̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Christopher Bayly

A world of science

lw355 — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 09:20:44 +0000

̽��ֱ��year was 1789; the place Bengal. Isaac Newton’s masterpiece Principia Mathematica was being translated for only the third time in its already 100-year-old history; this time, into Arabic.

̽��ֱ��author of this remarkable feat of scholarship was Tafazzul Husain Khan. According to a member of the ruling East India Company: “Khan… by translating the works of the immortal Newton, has conducted those imbued with Arabick literature to the fountain of all physical and astronomical knowledge.”

For Professor Simon Schaffer, who has researched the story of Tafazzul’s achievements, the complex work of translation is deeply significant. Tafazzul worked with scholars in English, Persian, Arabic and Sanskrit language communities in his efforts to connect Newtonian theories with the Indo-Persian intellectual tradition. For Tafazzul was, as Schaffer describes, “a go-between”.

“ ̽��ֱ��‘go-betweens’ are the individuals who, across the centuries, have been the cogs that have kept science moving,” he explains. “They are the knowledge brokers and translators, networkers and messengers – the original ‘knowledge transfer facilitators’. Their role may have disappeared from mainstream histories of science, but their tradecraft has been indispensable to the globalisation of science.”

Schaffer and Dr Sujit Sivasundaram are historians of science with an interest in understanding how the seeds of scientific knowledge have spread and grown. They believe that the global history of science is really the history of shifts and reinventions of a variety of ways of doing science across the world.

They, and others, have called for a retelling of science’s past, not only to be more “culturally symmetric” but also because the issue has enormous contemporary relevance.

“A standard tale is that modern science spread around the world from Western Europe, starting about 500 years ago based on the work of those such as Newton, Copernicus and Galileo, and then Darwin, Einstein, and so on,” explains Schaffer. “But this narrative about the globalisation of science just doesn’t work at all. It ignores a remarkable process of knowledge exchange that happened between the East and West for centuries.”

“Successful science is seen to be universal in its applicability,” adds Sivasundaram. “Yet, accounts of scientific discovery, heroism and priority have been part and parcel of a political narrative of competitive ownership by empires, nations and civilisations. To tease this story apart, we focus on the exchanges and ‘silencings’ across political configurations that are central to the rise of science on the global stage.”

Over the past two years, with funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, he and Schaffer have undertaken a programme of debates to ask whether a transregional rather than a Eurocentric history of science could now be told.

To do so, they teamed up with researchers in India and Africa, including Professor Irfan Habib from Delhi’s National ̽��ֱ�� of Educational Planning and Administration and Professor Dhruv Raina of Jawarhalal Nehru ̽��ֱ��, and in December 2014 held an international workshop at the Nehru Memorial Library in New Delhi. “And now our debate is also being carried forward by a new generation of early-career researchers who came to the workshop,” adds Sivasundaram.

One conundrum the researchers debated was how global narratives of science could have been missed by scholars for so long. It largely stems from the use of source materials says Schaffer: “It’s an archival problem: as far as the production and preservation of sources is concerned, those connected with Europe far outweigh those from other parts of the world.”

“If we are to de-centre from Europe, we need to use radically new kinds of sources – monuments, sailing charts, courtly narratives, and so on,” explains Sivasundaram. He gives an example of Sri Lankan palm-leaf manuscripts: “ ̽��ֱ��Mahavamsais a Buddhist chronicle of the history of Sri Lanka spanning 25 centuries. Among the deeds of the last kings of Kandy, I noticed seemingly inconsequential references to temple gardens. This led me back to the colonial archive documenting the creation of a botanic garden in 1821, and I realised that the British had ‘recycled’ a Kandyan tradition of gardening, by building their colonial garden on the site of a temple garden.”

Moreover, says Sivasundaram, the mechanisms of knowledge assimilation are often overlooked. Europeans often accumulated knowledge in India by engaging with pandits, or learned men. “ ̽��ֱ��Europeans did not have a monopoly over the combination of science and empire – the pioneering work of Chris Bayly [see panel] shows how they fought to take over information networks and scientific patronage systems that were already in place. For Europeans to practice astronomy in India, for instance, it meant translating Sanskrit texts and engaging with pandits.”

“Very often, scientific achievement is used as a standard to measure a country’s progress because science and technology can intervene in problems of hunger, disease and development,” adds Sivasundaram. “If a biased history of science is told, then the past can become what Irfan Habib has called a ‘battlefield’, instead of a ‘springboard’ for future research or indeed for conversation across cultures.”

This is why, says Schaffer, it becomes so important to provide a better account of the worldly interaction between the kinds of knowledge communicated, the agents of communication – like Tafazzul Husain Khan – and the paths they travelled.

̽��ֱ��history of science has been centred for too long on the West, say Simon Schaffer and Sujit Sivasundaram. It’s time to think global.

̽��ֱ��‘go-betweens’ have been the cogs that have kept science moving ... their tradecraft has been indispensable to the globalisation of science

Simon Schaffer

Private collection/Bridgeman Images

̽��ֱ��European in India, 1813 by Charles D'Oyly (1781-1845)

̽��ֱ��art of listening in

Knowledge networks were as important to the building of British political intelligence in north India in the 18th and 19th centuries as they were to the diffusion of science.

