Civilizing Missions in Colonial and Postcolonial South Asia

Highlights the complexities and contradictions of British and Indian civilizing missions in South Asia.

This collection provides a historical exploration of the tensions and complexities of civilizing missions undertaken by British or Indian states or organizations in nineteenth- and twentieth-century South Asia.

‘Civilizing Missions in Colonial and Postcolonial South Asia’ offers a series of analyses that highlights the complexities of British and Indian civilizing missions in original ways and through various historiographical approaches. The book applies the concept of the civilizing mission to a number of issues in the colonial and postcolonial eras in South Asia: economic development, state-building, pacification, nationalism, cultural improvement, gender and generational relations, caste and untouchability, religion and missionaries, class relations, urbanization, NGOs, and civil society.