Conversations on South Asia with Durba Mitra
Join us for the next Conversations on South Asia event to hear Durba Mitra discuss her book, Indian Sex Life: Sexuality and the Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought. Tuesday, April 6, 2021
https://dartgo.org/indiansexlife
Sponsored by: Asian Societies, Cultures and Languages, History Department, Society of Fellows, Women s Gender and Sexuality Studies
Intended Audience(s): Public Registration required.
How did deviant female sexuality become foundational to the colonial knowledge-production project? And how did the “prostitute” emerge as a key concept in attempts by British and elite Indian men to “know” India?
Durba Mitra (Harvard University) tackles these puzzles in her latest book, I
Indiaâs State institutions are failing citizens because they were built to control, not govern
While centralising elements are necessary at times, the problem is that Indiaâs institutions have not evolved along with the countryâs growth. Text Size:
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More than 70 years after Independence, most of Indiaâs institutions continue to act predominantly as forces of control rather than governance and administration. While centralising elements are necessary at times, the problem largely lies in the fact that these institutions, which stemmed from colonial structures, have not evolved along with the countryâs growth, thereby obstructing State capacity. This was perhaps understandable in the initial post-colonial decades given the magnitude of the nation-building project and existential threats. That time, however, is long gone. When we talk about State capacity in India, we are not referring to specific governments or political partie
There is an abundance of studies postulating that colonialism explains the character of the developing world. For instance, in their seminal paper aptly titled The Colonial Origins of Development: An Empirical Investigation (2000), Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson advance the audacious claim that in regions where the environment was conducive to settlement, Europeans built inclusive institutions promoting property rights, innovations, and long-term development. This was unlike settler colonies in places where the climate was inhospitable to large-scale settlements, where extractive institutions were established to achieve short-term gains. Imposing rent-seeking institutions to extract resources for personal enrichment was deemed a practical alternative to maneuvering the harshness of an unwelcoming environment. Many have raised objections to this thesis on methodological grounds. But even critics assume that colonialism has immense explanatory power. Resear