Rohilkhand, at the time of the Mutiny of 1857, was a division of the North-Western Provinces comprising the districts of Bijnor, Moradabad, Budaun, Bareilly, and Shahjahanpur. It was here and in neighboring Oudh that the uprising achieved its greatest intensity. Hitherto, it has been assumed that the proprietary mutations which occurred in Rohilkhand after its cession in 1801 by the Nawab of Oudh to the East India Company are highly significant as a cause of the uprising. G. J. Christian, the Secretary to the Sudder Board of Revenue of the North-Western Provinces, reported in 1854 that “in no other country in the world probably do landed tenures so certainly, constantly, and extensively change hands. These mutations are effecting a rapid and complete revolution in the position of the ancient proprietors of the soil.” William Edwards, the Collector of Budaun at the time of the Mutiny, wrote:

To the large number of these sales during the past twelve or fifteen years, and the operation of our revenue system, which has had the result of destroying the gentry of the country … I attribute solely the disorganization of this and the neighbouring districts in these provinces. By fraud or chicanery, a vast number of the estates of families of rank and influence have been alienated, either wholly or in part, and have been purchased by new men … without character or influence over their tenantry. … I am fully satisfied that the rural classes would never have joined in rebelling with die sepoys … had not these causes of discontent already existed.

Studies on social and political change tend to emphasize factors promoting change rather than factors maintaining or reenforcing an existing or a “traditional” social and political system. Among the topics studied from this point of view in Ceylon are the “disintegrating village” (Sarkar and Tambiah 1957), the caste system, a “system in transition” (Ryan 1953), the impact of population growth and colonial legislation on “land tenure in Village Ceylon” (Obeyesekere 1966 and Leach 1961), the development of a western political system and the newly “emerging elite” (Singer 1964), and the impact of industrialization and economic development on the Ceylonese community and caste structure and the “emergence of a class of industrial entrepreneurs” (Evers 1964). In all these booklength studies traditional Sinhalese institutions and values are depicted as distintegrating under the pressure of various factors of change and only limited attention is paid to institutions which effectively counteract westernization, modernization, and possibly change. It is perhaps interesting to note that in line with this way of arguing, the renaissance of Buddhism and the emergence of a strong Buddhist Sinhalese nationalism is viewed as a reaction to western influences rather than an autonomous development of Sinhalese society and culture.

By the spring of 1966, it was abundantly clear in New Delhi that the Third Five Year Plan was a failure. Over the five year period (1961–66), the rate of increase in national income was less than half the projected level. Per capita income showed no increase at all. At the same time, prices for all commodities rose by over one half. The price index for foodgrains climbed by more than 56 per cent. By 1966, food shortages were so severe that some thirty million persons in major cities and towns were placed under statutory rationing. Another two hundred million—over one-third the population—were brought under partial rationing schemes. Even so, the general price index rose by another 38 per cent in 1967. Once again, foodgrains took the lead with a price increase of 44 per cent.

A large number of us who are here today in 1969 remember the early beginnings of our organization. I remember particularly a small gathering of one of our earlier incarnations in John Fairbank's livingroom discussing our problems, when we were so small that Wilma Fairbank could send out the postcard notices of meetings without any secretarial help. We are now old enough to have acquired traditions, one of which is the rotation of the presidency from China to South East Asia to Japan to South Asia and then round again. By a fortunate chance the turn of South Asia falls this year on the centenary of the birth of the greatest of South Asians of modern times. Another of our traditions is that the president should deliver an address on a topic close to his own special interest—in my case the history of modern India. I am, however, going to deviate somewhat from that practice this afternoon. In closing, I shall make some suggestions which I hope all of us will keep in mind in this new era of Asian history which is now upon us.

