1 00:00:10,470 --> 00:00:19,800 Good afternoon and welcome to this book at lunchtime event on Royals and Rebels, The Rise and Fall of the Sick Empire, written by Dr. Bria Atwell. 2 00:00:19,800 --> 00:00:23,700 My name is Professor Wes Williams and I'm the director here at Torch Book. 3 00:00:23,700 --> 00:00:25,690 At lunchtime, as regulars will know, 4 00:00:25,690 --> 00:00:35,480 is Torture's flagship interdisciplinary event series taking the form of fortnightly bite sized book discussions with a range of commentators? 5 00:00:35,480 --> 00:00:40,430 In different times, we would have been able to offer you lunch as well as food for thought. 6 00:00:40,430 --> 00:00:46,980 But of course, one of the positives of these times is that we can gather together an online space from all around the world. 7 00:00:46,980 --> 00:00:52,190 And in the various sessions this term, we will be travelling adventurously widely. 8 00:00:52,190 --> 00:00:59,680 And I hope wisely, too. So do please, please take a look at our website, a newsletter for the full programme this term. 9 00:00:59,680 --> 00:01:04,310 Today, I'm delighted to welcome Dr. Brightwell to speak about her book. 10 00:01:04,310 --> 00:01:12,080 Also on the panel are Professor Polly O'Hanlan and Professor Faisal DSG, who'll be chairing the discussion in a moment. 11 00:01:12,080 --> 00:01:17,420 I will hand over to Professor DSG, who will introduce both the book and the rest of the panel. 12 00:01:17,420 --> 00:01:21,230 This will be followed by a brief reading by Prieur herself. 13 00:01:21,230 --> 00:01:27,650 Afterwards, our commentators will present their thoughts on the book coming at it from their particular disciplines. 14 00:01:27,650 --> 00:01:32,120 Will then give Prieur the chance to respond to some of the points raised before entering 15 00:01:32,120 --> 00:01:37,900 into what promises to be a fascinating discussion for the last quarter of an hour or so. 16 00:01:37,900 --> 00:01:44,470 The event will end, so the last quarter of an hour or so. But then conclude with questions from you, the audience. 17 00:01:44,470 --> 00:01:50,190 All that's left for me to do then is to thank you for coming and to introduce our chair. 18 00:01:50,190 --> 00:01:56,610 Professor Faces Dave Gee is a professor of Indian history and the director of the Asian Studies Centre here at Oxford. 19 00:01:56,610 --> 00:02:06,330 His research focuses on political thought in modern South Asia and is more broadly concerned with ethics and violence in this globalised world. 20 00:02:06,330 --> 00:02:13,650 He's the author of four books, most recently Muslim ion Pakistan as a Political Idea. 21 00:02:13,650 --> 00:02:19,200 He's a fellow at New York University's Institute of Public Knowledge and was formerly Eve Automan, 22 00:02:19,200 --> 00:02:25,830 chair at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, where an enormously delighted and privileged to have you here with us. 23 00:02:25,830 --> 00:02:31,290 And I'd like to hand over to you now to share the rest of the session. I'll return for the questions towards the end. 24 00:02:31,290 --> 00:02:43,220 Thank you. Thank you very much. Yes, it really is a pleasure to be here to celebrate this wonderful book, which is substantial not only in content, 25 00:02:43,220 --> 00:02:50,690 but also has a rather handsome cover published by Hearst and Co. here in London. 26 00:02:50,690 --> 00:02:59,420 Let me say a few words about Prieur and Polly and then turn over to Pride to tell us more about her book. 27 00:02:59,420 --> 00:03:06,170 So Prieur Atwal is a historian of empire, monarchy and cultural politics across Britain and South Asia. 28 00:03:06,170 --> 00:03:11,900 She's taught history at King's College, London and at Oxford, where she was also a student. 29 00:03:11,900 --> 00:03:16,160 We remember her well not so long ago, I might add. 30 00:03:16,160 --> 00:03:21,890 Her research has been featured in collaborative projects with historic royal palaces, amongst others. 31 00:03:21,890 --> 00:03:31,040 And she makes regular broadcast appearances, most recently presenting BBC Radio four series Lies, My teacher told me. 32 00:03:31,040 --> 00:03:36,390 I hope none of those lies were from here. A prayer. 33 00:03:36,390 --> 00:03:46,310 And as as commentator, we have Professor Polly O'Hanlan, who is professor of Indian history and culture at Oxford, 34 00:03:46,310 --> 00:03:50,720 and her research interests focus on the social and intellectual history of India. 35 00:03:50,720 --> 00:03:56,390 A most recent book was at the Edges of Empire Essays and the Social and Intellectual History of India, 36 00:03:56,390 --> 00:04:04,490 which explores new approaches to questions about caste, gender and religious cultures across a range of historical environments. 37 00:04:04,490 --> 00:04:09,620 So with that perhaps a prayer, you can tell us something about your book. 38 00:04:09,620 --> 00:04:14,240 And then, Pauline, I will return to discuss it with you. 39 00:04:14,240 --> 00:04:21,860 Yeah. Thank you very much, Faisal, for that very kind introduction. I've got a copy of the book here, so I'll do a quick reading. 40 00:04:21,860 --> 00:04:25,530 As promised, I hope everyone can hear me. 41 00:04:25,530 --> 00:04:29,990 Okay. The book in front of me like this. So, yeah, I'll stop it. 42 00:04:29,990 --> 00:04:36,260 I'm going to read a section from the conclusion. So here we go. 43 00:04:36,260 --> 00:04:38,240 Well, many Punjabi families. 44 00:04:38,240 --> 00:04:47,870 This little couplet has long been a folk favourites, Xia Raja exceed Orny don't know market custom Kahani translated into English. 45 00:04:47,870 --> 00:04:52,610 This means once there was a king and a queen. They both died. End of story. 46 00:04:52,610 --> 00:04:57,250 I could leave it that way because my but yeah. But I think Faizan Hollywood have been too happy. 47 00:04:57,250 --> 00:05:07,220 That would be me. The whole thing. It's an irreverent quip that's most likely stems from the folk tales about fictional royalty that 48 00:05:07,220 --> 00:05:12,620 have been passed down between generations throughout India over the course of many centuries. 49 00:05:12,620 --> 00:05:16,850 My own dad never tired of repeating his jokes. My brother and me, while we were growing up, though, 50 00:05:16,850 --> 00:05:22,550 it does get more interesting when you're a bit older and trying to write an actual book about words. 51 00:05:22,550 --> 00:05:27,320 There is no doubt that we've seen a lot of kings, queens and princes dying during the course of this book. 52 00:05:27,320 --> 00:05:32,150 Some under especially brutal and unforgettable circumstances. Just as good in on it. 53 00:05:32,150 --> 00:05:38,210 Preach not even the most powerful and wealthy kings can cheat death. But their deaths only end their own stories. 54 00:05:38,210 --> 00:05:42,980 What the preceding pages have taught us is that contrary to what has been assumed for so long, 55 00:05:42,980 --> 00:05:47,150 while death alone did not end, the second is not even that the line is the job. 56 00:05:47,150 --> 00:05:53,150 Renji. As a kingdom. The second empire was wiped off the map one hundred and seventy years ago. 57 00:05:53,150 --> 00:05:59,120 But it left behind a significant legacy, not only in terms of shaping politics and culture in the region of Punjab, 58 00:05:59,120 --> 00:06:02,030 but also as a lasting imprint on popular memory, 59 00:06:02,030 --> 00:06:07,040 which of course has its most prominent resonance in Maharajah Ranjeet Singh's role as a national hero. 60 00:06:07,040 --> 00:06:15,620 Many seek something dhobis to this day. Yet only by equally resurrection the story of both Raja and Aroni or more accurately than many Ronni's. 61 00:06:15,620 --> 00:06:19,450 Can we truly and deeply understand the inner world of the Sikh empire? 62 00:06:19,450 --> 00:06:27,470 It has been an exciting challenge to ask you critical questions and explore alternative sources about this extraordinary period and reign, 63 00:06:27,470 --> 00:06:29,960 and to open up new perspectives on how the men, 64 00:06:29,960 --> 00:06:36,770 women and children of the BJP reality went about constructing a new kingdom in the late 18th and 19th centuries, 65 00:06:36,770 --> 00:06:43,640 whether it was Southern or helping out when Gizzi on the battlefield got Singh hugging the British in a diplomatic gesture. 66 00:06:43,640 --> 00:06:48,680 Mind again commissioning works of art who have real apartments or non housing. 67 00:06:48,680 --> 00:06:54,230 Getting married and having children to mention just a few aspects of their busy and colourful lives. 68 00:06:54,230 --> 00:06:59,000 Historical footprints left behind by Ranjeet things parents, OG's uncles, in-laws, 69 00:06:59,000 --> 00:07:03,740 wives, children and grandchildren deserve to take their place in history. 70 00:07:03,740 --> 00:07:11,710 That history alone should not be limited to the story of one great modern moon. No matter how talented he might have been. 71 00:07:11,710 --> 00:07:18,310 Beyond these dating figures are sings Dynasty, we have also uncovered the evolving dynamics of the wider real world around them, 72 00:07:18,310 --> 00:07:20,470 particularly help with the actions of individual monarchs, 73 00:07:20,470 --> 00:07:26,410 as well as ideas about kinship more generally ebbed and flowed with each passing generation of subjects. 