The Nation and Its Margins : Rethinking Community [1 ed.] 9781527544574, 9781527540187

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The Nation and its Margins

The Nation and its Margins: Rethinking Community Edited by

Aditi Chandra and Vinita Chandra

The Nation and its Margins: Rethinking Community Edited by Aditi Chandra and Vinita Chandra This book first published 2019 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2019 by Aditi Chandra, Vinita Chandra and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-4018-9 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-4018-7

Dedicated to the four brothers, Girish, Harish, Shrish, and Apurva Chandra, for holding the family together through food and laughter with all our diverging perspectives. And for giving to us, as inheritance, the gift of celebrating heterogeneity.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ................................................................................... ix Introduction: Between the Borders of Nations, Creating Third Spaces ...... 1 Aditi Chandra Mission of Cultural Unity: Tagore’s Universalism as a Panacea for Aggressive Nationalisms .................................................................... 16 Sarvani Gooptu Historical Narratives and the Imaginaries of Community Identity: Mithila in Some Key Historical Texts ...................................................... 33 Mithilesh Kumar Jha The Anglicization of India’s Baghdadi Jews and their Emergence as Intermediaries between the British and the Indians.............................. 47 Navras J. Aafreedi Sikhs in the United Kingdom: From ‘Immigrants’ to ‘Transnational Community’.............................................................................................. 61 Vijayta Mahendru Protests in Print: Resistance against Indian Indentured Labour in Nineteenth Century Bengal .................................................................. 90 Sudipto Mitra and Purba Hossain The Indian Encounter with Western Medicine: Recounting Women’s Experiences from the Late Nineteenth Century ...................................... 109 Sharmita Ray Indian Mythology in Derek Mahon’s An Autumn Wind........................ 128 Tapasya Narang Words know no Borders: Decoding Youth Culture in the Twentiethcentury World ......................................................................................... 139 Titas De Sarkar

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Death of an Empire: Subjectivity and Asian Pragmatism in José Martí’s Annam .................................................................................................... 152 Vinh Phu Pham A Sovereign Surrender? Digital Modernity and the Subject of Neoliberal Control .................................................................................................... 172 Debaditya Bhattacharya Editors and Contributors......................................................................... 181

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

No book was ever completed by one person, let alone an edited volume of essays. We have a small village to thank. We are tremendously appreciative of Ignacio Lopez-Calvo who is the founder and organizer of the annual East-West intercultural relations conference where early versions of these essays were presented. The eighth East-West conference, which was titled “Reconsidering Cultural Ideologies and Identities in India and Beyond” was held at Ramjas College, University of Delhi, India between March 17-19, 2016. The conference would not have been possible without the dedicated assistance of the faculty, students, and staff of the Department of English, Ramjas College. They were exemplary hosts and made sure that the conference progressed smoothly and that everyone was comfortable and well fed! They formed an engaged and critical audience, which helped presenters and later these ten authors to strengthen their projects. Spanning Literature, History, Gender and Media Studies, this collection of essays is as interdisciplinary as the conference itself. We would, therefore, also like to thank all the other presenters at the conference who helped foster conversations that have likely found a place in this volume. The ten essays in this collection were chosen out of approximately thirty submissions and went through a rigorous blind peer review process. We will be eternally grateful to the anonymous peer reviewers who spent their time commenting on and honing the scholarship included in these pages. Working with Cambridge Scholars Publishing has been a pleasure. Everyone we have communicated with has been patient with delays and quick to respond when things moved faster. Many thanks to Victoria Carruthers and James Brittain for reaching out to us and starting the proposal submission process. More specifically, sincere thanks to Adam Rummens for shepherding us through the time-consuming and difficult process of a collaborative project. Thanks also to Amanda Millar for working with us through the final stages of proofreading. Tremendous gratitude to the design team at Cambridge Scholars Publishing, specifically Courtney Blades and Sophie Edminson, for an absolutely stunning book cover. And lastly, abiding thanks to our families for their patience and constant support as we worked on completing this manuscript.

INTRODUCTION: BETWEEN THE BORDERS OF NATIONS, CREATING THIRD SPACES ADITI CHANDRA

Since the fall of monarchical empires and decolonization movements across the globe, the nation has been the one abiding socio-cultural formation that has held diverse people together in unlikely communities. Unity-in-diversity—the idea that despite being different in terms of language and customs the millions of people who, by chance of fate, are born within a particular national boundary are essentially the same—is a theme that can be found at the origin narratives of all nations. Ernst Renan in “What is a Nation?” argues that the nation is conjured up as a community through an intense remembering of a glorious and cohesive historical past.1 Janaki Nair has pointed out: “all nations need history like the body needs oxygen” but that the histories that support the nation are exercises in “historical myth-making.”2 Indeed, E.J. Hobsbawm has reminded us that “a nation without a past is a contradiction in terms.”3 But, Renan reiterates that ironically, this remembering is made possible only through forgetting the violence, traumas, and ruptures that led to this newly-formed community. Benedict Anderson has famously argued that the nation is an “imagined community”—a socially constructed group that brings together diverse peoples with nothing in common except the perception of a homogenous time and a “deep, horizontal comradeship” that seemingly binds them

1

Ernst Renan, “What is a Nation? (Qu’est-ce Qu’une Nation?, 1882)” in What is a Nation? And Other Political Writings, translated & edited by M.F.N Giglioli, New York: Columbia University Press, 2018. 2 Janki Nair, “Introduction: A Teach-In for a JNU Spring” in What the Nation Really Needs to Know: The JNU Nationalism Lectures, Noida, India: HarperCollins Publishers, 2016, pp. xvii. 3 E.J. Hobsbawm, “Ethnicity and nationalism in Europe Today” in Mapping the Nation, ed. Gopal Balakrishnan, London & New York: Verso Books, 2012, pp. 255266.

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Introduction

together.4 Nation and Its Margins: Rethinking Community challenges the idea that the nation-state is the only available form of community, and questions its hegemonic control over narratives of belonging. The essays in this volume attempt to go beyond just challenging mainstream polarizing narratives: they explore cross-cultural encounters which highlight narratives that escape the neat boundaries constructed by national identities. They serve to complicate our understanding of peoples and groups and the varying spaces they inhabit by allowing narratives that have been made invisible, by hegemonic national control, to emerge. Through interdisciplinary perspectives from History, Literature, Media Studies, and Gender Studies, this volume of essays throws light on moments of cultural encounters in the Global South (specifically South Asia, South-east Asia, West Asia, and Latin America), questioning what happens when diverse communities and voices came together to challenge the notion that claiming national identity is the only acceptable mode of being, belonging, and existing in the world. In doing so, they reveal other radically innovative forms of attaining cohesion and identity. Nations are created and held together based on the idea that their citizens must necessarily be bound together by the sameness of history and experience. In addition, the characteristics of sameness that the nation desires of its citizens are determined by the dominant socio-cultural, religious, caste, racial, and gender groups. But, nationalism that extols the greatness of the nation does, indeed, celebrate diversity within its borders, hence the repeated use of the phrase “unity-in-diversity” by those who claim to envision pluralism in shaping national identity. This diversity, however, is only appreciated when it is in the service of the unity of the nation and subsumed within majoritarian narratives—often as tokens of alterity employed for tourism brochures. More critically, government projects and actions that seemingly highlight diversity merely pay lip-service to those causes and are only used as public relations efforts for consumption by social justice watchdogs. Alterity, in other words, is exploited and brutally suppressed especially when dissent emerges from those locations. The unity that the nation seeks, despite diversity, curtails heterogeneity of expression, being, and thought. Therefore, hyper-nationalists, when criticizing someone or some group, also recognize communities through the very same homogenizing and generalizing lens through which they shape themselves. The nation holds itself together as a united entity by seeing itself in opposition to a demonized enemy Other, 4

Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London & New York: Verso Books, 1991.

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who they must construct as different from themselves. But, despite this constructed difference, the hyper-nationalists cannot be attentive to the diversity within that Other. The enemy’s heterogeneity is made invisible precisely because the nation-state imagines itself as a homogenous community. The hyper-nationalists, when criticizing the citizens of another nation or the dissenters within its boundaries, are insidiously creating an inverted mirror image for the masses to look into. They represent the Other, much like themselves, as a homogenous group without heterogeneity of thought, identity, and expression. Resisting enforced consent to majoritarian discourses propagated by nation-states has gradually become dangerous across the globe. Challenging the hegemonic discourse of the nation has always spelt trouble but in the last few years it has taken on frightening proportions resulting in jail time and loss of life. To see examples in our contemporary milieus, one only has to look towards Edward Snowden—the American whistleblower of the National Security Agency—who is now on the run for his life, and the highly suspicious disappearance and murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi who openly criticized his government.5 In India, academics, activists, students, and journalists questioning governmental authorities, have been labelled “anti-national” and verbally and physically attacked. Some have lost their jobs, been forced underground or charged with sedition, and unjustly jailed for their questioning stance towards the nationstate.6 In Pakistan, marginalized communities such as the Ahmadiyas, Hazaras, and Shias are routinely under attack.7 In Bangladesh, globally5

“Edward Snowden: Fast Facts,” CNN.com, updated June 4, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2013/09/11/us/edward-snowden-fast-facts/index.html. Mark Mazetti and Ben Hubbard, “It Wasn’t Just Khashoggi: A Saudi Prince’s Brutal Drive to Crush Dissent,” New York Times, March 17, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/17/world/middleeast/khashoggi-crown-princesaudi.html 6 Clean the Nation: Inside the Facebook Group that plotted to get ‘anti-nationals’ sacked, prosecuted,” Scroll.in, February 19, 2019, https://scroll.in/article/913666/clean-the-nation-inside-the-facebook-groupplotting-to-get-anti-nationals-sacked-and-prosecuted. “JNU Sedition Case: 3 Years Later, Charge-sheet to be filed against Kanhaiya Kumar, Others,” The Wire, December 21, 2018, https://thewire.in/rights/jnu-sedition-chargesheet-kanhaiyakumar. “Who is an Urban Naxal asks Romila Thappar,” The Hindu, September 30, 2018. All articles accessed March 2019. 7 Rabia Mehmood, “The never-ending ordeal of Pakistan’s Minorities,” Amnesty International, October 16, 2018, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/10/the-never-ending-ordeal-ofpakistans-minorities/. Accessed March 2019.

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renowned photographer, Shahidul Alam, was arrested for being vocal against government violence.8 Next door, in Myanmar two Reuters journalists, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo working on stories about Rohingya Muslims, were arrested in December 2017 and imprisoned for seven years.9 While these journalists were released on May 6, 2019, fear has been instilled by their imprisonment and media repression continues.10 Some of these events, especially those directly impacting a few individuals or located in the Global South, do not generate large-scale and long-lasting outrage because they are either lost in the multiplying din of ever-increasing sources of news (online, television, and print) or not reported enough. These episodes are also polarizing, at least in the Indian context, with some believing that the actions of governmental agencies against the dissenters are justified. Stringent action against anyone who questions the nation-state comes from an increasing desire to create homogenous and bounded national communities wherein only those who conform to the rules of the perfect citizen, as described by majoritarian narratives, are considered legitimate. South Asia is not alone in this brutal silencing of dissenting voices and the marginalized. This is a matter of global concern. The United States and some European countries have routinely displayed frightening xenophobia and hatred towards immigrants. Most recently, it has manifested in the drastic reduction of refugees permitted to enter their borders despite the extensive checks that they must go through. When inside, immigrant communities of color often face discriminatory behavior in their daily lives on the basis of their religion or race. Some examples include: the heartwrenching forced separations of migrant parents from their children at the U.S.-Mexico border, Donald Trump’s demand for a wall along this boundary, his proposed ban on people from seven Muslim countries from entering the U.S., and the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union

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Eli Meixler, “Journalism Is Under Threat. Inside a Bangladeshi Journalist’s Dangerous Journey From Photographer to Prisoner,” Time.com, December 11, 2018, http://time.com/5475494/shahidul-alam-bangladesh-journalist-person-of-the-year2018/. Accessed March 2019. 9 “Imprisoned in Myanmar,” Reuters.com, Series of news reports from September 2018 until February 2019, https://www.reuters.com/subjects/myanmar-reporters. Accessed March 2019. 10 Dominic Faulder, “Myanmar media repression deepens despite release of Reuters pair” Nikkei Asian Review, May 14, 2019, https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Myanmar-media-repression-deepens-despiterelease-of-Reuters-pair . Accessed May 2019.

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or Brexit.11 Couched in national security and economic terms, these actions are symptoms of the same hyper-nationalistic and xenophobic malaise. There is a frightening similarity between the homogenizing tendencies of today’s mainstream hyper-nationalists—some of whom are heads of State—and the extreme right-wing terrorists (for example, Islamic State and far-right white nationalism). Both denounce and are afraid of what has been described as the “gray zone”—the ability of individuals to belong to and feel affinity with multiple communities and, at the same time, to also question those communities. The gray zone has also been described as the ability of people from varying political, cultural, and religious backgrounds to coexist. In November 2015, Dabiq, the online magazine of the militant group variously known as Islamic State (ISIS), Daesh, or ISIL, included an article titled “The Extinction of the Grayzone.” It celebrated the creation of two distinct camps in the world—the camp of Islam under their rule and the camp of the Western crusaders.12 Published a week after the attacks at the headquarters of the Paris-based satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, the anonymous author of this article described the gray zone as a space inhabited by any Muslim who has not joined either ISIS or the crusaders. Throughout the article, the Muslims who refuse to inhabit any one side are

11 “Timeline of the Muslim Ban,” American Civil Liberties union (ACLU), https://www.aclu-wa.org/pages/timeline-muslim-ban. “Bolsonaro backs Trump’s border wall ahead of White House Meeting,” The Guardian, March 19, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/19/jair-bolsonaro-donald-trumpwall-immigration. Julia Ainsley, “Thousands more migrant kids separated from parents under Trump than previously reported,” NBC News, Jan 17, 2019, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/thousands-more-migrant-kidsseparated-parents-under-trump-previously-reported-n959791. Annalisa Mirelli, “The US and UK have let xenophobia bring them to the brink,” QZ.com, Jan 19, 2019. Josh Gabatiss, “Brexit strongly linked to xenophobia, scientists conclude,” The Independent, Nov 27, 2017, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/brexit-prejudice-scientists-linkforeigners-immigrants-racism-xenophobia-leave-eu-a8078586.html. Gary Younge, “Britain’s Imperial Fantasies have given us Brexit,” the Guardian, Feb 3, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/03/imperial-fantasiesbrexit-theresa-may. All articles accessed March 2019. 12 Laila Lalami, “My Life as a Muslim in the West’s Gray Zone,” The New York Times, Nov 20, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/magazine/my-life-asa-muslim-in-the-wests-gray-zone.html. Murtaza Hussain, “Islamic State’s Goal: “Eliminating the Grayzone of coexistence between Muslims and the West,” The Intercept, Nov 17, 2015, https://theintercept.com/2015/11/17/islamic-states-goaleliminating-the-grayzone-of-coexistence-between-muslims-and-the-west/. Both articles accessed February 2019.

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Introduction

called “the grayish,” “the hypocrites” and, “the grayish hypocrites.”13 A similar desire to create two distinct and opposing sides is at the heart of George Bush’s call, “you’re either with us, or against us,” that he repeatedly made after 9/11.14 Similarly, those who find affinity with white nationalism believe that all Muslims, Jews, Communists, and people of color are out to destroy the white population of the world and are constructed as the ‘enemy Other.’15 The nation-state too fears the gray-zone, which allows for an interrogation of one’s communities and an embrace of expansive forms of cultural belonging. People defined as “grayish,” refuse to fall prey to stereotypes and posit a pluralistic approach when encountering those from differing socio-cultural, religious, racial, or national groups. In 2009, the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gave a powerful TED talk at Oxford titled “The Danger of the Single Story.” In it she described the ways in which complex human beings, communities, and regions of the world are reduced to a single narrative or a “single story” about them. For example, diverse people from the vast continent of Africa are understood only as poor, starving, and without any means and Mexicans are seen only as desperate migrants. People, and in turn communities, are much more than a single narrative that is manufactured about them. Adichie’s point is that each individual life contains a heterogeneous compilation of stories. Reducing people to only one story takes away their individuality, humanity, and dignity. The same can apply to religious, regional, linguistic, and even national communities. Single stories about people and places, Adiche argues, are tools by which those in power control how we understand and interact with those without power. She says that the consequence of the single, unidimensional story is that it “robs people of dignity … [making the] recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar.” It is this empathetic search for multiple narratives about any community or person that also allows for the emergence of similarities instead of focusing on irreconcilable barriers through us versus them narratives. How we tell 13

Laila Lalami, “My Life as a Muslim in the West’s Gray Zone,” The New York Times, Nov 20, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/magazine/my-life-asa-muslim-in-the-wests-gray-zone.html, accessed February 2019. 14 “You’re either with us or against us,” CNN.com, Nov 6, 2001, http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/11/06/gen.attack.on.terror/, accessed March 2019. 15 Colin P. Clarke, “The Cult of Brevik,” The Slate, https://slate.com/news-andpolitics/2019/03/anders-breivik-new-zealand-right-wing-terrorism-inspiration.html. “Connections In Hate Between NZ And Norway Shooters,” NPR.org, https://www.npr.org/2019/03/16/704039092/connections-in-hate-between-nz-andnorway-shooters. Both articles accessed, March 2019.

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stories and consequently frame communities by selective narrativization is an exercise in turning complex identities into simplistic ones. The simplistic framing of narratives often comes at the expense of silencing inconvenient voices—the disenfranchised at the margins of the nation-state or those dissenting against it. Inhabiting the “gray zone” means denying the single story; it means denying the notions of pure black and pure white and embracing diversity; of celebrating the hybrid and rejecting the idea of unidimensional and homogenous communities. This volume is a celebration of the “gray zone.” The essays discuss a variety of themes: how a critique of nationalism could emerge even amidst India’s struggle for self-determination against British colonial rule; how a regional language shaped local identities and challenged colonial and national discourses; they celebrate hybridity and communities that defy borders; they highlight that cultural identities have always-already been fractured and never been unidimensional; and reveal the frightening nature of the modern nation-state’s use of cyber surveillance. Through literary and historical case studies, they seek dissonances within homogenizing narratives and show that there are many other forms of belonging and community formation that look beyond the nation. As the world keeps dangerously spinning towards militarized borders, xenophobic violence, religious, racial, sexual, and caste discrimination, and the shutting down of discomfiting dissent, this volume makes a timely contribution that questions such exclusionary discourses. Sarvani Gooptu’s essay traces Rabindranath Tagore’s journeys through, and writings about, Asia and the West. It highlights his mission to educate the public about the countries of the world, their histories, and cultures. She focuses on Tagore’s English and Bengali articles that were published between 1900 and 1940. Gooptu argues that Tagore’s mission of cultural unity attempted to establish a sense of respect and awareness of cultures other than one’s own, in the hope that it would end the self-absorbing nationalism that he feared might degenerate into aggressive imperialistic tendencies. He believed that cultural exchanges would bring different nations into closer humanistic ties, which would create far more effective and lasting bonds than political alliances and treaties. Tagore believed in a ‘unity of souls, not political union.’ Gooptu concludes that “a reunderstanding and a re-evaluation of [the] ideas of nationalism and nation is periodically needed has been painfully proven in India.” This is precisely the project of this collection, and the reason we start the book with her essay on Tagore. The essay ends with Tagore’s words that are prescient in our times: ‘The idea of the Nation is one of the most powerful anaesthetics that man has invented. Under the influence of its fumes the whole people can

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carry out its systematic programme of the most virulent self-seeking without being in the least aware of its moral perversion—in fact can feel dangerously resentful if it is pointed out.’ And ‘if we want any merit from interaction with other countries it can only be through ‘maitri’ (friendship) and the use of the language of love. What one gets from the exploited is a compromise, only friendship can bring total commitment.’ Mithilesh Kumar Jha examines the ways in which the writing of histories has shaped the “struggle for political power” and self-determination in a diverse range of 19th-century Maithli texts, which come from modern-day Bihar and Jharkhand. Jha argues that the language, Maithli provided a powerful tool for the people of this region to represent themselves and shape their identity. He explains that while Mithila, the region in northern Bihar, was praised, by colonial administrators and Indic priests, as the seat of Sanskrit learning, the language, Maithli, was not given its due. Maithli was ignored, not just by the colonial authorities but also by the emergent Indian nationalists who supported the development of Hindi, Hindustani, and Nagari script. Jha provides close readings of five texts that recount the history of Mithila and the languages that were studied and spoken in the region such as Persian, Urdu, Hindi, and Maithli. Jha asserts that these texts “helped in developing a geographic unity among the inhabitants.” This essay reveals that even when the broader, national movement for Indian independence was gaining momentum, the shaping and development of regional identities remained a significant way to project Mithila, its history, language, and culture “as a separate and distinct geographical and political unit within India.” While these texts accept that Mithila is part of the larger national frame of India, Jha’s analysis shows that they paved “the way for a distinct consciousness about Maihtili identity.” These texts became the starting point of the struggle for recognizing Maithli as a distinct language and even shaped the demand for the separate province of Mithila. Like Jha, Navras Aafreedi in ‘Anglicization of India’s Baghdadi Jews and their Emergence as Intermediaries between the British and the Indians’ also examines language as a marker of community identity. Aafreedi shows that the Baghdadi Jews’ linguistic allegiance towards English rather than any Indic language reflects their desire to identify with the British in colonial India. Examining the migration and eventual settling down of the Baghdadi Jews (a term used for Jewish merchants from the Arab middle East, broadly speaking), Aafreedi makes sharp distinctions between other Jewish communities in India, namely the Bene Israel and the Cochini, and rejects the homogenization of a singular Jewish mode of being in India. Aafreedi discusses how Baghdadi Jews, despite being on the receiving end of colonial racism at times, made the “business-friendly” choice of being

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culturally assimilated with the British rather than the locals. While hanging on closely to their Jewish identity, they also made strong attempts, through dress and language, to connect with the ruling white community. These were survival strategies employed by a small community that was a minority. Their gradual anglicization allowed the Baghdadi Jews to become intermediaries between the rulers (British) and the ruled (Indians) and therefore also “allowed them to contribute disproportionately to their country’s cultural and commercial life.” Social ambivalence and indeed, the seeming, unethical leaning towards the colonial masters, allowed an extremely small community of foreign-origin to thrive in India. Vijayta Mahendru in ‘Sikhs in the United Kingdom: From ‘Immigrants’ to ‘Transnational Community’ writes about another religious community that has defined its identity through migration—the Sikhs. She shows how the Sikhs as immigrants to the U.K. demanded “full and equal inclusion in society, while claiming the recognition of their identities in the public sphere.” Focusing on the three waves of Sikh immigration from India to the West via Africa, Mahendru also examines three specific cases of this community’s collective agitation for the right to wear the “physical manifestations” of their faith such as the turban, beard, and the sheathed dagger. These “indispensable articles of the Sikh faith” she contends “violate publicly accepted dress codes in western societies.” Her analysis shows the fragility of the nation-state. The United Kingdom frames itself through the language of multiculturalism and unity-in-diversity but fails to live up to those goals when faced by the sartorial demands of the Sikhs. This community’s struggle to first assimilate into the new host society and later come together to uphold the symbols of their faith has also brought the “assumption of congruence between political unity and cultural homogeneity into sharp relief.” Mahendru concludes by asserting that the Sikh diaspora is not invested in the politics of nationalism and rather committed to building a strong transnational community representing a “move towards post-territorial sovereignty.” Sudipto Mitra and Purba Hossain in ‘Protests in Print: Resistance Against Indian Indentured Labour in Nineteenth Century Bengal’ go beyond the bounds of the national framework in writing the histories of the anti-colonial movement in India. Through a meticulous analysis of nineteenth century print media and public discourse, Mitra and Hossain locate the beginnings of the anti-indenture movement in surprising places such as British anti-slavery societies and trace its origins as a regional struggle in Bengal, which they argue occurred much before the movement was folded into the larger struggle for Indian national independence. Empowering the indentured labourers themselves, the authors trace dissent

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to reactions against atrocities that result in the deaths of labourers. Mitra and Hossain contend that the anti-indenture movement helped shape the struggle for nationhood rather than it owing its existence to the national struggle. It was the anti-indenture movement that was influential in shaping the nationalist politics of the early twentieth century and gave it the “rhetoric of rights” rather than the assumption that the labourers received emancipation as their movement acquired prominence in the wider struggle for national independence. Moving out of a nationalist framework, even during a time when self-determination was emerging, and locating the early history of the anti-indenture movements that worked in tandem with anti-slavery movements in Britain involving local and colonial elites, dismantles an us versus them narrative and allows for heterogenous histories of the anticolonial struggle. In ‘The Indian Encounter with Western Medicine: Recounting Women’s Experiences from the Late Nineteenth Century,’ Sharmita Ray examines the question of community formation, and the fractures therein, through the lens of gender. She traces how western medicine made inroads into India under colonial rule, the significant role played by women, both European and Indian, and the struggles faced by them. Ray frames women as “propagators and recipients of western medicine.” This analysis reveals the ways in which western medicine could, at once, be intrusive for Indian women while also creating circumstances where women could demand to be treated on their own terms. It was, ironically, the practice of ‘purdah’ that kept women of the household away from men, not connected through familial links, that facilitated the entry of European, American, and Indian women into the medical workforce. This essay shows how a form of hybrid medicine, open to female participation is shaped by women, despite patriarchy and norms of caste purity, on the insistence of female patients. Medicine has typically been understood as a component of the West’s “civilizing mission” and as a tool of empire in the colonized space. But through the training of European and Indian women in western medicine, so that they could treat Indian female patients, the hybrization of western medicine starts to occur in late 19-century India. Due to the important role played by women, both as doctors and patients, the early introduction and practice of western medicine in India escapes the homogenizing discourse of the colonial state. This coming together of European and Indian women to create a medical practice on their own terms subverts the colonial state’s intention of using western medicine to homogenize and control the colonized. Tapasya Narang and Titas De Sarkar look at texts that bring together two very disparate cultures, and the ways in which this hybridization destabilizes monolithic hegemonic stereotypes of both traditions. Narang’s

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essay titled ‘Indian Mythology in Derek Mahon’s An Autumn Wind’ analyses the poetry of the Northern Irish poet Derek Mahon, who deals with “a whole range of literary associations from Greek and Roman mythology to Indian and Chinese scriptures, borrowing fragments from different sources and innovatively reworking them to address contemporaneity, without an expression of loss at being unable to appropriate authentic or coherent cultures.” She explores Mahon’s juxtaposition of the contemporary world of flux and plurality with seemingly inherited traditions of the past. She argues that Mahon’s poetry challenges the idea of the role of the poet in “naturalizing traditional and inherited ways of reading by assuming a revivalist approach and engendering nationalist exclusivist ideologies.” Instead, he wants his audience to grapple with the fragmented reality of modern times. Narang gives a sensitive an incisive reading of Mahon’s representation of India and Indian mythology from the perspective of an Irish poet. Titas De Sarkar’s essay, ‘Words know no Borders: Decoding Youth Culture in the Twentieth-century World’ compares two literary movements from Calcutta, India and San Francisco, US in the 1950s and 1960s, and explores “such notions of desires and anxieties which cut across geographical boundaries” in the youth cultures that became a “site of resistance, artistic conflict, and reflection of codes of conduct” imposed by society. Sarkar asks why these writings were taboo in almost exactly the same way in two completely different economic trajectories, across multiple national and cultural borders. ‘Stark Electric Jesus’ (1964) by Malay Roychoudhury, the founding member of the Hungry generation of poets, and ‘Howl’ (1956) by Allen Ginsberg, the seminal Beat poet and counterculture figures respond to broader cultural and social structures, Sarkar argues. He points out how similar conservative reactions were against the two poets who inhabited geographical and cultural spaces far away from each other. “The question then arises as to how and why they were so successful in irking the institution, which from San Francisco, US, to Calcutta, India, was run by very different kinds of government,” Sarkar asks. He tentatively offers the explanation of the similarity between the two poets as emerging from the coping mechanisms of a generation of misfits who share optimism across national boundaries. Sarkar’s essay points to the hybridization of cultures that borrow from each other to respond to different situations in similar ways because of the shared human response to resist. Vinh Phu Pham’s ‘Death of an Empire: Subjectivity and Asian pragmatism in José Martí’s “Annam”’ studies the portrayal of Viet Nam by Cuban author Jose Marti who is well known for his enduring commitment to social justice and equality, and is often called the voice of the people.

