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In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, working-class
people across northern India found themselves negotiating rapid
industrial change, emerging technologies, and class hierarchies. In
response to these massive changes, Indian Muslim artisans began to
publicly assert the deep relation between their religion and their
labor, using the increasingly accessible popular press to redefine
Islamic traditions "from below." Centering the stories and experiences
of metalsmiths, stonemasons, tailors, press workers, and carpenters,
Pious Labor tells the story of colonial-era social changes through the
perspectives of the workers themselves. As Amanda Lanzillo shows, the
colonial marginalization of these artisans is intimately linked with the
continued exclusion of laboring voices today. By drawing on previously
unstudied Urdu-language technical manuals and community histories,
Lanzillo highlights not only the materiality of artisanal production but
also the cultural agency of artisanal producers, filling in a major gap
in South Asian history.
