The Middle Class in Colonial Malabar: A Social History

The middle class in colonial Malabar faced modernity’s upheaval while redefining domestic life and social ties.

Members of the middle class in colonial Malabar left behind a copious amount of writings. These are to be found, among other places, in magazines, autobiographies and diaries. This book explores the social history of the middle class in the region during the British period on the basis of these writings in combination with archival sources. It delves into how they conceptualized domesticity, forged new friendships cutting across caste, and sometimes, even racial lines, and the new forms of leisure they envisaged. The author also analyses the dilemmas the group faced as it responded to the changes unleashed by colonial modernity at their work places, in the public sphere, and inside homes, where they desperately clung on to tradition even while accepting much of what the West had to offer.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgements 7
• Introduction 9
• The Middle Class: The Context and the Contours 8
• 1. The World of the Middle Class 32
• 2. Domesticity: In Theory and Practice 59
• 3. Changing Forms of Leisure 94
• 4. Caste and the Middle Class 121
• 5. Negotiating Tradition and Modernity 137
• Conclusion 163
• Glossary 169
• Bibliography 171
• Index 187
• Plates