BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 METHOD:PUBLISH PRODID:-//Telerik Inc.//Sitefinity CMS 15.1//EN BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Eastern Standard Time BEGIN:STANDARD DTSTART:20251102T020000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=1SU;BYHOUR=2;BYMINUTE=0;BYMONTH=11 TZNAME:Eastern Standard Time TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20250301T020000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=2SU;BYHOUR=2;BYMINUTE=0;BYMONTH=3 TZNAME:Eastern Daylight Time TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DESCRIPTION:Radha Kumar’s Police Matters (Cornell University Press\, 2021) draws on previously unexplored station records to examine the close ties b etween state and caste authority that were displayed at everyday as well a s exceptional moments through much of the twentieth century in the Tamil-s peaking countryside of southern India. Scholarship on British India has ty pically depicted the police as a coercive instrument of alien authority\, absent in the countryside except on occasion to brutally subdue protest. I n contrast\, Police Matters utilizes previously unexplored archives to sho w that the colonial police exercised a more continuous presence in rural l ife in the southern province of Madras. Here\, state coercion was not only exceptional and spectacular\; it was also subtle and continuous\, woven i nto the warp and weft of everyday life. Outnumbered in the vast countrysid e\, colonial policemen optimized their resources by drawing on knowledge t hat classified Indian subjects based on their caste. The police thus broug ht epistemic and legal violence into the colonial countryside\, transformi ng its way of life. Far from being the dregs of a premodern past\, modern caste politics have been shaped in conjunction with state policing. \; Radha Kumar is a historian of colonial and postcolonial South Asia\, focus ing on the Tamil-speaking regions of southern India. Her areas of interest include caste\, law\, environment\, and popular politics. She has commenc ed work on a second book project\, Whose River? The Kaveri and Political B elonging in Modern India\, which asks how imperial subjects and postcoloni al citizens participated in politics and asserted their right to water ove r the course of the long twentieth-century.  \; \;Lisa Mitchell is Associate Professor of anthropology &\; history in the Department of S outh Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Hailing the State: Collective Assembly and the Politics of Representation in the History of Indian Democracy (forthcoming\, Duke University Press)\, and Language\, Emotion\, and Politics in South India: The Making of a Mot her Tongue (Indiana University Press\, 2009 and Permanent Black\, 2010)\, which was recipient of the American Institute of Indian Studies’ Edward Ca meron Dimock\, Jr. Prize in the Indian Humanities. She is currently workin g on a new book project on translations of globally circulating political ideas\, provisionally entitled\, The Multiple Genealogies of Indian Democr acy: Global Intellectual History in Translation. She received her PhD in s ociocultural anthropology from Columbia University. DTEND:20220222T190000Z DTSTAMP:20260512T135028Z DTSTART:20220222T173000Z LOCATION: SEQUENCE:0 SUMMARY:Police Matters: A Book Talk with Radha Kumar & Lisa Mitchell UID:RFCALITEM639141762282139871 X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:
Radha Kumar’s Police Matters (Co rnell University Press\, 2021) draws on previously unexplored station reco rds to examine the close ties between state and caste authority that were displayed at everyday as well as exceptional moments through much of the t wentieth century in the Tamil-speaking countryside of southern India. Scho larship on British India has typically depicted the police as a coercive i nstrument of alien authority\, absent in the countryside except on occasio n to brutally subdue protest. In contrast\, Police Matters utiliz es previously unexplored archives to show that the colonial police exercis ed a more continuous presence in rural life in the southern province of Ma dras. Here\, state coercion was not only exceptional and spectacular\; it was also subtle and continuous\, woven into the warp and weft of everyday life. Outnumbered in the vast countryside\, colonial policemen optimized t heir resources by drawing on knowledge that classified Indian subjects bas ed on their caste. The police thus brought epistemic and legal violence in to the colonial countryside\, transforming its way of life. Far from being the dregs of a premodern past\, modern caste politics have been shaped in conjunction with state policing.

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Radha Ku mar is a historian of colonial and postcolonial South Asia\, focu sing on the Tamil-speaking regions of southern India. Her areas of interes t include caste\, law\, environment\, and popular politics. She has commen ced work on a second book project\, Whose River? The Kaveri and Politi cal Belonging in Modern India\, which asks how imperial subjects and postcolonial citizens participated in politics and asserted their right to water over the course of the long twentieth-century.  \;
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Lisa Mitchell is Associate Professor of a nthropology &\; history in the Department of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Hailing the State: Co llective Assembly and the Politics of Representation in the History of Ind ian Democracy (forthcoming\, Duke University Press)\, and Languag e\, Emotion\, and Politics in South India: The Making of a Mother Tongue (Indiana University Press\, 2009 and Permanent Black\, 2010)\, which w as recipient of the American Institute of Indian Studies’ Edward Cameron D imock\, Jr. Prize in the Indian Humanities. She is currently working on a new book project on translations of globally circulating political ideas\, provisionally entitled\, The Multiple Genealogies of Indian Democracy : Global Intellectual History in Translation. She received her PhD in sociocultural anthropology from Columbia University.
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