74 00:07:26,410 --> 00:07:33,730 Even when entire monarchies or dynasties are removed from the scene, the effortless and symbolic power of royal culture still lingers on. 75 00:07:33,730 --> 00:07:38,150 Taking me forms in accordance with changing circumstances, an interest course. 76 00:07:38,150 --> 00:07:43,840 Several centuries of Punjabi history. We have encountered in this book all sorts of debates around who could legitimately 77 00:07:43,840 --> 00:07:48,430 rule and what it meant to be were from the revolutionary Buddhism of the COSA, 78 00:07:48,430 --> 00:07:52,420 founded by group Borbon Singh and sixteen ninety nine to Morandi jump glass 79 00:07:52,420 --> 00:07:57,310 bottles with Prince piercing over the rights of women to rule in 1840 and then 80 00:07:57,310 --> 00:08:01,390 again in the new sort of colonial government and ceremonial world culture forced 81 00:08:01,390 --> 00:08:06,620 upon Maharani jingled and young Benepe saying by the British occupation 46. 82 00:08:06,620 --> 00:08:13,360 The process of looking in New York. Will curiosity at these characters and ideas in time compels us to come to a 83 00:08:13,360 --> 00:08:17,560 very different understanding and appreciation of history repeating itself, 84 00:08:17,560 --> 00:08:22,720 whether on the subject of the second plane or on the evolving role and status of words more generally. 85 00:08:22,720 --> 00:08:27,150 We may never have all the answers about lingering questions or controversies in the history. 86 00:08:27,150 --> 00:08:27,670 And of course, 87 00:08:27,670 --> 00:08:34,780 I read your reflections on the past will always be coloured by our contemporary concerns and biases have about these questioning the hagiography, 88 00:08:34,780 --> 00:08:40,700 misogyny, interventionism that having fused the dominant narratives about this fascinating kingdom and its society. 89 00:08:40,700 --> 00:08:48,010 And by roughly how these are cut it off perception's, I think it's fair to say we not only feature more rich and more insightful 90 00:08:48,010 --> 00:08:52,840 understanding of what really contributes to the rise and fall of this empire, but also in a broader sense, 91 00:08:52,840 --> 00:08:58,540 we can more fully appreciate what this history has meant to generations of people interested in its fate, 92 00:08:58,540 --> 00:09:04,590 as well as the continual evolution of the narratives constructed around it by the political by political culture. 93 00:09:04,590 --> 00:09:10,330 It's going to be observers to this day. I'll leave it there and hand back over to face. 94 00:09:10,330 --> 00:09:13,870 I'm fully. Thank you very much prayer. 95 00:09:13,870 --> 00:09:18,100 I just thought I'd say a few words before I had to get over to Polly, 96 00:09:18,100 --> 00:09:26,560 and I expect Polly will have a great deal to say about the substance of your argument, 97 00:09:26,560 --> 00:09:39,670 because it falls centrally in her field of research, the sort of early years, if you will, of the East India Company. 98 00:09:39,670 --> 00:09:50,780 But I want to begin at the end of your book, in a way, and think about the afterlife of the story of Sikh royalty that you are telling us. 99 00:09:50,780 --> 00:09:58,450 And I'm reminded of a writer from the early 20th century, a British writer, Buckler, 100 00:09:58,450 --> 00:10:09,090 who you and I have discussed before, Priya, who already the 1920s had this really interesting comparison to make. 101 00:10:09,090 --> 00:10:18,380 He sees what's happening with the transfer of power, not the transfer of power in 1947, but the transfer of power in 1857, 102 00:10:18,380 --> 00:10:27,940 1858 during the mutiny as being not simply that between India and Britain, 103 00:10:27,940 --> 00:10:43,800 but also between a royal order on the one hand and a new corporate order run by the East India Company and. 104 00:10:43,800 --> 00:10:49,520 Parliament and democracy, if you will, in England itself, and you will recall prio, 105 00:10:49,520 --> 00:10:59,250 he makes this argument about how what happens in the mutiny, what happens in that penultimate moment of British conquest. 106 00:10:59,250 --> 00:11:06,030 The conquest of India is that two royal orders are under threat by the company and all that. 107 00:11:06,030 --> 00:11:16,380 It represents the new corporate industrial power linked to parliament and to democracy. 108 00:11:16,380 --> 00:11:23,760 And in India, the Royal Houses, the Mughal empire in particular goal or subordinated totally. 109 00:11:23,760 --> 00:11:32,910 Whereas in England the royal family and the royal house, which have also been more or less under attack, 110 00:11:32,910 --> 00:11:43,530 notionally not physically by these corporate powers, is preserved to live another day in a kind of attenuated symbolic mode. 111 00:11:43,530 --> 00:11:54,750 So I'm just interested in the parallelisms that your book sets up between, as it were, these two royal houses at the very end of your book. 112 00:11:54,750 --> 00:12:05,070 Is it possible? I wanted to see a kind of curious alliance emerging between Indian royalty on the one hand, if we can't use that term at all. 113 00:12:05,070 --> 00:12:13,290 And the British royal family on the other, given the afterlife of maharajah's the lip sync in England. 114 00:12:13,290 --> 00:12:15,750 So, you know, that's one question that I have. 115 00:12:15,750 --> 00:12:26,490 The other, of course, has to do with a really central subject in your book, that is to say, the role of women in these struggles. 116 00:12:26,490 --> 00:12:34,800 And we tend often to think of as if we're matriarchal. Again, I use that word in heavy quotation marks. 117 00:12:34,800 --> 00:12:45,600 The matriarchal forms of authority are older and fade away in modern times. 118 00:12:45,600 --> 00:12:54,840 But both the story of the Sikh empire and morality and core in particular and the British Empire with Queen Victoria has its notional head. 119 00:12:54,840 --> 00:13:04,140 Really the stories of the re-emergence in a completely new way of the power of women's, symbolic or otherwise. 120 00:13:04,140 --> 00:13:08,940 So that's another question that I'd like you to perhaps address. 121 00:13:08,940 --> 00:13:19,550 You know, how are these? What kind of link exists between a possible personal link between, as it were, these two mother figures, 122 00:13:19,550 --> 00:13:25,980 a modern Indian called on the one hand and couldn't Victorio on the other with Mahara to the lip sync as the as it were, 123 00:13:25,980 --> 00:13:36,180 the sun torn between them both. So now I know your book doesn't discuss Queen Victoria and that part of my larger belief, Singh's career. 124 00:13:36,180 --> 00:13:41,760 But I thought it might be interesting for the audience to hear about sort of 125 00:13:41,760 --> 00:13:49,260 the afterlife of the empire that you that you described so well in your book. 126 00:13:49,260 --> 00:13:57,750 So with those few words, let me turn to Polly. Polly, if you have any comments to make. 127 00:13:57,750 --> 00:14:02,100 Thank you very much, Feisal and Prieur. 128 00:14:02,100 --> 00:14:06,510 Thank you so much for asking me to be part of this wonderful occasion. 129 00:14:06,510 --> 00:14:12,670 Having followed the previous work now over many years, it's so very pleasing to see it emerging. 130 00:14:12,670 --> 00:14:19,620 Is absolutely outstanding book. Well, there is so much here to fascinate. 131 00:14:19,620 --> 00:14:24,060 To provoke. To enjoy and to look at. 132 00:14:24,060 --> 00:14:33,460 And amongst the many achievements of the book, I mentioned just a few that I particularly clearly appreciated. 133 00:14:33,460 --> 00:14:44,700 And first, I guess, is the expansion in our understanding of Mughal Persian eight Timrod models of kingship 134 00:14:44,700 --> 00:14:50,820 as providing a model for emulation not just across India's lesser royal courts, 135 00:14:50,820 --> 00:15:01,320 but also for major religious and sectarian traditions in the hybrid royal culture that was developed first by some of the Sikh gurus, 136 00:15:01,320 --> 00:15:09,600 which blended then with the egalitarian Sikh emphases on the spiritual authority of the Khalsa. 137 00:15:09,600 --> 00:15:12,210 There are many other in my own research, 138 00:15:12,210 --> 00:15:23,850 I've come across many other precolonial sectarian traditions of which this was true leading sunglasses of 17th century Banaras and also held, 139 00:15:23,850 --> 00:15:27,490 as it were, real courts. 140 00:15:27,490 --> 00:15:40,560 And so I think this important in interplay between cultures of royalty and the realm of the spiritual is a wonderful new field for investigation, 141 00:15:40,560 --> 00:15:44,670 and particularly because it brings in a whole set of other important issues. 142 00:15:44,670 --> 00:15:52,310 Questions about the incorporation through roving questions about the body, the body politic, the body spiritual, 143 00:15:52,310 --> 00:16:02,460 the body material, so that models of kingship, I think, is one really important contribution of the book. 144 00:16:02,460 --> 00:16:14,400 Second, it's worth emphasising the book's contribution to a new global history of cultures of royalty and the imperial networks along which ideas, 145 00:16:14,400 --> 00:16:22,500 practises and often aspirant local rulers travelled during the heyday of Empire travelled in order 146 00:16:22,500 --> 00:16:28,470 to associate themselves with those cultures and the practises and relationships that sustained it. 147 00:16:28,470 --> 00:16:37,590 We're used to thinking about global networks and the spread of political and anticolonial ideologies. 