Introduction

This volume seeks to reclaim the concept of the colonial encounter from the world of binary thinking. The term ‘encounter’ seems to be obviously relevant for analysing colonialism because it has been thought to imply, in common sense and academic parlance alike, the conquest of a land and its people by another. Colonialism has long been made sense of in a varied gamut of scholarship in such dyadic terms, placing the coloniser and the colonised in mutually exclusive categories and hierarchical relationships, an understanding of the colonial encounter almost as problematic as one transfixed with unidirectional impact of European rule. Yet, the analytical frame of the colonial encounter has also informed a distinctive approach to world history - one that examines the exchanges, networks and institutions that bring communities into contact, co-dependence and conflict. Thus, we argue, the concept of the colonial encounter remains an important index for history writing in India and other formerly colonised nation states.