No discussion of Indian history, or of the communication and the movement of knowledge, would be complete without reference to the work of the late Professor Sir Christopher Bayly (1945–2015).

Bayly saw the role of Indian spies, runners and knowledgeable secretaries as crucial to the British in helping to keep information and gossip flowing in the 1780s and 1860s. His ground-breaking research uncovered the social and intellectual origins of these informants, and showed how networks of ‘go-betweens’ helped the British understand India’s politics, economic activities and culture.

“One overriding reason why the East India Company was able to conquer India… was that the British had learnt the art of listening in on the internal communications of Indian polity and society,” he explained in his seminal work Empire and Information (1996).

Ultimately, however, India’s complex systems of debate and communication challenged the political and intellectual dominance of the British; it was their misunderstanding of the subtleties of Indian politics and values, he argues, that contributed to the British failure to anticipate the 1857 Mutiny–Rebellion.

World-renowned for his enormous contributions to his subject, Bayly was the Director of Cambridge’s Centre of South Asian Studies until his retirement in 2014, as well as President of St Catharine’s College, and the Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History in the Faculty of History.

He completely transformed people’s understanding of India in the 18th and 19th centuries, explains Professor Joya Chatterji, the Centre’s current Director: “Chris has been one of the most influential figures in the field of modern Indian history. Every one of his monographs broke new ground, whether in political, social and economic, or latterly intellectual history.”

His work was increasingly drawn towards ‘world historical’ comparisons and connections; his ̽��ֱ��Birth of the Modern World (2004) transformed the understanding of the history of modernity itself, drawing attention to its richly complex, overlapping global roots.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Professor Sir Christopher Bayly (1945-2015)

pbh25 — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 09:32:15 +0000

Professor Sir Christopher Bayly, described as the single most influential figure in the field of modern Indian history, has died in Chicago aged 69.

He was world-renowned for his enormous contributions to the Centre of South Asian Studies in Cambridge and to his subject.

He held many positions during his time at Cambridge including being the Centre’s Director, President of St Catharine’s College, and Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History in the Faculty of History.

He also held positions outside of Cambridge including being the Vivekananda Professor at the ̽��ֱ�� of Chicago. It was on Sunday while in Chicago, during one of his annual Spring visits, that he died of a suspected heart attack.

Professor Bayly was a member of the Centre of South Asian Studies for more than 45 years having arrived in Cambridge from Oxford in 1969 where he had completed his doctorate under the supervision of Jack Gallagher.

Although he retired last year from the Directorship of the Centre he still maintained a base there and Professor Joya Chatterji, the current Director, said her predecessor was a “crucial point of continuity” in its history.

Professor Chatterji said: “It is not an exaggeration to say that Chris has been the single most influential figure in the field of modern Indian history. Every one of his monographs, from his first book on Allahabad in 1975 to his last book on Liberalism in 2012, broke new ground, whether in political, social and economic, or latterly intellectual history."

She added that Professor Bayly completely transformed people’s understanding of the 18th and 19th centuries in a series of publications, above all Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars (1983) which many regard as his magnum opus.

Having established his reputation as a social and economic historian of outstanding originality, he then went on to take up new challenges. Empire and Information (1996) uncovered the worlds of Indian spies, runners and political secretaries who were recruited by the British to secure information about their subjects, and the social and intellectual origins of these informants.

Increasingly drawn to think about ‘world historical’ comparisons and connections he wrote first Imperial Meridian in 1989, and then a stunning new analysis of ̽��ֱ��Birth of the Modern World (2004), which transformed the understanding of the history of modernity itself, and drew attention to its richly complex, overlapping global roots.

A pair of books followed in quick succession, co-authored with Tim Harper, on the social transformations wrought by the Second World War in Asia. He would later write about the intellectual history of Indian liberalism.

Describing his work Professor Chatterji said: “His prodigious productivity, the stunning range of his scholarship, and his talent for thinking comparatively, and in a connected way, about a range of historical questions, established the reputation for which he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2004 and received a knighthood in 2007.

“Many will remember Chris as an inspiring supervisor, as a colleague and friend, as a longstanding member of the Centre’s Committee of Management and above all as Director of this Centre.”

Reflecting on his legacy Professor Chatterji added that during his Directorship he oversaw the Centre’s move from its historic premises in Laundress Lane to the Alison Richard Building and launched the MPhil in South Asian Studies.

Professor Chatterji added: “No less significantly, he drew the study of South East Asia squarely into the Centre’s remit.

“Those who knew him have each, in their own way, learnt immeasurably from Chris, not only by reading his work, but by working with and alongside him as a supervisor and colleague. Our thoughts are with his wife Susan, his family, and his students past and present, who today feel bereft.”

Dame Jean Thomas, Master of St Catharine’s College, said that many people had paid tribute to Professor Bayly, adding: “It is clear that he was held in high esteem not only in Cambridge and St Catharine's, but around the world. We have lost a friend and valued colleague, and he will be sorely missed. We extend our deepest sympathy to Susan and his family.”

