Flandreau, Marc

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The Making of Western Indology: Henry Thomas Colebrooke and the East India Company. By RosaneRocher and Ludo Rocher.London: Routledge, 2012. Pp. xv + 238. ISBN 10: 0415336015; ISBN 13: 9780415336017.Reviewed by Marc Flandreau, Graduate Institute of International Studies andDevelopment, Geneva.E-mail marc.flandreau@graduateinstitute.chdoi:10.1017/S1479591413000089The Making of Western Indology tells the fascinating story of Henry Thomas Colebrooke (1765–1837)who rose, thanks to his scientific skills, through the ranks of the East India Company (EIC) eventuallyreaching the Supreme Council of the Company in Calcutta. The book marshals a huge amount ofinformation patiently collected through many repositories and manages to track, almost step bystep, the evolution of the man.By and large, three major epochs of the life of Colebrooke are identified. The first is his childhoodand formation, as the son of Sir George Colebrooke, a fallen grandee of the East India Company.Joining as proprietor in the aftermath of the crisis of 1763, Colebrooke senior achieved a meteoricascent, becoming Chairman of the EIC in 1769, but was bankrupt in 1773 as a result of the crisisof 1772. Sir George sought refuge from creditors in France and would remain in debt to the end ofhis life, his fortunes never restored. By relying on his remaining contacts at the EIC, Sir Georgecould afford for his son the opportunity of an Indian employment in the lower ranks of the EIC’sadministrative apparatus; this is how speculation and bankruptcy provided a departure point forWestern Indology.Colebrooke was seventeen when he embarked on the boat in Portsmouth, and his first assignmentswere in remote Indian outposts, starting with Tirhut, a district in North West Bihar, where theEuropean civil establishment consisted of four men. Other posts followed, giving youngColebrooke plenty of time to absorb aspects of Indian life and customs as well as Sanskrit. A firstpublication on the immolation of Hindu widows prefigured later works on Hindu law. Too muchhad been written about India, Colebrooke deplored, in which there was a great want of judgementin the selection of authorities. He by contrast would carefully select his authorities, and the authorsgive some hints as to how he would surround himself with pandits in an attempt to try and piecetogether the Sanskrit landscape.An opening came for Colebrooke on the death of Sir William Jones, who had been involved in agreat project of translation of Hindu law. This coincided with efforts by the EIC to separate judicialand revenue functions, and administer justice. This resulting law had to be consented to by popu-lations, even though produced by the British ruler, and this required a complex exercise of adaptationand adjustments, which Jones had left unfinished. The book then goes into fascinating detail, follow-ing this most prolific and important part of Colebrooke’s career as Administrator-Scholar: now ajudge of the superior civil and criminal court, now a professor at Fort William College, now avoice in the Supreme Council of the EIC, the President of the Asiatic Society in Calcutta, and akind of special adviser to British Governor General Lord Minto.The last part of the book deals with Colebrooke’s life after he returned to Europe in 1815 with ahallowed reputation. As a former member of the EIC’s Superior Council in Bengal, he belonged to anelite group that participated in formal events but did not seek any role in EIC administration. Hesettled into what the authors call “scholarly retirement”, raising his young family and managinghis estates (available numbers suggest he left upwards of £20,000 at his death, although the authorsseem to imply some financial difficulties or tightness). Most of his time he spent “promoting India”:researching, developing the Asiatic Society of London, in whose creation he played a key role, andbook reviews 207https://doi.org/10.1017/S1479591413000089Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Basel Library, on 11 Jul 2017 at 16:53:15, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms.contributing to the contribution of Indology throughout the West – most notably through the linkshe developed with German scholars. His final or “sunset” years are a poignant story of inexorabledecline in health and blindness.This is a really interesting book in more than one respect. Primarily intended for students of thedevelopment of Western Indology, who will undoubtedly find in it virtues that this reviewer wasnot knowledgeable enough to enjoy, it should be of interest to a much larger audience providingan important biographical contribution to what Bernard Cohn once called “colonialism and itsforms of knowledge”. For instance, the book’s exploration of Colebrooke’s efforts at “transcribing”Hindu law, while subjecting the exercise to Western forms of scholarship (as evident from theattempt at reconstructing “authorities” with the help of somewhat “chaotic” and not disinterestedpandits), is a must-read for students of the anthropology of colonial law. Students of the East IndiaCompany will also be interested by this insider look at the career of one employee and the light itsheds on EIC’s government. Social historians will relish the information on the family strategies ofColebrooke’s father following his bankruptcy, which is important testimony on debt resolution ata time when prison for debt existed. Likewise, the difficulties encountered by the youngColebrooke give precious information on how previous social networks could or could not bemobilized by the bankrupt. I found the discussion of the creation of the Asiatic Society inLondon of great interest especially for its surrounding politics: the competition with theLinnean Society, which claimed but failed to enforce a monopoly on some of the subjects thatthe Asiatic Society wished to explore, the search for tutelage, the problem of funding and the evi-dence of the substantial interest that greeted the creation of the Asiatic Society are all importantelements of the development of British Science in general. There is no doubt that, beyond its nar-rative of the early development of Indology, the book ought to reach a large audience of historians.Burma Redux: Global Justice and the Quest for Political Reform in Myanmar. By Ian Holliday.New York: Columbia University Press. 2011. Pp. xiii + 287. ISBN 10: 0231161271; ISBN 13:9780231161268.Reviewed by Michael W. Charney, Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, University ofTokyoE-mail mwcharney@googlemail.comdoi:10.1017/S1479591413000090The author of this welcome study of contemporary Burma, Ian Holliday, is Professor of PoliticalScience at the University of Hong Kong and his research and teaching focuses on Southeast Asiaand on humanitarian intervention and global justice. Holliday’s first two chapters provide a fairlysuccinct and accurate overview of Burma from the colonial period, through independence, up tothe rainy season of 1988. Holliday has done his homework, and those seeking a brief overview ofhow Burma’s past can explain the political and economic problems of the last half of the twentiethcentury would do well to read these chapters. Holliday says little here that this reviewer would dis-agree with. Nevertheless, this reviewer disagrees with his view of the strength of the Burmese econ-omy in 1948. The reason that Burma’s economy was a nightmare from the start of Nu’s rule reflectsthe poor starting point of the Burmese economy due to wartime destruction not repaired by indepen-dence, the postwar weakness of the UK economy to which Burma as a colony had been tied, andrelated factors. This low base made Burma’s high rate of economic growth over the following fourteenyears possible, and in the first two years of Nu’s rule annual GDP did not grow, but shrank by −10.1208 book reviewshttps://doi.org/10.1017/S1479591413000089Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Basel Library, on 11 Jul 2017 at 16:53:15, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms.

Book Review: The Making of Western Indology: Henry Thomas Colebrooke and the East India Company: The Making of Western Indology: Henry Thomas Colebrooke and the East India Company. By Rosane Rocher and Ludo Rocher . London: Routledge, 2012. Pp. xv+238. ISBN 10: 0415336015; ISBN 13: 9780415336017

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Book Review: The Making of Western Indology: Henry Thomas Colebrooke and the East India Company: The Making of Western Indology: Henry Thomas Colebrooke and the East India Company. By Rosane Rocher and Ludo Rocher . London: Routledge, 2012. Pp. xv+238. ISBN 10: 0415336015; ISBN 13: 9780415336017

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