Humanities & Social Sciences
Migrant races
Empire,Identity and K.S. Ranjitsinhji
by Andrew Thompson, John M. MacKenzie, Satadru Sen
Description
This book is a study of mobility, image and identity in colonial India and imperial Britain in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is a model for studies of migrant figures like K.S. Ranjitsinhji who emerged during the imperial period. Ranjitsinhji is an important figure in the history of modern India and the British empire because he was recognized as a great athlete and described as such. The book focuses on four aspects of Ranjitsinhji's life as a colonial subject: race, money, loyalty and gender. It touches upon Ranjitsinhji's career as a cricketer in the race section. The issue of money gave Indian critics of Ranjitsinhji's regime the language they needed to condemn his personal and administrative priorities, and to portray him as self-indulgent. Ranjitsinhji lived his life as a player of multiple gender roles: sometimes serially, and on occasion simultaneously. His status as a "prince" - while not entirely fake - was fragile enough to be unreliable, and he worked hard to reinforce it even as he constructed his Englishness. Any Indian attempt to transcend race, culture, climate and political place by imitating an English institution and its product must be an unnatural act of insurgency. The disdain for colonial politics that was manifest in the "small rebellions" at the end of the world war converged with the colonized/Indian identity that was evident at the League of Nations. Between the war and his death, it is clear, Ranjitsinhji moved to maximize his autonomy in Nawanagar.
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Endorsements
Migrant Races is a study of image, identity and mobility in colonial India and imperial Britain in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Focusing on the careers of Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji, who arrived in England as a teenager in the 1880s and returned to India in 1907, the book unravels the significance of the lives and roles of a misfit living in a colonial world. Whilst in England, Ranjitsinhji rose to the heights of sporting heroism, becoming a start of the English cricket team and one of the best-known athletes in the British Empire. He went on to become a highly controversial ruling prince on his return to India, a soldier in France, and a diplomat at the League of Nations. In each of these roles he functioned as a model on which contemporary observers based their ideas about racial, political and gendered identities in the empire. Ranjitsinhji in turn used his unique position to negotiate, expand and test the boundaries of these meanings, for he was a man uniquely positioned between colony and nation: a 'migrant self' whose evolution demonstrates the possibilities and limits of imperial identities. In examining the collaboration of British, Indian and other agents in the construction of the mobile imperial man, and focusing on the remarkable life of one who leaves the colony and then returns, this fascinating study will be of interest to students, lecturers and enthusiasts of the history of the British Empire and Indian nationalism, diaspora studies and sports history.
Reviews
Migrant Races is a study of image, identity and mobility in colonial India and imperial Britain in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Focusing on the careers of Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji, who arrived in England as a teenager in the 1880s and returned to India in 1907, the book unravels the significance of the lives and roles of a misfit living in a colonial world. Whilst in England, Ranjitsinhji rose to the heights of sporting heroism, becoming a start of the English cricket team and one of the best-known athletes in the British Empire. He went on to become a highly controversial ruling prince on his return to India, a soldier in France, and a diplomat at the League of Nations. In each of these roles he functioned as a model on which contemporary observers based their ideas about racial, political and gendered identities in the empire. Ranjitsinhji in turn used his unique position to negotiate, expand and test the boundaries of these meanings, for he was a man uniquely positioned between colony and nation: a 'migrant self' whose evolution demonstrates the possibilities and limits of imperial identities. In examining the collaboration of British, Indian and other agents in the construction of the mobile imperial man, and focusing on the remarkable life of one who leaves the colony and then returns, this fascinating study will be of interest to students, lecturers and enthusiasts of the history of the British Empire and Indian nationalism, diaspora studies and sports history.
Author Biography
John MacKenzie is Emeritus Professor of Imperial History, Lancaster University and holds Honorary Professorships at Aberdeen, St Andrews and Stirling, as well as an Honorary Fellowship at Edinburgh.;
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View all titlesBibliographic Information
- Publisher Manchester University Press
- Publication Date March 2017
- Orginal LanguageEnglish
- ISBN/Identifier 9781526118653 / 1526118653
- Publication Country or regionUnited Kingdom
- FormatWeb PDF
- ReadershipGeneral/trade
- Publish StatusPublished
- Dimensions234 X 156 mm
- Biblio NotesDerived from Proprietary 3498
- SeriesStudies in Imperialism
- Reference Code9833
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