Description

"Rejecting simplified notions of "civilizational clashes," this book argues for a new perspective on Hindu, Muslim, and colonial power relations in India in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Using India's largest princely state of Hyderabad as a case study, Benjamin Cohen explores Hindu elites who both supported and resisted their Muslim overlords, arguing that there was a transition from a military culture to a ceremonial one among the upper echelons of Indian society. Incorporating archival sources from London, Delhi, and Hyderabad in English, Urdu, and Telugu, Cohen weaves interviews and private family records into his analysis of princely and colonial documents."--Jacket.