148 00:16:37,590 --> 00:16:50,030 So it's very useful to be reminded that these were also pathways for the consolidation of institutions of royalty during the high noon of Empire. 149 00:16:50,030 --> 00:16:52,790 There's also new light, of course, 150 00:16:52,790 --> 00:17:03,860 on the importance of marriage and the household as key institutions at the heart of Indian political life so ably demonstrated by what Prieur has 151 00:17:03,860 --> 00:17:15,770 done to recover the extraordinary degree of agency that elite women of the sea court were able to wield in the making of Ranjit Singh's empire. 152 00:17:15,770 --> 00:17:24,830 And then to protect it against British attempts to isolate sick royal women and to kerb their power. 153 00:17:24,830 --> 00:17:27,460 And it's what's remarkable, of course, and again, 154 00:17:27,460 --> 00:17:35,470 so well illustrated in the book that this female agency extended beyond the negotiation of marriage alliances, 155 00:17:35,470 --> 00:17:47,080 the management of the household extended and also to the management of key financial and military resources. 156 00:17:47,080 --> 00:17:52,300 And perhaps the last thing I'd like to emphasise that this is so enjoyable about this book are 157 00:17:52,300 --> 00:17:58,960 the illustrations Prieur has by hook or by crook using using methods we shouldn't enquire into. 158 00:17:58,960 --> 00:18:07,210 Perhaps it has assembled a fat velis set of colour illustrations for the book. 159 00:18:07,210 --> 00:18:11,860 Right back from the early illustrations that I certainly haven't seen before. 160 00:18:11,860 --> 00:18:21,580 The early seegars, all the way through to images of the Sikh household and women in the middle and later part of the 19th century. 161 00:18:21,580 --> 00:18:32,650 And what is to me so fascinating about these images is that the Sikh rural women in the sort of collective portraits of the women are individualised, 162 00:18:32,650 --> 00:18:38,260 or at least they seem to me to be individualised in a way that isn't really very often 163 00:18:38,260 --> 00:18:45,460 true of other depictions of of India and rural households where women are there, 164 00:18:45,460 --> 00:18:53,570 but they're there just as it were, as female figures. And that attempt really made to individualise them. 165 00:18:53,570 --> 00:19:02,890 Now, it would be very interesting to hear from prayer a little bit about how she went about assembling this extraordinary collection of images. 166 00:19:02,890 --> 00:19:12,830 So really, there are many questions I'd like to ask, but perhaps one what one in particular I'd like to leave you with. 167 00:19:12,830 --> 00:19:18,100 And that is about this question of female agency. 168 00:19:18,100 --> 00:19:28,670 Does this degree of female agency develop really because of the unique circumstances of the late 18th century in north India, 169 00:19:28,670 --> 00:19:32,500 that at this particular point in the history of Punjab, 170 00:19:32,500 --> 00:19:42,220 marriage strategies offered a uniquely advantageous way forward in the consolidation of Suker Chaykin dynastic power? 171 00:19:42,220 --> 00:19:48,140 Is it is female agency here to do with this particular period? 172 00:19:48,140 --> 00:20:01,910 Or or. And should we also look at Sikh tradition with its very egalitarian emphases in its understanding of of men and women, Sikh devotees? 173 00:20:01,910 --> 00:20:13,170 Are there things there that also provide a congenial environment for the female exercise of power? 174 00:20:13,170 --> 00:20:23,910 Or and there's a third possibility. Have we simply under estimated the scope for oil agency in India's history? 175 00:20:23,910 --> 00:20:28,410 India's history here often gets a bad press. 176 00:20:28,410 --> 00:20:38,200 As a history which shows political institutions, family institutions as unsympathetic to the exercise of female power. 177 00:20:38,200 --> 00:20:47,490 In fact, that's really not the case, that there may be many other minor, kin's and gen cars out there for us to discover. 178 00:20:47,490 --> 00:20:52,040 In fact, India's cultures of gender were were. 179 00:20:52,040 --> 00:20:59,400 And in a sense still are remarkably amenable to the exercise of female power. 180 00:20:59,400 --> 00:21:10,290 But so long as that female power is contained within and directed towards the power of the family. 181 00:21:10,290 --> 00:21:19,700 So those are some of the questions that came to mind as I as I read through this book and marvelled at how it's how it's developed and blossomed, 182 00:21:19,700 --> 00:21:24,960 really since. Since I first saw it as an undergrad. 183 00:21:24,960 --> 00:21:27,660 Your dissertation and all. 184 00:21:27,660 --> 00:21:40,200 Congratulations for to create for her her stamina, her imagination, her sense, her vision, earthly vision of what this project could become. 185 00:21:40,200 --> 00:21:45,030 So many congratulations to add to our good friend. 186 00:21:45,030 --> 00:21:55,710 And I will hand back now to Feisal. Thank you very much, Polly Prieur, any initial responses? 187 00:21:55,710 --> 00:22:00,290 And then we can have a little discussion. Yeah, plenty to go on there. 188 00:22:00,290 --> 00:22:05,170 I mean, firstly, I just want to formally say a big thank you to both. 189 00:22:05,170 --> 00:22:09,650 You face on pretty full. I mean, you've seen reference. I was your student and nothing but. 190 00:22:09,650 --> 00:22:15,050 And I think just from the sheer richness of the questions that you just asked me and the comments that were raised, 191 00:22:15,050 --> 00:22:23,430 we'll show just how great my supervision was all the way through through my studies and how that helped with the development of the book. 192 00:22:23,430 --> 00:22:27,710 I mean, I have lots to say in response to the comments, but I mean, do you. 193 00:22:27,710 --> 00:22:31,380 I don't know. We. Should I just keep going? That should be. Yes. 194 00:22:31,380 --> 00:22:34,800 Because, like, I think there's a lot of overlap, actually, between what you said. 195 00:22:34,800 --> 00:22:38,960 So I can briefly sum up some thoughts. 196 00:22:38,960 --> 00:22:49,580 I just thought it would be easier questions, but I promise there was nothing dodgy that went on with my working relationship. 197 00:22:49,580 --> 00:22:53,230 It was a combination of luck and kindness from other people. 198 00:22:53,230 --> 00:23:04,120 Ready, too, come forward. I mean, the photographs of Sheik Werfel were a real boon and they were already published on a Web site. 199 00:23:04,120 --> 00:23:08,340 Oriental Asian architecture dot com. Also known as Oriental objects. 200 00:23:08,340 --> 00:23:14,440 And that could happen to some. Of course, there's the Google find. And then I got in touch with our Indonesia photographer. 201 00:23:14,440 --> 00:23:20,730 And those are incredibly precious because now Sheck workforce is not accessible, hasn't been for many years. 202 00:23:20,730 --> 00:23:30,750 And those beautiful frescoes of MINDGAMES Habibie, her apartments are now just crumbling away to the summer collection. 203 00:23:30,750 --> 00:23:34,560 That was through some of a friend of mine purchasing bonds. 204 00:23:34,560 --> 00:23:39,660 He's a collector. He introduced me to the summer family. 205 00:23:39,660 --> 00:23:45,300 I had no idea prior to, you know, writing the first draught of the manuscript of the book. 206 00:23:45,300 --> 00:23:54,030 Paintings even existed. I mean, I was aware of collections, of course, in the DNA of the Royal Collection and others. 207 00:23:54,030 --> 00:24:00,280 And those were absolutely integral to my. Well, attempts to understand the will culture. 208 00:24:00,280 --> 00:24:00,460 I mean, 209 00:24:00,460 --> 00:24:07,270 that was something that Faisal and I talked about as I was developing the thesis that the visual aspects of this are going to be incredibly important. 210 00:24:07,270 --> 00:24:14,800 And that obviously opens up a different side to the history of this period compared to what you get, for example, 211 00:24:14,800 --> 00:24:20,730 in the Persian Chronicles or in the Sikh texts of that in the rest of the may well seek histories of that period. 212 00:24:20,730 --> 00:24:25,020 The material culture really does show you how that world culture works. 213 00:24:25,020 --> 00:24:32,220 And you see Reggie Singh depicted with a halo or with a shot three over his head and you see the Moranis, you know. 214 00:24:32,220 --> 00:24:38,220 Giving know, acting as patrons and in a very, you know, little style over informally mogel. 215 00:24:38,220 --> 00:24:42,810 So I think that really helped me to bring it to life, but that's what I think. 216 00:24:42,810 --> 00:24:50,880 I mean, there's a point to be made here, actually, that there's a growing culture of collecting amongst Sikhs and Punjabis themselves. 