Abstract:
This paper argues for a paradigm shift in which to consider the position of exiles and renegades in Portuguese Asia. Many factors make it difficult to insist on these being marginal and disreputable categories. I suggest that locating the Portuguese empire between narrowly defined categories of ‘official’ and ‘private’ and the drawing of sharp boundaries of areas and concerns lying within and those standing outside state purview has placed serious limitations on our understanding. My study of the Portuguese presence in Bengal and Arakan is an effort to study a region of the Portuguese empire in Asia, not as an alternative model of governance but as one typical of early modern times.
BIO:
Radhika Chadha is Associate Professor in the Department of History, Miranda House. She received her PhD in History from Jawaharlal Nehru University. She has been Fellow, Fundaçao Oriente, Lisbon. Her academic interests include medieval Islamic empires, the history of early modern India, the visual culture of medieval and early modern South Asia and Gender. Her book, Merchants, Renegades, Padres: Portuguese Presence in Early Modern Bengal, is forthcoming from Primus Books.