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Introduction

Pham locates this story as an unusual one because, as he points out, in 19thcentury Latin American literature the new feeling of nationalism drove writers to “highlight the particularities of their country in order to distinguish themselves from their neighbors,” but Marti performs the rare deed of writing about a territory beyond the Americas and Europe to focus on Viet Nam in his short story “un paseo por la tierra de los Anamitas,” published in 1889 in the collection La edad de oro, exhibiting very strong cross cultural sympathy. Instead of focusing on the greatness and modernity of his own nation, as other Latin American writers of his time were doing, Marti writes about a place considered to be “mysterious and exotic entities outside the realms of high civilization.” Like Sarvani Gooptu’s reading of Tagore, Pham explores the way that “these imagined communities of peoples, places, and networks can generate, through Martí’s language of sympathy, a unifying humanistic idealism that has the capacity to survive long after the idealized nation-states themselves.” Pham articulates the idea of trans-nationality as a unifying sentiment that transcends national borders, which is more humanistic in nature than political. He argues that Marti’s project was not to see the political within the post-national, but to talk about the ideal state through the language of sympathy. Like other essays in this volume, Pham concludes that “the ideas which Martí presents on nationalism in “un paseo por la tierra de los Anamitas” is indeed an articulation of trans-nationalism, wherein the true object of discussion is not the fate of Cuba via Annam, but the symbolic gestures that sees a commonality beyond immediate boundaries.” The final essay in this volume, ‘A Sovereign Surrender? Digital Modernity and the Subject of Neoliberal Control’ by Debaditya Bhattacharya moves away from national boundaries to cyberspace and interrogates digital boundaries and control. He argues, “My contention places itself in opposition to the official narratives of digital humanities, which claim to be furthering democratic access to knowledge and potentially infinitizing the production of it. In this, I seek to understand the current proliferation of technological media not as a moment of emancipatory excess, but as essentially marking a neoliberal moment of control and containment.” He returns to the question of the political versus the human: “My agenda here is to renegotiate the question of the political in the field of the technological, and to look at ways in which the logic of ‘excessive access’ is in effect a mode of alienation between the digital and the human-in-humanities.” Bhattacharya looks at the process of domination in cyberspace in the way that difference is policed by the state. He incisively points out that “it is in this moment of charity that the state simultaneously consolidates its claim to sovereignty by bringing those invisible-because-geographically-remote

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masses within its own machinery of surveillance. The widening of technologized publics is conversely an enlistment of larger numbers of citizen-subjects within the network of control.” While the other essays in this volume challenge conventionally acknowledged state boundaries and strive to complicate state narratives by cross cultural encounters, Bhattacharya sees humankind as becoming “unknowing, uncritical, and unthinking mass of governable subjects.” He sees this occurring through the state’s psycho-technological surveillance through the ownership of services and devices by its citizens. The emphasis returns, then, on humane empathy across cultures to break down artificial barriers that homogenize and polarize peoples and communities. Our attempt has been to create a no-man’s land—a third space perhaps— that escapes homogenizing authority bounded by national borders. Indeed, it is the sincerest hope of the editors and contributors of this volume that the readers of this text will play a small role in healing our wounded world and guide us towards a gentle gray zone. Initial versions of these essays were presented at the eighth annual East-West intercultural relations conference at Ramjas College, Delhi University. This annual conference, which has been conceptualized by Ignacio Lopez-Calvo, travels to diverse universities across the globe every year and inspires dialogue on cultural encounters and fosters the diversities that inhabit our world. We are heartened that the celebration of the gray-zone that has been expressed in this collection will be continued by the existence of this forum.

Works Cited Ernst Renan, “What is a Nation? (Qu’est-ce Qu’une Nation?, 1882),” What is a Nation? And Other Political Writings, translated & edited by M.F.N Giglioli, New York: Columbia University Press, 2018, pp. 247-263. Janki Nair, “Introduction: A Teach-In for a JNU Spring,” What the Nation Really Needs to Know: The JNU Nationalism Lectures, Noida, India: HarperCollins Publishers, 2016, pp. ix-xxv. E.J. Hobsbawm, “Ethnicity and nationalism in Europe Today” in Mapping the Nation, ed. Gopal Balakrishnan, London & New York: Verso Books, 2012, pp. 255-266. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London & New York: Verso Books, 1991. “Edward Snowden: Fast Facts,” CNN.com, updated June 4, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2013/09/11/us/edward-snowden-fastfacts/index.html.

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Mark Mazetti and Ben Hubbard, “It Wasn’t Just Khashoggi: A Saudi Prince’s Brutal Drive to Crush Dissent,” New York Times, March 17, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/17/world/middleeast/khashoggicrown-prince-saudi.html Clean the Nation: Inside the Facebook Group that plotted to get ‘antinationals’ sacked, prosecuted,” Scroll.in, February 19, 2019, https://scroll.in/article/913666/clean-the-nation-inside-the-facebookgroup-plotting-to-get-anti-nationals-sacked-and-prosecuted. “JNU Sedition Case: 3 Years Later, Charge-sheet to be filed against Kanhaiya Kumar, Others,” The Wire, December 21, 2018, https://thewire.in/rights/jnu-sedition-chargesheet-kanhaiya-kumar. “Who is an Urban Naxal asks Romila Thappar,” The Hindu, September 30, 2018. All articles accessed March 2019. Rabia Mehmood, “The never-ending ordeal of Pakistan’s Minorities,” Amnesty International, October 16, 2018, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/10/the-never-endingordeal-of-pakistans-minorities/ Eli Meixler, “Journalism Is Under Threat. Inside a Bangladeshi Journalist’s Dangerous Journey From Photographer to Prisoner,” Time.com, December 11, 2018 http://time.com/5475494/shahidul-alam-bangla desh-journalist-person-of-the-year-2018/ “Imprisoned in Myanmar,” Reuters.com, Series of news reports from September 2018 until February 2019, https://www.reuters.com/subjects/myanmar-reporters “Timeline of the Muslim Ban,” American Civil Liberties union (ACLU), https://www.aclu-wa.org/pages/timeline-muslim-ban “Bolsonaro backs Trump’s border wall ahead of White House Meeting,” The Guardian, March 19, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/19/jair-bolsonarodonald-trump-wall-immigration Julia Ainsley, “Thousands more migrant kids separated from parents under Trump than previously reported,” NBC News, Jan 17, 2019, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/thousands-moremigrant-kids-separated-parents-under-trump-previously-reportedn959791. Annalisa Mirelli, “The US and UK have let xenophobia bring them to the brink,” QZ.com, Jan 19, 2019. Josh Gabatiss, “Brexit strongly linked to xenophobia, scientists conclude,” The Independent, Nov 27, 2017, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/brexit-prejudice-

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scientists-link-foreigners-immigrants-racism-xenophobia-leave-eua8078586.html. Gary Younge, “Britain’s Imperial Fantasies have given us Brexit,” the Guardian, Feb 3, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/03/imperialfantasies-brexit-theresa-may. All articles accessed March 2019. Laila Lalami, “My Life as a Muslim in the West’s Gray Zone,” The New York Times, Nov 20, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/magazine/my-life-as-a-muslimin-the-wests-gray-zone.html Murtaza Hussain, “Islamic State’s Goal: “Eliminating the Grayzone of coexistence between Muslims and the West,” The Intercept, Nov 17, 2015, https://theintercept.com/2015/11/17/islamic-states-goal-eliminatingthe-grayzone-of-coexistence-between-muslims-and-the-west/. “You’re either with us or against us,” CNN.com, Nov 6, 2001, http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/11/06/gen.attack.on.terror/ Colin P. Clarke, “The Cult of Brevik,” The Slate, https://slate.com/newsand-politics/2019/03/anders-breivik-new-zealand-right-wing-terrorisminspiration.html. “Connections In Hate Between NZ And Norway Shooters,” NPR.org, https://www.npr.org/2019/03/16/704039092/connections-in-hatebetween-nz-and-norway-shooters

MISSION OF CULTURAL UNITY: TAGORE’S UNIVERSALISM AS A PANACEA FOR AGGRESSIVE NATIONALISMS SARVANI GOOPTU

The dawn of the twentieth century was unique since it bred and fostered nationalistic ideas among Indians, and, at the same time, also displayed first hints of disillusionment about the very same ideas of patriotism and nationalism. Rabindranath Tagore and other intellectuals wanted to diffuse the concentration of patriotic feelings to one’s own country and spoke about the need to look beyond the nation. Tagore’s pointed out the need ‘...to establish contact with the whole world. ...India should not remain in utter obscurity. We should be able to take our part in helping the world in her present situation and occupy an honoured place in the reconstruction of civilization. India should be linked both with east and west.1 It is to Tagore’s credit that, through his ideas, he was able to influence many intellectuals in different parts of the world. There was, in him and other contributors to the periodicals of the time, a complicated conclusion regarding the lands of the East and West that they described to their readers. Unlike contemporary essays, which dealt with a particular issue or a viewpoint, these writers had multiple burdens of representing a point of view or ideal and at the same time make a description of a place or people interesting and attractive to the reader. Thus, even though there was a commitment to patriotic revolt against the colonizing West, there are many articles which describe in glowing terms the wonders of the western world. In the descriptions of the countries of Asia, the dichotomy is far less. The main sentiment that underlies the descriptions of Asian countries is refraining from binaries of their good and our bad or vice versa and an expression of similarities and explaining away the dissimilarities. There is in fact a propreitorial familiarity in the visitors who are writing about these places wherein they seem to be proud of identifying the sources of similarity. From the second decade of the twentieth century, nationalistic 1

Notes, Modern Review XXXVII, no. 4 (April 1925): 483.

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aspirations become apparent in these narratives, and past links as civilizing missions by the Indians overtake the cosmopolitan mindset that was more evident in the earlier period. This mission of cultural unity that Tagore wanted to achieve would establish a sense of respect and awareness of cultures other than one’s own, and would end the self-absorbing nationalism that he feared might degenerate into aggressive imperialistic tendencies. Cultural exchanges would bring different nations into closer humanistic ties, which would create far more effective and lasting bonding than political alliances and treaties. Tagore not only used his creative works in poetry and prose as a means to establish these bonds but, like the pilgrims of yore who travelled to distant places to disseminate the ‘true word,’ Tagore carried his mission of cultural unity to the lands of the West and East in order to establish cultural linkages and to connect the populations of the world in a humanistic bond, which even today may be the only panacea to aggressive nationalisms of the world. Tagore’s travels accompanied by his friends and followers were faithfully documented by the local periodicals and newspapers, since the entire country was waiting to learn about Tagore’s mission to create a cultural bond in the East and West. In this article I have tried to highlight the reflection of these visits on those who were writing in the popular journals to spread Tagore’s ideals. Not only was the spirit of Tagore’s ideas and speeches discussed in the vernacular press, his ‘pilgrimages’ led to a veritable flood of writing on travel to distant lands, highlighting important landmarks and easy travel routes. A study of this travel literature is interesting not only because it is very entertaining but also because it reveals various shades. The travels are informative and pictorial; and sometimes, they are not original but translations of writings by famous travellers. The ones written in the first person are a wonderful reflection of their writers as well as their perceptions of the societies and cultures they describe. There are also differences in the portrayal of the people encountered, since the reader is always kept in mind. There are also certain educative considerations that contribute to the writings when he or she is describing the lands visited. In all cases, comparisons with India are constantly made, in order to make the articles interesting and worthwhile to the Bengali reader. Interestingly, differences in perception arise in the travel writing of the West and East. The travellers from Bengal have certain preconceptions which they carry on their visits. The western lands are alien and, information about the material achievements of those cultures and its reasons is of utmost importance. ‘The East has instinctively felt, even through her aversion, that she has a great deal to learn from Europe, not merely about the

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materials of power, but about its inner source which is of the mind and of the moral nature of man.’2 The open admiration of the disciplined life of the West as well of the freedom of the individual is generally accompanied with both exhortation to Indians to adopt those disciplined ways as well as caution against getting swept away by excessive individualism, as Dwijendralal Roy wrote in his letters from England in the 1890s.3 In the case of Asian countries it is the eyes of the heart that seem to be used— similarities are highlighted in art and culture, and ties with the past are described. Objectively speaking, here too there are distinctions in the vision of South and Southeast Asia and East Asian countries. Japan and China are described more admiringly, though affinities are drawn more with China while Japan is admired from a distance. In the case of South and Southeast Asia, travellers seem to have a proprietorial attitude probably influenced by the Greater India research of the 1920s and 30s. This over the period of 1900-1940 is not this simplistic or unilateral and there are many layers and complications with changing events and time. Besides writing, Tagore also inspired action. He experimented with cultural links at Vishwa Bharati when he brought in teachers from different parts of Asia and also incorporated the art and culture of the Asian countries into the curriculum. He took world tours and sent emissaries to acquire knowledge about the art and culture of other countries, and this knowledge he then applied in his university activities. Tagore and other intellectuals spoke about a different and more long lasting colonization4 that had been achieved by India, since her influence was not through arms but spread through philosophical ideas and culture. This was something no western colonial power had visualized. These ties of friendship and interaction could be revived since the travels by scholars to the countries of Southeast and East Asia were, for most part, greeted with warmth. This sense of pride in the achievements of the past was highlighted in the writing in these journals. The idea of nationalistic pride underlying the research of Indian historians and philologists may have aroused fear of excessive pride in the mind of Tagore, but a perusal of the writings in the periodicals, though inspired by Tagore’s universalism, showed hints of national pride in the highlighting of similarity along with a celebration of the difference in the cultures of the Asian countries. But in 2

Rabindranath Tagore, Nationalism (1917) (Calcutta: Rupa and Co., 1992), 44. Dwijendralal Roy, Bilater Patra, in Rathindra Nath Roy ed. Dwijendra Rachanabali, v. 2, (Calcutta: Sahitya Sansad, 1989) (3rd ed) see also Sarvani Gooptu, The Music of Nationhood: Dwijendralal Roy of Bengal, (Delhi: Primus Books, 2018). 4 Rabindranath Tagore, Brihattara Bharat (Greater India), Kalantor, (Calcutta: Vishwabharati Granthanbibhag, 2002) Reprint (first pub in 1937), 300-309 3

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the end there was more than an underlying hint that if the Indian mind-set could be moved away from western orientation and an alternative focus of civilizational development discovered, British colonialism would be undermined and Indians empowered. I must reiterate that all these ideas with their subtleties cannot be comprehensively dealt with in one paper and this is only a small part of a larger research. For this paper I have limited my discussion to articles in English from Modern Review and from Bengali literary journals like Ananda Bazar Patrika, Antahpur, Aryadarshan, Bharati, Bharatbarsha, and Prabashi between 1900 to 1940. Through travel writings and descriptive essays, there is a mission to educate the public about the different countries of the world, their history and culture. In every article, a link was established with India, whether in the past or present, whether political, religious or cultural. In 1924, ‘Chin O Japaner Bhraman Bibaran’ (descriptions of travels in China and Japan) was published in Prabashi, where Tagore wrote that his travels were not prompted by any desire for propaganda but were the fulfilment of a longtime dream to understand the life force of an ancient civilization. Despite all the storms the country has faced for centuries, from revolutions, invasions, and civil wars, the inner strength of the huge population has remained undiminished. One should come to the country to pay homage to it in the same way one goes on a pilgrimage.5 This inspired a number of return visits by intellectuals to India and Santiniketan. Anath Nath Basu wrote about the welcome that Santiniketan gave to Chinese poet and scholar Xu Zhimo (Su Simo), a professor of Peking University who was inspired by Tagore when he visited China. According to Xu the ancient Sino-Indian cultural and spiritual contact had been revived by Tagore’s visit. Most Chinese had been unaware of India; Tagore’s personality impressed everyone so much that they wanted to renew the contact between the two civilizations. To keep the memory of Tagore’s visit fresh, a society had been set up in China, called the Crescent Moon Society. Basu gave detailed descriptions of how Kalabhavan was decorated for the visit of the Chinese scholar and how Xu addressed the students after enjoying a cultural programme organised by Dinendra Nath Tagore.6 A large number of essays are travelogues in which places of tourist attraction are highlighted. The articles encourage visitors to travel to these places. The easiest travel routes are discussed in detail. Hemendralal Roy 5

Rabindranath Tagore, ‘Chin O Japaner Bhraman Bibaran’, Prabashi 24(2)(1), (1924): 89-90. 6 Anath Nath Basu, ‘Santiniketan e Chainik Sudhi Su Simor Abhyarthana’, Prabashi 28 (2)(6), (1928): 386.

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wrote about his travels to Thailand in Prabashi in 1924. He gave details about how to reach Thailand via Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, about similarities between India and Thailand, with descriptions of the settlers and the Indian influence in architecture. He ends on a note of admiration, observing that an Asian state so close to India was prospering on its own.7 In Bharatbarsha, Ganesh Chandra Maitra published a pictorial journey of Burma in ‘Brahma Prabasher Chitra.’8 In the same journal, there is a descriptive essay on Korea, where Bharat Kumar Basu lauds various aspects of life in that country, but laments that there has been a destruction of traditional handicrafts and customs with the Japanese occupation in 1904; however, he observes, Korea has achieved something great—their women have been emancipated.9 There is a serialized travelogue by the magician P. C. Sarkar in Bharatbarsha called ‘Japaner Pothe.’ He travelled all over Japan and visited all the tourist sites, and his performance was deeply appreciated—he was named the Houdini of India and given a giant pack of cards with an inscription that said, ‘in appreciation of the great achievement you have made in the art of Indian conjuring.’10 There is an interesting article in Bharatbarsha about a globe trotter on a bicycle tour through China. On his way to Mongolia, Kshitish Chandra Bandopadhyay fell among dacoits and was kidnapped when his bicycle was hit by a bullet. He fell unconscious and when he came to he discovered that he was in a room surrounded by Chinese soldiers. Realizing that he was not among dacoits, he demanded to be taken to meet their leader. When he was taken to the Captain’s room, he noticed that behind the captain’s desk were pictures of Lenin and Stalin. The Captain asked his name and then whether he was from India. He wanted to know the purpose of Bandopadhyay’s visit and if he could prove that he was not a government spy. Bandopadhyay showed him his identity papers and a letter from Mahatma Gandhi appreciating his feat. The reaction was most gratifying; the Captain immediately set him free saying that he had deep respect for the Mahatma.11 Women’s travel narratives have a dimension of their own. The exploration of the western countries by women belonging to a colonized 7

Hemendralal Roy, ‘Shyamrajya’, Prabashi 24 (2)(1), (1924): 64-73. Ganesh Chandra Maitra, ‘Brahma Prabasher Chitra’, Bharatbarsha, 14(1), (1927): 75-86. 9 Bharat Kumar Basu, ‘Korea’, descriptive essay, Bharatbarsha, 18(1), (1930): 273. 10 P. C. Sarkar, ‘Japaner Pothe’, Bharatbarsha, 25(2), (1937): 62-69. 11 Kshitish Chandra Bandopadhyay, ‘Chine Doshyuder Haate’, Bharatbarsha 26(2), (1938): 261-65. 8

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nation and then sharing of their experience through travel narratives in the form of a diary entry or letters has hardly been documented. To this was added from the twentieth century, travel eastward to the neighbouring Asian countries where the discourse followed a different trajectory and brought in a nationalist dimension to the cosmopolitan outlook. Travelling eastward was an extension of the home and created closer affinities than travels to the west. All the travel writers remember their own country from the moment they leave it, whether they are off on a short tour or a prolonged stay. They compare every aspect of the places they visit with comparable situations in India and create a sympathetic bond between the traveller and the reader.12 Sarala Debi Chowdhurani in Burma Jatra (Travels to Burma in 1928) in Bharatvarsha in (1931-32) compares Rangoon with Calcutta saying that both were cosmopolitan cities and just like in certain localities of Calcutta one cannot see Bengali faces so also in Rangoon, some streets are devoid of Burmese.13 Mrinalini Raha, who lived in Burma for some years and wrote Brahmaprabasher Kotha (Descriptions of Life in Burma) in Antahpur much earlier in 1902, held a similar view when she said that ‘in Rangoon, the number of expatriate Indians is more than that of the locals and they come mainly for trade, business or professional reasons... India and Burma’s destinies are tied by the same thread- the same British monarch rules over both countries.’14 It was her intention to make her readers forget the quaint ideas they had previously held about Burma. She compares the roads and infrastructure of the capital city Rangoon or Yanggon as the local people call it, with the different Indian cities and points out that ‘only Jaipur is comparable in beauty’ and ‘unlike Calcutta, Rangoon never suffers from muddy roads.’15 These women look at the countries they visit with appreciative yet discerning eyes. Sarala Debi admires the modern buildings that she notices in Rangoon but says that they retain a Burmese identity unlike those of Calcutta which are cosmopolitan but have no ‘Bengaliness’ in them.16 Besides comparisons with India, these travelogues also establish connections by referring to past linkages. Sarala Debi refers to Rangoon as part of Greater India and expresses pride in the Indic connections in the 12

See Sarvani Gooptu, Crossing the threshold into the World: Travel narratives by Bengali Women in the 20th century, Asian Studies, vols XXXV, Nos 1&2, (JanDec 2017): 1-15. 13 Sarala Debi, Rangoon, Bharatvarsha, 19 (2) (4), (1931): 606. 14 Mrinalini Raha, Bharmadesher Kotha (Descriptions about Burma), Antahpur, 5(8), (1902): 161-64 15 Ibid: 163. 16 Sarala Debi, Rangoon, Bharatvarsha 19 (2) (4), (1931): 605.

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past but her awareness of the trends in people’s mindset is revealed when she mentions that this point should not be stressed as it was not appreciated by the local people. There are differences in the outlook of the two women separated by time, education and background when they discuss the Burmese. An important part of the gendered vision is that women are much more visible in women’s eyes and most of the descriptions about the people are about them. It is interesting that in almost all the essays there is mention of Indians, even Bengalis but writing about local people made it more authentic. As Sarala Debi writes, ‘it gives one pleasure to meet one’s own countrywomen abroad but it was more rewarding to meet the citizens of the new nation we were visiting, to learn about their customs, social behaviour, literature and history, art and culture. To make it interesting for her readers she writes in detail about the dinner she attends at the home of Mrs Bardoon, wife of a government employee well versed in Burmese history and culture. ‘Mrs Bardoon made several vegetarian dishes and refused to sit down for dinner with her guests and preferred to serve the meal herself. ‘Just like a doting mother she made sure that I ate the meal like a proper Burmese and not like an ignoramus.’17 From her conversation with the Burmese couples the Bardoons and the Portoons, Sarala Debi realised that they were not very receptive to ideas of Greater India or links with India’s Hindu past. Historically their affinity was with Sri Lanka, from where Buddhism came to Burma. Also political and economic clashes between Indian and Burmese in Burma in the recent times had led to a denial of any past links.18 Reading the articles decades after their publication, one comes across many stereotypical assumptions which were obviously topics of debate at various times. While discussing Burmese women, Mrinalini Debi, reasserts the established view that Burmese women were the very epitome of emancipation as evident from the businesses they ran and the markets which were almost entirely run and managed by them and yet shows her disapprobation about what she calls an ‘alien sense of morality’ which she attributes to the lack of rigidity of marriage rules and lack of education among them. This she points out has resulted in ‘a new law being passed prohibiting cohabitation between foreigners and Burmese women so that the whole race doesn’t end up as a mixed race.’ Her interpretation of what she refers to as the ‘lax morals of the society’ is that it is due to a misrepresentation of Buddhism which ‘has led to the degeneration of the 17 18

Sarala Debi, Rangoon, (1931): 610-11. Sarala Debi, Rangoon, (1931): 609-610.

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nation.19 Mrinalini’s frank and assertive tone is rare in any narrative by a woman till one realises that Antahpur where this essay is published was a magazine for women by women. Three decades later, in her essay Rangoon, Sarala Debi points out to her Indian women readers that their notion that Burmese women are beyond the bindings of patriarchal society is a fallacy and there is not much difference between the ‘ideal Indian and ideal Burmese’ in this regard.20 Rabindranath Tagore’s cultural voyages or ‘pilgrimages’ as he preferred to call them, started from 1916 through Burma, Southeast Asia, Japan, and then to North America, which coincided with the research of the French and the Germans that showed the spread of the influence of Indian civilization in the lands of Asia, leading to great euphoria within the country. Indian researchers in history and linguistics started contributing to this quest for the discovery of Indian ‘colonies’ outside the Indian territory, as a means of fighting the British colonizers as equals. Later, scholars working on Southeast Asian history and culture felt that not enough credit was being given to local genius and, in the 1940s, a debate raged among the Dutch and French scholars regarding the extent of Indian influence in shaping the art and culture of this region. Unlike FDK Bosch and George Coedes, Van Leur and Stutterheim believed in a more vibrant local society in Southeast Asia influencing architecture and culture.21 Thus in the twentieth century, Asia was the focus of the Indian intellectuals but the spirit of the West was always a place to learn from. Tagore visited different parts of Europe and America and Ananda Bazar Patrika faithfully followed Tagore’s visits within the country and abroad from 1923. During his visit to China, Japan and Southeast Asia in 1923-4, ABP commented that Tagore, in his speech to the students in China, stressed the unity of all races and the brotherhood of man. He was quoted saying that, ‘we are preparing the way—not for any self-aggrandizement nor power, only for brotherhood. Today ease of communication has made it possible for us to meet but our souls remain separate. Despite the obstacles in the path of unity between China and India, a way will surely

19 Mrinalini Raha, ‘Burma-Burmi’ (Burmese Men and Women), Antahpur, 6(8), (1903):178-79. 20 Sarala Debi, Rangoon (1931), 612. 21 Kwa Chong-Guan, ed., ‘Introduction’, in Early Southeast Asia Viewed from India: An Anthology of Articles from the Journal of the Greater India Society (New Delhi: Manohar, 2013).

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emerge.’22 After that visit, ABP said that Tagore had expressed the idea that ‘Asia’s ideals are different from the materialistic ideals of the West. Everywhere in Asia the realisation has dawned that in the near future a new life force will emerge from Asia’s ancient traditions.’23 That Tagore’s visits were very well received in China is evident from the quotations in ABP from various leading Chinese newspapers: Peking Leader, North China Standard, Peking Daily News, Far Eastern Times, etc. Their welcome Tagore likened to ‘the welcome of a grooms party at a wedding.’24 Yet as he admitted himself, there were some who protested against the presence of an Indian poet who would, through preaching spiritual non-materialism inspired by Buddhism, adversely affect their newfound confidence.’25 Tagore claimed they were a minority, Communists and even they did not insult him personally. He followed this visit with travel to South America (Argentina), and then to Geneva and Italy. He announced on 7 March 1925, that the reason for his visits to these places was to bring about an ideal of unity in the knowledge systems of the West and the East: ‘I have created Vishwa Bharati for this purpose and….have done my duty as the ‘Sun’ (Ravi) of the East and now want to complete my work in the West. It is on this spiritual unity that material unity of the world depends.’26 In 1926, the resounding success of Tagore’s visits to Germany created disapproval in the London newspaper, Daily Telegraph, noted ABP. The Daily Telegraph said that the ‘Germans must have an ulterior motive in their welcome to Tagore. They want to gain access to the Indian markets which is why they are showing adulation to an Indian who is so respected and loved.’27 ABP responded to this the very next day by a retort that the British newspaper was jealous that a personality from a colonized nation could get such a warm welcome in the West.28 There is another reference in 1929, when ABP raised the question of the humiliation of a world renowned poet, a Nobel Laureate, at the American Immigration in Vancouver where he was questioned on who his sponsor was and whether he had ever been jailed.29 Despite the provocation, Tagore, in his interview 22

Chittaranjan Bandopadhyay, compiler, ‘Chine Rabindranath, Bideshi Tar’, Anandabazar Patrika (henceforth ABP), 11 June 1924, in Rabindra Prasanga: Anandabazar Patrika I (Calcutta: Ananda Publishers, 1993), 499. 23 ‘Rangoon e Rabindranath’, ABP, 15 July, (1924), op. cit.: 500. 24 Rabindra Nath Tagore, Chin O Japan, Bharatbarsha, 12(1)(3) (1924):425 25 Ibid. 26 ‘Rabindra Sandarshane’, (Associated Press of India), ABP, (7 March 1925): 508. 27 ‘Germany te Rabindranath’, ABP, (20 Sept, 1926): 513. 28 ‘Jothkinchit’, ABP, (21 Sept, 1926), ibid. 29 ‘Americar Soirachar’, ABP (8 July, 1929) : 553-4.