217 00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:56,550 And I think they're kind of almost resurrecting in some ways the practises that Ranjeet, 218 00:24:56,550 --> 00:25:04,260 Singh and others would have followed themselves of trying to collect the manuscripts and trying to collect your work and even the objects. 219 00:25:04,260 --> 00:25:14,680 And I hope that those collections are made more accessible and fairly open to scholars and students and everybody else going forward because. 220 00:25:14,680 --> 00:25:16,670 You know, that helps you move away, actually, 221 00:25:16,670 --> 00:25:22,160 from an overdependence on the particular colonial records of that period and what's in the British Library and that kind of thing. 222 00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:26,120 And I think that hopefully that's going to continue to grow. 223 00:25:26,120 --> 00:25:32,210 I mean, I'm going to connect up the other two questions, the big questions that you asked about. 224 00:25:32,210 --> 00:25:38,660 Well, cultures. Based on what you recommend, Buchalter and. 225 00:25:38,660 --> 00:25:44,260 The kind of models of kingship that you mentioned, Pully. 226 00:25:44,260 --> 00:25:49,920 I mean, I think. What we. 227 00:25:49,920 --> 00:25:58,620 I guess what we're trying. What I was trying to show is very much building on this growing historiography, an incredibly rich strophe. 228 00:25:58,620 --> 00:26:06,230 That, of course, you've contributed to. That that actually takes these kind of real courts in the kingdom seriously. 229 00:26:06,230 --> 00:26:12,850 And I mean, if anything, what Ranjeet thing does, then it's perhaps not that original in many respects. 230 00:26:12,850 --> 00:26:21,980 He's building on so many layers of. Experiments that previous Indian monarchs had done and of course, is not to say that the muggles themselves. 231 00:26:21,980 --> 00:26:27,110 He obviously heavily borrows from Google ideas, as the gurus have done, but plays with them. 232 00:26:27,110 --> 00:26:34,040 But no, when experiments and I mean it's part and parcel of what the moguls themselves have done, of course, from Bobbers Time free to offer. 233 00:26:34,040 --> 00:26:39,110 And beyond that, this was a continually fluid thing. 234 00:26:39,110 --> 00:26:44,030 I don't think getting back to what people were saying is that is incredibly 235 00:26:44,030 --> 00:26:52,300 powerful and incredibly rich political and cultural tradition that even post 1858. 236 00:26:52,300 --> 00:26:57,530 You know, the company does itself take on some of these trappings of royalty. 237 00:26:57,530 --> 00:27:01,760 And I think that was what I was trying to show in the diplomacy chapter of the book that, 238 00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:05,990 you know, the company is somewhat out by it's not in the kinship networks. 239 00:27:05,990 --> 00:27:13,130 It's not in the normal dynamics of Indian political culture and that same degree. But that is interesting how rejiggering tries to bring in waves, 240 00:27:13,130 --> 00:27:18,700 tries to bring in new invention, canoodle and others and incorporate a narrative into this. 241 00:27:18,700 --> 00:27:25,280 But as a blurb, you bought boundaries between, you know, how they were presenting themselves back in prison. 242 00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:28,730 And as Buckley rightly points that out versus in India. 243 00:27:28,730 --> 00:27:35,530 And I think the interesting point that you mentioned is can we actually talk about Indian royalty as a group? 244 00:27:35,530 --> 00:27:40,210 I mean, let a situation when you have the Presti say something else. 245 00:27:40,210 --> 00:27:46,590 I think British imperialism brings them all together into one cluster. It's not to say they were ever won in one judicial, one united group. 246 00:27:46,590 --> 00:27:50,170 And of course, you don't see that explicitly in the rise of Renji thing. 247 00:27:50,170 --> 00:27:58,060 And how he sides with the company, against the Moroccans and against these and all sorts of others, even other Punjabi rajas. 248 00:27:58,060 --> 00:28:02,110 So I think there's a lot there that, you know, we tend to think. 249 00:28:02,110 --> 00:28:07,150 But I think actually the presence of the company does help to. 250 00:28:07,150 --> 00:28:13,300 Well, I think in in Ranjeet things time, it draws, you know, another player that's in the region and it's, 251 00:28:13,300 --> 00:28:19,570 you know, and they're pitching against reducing allies with the company in order to boost his own rise. 252 00:28:19,570 --> 00:28:26,890 But perhaps later on, I mean, the league saying himself in later on in his rebellion, I'm jumping ahead. 253 00:28:26,890 --> 00:28:32,560 Actually, I know you were referencing Queen Victoria, but later on in his life, at the very end of his life, 254 00:28:32,560 --> 00:28:38,170 he tries to hop back and he tries to build an alliance of Indian royals against the British 255 00:28:38,170 --> 00:28:42,700 Raj and I mean even against Queen Victoria because he's upset with her by that point. 256 00:28:42,700 --> 00:28:48,400 But he still maintains this royal identity goes to the tsar of Russia, where he goes to Victoria's daughter. 257 00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:56,020 He was by then, you know, the queen of in in Prussia and it's of the growing German empire. 258 00:28:56,020 --> 00:29:02,620 So he constantly looks and I think that's that's important to recognise that there is this royal identity that's entrenched, 259 00:29:02,620 --> 00:29:11,790 but then it becomes increasingly fluid over time. And very briefly, on the Queen's. 260 00:29:11,790 --> 00:29:17,860 I mean, he you asked me whether this was particularly about the 18th century. 261 00:29:17,860 --> 00:29:23,890 I don't know if I gave a false impression in the book, and I think a lot of reading since will come out, the more I know it's you know, 262 00:29:23,890 --> 00:29:33,250 I mean, even within the mogul dynasty, Bogard was relying on his mother and his mother, his mother, his in-law families, 263 00:29:33,250 --> 00:29:41,570 his grandmother, his aunts, to to shore up his authority when he was in tricky straits himself and of course, an upward themselves, 264 00:29:41,570 --> 00:29:50,440 all coming to the power at a very young age in very a similar way to run jinxing himself when he inherits the starship from his father. 265 00:29:50,440 --> 00:29:55,990 And did he say when he inherits the throne or was placed on the throne in Enation Bush three. 266 00:29:55,990 --> 00:30:05,190 So. There's nothing. I mean, I think that's that's the frustrating thing about the kind of gender history of this period, is that it's. 267 00:30:05,190 --> 00:30:08,920 You know, you need to see women's roles agency being thoroughly tarnished by men like Henry, 268 00:30:08,920 --> 00:30:13,690 Henry Lawrence and the East India Company and not understanding the role that women play, 269 00:30:13,690 --> 00:30:20,350 but also a kind of a covering up with the fluidity of gender relations, as you as you rightly mentioned. 270 00:30:20,350 --> 00:30:25,780 You know, I drew inspiration for the book that there weren't these hard and fast divides 271 00:30:25,780 --> 00:30:32,650 between what men and women were supposed to do in terms of critical roles. And women could step in and take very important positions. 272 00:30:32,650 --> 00:30:39,950 But I think, yes, it was there was a caveat that it had to be towards the family or towards the wife cause there were issues with women, 273 00:30:39,950 --> 00:30:43,770 with holding power within their in their own right there instead. 274 00:30:43,770 --> 00:30:51,550 And I think, yes, within the kind of more egalitarian culture of secu that good anon, it gives women equal status. 275 00:30:51,550 --> 00:30:56,620 And then a golden thing, of course, equally enables women to be initiated within the cossa. 276 00:30:56,620 --> 00:31:05,800 And you have female warriors like my blog and others that are, you know, very prominent in that kind of kosko, Tacloban's Singh era, 277 00:31:05,800 --> 00:31:12,700 which, of course, sets the tone for women like the Gold or Gynt or to be leading armies and that kind of thing. 278 00:31:12,700 --> 00:31:16,170 But do I think is something particular to that period really? No. 279 00:31:16,170 --> 00:31:22,890 But then I think what you see Lincoln, back quickly to Faisal's question about the Victoria Jim, because, 280 00:31:22,890 --> 00:31:30,010 you know, Duleep Singh Mother Triangle, which was the very beginnings of the thesis actually APHC. 281 00:31:30,010 --> 00:31:38,590 I think what you see in. The kind of history writing or own in terms of political rhetoric that emerges when you take one mother, 282 00:31:38,590 --> 00:31:42,290 figure out one queen, figure out the Indian one. And you put Victoria. 283 00:31:42,290 --> 00:31:51,670 It is a kind of suppression, ray. Disintegration of what that female agency and what there's more, you know, 284 00:31:51,670 --> 00:31:56,980 interesting gender relations in terms of politics and culture had represented. 285 00:31:56,980 --> 00:32:02,360 And it's not to say that the company in any way was comfortable with Queen Victoria. 286 00:32:02,360 --> 00:32:08,410 Yes, well, they didn't like her intervening and speaking up on behalf the and for example, 287 00:32:08,410 --> 00:32:15,160 asking for a better political settlement or financial settlement for him after he loses his kingdom. 