Interrogating Stereotypes: Exploring the Princely States in Colonial Orissa

Abstract

This article lays foundations for further critical examination of the problems of exploitation created by a feudal system that rested in the lap of colonialism and has been romanticized and even depicted as ‘modern’. It indicates that the despotic rule of the princely states of Orissa under British colonial alliances impacted heavily upon the day-to-day lives of common people and led to protest movements. This is only discovered if one rebalances scholarship in this field so that analysis focuses on the people governed under such regimes, rather than solely the rulers themselves. Colonial, nationalist as well as sources of the Prajamandal Movement and oral evidence collected from interviews, have been explored for this article. Some of the typical confrontationist points are delineated to interrogate constructs of post-orientalist orientalism that tend to romanticize the princely rulers and in turn gloss over the despotic order in these enclaves.