Hayden Bellenoit
I am Professor of history at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD, USA. I specialize in modern South Asia. I consider myself a social and legal historian of India, often getting sidetracked by questions of religious identity, 'tradition', mnemonic knowledge and law as a window into historical human interactions.
I completed my D.Phil in Modern History at Oxford University.
My second monograph was on the social and cultural history of various Hindu penmen (Kayasthas) who straddled the late Mughal/regional states and the early East India Company. It contributes to the history of the scribe in colonial India. It deals with their occupational histories and how their fiscal knowledge and archives provided the mortar for the emergent bureaucracy of the Company's empire, one byproduct of which is the development of the 'colonial archive'. It was published with Routledge in 2017.
I recently completed an article on legal history, exploring how debates over Kayasthas’ varna rank played out through multiple inheritance disputes between 1860 and 1920 in "Law & History Review." Before that I completed an article about Kayasthas' "dvij" (or 'twice-born', 'pure') status in the latter 19th and early 20th century, which questions the idea that colonial ethnography was a dominating, disruptive discourse in shaping social rank and hierarchy in early 20th century India.
Currently, I am working on an article about how defamation and caste jurisdiction intersect in India between 1870 and 1940, examining how the tort of defamation created avenues for outcast Indians to contest local panchayat jurisdiction.
Phone: +1 410 293 6299
Address: US Naval Academy
572 Holloway Road
Annapolis, MD 21402
I completed my D.Phil in Modern History at Oxford University.
My second monograph was on the social and cultural history of various Hindu penmen (Kayasthas) who straddled the late Mughal/regional states and the early East India Company. It contributes to the history of the scribe in colonial India. It deals with their occupational histories and how their fiscal knowledge and archives provided the mortar for the emergent bureaucracy of the Company's empire, one byproduct of which is the development of the 'colonial archive'. It was published with Routledge in 2017.
I recently completed an article on legal history, exploring how debates over Kayasthas’ varna rank played out through multiple inheritance disputes between 1860 and 1920 in "Law & History Review." Before that I completed an article about Kayasthas' "dvij" (or 'twice-born', 'pure') status in the latter 19th and early 20th century, which questions the idea that colonial ethnography was a dominating, disruptive discourse in shaping social rank and hierarchy in early 20th century India.
Currently, I am working on an article about how defamation and caste jurisdiction intersect in India between 1870 and 1940, examining how the tort of defamation created avenues for outcast Indians to contest local panchayat jurisdiction.
Phone: +1 410 293 6299
Address: US Naval Academy
572 Holloway Road
Annapolis, MD 21402
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Books by Hayden Bellenoit
This book offers a new way of interpreting the colonial state’s origins in north India. It examines how the formation of early agrarian revenue settlements exacerbated an extant late Mughal taxation tradition, and how the success of British power was shaped by this extant paper-oriented revenue culture. It goes on to examine how the service and cultural histories of various Hindu scribal communities fit within broader changes in political administration, taxation, patterns of governance and a shared Indo-Islamic administrative culture. The author argues that British power after the late eighteenth century came as much through bureaucratic mastery, paper and taxes as it did through military force and commercial ruthlessness. The book draws upon private family papers, interviews and Persian sources to demonstrate how the fortunes of scribes changed between empires, and the important role they played at the height of the British Raj by 1900.
Offering a detailed account of how agrarian wealth provided the bedrock of the colonial state’s later patterns of administration, this book is a unique and refreshing contribution to studies in South Asian History, Governance and Imperialism.
Papers by Hayden Bellenoit
Chapters in Edited Volumes by Hayden Bellenoit
Book Reviews by Hayden Bellenoit
Talks by Hayden Bellenoit
This book offers a new way of interpreting the colonial state’s origins in north India. It examines how the formation of early agrarian revenue settlements exacerbated an extant late Mughal taxation tradition, and how the success of British power was shaped by this extant paper-oriented revenue culture. It goes on to examine how the service and cultural histories of various Hindu scribal communities fit within broader changes in political administration, taxation, patterns of governance and a shared Indo-Islamic administrative culture. The author argues that British power after the late eighteenth century came as much through bureaucratic mastery, paper and taxes as it did through military force and commercial ruthlessness. The book draws upon private family papers, interviews and Persian sources to demonstrate how the fortunes of scribes changed between empires, and the important role they played at the height of the British Raj by 1900.
Offering a detailed account of how agrarian wealth provided the bedrock of the colonial state’s later patterns of administration, this book is a unique and refreshing contribution to studies in South Asian History, Governance and Imperialism.