Asian World Podcast: Exploring History and Culture with Dr. Michael Hawkins · Professor Michael Hawkins, Ph.D

Phases of Imperialism and Indigenous Response

·36 min·2 clips

Mohandas Gandhi used courts, the press, and economics to turn British colonial systems against themselves.

1. Asian World Podcast with Dr. Hawkins examines the phases of colonial resistance and indigenous response. 2. Dr. Michael Hawkins appears as host and teacher, and he draws on his classroom work on empire to frame the discussion. 3. The episode asks why indigenous peoples did not fight back earlier and how they moved from adaptation to open resistance. 4. Hawkins first rejects the idea that Southeast Asian and Indian empire looked like Spanish conquistador conquest. 5. He also rejects the idea that modern nationality and race can be projected backward onto people in the East Indies or elsewhere 400 years ago. 6. Phase one is acculturation, which he defines as indigenous and imperial actors adapting to each other to maximize power and opportunity. 7. He illustrates acculturation with Robert Clive, the Battle of Plassey, and the British East India Company gaining the Diwani to collect taxes. 8. He also uses the example of a Raja who is asked to convert 70% of his land to cash crops such as cotton, indigo, sugar, and pepper. 9. Hawkins says this same logic appears in the British colonial army of sepoys and in subsidiary alliances with rajas across India. 10. He argues that early empire often worked through collaboration rather than simple one-way domination. 11. Phase two is accommodation, which begins when empire becomes more intrusive but still offers access to power. 12. Hawkins says indigenous people then hide cultural traits, censor themselves, and keep dual identities to avoid confrontation. 13. He gives the example of families promising to send children to colonial schools and then not sending them. 14. He compares that behavior to ordinary social avoidance, like making excuses to avoid an unwanted invitation. 15. He also notes that opium use becomes a form of chemical self-medication under colonial pressure. 16. The episode links accommodation to fantasies of the past and to dystopian future visions, including millenarian sects in the 19th century. 17. Hawkins speaks in a classroom lecture style, using repeated examples and informal analogies from parties, childhood, and work. 18. The tone stays explanatory and argumentative, with long definitions broken up by historical cases from India and Southeast Asia. 19. Listeners interested in empire, colonial India, and resistance theory would get the most from this episode. 20. Listeners looking for a brief overview without theory-heavy framing may skip it.

As heard by us

A measured account of how resistance to empire can begin with accommodation rather than revolt.

Dr. Hawkins presents colonial resistance as a process shaped by choices, not a brief pause before revolt. He starts from the student question about why indigenous peoples did not resist empire sooner, then challenges the idea that numbers alone should have produced immediate…

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want a careful map of how colonial resistance develops across its phases.

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