Overview

Taking Gandhi's statements about civil disobedience to heart, in February 1922 residents from the villages around the north Indian market town of Chauri Chaura attacked the local police station, burned it to the ground and murdered twenty-three constables. Appalled that his teachings were turned to violent ends, Gandhi called off his Noncooperation Movement and fasted to bring the people back to nonviolence. In the meantime, the British government denied that the riot reflected Indian resistance to its rule and tried the rioters as common criminals. These events have taken on great symbolic importance among Indians, both in the immediate region and nationally. Amin examines the event itself, but also, more significantly, he explores the ways it has been remembered, interpreted, and used as a metaphor for the Indian struggle for independence. The author, who was born fifteen miles from Chauri Chaura, brings to his study an empathetic knowledge of the region and a keen ear for the nuances of the culture and language of its people. In an ingenious negotiation between written and oral evidence, he combines brilliant archival work in the judicial records of the period with field interviews with local informants. In telling this intricate story of local memory and the making of official histories, Amin probes the silences and ambivalences that contribute to a nation's narrative. He extends his boundaries well beyond Chauri Chaura itself to explore the complex relationship between peasant politics and nationalist discourse and the interplay between memory and history.

Full Product Details

Author:   Shahid Amin
Publisher:   University of California Press
Imprint:   University of California Press
Dimensions:   Width: 14.00cm , Height: 1.80cm , Length: 21.00cm
Weight:   0.318kg
ISBN:  

9780520087804

ISBN 10:   0520087801
Pages:   210
Publication Date:   26 October 1995
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock  
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Table of Contents

Prologue Part One Impressions 1 The Riot and History 2 A Narrative of the Event Part Two 3 Chauri Chaura-Dumri-Mundera Part Three 4 Fraudulent Reports 5 The Lessons of the Riot 6 The Crime of Chauri Chaura 7 Nationalizing the Riot 8 The Case for Punishment and Justice 9 Dwarka Gosain's Complaint Part Four 10 Violence and Counterinsurgency 11 The Making of the Approver 12 Shikari' s Testimony 13 The Approver and the Accused 14 Judicial Discourse 15 The Alimentary Aspects of Picketing 16 The Politics of the Trial Part Five 17 Historian's Dilemma 18 Dumri Records 19 The Youthful Account 20 Komal-Dacoit 21 The Babu-saheb of Mundera 22 The Madanpur Narrative 23 Malaviya Saves Chotki Dumri 24 The Great Betrayal 25 A Powerful 'Mukhbir' 26 The One-Seven-Two of Chauri Chaura 27 The Policemen Dead 28 The Darogain 29 The Presence of Gandhi 30 Otiyars 31 Chutki, or the Gift of Grain 32 The Feast of 4 February 1922 33 The Colour Gerua and Proper Nationalist Attire 34 What the Otiyars Wore 35 Witness to a History 36 Towards Conclusion 37 Epilogue Appendix A: Pratigya-Patr Notes Abbreviations Notes to Prologue Notes to Part One Notes to Part Two Notes to Part Three Notes to Part Four Notes to Part Five Bibliography Index

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Author Information

Shahid Amin is Professor of History at Delhi University. He has been a Visiting Fellow at Stanford, Princeton, and Berlin. He has authored Sugarcane and Sugar in Gorakhpur (1984), as well as several seminal essays in Subaltern Studies--of which project he is one of the founding editors.

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