288 00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:21,260 But Victoria. But they. So I think it all is all part and parcel of this puzzle of 90 female agents. 289 00:32:21,260 --> 00:32:25,420 But Royal Agency and. Yeah, I'll leave it. 290 00:32:25,420 --> 00:32:31,210 Now I want to respond. But there's so many things that I mean. Yeah, well, thanks, Chris. 291 00:32:31,210 --> 00:32:46,390 You know, I just thought that I'm picking up on a police question about periodisation that, you know, you could write and, 292 00:32:46,390 --> 00:32:53,340 you know, putting that question wrong with mind about, you know, how could you see this as a global story as well? 293 00:32:53,340 --> 00:33:00,320 You know that there is a global story that is there to be told about. 294 00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:08,460 Not necessarily gender history, but the way in which you can see here, too. 295 00:33:08,460 --> 00:33:19,070 Or, you know, entirely masculinised narratives about power and dynasty completely differently. 296 00:33:19,070 --> 00:33:29,840 When you look at them through the lens of gender and how those changes occur across the world, or at least in this case, 297 00:33:29,840 --> 00:33:39,500 both in in in Western Europe and in in India, in northern India, would some connect filaments of connexion between the two. 298 00:33:39,500 --> 00:33:42,930 Which is why the Queen Victoria urgent core thing. It becomes interesting. 299 00:33:42,930 --> 00:33:53,540 But I also thought that from the you know, when you look at the last moment, if you will, the last gasp of Indian aristocratic power, the mutiny, 300 00:33:53,540 --> 00:34:03,380 which I mentioned before, there you see this extraordinary efflorescence of women leaders as if we were back in the 18th century, if not earlier. 301 00:34:03,380 --> 00:34:10,130 You have husband Mahal, of course, and you have the Rani of Jauncey. And these are famous characters in their own time. 302 00:34:10,130 --> 00:34:11,950 They don't have to be recovered. 303 00:34:11,950 --> 00:34:19,940 You know, they're since their time, they've been at the forefront of Indian and indeed British narratives about these events. 304 00:34:19,940 --> 00:34:26,510 And I think that's, you know, the ambiguity there is actually really startling because, you know, going back to Polly, 305 00:34:26,510 --> 00:34:32,660 it's like, do you see this as a kind of a moment of emergence or do you see this as a last gasp? 306 00:34:32,660 --> 00:34:38,660 Would you see this as the moment of departure that, you know, there is a future in there as well? 307 00:34:38,660 --> 00:34:44,590 A story that's being told in a way, you know, is that not also the problem? 308 00:34:44,590 --> 00:34:56,530 You know, whether this is a starting point or an end point or a midpoint that can be told about the making of Sikh identity itself? 309 00:34:56,530 --> 00:35:04,640 You know, as it transitions from, if you will, a Republican form to a monarchical form to something altogether different. 310 00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:12,650 But carrying all that baggage with it, I don't know if you have any anything to add. 311 00:35:12,650 --> 00:35:25,940 Well, I suppose what I was thinking was at the moment here for me is looking at these different cultures of gender amongst elite women, 312 00:35:25,940 --> 00:35:30,800 amongst aristocratic houses in in 19th century. 313 00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:35,270 The 1990s, early, not 19th century there. And it's not the case that. 314 00:35:35,270 --> 00:35:45,500 So, you know, when we see this this kind of very strong patriarchal assertion and drive to control the power of Indian royal women, 315 00:35:45,500 --> 00:35:50,090 which comes out across the board in India in the middle of the 19th century, 316 00:35:50,090 --> 00:35:51,350 the idea that, you know, 317 00:35:51,350 --> 00:35:59,340 Indian princes have to be sent away to boarding schools so they can be removed from the malign influence of this Anana and so on. 318 00:35:59,340 --> 00:36:10,220 And I think it's I think that female agency there is not the casualty necessarily of British aristocratic culture, 319 00:36:10,220 --> 00:36:19,190 because if you look at British aristocratic society at most periods in the 19th century, you will see similar forms of female agency, female agency. 320 00:36:19,190 --> 00:36:22,730 There is really the casualty of empire. 321 00:36:22,730 --> 00:36:32,840 It's the casualty of the fact that if you're looking at female agency within an aristocratic or royal household, 322 00:36:32,840 --> 00:36:42,360 you can negotiate with it, you can control it, you can channel it, you can allow it some freedom of manoeuvre. 323 00:36:42,360 --> 00:36:51,740 But but from the point of view of the East India Company and then later governments of India officials, 324 00:36:51,740 --> 00:36:57,230 these forms of female power were nothing but malign because they couldn't be controlled. 325 00:36:57,230 --> 00:37:06,760 They didn't have the the family connexions the cultural understanding, you know, or the shared political goals that operate. 326 00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:11,240 And if you were looking at female agency with it within within the royal family. 327 00:37:11,240 --> 00:37:19,250 So it's really empire rather than, as it were, aspects of British metropolitan culture that really, 328 00:37:19,250 --> 00:37:28,340 I think, are they do so much to erode female agency in India in the high noon of empire. 329 00:37:28,340 --> 00:37:34,320 That would be my sense of things. And. Uh. 330 00:37:34,320 --> 00:37:37,730 Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, I couldn't agree more. 331 00:37:37,730 --> 00:37:45,030 And I think you really see that. You really see that in the exchanges that Victoria has with. 332 00:37:45,030 --> 00:37:51,750 You've been saying about his next steps of his life. And you see that in her interactions with Sarkozy. 333 00:37:51,750 --> 00:37:57,660 You know that the last governor general of the East India Company, that there is, you know, 334 00:37:57,660 --> 00:38:03,890 the royal see this as a fundamentally dynastic enterprise and that keeping a dynasty in that position is the 335 00:38:03,890 --> 00:38:11,170 most important thing and keeping that over and above what's happening with the development of your country. 336 00:38:11,170 --> 00:38:17,500 You know, as a democracy or as a nation state or as an empire or whatever is the most important thing. 337 00:38:17,500 --> 00:38:25,160 And I think it's interesting, you know, when you when I read the nexus between Dalhousie and Victoria that is equally irked by her involvement, 338 00:38:25,160 --> 00:38:32,240 her attempts to interfere and search ourselves within Indian politics and the reaching settlement as he was, 339 00:38:32,240 --> 00:38:37,250 you know, too quickly, as quickly as possible, get rid of others. We'll get rid of the moguls and that kind of stuff. 340 00:38:37,250 --> 00:38:45,220 And I think you can absolutely see this as part of the puzzle. And I think then the gender aspect is one important strand of all of this. 341 00:38:45,220 --> 00:38:49,280 I mean, if you. I mean, it's a strand that's kind of been neglected for far too long. 342 00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:56,230 I would say and end by leaving that out, you're actually missing an important dimension of how this place works, how this culture works. 343 00:38:56,230 --> 00:39:02,510 And actually then you're right outside what's shared in a global sense. 344 00:39:02,510 --> 00:39:06,690 So I think in terms of. It is the sick aspect of it. 345 00:39:06,690 --> 00:39:12,490 It is complicated, I think. And that's what is trying to do in the first chapter of the book is to flesh out, 346 00:39:12,490 --> 00:39:16,840 well, how much of this is sick ideology and how much of this is royal culture. 347 00:39:16,840 --> 00:39:25,390 And actually, where do the two meet and kind of blend in this sort of fluid way, because that's something that could be ranging thing. 348 00:39:25,390 --> 00:39:30,220 And then later on, you know, the other members of his family and then the leaping as a rebel maharajah, 349 00:39:30,220 --> 00:39:35,320 later, they they they engage with the identity in a fluid way. 350 00:39:35,320 --> 00:39:40,650 And it is sometimes quite convenient way to suit whatever their interests or opposition at the time. 351 00:39:40,650 --> 00:39:45,070 And, you know, throughout the 19th century and. 352 00:39:45,070 --> 00:39:49,890 I think that's something I had to come to terms with as a court, because you look at these figures as heroes, right? 353 00:39:49,890 --> 00:39:56,860 That actually does does a lot more going on with this and that that contributes to 354 00:39:56,860 --> 00:40:00,970 this or sick national mythology around these characters and what they represent, 355 00:40:00,970 --> 00:40:05,960 too. So there's lots of strands, of course, sick identity undergoes all sorts of changes. 356 00:40:05,960 --> 00:40:14,050 And again. And then how these figures are represented, of course, changes to. 357 00:40:14,050 --> 00:40:19,750 Yes. I think you the end. You really see that with with what happens in believe things in education the last few 358 00:40:19,750 --> 00:40:24,820 years of his reign that leading up to 80 percent year is an important turning point. 