Many Makings of a ‘Heartland’

Any historical account of modern UP has to inevitably confront the question: Is there still a need for yet another work on UP? Haven’t all the things worth saying already been said about the polity, economy and society of UP in the 20th century? For an exhaustive answer to the question readers are advised to go through Region, Nation “Heartland”… to get some idea of the many gaps that exist in our conventional understanding of modern UP. We for instance took UP’s regional identity for granted as something that had continued from pre-modern times into the 20th century, and therefore forgot to ask the question: How and when exactly did UP as a region come to be constituted? The book under review proceeds to answer that question for us. Region, Nation, “Heartland”, through its 471 pages, engages with two principal concerns in an interrelated manner: One, what was/were the process/es through which colonial authority in UP was structured and then eroded? Two, how did UP come to acquire such an important place in both colonial and independent India?

As the book engages with the two questions, it narrates the story of UP’s colonial and nationalist experiences and of the transformation of UP’s society and polity in the 20th century.

To take up the first question. UP, in comparison with the presidencies, was late in being colonized and was not captured in one single step.