Fractured Modernity: Making Of A Middle Class In Colonial North India (oxford India Paperbacks)

This book describes the rise of a middle class in colonial India. Using Lucknow as a case study, the author demonstrates ways in which the making of the middle class in British india was closely tied to both 'modern' and 'traditional' imaginings and constructions of class, community, nation, and gender relations. Contents......Page 10 Introduction......Page 14 1. Creating a Public Emergence of a Middle Class in Colonial Lucknow......Page 36 2. An Uneasy Sangam Gender and the Contradictions of Middle-class Modernity......Page 72 3. Publicizing Religiosity Modernity, Religion and the Middle Class......Page 109 4. Impermanent Identities Limits of Middle-class Nationalisms......Page 145 Conclusions on Fractured Modernity......Page 185 Bibliography......Page 201 Index......Page 216 This chapter examines the processes by which men with little more than educational or professional qualifications and/or literary ability, were able to dictate new norms of social and cultural conduct, and initiate modes of modern politics in colonial India, which ultimately made them the political heirs of the Raj. Studies the rise of middle class as a social force in colonial north India. Arguing that it emerged out of 'public-sphere' politics, this book demonstrates how the making of the class was closely tied to new imaginings and constructions of class, community, nation, and gender relations. With special reference to Lucknow, India.