Friends and colleagues pay tribute to world-renowned expert.

“It is not an exaggeration to say that Chris has been the single most influential figure in the field of modern Indian history."

Professor Joya Chatterji

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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How the Westminster parliamentary system was exported around the world

sj387 — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 12:00:00 +0000

Empires, even the greatest of them, wax and wane. As recently as the early 1920s, the British Empire covered an area that is almost inconceivable today. ̽��ֱ��inhabitants of its dominions, colonies and territories accounted for a fifth of the world’s population and its huge geographical spread was summed up by the chilling description ‘the empire on which the sun never sets’.

However, just as the British Empire reached its peak, it was also crumbling as its composite parts pushed against their subordinate status. From the 1940s onwards, a growing number of countries which had been under British rule for as many as 200 years, embarked on the journey that led to their independence as members of the New Commonwealth – an affiliation to the British monarchy that for some nation states proved short-lived and for others more enduring.

As Smuts Visiting Fellow in Commonwealth Studies for 2013-2014, the political historian Dr Harshan Kumarasingham is exploring the extraordinary role that Sir Ivor Jennings played at a pivotal period for newly-independent states across the world as they emerged from British rule. For many, it was an era of huge upheaval as, ill-prepared to deal with the task of state-building, they struggled to govern according to a foreign system often imposed with scant regard for regional and ethnic tensions.

Jennings was a key figure in the process that saw the decolonisation of dozens of countries that made up the British Empire in the mid-20^th century. Born in Bristol in 1903, he was educated at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge ̽��ֱ��, and towards the end of his career returned to the ̽��ֱ�� to hold a number of prestigious posts.

In his late 30s Jennings became the first vice chancellor of the newly-formed ̽��ֱ�� of Ceylon in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) and from 1942, right up until his death in 1965, acted as a specialist constitutional advisor to governments of developed and developing nations all over the world.

Jennings’s career as a constitutional advisor had unique scope and breadth. It is possible that his relatively modest background and grammar school education, which would have been a barrier to entering the legal establishment in Britain, was a factor in his decision to look overseas to forge his career. Having made his name in Colombo, he worked with indigenous leaders to draw up the constitutions of countries as diverse in culture and geography as Canada and Ethiopia, Japan and Nepal, New Zealand and Malta. His legacy continues in some shape or form in the many parts of the world where elements of the Westminster-style constitutions he introduced live on.

“ ̽��ֱ��model Jennings favoured was the Westminster parliamentary system with its historic connection to the Crown and convention. ̽��ֱ��leaders with whom he collaborated to establish their own versions of Westminster represented the powerful elite of their countries and the systems they devised often didn’t take account of local and ethnic differences – such as regional languages and variations in ethnicity and education – which meant that certain groups were excluded from processes of self-government,” said Dr Kumarasingham.

“On the basis of his grasp of constitutional law, Jennings was hired by many countries all over the world to provide advice on the making of their constitutions – he wasn’t in the employ of the British government although his affiliations and loyalties certainly favoured the British and their system. Essentially he operated in the way that a lawyer’s brief would work – he was efficient and focused and did the job he was paid to do. He didn’t see it as his role to deviate from the wishes of his clients.”

Dr Kumarasingham, who took up the Smuts Fellowship in October, is a New Zealander whose work to date has focused on the Westminster system and how it was exported across the world. He will be carrying out research in archives across the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and at the Public Records Office in London to develop a fuller and clearer picture of a process that affected millions of people in countries that had been colonised by the British. “Cambridge has remarkable resources for these papers including those of leading British Cabinet ministers,” he said.

“In the UK today, Jennings is remembered for his contribution to British Constitutional Law and Cabinet Government as these were the areas he wrote prolifically on while he in Britain. In the wider world he is known for his work in constitution-making abroad and I hope that my research at Cambridge will bring these two aspects of his career together. I will be editing a book of his selected writings on constitution making, which be published by the Royal Historical Society and CUP.”

When Jennings returned to Britain in 1955, he became Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He later served a term as Vice-Chancellor at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, at a time when the position rotated among the heads of the Colleges.

Jennings and his influence on overseas constitutions is just one strand of Dr Kumarasingham’s research, which looks more broadly at British decolonisation and state-building. Dr Kumarasingham, who is hosted by Professor Sir Christopher Bayly, Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial History Emeritus at the Centre for South Asian Studies, will also be looking at constitutional crises in the post-war Commonwealth and the influence of monarchy on democracy in South Asia.

Inset image: Sir Ivor Jennings (centre front row) as Master of Trinity Hall in 1958, Trinity Hall Archives

As an expert in constitutional law, Sir Ivor Jennings played a pivotal role in the establishment of states emerging from British rule in the mid-20th century. He later became Master of Trinity Hall. As Smuts Visiting Fellow, Dr Harshan Kumarasingham is researching how Jennings and other British figures shaped the lives of millions of people around the world.

̽��ֱ��model Jennings favoured was the Westminster parliamentary system with its historic connection to the Crown and convention

Dr Kumarasingham

Centre of South Asian Studies, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

Indian Parliament building (designed by British architect Edwin Lutyens) in 1944

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