Erasure of the Euro-Asian: Recovering Early Radicalism and Feminism in South AsiaToday there is increasing interest in the fusion of cultures and hybridity, especially the interaction between Asia and Europe in the wake of Portuguese, Dutch, French and British imperialism. This book focuses on the vanguard role of the Euro-Asian communities in South Asia, the Burghers, Anglo-Indians and Eurasians, in struggles for democratic rights, long before colonial conditions were ripe for radical social and political change. With their utopian vision of a future democratic society, they agitated for widespread reforms such as worker and peasant rights, early radicalism, proto-nationalism, secularism and gender equality. The author brings the path-breaking efforts of these Euro-Asian pioneers from the footnotes of history in to the main text, asks why their contributions have been 'hidden from history' and suggests that the obsession with 'purity' of race both in South Asia and Europe, led to erasing the importance of this radical intelligentsia of mixed origin. |
Contents
The Portuguese Confrontation | 19 |
Racism of the Portuguese | 27 |
EuroAsians of the Dutch Indies | 35 |
Copyright | |
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19th century Agnes Anglo-Indian Aryan Asian became Blazé Britain British Brohier Buddhist Burghers and Eurasians Buultjens Byron caste Ceylonese Charles Lorenz Christian Colombo Observer colonial colour culture daughter Derozians descendants Digby Dutch Dutch Burgher early Elliot emphasis added English ethnic Euro Euro-Asian Euro-Asian community Euro-Asian women Europe European father foreign French girls half-caste Henry Derozio Hindu hybrid ibid included India India and Sri intelligentsia issues John Ricketts Kandy Kandyan Kolkata Leonard Woolf liaisons liberal Lisboa Pinto London married mestiços Minnette Minnette de Silva mixed community mixed marriages mixed origin mother movement nation nationalists native Paynter pioneer plantation planters political Portuguese purity quoted race racial racism radical railway reform religion religious Revolution Richard Morgan Ricketts Roberts rule rulers Sarkar Silva Sinhala Sinhala-Buddhist Sinhalese social society South Asia Sri Lanka Tamil tradition Utopian western wife woman writes wrote Young Bengal Young Ceylon