359 00:40:24,820 --> 00:40:35,490 And then the position that Jindall occupies. Is in many ways that kind of last gasp of a female world power. 360 00:40:35,490 --> 00:40:41,880 Could I pitch in with another question? Is it time? Yes. Poised to do that. 361 00:40:41,880 --> 00:40:54,080 You talked prior about the degree to which, you know, these aspects of royal culture, a relatively neglected and of course, 362 00:40:54,080 --> 00:41:04,480 in all kinds of ways, our perspectives these days on histories from below, support from studies, as it were, anticolonial movements and so on. 363 00:41:04,480 --> 00:41:14,130 And that may be part of. So it's so kind of royal history is has been a kind of unfashionable area to do research. 364 00:41:14,130 --> 00:41:23,340 And what I would like your thoughts on it really something to do with with something that's there in the book. 365 00:41:23,340 --> 00:41:28,170 It's kind of lurking everywhere in the book. And that's just the theatre of loyalty. 366 00:41:28,170 --> 00:41:36,630 Of course. You know, royalty, a royal court is a theatre. And theatres have audiences and audiences, not just amongst the courtiers, 367 00:41:36,630 --> 00:41:48,630 but amongst wider communities of warriors, of petty sawdust and of their own dependents and networks of clients. 368 00:41:48,630 --> 00:41:58,440 And I'm thinking of a historian I know in India at the moment who's researching the way in which images of 369 00:41:58,440 --> 00:42:11,240 Queen Victoria informed the political radicalism of dull IT communities in in mid 19th century Bombay, 370 00:42:11,240 --> 00:42:19,480 that, you know, that there were all of these conservative social and political hierarchies, whether on the British or the Indian side, 371 00:42:19,480 --> 00:42:24,390 but that somewhere there was an untainted, beneficent principle of royalty, 372 00:42:24,390 --> 00:42:31,470 which if only they could if only adults could could engage with that principle. 373 00:42:31,470 --> 00:42:34,560 Many of their difficulties would find a solution. 374 00:42:34,560 --> 00:42:42,930 And so I suppose what I would like to hear your thoughts on is how you can bring your history to engage 375 00:42:42,930 --> 00:42:51,060 with with wider popular histories and particularly popular audiences for royalty in the colonial period. 376 00:42:51,060 --> 00:42:54,690 I don't know whether that's something that I know. It's something that you think about. 377 00:42:54,690 --> 00:43:01,170 But if you have anything you'd like to say, I think it's becoming an increasingly important question for me. 378 00:43:01,170 --> 00:43:07,430 And I've also taken some inspiration from the work of someone like Melinda Balaji, for example. 379 00:43:07,430 --> 00:43:12,540 Let's invest it the more two gods and the Bengali. 380 00:43:12,540 --> 00:43:22,800 So in, you know, assimilation of ideas of monarchy and royal royal trappings in a way to assert their own sense of sovereignty and agency. 381 00:43:22,800 --> 00:43:26,160 And I mean, you can see that in the Sikh tradition, of course, as well. 382 00:43:26,160 --> 00:43:31,430 And what I talked about in the book about I mean, I wasn't that was my own research was the ideas of being funny. 383 00:43:31,430 --> 00:43:37,710 But it's about critical big things. Revolutionary work isn't the idea that you're not, you know. 384 00:43:37,710 --> 00:43:41,170 I'm not saying that Google was in any way predicting the rise of Ranjeet thing. 385 00:43:41,170 --> 00:43:46,920 If anything was diffusing Royal Agency across the entire community. 386 00:43:46,920 --> 00:43:52,630 And so I think that's what I was trying to make a point with the book, is that monarchy as a trope? 387 00:43:52,630 --> 00:44:02,390 Well, as you said, a form of Setara, a performance power and as well of symbolism, if not an actual king, 388 00:44:02,390 --> 00:44:09,870 is so imbued within the culture of the political culture of the subcontinent that you see it cropping up in so many ways. 389 00:44:09,870 --> 00:44:14,010 And I mean, that's even behind the joke that, you know, the conclusion Nixey rejects. 390 00:44:14,010 --> 00:44:21,240 You got, you know, that kind of story. It pops up in so many different angles and I think. 391 00:44:21,240 --> 00:44:27,920 In terms of a conception of power. I think it's important that we do and that we all, you know, 392 00:44:27,920 --> 00:44:32,840 I mean going but I've just been finished reading Richard Eatons, India's president, eight. 393 00:44:32,840 --> 00:44:42,180 And that, of course, looks at how royal ideas of royals, united sovereignty are continually being adopted. 394 00:44:42,180 --> 00:44:47,150 You know, in so many different contexts throughout the history of the subcontinent. 395 00:44:47,150 --> 00:44:56,430 And so for that reason, I think it's helpful to make the study abroad to work again, to understand the terms of which that power operated. 396 00:44:56,430 --> 00:45:00,690 And also then because it's not not entirely unique to India, of course, it again, 397 00:45:00,690 --> 00:45:03,620 context, but this idea of global history that we've been talking about, 398 00:45:03,620 --> 00:45:11,870 you know, Central Asian ideas and some of the Iranian and everything else there, all these different ideologies are constantly. 399 00:45:11,870 --> 00:45:19,960 You know, wanting freedom of conscience. And when you bring the colonial stuff into it, the British East India Company adds another layer. 400 00:45:19,960 --> 00:45:26,910 But of course, it's not to say the East India Company didn't. Succeed if they didn't succeed in entirely imposing a new order, 401 00:45:26,910 --> 00:45:35,720 if they the Indian rural aspects very much fused with it or wasn't able to shift it entirely. 402 00:45:35,720 --> 00:45:40,920 I think that's one side of the coin is just understanding this and looking at how it operates through time. 403 00:45:40,920 --> 00:45:46,070 And of course, the compiling comes at a really important turning point in history. 404 00:45:46,070 --> 00:45:52,930 The other side of it, I think he's thinking about. You know, in terms of today's popular culture and that kind of thing, 405 00:45:52,930 --> 00:46:01,940 what do iconic figures like Ranjeet thing or Gynt or Duleep Singh mean in terms of more popular understandings of. 406 00:46:01,940 --> 00:46:07,970 You know, reclaiming a history of an independent zie crutch. 407 00:46:07,970 --> 00:46:18,150 I mean, today, you know, we're seeing lots of STK farmers protesting in Delhi and slogans about Kósa Raj and Sick Raj are constantly coming up. 408 00:46:18,150 --> 00:46:22,340 And so, you know, it's interesting because then Ranjeet thing is a figure is sometimes a bit, 409 00:46:22,340 --> 00:46:25,150 you know, if interest rates look like it in the first chapter. 410 00:46:25,150 --> 00:46:29,810 Some six colours were uncomfortable with his position as a monarch, whereas others, of course, 411 00:46:29,810 --> 00:46:38,660 uphold you must his hero that we we should never forget and that we should seek to reclaim and establish that cause Raj again. 412 00:46:38,660 --> 00:46:44,360 So and that's why I wanted to get to the heart of, you know, actually putting that question out there. 413 00:46:44,360 --> 00:46:51,660 Bucket readers to say, well, you know, why do we have such a messy, complicated understanding of what it meant to be a secret? 414 00:46:51,660 --> 00:46:55,100 You know, I can't go into so much depth to that. 415 00:46:55,100 --> 00:47:01,030 But I wanted to spare a debate about that, maybe particularly because I'm seeing, 416 00:47:01,030 --> 00:47:05,450 you know, the names of Ranjeet thing go reporting being invoked more and more, 417 00:47:05,450 --> 00:47:10,880 especially in the context of today's debates about decolonising and particularly in the diaspora, 418 00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:18,230 that we maybe reclaim lost kingdoms, lost political entities as a way to, you know, 419 00:47:18,230 --> 00:47:23,720 recover a more powerful history as opposed to the impact of British colonial rhetoric. 420 00:47:23,720 --> 00:47:29,150 But there's only so far you can go with that as well. I mean, I'm talking about a Sikh empire as well. 421 00:47:29,150 --> 00:47:34,190 It's not like this. Meetings on the on the border of Punjabi rule. We're happy about rejean thing taking off. 422 00:47:34,190 --> 00:47:37,530 So where do you go with this? Right. And I think yes. 423 00:47:37,530 --> 00:47:42,140 So if I were to investigate the veins and the meanings and the impacts of these histories, 424 00:47:42,140 --> 00:47:48,110 I think more history actually means it's helpful to bring it back to the foreground so that we know we have a 425 00:47:48,110 --> 00:47:53,360 deeper understanding of the times that we're using in today's debates about history and about power and empire. 426 00:47:53,360 --> 00:47:59,810 That's the thing. Yes. And I think Empire, to emphasise that royalty always also has to do with Empire. 427 00:47:59,810 --> 00:48:07,400 And to give our understandings of empire rather greater nuance than we have at the moment. 