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in Modern Review, refused to comment on the incident, pointing out that Miss Mayo’s book Mother India was a far graver issue of contention between the Indian nation and the United States than his humiliation.30 Much before Tagore ventured to popularise Asian theatre and dance in India, there are references to them in the journals. In the second year of its publication, Bharati, mouthpiece of the Tagore family, published a discussion on Burmese drama as well as translation of a Burmese play. The essay starts with the words, ‘we consider the Burmese (or Mogs as they are colloquially referred to) as uncivilized but how can a people who have a culture of drama and a love for dramatic art be considered to be uncivilized? This is worth pondering over. Dramatic performances for the Burmese are national festivals. It casts a tremendous influence over all classes of Burmese who wait eagerly for an occasion to witness a poye performance. There is generally a very large crowd who come to such a performance but there is great discipline among the audience who watches the play in rapt silence. They get so involved with the play that at times they suffer with the pain of the characters while at other times they burst out laughing at the comic characters.’31 The writer whose name is not mentioned also describes the performance and stage. ‘The dress of the performers is very bright and gorgeous but the stage and backdrop is simple. The theatre hall is constructed with bamboo sticks and the roof is thatched with grass but the whole stage is covered with colourful cotton and silk cloth. The stage is in the middle of the hall and a tree branch is planted to indicate a forest scene. It is amazing how a single branch can represent the whole forest in the imagination of the viewers. The tree branch is surrounded with lamps created from the boat-like stems of banana trees in which petroleum oil is poured in and lit. For the well to do audience, seats on higher ground were prepared while the ordinary folk, were seated huddled together on the ground. The musical instruments which accompanied the performance were seated behind the stage and behind them was the so called green room where the actors changed their costumes as well as entered and exited...In almost all the dramas there was a princess for whom the prince pledged undying love, there was the King who was the prince’s guardian, there were strict and wise ministers, the obedient courtiers and the princess’ companions present. There was bound to be a royal court with music performance, and the prince would always have a companion whose role was like that of a vidushak (a jester) like the Indian plays. His performance would keep the Burmese audience in 30 31

‘Americay Rabindranath’, ABP, (27 August, 1929): 555-56. Brahmadeshiya Natok o Natokabhnoy, Bharati, 2(2)(1), (1877): 306-14

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splits.’32 Having provided a similarity with Indian plays the writer underlies the difference as well. ‘In Burmese language the same word takes on a different meaning with a change of the intonation. That is why the language is very favourable for satires and farces because of the use of double meaning. The dialogues were mostly conversational though at times there were soliloquy and music and dance sequences to break up the monotony of continuous dialogues.’33 As proof of the high lyrical quality of the plays an example (a translated play called Rajatgiri) has been provided for the enjoyment of the readers of Bharati. Kalidas Nag who accompanied the poet on many of his voyages, discussed the drama forms of Java in an article curiously called Dwip Bharater Natyakala (the Dramatic art of Island India). This article tries to trace similarities between the dramas of India and Java in different ways. He finds similarities between the Wayang Orang portrayal of the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata and the Yatra performances. He says that there are similarities between the masked dance drama of Wayang Topeng of Bali and the Ramleela of North India and the Kathakali of South India. He also compares a Puppet drama performance he saw at a funeral service in Bali to the creation of kush (grass) puppets at a Hindu Shraddha (funeral) ceremony. Nag also finds similarities between the Wayang golek puppets of mid- western Java and Indian puppets. The shadow play Wayang Purva is based on Indian epics while the Wayang Gedok is based on local traditions and myths called Panji literature. He expressed hope at the end that there would be joint research on drama by Indian and Indonesian scholars.34 Suniti Chattopadhyay provides detailed descriptions of Chinese theatre in Singapore in Prabashi - the costume and make-up of the artistes and the very loud orchestra which sound strange to Indian ears.35 Even before nationalistic ideas created an interest in Asia, a cosmopolitan mindset attempted to make readers aware of the culture of other Asian countries. One of the first articles on music in the journal Aryadarshan,36 traces connections with Chinese music and translates Chinese songs into Bengali notations. Though Sourindro Mohon Tagore, worked relentlessly to popularise the theory and practice of music in India, it is not sure if it was he who was the writer Sri Sou/Sri Sourindra of Music traveller 32

Ibid: 307 ibid 34 Kalidas Nag, Dwip Bharater Natyakala, Prabashi, 29 (1)(6), (1929) 35 Suniti Kr Chattopadhyay, Javadwiper Pothe, Prabashi, 28(1),(1928) 36 Sri Shou/Sri Sourindro., Sangeet Pathik., Aryadarshan, 1(1)(3)(4)(6)(7)(9),(1874): 51-54; 134-142; 192-199; 295-346; 434-439. 33

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(Sangeet Pothik) who in six issues in 1874 describes his voyage to China amid great hardship and misfortune where he finally accomplishes his heart’s desire - the study of Chinese music. ‘Till today,’ he writes, ‘China was still a foreign country to me, in outward appearance, in people’s character, in social creativity, in its language, in every way China was dissimilar to us. But in music, China and India, especially ancient India, is the same. Such a long time has elapsed since the inception of the two nations that it is difficult to say with any degree of certainty which country influenced which. But if one listens to Chinese music, one feels that it is a replica of Indian music- what difference there is, is due to passage of time and social differences. Since maintenance of traditional practices untainted by foreign influences is of utmost importance, the old Chinese music is continued even today...’37 The author’s intention in discussing Chinese music is to trace similarities with Indian music and to establish an Asian solidarity. As he points out, ‘it is difficult for the Western musicologists to comprehend the nuances of Chinese music38 which is why they are not enamoured by it. The understanding of the grace-notes or srutis requires an oriental musical ear. However to us, Chinese music seems melodious and familiar, very similar to the ragas Bhupali and Bibhas...In the end demonstrates this through applying Chinese music to Indian notations to show the similarity between Mu-li-hoya and Bhupali ragas.39 This interest in Asian music was sustained through the next decades in the different journals. Narendra Dev’s essay on Thailand in 1924, says that music permeated Thai lives much more than any other country. Almost everyone trains in singing and it was considered a matter of shame if one couldn’t sing. They also have many musical instruments which are performed in solo as well as in an orchestra. The Thai soldiers march during a military campaign while singing marching songs.40 Rabindranath was so determined to undo pride evoked in the memories of past colonization of Asia by India that he decided that the only way to mitigate it was through an inverse colonization. Not content with simply creating awareness he devised a unique plan of cultural assimilation in his university curriculum. He invited scholars to lecture and teach various subjects and Asian languages at Vishwabharati, Santiniketan. His large repertoire of songs he set to tunes which were influenced by world music and in the dance dramas he decided to experiment with dance forms of 37

Sri Sourindro, Sangeet Pathik, opcit, 1(6), (1874): 295-96 He analyses the works of western scholars on Chinese music to prove his point. Sri Sourindro, Sangeet Pathik, opcit, 1(7),(1874): 344-346. 39 Ibid. (1874): 299-300 40 Narendra Dev, Shyambhumi, Bharatvarsha, 12(1)(6), (1924): 905-7 38

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Asia. An excellent description of this has been given by Santidev Ghosh who graduated from a student to a teacher around 1930s. From that time Ghosh was sent to different parts of India and Asia to learn some basic techniques of different dances. After Manipuri and Kathakali, Tagore sent him to Sri Lanka four times between 1936 and 38. There he trained in the men’s Kandi dance. In 1937, Ghosh went to Burma and learnt the hand movements of the Rampoye dance drama style from a veteran dancer. Then in 1939, he went to Java and learnt the royal dance at the invitation of the king and later spent a month in Bali learning the popular dances there. He quotes a letter from Tagore which said that he should learn some distinctive steps of the various Asian dances but the implementation in Bengali dance dramas must be carefully done so that the Indian style is not swamped by the Asian. Santidev Ghosh learnt his lesson well. When he choreographed Chitrangada, he cast Maki, a Japanese No and Kabuki dancer as Madan who comes to give the boon of beauty to the princess. Madan’s character possibly allowed most innovation because Ghosh also cast alternatively a ballet dancer, and Vietnamese style dancer besides the Japanese. The dance of the Doiwala or curd seller in Chandalika was also set to Japanese dance style. There were a number of foreign students who knew different dance styles from Malaysia, Vietnam and Java and they were all associated in the dance movement of Tagore. Sometimes troupes from Vishwabharati also travelled to other countries to perform dance dramas. Anandabazar Patrika in 1934 published serially over April and May reports that Rabindranath Tagore was invited by some leading citizens of Colombo and he was accompanied by some artists and students of Santiniketan. They will present musical performances and attend an art exhibition there. On 2nd May it was said that Rabindranath would be accompanied by 20 people including the famous painter Nandalal Bose, his son Rathindranath Tagore and his wife Pratima Debi. On 4th May before his departure Tagore said that most of the students of Ceylon were educated abroad and wanted to know India intimately. “Just as a tree is destroyed when it is pulled out by its roots and replaced in a pot, the separation (of India and Ceylon) has adversely affected the original art and culture”. On 4th May, Anandabazar reported that the poet and his companions left the Calcutta docks on the SS Ichanga. On 11th May a tumultuous reception was given to the poet in Colombo by Mr Jayatilaka, the chief of the reception committee. A list of his engagements during the six weeks visit was also published.41 Ghosh mentions a performance of 41 Chittaranjan Bandopadhyay, ed., Rabindra Prasanga: ABP, (22nd Mar 1932-31st Dec 1941), Vol 3, (Calcutta: Ananda Publishers Private Ltd, 1996), 313-14

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Shaapmochon in Sri Lanka in 1938 which was praised in the Ceylon Daily News.42 The charisma of Rabindranath’s personality attracted into India a number of guests—painters, poets and writers. In the journals, there are references to visitors from various Asian countries who came to pay homage to Tagore. To commemorate the centuries long friendship ties between Japan and India, a function was organised by the Japanese Ambassador Mr Hara on 14 December 1932, where Rabindranath Tagore and the Japanese sculptor Kosetsu Nosu were invited to speak in the presence of many eminent personalities—Manmathanath Mukhopadhyay, Bhandarkar (possibly D.R.), Gaganendranath Tagore, Abanindranath Tagore, and Suniti Kumar Chattopadhyay. Mr Nosu had been engaged in engraving Buddhist sculptures on the walls of the Mulagandhakuti Vihara in Sarnath. In his speech, he said that he was using the Japanese method of art in the creation of the ancient sculptures in Bihar. In many ways the Ajanta art style and the Japanese style were very similar and he was very careful in maintaining the ancient style. This ceremony in Calcutta in 1932 was also the occasion when a golden bell was presented to the Mahabodhi Society by the United Buddhist Priest Association. This bell, according to ambassador Hara, was prepared in Kiyoto, the ancient capital of Japan. In the morning and evening during the annual holy festival in the Sarnath Vihara, this bell would be rung as an expression of the goodwill and solidarity of the Buddhist priests of Japan and India.43 Was there perhaps then a hope that Asian solidarity would stop the spread of aggressive nationalism? There is an implicit idea in all the writing of the time that the Asian nations should be aware of each other’s strengths, and tie themselves in an unshakable bond of friendship, a bond which would be mutually beneficial. The admiration of Japan and China, who had risen to become powerful nations without western help, was stressed; however, the emphasis was always on the perpetuation of their past glory, and their spiritual and ethical strength. All the leading journals expressed shock at the growth of aggressive nationalism in Japan. In 1938, there is a note by Jaladhar Sen, the editor of Bharatbarsha, stating that a famous Japanese poet Noguchi had written to Rabindranath Tagore justifying the Japanese attack on China, but that Tagore had replied saying that Japan did not yet understand the inner strength of China. At that present moment China had much greater moral strength than Japan and 42 Santidev Ghosh, Jiboner Dhrubatara, (Calcutta: Ananda Publishers Pvt Limited, 1996),141-3 43Chittaranjan Bandopadhyay ed., Rabindra Prasanga: Anandabazar Patrika, ‘Bharatbarsha O Japaner Jogsutra’, vol 3, (14 Dec 1932), 10-12.

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they should in the near future erase the painful memories and recreate a pure Asia.44 The greatest fear was that the Asian bond would be hampered and the dream of the Asiatic League would fall through. Pankaj Mishra, in his book From the Ruins of Empire, suggests that, judging from the unsympathetic reception that the poet received from the young radicals in both countries, Tagore may have misread the meaning of pan-Asianism prevailing elsewhere in Asia, especially in Japan.45 Anticipating this extreme disappointment and embarrassment by his countrymen during his time and later, Tagore said at a lecture at the University Institute in Calcutta in 1924, ‘the happiness I felt in Japan was because I found a ray of hope and a way forward...the sole aim of India should be to proclaim the faith of Asia in the language of Asia.’46 But he stressed in another journal Bharatvarsha in the same year, his anxiety about the term ‘pan Asiatic’ since it implies merging of bodies of countries which imperialism desires. ‘What is needed is unity of souls, not political union.’47 The fact that Tagore did not abandon his ideals of integration even if he gave up his visits to Japan after 1929, is evident from the experiments with the dance styles in Santiniketan. From the regular stream of articles on travel in Asia and the West, as well as discussion on events, economic and political conditions, and the development of art and culture, a new engagement with Indian nationalism was made by reviewing the similarities and dissimilarities with life in other countries. This new engagement is what Sugata Bose referred to as ‘a loftier aspiration of universalism (not a universalist boast) from the haughtier expression of cultural imperialism...more creative and generous in its delineations of cultural commonalities and difference,’48 which he refers to as a ‘different universalism.’ That a re-understanding and a re-evaluation of ideas of nationalism and nation is periodically needed has been painfully proven in India, and my exercise in exploring this intellectual strand is in response to that need. I would like to end with a fear voiced by Tagore which rings true for all times: ‘The idea of the Nation is one of the most powerful anaesthetics that man has invented. Under the influence of its fumes the whole people 44

‘Japan O Rabindranath, Samayiki’, Bharatbarsha 26 (1), (1938): 790-91. Pankaj Mishra, From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt against the West and the Remaking of Asia, (New York: Picador, 2012), 239. 46 Rabindranath Tagore, Chin o Japaner Bhraman Bibaran, Prabashi, 24 (2) (1) (1924): 100-101. 47 Rabindranath Tagore, Chin O Japan, Bharatvarsha, 12(1)(3)(1924): 426. 48 Sugata Bose, A Hundred Horizons: The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire, Delhi: Permanent Black:2006), 246. 45

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can carry out its systematic programme of the most virulent self-seeking without being in the least aware of its moral perversion—in fact can feel dangerously resentful if it is pointed out.’49 And ‘if we want any merit from interaction with other countries it can only be through ‘maitri’ (friendship) and the use of the language of love. What one gets from the exploited is a compromise, only friendship can bring total commitment.’50

Bibliography Anon., ‘Brahmadeshiya Natok o Natokabhnoy’, Bharati 2 (2) (1), (1877): 306-14. Bandopadhyay, Chittaranjan, compiled and ed., Rabindra Prasanga: Anandabazar Patrika, 22 March 1932-31 December 1941, Vol 3, (Calcutta: Ananda Publishers, 1993). Bandopadhyay, Kshitish Chandra, ‘Chine Doshyuder Haate’, Bharatbarsha 26 (2), (1938): 261-65. Basu, Anath Nath, ‘Santiniketan e Chainik Sudhi Su Simor Abhyarthana’, Prabashi 28 (2) (6), (1928): 386. Basu, Bharat Kumar, ‘Korea’, Bharatbarsha, 18 (1), (1930): 273. Bose, Sugata, A Hundred Horizons: The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire, (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2006). Chattopadhyay, Suniti Kr., Javadwiper Pothe, Prabashi, 28 (1), (1928): 142-45, 28 (2): 266-73, 28 (3):480-87, 28 (4): 594-602. Chowdhurani, Sarala Debi, Rangoon, Bharatvarsha, 19 (2) (4), (1931): 606. Dev, Narendra, Shyambhumi, Bharatvarsha, 12 (1) (6), (1924): 905-7. Duara, Prasenjit, ‘Introduction’, in Early Southeast Asia Viewed from India: An Anthology of Articles from the Journal of the Greater India Society, ed. Kwa Chong-Guan, (New Delhi: Manohar, 2013). Ghosh, Santidev, Jiboner Dhrubatara, (Calcutta: Ananda Publishers Pvt Limited, 1996). Gooptu, Sarvani, ‘Crossing the Threshold into the World: Travel Narratives by Bengali Women in the 20th Century’, Asian Studies XXXV, (1&2), (Jan-Dec 2017): 1-15. Gooptu, Sarvani, The Music of Nationhood: Dwijendralal Roy of Bengal, (Delhi: Primus Books, 2018). ‘Japan O Rabindranath’, Samayiki, Bharatbarsha 26 (1), (1938): 790-91.

49 50

Rabindranath Tagore, Nationalism, 73. Rabindranath Tagore, Chin O Japan, Bharatvarsha, 12(1) (3) (1924:426)

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Maitra, Ganesh Chandra, ‘Brahma Prabasher Chitra’, Bharatbarsha, 14 (1), (1927): 75-86. Mishra, Pankaj, From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt against the West and the Remaking of Asia, (New York: Picador, 2012). Nag, Kalidas, Dwip Bharater Natyakala, Prabashi, 29 (1) (6), (1929): 897-902. Notes, Modern Review XXXVII 4, April (1925): 483. Raha, Mrinalini, ‘Bharmadesher Kotha’ (Descriptions about Burma), Antahpur 5 (8), (1902): 161-64. —. ‘Burma-Burmi’ (Burmese Men and Women), Antahpur 6 (8), (1903): 178-79. Roy Dwijendralal, Dwijendra Rachanabali, 2 volumes, ed. Rathindra Nath Roy, (Calcutta: Sahitya Sansad, 1989). Roy, Hemendralal, ‘Shyamrajya’, Prabashi 24 (2) (1), (1924): 64-73. Sarkar, P. C., ‘Japaner Pothe’, Bharatbarsha, 25 (2), (1937): 62-69. Sri Shou/Sri Sourindro, (name withheld), ‘Sangeet Pathik’, Aryadarshan, 1 (1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9),(1874): 51-54, 134-42, 192-99, 295-346, 434-39. Tagore, Rabindranath, Nationalism (1917), (Calcutta: Rupa and Co., 1992). —. ‘Chin O Japaner Bhraman Bibaran’, Prabashi 24 (2) (1), (1924): 89101. —. ‘Chin O Japan’, Bharatbarsha 12 (1) (3), (1924): 423-26. —. ‘Brihattara Bharat’ (Greater India), Kalantor, (first pub in 1937), (Calcutta: Vishwabharati Granthanbibhag, 2002).

HISTORICAL NARRATIVES AND THE IMAGINARIES OF COMMUNITY IDENTITY: MITHILA IN SOME KEY HISTORICAL TEXTS MITHILESH KUMAR JHA

Introduction History and historical narratives have played a very important role in shaping the social and political imaginaries in the modern world. And history writing is rightly regarded as a part of the ‘struggle for political power’ or ‘an agenda for self-representation’ by many modern communities. The idea of history, as promoted by the colonial administrators and writers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in India, posed serious challenges to many communities. Such challenges, however, also provided them an opportunity to revisit and refashion their pasts in the ‘new ways’ in order to re/construct a self-image and identity for self-representation. In the context of social and political imaginaries in modern Mithila, the role of historical narratives is extremely important. Its rich oral traditions, based largely on the myths and legends in the Smritis, Sanhitas, Upanishadas, and Puranas were increasingly challenged and even interrogated by many modern historians. This chapter examines the ways in which colonial idea and methods of history influenced the local communities. It does so by examining such modes of history writing in the context of Mithila in north Bihar. This chapter explores following questions: What kind of historical texts/narratives were written? How did they describe Mithila? How un/successful were these texts/narratives in adopting new methods of writing history? What kind of narratives and descriptions one can find in these texts about the idea of Mithila, its inhabitants, and their socioeconomic and political status? This chapter focuses on how such historical writings were part of the wider struggle for assertion of Mithila’s distinct socio-cultural identity. These historical texts were published between the second half of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century. These texts, however, were written initially not in Maithili, not even in the dev-bhasha Sanskrit.

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Historical Narratives and the Imaginaries of Community Identity

But the first two texts on the history of Mithila were published in Urdu. These are Riyaz-i-Tirhut (1868) by Ayodhya Prasad ‘Bahar’ and Aina-iTirhut (1883) by Bihari Lal ‘Fitrat.’ In Maithili, such texts were written after the publication of Mithila Darpan (1915) in Hindi by Ras Bihari Lal Das. Many literary figures like Chanda Jha (1831-1907) made sincere and conscious efforts to write such history in Maithili. For this purpose, he visited many parts of Mithila and collected historical materials and evidence. However, it was Parmeshwar Jha (1856-1924) who wrote such a book in Maithili - Mithila Tatva Vimarsha. He completed the writing of this book in 1919, but it was published much later in 1949 from Vidyapati Press, Laheriya Sarai. 1 Another text in Maithili was Mithila Bhashamaya Itihas by Mukund Jha ‘Bakshi.’ Shyam Narayan Singh wrote History of Tirhut (1922) in English which was published by Baptist Mission Press, Calcutta (now Kolkata). This book is still regarded as the most comprehensive and authoritative account of the history of Mithila. This tradition of writing the comprehensive history of Mithila continued later. Upendra Thakur’s History of Mithila (1956) is another such example. These texts provided the basis for the formation of modern Maithili identity and subjective consciousness. Although, these texts with the exception of Parmeshwar Jha’s Mithila Tatva Vimarsha were not in Maithili, became the rallying point in the Maithili movement in later years in their quest for selfrepresentation and struggle for power. These historical texts also demarcated the territory of Mithila and provided the basis for the formulation of an exclusive identity on the basis of Mithila (region) and Maithili (language). However, such territorial demarcations remain a highly contentious enterprise till today. In popular imagination Mithila and Maithili, in comparison to Tirhut, was of relatively recent development. Although, Mithila is mentioned in the Puranas, particularly Brihad Vishnu Purana’s chapter two is on Mithila Mahatmya, its access was limited to a small section of Maithili Pandits. In historical works; administrative letters and papers; and also in inter-cultural interactions, Tirhut was still a more popular term than Mithila until as late as the second decade of the twentieth century.

Riaz-i-Tirhut by Ayodhya Prasad ‘Bahar’ Ayodha Prasad’s Riaz-i-Tirhut is the first modern historical account of Mithila. He begins this book by paying tribute to ‘Allah, the almighty’ and 1

Jha, Parmeshwar. 1977. Mithila Tatva Vimarsha, ed. Govinda Jha, Patna: Maithili Akademi, p. Ą.

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provides a rich account of kings, his palaces, people, their lands, lives, and culture of Mithila in the second half of nineteenth century. Tirhut in 1860s was constitutive of the present districts of Muzaffarpur, Vaishali, Samastipur, Darbhanga, Madhubani, and Sitamarhi. He wrote this book in Urdu. This he might have done as by then Urdu had become the language of the administration and the courts. And knowledge of Urdu was also desirable for employment. It had also become a part of urban cultural and social life particularly among the literary elites in the towns like Darbhanga and Muzaffarpur. Ayodhya Prasad ‘Bahar’ was the son of Babu Gopal Lal and was a Khatri by caste. He was from Maner Sharif of Pargana Maner in the then district of Patna. His father worked as thana-in-charge (SHO) of different thanas (police stations) in the then district of Tirhut for about twenty-two years since 1846. 2 Later on, he settled in Muzaffarpur. Like his father, Ayodhya Prasad also served in the British administration in various capacities since 1853. 3 When, the Maharaja of Darbhanga, Maheshwar Singh died in 1860, and Darbhanga Raj was brought under the administration of the Court of Wards, he was appointed as a subordinate officer and was made in-charge of records. About the functioning of the Darbhanga Raj administration, he writes: ‘(t)here were thirty-three offices, all haphazardly containing records in Maithili, Deonagari and other scripts right from the beginning of the Raj. There were firmans, deeds of purchase, decisions regarding boundaries, papers of borrowing loan, horoscopes of Maharajas, and other papers regarding festivals, etc. All of them were collected and compiled and brought to the notice of authorities.’ 4

This description by Bahar establishes the point that multiple languages and scripts were used in the administration of Darbhanga Raj. Ayodhya Prasad worked in the administration of Darbhanga Raj for six years. It is important to note that the author and his family were working under the colonial administration. They had access to modern English language and literatures. And therefore, they might have felt the need for writing a history of Mithila. And it is also possible that he got this opportunity when he was expelled from the service of the Raj. Thus, one can infer that the need to have an objective history was felt first by those who came into close contact 2

Jha, Hetukar (ed.). 1997. A Glimpse of Tirhut in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century: Riyaz-i-Tirhut of Ayodhya Prasad ‘Bahar’, Darbhanga: Maharajadhiraja Kameshwar Singh Kalyani Foundation, p. 5. 3 Ibid., p. 6. 4 Ibid., p. 7.

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with the colonials and their system of education. Second, it is clear from his narrative that Maithili and its script were used besides Devanagari and Hindi in the administration of Darbhanga Raj. Although, to what extent Maithili and its script were used is not very clear. However, it leads naturally to ask this question as to why Maithili was not promoted in the Darbhanga Raj administration during the Court of Ward’s administration? Why Hindi and not Maithili was used as the medium of instruction in modern vernacular schools established by them? Was it due to their unfamiliarity with Maithili as a vernacular language of the region? In this context, Ayodhya Prasad gives the details of a meeting where he mentions that there were many attempts to impart education in the vernacular language of the region by the locals as well as by the colonial administrators. According to Prasad, this meeting was organised on the premises of a government school at Muzaffarpur on 27 February, 1868. All the Zamindars, money lenders, and the cultural and literary elites in the region were invited. This meeting was presided over by William Stuart Fallon, the Inspector of Schools, Bihar. In this meeting, it was resolved that a representation should be made to the Governor-General in Council about making vernacular languages as the medium of higher education and examinations in the province. 5 He also mentions that the government approved the idea that vernacular languages should be promoted in the school education. However, which vernacular language was to be used and promoted in this region is not very clear from Prasad’s descriptions. Whether it was Hindi, or Urdu, or Maithili is not clear. However, the language that gradually took root and was promoted in the region was Hindi and not Maithili. Thus, from Prasad’s account we get details about the social and political life in Mithila in the second half of nineteenth century. It is also very clear from his account that the question of language were contentious and many writers and groups had initiated the mobilisation of public opinion around Maithili. It shows conscious attempts by the intelligentsia to produce the history of the region as a mode of self-articulation and also as a part of struggle for self-representation.

Aina-i-Tirhut by Bihari Lal ‘Fitrat’ Published in 1883, Aina-i-Tirhut by Bihari Lal ‘Fitrat’ is another important work on the history of Mithila. It was first published by the Bahar Kashmir Press, Lucknow. It provides a very interesting account of Mithila. In this book the author, Bihari Lal, is very conscious and quite assertive 5

Ibid., p. 26.

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about the distinct history, culture, and identity of Mithila. He clearly asserts that –  Ǖ–ȡ ǒ–¡ȡš ˜Ʌ Ǔš¡Ǖ ǔ‡ ȯ ͧ˜ͬ›ȡ ‘ȯ ž €¡ȯ ¡ɇ@ 6 (Tirhut is in the province of Bihar which is also known as Mithila nation). Thus, the idea of Mithila as a desha began and expressed quite explicitly. In many journals like Mithla Moda in the following decades, Mithila is always referred to as desha (nation) or appan desha (own nation). It was used more in a social and cultural sense. And politically, they did consider Mithila to be as an integral part of Bharatvarsha (India). So as late as the second decade of the twentieth century, the word desha did not refer to the same entity in a sociocultural and political sense in this part of the region. However, there was, as it appears from the account of Bihari Lal, not a very clear understanding developed by then about the language of the region. Bihari Lal himself classified the vernacular of the region as Ganvari (chaste/unpolished) Hindi, that he claimed to be spoken by the illiterate masses in the villages; and Sanskritised Hindi, that he believed to be used by the educated people in the urban set-ups. However, the example he gave for Ganvari Hindi, is actually Maithili: 5

‘\¡ȡȱ€ “ȡ˜ €ȧ †Ȥ? (What is your name?) €Ȫ“ ‚ȡ˜ ƒš \Ǔ†? (In which village do you live?) €Ȫ“ €ȡ‡€ ¡ȯ Ǖ ]™› †Ȥ? (For which work have you come?) €Ȱ Ǒ‘“ š¡–? 7 (How many days will you stay?) 6

He also mentions the visit of Lord Northbrook to Darbhanga in 1874 for monitoring the relief works for famine victims. For this visit, a letter of gratitude was presented to him in Sanskrit and Urdu by Babu Guneshwar Singh and Murshid Hasan Kamil respectively. 8 However, there was no such representation in Maithili. Surendra Gopal believes that from ‘the second half of the eighteenth century...Urdu began to occupy the space vacated by Persian in people’s day-to-day life, in their literary outpourings, in their education and in their administrative practices.’ 9 It establishes the point that prior to Urdu, it was Persian, which was the language of administration. Sanskrit remained the language of higher learning among the Maithil 6

Jha, Hetukar (ed.). 2001. Mithila in the Nineteenth Century: Aina-i-Tirhut of Bihari Lal ‘Fitrat’, Darbhanga: Maharjadhiraja Kameshwar Singh Kalyani Foundation, p. 51. 7 Ibid., p. 112. 8 Ibid., p. 164. 9 Ibid., p. 1.

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Pandits. However, prose writings in Urdu acquired unprecedented intellectual prestige particularly after the establishment of Fort William College at Calcutta. Many texts on history and culture were published in Urdu, and Muslims as well as Hindu enthusiastically participated in this kind of literary enterprise. In the context of Mithila in the late nineteenth century, we have Bihari Lal ‘Fitrat’, himself well versed in Persian, Arabic, and Urdu, who considered these languages to be integral part of Mithila’s cultural and intellectual life. He devoted as much attention in his book to Persian and Arabic scholarship, as he did to traditional Sanskrit learning and scholars in Mithila. 10 According to him, there were many Hindu scholars of Persian and Arabic language. He mentions the names of Munshi Sambhu Datta, Lala Bodh Sen Singh, and Lala Gopal Lal. All of them were Ambastha Kayastha. 11 However, according to Hetukar Jha, the education in Arabic, Persian, and Urdu was by and large confined to the Muslim community with few exceptions. However, he agrees to the fact that Urdu and Islamic culture was deeply rooted in Darbhanga and the south-western part of Tirhut.12 Bihari Lal also presents a vivid account of the formation and rise of Muzaffarpur as the most important town and the centre of modernity and western education in north Bihar. According to him, the city was established by Muzaffar Khan of Pargana Bisra. He developed his seven bighas of land for residential purposes and later converted it as a modern city that soon overshadowed Darbhanga as an administrative centre for the colonial administration. 13 Gradually, English became the language of social prestige. However, many English educated lawyers in the town were Bengali. According to Bihari Lal, English was not the only language required in the courts, and many established lawyers continued their practices in Urdu, still an acceptable and commonly used language in the courts. 14 According to one estimate, there were seventy-six lawyers in those days in the district of Tirhut. Out of these, eleven conducted their practices in English. Among these, seven were Bengalis, two Srivastavas, and two Muslims. 15 None of them were Maithili Brahmins. They were still devoted to Sanskrit and averse to modern English education. Thus, it appears that Persian and Urdu were still the court languages and were gradually replaced by English. Hindi was a late entrant and Maithili was nowhere in the scene. 10

Ibid., p. 28. Ibid., p. 29. 12 Ibid., pp. 77 – 78. 13 Ibid., p. 38. 14 Ibid., p. 40. 15 Ibid., p. 94. 11

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This book by Bihari Lal also describes the socio-economic condition of Mithila in the second half of the nineteenth century. It mentions the growing discontent among the distressed farmers against the British policy of Indigo plantations in the region. It states that: (by) the second half of nineteenth century European indigo planters had become a powerful force in the economy of Tirhut. The largest indigo factory in India, the Pandaul indigo factory was based in the estate of Darbhanga. In 1860s a powerful anti-Indigo-planter movement – the first against the European indigo-planters in Bihar – had emerged in the vicinity of Pandaul and had been crushed by the government after much effort. 16

There was growing resentment among the peasants in Mithila. According to Bihari Lal, indigo planting on fertile land was one of the major reasons for the famine of 1866 and 1873 in Mithila. The government failed to help the distressed masses in the first famine, but their role in the second famine of 1873 was widely acknowledged and appreciated.17 This was also a time when modern English and vernacular education were promoted in the Raj Zamindari, but the spread of English education was very limited. The Court of Wards (1860 - 1879) and Maharaja Lakshmishwar Singh promoted English in the administration of the Darbhanga Raj. The Court of Wards introduced modern bureaucratic system in the administration of Darbhanga Raj. And most of the higher officials in the administration were Bengalis and Europeans, and not Maithils. 18 Bihari Lal also describes the dominant elites and rich sections of the Maithili society. These were mainly Brahmins, Rajputs, and Bhumihar Zamindars; but it was Khatris, Agarwals, and Shahus who were financially more powerful. He mentions one Rai Nandipat Mahatha of Muzaffarpur, whose annual income was estimated to be eight to nine million Rupees. It was much more than the estimated income of Maharaja Lakshmishwar Singh, the biggest Zamindar of the region, who had an annual income of about rupees two and a half million. 19 Rai Banwari Lal Sahu Agrawal and Rai Govardhan Lal Bahadur of Darbhanga had annual incomes of seven to eight million and four to four and a half million Rupees respectively. 20 So, to argue that it was Maithili Brahmins and Karna Kayasthas alone, who were the leaders of Mithila, is to undermine the fact that at least in trade and financial matters other castes were equally and perhaps more dominant. But 16

Ibid., p. 44. Ibid., pp. 149 – 160. 18 Ibid., p. 69. 19 Ibid., p. 194. 20 Ibid., p. 195. 17

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whether these castes also had influence on social and cultural life of Mithila and in what ways did they contribute in the growth of Maithili culture and language is hard to ascertain. Thus, Bihari Lal presents a very rich account of the history, society, culture and politics of the regions in the second half of the nineteenth century. He also presents the colonial encounters and growing resentments among the peasants against its rule. He was the first to record and assert the cultural distinctiveness of Mithila and changes brought about by the colonial rule.