There is a considerable body of literature on the relationship between common law and various systems of personal laws especially in the Asian context. My only excuse for adding yet another account is this: A technical legal description of this relationship, focusing on such topics as marriage, divorce, inheritance, and so on, adds a real and important dimension to the study of culture contact. Except in Hong Kong, common law is no longer the dominant political system; it has become, with local variations, “government law” in the territories under consideration. Since law is the instrument most often used in the implementation of new government policies affecting family matters, for example, it seems important that some attempt be made to describe the techniques of interaction and to set out the present law as accurately as possible. Hopefully this essay will serve as skeleton reference material on the relation between these two systems of law. To accomplish this aim I will: (a) describe the ways in which the common law has been adapted so as to take account of Chinese law, (b) state the “principles of Chinese law” which the courts have formulated in the course of this adaptation, and (c) note the points at which the respective courts in the three territories have differed in their interpretation regarding the content of Chinese law.

Since the end of World War II there has been a nation-wide burgeoning of academic interest in South Asia, that is to say, in India, Pakistan, Ceylon, and Nepal. The pioneering teaching and research program in South Asian Studies was established at the University of Pennsylvania in 1947 with substantial support from the Carnegie Corporation. This program comprised a balance of humanistic and social science studies supported by the teaching of the appropriate classical and modern languages of South Asia as tools of research. Concerted efforts were early made to acquire adequate library materials to support all aspects of the program. These efforts which involved direct contact with the highly disorganized Indian book trade were initially frustrating but eventually met with success. Problems of processing and cataloging followed on those of acquiring the books but by the end of the first decade Pennsylvania had what seemed then to be quite adequate library support for its pioneer program in South Asian studies.

India's recent abstention on both the U.S.Soviet sponsored Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty, “commended” by the U. N. General Assembly, and the Security Council's resolution offering “guarantees” to signatory non-nuclear weapons nations was prompted as much by domestic as by international considerations. Probably for the first time since India's independence, a major foreign policy position of the Indian government has been influenced by opposition parties, especially the Socialists. Heretofore, Indian foreign policy was almost exclusively the preserve of the governing Congress Party and within it of the Prime Minister and a few political and civil service confidants. This monopoly was increasingly challenged within both Congress and the Parliament, beginning with opposition to Nehru's position on the Hungarian revolt of 1956, and continuing through Prime Minister Shastris' Tashkent agreement of 1965. But it was the results of the Fourth General elections of 1967, and the rise of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty issue, that gave all opposition parties a more influential role in the formation of foreign policy. Among the most persistent, vocal, and influential critics against Indian support for the nuclear non-proliferation treaty have been the Praja Socialist (PSP) and Samyukta Socialist (SSP) parties who receive powerful support fromthe Jan Sangh, from Independents, and from within the Congress Party itself. Right Communists and Swatantra, on the other hand, favor the treaty.

The central role of the intellectual in Chinese history, and the centrality of A history to the Chinese intellectual—this is the most persistent theme in the provocative writings of Ku Chieh-kang (b. 1893), iconoclast editor of the Kushih pien and historical revisionist par excellence. During the nineteen-twenties and thirties Ku Chieh-kang was a pre-eminent exponent of that non-Marxist scholarship which set for its goal a purge and reconstruction of China's major intellectual traditions. In this essay, as we examine his efforts to “reorganize the nation's past,” we will want to keep in mind that his interests in China's past and China's present meet in his concern with the place of intellectuals and scholarship in the larger society.

North China in a.d. 546 was the scene of a contest between two men, de facto rulers of the fractions of Northern Wei which had held the entire area for over one hundred fifty years but had been split in the middle of the previous decade. One of the two men, Kao Huan,b headed the state called Eastern Wei, in Shansi and Honan, which became the dynasty of Northern Chʻi under his descendants. The other, Yü-wen Tʻai,e ruled Western Wei, in Shensi, later to become Northern Chou. The ensuing half-century witnessed the final victory of Northern Chou over Northern Chʻi, the usurpation of Northern Chou by the founder of the Sui dynasty, and Sui's destruction of the last of the Southern Dynasties to unify all of China and usher in the era of Tʻang.

The discovery and use of vernacular sources is a critical task for South Asia specialists. Area centers have produced scholars who are dissatisfied with English books and records as the primary source for understanding South Asia. The development of vernacular materials, however, has not kept pace with the new interests and attainment of language skills. Although individuals have unearthed caches of vernacular documents, no systematic effort is being made to publicize existing collections or to locate additional ones.