The Silent Rebellion

Labour, Caste, and Education in Colonial India
Erscheinungsjahr 2026
ISBN: 978-1-009-88550-8
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 272 Seiten

Reihe: Metamorphoses of the Political: Multidisciplinary Approaches

The Silent Rebellion tells a history of labour subjectivity formation at the site of education and the defiance of labouring subalterns who refused to see themselves solely as labouring bodies in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It does so by focusing on the hitherto neglected social histories of nonelite education: industrial, technical, factory, and night schools. On the one hand, the book examines how elites-encompassing colonial officials, employers, and dominant castes-integrated caste labour into their modern projects of industrial and technical education, thereby reproducing labouring conditions, subjectivities, and the caste social order. On the other hand, the book reveals how labouring subalterns-artisans, factory workers, and service-industry workers-used education to rebel against their 'pre-destined' labouring fate. Focusing on their demands for literary education, experiences of reading, and becoming teachers, clerks, and poets, the book develops new analytical frameworks for writing nonwork histories of working lives.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kumar, Arun

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction; Part I: Chapter 1. An Artisanal Rebellion at the Lucknow Industrial School; Chapter 2. Education and Artisans' Dreams; Chapter 3. Craftsmen and the Failure of the Industrial School; Chapter 4. The Birth of Technical School; Part II: Chapter 5. Mill Employers and the Factory Schools; Chapter 6. Dreams of the Night and Night Schools; Chapter 7. Nonwork Time and Welfare Capitalism; Chapter 8. Sweated Knowledge and the Politics of Reading; Conclusion.

Über Autor(innen)

Kumar, Arun
Arun Kumar is an Assistant Professor of British Imperial, Colonial, and Post-Colonial History at the University of Nottingham. He is a historian of modern South Asian history (colonial India) with a deep interest in socio-economic history and the global history approach. He is also an Associate Editor for South Asian Studies, a journal of the British Association for South Asian Studies.