Mithila Darpan by Ras Bihari Lal Das Ras Bihari Lal Das 21 in the beginning of Mithila Darpan writes that ‘there was no historical account available to the people of Mithila which could make them aware of their past glories and conditions of existence. Therefore, Mithila had fallen to a precarious situation.’ 22 This clearly shows the growing sense among the intelligentsia about the role of history for selfrepresentation of the community and also for its prosperity. Das also realised the role of history in awakening the masses. Supporting this argument, Hetukar Jha writes, ‘there was no historical account of this region available in Hindi or Maithili in the beginning of the twentieth century. Books written before, in this context, were in Urdu. For all those who could read and write at that time, it must have been very difficult to find out and read Aina-i-Tirhut or Riaz-i-Tirhut.’ 23 Bihari Lal wrote Mithila Darpan in Hindi, which he calls a rashtra-bhasa (national language). His objective through this book was to make non-Maithils aware about the rich history and cultural distinctiveness of Mithila. Like ‘Fitrat,’ he also calls Mithila bhasa (referring to Maithili) a gharau bhasha (household language). In Mithila Darpan, Ras Bihari Lal Das claims that, by the beginning of the twentieth century, it was Darbhanga alone which had come to be known as Mithila. Even in Darbhanga, the areas under Madhubani, Khajauli, and Benipatti thanas (Police Stations) were considered to be Mithila. It was Madhubani which was regarded as the centre of Mithila. 24 However, he did mention the then six districts of Bihar– Purnea, Bhagalpur, Munger, Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur, and Champaran - as constitutive of old Mithila 21 Jha, Hetukar (ed.). 2005. Tirhut in Early Twentieth Century: Mithila Darpan of Ras Bihari Lal Das, Darbhanga: Maharajdhiraja Kameshwar Singh Kalyani Foundation. 22 Ibid., p. iv. 23 Ibid., p. iv. 24 Ibid, p. 105.

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which was under the jurisdiction of government of India. 25 It was possible that the shrinking space of Mithila was partly the result of Brahminical orthodoxy, and partly due to the continuous administrative re/divisions of the region. Tirhut was ruled by the Maharajas of the Khandawala dynasty, but when the British got the right to collect the revenue of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, they appointed Franko Grand as the first collector of Tirhut District in 1782. But, because of his corrupt practices, he was soon replaced by Robert Bath. Lord Cornwallis first surveyed the district between 1790 and 1793. 26 Until 1877, the Tirhut district comprised Darbhanga and Muzaffarpur. In 1878, it was divided into the separate districts of Darbhanga and Muzaffarpur. 27 Now, even Darbhanga’s old three subdivisions – Darbhanga, Madhubani and Samastipur are constituted as independent districts (1972). These administrative divisions and re-divisions of the region, prior to the growth of a common language or any other marker of collective identity obstructed the rise of any regional or political consciousness or linguistic unity among the inhabitants. However, the development and organization of the region on the basis of modern technology began to take place from the second half of the nineteenth century. According to Ras Bihar Lal Das, during the reign of Maharaja Chhatra Singh, the system of postal stamp, money order, and book post was introduced in 1840 - 1842. 28 Four municipalities were formed in Darbhanga – Darbhanga (1864), Madhubani (1869), Samastipur (1897) and Rosera (1869). 29 Darbhanga, during the author’s time had four major hospitals – Darbhanga Raj Hospital, Rai Banwarilal Hospital, Railway’s Hospital, and one veterinary hospital besides many clinics and health centres. 30 Railways were introduced in the region between Patna and Darbhanga in 1874. 31 From November 1875 rail journey was made regular. Then, from February 1877, another railway line was laid down between Samasuddinpur (Samastipur?) and Muzaffarpur. 32 Together with railways, it was the introduction of printing technology which helped in connecting 25

Ibid., p. 105. Ibid, p. 94. 27 Ibid, p. 106. 28 Ibid, p. 98. 29 Ibid, p. 110. 30 Ibid, p. 109. 31 Jha, Hetukar, Mithila in the Nineteenth Century, p. 159; although according to Ras Bihari Lal Das the year was 1873; see Jha, Hetukar, Tirhut in Early Twentieth Century, p. 100; but as Bihari Lal ‘Fitrat’’s Aina-i-Tirhut was published much earlier in the year 1883, his account appears to be more correct. 32 Ibid, p. 160. 26

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different regions of Mithila together. According to Das, there were six printing press in Mithila – Union Press, Katahalwari; Darbhanga Raj Press, Kaidarabad; Mithila Mihir Press, Nai Bajar; Rameshwar Press, Kanhaiyalal Barabajar; Chitragupta Press, Mirjapur; and Mithila Press, Madhubani. 33 However, Ras Bihari Lal Das lamented the fact that despite so many printing press only one weekly newspaper – perhaps referring to Mithila Mihir - was published in the region. 34 And therefore, despite the introduction of these technologies and means of communication the growth of Maithili language and cultural-regional identity remained somewhat chequered one. There were many scripts that were used in Mithila. During the era of Ras Bihari Lal Das three scripts were used – Devanagari, Kaithi, and Tirhuta or Mithilakshar. Devanagari was already known in the region due to the high respect attached to Sanskrit learning. Kaithi was mostly used by the Kayasthas for keeping the records, particularly those related to land. Tirhuta or Mithilakshar was widely used in socio-cultural and ritual practices; even many Sanskrit texts were written in this script. However, after the settlement of the Mughals and then of the British in the region, Persian and English/Roman were also used. And after the advent of print, it was Devanagari which gradually became popular and the use of other scripts declined, particularly that of the Maithili script Tirhuta, or Mithilakshar, and Kaithi. Thus, in the account of Ras Bihari Lal Das we find a rich account of not just territory, language, and new developments and transformations introduced in the region during the colonial rule, but also a growing consciousness among the intelligentsia to use history for self-representation and awakening the masses. It is also striking to note that unlike Ayodhya Prasad ‘Bahar’ and Bihari Lal ‘Fitrat’, Ras Bihari Lal Das had used Mithila to refer to the region and not Tirhut. And gradually it was Mithila which became more popular a term to refer to this region.

Parmeshwar Jha’s Mithila Tatva Vimarsha and The History of Tirhut by Shyam Narayan Singh Parmeshwar Jha, in his Mithila Tatva Vimarsha – the first work in Maithili on the history of the region – gave an account of not just Bharat (India) but also of the British Emperor from the viewpoint of a native loyalist. He considered Hindi as the main language of India which was understood by all. According to him, there were many provincial languages 33 34

Jha, Hetukar, Tirhut in Early Twentieth Century, p. 128. Ibid., p. 128.

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– Bangla, Maithili (Tirhutiya), Nepali, Panjabli, Brajbhasha, Maarbari, Marhatti, Gujarati, Dravir, Telangi, Madrasi, Oriya, etc [emphasis mine]. 35 Thus, although he considered Hindi as the main language, he did assert Maithili as an important provincial language in India. He further writes that Hindi was introduced in the courts of Bihar by Sir Ashley Eden on 1st January, 1881. This, according to him, provided a great relief to the masses as now they did not have to travel a long distance in search of those knowledgeable in Urdu. He mentions that there was opposition to this decision, which was published in Bihar Bandhu and Masir Bihar, weekly journals in Hindi and Urdu respectively in the 1880s. 36 This shows that Urdu, as a court language of Bihar, was difficult for the majority. So, when Hindi was introduced, the decision was welcomed by them. However, Parmeshwar Jha is silent about the claims of Maithili for such a status. This indicates that Maithili, as a language of courts and administration, was not sufficiently thought about by then. It might be possible that Hindi was welcomed because of the difficulties in comprehension of Urdu by the majority of the inhabitants. Second, the cultural elites in the region were drawn mainly from Sanskrit scholars. They already knew Devanagari (as it was used in Sanskrit writings). So, they might have found it easier to comprehend Hindi than Urdu. Again, when on 18 April, 1900, Hindi was introduced along with Urdu in the courts of Samyukt Prant (United Province) by Sir Anthony Macdonald, it was also opposed but the decision prevailed. Parmeshwar Jha commended the Nagari Pracharani Sabha, Kashi, for their efforts as a result of which Hindi was given this elevated position. 37 Thus, the process of replacing Urdu and Persian with Hindi was enthusiastically taken up by the colonial administration. It was supported by many nationalist leaders as well. But, the identity of Mithila or Maithili, although germinating had not yet developed sufficiently. Even when Shyam Narayan Singh published his book 38 in 1922, he used Tirhut to refer to this 35

Jha, Parmeshwar, Mithila Tatva Vimarsha, pp. 19 – 20. Ibid., p. 32. 37 Ibid., 33. 38 Singh, Shyam Narayan. 1922. History of Tirhut, Kolkata: Baptist Mission Press, 1922. Singh was born in a village called Ahiyapur in Aurangabad district of Bihar. After obtaining a B. A. degree from Patna College, he joined the Bengal Civil Service in 1906. He was appointed to several distinguished positions in the administration of Bihar and was decorated with many prestigious awards and honours for his services like MBE (Member of British Empire), OBE (Officer British Empire). In the course of his service, he came into close contact with Motilal Nehru, Sachidananda Sinha, and Rajendra Prasad. It was perhaps his connection 36

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region and not Mithila in the title of his book. This was so even when he was familiar with earlier works like Riaz-i-Tirhut, Aina-i-Tirhut, Mithila Darpan, and Mithila Tatva Vimarsha. However, his account of Mithila is extremely rich in terms of the subjects it deals with. Along with the historical narrative of the region, it provides an account of Sanskrit scholars in Mithila; a classification of Maithili literary activities – ancient and modern; Mithila Dialect; Brahman Marriage in Mithila; of the Darbhanga Raj; Bettiah Estate; and an account of European factories for indigo and sugar manufacturing together with a map of Tirbhukti (Mithila in some accounts was also referred to as Tirbhukti). Although, he mentions that Mithila was much older in use than Tirhut and Tirbhukti, 39 he used mostly Tirhut to refer to Mithila. It might be so because during the Mughal period, the area was known as Sircar Tirhut, and during British rule for a long time there was a separate Tirhut collectorate and then a commissionary. So, Tirhut was still fresh in the popular imagination. Further, citing Puranic and other oral descriptions about the boundary of the region, Shyam Narayan Singh considered the then districts of Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga, Champaran, and parts of the districts of Monghyr, Bhagalpur, and Purnea as part of Tirhut. 40 He also includes the history of Vaishali in his history of Tirhut. However, this book, despite being the most comprehensive account of the history of Mithila contains surprising discrepancies. First, instead of Mithila, the author prefers to use Tirhut even though at least two prior works Mithila Darpan and Mithila Tatva Vimarsha had been already written or with the colonial administration and also with many nationalist leaders, and the lack of any adequate work on the history of Tirhut, that might have encouraged him to write this history. 39 Ibid., p. 3. It is believed that Mithila is named after King Mithi son of Maharaja Nimi, and this term is mentioned in many Puranic texts like Mithilakhanda of Brihad Vishnu Purana and Balmiki’s Ramayana. Chanda Jha, attributed as the father of modern Maithili literature, describes the region as: ‚Ȳ‚ȡ ¡Ǔ ‡Ǔ“€ ‘ͯ¢ŽǑ‘ͧž ” Ǘ [ €ȫͧžͩ€’ȡšȡ@ ”ǔ慘 ¡Ǔ ‚ȲŒ€ȧ `ƣš Ǒ¡˜ › ͪèȡšȡ@@ €˜›ȡ ǒğ™Ǖ‚ȡ \˜– Ǚ ȡ ƒȯ˜Ǖšȡ ȡ‚Ȣ €Ǚ ȡšȡ@ ˜Ú™ ¡Ǔ ›ê˜Žȡ Ĥ—ǓǙ   ȯ ͧ˜ͬ›ȡ ͪɮ™ȡ‚ȡšȡ@@ [To the south of which flows the river Ganga, to the west flows Gandaki, and in the north exist gigantic Himalaya. Where Kamla, Triyuga, Ambrita, Ghemura, Bagwati flow from the length and breadth, and in the middle of which flows the river like Lakshmana, that habitat of learning is Mithila.] 40 Ibid., p.3

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published. Further, journals like Mithila Moda and Mithila Mihir were also published and circulated. In this context, he preferred Tirhut to Mithila which is surprising. Second, although he describes the antiquity of Maithili and demonstrates its richness and closeness with Bengali, and even considers classical Bengali and Maithili to have originated from a common language, he, nevertheless, classifies Mithila (referring to Maithili language) as a dialect. 41 Finally, the book does give a brief account of Maithili Brahmin marriage ceremonies but hardly describes anything about other caste groups. Surely, the book is comprehensive in many aspects and helped in developing a geographic unity among the inhabitants. But it fell somewhat short of developing a political identity on the basis of Maithili and Mithila which was already in ferment. This was also a period when the identity of the region, language, and the population was shifting from Tirhut, Tirhutiya (used for the language and population both), to Mithila, Maithili, and Maithils respectively.

Conclusion Thus, these texts on the history of Mithila together serve a larger purpose. They successfully assert not just the antiquity of Mithila region and its lineage, but more importantly, led the foundation for projecting the region, its history and culture as a separate and distinct geographical and political unit within India. Although, these texts consider Mithila to be an integral part of India, they did pave the way for a distinct consciousness about Maihtili identity which in the later years became the part of struggles for the recognition of the Maithili as an independent language as well as the demand for the separate province of Mithila. 42

Bibliography Jha, Hetukar (ed.). 1997. A Glimpse of Tirhut in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century: Riyaz-i-Tirhut of Ayodhya Prasad ‘Bahar’, Darbhanga: Maharajadhiraja Kameshwar Singh Kalyani Foundation. Jha, Hetukar (ed.). 2001. Mithila in the Nineteenth Century: Aina-i-Tirhut of Bihari Lal ‘Fitrat’, Darbhanga: Maharjadhiraja Kameshwar Singh Kalyani Foundation. 41

Ibid., pp. 202 – 205. For more on this see, Jha, Mithilesh Kumar. 2018. Language Politics and Public Sphere in North India: Making of the Maithili Movement, Delhi: Oxford University Press. 42

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Jha, Hetukar (ed.). 2005. Tirhut in Early Twentieth Century: Mithila Darpan of Ras Bihari Lal Das, Darbhanga: Maharajdhiraja Kameshwar Singh Kalyani Foundation. Jha, Mithilesh Kumar. 2018. Language Politics and Public Sphere in North India: Making of the Maithili Movement, Delhi: Oxford University Press. Jha, Parmeshwar. 1977. Mithila Tatva Vimarsha, Govinda Jha (ed.), Patna: Maithili Akademi. Singh, Shyam Narayan. 1922. History of Tirhut, Kolkata: Baptist Mission Press.

Magazines Maithili Hit Sadhan Mithila Moda Mithila Mihir

THE ANGLICIZATION OF INDIA’S BAGHDADI JEWS AND THEIR EMERGENCE AS INTERMEDIARIES BETWEEN THE BRITISH AND THE INDIANS NAVRAS J. AAFREEDI

By the mid-1700s, the British and the Dutch had supplanted the Portuguese and assumed control of much of the trade in the East, enabling the Baghdadi Jewish merchants to establish a vast trading network spread across Asia, with smaller outposts in Europe. Jewish merchants and traders from the Arab Middle East, irrespective of the city they came from, came to be called Baghdadis in the rest of Asia because of the prominence of Baghdad as a major commercial centre at that time, and it is exactly with this wider connotation that the term Baghdadis is used here. In the process, substantial Baghdadi communities emerged in many of the British colonies in Asia and the Dutch East Indies, with those in India among the most prominent. Bombay (now Mumbai) and Calcutta (now Kolkata) became the major centres of Baghdadi Jews in India. Although Baghdadis settled in Bombay at the beginning of the eighteenth century, they only gained prominence with the arrival, in 1883, of the Baghdadi Jewish merchant, industrialist, and philanthropist David Sassoon. Most of the members of the community worked for Sassoon firms in Bombay and the B. N. Elias Company in Calcutta, acting as intermediaries, agents, storekeepers, and petty traders. The Baghdadis arrived in Bombay much later than the Parsis, and in Calcutta much later than the Armenians, and thus could not take part in the building of the British Indian Empire the way the Parsis and the Armenians did. In contrast to these Indian port cities, their arrival in Hong Kong and Singapore coincided with the foundation of those ports. The Baghdadis formed a diaspora parallel to that of the Armenians, both victims of Turkish persecution, stretching into the Far East, helped by their involvement in the traditional Indian trade of Baghdad and Basra as well as in the distribution of British goods in West Asia. Upon their arrival in India, they not only continued with their trade across the Arabian Sea in precious

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The Anglicization of India’s Baghdadi Jews and their Emergence as Intermediaries between the British and the Indians

stones and horses, but also took to trading with the British in commodities like wool and opium. Once culturally Anglicized, they moved into English economic roles in Calcutta such as that of jute shippers. They also benefited from the refusal of other communities to indulge in the liquor and bone trades on religious grounds. This was in line with what they had done in the Arab lands they had come from. In the Arab world some of those professions considered reprehensible by Muslims, such as goldsmithing and silversmithing, money lending, tax farming, and collecting customs duties, had been predominated by them.1 Under the British rule in India, they, along with a few other miniscule religious and ethnic minorities, emerged as intermediaries between the British rulers and the Indian subjects. The Parsis and the Baghdadis were more successful in being accepted into this role than the Armenians and the Greeks, who also sought to work with the British. Free from any reservations in traveling overseas and in interacting with other communities and nationalities, unlike the Hindus, whose flexibility to have commerce with foreigners was hampered by taboos of caste and creed, the Parsis and the Baghdadi Jews made great fortunes by trading in cotton and opium and went on to build widespread trading networks across Asia with major centres in Hong Kong, Macao, Shanghai and Singapore. They competed with each other in doing so. They completely Anglicised themselves and came to be particularly favoured by the British, who did not feel threatened by them because of their numerical insignificance, and thus patronized them to transform them into their loyalists. The arrival of Baghdadi Jews almost coincided with the establishment of the British rule in India and their exodus coincided with the British exit from India. They came to India speaking Arabic, but left the country speaking English, not any Indian language. Unlike the other two Jewish communities, the Bene Israel and the Cochini, who acculturated to the Indians, the Baghdadis underwent Anglicization. They never Indianised to any degree during their entire stay in India and stood firmly in the British camp, as it seemed wiser to them to identify with the rulers than with the ruled, aware as they were of British racism against Indians. This Anglicization of Baghdadi Jews in India was part of a much bigger phenomenon of the embrace of the culture and language of the colonial rulers by the Jewish communities across the Arab world, from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east. The Baghdadi Jews of India, as those of South East and Far East Asia, were not geographically located in the Arab world, 1

Norman A. Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times (Philadelphia and New York: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1991), 5.

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but even these diasporic Baghdadi Jewish communities acted exactly the way their coreligionists and Christians did in the predominantly Muslim Arab world. The Jews in the Arab world identified westernization with modernization and saw modernization as a means to their emancipation. They were quick to realize that increased European influence and penetration implied a weakening of the traditional Islamic norms of society that had determined their social and political status for more than a thousand years, compelling them to live in state of social isolation, inferiority, and general opprobrium.2 Although society in India and in South East and Far East Asia was not defined by the same Islamic norms that defined the Arab society, nevertheless the Jews even in these places adopted the language and culture of the European colonial rulers with similar enthusiasm. Their reasons for doing so in India are explained below. Upon being appointed to the Order of the Star of India in 1866, Albert Sassoon, a prominent Baghdadi industrialist in India, ‘celebrated with an elaborate supper and ball…. The Bombay Gazette reported with approval that no “natives” were among the three hundred guests and solemnly congratulated Mr Sassoon and his family on their evident wish to ally themselves with English society in Bombay.’3

The Anglicization During their stay in India, the Baghdadis abandoned the Arabic language and clothing for the English language and European clothing. The change was slow and driven not just by the Baghdadi identification with the British, but also by the weakening of their connections with West Asia as migration from West Asia decreased in the early twentieth century. The observance of traditional Middle Eastern customs lost its importance with the dwindling of Baghdadi Jewish migration to India. Those Baghdadi Jews who were born in India and who had matured by the mid-nineteenth century continued to recognize the authority of Jerusalem and Baghdad in religious matters. Yet, their ties with their ancestral lands weakened, as they came to see British ruled India as the land of their future; British India was no longer a foreign country to them. Benjamin draws our attention to another factor: the death of Chacham Joseph Hayim, the leader of Iraqi Jewry, also revered by Baghdadi Jews in their diaspora in India. Now the Baghdadis had to shift 2

Ibid., 18. Cited in Joan G. Roland, The Jewish Communities of India: Identity in a Colonial Era, Second Edition (New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 1998), 57.

3

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The Anglicization of India’s Baghdadi Jews and their Emergence as Intermediaries between the British and the Indians

their locus of religious authority to London’s chief rabbi, as Hayim had died without a successor.4 The transition from Arabic to Anglican culture took almost a century. As Elias and Cooper point out, ‘For more than a hundred years in their new country the Calcutta Jews held tenaciously to the Arabic language as their means of communication; it was only at the turn of the century that English began gradually to take its place....’5 In fact, soon after the settlement of Baghdadi Jews in India, it became a major publication centre of JudaeoArabic literature. Publication of Judaeo-Arabic6 books started in India as early as 1841, and that of Judaeo-Arabic newspapers in the Hebrew alphabet from 1855, much before it happened in Iraq, the biggest centre of JudaeoArabic. Elias and Cooper quote a member of the Jewish community of Calcutta: ‘When the Jews from Aleppo, Baghdad and Basra first came to Calcutta, their mother tongue was naturally Arabic. This continued to be the case for many generations after, although the local languages (Hindustani and English) also came to be employed.’7 Another member of Calcutta Jewry observed: ‘We can see that in a few generations under the British Raj, families who spoke Arabic and upheld many Middle Eastern customs, began to educate their children in English schools, adopted English as their first language and tended to regard Hindi and Bengali as inferior languages.’8 This Baghdadi Jewish refusal to learn Indian languages also explains why, in spite of their women being the first to emerge as stars of India’s silent films, these stars could not continue with their successful film careers after the introduction of talkies, as they were incapable of delivering dialogues in Indian languages. At a certain stage in Jael Silliman’s semiautobiographical novel The Man With Many Hats its protagonist Rachel comes to realise how insulated her life had been when she recalls as to how in the early 1960s the older generation of the Baghdadi community in Calcutta still spoke Arabic, but English, spoken with a smattering of 4

Elana Benjamin, My Mother’s Spice Cupboard: A Journey from Baghdad to Bombay to Bondi (Melbourne: Hybrid Publishers, 2012), 73-74. 5 Flower Elias and Judith Elias Cooper, The Jews of Calcutta: The Autobiography of a Community (1798-1972) (Calcutta: The Jewish Association of Calcutta, 1974), 156. 6 Weinstein defines Judeo-Arabic as ‘a variety of Arabic written in Hebrew letters and used by Jews for Jews’, considered part of the family of many Jewish versions of co-territorial languages such as Judaeo-Greek or Yavanic, Judaeo-Spanish, Judaeo-German or Yiddish, Judaeo-Italian or Latin, and Judaeo-Persian. See Brian Weinstein, ‘Judaeo-Arabic in India’, Journal of Indo-Judaic Studies I, No. 2 (April 1999), 53. 7 Elias and Cooper, The Jews of Calcutta, 155. 8 Ibid., 103.

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Hebrew and Hindustani words, had by then acquired the position of lingua franca within the community. Rachel and her brother Jacob had received their education entirely in English, and it was not Indian, but only the English language British and American cinema that they enjoyed. They used Hindi only to communicate with their domestic help or with the shopkeepers. Their friends, too, studied in English medium schools like them. Hence, English was also the language of their socialization. However, they were different in this respect from their Indian friends whose cradle language continued to be the language of the region in India they came from. The Baghdadi Jews “lived at a certain level removed from the majority.”9 The names also underwent change. Arabic names were either Anglicised or replaced by English names. Arabic names could be commonly found in use until recently, when those were replaced by English names. Used to the Arabic names, the parents of the older generation would often mix them up with Hebrew names: “Simha” (Hebrew) and “Farah” (Arabic) both meant “Joy” and were both spoken of as “Your Hebrew name.” “Masuda,” “Zebeda,” “Abdullah,” “Furuj” were a few of the Arabic names passed on to children by pious Jews who were horrified when their descendants were named “Cyril,” “Sheila” or “Daphne.”10 Another example of it emerges in Silliman’s The Man with Many Hats: ‘About a hundred years ago, the Sliman family changed their Arabic surname to Selman which sounded more English—as many people in this city did. You see the Jews became more Anglicized over the years, it was better for business.’11 The Anglicization also extended to the Baghdadi Jewish clothing. It took them a number of decades to take to loose Indian clothing, better suited for the Indian climate, before they finally adopted European clothes. Elias and Cooper quote some elders from Calcutta’s Jewry who recall the change: We wore English clothes, but my grandmother still had Arabic clothes which she didn’t wear—I don’t know if she had it handed to her from some ancestor—it was very beautiful and we used to wear it as a fancy dress. She herself did not wear English clothes, but wore a wrapper, with a cloak over it when she went out, but our generation wore English clothes and knew no other (born 1910). We did not wear sari; this, I think, was because India was a conquered country and the conquered people were not those to emulate.12

9

Jael Silliman, The Man with Many Hats (Kolkata: Privately Published, 2013), 6. Elias & Cooper, The Jews of Calcutta, p. 37. 11 Silliman, The Man with Many Hats, 45. 12 Elias and Cooper, The Jews of Calcutta, 164. 10

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Another respondent recalled: ‘My sisters wished to wear saris for a photograph. My father was very annoyed and would not allow it. “You are a separate nation: ain kodesh. No assimilation.”’13 Sixty-year-old Jael Silliman, the youngest of the twenty-two Baghdadi Jews still resident in Kolkata, tells us as to how her grandmother, though not opposed to her daughter Flower’s (Jael’s mother) nationalist sentiments, could not approve of her wearing Indian clothing out of the fear that such “outward manifestation of Indianness could lead to marriage outside the community and the loss of Jewish identity.”14 Although Flower eventually married a Jewish man from within the community both Jael and a daughter of hers married non-Jews. Silliman elaborates: Wearing Indian clothes was a source of shame for Jewish families, who had by now all adopted Western dress. Several of the minority communities in Calcutta—the Armenians, Parsis, and Anglo Indians—wore Western dress. An aunt on my father’s side married into a landed and very conservative Bengali family. She says her father mourned her marriage as though she had died. Many years later, she came to the synagogue on Yom Kippur in a sari, which is all she would have been permitted to wear in her in-laws’ extendedfamily household. Her father told her that not only had she shamed him, but she had disgraced him publicly.15

From the Status of Europeans to Non-Europeans As a result of their complete Anglicization, the Baghdadi Jews in India had come to be classified by the British colonial government there as Europeans. However, in 1885 they were declared non-European, while their competitors in trade and social status, the Armenians, continued to be recognised as Europeans. This reclassification might have taken place because the other two Jewish communities in India, the Bene Israel and the Cochini, who were resident in the county for a far longer period than the Baghdadis, were physically indistinguishable from the rest of the Indian population.16 Whatever the reason, this was a very disturbing development for the Baghdadis, who wanted to be on the privileged side, given the rampant racism in India at the time. In order to be seen as Europeans, they not only deliberately kept a distance from the already existing Jewish 13

Ibid. Jael Silliman, Jewish Portraits, Indian Frames: Women’s Narratives from a Diaspora of Hope (Calcutta: University Press of New England in arrangement with Seagull Books, 2001), 175. 15 Ibid. 16 Roland, The Jewish Communities of India, 58. 14

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communities so as not to be seen as part and parcel of them, but also expressed doubt about the purity of descent and religious observance of the Bene Israel, which strained their relations with them. The Baghdadis attributed their failure to continue to be recognised as Europeans to their allegiance to Judaism instead of Christianity, the faith of the colonial masters. They felt Armenians had succeeded in continuing to be recognised as Europeans only because of their being Christian. The settlement of Armenians in Calcutta coincided with the foundation of the city in 1690. The first Armenian church was built in 1724, and by 1860 the emergence of Calcutta as a major commercial centre had attracted most of the wealthier merchants from the Armenian settlement in Saidabad, established in 1655, to the extent that the church there had to be closed in 1860. Saidabad was a suburb of Murshidabad, the then capital of Bengal. The Armenians had traded in the Bay of Bengal even during the Mughal rule. The number of Calcutta philanthropic activities started by magnates from Saidabad reveals the importance of the Saidabad base for the early Calcutta Armenian community, from where Khojas Petrus and Gregory, both members of the community, had played an important role in the eighteenth century, as political advisors to the Nawabs and as intermediaries between them and the British. The East India Company’s growing monopoly of trade in the late eighteenth century and the entry of Baghdadis in the nineteenth century severely affected the Armenians, leading them to retreat to professions and the stock exchange by 1900. Only the Julfa Armenians (commercially-inclined immigrants of the nineteenth century) and the more recent immigrants from the villages around Char Mahal in Iran continued with trade while India was under the British.

