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A SCIENCE OF SOCIETY: THE RISE OF URDU ECONOMIC THOUGHT IN COLONIAL INDIA A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Osama Rehan Siddiqui May 2019 © 2019 Osama Rehan Siddiqui A SCIENCE OF SOCIETY: THE RISE OF URDU ECONOMIC THOUGHT IN COLONIAL INDIA Osama Rehan Siddiqui, Ph. D. Cornell University 2019 This dissertation examines the translation and reception of classical political economy in colonial India in the nineteenth century. Drawing on a largely unexplored archive of Urdu- language translations of political economists such as James Mill, John Stuart Mill, Alfred Marshall, and others, the dissertation traces how the works of these thinkers circulated in India in a vernacular idiom. While classical political economy has frequently been seen as inextricably entangled with imperial ideology or as an instrument of colonial governmentality, this dissertation argues instead that it was actively claimed and refashioned by Indians to develop a language of social science and ethical critique. In doing so, the dissertation offers a new case study of how British economic ideas circulated globally in the nineteenth century and how they were transformed in different contexts. The dissertation shows that, far from treating political economy as a hegemonic colonial discourse, Indian intellectuals engaged critically with it and re-made it in their own terms. One of the key ways in which they did so was by interpreting it through existing Indian ideas about wealth and society. In particular, to make sense of one of the central claims of political economy – namely the notion that society was a network of abstract interdependence mediated by relations of production – Indian translators turned to earlier theoretical models of social and civic interdependence. These included early modern Indo-Persian concepts of the household as a sphere of production; the city as a space of civic cooperation and ethical obligation; and alchemy as a science of wealth and improvement. By recasting these early modern concepts and mapping them on to classical political economy, Indian translators sought to inject a language of ethics and enchantment into modern economic thought. In this way, a modern language of economics in India came to be suffused with early modern idioms, which ultimately enabled the development of a robust critique of modern commercial society. TABLE OF CONTENTS Biographical Sketch vi Acknowledgements vii List of Figures xi A Note on Transliteration xii Introduction 1 1 Accounting for Households: Indo-Persian Languages of Economic Thought 18 Before Urdu Political Economy 2 ‘European Knowledge in Indian Tongues’: The Birth of Urdu Political 57 Economy 3 An Urdu Science of Society: Social Theory and Political Economy in India 95 4 The Enchantment of Urdu Political Economy: Wealth and its Sciences in Late- 129 Nineteenth Century Colonial India 5 ‘The Ordinary Business of Life’: Muhammad Iqbal and the Ends of Urdu 177 Political Economy Conclusion 206 Bibliography 209 v BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Osama Rehan Siddiqui studied history at the University of Western Ontario and at Cambridge University before coming to Cornell to study the history of modern South Asia and the British Empire. He defended his doctoral dissertation at Cornell in 2019. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The support of a wonderful community of people made it possible for me to write this dissertation, foremost among which is my doctoral committee. It was my enormous good fortune to have Durba Ghosh as my advisor. Her profound insight and breadth of vision enabled me to see connections and arguments that were not apparent when I started this project, and her unwavering support and immense generosity at every step helped me to carry it across the finish line. She has been a model of scholarship, teaching, and mentorship for me. Robert Travers has been a source of great inspiration and edification, and the experience of learning from him has enlarged my historical imagination. I am grateful to him for many stimulating conversations over the years, especially at our Friday afternoon Persian reading group meetings, and for always reading my work in the most generous possible light. I thank Rachel Weil for her steadfast support and for being an exemplar of what engaged teaching and scholarship looks like. Her perceptive comments on my work always encouraged me to think more critically and read more closely, and I am grateful to have benefitted from her insights. I owe a debt of gratitude to Anne Blackburn for being a pillar of support and encouragement throughout my time at Cornell, from her wonderfully stimulating seminar to her deeply insightful feedback on a number of chapters. The conversations I have had with her have shaped my view of South Asian studies. Classes I took early on with Camille Robcis, Isaac