Mysuru :
Professor of world history at the prestigious Cambridge University in the United Kingdom, David Washbrook said that the history of princely states – territories that entered into Lord Wellesley’s treaty of subsidiary alliance – had been relegated to the marginalia in the larger narrative of India’s modern nationhood.
Prof Washbrook on Friday delivered the keynote address during the Prof Achuta Rao memorial international conference at the Rani Bahaddur auditorium within the University of Mysore (UoM) premises on ‘Power, resistance and sovereignty in princely South India’. Organised by UoM, and the Prod DS Achuta Rao Centenary Programme, the conference saw discussion on the past and present of the princely states.
DS Achuta Rao was a professor of history at UoM, whose research into Mysuru’s past earned him accolades aplenty. Prof Achuta Rao passed away in 1965, aged 47. The conference was organised as part of a series of events to commemorate his centenary this year.
Washbrook opined that the Indian National Congress was so focused on fighting the British that it ignored the princely states till 1930. “They were then subsumed into a programme designed to obliterate their difference. Also, given the circumstances that prevailed in the early years of independence – partition and accession of states – also made post-independent India instinctively hostile to the traces of princely privilege and power. Perceived as feudal relics, India’s maharajas were meant to fade into history, while the societies they held dominion over were meant to blend into a single, homogenous and continuous national modernity,” he added.
Although the princely states, and their rulers, did not essay prominent roles in the political struggle against colonialism, particularly after 1857, they led the country in terms of social development, Washbrook said. “The strides these territories made in education, public health and other sectors put the backwardness of British India to shame. It’s scarcely a coincidence that cities such as Bengaluru and Vadodara, which were part of erstwhile princely states, should be leading centres of science and industry today. The history of the princely states may be more relevant to understanding India in the 21st century than it ever was in the 20th,” Washbrook said.
Jawaharlal Nehru University professor Janaki Nair delivered a talk on ‘The making of the modern Mysore Matha’, while associate professor at the University of Tokyo Aya Ikegame lectured on ‘Was power transferred to whom? Princes and gurus in modern Mysore’, at the conference.
UOM registrar Prof R Rajanna also inaugurated an exhibition on the life and works of DS Achuta Rao.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Mysore News / TNN / February 18th, 2017