Ambivalent Sense of Identity Indian Jewry is represented by three communities, the Bene Israel, the Cochini, and the Baghdadi, and two Judaizing movements, the B’nei Menashe and the B’nei Ephraim. It is hard to say which one was the first to settle in India, the Bene Israel or the Cochini. The oldest evidence of Jewish presence in India is a copper plate dating from the middle of the tenth century, recording a grant by a local ruler to Syrian Christians, which mentions a guild of Jews in Kerala. The oldest documentary reference to the Bene Israel as permanent residents in certain villages on the Konkan strip of the western coast of India is found in a letter written by J. A. Sartorius, a Danish missionary, in 1738. However, according to the traditions of Indian Jews, they have been resident in India for as long as three millennia. What is absolutely certain is that the Baghdadi Jews were the last to settle in India.

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Different waves of migration brought them to India primarily between the decades of the 1790s and 1830s. Although they came from a number of places in West Asia, yet, in colloquial language, all of them came to be called Baghdadis, as mentioned above. If in the Arab world they had suffered from social isolation forced upon them, in the comparatively liberal environment of India it was self-imposed because of the great fear of losing their separate identity to assimilation. In order to distinguish themselves from the Hindu majority and the Muslim and Christian minorities, numerically far stronger than the Jews, they emphasized their foreign origin and their religious affiliation. Their attitude is well illustrated by what Flower Silliman tells us: ‘I never got to play Holi until I went to college in Delhi. Granny did not allow us to join in any Hindu festivals. When I was in college in Delhi—far enough from home and Granny’s strict rules—I did!’17 While not mixing with Indians was deliberate, lack of socialization with Europeans was out of compulsion, for they could never be considered part of the European society by the British. They ‘may have identified with British ways, but they did not see themselves as—nor did the British accept them as—Britishers. However, they did not see themselves as “the colonized” either and did not experience the kind of hatred or low selfesteem that is, according to the analysis of scholars such as Fanon and Memmi, part of the colonized psyche,’ writes Jael Silliman.18 Some of the explanations offered to Elias and Cooper, authors of The Jews of Calcutta, for the Baghdadi Jews in Calcutta not assimilating over a period of more than a hundred years are as follows: ‘...We wanted to copy the English, so looked down on the Indians and would not assimilate with them. The British looked down on us, so we could not assimilate with them. We therefore remained ourselves.’19 Another respondent said: ‘I think the reason was probably fear. There was strength in their togetherness. They were not Indians, not Europeans, so feared neither would accept them. They felt superior to Indians and inferior to Europeans.’20 This attitude was not peculiar to the Baghdadi Jews. They shared it with other minorities of foreign origin in colonial India, viz., Parsis, Armenians and Greeks, and even the Anglo-Indians, who were certainly partially Indian. The Anglicization of these communities would often make their status confusing to themselves and to others, for they were Indians by birth but culturallyoriented to Britain, and each had a sense of connection to the country of 17

Silliman, Jewish Portraits, Indian Frames, 18. Ibid., 172. 19 Elias and Cooper, The Jews of Calcutta, 101. 20 Ibid., 102. 18

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their origin, which in the case of Baghdadi Jews was replaced by their sense of communal affiliation. However, even if they had wanted to assimilate with the Indian population, it would have been difficult to do so, given the fragmented nature of Indian society, in which religious communities not only strictly practiced endogamy but also tended to form closed social circles instead of socializing with other communities. Each community largely kept to itself with little social interaction with other communities.21 As Silliman points out, ‘this social segregation was commonplace in the Indian and colonial environment of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, where the compartmentalization of difference was pervasive among all communities.’22 To the Indians in general the Baghdadi Jews were nothing other than another religious group.23 Silliman finds this perception of Baghdadi Jews similar to how they perceived themselves: ‘They identified solely with the Baghdadi Jewish diaspora community, regardless of its location on the map.24 Largely a product of nationalism (a twentieth century phenomenon in much of the world), the notion of citizenship, an allegiance to a geographic place, had little significance — practical or conceptual — in their lives. …[T]hey anchored themselves in the life of the Baghdadi Jewish community. The community was their ‘home’ and provided them with the material and emotional securities that gave them their sense of belonging.’25 The geographical mobility of Baghdadi Jews drove them to ‘recreate their communities and traditions in very diverse settings. They created very hybrid cultural forms, even while the Sephardic Jewish core remained constant.’26 Silliman illustrates her point with the example of her grandmother, for whom it was ‘perfectly natural…to say her brachot, settle down to eat a kosher meal of Indian food, listen to western popular music after her meal, and to curl up in the cool of her room in the hot Calcutta afternoons with a British novel. Although she might be regarded as an example of ‘hybridity’, Mary did not feel as though she was mixing cultures nor did she feel fragmented.’27 Silliman contends ‘that the term “multilocationality” across geographical, cultural and psychic boundaries captures her sentiments more accurately than “displacement”. She effortlessly

21

Mavis Hyman, Jews of the Raj (London: Hyman Publishers, 1995), 10. Silliman, Jewish Portraits, Indian Frames, 18. 23 Hyman, Jews of the Raj, 10. 24 Silliman, Jewish Portraits, Indian Frames, 166. 25 Ibid., 168 26 Ibid., 90. 27 Ibid. 22

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seemed to face in several directions at once.’28 According to Silliman, the ambivalence of the social position of Baghdadi Jews proved to be advantageous to them. Sandwiched between Indian and Western identities, they “partnered both European and Indian commercial interests.” With the British refusal to recognize them as Europeans and their own unwillingness to be seen as Indians, they “clung tenaciously to their Jewish identity”. While their political allegiances varied from one point of time to another, their commitment to Judaism remained invariably consistent.29 It was the onset of the Second World War that posed before the Baghdadi Jews, for the first time, the troubling question of identity. They found themselves facing a trichotomy of identities. Their ambivalence emanated from the fact that although they ate and dressed not like Indians but like the English, yet it was India where they felt at home, and this was in spite of the fact that they could not even speak any of its many languages with any degree of confidence. But interestingly they felt at home in India without feeling Indian, for it was only their Baghdadi Jewish identity that defined and aptly represented them, in a wider sense and not merely in a religious manner.30

Baghdadi Exodus from India The end of the British rule in India also brought an end to the preferential treatment these intermediaries, including the Baghdadis, had received from the state; and they either left India, as most of the Baghdadis, Armenians, and Greeks did, or had to reinvent themselves for their survival in India, as most of the Parsis did. While the exodus of Baghdadis, Armenians, and Greeks brought about an end to their communal life, the Parsis remained in India. Currently, their population stands at sixty thousand and are one of the richest communities in India, but are dying out today, as the children of Parsi women who marry outsiders are not recognised as Parsis. It is predicted the community could soon be extinct. The fear of having to conduct all their business in Hindi in independent India was one of the factors that triggered Baghdadi Jewish exodus from India. They could manage with colloquial Hindustani, but generally lacked the ability to speak, read or write Hindi or any other Indian language. Some of the Baghdadi Jews even wondered if they would be restricted from wearing western clothes in independent India. Yet there were some who

28

Ibid. Ibid., 18. 30 Ibid., 175. 29

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stayed back in India, like Morris in Silliman’s novel The Man with Many Hats: Though there were never many Jews in Calcutta, Morris had grown up as part of this community that had played a vital role in the city’s development. The Calcutta Jews had come to the city from Iraq and Syria when the British first came to trade in India, and had grown and had prospered under the Raj. Favoured by the British and commercially successful, many were unsure of their economic futures when India gained Independence. Since they were a tightly knit community, once a few Jews chose to leave, other family members soon followed suit. By the sixties the community had dwindled precipitously. This saddened Morris who had opted to stay—he had a thriving family business, many friends and loved his life in Calcutta. He was optimistic about India’s future and wanted to be part of the new, emerging India. Morris resolved to be both Jewish and Indian, and was quite sure he would fuse the two identities successfully.31

But it was not so easy for those who stayed back, as illustrated by how Silliman’s Indian identity was once challenged by an Indian friend of hers: I had reached my mid-thirties, so sure of my Indianness that it came as a rude shock when a progressive Indian friend challenged my identity. We were at an indigenous women’s meeting on a reservation in Montana, listening to Native Americans as they outlined their priorities for political and social action. During one session, I doodled an intricate Indian design, and a colleague complimented me on its beauty. When she said, ‘Indians are so artistic,’ my friend interjected: ‘But Jael is not really Indian.’ Her callous remark pained me, and I responded sharply: ‘Since when have you joined the Jan Sangh?’ We both knew what it meant. The Jan Sangh is the Hindu chauvinist party that advocates a Hindu India. It gives voice to Hindu nationalist sentiments and is known for its anti-minority political rhetoric. Although my friend immediately backed off and shamefacedly mumbled an apology of sorts, her remark stayed with me as a symbol of a larger phenomenon, the attempts underway to remake India into a Hindu nation. From the inclusive rhetoric of the anti-colonial leaders after Indian independence and through the 1950s and 1960s, India has experienced a decisive shift to the Hindutva politics that have found expression in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Not only in the charged communal environment within India, but also among many Indians living in the United States, a narrow view of who is Indian keeps gaining ground.32

31 32

Silliman, The Man with Many Hats, 10-11. Silliman, Jewish Portraits, Indian Frames, 167.

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The end of colonial rule in Asia in the post-war period also brought to an end the conditions that had favoured the Iraqi Jews, including those in India, and most of them emigrated to Israel, the UK, or Australia. The story of Baghdadi Jews in India best illustrates how microscopic minorities of foreign origin in colonial India not only survived but thrived as they were smart enough to use their numerical insignificance and the ambivalence of their social position to their advantage so as to emerge as intermediaries between the foreign rulers and their indigenous subjects, while resisting the forces of assimilation. In the global context we find that the Baghdadi Jews in colonial India did exactly what their co-religionists did in the colonial Middle East and North Africa (MENA). In doing so, they also contributed disproportionately more to the country’s commercial and cultural life than their small numbers warranted. Although unlike the AngloIndians, the anomalous status of Baghdadi Jews in independent India could not get confirmed in certain protections enshrined in the Indian constitution, like job quotas, because of their miniscule numbers. It is only recently that two states on the western coast of India, Maharashtra33 and Gujarat,34 recognised the Jews (the Baghdadi and the Bene Israel) as a minority.

33 Express News Service, “Maharashtra accords minority status to Jewish community”, Indian Express, June 22, 2016, accessed August 31, 2018, https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/maharashtra-accordsminority-status-to-jewish-community-2867911/ HT Correspondent, “Maharashtra becomes first state to award Jews ‘minority’ status”, Hindustan Times, June 22, 2016, accessed August 31, 2018, https://www.hindustantimes.com/mumbai/maharashtra-first-state-to-award-jewsminority-status/story-s1zbLGoPOCFxOyRUr1mI3L.html TNN, “Thank you, say Jews as state grants them minority status”, Times of India, June 22, 2016, accessed August 31, 2018, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/52861374.cms?utm_source=conten tofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst 34 PTI, “Gujarat's Jewish community gets religious minority status”, Times of India, July 9, 2018, accessed August 31, 2018, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/64921599.cms?utm_source=conten tofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst JTI, “Indian State of Gujarat Grants Minority Status to Its Jewish Community”, Haaretz, July 11, 2018, accessed August 31, 2018, https://www.haaretz.com/worldnews/indian-state-grants-minority-status-to-its-jewish-community-1.6265785

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Bibliography Benjamin, Elana, My Mother’s Spice Cupboard: A Journey from Baghdad to Bombay to Bondi (Melbourne: Hybrid Publishers, 2012) Elias, Flower and Judith Elias Cooper, The Jews of Calcutta: The Autobiography of a Community (1798-1972) (Calcutta: The Jewish Association of Calcutta, 1974) Express News Service, “Maharashtra accords minority status to Jewish community”, Indian Express, June 22, 2016: https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/maharashtraaccords-minority-status-to-jewish-community-2867911/ (Accessed on August 31, 2018). HT Correspondent, “Maharashtra becomes first state to award Jews ‘minority’ status”, Hindustan Times, June 22, 2016: https://www.hindustantimes.com/mumbai/maharashtra-first-state-toaward-jews-minority-status/story-s1zbLGoPOCFxOyRUr1mI3L.html (Accessed on August 31, 2018) Hyman, Mavis, Jews of the Raj (London: Hyman Publishers, 1995) JTI, “Indian State of Gujarat Grants Minority Status to Its Jewish Community”, Haaretz, July 11, 2018: https://www.haaretz.com/worldnews/indian-state-grants-minority-status-to-its-jewish-community1.6265785 (Accessed on August 31, 2018) PTI, “Gujarat's Jewish community gets religious minority status”, Times of India, July 9, 2018: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/64921599.cms?utm_so urce=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst (Accessed on August 31, 2018) Roland, Joan G., The Jewish Communities of India: Identity in a Colonial Era, second edition (New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 1998) Silliman, Jael, Jewish Portraits, Indian Frames: Women’s Narratives from a Diaspora of Hope (Calcutta: University Press of New England in arrangement with Seagull Books, 2001) Silliman, Jael, The Man with Many Hats (Kolkata: privately published, 2013) Stillman, Norman A., The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times (Philadelphia and New York: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1991)

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TNN, “Thank you, say Jews as state grants them minority status”, Times of India, June 22, 2016: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/52861374.cms?utm_so urce=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst (Accessed on August 31, 2018) Weinstein, Brian, ‘Judaeo-Arabic in India, Journal of Indo-Judaic Studies I, no. 2 (April 1999)

SIKHS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM: FROM ‘IMMIGRANTS’ TO ‘TRANSNATIONAL COMMUNITY’ VIJAYTA MAHENDRU

Introduction International migration is one of the most important factors of global change. It happens due to various reasons: persistent inequality in wealth between rich and poor countries impel large numbers of people to move in search for better living standards; political or ethnic conflicts in some regions lead to refugee movements; and the creation of free trade areas facilitate the movement of labour.1 Migration is not an isolated phenomenon: the movement of commodities, capital, and ideas almost always gives rise to the movement of people and vice versa. Global cultural interchange, facilitated by improved transport and the proliferation of print and electronic media, has also increased migration aspirations. Conditions may be tough for migrants, as they might experience abuse, exploitation, and discrimination; but these seem preferable to the poverty, insecurity, and lack of opportunities at home. Since international migration began to change the existing demographics, and economic and social structures, its political salience has strongly increased over the last hundred years. A new cultural diversity has been created in the countries of immigration, which brings into question the manner in which identities, especially those of migrants, are negotiated across differences with the existing polity of host countries. While international migration has been taking place on a large-scale since the sixteenth century, with Europeans migrating to colonies across the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Australia, the reverse trend, largely after the Second World War and decolonization, led to a heavy influx of immigrants into former empires like Great Britain and France. These countries have, in turn, over the last half century, experienced a variety of social movements 1

Castles et al., 2014.

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Sikhs in the United Kingdom

from different groups emphasizing their ethnic, linguistic, and religious distinctiveness. They demand full and equal inclusion in society, while claiming the recognition of their identities in the public sphere. This has brought the assumption of congruence between political unity and cultural homogeneity into sharp relief. The immigrant-receiving states and communities are trying to find ways to respond to these changes. At the same time, the migrating communities also undergo a lot of changes. This paper explores the Sikh community in the United Kingdom in this regard. The first part of the paper will discuss the Sikhs as a migrating community. The relationship between waves of Sikh migration and the history of nation-state formation will be analysed. This part of the essay will also shed light on the reasons behind Sikh migration, based on the transnational and diaspora theory, according to which, as people become more mobile, they start forming social and economic relations across multiple nation-states, which in turn boosts migration aspiration in the sending society and facilitates more migration. Wherever Sikhs have arrived in the West, the physical manifestations of their religion have come under scrutiny. Turban, beard, and the sheathed dagger, which are indispensable articles of the Sikh faith and the very basis of their ‘Sikhness’ and honour, violate publicly accepted dress codes in western societies. The second section of the paper will explore how this difference has contributed to the formation of their community in the United Kingdom (UK). The section will discuss the struggles for the expression of their identity and the role of the gurudwaras (Sikh places of worship), which have been instrumental in the successful establishment of the Sikh community within the UK. Globalization and fragmentation of communities has given rise to novel forms of interdependence. International co-operation is developing in transnational communities, ‘transforming the lives of millions of people and inextricably weaving together the fate of states and societies.’2 In this context, the territorialised ‘nation-state’ is falling short of containing the aspirations of the global Sikh community. The last part of this paper will highlight how the better part of the Sikh diaspora is not engaged in the politics of nationalism but that of recognition, aimed at facilitating Sikh integration into the host societies whilst maintaining the external symbols of faith, thereby giving rise to a transnational Sikh qaum (nation or community).

2

Castles et al., 2014.

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Part I ‘For every twenty Sikhs in the Punjab, there are no more than four in the rest of India and not more than one in the rest of the world.’3

The above statement, albeit dated in terms of numbers, indicates the extent of Sikh presence in the world. Sikhism is one of the many global religions that have originated in the Indian subcontinent. Nearly thirty million strong, Sikhs are the fifth largest religious group in the world and are present in many countries. The spread of this religion, however, has not been by the sword or by travelling preachers and monks but because of the creation of a migrating community whose history is closely linked to the history of nation state formation in the previous century.4 Today, there are nearly thirty million Sikhs in the world, eighty percent of whom live in Punjab and the rest of India. Outside India, one of the largest Sikh communities, comprising about half a million people, resides in the United Kingdom. Sikhs are the pioneering migrating community of South Asia;5 Talbot and Thandi have called them ‘people on the move,’ owing to the role they play in contemporary global migration.6 McLeod has called the Sikhs, ‘mobile people,’ with a culture and history marked by a willingness to travel, adjustability, and adventurousness.7 Salopek goes as far as saying that the exodus from this region has been happening since the beginning of known history. Numismatics suggests that people from the Harappan civilization moved to other contemporary river valley civilizations and had likely not returned. However, there is no consensus among experts regarding this.8 Psychologist Pirta states that ‘religions are philosophies of life to help human beings choose their ways of living and open new frontiers of consciousness for them.’9 In this context, the high spiritedness, that the Sikhs 3

J. S. Grewal, The Sikhs in Punjab (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). D. S. Tatla, The Sikh Diaspora: The Search for Statehood (London: UCL Press, 1999) 5 Singh and Tatla, Sikhs in Britain: The Making of a Community (London: Zed Books, 2006) 6 I. Talbot and S. Thandi, eds., People on the Move: Punjabi Colonial, and PostColonial Migration (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). 7 H. McLeod, Sikhism (London: Penguin, 1997) 8 See https://www.nationalgeographic.org/projects/out-of-eden-walk/articles/201807-walking-through-youthful-exodus-india/ 9 R. S. Pirta, ‘Spiritual Embedded Clinical Approach Part-II: Lessons from Sikh Faith,’ Journal of the Indian Academy of Psychology 39, no. 2 (2013), 145-53. 4

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are identified with can be attributed to the concept of Charhdi Kala, an expression for the frame of mind that a Sikh must accept and practice. It loosely means a positive, buoyant, and optimistic attitude towards life and the future: ‘The theory of Charhdi Kala teaches love, patience, tolerance, kindness, honesty, forgiveness and develops high moral standards in life. It also provides inner strength to fight the negative forces in life. The greatest boon of Charhdi Kala is that it makes us positive in life. We rejoice the loving, friendly, positive atmosphere of Charhdi Kala which helps to make us socially co-operative, educationally up-right and economically sound and hardworking.’10

Comparatively new among world religions, Sikhism was founded in the fifteenth century by Guru Nanak in a village called Talwandi near Lahore. There are differing accounts regarding how land was acquired where the city of Amritsar has been built and the holiest shrine of Sikhs, the Golden Temple is located. One version claims that Emperor Akbar donated this land to the Sikhs11. The era of peace under which the Sikh faith had hitherto evolved ended with the death of Akbar. His son Emperor Jehangir grew suspicious of the popularity of the Gurus and executed the fifth Guru, Arjan Dev12. Incidentally, one of the oldest European record of the Sikhs can be traced back to a seventeenth-century letter by the Portuguese Jesuit father Jerome Xavier, which mentions this event.13 Thereafter, political and military consolidation of the Sikhs began under the sixth Sikh Guru, Hargobind, who was the son of the martyred Guru Arjan Dev14. In 1699, at a time when many Sikhs, including their Gurus, were being executed by the Mughals, the tenth Guru, Gobind Singh formed the Khalsa panth (sect), which declared the purity and sovereignty of the Sikhs and codified the religion and the way of life for the followers of Sikhism. It was Gobind Singh who directed that, after him, the Guru Granth Sahib, their holy book, would guide the Sikhs.15 With exceptional military acumen, the Sikhs 10 H. Singh, ‘Concept of “Chardi Kala” in Guru Nanak Bani.’ Ph. D submitted to the Panjab University, Chandigarh, 2004 11 L.E. Fenech and W.H. McLeod, Historical Dictionary of Sikhism (Maryland, Rowman and Littlefield, 2014) 12 P. Singh, Life and Work of Guru Arjan (India, Oxford University Press, 2006) 13 K. Myrvold and K. A. Jacobson, eds., Sikhs in Europe: Migration, Identities and Representations (Surrey: Ashgate, 2011). 14 G.B. Nayyar, Sikhs in Ferment: Battles of the Sikh Gurus (India: South Asia Books, 1992) 15 J. S. Grewal, Social and Cultural History of the Punjab (Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 2004).

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defeated Afghan, Maratha, and Mughal armies that had tried to invade their territory. Their formal political unification and transformation into an empire happened under Maharaja Ranjit Singh in the year 1799. At its zenith, the empire stretched from the Khyber Pass to Western Tibet and from Mithankot to Kashmir. The first point of contact between Britishers and Sikhs happened when, impressed by their military standards, Maharaja Ranjit Singh employed French, British, Italian, and German soldiers to train his army according to European military discipline.16 The death of the Maharaja in 1839 greatly weakened the political unity of the empire. Following two Anglo-Sikh wars, it became the last major empire to be annexed by the British in the year 1849 (Figure 1). Thandi notes that ‘the origins of the Sikh diaspora lie in service to the British empire—as soldiers, civil servants and skilled labourers; as a part of a colonial strategy to divide and conquer.’17 The Sikhs were recognized as a military race, and right after the first Anglo- British war, the British started recruiting demobilized soldiers of the Sikh army under the 14th Ferozepur Regiment.18 After the annexation, large numbers of Sikhs were employed in the British Indian army. The fifteen-year-old Maharaja Duleep Singh was taken to Britain as a ward of Queen Victoria. In 1857, the first war of Indian independence, the Sikhs fought from the side of the British. Close proximity with the British encouraged Sikhs to migrate to England and, in the year 1911, a gurudwara was established in Putney, Southall. During the two world wars, Sikhs constituted around one percent of the population of British India but twenty percent of the British Indian Army19. Although there were a few hundred Sikhs in the UK but post Second World War and the passage of the British Nationality Act in 1948 which conferred the status of ‘citizen’ to every person coming to the ‘mother country’ from the colonies,20 large scale migration of Sikhs to the UK began. Tatla states that Sikh migration to the UK happened in three large waves,

16 B. J. Hasrat, Life and Times of Ranjit Singh: A Saga of Benevolent Despotism (Hoshiarpur: Sadhu Ashram, 1977). 17 S. Thandi, ‘Migration and Comparative Experiences of Sikhs in Europe: Reflections on Issues of Cultural Transmission and Identity 30 Years On,’ in Sikhs Across Borders: Transnational Practices of European Sikhs, eds. K. Jacobson and K. Myrvold (UK: Bloomsbury, 2012). 18 http://brownpundits.blogspot.in/2014/03/the-14th-ferozepur-sikh-regimentand.html 19 See http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/British-Parliament-pays-glowingtributes-to-Sikhs-and-Indian-Army-for-WWI-role/articleshow/45124922.cms 20 R. Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration in Post-War Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)

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intrinsically linked with the history of nation-state formation in the world.21 Their migration increased many folds when British India was partitioned along Punjab on the western front, creating the new independent states of India and Pakistan. The first wave of Sikh migration took place in the 1950s. At the time, it was mostly men, semi-skilled or unskilled, who came or were brought to the UK for post-war rebuilding of the country.22 Most of them were Jats from the Doaba region of Punjab. In time, they were followed by their family members—first brothers and sons, then wives and children.

Figure 1: The Golden Throne of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, permanent exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Many treasures of the Sikh Empire, including the Kohi-noor diamond were shipped to England after their annexation in 1849. Photo by author. 21 D. S. Tatla, The Sikh Diaspora: The Search for Statehood (London: UCL Press, 1999). 22 The Marshall plan provided a suitable economic atmosphere for migration to the British Isles from the colonies. The earliest migrants were from the Caribbean and Sikhs from both India and Pakistan (Jones and Smith, 1970).

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1890 onwards, many Indians were taken as indentured labour for the laying of railroads in East Africa, another British colony. A fairly large number of Sikhs were also a part of this migratory flow. Owing to their status of being a ‘martial race’ and their familiarity with the British, they were generally given supervisory roles,23 a privileged position in comparison to other Indians and Africans. These Sikhs successfully established the East African community. With the independence of the states of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda and the rise of African nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s, there was large scale ousting of ‘others.’ This ‘other’ included Sikhs, who had to leave everything and move out, in some cases with a three month notice to wrap-up and leave the country. Almost all these Sikhs were British subjects and held a passport to the UK. Very few returned to India and most went to Britain, leading to the second wave of Sikh migration in the country. These East African Sikhs, who migrated for the second time in their lifetimes, have been called ‘twice migrants.’24 In the early 1980s, the demand for Khalistan, an independent Sikh nation state, began in Punjab under the leadership of Jarnail Singh Bhindrawale. In 1984, this culminated in Operation Bluestar. the Indian army siege of the Akal Takht (the highest seat of temporal power of the Sikhs) and the entire Golden Temple Complex. Aside from Bhindrawale and other people who were a part of the secessionist movement, hundreds of innocent Sikhs died in crossfire. The ancient Sikh library was where many copies of the Guru Granth Sahib, handwritten by the Gurus themselves was kept, was burnt to ashes and the water of the holy pond turned blood red. For Sikhs, Operation Bluestar is an event comparable to the bringing down of the temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. The idea of Sikh ethno-nationality with a state of its own took root and redefined the nature of Sikhdom.25 A few months later, Sikh security guards of the then prime minister of India, Indira Gandhi, shot her dead. Her assassination instigated a pogrom whereby thousands of Sikhs in North India, primarily Delhi, were killed.26 This led to the third wave of Sikh migration to the UK. As argued above, the three major waves of Sikh migration are intrinsically linked with the history of nation state formation. The first and 23

K. D. Hall, Lives in Transition: Sikh Youth as British Citizens (Philadelphia: Univesity of Pennsylvania Press, 2002). 24 P. Bhachu, Twice Migrants: East African Settlers in Britain (London: Tavistock Publications, 1985). 25 Tatla, The Sikh Diaspora. 26 V. Van Dyke, ‘The Anti-Sikh Riots of 1984 in Delhi: Politicians, Criminals, and the Discourse of Communalism,’ in Riots and Pogroms, ed. Paul R. Brass (UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996).

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second waves followed the formation of independent India and Pakistan and the East African states respectively. The third was the result of a violent secessionist movement which was handled by greater violence of the Indian state. Sikhs had paid the heaviest price for the independence of India with large scale death, displacement, and dispossession. Nankana Sahib and Kartarpur Sahib, two of the holiest shrines of the Sikhs, along with many others, remain to this day on the Pakistani side of the border. Then, the East African Sikhs became ‘twice migrants’ due to post-independence Africanization policies, which made it nearly impossible for them to live there, despite their social integration in those societies.27 The secessionist movement in Punjab was violently crushed by the Indian state. Kaur argues that, along with the Jewish diaspora, Sikhs are perhaps the only religious diaspora in the world.28 The term ‘diaspora’ cannot be used for just any migrating community. Diaspora have certain defining features like dispersal from an original homeland, often traumatically, to two or more foreign regions; a collective memory and myth about the homeland; a strong ethnic group consciousness sustained over a long time; and a sense of empathy and solidarity and the maintenance of links with co-ethnic members in other countries of settlement.29 In the above sense, Sikhs constitute a diasporic community. The proliferation of Sikhs abroad can be explained by migration network theory. Wherever Sikhs have migrated, they have created and maintained strong ties with family and friends at home, which has led to the emergence of social networks, facilitating further migration. While factors like warfare, colonialism, conquest, military service, and labour recruitment initiated the migration of Sikhs,30 once a critical number of migrants settled at the destination, other forces came into play. Migrant networks, as defined by Massey, were formed, whereby interpersonal ties connected migrants, potential migrants, and non-migrants in origin and destination areas, through bonds of friendship and shared community origin.31 Massey (1990) further notes that migrant networks tend to decrease the economic, social and psychological costs of migration, thereby increasing its probability. 27

Bhachu, Twice Migrants. H. Kaur, ‘Reconstructing the Sikh Diaspora,’ International Migration 50, no.1 (2011): 129-42. 29 R. Cohen, ed. The Cambridge Survey of World Migration (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). 30 D. S. Massey et al., Worlds in Motion: Understanding International Migration at the End of the Millennium (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998). 31 D. S. Massey et al., ‘Theories of International Migration: a Review and Appraisal,’ Population and Development Review 19, no. 3 (1993): 431–66. 28

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These trends feed off one another and the vast numbers of network connections that are thus formed create a social structure to sustain more migration.32 On analysis, one can observe that, besides financial and human capital, social capital greatly affects people’s capability and aspiration to migrate. Settled migrants raise the confidence of aspirants by providing information, offering temporary housing, and finding employment in the new environment. Migrant groups develop their own social and economic infrastructure like places of worship, associations, food joints and grocery stores. In time, educated service providers like teachers, doctors, and lawyers also start coming from these communities. This makes the place conducive for further migration (Castles et al., 2014).33 In the light of the above, the next section of the paper will discuss the details of the formation and establishment of the Sikh community in the UK.

