In Chapter 4, the third case study investigates how martyrdom discourse was deployed by Sikhs during World War I. It begins with an analysis of the social and cultural situation at the turn of the twentieth century in Punjab, from where the majority of Sikh sepoys hailed, and the resulting relationships with the imperialist British Raj. After examining the socioeconomic conditions that led Sikhs to enlist in the British Indian Army, I discuss how a military mindset constructed a particular idea of Sikh character. The chapter proceeds with an analysis of Sikh traditions of martyrdom and the way the British Empire was colored as a prophesized entity, and therefore actions in its service construed as a sacred duty. Simultaneously, I describe the antagonism felt for the British Empire by emigrant Sikh communities especially in North America, creating a bifurcation of perspectives reflected in approval or dismissal of the self-sacrifice of Sikh soldiers and the creation of anticolonial martyr forms. The chapter concludes with an examination of how the failed promises of the British government following the war marginalized those Sikh martyrs who fell in their ranks during World War I.

The first chapter explores the market entry of Germany’s large multinationals, exemplified by a detailed analysis of the electrical company Siemens and the chemical company Bayer, the two companies that pioneered German business with India in the 1870s. It shows how these large German players initially followed in their British rival’s footsteps and used the institutional advantages that British firms had. In the absence of discriminatory legislation against them, German big business became increasingly more successful as they learned to capitalize on the long-established links that Britain sustained with India. This happened at the same time that they first developed a self-understanding as “German” businesses. The chapter shows that the concept of “nationality” sits uneasily with the realities of these early endeavors in India and traces how nationalism slowly emerged as a topic of discussion.

Chapter 2 provides an account of the emergence of an inchoate ‘Writ’ jurisdiction in the late colonial period in British India. It is the limited availability and partial success of a procedural form of rule of law in moderating the authoritarianism of the colonial state, despite its larger failures, that account for its lasting resonance amongst segments of the colonised elites. In the first decade of postcolonial existence, as the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan failed to draft a constitution until 1956, The Government of India Act 1935 remained the interim framework. The role of the newly empowered superior courts will be particularly scrutinised with regard to their alleged complicity in the uprooting of constitutionalism and democracy in the first decade of the republic’s existence. However, despite their seeming subservience to the executive the courts continued to push the political elites that came to dominate the new state towards framing a republican constitution. Most notably, the dislocations in the state structure caused by the partition of British India also gave the courts the space to extend their administrative law jurisdiction through the newly-established ‘Writ jurisdiction’ over a bureaucracy that was in the process of reconstruction.