TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2023//
TI  - Panic, false news, and the roots of colonial fear
JO  - Journal of British studies
A1  - Leonard, Zak
SP  - 713
EP  - 738
VL  - 62
IS  - 3
N2  - 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>
LA  - en
SN  - 0021-9371
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jbr.2023.3
ID  - ref1
ER  -