Part II ‘The turban is synonymous with Sikhs and because of this association the turban has become the premier symbol of communal identity and its honour, whereas an inability to wear it is a sign of collective dishonour.’34

Following the passage of the British Nationality Act in 1948, large scale immigration from former colonies resulted in a new kind of diversity in the UK, which was racial and/or religious and it came as a big challenge to the white Christian majority state. Through a process that would drastically change the character of the British citizenry, several communities and groups, having distinct identities, migrated to the country to reside in a liberal democratic polity based on equality. Sikhs were one of them. According to Bhikhu Parekh, ‘for believers, their religion is the source of their world view and values, the ground of their being, their ultimate frame of reference, and governs all areas of their lives.’ He also goes on to say that ‘every religion aims to guide the individual in the organization of his or her personal and collective life and provides a set of moral and political principles.’35

32 D. S. Massey, ‘Social Structure, Household Strategies, and the Cumulative Causation of Migration,’ Population Index 56, no. 1 (1990): 3-26. 33 S. Castles et al., The Age of Migration (UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). 34 G. Singh and D. S. Tatla, Sikhs in Britain: The Making of a Community (London: Zed Books, 2006). 35 Parekh, 2008.

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The Sikhs are well known for their organising capability. Wherever they go, very soon they mobilise as a community. This aspect is also attributed to their religious code of conduct, called Sikh Rehat Maryada, which is the official Sikh code of conduct.36 It is one of the duties of the Sikh to have a community life, to live in sangat (fellowship or congregation), centred around the gurudwara. In light of this, one of the premier factors for Sikh community building in the UK, as it is elsewhere, is the establishment of gurudwaras and the collective struggle to wear the external markers of faith. In the beginning of the twentieth century, Britain was the hub for elite education for Indians. Teja Singh, a Sikh student, was sent through religious sponsorship to become familiar with ‘challenges to the Sikh faith’ and was enrolled in Cambridge in 1907. He became the moving spirit behind acquiring a property in London. With the help of donations from Bhupinder Singh,the Maharaja of Patiala, the Shepherd’s Bush Gurudwara, inaugurated by the Maharaja himself in 1911, became the focal point for the small Sikh community in the UK. Singh notes that many students were supported by the Gurudwara and its congregation in their adjustment to British life and it became the first point of contact for the Sikhs arriving in Britain thereafter.37 With the increase in the number of Sikhs during the 1950s, more gurudwaras were constructed; currently, there are about 250 gurudwaras in all of the UK, out of which over 200 are in England and Wales.38 From the 1980s onwards, the gurudwaras acquired caste diversity, a characteristic of the subcontinent of the faith’s origin. This also indicates that now people from other castes and regions of Punjab had started migrating, which were earlier only dominated by the Jat Sikhs from the Doaba region. In 2003, the largest gurudwara outside of India, ‘second only to the Golden Temple in Amritsar,’39 Sri Guru Singh Sabha gurudwara, was inaugurated in Southall amid a gathering of 40,000 people. The gurudwara has become a premier 36

See online sources: file:///C:/Users/vijay_000/Desktop/MANASUKHANI%20GOBIND%20SINGH% 20SIKH-RAHAT-MARYADA%20AND%20SIKH%20SYMBOLS%20174.pdf and http://saanjh.org/phocadownload/Sikhism_Its_Philosphy_%26_History.pdf#page= 260 for a detailed account of the meaning of Sikh Rehat Maryada. 37 G. Singh, ‘Gurdwaras and Community-building among British Sikhs,’ Contemporary South Asia 15, no. 2 (2006): 147-64. 38 P. Weller, Religions in the UK: A Multi-faith Directory, 3rd revised edition (MultiFaith Centre, University of Derby, 2001). 39 Dr Parminder Singh Garcha, spokesman for the gurdwara, hhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2898761. stmi, accessed 30 August 2016. Prince Charles attended the opening of the gurdwara on 13 June 2003.

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symbol of Sikh pride and is the new ‘cathedral of multicultural Britain.’40 Religious organizations such as those associated with gurudwaras are highly political in nature. They also deal in big money.41 Therefore, they are not free from controversies related to corruption and sometimes even violent disputes.42 However, in the face of declining community and extended family connections, gurudwaras fill in as authentic venues for community seva (voluntary service) and for the provision of services for the larger community43 (Figure 2).

Figure 2: The Sikh Temple, Chapeltown Road, Leeds. The church building (right) was acquired by the Sikh community in the 1960’s and used as a Gurudwara (note the sign in the front). The new Gurudwara (right) was built across the road later. Photo by author.

The second and more controversial contributor to the community building of Sikhs are struggles that Sikhs had to face due to the external markers mandated by their religion that immediately demarcate them in public spaces. Kalra (2005) gives a consolidated account of the speci¿c relationship of Sikhs to the turban, examining it both in theological and social terms.44 Theorists of multiculturalism such as Song, Blum, Parekh, Taylor, and Kymlicka discuss at length the difficulties faced by the liberal 40

Peach and Gale, 2003.

41 The Sources of income of Gurudwaras include : contributions by the congregation;

contributions to the building fund; special campaigns; contributions in kind; income from akhand paths (dedicated reading of the scriptures); local, national and European Union development grants; fees from educational or other classes; fees for officiating birth, death and marriage ceremonies; and the hire of halls and allied premises for ceremonies and official functions. 42 See Gurharpal Singh (2006) for some examples. 43 See the website of Gurudwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha for details of services provided. 44 V. S. Kalra, ‘Locating the Sikh Pagh,’ Sikh Formations 1, no. 1 (2005): 75–92.

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state, which is based on equality, to deal with difference.45 There is also the epistemological debate between group and individual rights, a debate that challenges western societies in modern times, as religion has become deterritorialised by mass demographic upheaval through immigration.46 Wherever Sikhs have settled in considerable numbers, a demand has been voiced sooner or later—their right to wear the turban. The turban, which is not one of the five K’s of Sikhism (Kes, Kangha, Kachcha, Kirpan and Kada—hair, comb, cotton breeches, dagger and armband, that are mandatory for Sikhs to carry or have) has become a premier symbol of communal pride and identity. The first generation of Sikhs in the UK had to discard the turban in order to assimilate and not get excluded from the job market due to their difference. With an increase in their numbers and the arrival of East African Sikhs, who had hitherto lived a very respectable life, there was an assertion to hold symbols of identity, the turban being the most significant and immediate cause of concern. In the UK, there have been many clashes between Sikh groups and the state, where the Sikhs have (mostly) won their right to religious expression in terms of their symbols. ‘According to Brian Barry, Sikhs have become a paradigm case of special-interest groups that can always negotiate an optout from the general rule making.’47 There have been many points of confrontation between Sikh interest groups and the state; due to the limited scope of this paper, three major turban campaigns will be discussed as examples of their modes of mobilization and agitation.48

45

S. Song, ‘The Subject of Multiculturalism: Culture, Religion, Language, Ethnicity, Nationality, and Race?’ in New Waves in Political Philosophy, eds B. de Bruin and C. Zurn (New York: Palgrave MacMillan 2008); L. A. Blum, Antiracism, Multiculturalism, and Interracial Community: Three Educational Values for a Multicultural Society (Boston: Office of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Massachusetts, 1992); B. Parekh, Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory (Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2000); C. Taylor, Philosophical Arguments (Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1995); and the following three by W. Kymlicka: Liberalism, Community, and Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989); Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995); and Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism, and Citizenship (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). 46 P. Pathak, The Future of Multicultural Britain: Confronting the Progressive Dilemma (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008). 47 G. Singh, and D. S. Tatla, Sikhs in Britain: The Making of a Community (London: Zed Books, 2006). 48 Details of these campaigns are given in Singh and Tatla (2006).

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The Turban Campaigns G. G. S. Sagar, a Sikh bus-garage worker from Manchester, applied for the post of conductor with the Manchester City Council’s transport department in 1959. The application was rejected on the grounds that his turban violated the dress code of the company. He offered to wear a blue turban with the badge of the transport committee but that too was turned down. Involving the local gurudwara, Sagar launched a campaign which took almost seven years and four full council debates to be resolved. In October 1966, when the council finally decided to allow the wearing of turbans, Sagar had crossed the recruitment age for busmen, but the victory set a precedent for others to follow. In August 1967, Tarsem Singh Sandhu, a bus driver with Wolverhampton Council, who had been employed as a clean-shaven Sikh, returned from sick leave wearing a turban and was sacked from his job for violating the code of conduct. Like Sagar, he also started a campaign which drew more and more support and involved local, national, and international political actors. Enoch Powell, the MP from South Wolverhampton, and the Labour party were on one side and the IWA (Indian Workers’ Association) and the SAD (Shiromani Akali Dal) on the other. Powell made his (in)famous antiimmigration ‘rivers of blood’ speech in 1968, in the midst of this issue. Local opinion was divided, with some newspapers claiming that the Sikhs should realise that this was not India but England. After a few protest marches, a 65-year-old local leader, Sohan Singh Jolly, an ex-British serviceman from East Africa who had served with his turban, declared he would immolate himself on 13 April 1969 if the transport authorities did not change their stance against the turban. This led to the involvement of the then Indian High Commissioner, Shanti Sarup Dhawan, who met the transport authorities and explained to them the wider ramifications if a suicide was committed. Despite the fact that Race Relations Act had been broadened, outlawing discrimination in employment, housing and public service, in 1968, the mayor of Wolverhampton called this situation a blackmail and begrudgingly changed the rules regarding the turban on 9 April 1969, mentioning that they were ‘forced to have regard to wider implications.’ The turban campaigns of the 1960s had shown a landmark victory for the Sikhs of Britain. However, this victory was short lived and the community soon confronted another challenge. Section 32 of the Road Traffic Act 1972 made it compulsory for all motorcyclists to wear protective headgear—a crash helmet. The rule came into force on 1 June 1973, despite strong resistance from Sikh groups expressed to the Ministry of Transport. During the 1974 general elections, Baldev Singh Chahal, who had started

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the ‘National Turban Action Committee’, contested from Ealing, Southall, which had a significant Sikh population. His candidature was based on this single issue. He appealed to the High Court against the new law, on three grounds: that the Ministry of Transport had failed to consult with Sikh groups before bringing out such a law; that the Race Relations Acts of 1965 and 1968 were not taken into account; and that the law was in contravention of ‘the guarantee of freedom of religion enshrined in the European Convention of Human Rights’. The Appeal was crisply dismissed by Lord Widgery, who declared: No one is bound to ride a motorcycle. All that the law prescribes is that if you do ride a motorcycle you must wear a crash helmet. The effects of the Regulations no doubt bear on the Sikh community in this respect because it means that they will be often prevented from riding a motorcycle not because of English law but the requirements of their religion.49

Lord Widgery’s arguments were supported by a subsequent ruling of the European Commission on Human Rights: The Commission considers that the compulsory wearing of crash helmets is a necessary safety measure for motorcyclists. The Commission is of the opinion therefore that any interference there may have been with the applicant’s freedom of religion was justified for the protection of health in accordance with article 9 (2).50

Following this, there began a massive discourse between the multiculturalists and anti-multiculturalists as to whether equality and opportunity must be subject-dependent, or should it be a one-size fits all formula. The hardliners, who were opposed to any exemptions to the Sikhs, questioned the religious status of the turban. However, by 1976, there was an overwhelming case for granting the exemption, in which, a recalling of the Anglo-Sikh traditional ties had been instrumental. The Labour government supported a Private Member’s Bill introduced by Sidney Bidwell, the MP from Southall. The Motor-Cycle Crash Helmets (Religious Exemption) Act modified section 32 of the Road Traffic Act (1972), by declaring that ‘it shall not apply to a follower of the Sikh religion while he is wearing a turban.’ It was reconfirmed in the 16th section of the Road Traffic Act, 198851. 49

Ibid. Ibid. 51 S.M. Poulter, English Law and Ethnic Minority Customs (Edinburgh: Butterworth, 1986) 50

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By the end of the 1970s and the early 1980s, there was a new vigour among the ethnic minorities in Britain to test the effectiveness of the newly enacted Race Relations Act (1976), which outlawed direct and indirect discrimination. A parallel campaign had been going on strongly, with a significant lobby in Britain, for greater autonomy for Punjab. In this context, Gurinder Singh Mandla, a Sikh student, sought admission to a school in Birmingham in 1978. The headmaster of the school, A. G. Dowell Lee, refused to admit the student because of his desire to wear the turban, which was against the dress code of the school. Mandla’s father then lodged a complaint with the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) which was a newly established body under the Race Relations Act (1976). Prima facie, this case was considered to be one of ‘indirect discrimination’. The CRE supported case went to the County Court and was dismissed on the grounds that Sikhs do not constitute a ‘racial group’ as they could not be distinguished from other Punjabis. It was also noted that the wearing of a turban is a religious act and is thus not covered under the Race Relations Act. There was very harsh criticism of this from the Sikhs. However, there was no condemnation from the Indian government as they were already mired in handling Sikh separatism. In 1982, the Siromani Akali Dal launched a campaign in India for greater autonomy for Punjab. This received full solidarity from the British Sikhs, as the Mandla vs Dowell Lee case was still on and there was immense discourse on Sikh distinctiveness. On 10 October 1982, a procession was organised in London in which over 40,000 Sikhs participated. It was decided that the appeal would be taken to the House of Lords. This house, in their verdict of 23 March 1983, overturned the judgement of the lower house by adopting a broader, sociological definition of an ‘ethnic group’ rather than the narrow ‘biological’ or ‘racial’ interpretations of the lower courts. Lord Templeman went even further, noting that the Sikhs ‘are more than a religious sect, they are almost a race and almost a nation…they fail to qualify as a separate nation…because their kingdom never achieved a sufficient degree of recognition or permanence.’52 Thus, Sikhs, like Jews, were considered an ‘ethnic group,’ with protection under the Race Relations Act. This protection was not accorded to many other ethnic groups since they were not recognised as a distinct race. The Mandla vs Dowell Lee case established with finality the illegality, in the UK, of discriminating against Sikhs based on their appearance, especially the turban, whether in employment, education, or other sectors. These 52 All England Law Reports (House of Lords) 1 (London: Butterworth and Co. 1983).

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turban campaigns showed how the Sikhs could mobilise and get their demands heard and met through collective action (Figure 3). However, there have been a number of cases of discrimination despite the 1983 judgement like the 1984 case of Gurmeet Singh Kambo vs. Vaulkhard took place in the northern county of Newcastle. The actions of the defendant were declared unlawful by the UK court.

Figure 3: Many Sikhs had to cut their kes (hair) in order to get jobs in the early years of migration but started wearing the turban after 1984 or after retirement. Photo by author.

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Beyond the Turban: The Kara and the Kirpan ‘Formally neutral and generally applicable state laws are more likely to lead to offences against the rights of religious minorities than against racial minorities.’53 Before the Equality Act of 2006 was passed by the Parliament of the UK, there was no law against religious discrimination; and even that act explicitly protected from discrimination only in the field of employment and no more. Though the Mandla case had won the Sikhs their right to wear the turban, it did not end up protecting other religious groups from such discrimination or even Sikhs in other situations. This can be demonstrated with the case of the expulsion of a Sikh Welsh student from school on grounds of wearing the Kara (armband) in 2007. She challenged the school in the court of law and the school was found guilty of indirect discrimination under the Race Relations Acts and the Equality Laws. In 2008, she went back to school.54 While the Kara is a benign object, there is a very intense debate among scholars of Sikh studies and lawyers of all faiths whether the Kirpan (the ceremonial dagger) should be allowed in all public spaces, and most importantly, in schools. Juss states that the wearing of the Kirpan raises issues of individual religious expression more acutely than other articles of faith, which do not raise concerns of public safety in a way that the Kirpan ostensibly does.55 The Kirpan may create a feeling of public safety concern for other communities, but the grounds of legality of it are the same as that of the hair and consequently the turban. Therefore, it is a growing challenge that the Sikh community faces as increasingly many countries have started to explicitly ban it. However, since only a small percentage of Sikhs actually carry the Kirpan, it doesn’t mobilise Sikhs in the way that the turban did in the past. Various viewpoints to this debate have emerged from the Sikh as well as secular spaces56 and it is interesting to note that there are Sikhs who do see that the carrying of the dagger by a Khalsa Sikh, which made sense in the incendiary atmosphere of the seventeenth century, has little practical meaning at present: ‘There are more important battles to fight with regard to religious intolerance than whether Sikh kids can wear kirpans to school...all religions could do with taking a step back from symbols and

53 S. S. Juss, ‘The Constitution and Sikhs in Britain,’ Brigham Young University Law Review, no. 2 (1995): 481-533. 54 https://www.theguardian.com/education/2008/jul/30/schools.religion 55 S. S. Juss, ‘Kirpans, Law, and Religious Symbols in Schools,’ Journal of Church and State 55, no. 4 (2012): 758–95. 56 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk/8500712.stm

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icons and explore a little more deeply the philosophical content of what their belief system hopes to offer the world’57 (Figure 4). But the important question for a religious minority like the Sikhs is that no matter how ‘westernised’ they may become and be willing to adapt in the country of immigration, they ultimately have to rely on adequate statutory and constitutional protection if they are to have a measure of security in the practice of their faith which makes them what they are.58 And yet, no matter how many laws are in the favour of the minorities, there are times when they fail to make a difference and the community has to rise and stand up for themselves. This is not only true for Sikhs but also for other minorities and not just religious, but also regional, linguistic, sexual, women, and people with disabilities.

Figure 4: A retired Amritdhari Sikh farmer in Smethwick, a small suburban town in the West Midlands, with high concentration of Sikhs, five Gurudwaras and a Sikh soldier war memorial built in 2018. Photo by author.

57

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2010/feb/09/dagger-dilemmasikhism-kirpan-schools 58 S. S. Juss, ‘The Constitution and Sikhs in Britain,’ Brigham Young University Law Review, no. 2 (1995): 481-533.

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Part III ‘...longing for a home we have never known, and then creating a connection between that imagined home and one’s identity, is an example of appropriation of an older generation’s alienation.’59

The processes of globalization and territorial fragmentation60 of Sikhs due to migration in the previous century has had a strong impact on Sikh identity. Numerically speaking, they are a minority in every state in which they are present but a territorial configuration of identity impacts upon the sense of self by privileging one form of collective identity—‘belonging to a nation’—over others. In the latter part of the previous century, a long drawn separatist insurgency in the Indian state of Punjab encompassed, among other horrific details, an attack on the holiest Sikh shrine, a prime minister’s assassination and targeted violence meted out to Sikhs in various parts of North India. This has had a lasting impact on Sikhs across the world, who are a part of ever growing transnational Sikh-space. Over the decades, various movements have taken place to assert the need for a separate Sikh state called Khalistan. Currently, Sikhs for Justice, a New York based group is lobbying for a referendum for Khalistan in 2020 and to that end, a march was organised in Trafalgar Square in London, with a participation of thousands of Sikhs in favour and few against it as well. Throughout the UK, one can see photos of the desecrated Golden Temple right after the attack of 1984 as well as those of Jarnail Singh Bhindrawale, who most people refer to as Santji (Saint). Yet, the sentiment regarding a separate state is not universal. Dr. Opinderjit Kaur Takhar61 said that while all Sikhs are for justice, and India has a lot to answer for, not all Sikhs are for Khalistan (Figure 5).

59

A. Mann, ‘Post-Colonial Practices and Narrative Nomads: Thinking Sikhism Beyond Metaphysics,’ Sikh Formations 1, no. 2 (2005): 217-27. 60 Shani (2005) 61 Director, Centre for Sikh and Punjabi Studies, University of Wolverhampton. This is from a personal interview.

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Figure 5: Poster in a West Midlands Gurudwara wall. The picture on in the Right shows the state of the Golden Temple after Operation Blue Star. Below is a foretelling statement from the Sunday Telegraph. Photo by author.

Notably, no prominent Sikh person from politics or civil society took part in the referendum.62 This is so, because of a number of reasons against a territorial definition of a Sikh homeland. Firstly, Punjab is divided between India and Pakistan, with some of the places of significance for Sikhs situated in the latter, including Nankana Sahib, the birthplace of the first Sikh Guru, Nanak. The demand for Khalistan, however, is made only for the Indian state of Punjab, which is less than half the original landmass of the entire Punjab. Apart from that, Sikh Gurus have travelled far and wide in the entire Indian subcontinent, especially Guru Nanak, Guru Tegh Bahadur and Guru Gobind Singh, gaining followers in places they went. The last Guru’s birth as well as death took place thousands of miles away from Punjab, in Patna and Nanded, which form two of the five seats of highest regard (Panj Takht) in Sikh faith, the other three being situated in Punjab. Even Delhi has a very rich Sikh history. So, it is apparent that the Sikh faith encompasses the entire subcontinent and not just the Punjab region. Delimiting Sikhs to a territory is inconsistent with the history of the faith and Gurus themselves.

62 https://www.theweek.in/news/india/2018/08/13/Referendum-2020-Will-proKhalistan-movement-garner-support-in-Punjab.html

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Apart from the real-political territorial aspect, one look at the population that is expected to inhabit this land is also important. There are Sikhs who live in places as far as the North East India, Bangladesh and Afghanistan as well as other parts of the world, particularly in UK, USA, Canada and Australia. As Singh notes, for most Sikhs abroad, Punjab does not represent so much a homeland but a holy land;’63 and Oberoi observes that for much of Sikh history, territory has not played a key role in self-definition.64 Also, according to Mann: While immigrants have imposed upon themselves a sort of exile from their traditions, histories and cultures, the children of immigrants are exiled from the very notion of an original language, exiled from any memory of a homeland, exiled from the very possibility of an identity consistent with one culture’s norms. A multicultural subject, one who is familiar with more than one culture and more than one language, has access to multiple cultures/languages/conceptual systems but is not, like those comfortably enculturated, determined by them. A cultural nomad cannot call one language a mother tongue or one place a home. Concepts like homeland, mother tongue and nationalist identity are only inherited baggage for the nomad.65

In this sense, the Sikhs outside Punjab are cultural nomads who, rather than attempting to create a central space for themselves, should focus on fully embodying hybrid ontologies, and identify with dislocation. The goal should be to fully occupy their marginal space (Mann, 2005).66 It is thus increasingly necessary for communities to have a transnational imagination, because in the absence of any agreement on rights and entitlements, participation in the rights discourse is at best problematic. Who decides which communities are entitled to participate and who gets to speak for a particular community? If this entitlement depends on the territorial state, then the voice of the Sikhs will continue to be excluded in the absence of Khalistan (Shani, 2005).67

63

Gurharpal Singh, ‘A Victim Diaspora? The Case of the Sikhs,’ Diaspora 8, no. 3 (1999): 293–309. 64 Harjot S. Oberoi, ‘From Punjab to “Khalistan”: Territoriality and Metacommentary,’ Paci¿c Affairs 60, no. 1 (1987): 26–42. 65 Mann, ‘Post-colonial Practices.’ 66 Ibid. 67 G. Shani, ‘Beyond Khalistan? Sikh Diasporic Identity and Critical International Theory,’ Sikh Formations 1, no. 1 (2005): 57-74.

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Sikhs have successfully made the bid to be counted as a separate ethnic category in the 2021 UK census.68 However, this does not consider the fact that there is an increasing number of ‘Gore Sikhs’ (white people who convert to Sikhism) as well as the possibility of people of other ethnicities who might already be, or in future could consider being Sikhs. Nevertheless, this has been a big achievement of the Sikh advocacy groups in the UK, who have been lobbying for a separate category for themselves as they were (begrudgingly) counted as Indians. With respect to religious and ethnic identity, the world has reached a point where it is becoming increasingly important to create a dialogic post-nationalist community that is sensitive to the needs of the systematically excluded, within and outside traditional borders, like the Sikhs. Internationalization of economics and the communication revolution, which have given rise to migration networks, also necessitate this kind of imagination. Ohmae notes that state has become an unnatural, even dysfunctional unit for organising human activity and managing economic endeavour in a borderless world;69 and according to Albrow, the nation state is a time bound form, which no longer contains the aspirations nor monopolises the attention of those who live on its territory.70 The Sikhs have a religion and common ancestry myths dating back to 1699. Most Sikhs today are engaged in the politics of recognition rather than the politics of nationalism. Their efforts are aimed at facilitating Sikh integration into the host societies whilst maintaining the external symbols of faith. These struggles are now becoming increasingly globalised with the help of Sikh NGOs like the United Sikhs, which are enabling Sikhs to articulate a transnational Sikh identity. In the year 2001, the Sikh Human Rights Group, London, succeeded in getting the world conference on racism, discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance at Durban, to adopt a paragraph to include the Sikhs: Existing national legislation and policies fall short of protecting the intertwined racial/cultural/ethnic/religious identity of the Sikhs. Very few groups fall into this sort of category....the category of religion does not adequately protect the Sikhs. We call ourselves a ‘qaum’ that has no translation in English.71

68 https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/nri/other-news/british-sikhs-to-get-ethnicitystatus-in-2021-census-report/articleshow/65101827.cms 69 Kenichi Ohmae, ‘The Rise of the Region State,’ Foreign Affairs 72, no. 2 (1993): 78–87. 70 Martin Albrow, The Global Age (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996). 71 Sikh Human Rights Group, 2001.

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Post 9/11 and 7/7: Hate Crimes and the Rise of Sikh Transnational Organizations Citizenship for ethnic minorities is structurally characterised by irony.72

Sikhs are constantly confronted with evasions, and gaps in the national narrative. Thus, their sense of belonging is tempered by the way in which that very belonging is often undermined by racist exclusions and interrogations.73 The Sikhs were thought to have a place within the constellation of symbols that constitute the British South Asian imaginary and was marked out in popular culture. However, the image of Osama Bin Laden in a turban and a shorn beard brought Sikhs under sharp attack. The first man to be killed after 9/11 was Balbir Singh Sodhi in Arizona.74 The first religious establishment to be attacked with a petrol bomb after the 7/7 bombings in London was a gurudwara in Kent.75 Sikhs have been victims of innumerable hate crimes since the rise of Islamophobia,76 compelling one to wonder why the Sikhs, one of the most well established minorities in UK, USA, and elsewhere, are mistaken to be something they are not. Why is their identity still mistaken based on the turban, despite the many famous struggles that have gone in the way to make them wear it with due respect in public? (Figure 6)

72

S. Sayyid, ‘BrAsians: Postcolonial People, Ironic Citizens,’ in A Postcolonial People: South Asians in Britain, ed. N. Ali, V. Kalra and S. Sayyid (London: Hurst and Company 2006). 73 K. P. Sian, ‘Losing My Religion: Sikhs in the UK,’ Sikh Formations 9, no. 1 (2013): 39–50. 74 See http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/17/us/sikh-owner-of-gas-station-is-fatallyshot-in-rampage.html 75 See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4674883.stm 76 See http://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/history-of-hate-crimes-against-sikhs-since911_n_1751841, http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/15/us/sikh-hate-crime-victims/, http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/uk-sikhs-remain-invisible-victims-anti-muslim-hatecrime-1510588 and Verma (2006).

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Figure 6: A hotspot for Asian merchandise and street food in the Southall High Street. Photo by author.

In the beginning, Sikhs, who have consciously embraced ‘Britishness’ and represent a modern, independent, and hardworking collective and acquired a greater social status and mobility, ‘othered’ the Muslims, who have, so to say, ‘failed’ to integrate in the UK. Sian discusses the development of the Sikh variant of Islamophobia and how Sikhs are making attempts at uncritical assimilation to distinguish themselves from the Muslims.77 However, with the passage of time and the continuing attacks on Sikhs, it can be inferred that the hate crimes against Sikhs depict a rise of traditional racism.78 Lawyer activist Valarie Kaur79 states that it is not as if there was no discrimination before 2001, but 9/11 marked a paradigm shift in terms of the increase in the threat of violence. She contends that the violence has become mainstream; and Sikhs have come to realise that it is no longer the state that has a problem with the turban, but the people at large, who are, after all these decades, still not oriented to the rich diversity in these countries. A survey80 in 2015 revealed that sixty percent of Americans are not aware of Sikhs or Sikhism. The numbers seem unlikely to be very 77

Sian, ‘Losing My Religion.’ http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/how-racism-is-making-a-comeback-andexploiting-tensions-between-sikhs-and-muslims-a6783301.html 79 See http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/06/opinion/kaur-sikhs/ 80 http://www.dnaindia.com/world/report-60-of-americans-unaware-about-sikhsand-sikhism-survey-2056161 78

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encouraging in the case of UK too, should such a survey be conducted there. It has also been noted that almost all anti-hate crime efforts are directed towards Muslims; not much is being done for Sikhs, even in terms of recognizing and understanding the extent of hate crimes against them. There is government funded anti-Muslim hate crime monitoring, Jews are sought to be protected against anti-Semitism, but there was nothing in place for the Sikhs.81 The Network of Sikh Organizations (NSO), which links more than 130 UK gurudwaras and other Sikh organizations of the country, has been instrumental in putting this fact into perspective for the state authorities. It was brought to the notice of the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) that of all the crimes labelled ‘Islamophobic’, twentyeight percent were committed against people of other faiths, mainly Sikhs.82 Following significant campaigning from the NSO, it was finally decided that, starting from April 2016, hate crimes against other religious groups would be recorded. The secretary of DCLG, Greg Clark, in a letter dated 25 February 2016, wrote to the director of NSO, Lord Singh: I understand your concerns about Sikhs being the victims of anti-Islamic attacks. In response to increased attacks on mosques and gurudwaras, the Prime Minister announced in October that new funding will be made available for the security of all faith establishments, with more details expected over the coming months.... This builds on existing funding for anti-Semitic attacks on synagogues. In addition to Tell-Mama which measures incidents of anti-Muslim hatred, my department is proud to fund True Vision which allows people of all faiths and backgrounds to report hate crimes.83

Similarly, there have been other Sikh NGOs like the United Sikhs and the Sikh Federation that are actively involved in responding to this latest crisis that the community is facing. In the year 2004, when France banned conspicuous religious symbols in school, the main target being the headscarves of Muslims women, the Sikh turban happened to be a part of the collateral damage. United Sikhs took this case to the European Union Human Rights Court, which upheld France’s decision to continue with the ban. They then went to the UN Human Rights Court, which ruled in favour of the Sikhs.84 However, France has not accepted the decision of the

81 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/11410809/Sikh-lives-matter-in-Britaintoo-whether-Sikh-or-Muslim-racists-dont-discriminate.html 82 Press release of NSO dated 4.3.2016 mentions this. 83 Ibid. 84 http://www.unitedsikhs.org/PressReleases/PRSRLS-12-01-2012-00.html

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UNHRC and Sikhs are still not allowed to wear the turban despite winning the case.