428 00:48:07,400 --> 00:48:17,180 You know, when we think of empire at the moment, we think of very specific kinds of hugely exploitative, metropolitan centric European empires. 429 00:48:17,180 --> 00:48:26,930 And of course, those were by no means, you know, those simply represented a particular model of empire that was an investment many ways, 430 00:48:26,930 --> 00:48:34,860 not at all typical in the sort of long history of empire in over human history. 431 00:48:34,860 --> 00:48:42,060 So so it's also a rescue of histories of empire as well as a rescue with histories of royalty, I think. 432 00:48:42,060 --> 00:48:48,260 And I know I reference that exact in the book. I talk about predicting and his family engaging in a form of dynastic communism. 433 00:48:48,260 --> 00:49:00,860 Yes, my my untenably went look at the time that I cried yet myself, but one that I borrowed from sort of global early modern European history. 434 00:49:00,860 --> 00:49:04,520 So thinking about all of these things, you know, unlike Nexavar, 435 00:49:04,520 --> 00:49:11,210 we've been talking about this thing that absolutely, you know, Empire had so many different meanings. 436 00:49:11,210 --> 00:49:15,800 And it's just I'm hoping that the book can add to that conversation, which it does. 437 00:49:15,800 --> 00:49:20,110 Yes. I'm reminded of this. 438 00:49:20,110 --> 00:49:31,130 You know, my maternal grandmother used to at the time, I was embarrassed by this, referred to Queen Victoria Suppy as a sub Tehrani, you know, as a. 439 00:49:31,130 --> 00:49:36,080 So I guess she meant she was referring to Prince Albert and the mourning for Prince Albert. 440 00:49:36,080 --> 00:49:46,190 So there's a kind of indigenisation of the British monarchy. And I soon came to see that it was not uncommon because, of course, from 1858 onwards, 441 00:49:46,190 --> 00:50:00,590 the Queen's Proclamation was referred to assiduously and insistently by Indians from all kinds of backgrounds as a charter of their freedom against 442 00:50:00,590 --> 00:50:11,330 the British state so that their freedoms had to be claimed through the language of royalty and to the person of Queen Victoria who was seen as being, 443 00:50:11,330 --> 00:50:15,980 as it were, their ally, or at least the author of this proclamation. 444 00:50:15,980 --> 00:50:16,790 And, you know, 445 00:50:16,790 --> 00:50:24,530 clearly the government of India never liked this because they didn't think that the Queen's Proclamation was had the force of law in that sense. 446 00:50:24,530 --> 00:50:26,570 So there's the interesting story to be told, 447 00:50:26,570 --> 00:50:38,790 how the figure of royalty and of sovereignty actually comes very early on to define Indian freedoms and not Indian, as it were, slavery. 448 00:50:38,790 --> 00:50:45,680 And, you know, from what you and Polly have been saying, of course, it's sort of striking how well India does become independent. 449 00:50:45,680 --> 00:50:52,610 How what the return simply by the fact of becoming a sovereign nation state. 450 00:50:52,610 --> 00:51:01,440 The language of royalty comes back in these usages of the word Raj, for instance, and all kinds of ways. 451 00:51:01,440 --> 00:51:08,580 And today, if you look at the Indian prime minister himself from a part of the country, which was a heavily infested, 452 00:51:08,580 --> 00:51:15,690 if you will, by petty and not so petty royal houses, he's treated in Gujarat like a king. 453 00:51:15,690 --> 00:51:24,240 And he's given the attributes of a team. He's got a side, which is what you would call a good Rathi prince, jollity monarch. 454 00:51:24,240 --> 00:51:32,520 And people bowed to him, which brought Brodies, including the home minister, touch his feet, etc. And it doesn't strike. 455 00:51:32,520 --> 00:51:39,120 Anyone is being curious, though, you would think that this is not the way that an elected head of government should, 456 00:51:39,120 --> 00:51:48,090 you know, should be treated in a parliamentary democracy. So in a way, you do see the return of the language and theatre, as Polly was saying, 457 00:51:48,090 --> 00:51:57,750 of royalty and not as a not as a kind of counterfactual and not in an ironic mode necessarily, 458 00:51:57,750 --> 00:52:05,100 because it seems to gesture towards the sovereignty of the new nation state itself and doesn't 459 00:52:05,100 --> 00:52:12,390 necessarily have anything to do with the Indian princely order of the colonial period. 460 00:52:12,390 --> 00:52:16,740 Because certainly the Indian prime minister doesn't come from that kind of background. 461 00:52:16,740 --> 00:52:24,140 So the democratisation of the language of royalties also really extraordinary here. 462 00:52:24,140 --> 00:52:31,020 And I don't think I don't think one sees that I might be mistaken in Britain or in other European countries, 463 00:52:31,020 --> 00:52:35,610 the democratisation of royalty and the attributes of royalty. 464 00:52:35,610 --> 00:52:44,750 Maybe you see it in pop culture, you know, with rock, rock and roll singers and things like that and celebrity culture. 465 00:52:44,750 --> 00:52:51,420 But so, you know, the tenacity of that, I think is really striking. 466 00:52:51,420 --> 00:53:05,500 Definitely. I wonder if from the present darkness, I'll play my video and as well I might come back in again here just to help us, 467 00:53:05,500 --> 00:53:08,830 along with a number of questions for the last five, ten minutes or so. 468 00:53:08,830 --> 00:53:14,740 I'm really enormously enjoyed this discussion. And there are I've actually had wanted to question sent to me directly. 469 00:53:14,740 --> 00:53:22,630 So people haven't just put them in the Q&A. But I'd like to start with by introducing I'm in French studies. 470 00:53:22,630 --> 00:53:27,760 I'm an early modernist, but I thought I might introduce a little bit of French theory to the discussion and see where we go with it, 471 00:53:27,760 --> 00:53:35,440 because it seems to me that one of the things that you've all variously been talking about is a combination of what the sector calls poaching, 472 00:53:35,440 --> 00:53:44,020 where the subaltern kind of takes on the stuff, the theatre, the props of the more powerful, 473 00:53:44,020 --> 00:53:50,870 and then repurpose them for their own, for their own liberation and all the consolidation of their own power. 474 00:53:50,870 --> 00:53:53,740 So poaching on one hand and on the other hand, obviously, 475 00:53:53,740 --> 00:53:59,990 there's the famous notion of bleak collage that the anthropologist Libby's cousin either came up with where, 476 00:53:59,990 --> 00:54:09,240 again, you take various different parts of an existing possibly foreign culture and see where the connexions are with your own. 477 00:54:09,240 --> 00:54:16,370 Am I being too French theorist here or is this connecting to what you've been doing here at all in your work? 478 00:54:16,370 --> 00:54:25,890 No, definitely. I mean, avenges. No. I mean, he directly recruited French generals that they and I think leave your period wise, but I'm no diplomat, 479 00:54:25,890 --> 00:54:33,610 former employees of Napoleon and had them in his army and then used that essentially to completely 480 00:54:33,610 --> 00:54:40,090 revolutionise the whole US Six Sigma tradition that had been around since the time of good Gobin thing, 481 00:54:40,090 --> 00:54:45,640 which was predominant cavalry warfare by guerrilla base to to help him build, 482 00:54:45,640 --> 00:54:50,860 consolidate a state underneath him and then a state led, state controlled army. 483 00:54:50,860 --> 00:54:58,930 And alongside, you know, taking inspiration from local history and literature that kerchiefs picking up 484 00:54:58,930 --> 00:55:03,550 ideas from from company offices and sort of were European influences that are, 485 00:55:03,550 --> 00:55:08,330 of course, well entrenched in this subcontinent by that time. 486 00:55:08,330 --> 00:55:18,180 And actually creating a very cosmopolitan courts and a government and an administration that was not just led by SEC officers and, 487 00:55:18,180 --> 00:55:20,030 you know, chiefs and that kind of thing. 488 00:55:20,030 --> 00:55:28,180 But you had, of course, risen from the Bolton background backgrounds become like noble crossed over the course of the 18th century. 489 00:55:28,180 --> 00:55:36,110 And to also encourage other types of US pay parvenu elites that he brought up through his own encouragement, 490 00:55:36,110 --> 00:55:41,260 impassionate and that kind of stuff that came from, you know, Muslim intellectuals, 491 00:55:41,260 --> 00:55:46,390 I mean, merchant families, but also Hindu trading classes and others. 492 00:55:46,390 --> 00:55:55,820 Belgrad Raj from the different ethnic lines. So it really was a patchwork society and the Patrick administration in that respect. 493 00:55:55,820 --> 00:56:01,990 Right. And that was one of its strengths, because, of course, the Punjab is a multi-ethnic multi-phase, 494 00:56:01,990 --> 00:56:07,180 you know, massive, massively important region and culturally very diverse. 495 00:56:07,180 --> 00:56:12,190 And and that was it. Reflectiveness, dynasty, marrying women from throughout the region. 