Brits Who Sind

Robert A. Huttenback. British Relations with Sind, 1799-1843: An Anatomy of Imperialism. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2007. xvii + 153 pp. $21.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-19-547399-5. Reviewed by Manan Ahmed Published on H-Asia (December, 2009) Commissioned by Sumit Guha (The University of Texas at Austin) Brits Who Sind Robert A. Huttenback's 1959 UCLA disserta‐ tenback outlines the perceived threats of imperial tion, which was first published in 1962, is now reis‐ incursions from Russia, France, Afghanistan, and sued by Oxford University Press Pakistan with a Punjab that converted this frontier coastal prov‐ nuanced introduction by Matthew A. Cook. It is a ince into a central concern for the Company. slim volume that traverses mostly the same Added to security concerns were mercantile incen‐ grounds impeccably documented by H. T. Lam‐ tives with hopes of transforming the lazy waters of brick in his Sir Charles Napier & Sind (1952). the Indus into a torrid shipping channel linking Though Huttenback had no training in any rele‐ "London to Delhi" (p. 56). Chapters 3 and 4 ("The Es‐ vant Indic languages, he managed to incorporate tablishment of British Preponderance" and "The a thorough reading of local politics via his access Afghan Crisis") move the discussion further toward to the archives of East India Company correspon‐ the local arena by focusing on the political al‐ dence in London, Bombay, Delhi, and Lahore. It is liances between the rulers of Sindh (the Mirs of in these meticulous un-tanglings of complex Talpur), the Company, and the various bordering events and people that Huttenback demonstrates, polities. It is Afghanistan that compelled the Com‐ in action, the titular "imperialism" of the British in pany's initial overtures to Sindh; they wanted to Sindh. secure passage for troops and supplies and to limit The monograph consists of six chapters and a any alliances coming out of Kabul. The disastrous conclusion. Chapters 1 and 2 ("The French Threat" ending of the first Anglo-Afghan War in 1842 con‐ and "The Controversy over Cutch") deal with the verted Sindh from a minor border principality to a larger geopolitical framework within which the perceived frst line of defense for the British. question of Sindh was understood by London. Hut‐ H-Net Reviews Chapters 5 and 6 ("Ellenborough, Napier and forty-seven years have been kind to the student of the Amirs of Sind" and "The Annexation and Its history of the British in Sindh. Cook mentions the Repercussions") form the real core of the book. works of Hamida Khuhro (1978) and David Huttenback, using both official and personal cor‐ Cheesman (1997). To that list one can also add respondence, charts in depth the machinations be‐ Adriano Duarte (1976), Malcolm E. Yapp (1980), tween the upper echelons of the Company (the Mubarak Ali (see his essay collections from 1983 Governor-General Lord Ellenborough and the and 2005), Sarah Ansari (2005), and Cook's own dis‐ commander in Sindh, Sir Charles Napier), the Polit‐ sertation (2008). These multifaceted works, taken ical Agents (James Outram, Ross Bell, and E. J. collectively, highlight the immense advancement Brown), and key power holders in Sindh (Mir Rus‐ scholarship has seen on this "neglected" region. tum and Mir Ali Murad). In addition, Huttenback These scholars have expanded our understandings notes (though he does not comment on) the com‐ of not only the political but also the social and the pelling role played by the native knowledge bro‐ cultural intricacies--such that the question of impe‐ kers (munshis, amils, and vakils) in mediating the rialism is no longer a purely programmatic one. transactions (and translations) between the British and the Mirs in this key period. Such traces--"Jeth Anand had not accurately explained [Eldred] Pottinger's views to the amirs" (p. 59)-- though ignored by Huttenback, hint at the real me‐ diations that undergird the supra-structure of "im‐ perialism" that he wished to anatomize. In both form and content, Huttenback's work is historiographically and methodologically rooted in his generation of scholars. Though Cook's intro‐ ductory essay gallantly attempts to place Hutten‐ back's concerns alongside Ranajit Guha and Eric Stokes, one cannot help but conclude that such a comparison only highlights the limitations in Hut‐ tenback's study. Where Huttenback aims to reveal microscopic machinations of imperialism, he ends up concealing the far greater complexity of intra- and interpersonal relationships between the Com‐ pany officials; the Sindhi elite; and the many trans‐ lators, lawyers, and businessmen who mediated these transactions. Similarly, while Huttenback seeks to focus on the larger question of imperial‐ ism, it is a significantly narrow (and metropole- centric) conception which fails to account for var‐ ied local cultural, ideological, historical, or political concerns animating the Mirs of Sindh in their deal‐ ings with the Company. Still, at the moment of assessing this reprint, we can take stock of whether the intervening 2 H-Net Reviews If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at https://networks.h-net.org/h-asia Citation: Manan Ahmed. Review of Huttenback, Robert A. British Relations with Sind, 1799-1843: An Anatomy of Imperialism. H-Asia, H-Net Reviews. December, 2009. URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=25314 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 3.

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