Conclusion This paper has sketched the trajectory of Sikhs from being beardshaving, hair-cutting immigrants, ready to assimilate into the host society, to a strong transnational community that is willing come together in a bid to uphold their faith and its symbols, which give them a sense of meaning and respect in their lives. The recent incidents of the cartoon of Canadian politician Jagmeet Singh with a bomb in his turban and the murder of the first Sikh policeman in the US, Sandeep Dhaliwal have gathered condemnation and solidarity from Sikhs all across the world. Moreover, Sikhs are carving out a distinct space for themselves in the western countries by holding awareness programmes like the ‘tying of the turban’ in public places. Thy are also giving out a strong positive message through seva (voluntary service) in various ways, like the Khalsa Aid which works in war torn or natural disaster affected regions and langar (giving food to all without discrimination). In the age of globalization and fragmentation of identities, Sikhs represent a move towards a post-territorial sovereignty of their qaum.

References Albrow, Martin. The Global Age. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996. All England Law Reports (House of Lords) 1. London: Butterworth and Co. 1983. Bhachu, P. Twice Migrants: East African Settlers in Britain. London: Tavistock Publications, 1985. Blum, L. A. Antiracism, Multiculturalism, and Interracial Community: Three Educational Values for a Multicultural Society. Boston: Office of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Massachusetts, 1992. Castles, S., H. De Haas, M.J. Miller. The Age of Migration, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Cohen, R., ed. The Cambridge Survey of World Migration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Fenech L.E. and W.H. McLeod. Historical Dictionary of Sikhism. Maryland, Rowman and Littlefield, 2014. Grewal, J. S. The Sikhs in Punjab. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

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Hall, K. D. Lives in Transition: Sikh Youth as British Citizens. Philadelphia: Univesity of Pennsylvania Press, 2002. Hansen, R. Citizenship and Immigration in Post-War Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Hasrat, B. J. Life and Times of Ranjit Singh: A Saga of Benevolent Despotism. Hoshiarpur: Sadhu Ashram, 1977. Grewal, J. S. Social and Cultural History of the Punjab. Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 2004. Juss, S. S. ‘Kirpans, Law, and Religious Symbols in Schools.’ Journal of Church and State 55, no. 4 (2012): 758–95. Juss, S. S. ‘The Constitution and Sikhs in Britain.’ Brigham Young University Law Review, no. 2 (1995): 481-533. Kalra, V. S. ‘Locating the Sikh Pagh.’ Sikh Formations 1, no. 1 (2005): 75– 92. Kaur, H. ‘Reconstructing the Sikh Diaspora.’ International Migration 50, no.1 (2011): 129-42. Kymlicka, W., ed. The Rights of Minority Cultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. Kymlicka, W. Liberalism, Community, and Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. Kymlicka, W. Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. Kymlicka, W. Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism, and Citizenship. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Mann, A. ‘Post-Colonial Practices and Narrative Nomads: Thinking Sikhism Beyond Metaphysics.’ Sikh Formations 1, no. 2 (2005): 21727. Massey, D. S. ‘Social Structure, Household Strategies, and the Cumulative Causation of Migration.’ Population Index 56, no. 1 (1990): 3-26. Massey, D. S., J. Arango, G. Hugo, A. Kouaouci, A. Pellegrino, J.E. Taylor. ‘Theories of International Migration: a Review and Appraisal.’ Population and Development Review 19, no. 3 (1993): 431–66. Massey, D. S., J. Arango, G. Hugo, A. Kouaouci, A. Pellegrino, J.E. Taylor. Worlds in Motion: Understanding International Migration at the End of the Millennium. Oxford: Clarendon, 1998. McLeod, H., Sikhism, London: Penguin, 1997. Myrvold, K. and K. A. Jacobson, eds. Sikhs in Europe: Migration, Identities and Representations. Surrey: Ashgate, 2011. Nayyar G.B, Sikhs in Ferment: Battles of the Sikh Gurus. India: South Asia Books, 1992.

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Oberoi, Harjot S. ‘From Punjab to “Khalistan”: Territoriality and Metacommentary.’ Paci¿c Affairs 60, no. 1 (1987): 26–42. Ohmae, Kenichi. ‘The Rise of the Region State.’ Foreign Affairs 72, no. 2 (1993): 78–87. Parekh, B. Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2008. Parliament of the United Kingdom. Race Relations Act, Chapter 74, London, 1976. Accessed 5 February 2016. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1976/74 Parliament of the United Kingdom. Road Traffic Act, London, 1988. Accesed August 2, 2013. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/contents Pathak, P. The Future of Multicultural Britain: Confronting the Progressive Dilemma. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008. Peach, C. and Richard Gale. ‘Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs in the New Religious Landscape of England.’ The Geographical Review 93, no. 4 (2003): 469–90. Pirta, R. S. ‘Spiritual Embedded Clinical Approach Part-II: Lessons from Sikh Faith.’ Journal of the Indian Academy of Applied Psychology 39, no. 2 (2013), 145-53. Poulter, S.M. English Law and Ethnic Minority Customs. Edinburgh: Butterworth, 1986. Sayyid, S. ‘BrAsians: Postcolonial People, Ironic Citizens.’ In A postcolonial People: South Asians in Britain, ed. N. Ali, V. Kalra and S. Sayyid. London: Hurst and Company 2006. Shani, G. ‘Beyond Khalistan? Sikh Diasporic Identity and Critical International Theory.’ Sikh Formations 1, no. 1 (2005): 57-74. Sian, K. P. ‘Losing My Religion: Sikhs in the UK.’ Sikh Formations 9, no. 1 (2013): 39–50. Singh, G. ‘Gurdwaras and community-building among British Sikhs.’ Contemporary South Asia 15, no. 2 (2006): 147-64. Sikh Human Rights Group. 2001. Plenary statement to World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, Durban, South Africa. Available from http://www.shrg.org/ Singh, G. and D. S. Tatla. Sikhs in Britain: The Making of a Community. London: Zed Books, 2006. Singh, Gurharpal. ‘A Victim Diaspora? The Case of the Sikhs.’ Diaspora 8, no. 3 (1999): 293–309.

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Singh, H. ‘Concept Of “Chardi Kala” in Guru Nanak Bani.’ Ph. D submitted to the Panjab University, Chandigarh, 2004. Song, S. ‘The Subject of Multiculturalism: Culture, Religion, Language, Ethnicity, Nationality, and Race?’ In New Waves in Political Philosophy, eds B. de Bruin and C. Zurn. New York: Palgrave MacMillan 2008. Talbot, I and S. Thandi, eds. People on the Move: Punjabi Colonial, and Post-Colonial Migration. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Tatla, D. S. The Sikh Diaspora:The Search for Statehood. London: UCL Press, 1999. Taylor, C. Philosophical Arguments. Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1995. Thandi, S. ‘Migration and Comparative Experiences of Sikhs in Europe: Reflections on Issues of Cultural Transmission and Identity 30 Years On.’ In Sikhs Across Borders: Transnational Practices of European Sikhs, eds. K. Jacobson and K. Myrvold. UK: Bloomsbury, 2012. Van Dyke, V. ‘The Anti-Sikh Riots of 1984 in Delhi: Politicians, Criminals, and the Discourse of Communalism.’ In Riots and Pogroms, ed. Paul R. Brass. UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996. Weller, P. Religions in the UK: A Multi-faith Directory. 3rd revised edition. Multi-Faith Centre, Derby: University of Derby, 2001.

PROTESTS IN PRINT: RESISTANCE AGAINST INDIAN INDENTURED LABOUR IN NINETEENTH CENTURY BENGAL SUDIPTO MITRA AND PURBA HOSSAIN

Indian labourers (and often convicts) had long been employed in various plantation colonies within, and beyond, the British Empire for agricultural, domestic, and public works. But the introduction of indentured labour postAbolition had created an unprecedented system of organised and centralised contractual labour. After the abolition of slavery, most plantation colonies faced labour shortage and planters therefore took to devising alternative ways of procuring labour. Taking his cue from the experimental transfer of 36 Indian labourers to Mauritius by G. C. Arbuthnot in 1834, Demerara planter John Gladstone devised a contract with the Gillanders, Arbuthnot & Company in Calcutta in 1836. This contract allowed for the transfer of 437 ‘coolies’ from Calcutta to his plantations in Demerara in 1837, on the basis of five-year contracts.1 More importantly, his negotiations with the colonial government resulted in the Act V of 1837, which created an official labour regime to replace slave labour across the British Empire. The pre-existing labour conditions ensured that the indentured labourers, in effect, came to serve as replacement for slave labour. Indentured labour migration was a contested issue from the moment of its inception, especially in terms of planter atrocity and the deceptive methods often involved in the procurement of labourers, and saw much deliberation in the British parliament and Calcutta alike. As the site of embarkation and disembarkation of indentured 1 “The Hill Coolies,” Liverpool Mercury, dated 27.03.1840. The term ‘coolie’, although an offensive term in many respects, has been used consistently in colonial archival records throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century to refer specifically to Indian indentured labourers contract-bound to work in plantations—whether overseas or inland. Those protesting against the indentured trade also used this term in correspondences, petitions and news reports. This essay uses the term ‘coolie’ mainly to stay true to the complex historically-specific identity that this term invokes. Similarly, those who were indentured to serve in Assam tea plantations have often been referred to as ‘tea-coolies.’

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labourers, Calcutta saw an unparalleled interaction of the colonial and the local elite in discussions around the system. This essay explores the representation of indentured labour migrations in contemporary print media and the consequent anti-indenture movements in Calcutta during the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Newspapers and periodicals in Calcutta (or the Bengal Presidency at large) created a space for discussions around the indentured question; both in favour of and against indentured labour migrations. The indentured question entered public domain through public meetings, newspapers articles, and activities of independent organisations that condemned the indentured system (and the treatment of labourers therein). This essay studies the process of formulation of the indentured question in public discourse to situate the rhetoric of resistance at a time before it entered the nationalist vocabulary as a matter of national concern. The issue of indentured labour had raised several debates at its onset. Anti-Slavery Societies in Britain were quick to take up the issue—they held meetings, wrote petitions, and persuaded the British Parliament to introduce bills and motions to reduce the exploitation of the ‘coolies.’ The British Parliament debated over the ethical and economic aspects of indentured labour migrations as well. In the immediate aftermath of Abolition, humanitarian concerns and the question of agency had become central to British regulations. In fact, anti-slavery arguments were often employed to defend the rights of indentured labourers, and certain anti-slavery societies in Britain soon took up indentured labour as an issue of prime and immediate concern. Such sentiments transcended the territories of Britain, and Calcutta rose as a key juncture in the global network of indentured labour. Systemic opposition to indentured migrations grew simultaneously at the metropole and Calcutta, which constantly fed off each other and influenced the development of official regulations in the indentured labour system. Instead of situating the moment of resistance in twentieth century nationalist politics, when it received due attention from nationalists and measures were taken for its abolition, it can be traced through the nineteenth century, since resistance was conceived as soon as indentured migrations came to be authorised by the Act V of 1837.

Resisting Indenture: The ‘Coolie Question’ in EarlyNineteenth Century Calcutta Newspapers in Bengal had already taken up the issue and were publishing regular reports on emigration policies, when on June 15, 1838, around 152 persons in Calcutta petitioned the sheriff James Young to hold

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a public meeting to discuss the issue of indentured migrations. The petitioners included several members of the colonial and local elite—T. Dealtry (archdeacon), J.V. Prinsep, Longueville Clarke, Rev. James Charles, Thomas Dickens, W.H. Meiklejohn (Scottish Minister at St. Andrew’s Church), Rev. A.F. Lacroix (missionary), Roger Dias, Rustomjee Cowasjee, Dwarkanath Tagore (merchant and entrepreneur), Krishnamohan Banerjee (prominent Derozian, educationist, and missionary), Manick Chunder Sein, Govindo Haldar, Woopendey Mohun Tagore, and others—many of them merchants and company officials.2 On July 10, a meeting of leading citizens at the Town Hall in Calcutta came to discuss the concerns with indentured labour migration and its resemblance to slavery. Most present moved to seek redress for the labourers by suspending the ‘exportation of coolies’ and appointing a committee to enquire into its abuses. As a consequence of the issues discussed in the meeting, a petition asking for the suppression of indentured migrations was drawn up and presented before the President-inCouncil on July 26. This petition highlighted the deception often involved in the migration of labourers by stating that emigrants were neither aware of their destination and the real nature of their engagement, nor of the extent of their future labour and reward.3 It demanded immediate enquiry into the indentured trade and pressed the metropolitan government to introduce measures for its suppression. It is interesting to note here that the petitioners spoke, if somewhat patronisingly, for a people they neither represented nor identified with. Petitions such as that from Calcutta played a formative role in the ensuing debates in the British parliament, and a six-member committee was soon appointed in Bengal on August 1, 1838 to enquire into the abuses inherent in indentured labour migrations. Similar committees were appointed at other ports such as Madras, Bombay, and Mauritius, and indentured migrations were suspended, pending investigation. The investigative committee at Bengal was first of its kind in that it employed an Indian member, Russomoy Dutt, who was one of the first Indians appointed to public commissions of enquiry in the nineteenth century. The primary aim of the committee was to enquire into the nature and extent of 2

H.C.G. Matthew and Brian Harrison ed. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004); Anjali Bose ed. Samsad Bangla Charitabhidhan (Calcutta: Sahitya Samsad, 1998). 3 Letter to Alexander Ross (President of the Council of India and Deputy Governor of the President of Fort William) from James Young (Sheriff of Calcutta), on behalf of those assembled at the Town Hall Meeting in Calcutta, dated July 10, 1838. August 1, 1838, No. 1, General Department (General) Proceedings, West Bengal State Archives (henceforth WBSA).

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abuses alleged to exist in the indentured system, and consequently advise the government on removing them.4 Although it was signed and supported by only three members of the six-member committee, the report of the investigative committee at Calcutta played a significant role in substantiating and institutionalising resistance in Calcutta. With its detailed interviews and formidable evidence, it helped to not only bring the abuses in indentured migrations to the forefront, but also influence colonial governance and parliamentary debates. At the same time, certain merchant voices at Calcutta argued in favour of indentured labour migrations, stating that the alleged abuses perpetrated towards labourers were not only exaggerated in reports, but also remediable through regulations, thus allowing for the indentured traffic to continue. For instance, merchant companies such as M/s Henley, Dowson and Bestel had presented a counter-petition to the President-in-Council, arguing for continuation of indentured labour migration on the grounds that the agricultural prosperity of Mauritius depended on the supply of indentured labourers, as did British economy at large.5 They held that Mauritian estates provided not only superior wages and conditions of work as compared to India, but also a wider market for labour.

A Pressing Matter: The Friend of India Voices at Calcutta contributed to both arguments in favour of and against the continuance of indentured trade, and this was reflected in contemporary print media. Coincidentally, print media in Bengal also experienced an unprecedented boom during the nineteenth century.6 Unlike their predecessors William Bolts and James Augustus Hickey,7 the newspaper 4

Letter to the Members of the Committee, from H. V. Prinsep (Secretary to the Government of Bengal), dated August 1, 1838. August 1, 1838, No. 6, General Department (General) Proceedings, WBSA. 5 Petition of M/s Henley, Dowson, Bestel and others, to the President of the Council of India in Council, dated July 23, 1838. August 1, 1838, No. 3, General Department (General) Proceedings, WBSA. 6 The number of newspapers, periodicals and other forms of print media published across Bengal in the nineteenth century exceeded 1200. See: Swapan Basu, quoted in Muntassir Mamoon, “Unish Shatake Sabha-Samiti O Sangbad-SamayikPatra”, in Sahitya-Parishad-Patrika 113:4 (2007), 81. 7 The initiatives of both Bolts and Hickey were not welcomed by the East India Company. While the latter did manage to continue his Bengal Gazette for a brief period of time, the former was deported to Europe before his endeavour saw the light of day. See: Hemendra Prasad Ghose, The Newspaper in India (Calcutta: University of Calcutta Press, 1952), 5.

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editors from the nineteenth century were successful in resisting state intervention and managed to popularise their papers as platforms for free exchange of news and knowledge. In fact, owing to the lack of better alternatives, reports in newspapers and periodicals were possibly the only way in which news relating to indenture reached the wider public. However, this was subject to the reach of the respective newspapers and periodicals; and their opinions on particular issues (such as indentured migrations) were shaped by the individuals positions of their editors and writers. Besides, newspapers and other print media remain one of the most effective sources for gauging popular opinion on events from the nineteenth century. The authorship of the reports published in these papers was considerably more diverse than the official reports and correspondences, and represented a more immediate engagement of the public with contemporary developments. These newspapers and periodicals were also published in a range of vernacular languages, and provided a platform for non-English speakers to voice their opinion, as well as facilitated interaction between different linguistic communities.8 Periodicals such as the Friend of India, The Englishman or the Bengal Hurkaru became intricately linked with the escalating resistance to indentured migrations. They closely followed changes in emigration policies and commented on them. Of these, the Friend of India was one of the earliest to reflect the resistance in Calcutta, publishing detailed accounts of the abuses within the indentured system. It highlighted the pitiable living and working conditions in plantation estates, the miseries of the middle passage, the number of deaths onboard, the abduction techniques employed to procure labourers, and the abuses faced in the plantation estates. It suspected especially that due to the fresh memory of the slave trade, indentured labourers would be subjected to harsher treatment both during passage and on the estates.9 Due to the unlawful means employed, the labourers often had no idea where they were being transported, how far the plantation estates were, or even that they would cross the kala pani (literally, ‘black waters’ of the seas), and hence lose caste. The reports also highlighted that labourers were made to work for more than ten or even twelve hours a day on the estates, and were beaten or sentenced to harsher labour on half rations if they complained.10 Similarities with the African slave trade were sought by highlighting reports of abduction, abuses during

8

Brajendranath Bandyopadhyay, Sangbadpatre Sekaler Katha I (Calcutta: Bangiya Sahitya Parishad, 2008), ii. 9 Friend of India, October 20, 1842, Vol. VIII, No. 407, 658. 10 Ibid.

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the middle passage, abuses on the plantation estates, and the inability of the labourer to be accompanied by his wife or family.11 Most importantly, reports in the Friend of India opined that no amount of regulations could remove these abuses, and hence argued for total prohibition of the trade in indentured labourers. Their early faith in British morality and government intervention made way for a trenchant critique of colonial emigration policies in tandem with the growing resistance. News articles in the Friend of India supported the order for suspending indentured migrations in 1838, and vehemently criticised the decision for its revival in 1842. It pointed out that the Act of 1842 that would regulate the revived trade in indentured labour did not include provisions for supporting the family of the labourer, better medical facilities, or preventing the re-export of labourers from Mauritius.12 On the contrary, it created facilities for the retrieval of the old abuses, since recruitment remained a private, profitmaking enterprise.13 The role of the press in influencing public opinion and guiding colonial policies cannot be denied. The Friend of India speaks, on the one hand, of newspapers such as The Englishman or the Bengal Hurkaru, which shared its enthusiasm for resistance to indentured labour. On the other, it speaks of newspapers that represented merchant interests, such as Le Courier de Pondicherry, which condemned the attack on indentured labour migrations and highlighted its importance in Mauritian trade. This French newspaper claimed that there was no kidnapping, confinement, starvation, or assaulting in the indentured trade, rather a voluntary engagement of labourers to be ‘liberated’ from their degraded condition in India.14 In fact, it commended indentured labour as a grand and philanthropic measure to emancipate slaves.15 It was one of the professed aims of the Friend of India to use the agency of the press to influence both public opinion and colonial policies. Savouring its position at an important juncture in the resistance at Calcutta, the Friend of India recognised the role of the local press in altering emigration policies, influencing parliamentary politics, and even making suggestions to the policy-makers at the metropole. However, its sympathy for indentured labourers was based on a distinct rhetoric of condescension and racial inferiority. Indentured labourers were frequently referred to as

11

Friend of India, May 24, 1838, Vol. IV, No. 178, 261. Friend of India, April 21, 1842, Vol. VIII, No. 381, 243. 13 Friend of India, April 7, 1842, 212. 14 “The Courier de Pondicherry and the Cooly Trade”, Friend of India, July 26, 1838, Vol. IV, No. 187, 405. 15 Ibid. 12

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simple, ignorant, ‘half civilised,’16 and ‘too abject to vindicate their own rights.’17 Till 1842, the voice of resistance held steadfast in Calcutta, through newspaper reports, meetings and public discussions. The Friend of India still maintained that the abuses were inseparable from the system and hence, prohibition was the only real solution (although it was gradually accepting the resumption of emigration under regulatory measures). However, with the 1843 editions, it moved gradually away from the issue, onto other pressing issues like education, legal cases, and slavery in India. ‘Cooly Trade’ was no longer first-page news. More importantly, unlike the 1838 reports that were emotionally charged and appealed to the British sense of morality and justice, the language of resistance had changed to one of critical analysis and compromise by 1842, losing prominence and priority by 1844 (which is when indentured migration was allowed to further plantation colonies). It is difficult to determine the reason for this decline in public discussions on the issue of exploitation of indentured labourers in overseas plantation colonies, but it can probably be attributed to pressure from merchants and economic concerns, coupled with regulations that undercut the argument for prohibition. This lacuna was partly filled by activities of the members of the Brahmo Samaj in the late-nineteenth century, who became especially concerned with indentured labourers in the Assam tea plantations and played an active role in condemning the abuses and bringing them to public notice through the newly emerging print media owned and run by Indians.

A System Questioned is a System Resisted? Anti-Indenture Protests and ‘Native’ Agency Assam, whose potential the East India Company was largely oblivious to prior to the 1830s, gained recognition as an important economic prospect, courtesy the Charter Act of 1833 and the discovery of tea in the region in 1834.18 The 1833-Act ended the Company’s monopoly over trade with 16

Friend of India, August 30, 1838, Vol. IV, No. 192, 486. Friend of India, May 24, 1838, Vol. IV, No. 178, 262. 18 Lieutenant Andrew Charlton and Captain Jenkins informed the Committee of Tea Culture about their discovery of tea on 17th and 19th May 1834 respectively. The committee thereafter, buoyed by the ‘discovery’, wrote to W.H. Macnaghten, the Secretary to the Government of India, that this was ‘by far the most important and valuable [discovery] that has been made in matters connected with the commercial or agricultural resources of the empire’, and sent Charlton to Calcutta with his sample. See “The Discovery of the Tea Plant in Assam”, in The Asiatic Journal and 17

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China. This reduced the Company’s profits from the Chinese tea-trade remarkably, and added further significance to the ‘discovery’ of tea in Assam. Moreover, the introduction of European ownership of land in India through the same Charter Act meant that by 1859, the number of European plantations in Assam would exceed 51.19 The recruitment procedure in these plantations was modelled on the indenture system functional in overseas plantation colonies, and the working conditions here were often most unfavourable. The protests against the exploitation of these ‘tea-coolies’ marked a shift in the history of resistance against indentured labour in India.20 Before 1842, dissent against indenture was primarily led by a section of the colonial elite, prominently featuring missionaries and several of their mouthpieces such as the Friend of India. On the contrary, protests involving indentured migrants to Assam in late nineteenth century were representative of a distinct ‘native consciousness,’ expressed through newspapers, periodicals, and other media owned and operated by Indians. Further, the Indian Rebellion of 1857 also marked a watershed moment in the history of vernacular print media in India, especially with respect to Bengali periodicals. Most vernacular periodicals published from Bengal before 1857 considered it their purpose to showcase authorial talents in the several genres of Bengali fiction, and would discuss contemporaneous socio-political phenomena only through literary tropes, if at all. The Rebellion of 1857 transformed this scenario and popularised the publication of news reports and reactions.21 However, perhaps mainly due to their geographically limited networks, the reports on indenture in these newspapers were more often against a generalised reading of the entire system, based on empirical sources gathered exclusively from the plantations based in India. About one-tenth of all newspapers and periodicals in nineteenth century Bengal were published by contemporaneous societies and associations such as the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj,22 which had Monthly Register for British and Foreign India, China, and Australasia XVII (London: Wm. H. Allen & Co., 1835), 207- 208. In Calcutta, his claim was proved true after a test by botanists Nathaniel Wallich and William Griffith. See Jayeeta Sharma, Empire’s Garden: Assam and the Making of India (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2011), 30. 19 Kanailal Chattopadhyay, “Assam-e Cha-Coolie Andolone Brahmo Samaj”, Dashdishi (Special edition): Brahmo Bhabadorsho o Brahmo Andolon Dwitiyo Bhaag (April, 2014), 304. 20 The terms ‘coolie’ or ‘tea-coolie’ were frequently used in news articles in the nineteenth-century to refer to indentured labourers, especially in the Assam teaplantations. 21 Mamoon, “Unish Shatake Sabha-Samiti O Sangbad- SamayikPatra”, 81. 22 Ibid, 80.

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already gathered a reputation for lobbying against indigo planters for mistreating peasants and ryots in Bengal.23 One of the most important harbingers of the transformation in postmutiny vernacular print media in Bengal was Dwarakanath Vidyabhusan’s weekly newspaper Somprakash. A brainchild of Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, Somprakash first came into circulation on November 15, 1858, and began to discuss a wide range of themes from literature, philosophy and scientific developments to social issues and politics, in a language rather simple and comprehensible.24 In the contemporary context, its approach was revolutionary and influenced several other newspapers and periodicals of the time. One such newspaper, the Dhaka Prakash (named after Somprakash),25 which was otherwise a mouthpiece of the Dhaka Brahmo Samaj, became one of the first whistle-blowers of planter atrocities against ‘tea-coolies’ in India.26 In 1861, the erstwhile editor of the Hindoo Patriot Harish Chandra Mukherjee received an anonymous letter from a reporter of Dhaka Prakash.27 The author feared that he, who had hitherto been ‘enlightening the world with the doings of the tea-planters in that part of the country [Cachar, in modern day Assam]’, was now ‘compelled to give up his correspondence owing to the very broad and very unpleasant hints dropped by the interested parties [; and] that [he] stood in danger of his life if he 23 The Brahmo Samaj propounded by Raja Rammohun Roy endorsed a reformed version of the Hindu religion which abandoned practices like idolatry and marked a return to the ancient scriptural forms of worship. Certain members of the Brahmo Samaj were instrumental in protesting against the harsh treatment meted out to indigo peasants by the planters. Akshay Kumar Datta was in fact one of the first to take up this issue and write extensively on it, in his Tattvabodhini Patrika. See: Prabhat Chandra Gangopadhyay, Bharater Rashtriya Itihaser Khasra (Calcutta: Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, 1942), 30- 35. 24 Brajendranath Bandyopadhyay, “Tarashankar Tarkaratna, Dwarakanath Vidyabhusan”, Sahitya Sadhak Charitmala 11 (Calcutta: Bangiya-Sahitya-Parishad, 1941), 31. 25 Mamoon, “Unish Shatake Sabha-Samiti O Sangbad- SamayikPatra”, 81. 26 The newspaper was published from the press of Braja Sundar Mitra, the founder of the Dhaka Brahmo Samaj. See: G. S. Leonard, A History of the Bráhma Samáj: from Its Rise to the Present Day (Calcutta, W. Newman & Co., 1879), 86. It was edited by the poet Krishna Chandra Majumder. See: Sirajul Islam ed., Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh, III (Dhaka: Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, 2003), 328. 27 Harish Chandra Mukherjee was the founder and first secretary of the Bhowanipore Brahmo Samaj. He founded the Hindoo Patriot in 1856. See: Shibnath Shastri, History of the Brahmo Samaj, II (Calcutta: R. Chatterjee, 1912), 17. See also Bhabani Bhattacharya, Socio-Political Currents in Bengal: A Nineteenth Century Perspective (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt. Ltd., 1980), 76.

