ABSTRACT This article discusses the potential of autobiography for understanding histories of childhood, the effects of late-colonial social policy and the experience of change in India in the decades immediately preceding independence in 1947. This was an era characterized by both increased state intervention in the lives of poor Indian children and the growing influence of universalizing notions about modern childhood. Based on a detailed study of 55 autobiographies produced by those born between 1910 and 1940, the article analyses the ways in which childhood was imagined, defined and discussed by South Indians through memories that coalesce around the themes of innocence, play, education, work, family and social identity. It demonstrates that these narrations of memory also convey aspirations for contemporary Indian children through comparative reference to the binary of ‘today’ and ‘those days’. The article reveals the complexity of ideas and experiences at a local level which, despite the commonality of age, were refracted through the distinctions of gender, religion, race and class.

中文翻译：

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回忆印度南部独立前的童年：询问自传和身份

摘要 本文讨论了自传对于理解童年历史、后期殖民社会政策的影响以及印度在 1947 年独立前几十年的变化经历的潜力。印度贫困儿童的生活以及现代儿童普遍化观念的影响越来越大。基于对 1910 年至 1940 年出生的人的 55 部自传的详细研究，本文分析了南印度人通过围绕纯真、游戏、教育、工作、家庭和社会认同。它表明，这些记忆的叙述也通过比较参考“今天”和“那些日子”的二元关系，传达了对当代印度儿童的渴望。文章揭示了地方层面的思想和经历的复杂性，尽管年龄相同，但通过性别、宗教、种族和阶级的差异折射出来。