Papers by Sarath Pillai
Comparative Studies in Society and History, 2023
This article reveals the hold that German history and constitutionalism had on Indian federalists... more This article reveals the hold that German history and constitutionalism had on Indian federalists in the interwar period. A range of federalists from Indian princely states and British provinces, eager to see India become a federation rather than a unitary state fashioned on the English model, looked to Imperial Germany for constitutional lessons. They saw in German history and constitutionalism a federal solution to the so-called "Indian problem," wherein the rights of the states would be primary over those of individuals or groups. This German-inspired federal tradition, I argue, departed not only from political pluralism and association-based federalism, but also from the nationalist vision of placing individual rights over state rights. This article presents an alternative genealogy of comparative constitutional thought in India, and examines a post-national worldview that sidestepped the nation-states. By bringing a comparative approach to bear on political and constitutional histories, it escapes the national insularity that often characterizes such histories in colonial India, and places them in the comparative and global context of the interwar circulation of federalist ideas. German-inspired federal ideas of the period offer a counterpoint to corralling futuristic visions of India, and its founding, on the twin axes of anticolonial nationalism and popular sovereignty to the exclusion of state-centric ideas articulated by the princely states.
Los Angeles Review of Books, 2021
Scroll.in, 2020
Can an argument for or against liberal parliamentary democracy be debated in a liberal democracy ... more Can an argument for or against liberal parliamentary democracy be debated in a liberal democracy that is showing populist tendencies?
Ala: A Kerala Studies Blog, 2020
Perspectives on History, 2020
Archives and Records, 2020
This article examines the paucity of pre-1947 Indian princely state records, especially those reg... more This article examines the paucity of pre-1947 Indian princely state records, especially those regarding their federalist advocacies from the 1920s through 1940s, in the various provincial archives in postcolonial India. Why is it that archives in Delhi and London have the majority of records pertaining to the federalist advocacies of the princely states, rather than the archives in provincial states that were constituted by the merger of princely states themselves? The absence of princely state federalist records reveals a surprising indifference to the preservation of historical records in various state archives. Indian archival laws pertain to public records alone, leaving out responsibility for the acquisition and preservation of historical records. Consequently, in India, the phrase “archival records” has come to mean public records more than 30 years old; there is no clarity as to what “historical records” are, nor guidance on how they should be preserved. Indian archival laws maintain a colonial understanding of the archive, wherein the function of the archive is to tame history in service of the state rather than preserve history outright. Taming the nation’s history in state archives silences the multiplicity of voices about Indian federation and presents particular difficulties when writing regional histories.
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Law and History Review, Aug 2016
Speaking at the Travancore legislative assembly on February 2, 1938, Sir C.P. Ramaswamy Aiyar sai... more Speaking at the Travancore legislative assembly on February 2, 1938, Sir C.P. Ramaswamy Aiyar said: “The federation contemplated in the Government of India Act (1935) was founded on the recognition of the fundamental idea that the Ruler alone represents his state and that the Ruler is the government of the state.” Travancore was one of the oldest princely states in India, which antedated the British occupation and claimed a dynastic rule uninterrupted by any foreign or domestic powers. Its history of constitutional reforms and economic advancement enabled it to occupy a pivotal position in colonial India. As the Dewan (prime minister) of Travancore, Sir C.P. played a crucial role in the constitutional debates on the political form of postcolonial India, especially federation, in the last two decades of the British Empire in India. He argued that Indian states were inherently sovereign, and that the only locus of sovereignty in the states was their rulers. In doing so, he imagined a future Indian federation predicated on the idea of divisible sovereignty, which was given constitutional effect by the Government of India (GOI) Act (1935). Sir C.P.'s expositions on the sovereignty of the states and Travancore's constitutionalism offer analytical lenses to recuperate a history of imperial constitutionalism and the grand political project it enabled: Indian federation.
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South Asia Research, 2015
South Asia Research, Jul 2014
CMS Bhil mission in 1942 and acted as the medical superintendent of the Lusadiya hospital until h... more CMS Bhil mission in 1942 and acted as the medical superintendent of the Lusadiya hospital until her retirement in 1963. Hardiman observes that women were given secondary status in the missionaries. During the first half of the nineteenth century, women were not even allowed to work for the missionaries. However, from the second half of the century onwards a new strategy was adopted and female missionaries were expected to gain the support of 'native' women. This was known as 'women work for women ' (p. 139). Even Dr Jane Birkett, who had devoted twenty-one years of her life to the Lusadiya hospital and the mission, was not seen to have any valid grounds for pursuing an independent career. Hardiman asserts that as the wife of a missionary, her status within the CMS was to be 'merely an adjunct to her husband in his work' (p. 80).
Economic and Political Weekly, Mar 23, 2013
Economic and Political weekly, Jan 19, 2013
Economic and Political Weekly, Jun 2, 2012
Book Reviews by Sarath Pillai
The Book Review , 2021
is a Ph.D. candidate in the History Department at the University of Chicago. His dissertation stu... more is a Ph.D. candidate in the History Department at the University of Chicago. His dissertation studies the rise and fall of federalist ideas in late colonial India. Book News Book News The Making of Regions in Indian History; Society, State and Identity in Premodern Odisha by Bhairabi Prasad sahu situates the region in the wider context of its trans-regional background and delineates the cultural transactions within and beyond that went into the making of odisha.
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Papers by Sarath Pillai
https://thediplomat.com/2020/08/kashmir-and-the-forgotten-history-of-indias-princely-states/
https://doi.org/10.1080/23257962.2020.1721276
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0738248016000195
Book Reviews by Sarath Pillai
https://thediplomat.com/2020/08/kashmir-and-the-forgotten-history-of-indias-princely-states/
https://doi.org/10.1080/23257962.2020.1721276
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0738248016000195