Premium
Predatory Care: The Imperial Hunt in Mughal and British India
Author(s) -
Pandian Anand S.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
journal of historical sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.186
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1467-6443
pISSN - 0952-1909
DOI - 10.1111/1467-6443.00135
Subject(s) - sovereignty , empire , politics , metaphor , history , sociology , ancient history , law , political science , political economy , philosophy , theology
Taking the hunt as both metaphor of rule and political practice, this paper compares the predatory exercises of two imperial formations in India: the late British Raj and the sixteenth‐century Mughal empire. The British pursuit of man‐eaters confronted feline terror with sovereign might, securing the bodies and hearts of resistant subjects through spectacles of responsible force. The Mughal hunt, on the other hand, took unruly nobles and chieftains as the objects of its fearful care, winning their obedient submission through the exercise of a predatory sovereignty. Both instances of ‘predatory care’ shed light on the troubling intimacy of biopolitical cultivation and sovereign violence.