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God, King, and Subject: On the Development of Composite Political Cultures in the Western Himalaya, circa 1800–1900

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2019

Arik Moran
Arik Moran*
Affiliation:
Arik Moran (amoran@univ.haifa.ac.il) is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of Haifa.
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Abstract

The history of British rule in the Indian Himalaya exemplifies the mutual enforcement of social identities and political cultures in modern South Asia. For the Khas ethnic majority of the Himachal Pradesh–Uttarakhand borderland, the colonial power's differentiation between “secular” and “religious” authorities engendered the division of substantially commensurable groups into “caste Hindu” and “tribal” societies. In demarcating borders along the “natural barrier” between the states, the British had severed a politically potent grassroots theocracy from its underlings, consolidated the fragmentation of the Shimla Hill States, and ultimately encouraged the development of a composite political cultures that complemented Khas traditions with Brahmanical creeds from the plains.

Keywords

borderlandscastedevta ka rajHimachal PradeshHimalayaJubbalMahasustate formationUttarakhandZomia
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 78 , Issue 3 , August 2019 , pp. 577 - 600
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2019 

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