The Calcutta kerani and the London clerk in the nineteenth century : life, labour, latitude / Sumit Chakrabarti.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Chakrabarti, Sumit, 1975- author.

Contributor:

Rosengarten International Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Clerks--India--Kolkata--History--19th century.

Clerks.

Clerks--Great Britain--History--19th century.

India--Social conditions--19th century.

India.

Great Britain--Social conditions--19th century.

Great Britain.

Physical Description:

ix, 182 pages ; 25 cm

Edition:

First South Asia edition.

Place of Publication:

London : Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2021.

Summary:

"This book examines the location and representation of the colonial clerk or the kerani within the cultural and social space of nineteenth century colonial India. It provides a comparative history of the clerk in Calcutta vis-à-vis the clerk in contemporary London in order to understand the manifestations of modernity in these two disparate but intimately related spaces. The volume traces the socio-historical life of the clerk in the newly emerged city-space of Calcutta and reveals how the Bengali kerani became a complex and distinct figure of bureaucratic and colonial modernity. It analyses the techniques of surveillance and ethical training given to the native clerks and offers insights into the role of education in the production and dissemination of knowledge and hegemony in the colonial setting. The author, through a reading of clerk manuals, handbooks and literary representations, highlights the class and cultural identity of the English educated colonial clerk in the new city-space. He also focuses on the ambivalence and unreliability of the clerk or colonial babu who became complicit and gave legitimacy to the empire while personifying a complex modernity within the networks of the colonial administration. This book will be of great interest to students and researchers of colonial and imperial history, literature, cultural studies, city studies, British studies, area studies, commonwealth studies and South Asian studies, particularly those interested in colonial Bengal"--Publisher's description.

This book examines the location and representation of the colonial clerk, or the kerani, in the cultural and social space of nineteenth-century colonial India.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Rosengarten International Fund.

ISBN:

9780367775728

0367775727

9781003094692

1003094694

OCLC:

1501130786