Suchergebnisse

This article examines the formation and collapse of the first global food regime of capital, focusing on the impact of tropical colonies like India. It also explores the role of anti-imperialist movements in this transition. While the literature on food regimes has shed light on the evolution of a worldwide food system, it has overlooked the contribution of South Asia to the first food regime or its struggles against colonialism. This study analyses the Ghadar Party in Punjab, British India, in the context of changes in the global wheat market. By incorporating a Gramscian conjunctural analysis, this article offers a refined understanding of transitional moments. It investigates why Punjab shifted from being a significant wheat exporter to Britain in the 1870s to primarily producing for the Indian domestic market by the 1920s. The article concludes that the colonial state implemented targeted policies to mitigate resistance from anti-imperialist movements, such as the Ghadar Party. These policies aimed to delink domestic wheat production from the global market due to subsistence crises related to the global food system. Lastly, the article outlines a method to analyse the link between place-based struggles and structural crises in a global food regime.

The Ghadar Party introduced a radical anticolonial praxis to Punjab, British India, in the early 1910s. Much of the literature on the Ghadar Party situates the birth of the movement among Punjabi peasants along the Pacific coast of North America who returned to their homeland intent on waging an anticolonial mutiny. One strand of argumentation locates the failure of the Ghadar Party in a problem of incompatibility between their migrant political consciousness and the conditions and experiences of their co-patriots in Punjab. I use Antonio Gramsci's concept of "translation," a semi-metaphorical means to describe political practices that transform existing political struggles, to demonstrate how the Ghadar Party's work of political education was not unidirectional, but rather consisted of learning from peasant experiences and histories of struggle, as well as transforming extant forms of peasant resistance – such as, banditry – for building a radical anticolonial movement. Translation is an anticolonial practice that works on subaltern experiences and struggles. The Ghadar Party's praxis of translating subaltern struggles into anticolonialism is demonstrative of how movements learn from and transform existing movements.

The Ghadar Party introduced a radical anticolonial praxis to Punjab, British India, in the early 1910s. Much of the literature on the Ghadar Party situates the birth of the movement among Punjabi peasants along the Pacific coast of North America who returned to their homeland intent on waging an anticolonial mutiny. One strand of argumentation locates the failure of the Ghadar Party in a problem of incompatibility between their migrant political consciousness and the conditions and experiences of their co-patriots in Punjab. I use Antonio Gramsci's concept of "translation," a semi-metaphorical means to describe political practices that transform existing political struggles, to demonstrate how the Ghadar Party's work of political education was not unidirectional, but rather consisted of learning from peasant experiences and histories of struggle, as well as transforming extant forms of peasant resistance – such as, banditry – for building a radical anticolonial movement. Translation is an anticolonial practice that works on subaltern experiences and struggles. The Ghadar Party's praxis of translating subaltern struggles into anticolonialism is demonstrative of how movements learn from and transform existing movements.

The Ghadar Party introduced a radical anti-colonial praxis to Punjab, British India, in the early 1910s. Much of the literature on the Ghadar Party situates the birth of the movement among Punjabi peasants along the Pacific coast of North America who returned to their homeland intent on waging an anti-colonial mutiny. Harish Puri (1993) locates the failure of the Ghadar Party in the impossibility of translating their migrant political consciousness among their co-patriots in Punjab. Further, he argues that their lack of organization skills led to their demise. I argue in this paper that the Ghadar Party's political organizing made attempts at translating anti-colonial ideology into Punjab. This was accomplished through translating extant forms of peasant resistance, such as banditry and mutiny, into the social and political context of 1910s Punjab. Further, the appearance of lack of organization really was a belief in organized spontaneity and an under-mediated notion of rebellion.The Ghadar Party introduced a radical anti-colonial praxis to Punjab, British India, in the early 1910s. Much of the literature on the Ghadar Party situates the birth of the movement among Punjabi peasants along the Pacific coast of North America who returned to their homeland intent on waging an anti-colonial mutiny. Harish Puri (1993) locates the failure of the Ghadar Party in the impossibility of translating their migrant political consciousness among their co-patriots in Punjab. Further, he argues that their lack of organization skills led to their demise. I argue in this paper that the Ghadar Party's political organizing made attempts at translating anti-colonial ideology into Punjab. This was accomplished through translating extant forms of peasant resistance, such as banditry and mutiny, into the social and political context of 1910s Punjab. Further, the appearance of lack of organization really was a belief in organized spontaneity and an under-mediated notion of rebellion.

Introduction to the Special Issue