transatlantic economies, as well as the intersections between the reordering of the global economy, ethnocentric nationalism, migrants’ changing lives and the patterns and system of Indian migration. The intersections between emerging nationalism and anti-immigrant sentiments reflected in the many ethnic riots of this period provide historical precedents to the persisting alt-right politics, xenophobia, ethnic injustice, and racial-religious bigotry perpetrated against minorities and migrants in Burma - the Rohingyas being a major target of this xenophobic nationalism.
Indian History Congress, 2014
Almanack, Brazil, 2018
The significance of Burma to the history of global and Indian migration can be understood by the ... more The significance of Burma to the history of global and Indian migration can be understood by the fact that it was the destination accounting for the largest mobility of Indian migrants during the century 1830s-1930s. This article is an attempt to complicate the parameters which have conventionally defined the characteristics of Indian migration during the colonial period. Broadly, it is also attempted to challenge and deconstruct the Eurocentric perceptions on non-European migrations in the global migration framework, by focussing on the quality, quantity, stimulating agency and nature of the colonial Indian migration. To do so, the article delves into analysing the content, pattern, nature and functioning of the informally regulated maistry system, which mediated the recruitment of Indian labour and their supervision in Burma through networks of “kin-intermediary” called maistry.
Keyword : Colonial India; Indian labour; Indian migration; Burma; Rangoon; Maistry system
Books by RITESH K U M A R JAISWAL
Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2024
The essay examines the impact of the Depression Politics in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) on Indian migrants... more The essay examines the impact of the Depression Politics in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) on Indian migrants. The transformation in the political economy of Ceylon in the 1930s, I argue, intersected and interacted with the emerging ethnonationalist anti-colonial politics and laid its foundation on anti-migrant and anti-immigrant rhetoric.
Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2020
Conference Presentations by RITESH K U M A R JAISWAL
Points ( Joint Blog of Alcohol and Drugs History Society, American Historical Association and the American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, American Association for the History of Medicine), 2023
The movie Night on Earth of 1992 raises several questions pertinent to writing global history: Wh... more The movie Night on Earth of 1992 raises several questions pertinent to writing global history: What can we learn about the tangential meeting and drifting apart of ordinary people in taxies or elsewhere? Are their lives in different world regions disconnected from each other, or are their experiences, which occur at precisely the same time, comparable due to wider encompassing formations? Using five vignettes of creative non-fiction, we explore the fate of people who use drugs in different places on one night on earth in 1929, marked by crucial transformations in global industrial productivity and work regime, to consider these questions.
The India Forum, 2022
Sri Lankan politics bears the mark of a century of anti-Tamil policies. A majoritarian outlook ha... more Sri Lankan politics bears the mark of a century of anti-Tamil policies. A majoritarian outlook has helped Sinhalese groups gain power, grow corrupt and weaken democracy. In its attempt to break out of this indefinite loop of crisis and chaos, Sri Lanka would do well if it learned lessons from its past.
Scroll, 2022
If the Sri Lankan politicians revert to policies favouring the Sinhala majority to appease the do... more If the Sri Lankan politicians revert to policies favouring the Sinhala majority to appease the dominant ethnic group, it would have devastating consequences. Understanding this history of exclusion is crucial to uncover current complexities.
Independent Journal of Burmese Scholarship, 2022
The Great Depression was a moment of rupture and dispossession in the history of the plantation e... more The Great Depression was a moment of rupture and dispossession in the history of the plantation economy and colonial Indian migration in the Bay of Bengal. The developments of this period provide important insights into the shifting patterns of Indian migration, labor regimes, (im)migrant-native relations, and the rise of xenophobic politics in the region. Given the historical importance of migration and the persistence of xenophobia in Burma, a study of migrant labor within the emerging nationalist politics of the interwar period is crucial. This period witnessed provocative but well-established questions concerning Indian migration: whether Indian migrants were supplementary or surplus, whether they were filling a void or generating local competition, whether colonial policies regarding Indian migration and their work and life in the colony were exclusionist or assimilatory, whether Indians shared a harmonious relationship of peaceful co-existence with the ‘indigenous’ community, and whether they were they ‘well off’ in Burma. This article focuses on the interwar interactions between empires, colonies, and capital in the Bay of Bengal rim and transatlantic economies, as well as the intersections between the reordering of the global economy, ethnocentric nationalism, migrants’ changing lives and the patterns and system of Indian migration. The intersections between emerging nationalism and anti-immigrant sentiments reflected in the many ethnic riots of this period provide historical precedents to the persisting alt-right politics, xenophobia, ethnic injustice, and racial-religious bigotry perpetrated against minorities and migrants in Burma - the Rohingyas being a major target of this xenophobic nationalism.
Indian History Congress, 2014
Almanack, Brazil, 2018
The significance of Burma to the history of global and Indian migration can be understood by the ... more The significance of Burma to the history of global and Indian migration can be understood by the fact that it was the destination accounting for the largest mobility of Indian migrants during the century 1830s-1930s. This article is an attempt to complicate the parameters which have conventionally defined the characteristics of Indian migration during the colonial period. Broadly, it is also attempted to challenge and deconstruct the Eurocentric perceptions on non-European migrations in the global migration framework, by focussing on the quality, quantity, stimulating agency and nature of the colonial Indian migration. To do so, the article delves into analysing the content, pattern, nature and functioning of the informally regulated maistry system, which mediated the recruitment of Indian labour and their supervision in Burma through networks of “kin-intermediary” called maistry.
Keyword : Colonial India; Indian labour; Indian migration; Burma; Rangoon; Maistry system
Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2024
The essay examines the impact of the Depression Politics in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) on Indian migrants... more The essay examines the impact of the Depression Politics in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) on Indian migrants. The transformation in the political economy of Ceylon in the 1930s, I argue, intersected and interacted with the emerging ethnonationalist anti-colonial politics and laid its foundation on anti-migrant and anti-immigrant rhetoric.
Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2020