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Family, Historical Memory and Cultural Capital in Late Colonial India
Registration required for zoom - https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_DsxcyF0WTsmN_ZZ7u5c0LA
This paper explores the reconstitution of Brahmans as caste subjects in the late colonial period, with a particular focus on Maharashtra. As is well known, Brahman scribal elites achieved remarkable success within the successor states of the eighteenth century. In many parts of India, this professional heritage helped consolidate their dominance as Anglophone professionals in colonial service, as writers and publicists in the sphere of vernacular print, and as leading interlocutors in the meanings of colonial modernity for Indian politics and society. Non-Brahman challenges from south and western India, as well as the rise of Gandhian politics prompted Brahman communities to look for new forms of social and political leadership, from Hindu nationalist politics to investments in new genres of vernacular literature and poetry. For Brahman communities in western India, the writing and publication of family histories also provided a means to project their accomplishments in service of the nation. These family histories or kulavrttanta emerged out of precolonial genres of historical writing and caste categorisation, reworked with family trees and photographs for the age of vernacular print. Kulavrttantas presented these transformations as successful passages from tradition to modernity. In doing so, they also contributed to what has been described as the “culturalization” of caste, its transmutation from structured social hierarchy to an aspect of family “culture” and private life.
Bio: Rosalind O’Hanlon is Professor Emeritus of Indian History and Culture in the Faculty of Asian and Middle East Studies in Oxford, and a fellow of Clare College, Cambridge. She has written extensively on caste and gender in India from the early modern to the late colonial period. Her most recent publication is Lineages of Brahman Power: Caste, Family and the State in Western India, 1600-1900 (SUNY and Permanent Black, 2025).
Date:
2 March 2026, 16:00
Venue:
St Antony's College, 62 Woodstock Road OX2 6JF
Venue Details:
Pavilion Room & Zoom
Speaker:
Polly O'Hanlon (University of Oxford)
Organising department:
Asian Studies Centre
Organisers:
Abraham Murad (University of Oxford),
Jack Jacobs (Oriel College)
Organiser contact email address:
asian@sant.ox.ac.uk
Part of:
South Asian Intellectual History Seminars
Booking required?:
Not required
Booking url:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_DsxcyF0WTsmN_ZZ7u5c0LA
Booking email:
asian@sant.ox.ac.uk
Audience:
Public
Editor:
Clare Salter
