Presenter
Pinch William - Department of History, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, United StatesPanel
104 – Political Trials and the making of ‘India’Abstract
My paper will examine the long aftermath of the impeachment of Warren Hastings (1787-1795) — particularly in light of the ideal of karmayoga, the “yoga of action” that Krishna preaches in the Bhagavad Gita (invoked repeatedly by Hastings in private correspondence with his wife Marian in November and December 1784 as well as his 1785 introduction to the first English translation of the Gita, by Hastings’ friend Charles Wilkins). I will place this alongside the “geographical morality” invoked by Hastings’ main accuser, Edmund Burke. I am especially interested in how Hastings’ impeachment took on a life of its own as an epic morality tale, a kind of “Imperial Gita” in its own right. Key “texts” include the spectacle of the trial itself; celebrated historical treatments by the likes of James Mill, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Peter Marshall, Nicholas Dirks, Partha Chatterjee, and William Dalrymple; famous and not-so-famous literary references (in English as well as Hindi); and recent impeachment commentary in American politics.
