Inherent in colonialism was the idea of self-legitimation, the most powerful tool of which was the colonizer's claim to bring the fruits of progress and modernity to the subject people. In colonial logic, people who were different because they were inferior had to be made similar - and hence equal - by civilizing them. However, once this equality had been attained, the very basis for colonial rule would vanish. 'Colonialism as Civilizing Mission' explores British colonial ideology at work in South Asia. Ranging from studies on sport and national education, to pulp fiction to infanticide, to psychiatric therapy and religion, these essays on the various forms, expressions and consequences of the British 'civilizing mission' in South Asia shed light on a topic that even today continues to be an important factor in South Asian politics.

Harald Fischer-Tiné is Professor of History at the ETH Zürich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich).

Michael Mann is Assistant Professor and Senior Lecturer at the Fern Universitaet, Hagen.

Anthem South Asian Studies

'Torchbearers Upon the Path of Progress': Britain's Ideology of a 'Moral and Material Progress' in India. An Introductory Essay; PART I: TRIAL AND ERROR: 1. Dealing with Oriental Despotism: British Jurisdiction in Bengal, 1772-93; 2. 'A Race of Monters': South India and the British 'Civilizing Mission' in the Later Eighteenth Century; 3. Between Non-Interference in Matters of Religion and the Civilizing Mission: The Prohibition of Suttee in 1829; PART II: ORDERING AND MODERNIZING: 4. 'The Bridge-Builders': Some Notes on Railways, Pilgrimage and the British 'Civilizing Mission' in Colonial India; 5. Taming the 'Dangerous' Rajput; Family, Marriage and Female Infanticide in Nineteenth-Century Colonial North India; 6. What Is Your 'Caste'? The Classification of Indian Society as Part of the British Civilizing Mission; PART III: BODY AND MIND: 7. Sporting and the 'Civilizing Mission' in India, 8. 'More Important to Civilize Than Subdue'? Lunatic Asylums, Psychiatric Practice and Fantasies of 'the Civilizing Mission' in British India 1858-1900; 9. The Sympathizing Hear and the Healing Hand: Smallpox Prevention and Medical Benevolences in Early Colonial South India; 10. Perceptions of Sanitation and Medicine in Bombay, 1900-1914; PART IV: THE CIVILIZING MISSION INTERNALIZED: 11. National Education, Pulp Fiction and the Contradictions of Colonialism: Perceptions of an Educational Experiment in Early-Twentieth-Century India; 12. In Search of the Indigenous: J C Kumarappa and the Philosophy of 'Gandhian Economics'; 13. The Civilizational Obsessions of Ghulam Jilani Barq; Notes, Index