496 00:56:12,190 --> 00:56:18,990 And again, just faith and social backgrounds. And I don't think he was a unique doing that. 497 00:56:18,990 --> 00:56:24,430 I think there were many other things that was bothering him, but it was interesting how particularly successful he was. 498 00:56:24,430 --> 00:56:34,900 And how much that helped that network of people helped to stabilise this kingdom in otherwise turbulent periods. 499 00:56:34,900 --> 00:56:41,620 Thank you. Another question has to do with what of the again guiding thread through your discussion, 500 00:56:41,620 --> 00:56:47,650 which is the question of gender and the degree of agency that women had in this in this world. 501 00:56:47,650 --> 00:56:55,810 And one question that I had been sent to me by by email, and I'm not sure why they did it like this, but anyway, they did, which is in poly. 502 00:56:55,810 --> 00:57:03,670 In your response, you seem to have suggested that there are sort of new ways of thinking about what the last of your three things are, 503 00:57:03,670 --> 00:57:06,160 agent centric culture, fit culture in particular. 504 00:57:06,160 --> 00:57:12,100 And then thirdly, cultures of gender that there may be ways of rethinking the sort of history of gender here. 505 00:57:12,100 --> 00:57:17,110 The question says. But do we always have to do it in relation to the family? 506 00:57:17,110 --> 00:57:23,470 In other words, is women's agency only ever a function of a position in relation to a family in this period? 507 00:57:23,470 --> 00:57:28,420 Is there any other I mean, there must be women in this time who are not related to families. 508 00:57:28,420 --> 00:57:32,650 But do we have to think women's history in relation to the history, the family? 509 00:57:32,650 --> 00:57:38,990 That's a question either properly over prayer or indeed professedly, if he has anything say on that matter. 510 00:57:38,990 --> 00:57:47,950 And well, I mean, I think it's you know, I I think I appreciate the question behind it, 511 00:57:47,950 --> 00:57:55,980 which is, you know, can we not be agents, you know, in their own right kind of thing. 512 00:57:55,980 --> 00:58:00,760 And I wonder whether that's actually a very immediate, very useful question. 513 00:58:00,760 --> 00:58:07,490 I mean, from my perspective. In the South Asian setting, the family. 514 00:58:07,490 --> 00:58:11,170 So almost all women. Not all women. Almost all women. 515 00:58:11,170 --> 00:58:21,010 The family is the terrain on which women have to negotiate their life, chances and access to resources, their access to key life stages, 516 00:58:21,010 --> 00:58:30,310 the shaping of key life stages, and that that access to all sorts of other things like education and employment opportunities and so on. 517 00:58:30,310 --> 00:58:36,790 So I don't think it's I don't think it's any diminution of women's ability to 518 00:58:36,790 --> 00:58:42,010 act as agents to say that very often we have to situated within the family. 519 00:58:42,010 --> 00:58:46,840 It's recognising that that is where women exercise their agency. 520 00:58:46,840 --> 00:58:53,380 That is where they do it. To say that they do it within the family isn't to diminish that agency. 521 00:58:53,380 --> 00:59:03,970 If anything, it's to emphasise the creativity, the imagination, the determination with which so many women, the historical women that we know about, 522 00:59:03,970 --> 00:59:13,360 went about making lives for themselves and developing strategies of realising some degree of autonomy within the family. 523 00:59:13,360 --> 00:59:17,710 And the other reason I think that the emphasis on the family is so important is 524 00:59:17,710 --> 00:59:22,660 that it brings gender right back to the centre of the historical enterprise. 525 00:59:22,660 --> 00:59:36,820 Because if you are to what once you appreciate how critical the family is to so many political social process, cultural processes in this period, 526 00:59:36,820 --> 00:59:46,390 we then we then can't talk about politics or anything else without understanding, without seeing the connexion, the presence, that agenda. 527 00:59:46,390 --> 00:59:52,510 So that's what the long answer for you. You have I, I couldn't have said it better myself. 528 00:59:52,510 --> 00:59:59,620 I think that's it. I think it's crucial to to recognise just how important the family in a dynasty is as a political formation, 529 00:59:59,620 --> 01:00:03,910 particularly in mother in South Asia or not, that yes, 530 01:00:03,910 --> 01:00:09,640 it's a crucial tribute to the operation of politics and therefore to see women as leading players 531 01:00:09,640 --> 01:00:16,170 within that and and how and how that in turn shapes the broader dynamics of other states. 532 01:00:16,170 --> 01:00:21,070 You know that the family and the state are not separate entities, that they're totally connected. 533 01:00:21,070 --> 01:00:25,360 And so, therefore, it's crucial that you understand how they operate. 534 01:00:25,360 --> 01:00:30,190 And then what that means, essentially, you cannot divorced the gender aspect of the female aspect from this. 535 01:00:30,190 --> 01:00:36,610 If you if you look at it in whole and complete terms. I'm sure there's not only to do with South Asia. 536 01:00:36,610 --> 01:00:41,500 I mean, if we look at what's happening today in the U.S., there's one family living, for example. 537 01:00:41,500 --> 01:00:46,690 So I think there is. Yeah. It's really not only about women and family, it's about politics and family. 538 01:00:46,690 --> 01:00:51,770 As you say. But yeah. We've got time for one more question, if I may. 539 01:00:51,770 --> 01:00:56,440 And that's another one that's come, which is prayer. This is the fruition of a long, ongoing project for you. 540 01:00:56,440 --> 01:00:58,540 Now that it's found its final form. 541 01:00:58,540 --> 01:01:05,710 Where's your research taking your next and does it build on royals' and rebels or if it goes somewhere entirely new? 542 01:01:05,710 --> 01:01:15,520 Well, I had a little break recently, but I am starting to think about the next project and it's taking shape slowly. 543 01:01:15,520 --> 01:01:23,850 It doesn't help the libraries and archives being closed right now, but I think it's going to be very much building one on the. 544 01:01:23,850 --> 01:01:25,590 Second half my doctoral thesis, 545 01:01:25,590 --> 01:01:34,300 which which looked at many of the things we were discussing today regarding the BBC and Queen Victoria and and really then taking this 546 01:01:34,300 --> 01:01:43,710 question about the dynamics of royal power to Britain and looking at rebuilding in exile and what he represented as this iconic figure. 547 01:01:43,710 --> 01:01:46,810 But also, you know, he's lived experiences. 548 01:01:46,810 --> 01:01:53,380 And here's what we I guess what we can see through his story, standing on the shoulders and going into the, quote, 549 01:01:53,380 --> 01:02:01,480 Queen Victoria, into British aristocratic society or into rebellion with him, kind of a window into the well and of how. 550 01:02:01,480 --> 01:02:08,320 Monarchy and royal power and empire rule again evolving during the course of the second half of the 19th century. 551 01:02:08,320 --> 01:02:14,470 And, you know, faith and I can discuss this from the 1857 as one last gasp by perhaps one you 552 01:02:14,470 --> 01:02:20,320 beginning or indeed virtually all the way up to the beginnings of the 20th century. 553 01:02:20,320 --> 01:02:27,490 Well, again, Wiltsie will take on another challenge with the switch to World War One. 554 01:02:27,490 --> 01:02:33,120 And what that, you know, with the divisive republics and democratic nation states and, you know, 555 01:02:33,120 --> 01:02:39,500 the ships, the British Empire that we went to leaps and gets involved in kind of anticolonial process. 556 01:02:39,500 --> 01:02:44,110 So I'm kind of I'm thinking of a biography that would encapsulate so many strands that will 557 01:02:44,110 --> 01:02:49,390 use this life as it as very much a window into all of that turbulence for the monarchy. 558 01:02:49,390 --> 01:02:53,620 But also the lingering effects of, you know, they still haven't gone away. 559 01:02:53,620 --> 01:03:02,150 Have they, the royal family or anybody else? So thinking about that through the lens of class and power and race and all those kind of aspects, too. 560 01:03:02,150 --> 01:03:05,650 Hmm. Well, thank you for a full answer to that. 561 01:03:05,650 --> 01:03:13,450 And hopefully in however many years it takes, we can invite you back again and re re rerun this discussion with with with the new book. 562 01:03:13,450 --> 01:03:20,290 Thank you. All three of you for a really brilliant discussion. I think it's been enormously enjoyable and also enormously informative. 563 01:03:20,290 --> 01:03:29,500 So much, much food for thought. Thank you, too. For those watching for those contributing questions and just joining in by listening, 564 01:03:29,500 --> 01:03:34,360 please join us again at the same time in two weeks for our next book at lunchtime event. 565 01:03:34,360 --> 01:03:39,700 On Wednesday, the 3rd of February, where we'll be discussing the political life of an epidemic. 566 01:03:39,700 --> 01:03:49,030 Cholera crisis and citizenship in Zimbabwe by Professor Card to go to cheque the torture website to register for next week's event. 567 01:03:49,030 --> 01:04:02,298 Once again, thank you to all three of you for today and goodbye.