Imperial but Not Colonial: Archival Truths, British India, and the Case of the “Naughty” Tibetans

What truths are available in imperial archives for non-colonial subjects? Tibet was never colonized by the British, and yet was drawn into the British imperial domain in ways that impacted both political history and historiography. In the 1940s, Tibetan intellectual Rapga Pangdatsang based his Tibet...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Comparative studies in society and history 2017-01, Vol.59 (1), p.68-95
Main Author: McGranahan, Carole
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Archives & records
Archives/Materials
British Empire
Chinese languages
Colonialism
Empires
Ethnography
European history
Historiography
Imperialism
India
Political history
Political parties
Politics
Tashi Tsering
Tibeto Burman languages
United Kingdom
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Summary:What truths are available in imperial archives for non-colonial subjects? Tibet was never colonized by the British, and yet was drawn into the British imperial domain in ways that impacted both political history and historiography. In the 1940s, Tibetan intellectual Rapga Pangdatsang based his Tibetan Improvement Party in Kalimpong, India where he soon ran afoul of colonial officials who thought he was a Chinese spy. By drawing on multiple archival, ethnographic, and historic sources, I show how the story of Rapga Pangdatsang and the first Tibetan political party enables a recalibrating of both Tibetan and British imperial history. It also opens up a consideration of empire beyond the colonial, and speaks more broadly to a consideration of the non-colonial as a thus-far overlooked aspect of empire.
ISSN:0010-4175
1475-2999
1471-633X
DOI:10.1017/S0010417516000530