Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c10.s2.t25.3

v2.c10.s2.t25.3

Straddling between Indian elite and British colonial culture, Singh was an able administrator, efficient military commander and enthusiastic sportsperson. He would have remained an obscure subject in history. But for his personal diaries that he wrote to keep himself amused, not only provide an excellent ethnographic account of contemporary Rajput nobles, their individual characters and rivalries, competing social hierarchies, contemporary power games, and local elite culture under the British and Rajputs but also report on his exploits. These candidly convey his opinions on contemporary social, political and cultural structure. Kept in English for 44 years from 1898-1942, these diaries are in 89 folio volumes, each with 800 pages. Excerpts from his diaries have been edited with commentary by Susanne H. Rudolph and Lloyd I Rudolph with Mohan Singh ‘Kanota and published as *Reversing the Gaze: Amar Singh’s Diary, A Colonial Subject’s Narrative of Imperial India*, Westview Press, USA, 2002.