Both Moluccan cloves and Bandanese nutmeg and mace played an important, even crucial, part in the elaborate network of exchanges of commodities which for many centuries before the intervention of the Europeans had been the characteristic feature of inter-island trade in the Indonesian archipelago. From the early sixteenth century the Portuguese, and to a lesser extent the Spanish, added a new strand to this network, but even in the spice islands, the commercial domination of which was their chief goal, they did not seriously disrupt its traditional pattern. This was particularly so in the Banda Islands, which they soon discovered were markedly different from the Moluccas, not only by virtue of the different spices which they produced and in which they traded, but in the economic and political organization of their societies, in the manner in which they reacted to the European intervention and in the effect which that intervention had upon their commercial activities. Both acted as magnets to the Portuguese and Spanish, and later on the Dutch and English, drawn by the lure of great profits, as they had to Asian traders for many centuries before the arrival of the Europeans. But both presented rather different problems to those traders, Asian and European alike, once commercial relations had been established

One of the most difficult sets of questions for any imperial power or ruling group is if, when, and how to open the ranks of the imperial services to the imperialized. For a considerable period of time there may be logical enough reasons, related to imperial security and distrust of the conquered, for avoiding these questions altogether. However, sooner or later it becomes neccessary to win the collaboration of the losers, and then certain ‘liberalizing’, or just realistic tendencies begin to prevail. These are often inspired more by ‘home’ influences than by ‘out-post’ sentiment which tends to be more suspicious of its recent victims. Nevertheless, somewhere along the line a sometimes embarrassing precedent is made, and the integration or localization of the imperial civil and military services, and even of the executive, is undertaken. Usually the start is at the lowest levels, the clerks and soldiers, but later the upper or officer class also begins to lose its initial imperial or racial solidarity.

The Kheda (or Kaira) district has lately attracted great interest among Indian historians, not only because it was the area in which Gandhi chose to launch the very first peasant ‘satyagraha’ in resistance to government revenue demands, but also because it harboured a highly progressive class of peasant farmers, known as the Patidars, who to this day rank among the wealthiest cultivators in Western India.

The Indian court system is by all accounts unusual. The proceedings are extraordinarily dilatory and comparatively expensive; a single issue is often fragmented into a multitude of court actions; execution of judgements is haphazard; the lawyers frequently seem both incompetent and unethical; false witness is commonplace; and the probity of judges is habitually suspect. Above all, the courts are often unable to bring about a settlement of the disputes that give rise to litigation. So great are these failings that the Indian judicial process can reasonably be seen as a ‘pathology’of a legal system.

Viewed from an historical, comparative perspective, the newspaper has proven itself an unusually adaptable tool of communication. It has served many masters: national states with different political ideologies; political parties of right, left and centre; economic interests of capital and labour; national movements and individuals. The contents of newspapers have been equally as varied, ranging from newspapers of record, newspapers offering their readers news of national and local politics, finance, and international affairs to those specializing in news of sex, crime, sport and scandal. Newspapers have differed, too, in their physical dimensions: some print enough in a single issue to fill a weighty book, others are no more than a single page of type.