Kramnick, Richard Bensel, and Naoki Sakai influenced a great deal of my thinking on questions of intellectual history, social theory, and translation. Iago Gocheleishvili and Alireza Bahrani introduced me to the pleasures of reading Persian (and very patiently endured many beginner’s errors). The whole enterprise would not have been possible without Barb Donnell’s help. Barb’s vii tireless advocacy on behalf of grad students and her attention to detail has been a life saver many times, and her warmth and thoughtfulness made it so easy to navigate every stage of grad school, from admission to graduation. My research and scholarship has been supported by grants from the Social Science Research Council, the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the American Institute of Pakistan Studies, and the Cornell University Graduate School. Like all historians, I am the beneficiary of the expertise of librarians and archivists around the world. I am grateful in particular to Mohammad Abbas Chughtai and Syeda Shamim Asghar Ali Jaffry at the Punjab Archives; Hamid Ali at the Punjab University Library; Dr. Nabi Hasan and Dr. Shayesta Bedar at the Maulana Azad Library at Aligarh; and, the staff of the National Archives of India, the British Library, and the Royal Asiatic Society Library. In the United States, I thank the staff of the Regenstein Library at the University of Chicago and Cornell University Library. Virginia Cole and Bronwen Bledsoe at Cornell, in particular, helped me at numerous times, not only with locating research materials but also with my teaching interests. The novelist Charles Cumming once wrote that “if a young person is lucky enough to read the right books at the right time in the company of the right teacher, it will change their life forever.”1 For me, this teacher was Eli Nathans who gave me a copy of Rousseau’s Second Discourse, a book which sparked a life-long interest in the history of ideas. Over the years, Eli Nathans has been a kind and generous mentor and a source of great support. As an undergraduate at the University of Western Ontario, I benefitted enormously from taking classes with him, as well as with Anne Skoczylas, Allyson May, and Francine McKenzie. At Cambridge, Shruti Kapila gave me my first introduction to some of the exciting new debates in Indian intellectual history; Clare Jackson and Sylvana Tomaselli taught me a great deal about how to make viii historical arguments; Martin Daunton’s seminar was a master class on how to read sources; and, Rosemary Horrox’s wisdom and sage advice guided me through it all. I will always remain indebted to the late C.A. Bayly not only for agreeing to supervise my first attempts at writing imperial history, but also for suggesting that I apply to Cornell for graduate school. Needless to say, these two acts of kindness on his part have transformed my life and work in the happiest of ways. The journey of the last several years would not have been as much fun without the friendship and solidarity of my fellow grad school travelers. For their friendship and support, I thank Andrew Amstutz, Ai Baba, Nick Bujalski, Vincent Burgess, Rukmini Chakraborty, Rishad Choudhury, Yagna Nag Chowdhuri, Shiau-Yun Chen, Shoshana Deutsh, Natalia Di Pietrantonio, Mehmet Ekinci, Juan Fernandez, Kyle Harvey, Atoor Lawandow, Aparajita Majumdar, Jeff Matthias, Matt Minarchek, Nasrin Olla, Kaitlin Pontzer, Jessica Price, Varun Sanadhya, Josh Savala, Sadia Shirazi, Yasmin Singh, Chris Szabla, Tim Vasko, and Kelsey Utne. Yagna Nag Chowdhuri has been a constant companion and a source of great joy throughout my time in Ithaca. Andrew Amstutz has been a wonderful friend and interlocutor, whose work has meant a great deal to me and his friendship even more. Josh Savala and Kyle Harvey were among the first people I met at Cornell, and over the years I have learned a great deal from their advice, comments, and friendship, as well as from their own innovative work in Latin American history. Natalia Di Pietrantonio has been a steadfast friend and confidante, and I always cherish our conversations, whether about Indo-Persian historiography or our shared love for celebrity gossip and Urdu drama serials. I am grateful to them all. Beyond campus, an entire community of people cared for me in ways big and small that made it possible to write this dissertation. The doctors, nurses, and staff at Strong Memorial 1 Charles Cumming, The Trinity Six (London: HarperCollins, 2011). ix Hospital, Cayuga Medical Center, and Cornell Health looked after me with a great deal of care and consideration. John Skrovan has been a guiding light in so many ways. And, I surely would not have managed without the labor of countless workers at cafes, libraries, diners, bus and train stations, and many more, all of whom made it possible for me to live a life conducive to research and writing.

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