Imperial Connections : India in the Indian Ocean Arena 1860-1920

Contents: Preface. Introduction: empire recentered. 1. Governing colonial peoples. 2. Constructing identities. 3. Projecting power: The Indian Army Overseas. 4. Recruiting Sikhs for Colonial Police and Military. 5. "Hard Hands and Sound Healthy Bodies": recruiting "Coolies" for Natal. 6. India in East Africa. Conclusion. List of abbreviations. Notes. Bibliography. Index.

"An innovative remapping of empire, Imperial Connections offers a broad-ranging view of the workings of the British Empire in the period when the India of the Raj stood at the centre of a newly globalized system of trade, investment and migration.

Thomas R. Metcalf argues that India itself became a nexus of imperial power that made possible British conquest, control and governance across a wide arc of territory stretching from Africa to Eastern Asia. His book, offering a new perspective on how imperialism operates, emphasizes transcolonial interactions and webs of influence that advanced the interests of Colonial India and Britain alike.

He examines such topics as law codes and administrative forms as these were shaped by Indian precedents; the Indian Army's role in securing Malaya, Africa and Mesopotamia for the empire; the employment of Indians, especially Sikhs, in colonial policing; and the transformation of East Africa into what was almost a province of India through the construction of the Uganda Railway. He concludes with a look at the decline of this Indian Ocean system after 1920 and considers how far India's participation in it opened opportunities for Indians to be a colonizing as well as a colonized people." (jacket)