GULAB SINGH AND ANG DUONG: A PRELIMINARY REFLECTION ON THE PROBLEMS AND BENEFITS OF ANALYSING AND COMPARING STATECRAFT IN KASHMIR AND CAMBODIA (MIDDLE OF 19-TH CENTURY)
GULAB SINGH AND ANG DUONG: A PRELIMINARY REFLECTION ON THE PROBLEMS AND BENEFITS OF ANALYSING AND COMPARING STATECRAFT IN KASHMIR AND CAMBODIA (MIDDLE OF 19-TH CENTURY)

Summary/Abstract: In the middle of the nineteenth century, European colonialism solidified its grasp upon the kingdoms of South and Southeast Asia. At the same time, a number of indigenous elites used the intensifying European presence and their own political acumen to forge kingdom spaces located between the new European colonial blocks and their former Asian colonial masters. This article considers two such examples – Kashmir and Cambodia – and it reflects upon a small number of key elements within the two new kingdoms to suggest that successful statecraft in South and Southeast Asia was dependent upon a number of key contextual and active similarities at work within each society, in particular the contextual ingredient of “Indianization” and the active interplay of violence and authority. However, the historical record within both Kashmiri and Cambodian societies is far from complete. Therefore, the article suggests that as archival collections become more freely available, analysis of key aspects of violence and authority within the symbolism associated with “Indianization” will enable (through comparative interdisciplinary study) greater historical clarity for both Kashmir and Cambodia, during what have hitherto been assumed to be periods of relative historical paucity.

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