| My study deals with a neglected aspect of South Asian historiography, that is, the ways used by the rulers of indigenous states to legitimize and to institutionalize Rajadharma: duties of the king. This dissertation demonstrates that the Kachchwaha rulers of Jaipur reconfigured ritualistic and symbolic notions of kingship, modified political ideology, bolstered bureaucracy, and used urban space to assert their authority.;This analysis of a regional kingdom adds to the existing critiques of models that have been hitherto used to study Indian political structures. Use of such models has led to study of the states as static, stagnant, and distant powers active only at the level of extraction and coercion. I have examined mostly un-catalogued archival material for the Jaipur state that has been preserved in the Rajasthan state archives. The archives contain official correspondence, letters of direction, and statistical data on revenue, income, expenditure, fines, market rates, and taxes. The data contributes to present a multifaceted view of the political structure in Jaipur, where the practice of politics involved the management of the day-to-day lives of subjects through new forms of surveillance and control, including an efficient bureaucracy.;This in-depth analysis of a regional kingdom focuses on the political agency of its rulers to demonstrate how they articulated complex ideological frameworks of governance by engaging their societies in the institutionalization of sovereignty. The rulers and their subjects were not passive actors in the processes through which political authority was consolidated and systemized. These states strengthened their rule by incorporating urban and rural social groups in the realm of politics through a variety of mechanisms. Furthermore, the most successful manifestation of the sovereignty of the Indian rulers was their propagation of moralizing rhetoric articulated through the interpretation of law and the control of the judicial process. These were conscious and deliberate attempts by the Kachchwahas to delve more intrusively into their subject's lives at the level of everyday practice. This is especially evident in the realm of the family in order to reproduce gendered patriarchies. |
