@article{ref1,
title="Panic, false news, and the roots of colonial fear",
journal="Journal of British studies",
year="2023",
author="Leonard, Zak",
volume="62",
number="3",
pages="713-738",
abstract="This article offers a microhistory of a forgotten panic that engulfed the north Indian city of Allahabad in 1870, when the city's European residents began to anticipate a revolt by the native infantry. Rumors of this looming event, I argue, confirmed suspicions that ill-advised income tax legislation and military retrenchment had created a combustible situation. The apparent threat of insurrection was therefore symptomatic of a more systemic ailment: burgeoning distrust between the government of India, local officials, and British civilians. Rather than undertaking counterinsurgent action against dissident Indians or so-called Wahhabi agitators, the central administration attempted to tamp down European critique of its policies. I thereby foreground the government's confrontational relationship with the Anglo-Indian press and analyze its legalistic efforts to police the new telegraph lines that brought the false news of this fictitious mutiny to metropolitan notice.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0021-9371",
doi="10.1017/jbr.2023.3",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jbr.2023.3"
}