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persisted in his ‘obnoxious’ communications’.28 In the same letter he also urged Harish Chandra to take up the cause of the helpless ‘coolies’, and to send someone to Assam for reporting the acts of oppression against indentured migrants in Assam to the rest of the world. Harish Chandra, who had already campaigned extensively against the unjust treatment of indigo peasants and had at times even helped them fight legal battles against their planters, soon responded and joined the protest.29 In an article published in the Hindoo Patriot on November 18, 1864, he condemned all European planters in India as people who ‘oppress the natives and wade through their blood to reach the goal of [their] ambitions.’30 He wrote several memorials to the colonial government on behalf of victimised migrants, and assisted them in organising cases and lodging complaints against their employers.31 His newspaper, Hindoo Patriot, featured frequent articles demonstrating the loopholes in the indenture system and condemning planter atrocities. The Hindoo Patriot also inspired other newspapers to take up the cause of the Assam migrants and influence public imagination. Somprakash also uncovered several fraudulent activities and reported cases of deceitful recruitment from parts of Assam and North Bengal. Along with the Hindoo Patriot, it continued to shape public opinion against indentured labour for a substantial period in the late nineteenth century.32 The protests were channelised institutionally with the establishment of the Indian Association (or Bharat Sabha), under the leadership of Ananda Mohan Bose in 1876.33 A few years later, it further intensified when Ramkumar 28

The entire letter, later published in Hindoo Patriot, was reprinted in Amar Datta’s Assam-e Cha-Coolie Andolon o Dwarakanath. Quoted in Amar Datta, Assam-e ChaCoolie Andolon o Dwarakanath (Kolkata: Granthamitra, 2009), 34. 29 Framji Bomanji, A Study of the Life of Baboo Harrischander, and Passing Thoughts on India and its People, their Present and Future (Bombay: Alliance Press, 1863), 168. In 1853, Harish Chandra had even drafted a petition against the manner in which indigo peasants were treated by their planters, which was then sent to the British Parliament via the British Indian Association. See Kanailal Chattopadhyay ed., Dwarakanath Ganguli’s Slavery in British Dominion (Calcutta: Jijnasa, 1959), iv. 30 Quoted in Datta, Assam-e Cha-Coolie Andolon o Dwarakanath, 34. 31 Framji Bomanji, A Study of the Life of Baboo Harrischander, and Passing Thoughts on India and its People, their Present and Future (Bombay: Alliance Press, 1863), 168. 32 Datta, 35- 36; Chattopadhyay, Dwarakanath Ganguli’s Slavery in British Dominions, iv. 33 Pulak Narayan Dhar, “Bengal Renaissance: A Study in Social Contradictions,” Social Scientist XV, 164 (January, 1987), 35.

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Vidyaratna, commissioned as a propagator by the newly founded Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, visited Assam and reported the pitiable conditions of the labourers in various plantations across the region.34 Ramkumar published his horrific experiences in a travelogue called Udasin Satyasrabar Assam Bhraman (Travels of a carefree, truthful person in Assam [Sic.]) in 1879, and later in a newly established Bengali newspaper called Sanjibani.35 Ramkumar would also write about his experiences in other Brahmo mouthpieces such as the Brahmo Public Opinion and Indian Messenger. Apart from his experiences, Ramkumar also wrote in Sanjibani about the several legal battles that had been fought between labourers and plantation owners.36 These reports, as Kanailal Chattopadhyay suggests, distinctly depicted a racial bias of British judges against the Indian ‘coolies’. The trials, he claimed, were mostly farcical, and justice was often denied.37 In fact, in certain reports such as that on the case against planters Mr. Hext and Mr. Bragg of Golaghat, Ramkumar showed how an accused convicted by native jurors could later be acquitted by European jurors. Two of the most notorious examples of such blatant injustice were the cases of a ‘coolie’boy named Umesh, and a ‘coolie’-woman named Sukurmani. In 1885, a group of labourers had lodged a complaint against their plantation in-charge Mr. Gordon, at the Sylhet District Court accusing him of kicking a 14-year old ‘coolie’-boy Umesh to death at their plantation at Kalajola. Gordon was accused of having kicked Umesh in his abdomen, as a result of which the boy’s spleen ruptured, and he died. However, following a partial and unfair trial conducted by the local judge Mr. Pope, Gordon was able to avoid the charges.38 This judgment drew intense reactions from the other labourers in the plantation, much of which was conveyed to Calcutta through Ramkumar’s report in Sanjibani. This report appealed to the conscience of a large section of the Calcutta intelligentsia, and inspired large-scale protests. Consequently, Mr. Gordon became a most hated figure in the city, and the judgment of the Sylhet District Court came under severe criticism.39

34 This was a breakaway faction of the Bharatiya Brahmo Samaj, founded by Keshub

Chandra Sen in 1868. The Sadharon Brahmo Samaj was established under the leadership of Ananda Mohan Bose, Shibnath Shastri and others in 1878. 35 Dhar, “A Study in Social Contradictions”, 35. 36 Chattopadhyay, “Assam-e Cha-Coolie Andolone Brahmo Samaj”, 307; Gangopadhyay, Bharater Rashtriya Itihaser Khasra, 50- 51. 37 Ibid. 38 Sanjibani, June 6, 1885. 39 Chattopadhyay, “Assam-e Cha-Coolie Andolone Brahmo Samaj”, 307.

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Ramkumar’s report on the other case, involving Sukurmani and a person named Charles Webb, drew even more serious repercussions from the Calcutta intelligentsia. Charles Webb, an employee of the Indian General Steam Navigation Company, had allegedly raped and murdered a married ‘coolie’-woman named Sukurmani, when the latter was under Webb’s supervision at his office in Kokilamukh, Sylhet. Consequently, Webb was arrested and sent for trial. During his trial however, the doctor who performed the postmortem of Sukurmani’s dead body, had apparently submitted a false report. Webb was resultantly adjudged innocent and walked away scot free. The verdict caused major discontentment among the other ‘coolies’ and Webb was soon sent to Mr. McLeod, the assistant commissioner of Jorhat, for a second trial. Unfortunately, justice was again denied. The verdict created a sense of commotion among the public in Calcutta, who seconded the labourers in their protest. As the situation in the plantations worsened, Webb was finally produced at the Calcutta High Court for another trial. From here, despite being convicted initially, Webb was again set free due to the lack of conclusive evidence.40 The judgment was once again fiercely condemned by a large section of the Calcutta intelligentsia, who consequently sent a deputation to the Viceroy Lord Ripon.41 Unfortunately, even though the Viceroy voiced his dissatisfaction at the manner in which the trial was conducted at Jorhat, he refused to intervene in the decision of the high court. In response, an agitated Indian Association published a pamphlet titled ‘Justice Murdered in India’, where they regarded the incident as ‘the sacrifice of a daughter of India to the lust of an Anglo-Indian’.42 They later also sent the pamphlet to the British Parliament, seeking an intervention on the planter atrocities. The aforementioned incidents thus witnessed a group of ‘coolies’, who were hitherto ‘faithful acceptors’ of their unfortunate fate, mobilise themselves, and express dissent against the verdict of a colonial jury. Ramkumar’s resolute reportage aided their appeal to a larger audience, as it informed the Calcutta public about the dire circumstances of ‘coolies’ in faraway Assam, and inspired a section of the intelligentsia to fight for the rights of these helpless migrants. Ramkumar’s success could arguably be ascertained from the several death threats he received while reporting about the ‘tea-coolies’. His reports not only ruffled the feathers of a number of European plantation owners but also aroused a sense of insecurity among 40 Justice Murdered in India: The Papers of the Webb Case (Calcutta, 1884). Reprinted in: Kanailal Chattopadhyay ed., Dwarakanath Ganguli’s Slavery in British Dominion (Calcutta: Jijnasa, 1959), 59- 65. 41 Ibid, viii- ix. 42 Justice Murdered in India (Calcutta, 1884), 1.

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native hawkers, vakils (senior appellants), mokhtars (junior appellants), sarkars (colonial officials responsible for collecting interest for debts, loans, and revenue), clerks, and gomastas (tax-collectors) operating in Assam.43 In fact, in a report published in Sanjibani on 8 June 1885, Ramkumar quotes a sahib as saying ‘The contributor of the Sanjabani shall be the first victim of the planter’s gun’.44 Chandak Sengoopta has recently also noted how Ramkumar’s accounts found mention in Lord Ripon’s speeches at the Viceroy’s council, in the context of the debates on the Assam Emigration Bill.45 Apart from finding the Assam labourers a larger, and perhaps more influential audience, the regular publication of Ramkumar’s reports in Sanjibani further resulted in Dwarakanath Ganguli’s visit to the North-East on behalf of the Indian Association in July 1886. Two years later Ramkumar would also publish a semi-fictional book on this issue, called Kuli Kahini (‘The Story of the Coolies’), and dedicate it to Dwarakanath.46 Dwarakanath strove to further the investigation Ramkumar had started, and in order to develop a more nuanced understanding of the more immediate, abysmal conditions of ‘coolie’-life, he undertook several risky operations, sometimes jeopardising his own life. His son Prabhat Chandra Gangopadhyay informs us that he would on occasion disguise himself as a ‘coolie’ to interact personally with other indentured migrants and collect their stories of deceit, discrimination and inhuman treatment from their own mouths.47 Shibnath Shastri’s Ramtanu Lahiri O Tatkalin Banga Samaj also bears reference to an incident where Dwarakanath had almost drowned himself in a turbulent Brahmaputra sometime during the monsoon season, in his effort to investigate the plantation situation.48 On his return to Calcutta, Dwarakanath published some of these stories in both English and Bengali, in Surendranath .

43

Kanailal Chattopadhyay, “Assam Tea Plantation Labours and the Role of the Brahmo Samaj”, in Ishrat Alam and Syed Ejaz Hussain ed., The Varied Facets of History: Essays in Honour of Aniruddha Ray (Delhi: Primus Books, 2011), 275. 44 Sanjibani, June 8, 1885. Reprinted in: Kanailal Chattopadhyay ed. Samayikpatre Samajchitra: Krishna Kumar Mitra Sampadita Sanjibani (Calcutta: Dey’s Publishing, 1989), 161. 45 Chandak Sengoopta, The Rays before Satyajit: Creativity and Modernity in Colonial India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2016), 159. 46 The author of this book was unknown for a long time until Biswanath Mukhopadhyay identified it as a work of Ramkumar Vidyaratna. Biswanath Mukhopadhyay ed. [Ramkumar Vidyaratna’s] Kuli Kahini (Calcutta: Jogmaya Prakashani, 1989), 21-22. The book was originally published in 1888. 47 Gangopadhyay, Bharater Rashtriya Itihaser Khasra, 51. 48 Shibnath Shastri, Ramtanu Lahiri O Tatkalin-Banga Samaj, second edition (Calcutta: S.K.Lahiri & Co., 1909), 344.

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Banerjee’s The Bengalee and Krishna Kumar Mitra’s Sanjibani respectively. For the former, Dwarakanath wrote a series of 13 essays titled ‘Slavery in British Dominion’, and in the latter, another series of articles titled ‘Assame Legryr Santan’. The widespread prevalence of malpractices, and numerous cases of deceitful recruitment and abusive behaviour formed the cornerstone of most of these essays, which otherwise provided the principle basis for the anti-indenture arguments voiced by a section of the Indian National Congress. For example, Dwarakanath claimed that ‘[h]ad it not been for all sorts of fraud practiced upon them by ‘coolie’-recruiters (arkatees), very few persons, we fear, would have been disposed to enter into agreements to serve on a salary of rupees five per month.’49 He was also able to substantiate his claims with appropriate examples of how a labourer named Kessur Singh Nepali, despite being literate, was not asked to sign any official contract;50 or how a dishonest arkatee was punished by the magistrate of Kushtia for attempting to deceitfully export a fourteenyear old Ramkumar Jana to the plantations, by presenting an impostor in front of the magistrate at Sealdah to sign the contract.51 Similar to Ramkumar Vidyaratna, Dwarakanath Ganguli’s investigations in the North Eastern plantations was also not welcomed by a section of the local elite, including planters. Shibnath Shastri has noted in his autobiography how, during his time with Dwarakanath in Assam, their movements were closely monitored by the police and other governmental authorities.52 Activism against indentured labour in Indian print media after the 1840s was therefore by no means intent on merely ‘questioning’ the system, as Hugh Tinker had argued.53 Even though one can only depict a continuous reshaping and remodelling of the system as a direct consequence of the movement, the larger motive of the protests (i.e., to bring about an end to indenture) remains prominent.54 The reportage concerning the numerous frauds practiced in the name of the system was also responsible for the 49

Gangopadhyay, Bharater Rashtriya Itihaser Khasra, 48. Kessur Singh left his job of a post-office peon at Darjeeling, in search of a work with a better pay. On a friend’s advice, he migrated to Dhubri along with his wife. It was from here that he and his wife were trapped into becoming indentured labourers and sent off forcibly to Tejpur. Cited in The Bengalee, April 2, 1887. 51 Gangopadhyay, Bharater Rashtriya Itihaser Khasra, 52. 52 Sengoopta, The Rays before Satyajit, 160. 53 Hugh Tinker, A New System of Slavery: The Export of Indian Labour Overseas 1830-1920 (Hansib Publishers, 1993), 236. 54 For example, one can highlight the cancellation of licenses of the several dishonest arkatees as an immediate, traceable consequence of the repeated reports of deceits and fraudulences. See: Report of The Administration of Bengal 1879-80 (Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Press, 1880), 433. 50

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continuous increase of governmental control over the system. This, if J.W. Edgar’s 1873-report is to be believed, had, in fact, also borne fruit, as the conditions of the plantation labourers in Assam had somewhat marginally improved after the Act of 1865.55 The excitement of a section of the Calcutta intelligentsia was also perhaps a conscious approach, as any resistance movement in the colonial capital of British India would attract immediacy from the colonial state. The movement was also substantially successful in shaping public opinion in general. For example, as traceable from Gautam Bhadra’s catalogue for the exhibition ‘From an Imperial Product to a National Drink’, several bhadraloks56 in Calcutta had given up tea consumption as a mark of solidarity with the ongoing protests.57

Conclusion: The Rhetoric of Resistance The anti-indenture movement, especially in its second phase, was also influential in shaping nationalist politics of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The rhetoric of rights, formulated on behalf of oppressed Indian indentured migrants, was prominent in inspiring the language of politics of a number of the first-generation Congress leaders. Furthermore, Kanailal Chattopadhyay claims that the reports by Dwarkanath Ganguli and Ramkumar Vidyaratna, perhaps unintentionally, catalysed a sense of nationalism from below by generally visualising the British elite in a negative light.58 In the Madras session of the Congress in 1887, Dwarakanath Ganguli attempted to make a case for the ‘coolies’, seeking intervention from the Indian National Congress. But he was eventually disallowed, as the issue was considered a provincial problem.59 Subsequently, the issue resurfaced at the Bengal Provincial Conference in 1888, where Bipin Chandra Pal managed to persuade those present to consider the inhuman treatment of

55 J.W. Edgar, “On the Reports of Tea-Cultivation Submitted in Compliance with Letter no. 74, from the Fecretary of the Government of India, Agriculture, Revenue, and Commerce Department”, reprinted in Papers Regarding the Tea Industry in Bengal (Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Press, 1873), ix. 56 Bengali term referring to upper or middle-class Bengali gentlemen. 57 In substantiating his argument, Prof. Bhadra specifically provides the examples of Krishna Kumar Mitra and Sundari Mohan Das. See Gautam Bhadra, From an Imperial Product to a National Drink: The Culture of Tea Consumption in Modern India (Calcutta: Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, 2005), 14. 58 Chattopadhyay, Dwarakanath Ganguli’s Slavery in British Dominion, xi- xii. 59 Gangopadhyay, Bharater Rashtriya Itihaser Khasra, 50- 51.

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indentured migrants as the foremost problem in Bengal.60 Bipin Chandra Pal argued that all the acts passed thus far had failed to provide them adequate security, and, citing several of Dwarakanath’s personal experiences, underlined the unrestrained flourish of fraudulent practices around the indentured system.61 Thus, the very first resolution of the Bengal Provincial Conference ‘advocated the cause of the [indentured] labourers in the tea-gardens of Assam’.62 In the following years, the Congress’ initial stance of considering the ‘coolie’ question as provincial attracted severe criticism, and at the Calcutta session of 1896, the Congress finally vowed to join the movement. It was only a matter of time till Gopal Krishna Gokhale and M.K. Gandhi took up the issue of indentured labour themselves—merging the cause for Assam migrants with those emigrated to plantation colonies overseas (such as Natal)—to make a point of national concern. In the twentieth century, emancipation of indentured labourers had become a rallying cry of the nationalists, who appealed to notions of liberty, justice and humanity across the British Empire. The emergence of the ‘coolie question’ in twentieth century nationalist rhetoric has, in fact, often been held by scholars as the prime factor behind the abolition of the system of indentured migrations in 1920. Mrinalini Sinha discerns a direct relation between the anti-indentured movement and the early political rise of C.F. Andrews, Gokhale, and Madanmohan Malviya.63 However, this essay rejects the situation of resistance to indenture only in the twentieth century, since it overlooks a century of resistance that functioned outside a nationalist framework. It studies, instead, the rhetoric of rights and resistance that existed prior to nationalist involvement (indeed prior to a distinct notion of nationhood) in the form of spaces of resistance that moved independent of each other. The nineteenth century did not witness a centralised or institutionalised voice of resistance to indenture as it would come to be in the twentieth. Hence, it is crucial to fall back on its representation in print media and popular writings to formulate an idea of the distinct and plural movements against indenture, and the myriad ways in which the question of indenture was formulated in the nineteenth century. Before the rise of a more systematic move towards complete abolition of the indentured system, there had been discreet movements that condemned 60

Ibid. Ibid. 62 Quoted from President Mahendralal Sarkar’s speech at the conference, quoted in Gangopadhyay, Bharater Rashtriya Itihaser Khasra, 53. 63 Mrinalini Sinha, ‘Premonitions of the Past’, The Journal of Asian Studies, 74 (2015), 821-41. 61

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indentured migrations and working conditions in plantations in India and overseas. Further, it attempted to instigate changes in the migration system through petitions to the British government, while not overturning or challenging the entire colonial framework within which the indentured system operated. The only possible way that the question of indenture could then enter public discourse was through print media and public spaces, such as newspaper articles, meetings in public or activities of organisations moving to condemn the working conditions of indentured labourers in Assam. That the print media succeeded in generating this awareness and feulling its consequent movement, could also be ascertained from the manner in which the colonial state passed regulations to curb the freedom of the press. The most notable of these regulations, the Vernacular Press Act, was successful in suspending the publication of Somprakash for a year, after an article by its editor was considered seditious. Strikingly different from the movements of resistance that preceded it in the subcontinent, the twentieth century nationalist movement maintained a distinct anti-colonial stance. This was in stark contrast to the earlier forms of resistance, which worked in tandem with anti-indenture movements in Britain without challenging the colonial system and saw the involvement of both the local and colonial elite. As a veritable agenda of nationalist propaganda, the ‘coolie question’ re-emerged with a racial connotation and became part of other grievances against colonial rule in the twentieth century. The abuse of labourers by British plantation owners or officers was placed within the context of the racial subjugation of Indians, especially condemning the use of the epithet ‘coolie’ for all Indians in plantation colonies such as South Africa. By maintaining a more generalised attitude towards indentured labour in plantations in India and overseas, and by merging their cause with the broader nationalist cause, the ‘coolie question’ rapidly entered the political vocabulary of the emerging ‘nation,’ as nationalist rhetoric began to identify the ‘coolie’ as distinctly ‘Indian’. This was possible only in a situation where India had been categorically imagined as a singular nation.

Bibliography Newspapers and Periodicals Bengalee, 1887 Friend of India, 1838-42 Liverpool Mercury, 1840 Sanjibani, 1885

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Official Collections Correspondences, at General Department (General) Proceedings, West Bengal State Archives, 1838-42 Edgar, J.W. “On the Reports of Tea-Cultivation Submitted in Compliance with Letter no. 74, from the Secretary of the Government of India, Agriculture, Revenue, and Commerce Department”, reprinted in Papers Regarding the Tea Industry in Bengal. Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Press, 1873 Petition of M/s Henley, Dowson, Bestel and others, to the President of the Council of India in Council, dated July 23, 1838. General Department (General) Proceedings, West Bengal State Archives Report of the Administration of Bengal, 1879-80. Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Press, 1880

Published Primary Sources “The Discovery of the Tea Plant in Assam”, in The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British and Foreign India, China, and Australasia XVII. London: Wm. H. Allen & Co., 1835 Bandyopadhyay, Brajendranath. “Tarashankar Tarkaratna, Dwarakanath Vidyabhusan”, Sahitya Sadhak Charitmala 11. Calcutta: BangiyaSahitya-Parishad, 1941 Bomanji, Framji. A Study of the Life of Baboo Harrischander, and Passing Thoughts on India and its People, their Present and Future. Bombay: Alliance Press, 1863 Chattopadhyay, Kanailal ed. Dwarakanath Ganguli’s Slavery in British Dominion. Calcutta: Jijnasa, 1959 Justice Murdered in India: The Papers of the Webb Case. Calcutta: 1884 Ramkumar Vidyaratna, Kuli Kahini. Calcutta: Jogmaya Prakashani, 1989 [1888] Sastri, Shibnath. History of the Brahmo Samaj, II. Calcutta: R. Chatterjee, 1912 Shastri, Shibnath. Ramtanu Lahiri O Tatkalin-Banga Samaj. [Ramtanu Lahiri and Contemporary Bengali Society] Calcutta: S.K. Lahiri & Co., 1909

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Secondary Literature Bandyopadhyay, Brajendranath. Sangbadpatre Sekaler Katha I. [Olden Days in Periodicals] Calcutta: Bangiya Sahitya Parishad, 2008 Bhattacharya, Bhabani. Socio-Political Currents in Bengal: A Nineteenth Century Perspective. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1980 Bose, Anjali ed. Samsad Bangla Charitabhidhan [Bengali Dictionary of Bibliography]. Calcutta: Sahitya Samsad, 1998 Chattopadhyay, Kanailal. “Assam Tea Plantation Labours and the Role of the Brahmo Samaj”, in Ishrat Alam and Syed Ejaz Hussain ed., The Varied Facets of History: Essays in Honour of Aniruddha Ray. Delhi: Primus Books, 2011 Chattopadhyay, Kanailal. “Assam-e Cha-Coolie Andolone Brahmo Samaj” [Brahmo Samaj in the Assam Tea-Coolie Movements] in Dashdishi (Special edition): Brahmo Bhabadorsho o Brahmo Andolon Dwitiyo Bhaag (Calcutta: April, 2014) Datta, Amar. Assam-e Cha-Coolie Andolon o Dwarakanath [Tea-Coolie Protests in Assam and Dwarakanath]. Kolkata: Granthamitra, 2009 Dhar, Pulak Narayan, “Bengal Renaissance: A Study in Social Contradictions”, Social Scientist XV, 164 (January, 1987) Gangopadhyay, Prabhat Chandra. Bharater Rashtriya Itihaser Khasra [Draft of India’s Political History]. Calcutta: Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, 1942 Ghose, Hemendra Prasad. The Newspaper in India. Calcutta: University of Calcutta Press, 1952 Mamoon, Muntassir. “Unish Shatake Sabha-Samiti O SangbadSamayikpatra” [Nineteenth-Century Associations and Periodicals], in Sahitya-Parishad-Patrika 113:4 (2007) Matthew, H.C.G. and Brian Harrison ed. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004 Sharma, Jayeeta. Empire’s Garden: Assam and the Making of India. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2011 Sinha, Mrinalini. “Premonitions of the Past”, The Journal of Asian Studies, 74 (2015)

THE INDIAN ENCOUNTER WITH WESTERN MEDICINE: RECOUNTING WOMEN’S EXPERIENCES FROM THE LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY SHARMITA RAY

The expression Western medicine broadly refers to the range of practices and knowledge of medicine that were particularly developed in a Western context and subsequently introduced and propagated in India over the course of British colonial rule. The dissemination of Western medicine assumed a steady pace throughout the span of the nineteenth century and became a significant component of the ‘civilizing mission’ in India. Western medicine has been alternatively referred to as the ‘tool of empire’ for consolidating British colonial rule over India.1 The Indian social milieu became a trying ground for Western medicine as the latter’s authority was consistently challenged by the prevailing indigenous systems of medicine that included Ayurveda and Unani. This essay seeks to examine the encounter between Indian society and Western medicine and focusses on the role of women in popularising the scope of Western medicine within India. The discussion will unravel the crucial role of women (both Indian and from the West), not only as medical personnel, but also as patients or the recipients of medical aid. The latter demanded to be treated on their own terms thereby encouraging the amalgamation of Indian values, cultural practices and indigenous modes of remedy/treatment with those of the knowledge and practice of Western medicine as propagated by those professionally trained in medicine. Geraldine Forbes has argued that in the peculiar social milieu in the context of colonial India, the lady doctors were required to deliver a “hybrid form of medicine” to make both western

1

Roy MacLeod, “Preface,” to Disease, Medicine, and Empire: Perspectives on Western Medicine and the Experience of European Expansion eds. Roy MacLeod and Milton Lewis (London: Taylor and Francis, 1988), x.

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medicine as well as themselves welcome into the homes of women in need of medical attention.2 A brief note on the initial career of Western medicine in India is in order before we discuss the role of women. January, 1836 was a benchmark in the career of Western medicine in India, when Pundit Madhusudan Gupta, a Brahmin instructor in the newly inaugurated Medical College in Calcutta, along with four Indian students carried out the first clinical dissection of a human body. This incident was remarkable for multiple reasons. It not only represented how the knowledge of science and technology was making inroads into Indian institutional spaces, but at a more intimate level, it reflected how educated Indians no longer strictly abided by the taboos and proscriptions dictated by the traditional caste system.3 In the light of the orthodox Indian beliefs that were breached by this act, this day has been recorded as the one on which “Indians rose superior to the prejudices of their earlier education and thus boldly flung open the gates of modern medical science to their countrymen.”4 The knowledge of the medical sciences that had been developed in the West was initially deployed in India to attend to the medical needs of British government officials and soldiers who served in India for considerable lengths of time. From the second quarter of the nineteenth century, certain establishments including hospitals and colleges began to be established in order to train Indians in the science of Western medicine as well as to make medical services available to some sections of the Indian society.

The Reach of Western Medicine in India The nineteenth century is significant with respect to the reform efforts that were intended to improve the position of women within the Indian society. A correlation that was gradually gaining ground in India was that the condition of women in a society was reflective of the overall condition and the progressive potential of the society itself. By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, there were a considerable number of individual 2 Geraldine Forbes, Women in Colonial India: Essays on Politics, Medicine and Historiography (New Delhi: Chronicle Books, 2005), 140. 3 A strong notion of impurity or pollution has been traditionally associated with the handling of dead bodies. Customarily, after death the caste norms prohibited family members from handling the corpse and all the cremation related activities were typically performed by members of ritually impure castes like the dom in Bengal. 4 Centenary of Medical College, Bengal 1935, quoted in David Arnold, Colonizing the Body State Medicine and Epidemic Disease in Nineteenth-Century India (California: University of California Press, 1993), 6.

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reformers as well as associations that were sincerely working towards ameliorating the condition of women in India among other social concerns. Focus on various issues including education for females, child marriage, widow remarriage was complemented by a general appraisal of women’s conditions including their health indicators. The high rates of maternal and infant mortality redirected the attention of the observers towards the weaker indicators of women’s health which over time were sought to be improved through some kind of medical intervention apart from improving living standards. However, there was an impediment in offering medical aid to women in India, owing to restrictions imposed upon their social mobility and interaction with members outside of one’s own family (particularly males). These restrictions were in accordance with the practice of veiling called purdah, accompanied by the more intensive practice of female seclusion in the women’s quarters of the household called the zenana. Both these practices were cited for making two contradictory claims. On the one hand, the practice of purdah and the seclusion of women were represented as a source of disability or restraints on (respectable) women. On the other hand, this same restrictive (and to some extent suppressive) practice was argued to be presenting a golden opportunity for empowering yet another section of women who could acquire training in medicine and become practitioners providing medical aid to women. Maneesha Lal describes the purdah as an institution that was “concerned with controlling women’s mobility, sexuality and reproduction, purdah stipulated specific codes of dress, comportment and movement within and outside the home, and set of rules for communication and interaction.”5 In keeping with the associated traditions of shielding their honour, dignity and modesty, women in India would often suffer or even perish due to illness, rather than permitting any male observer even in the capacity of a physician/doctor to help cure the ailment. This was reiterated by reformers and/or medical practitioners in diverse contexts to emphasise the immediate need for female medical personnel to cater to the peculiar needs of the Indian social milieu. Doctors Balfour and Young working in India in early twentieth century describe the situation thus: During ill health ... Messages are frequently sent describing her symptoms to male doctors ... The husband may even bring a male doctor to sit behind a screen and feel her pulse ... But it is in childbirth that the full horror of the 5

Maneesha Lal. “Purdah as pathology,” in Reproductive Health in India: History, Politics, Controversies, ed. Sarah Hodges (New Delhi: Orient Longmam Private Limited, 2006). 89.

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The Indian Encounter with Western Medicine purdah system is seen, when women are allowed to die undelivered sooner than show themselves to a man ... choosing death in great agony rather than what she considers disgrace.6

The present circumstances of nineteenth century India, wherein the womenfolk of the better-off sections (upper/middle class/caste) of the Indian society were prohibited or hesitated from accessing suitable medical aid as a safeguard for their modesty, made it imperative to devise alternative measures to deliver effective medical assistance to this lot of women. Christian missionaries working for a variety of Societies or Missions, were among the earliest who attempted to strike an intimate bond with members of the Indian society.7 When the earliest among the male missionaries realised that their entry into most respectable Indian homes was not permitted due to strict adherence to customs of purdah whereby they were unable to convey the message of God or bring relief to any suffering woman, a separate way out was deemed necessary. It was evident that only females would be allowed to access female patients and in turn able to intrude and make a difference in the lives of Indian women shut away from the gaze of any other outsider in their strictly guarded zenanas. Thereby, the first set of women to offer such services were the wives of missionaries. They attempted to provide some amount of medical relief along with propagating evangelical ideas. The missionary wives however, were not always fully equipped to deal with serious medical conditions. Therefore, along with the missionary wives, it was considered necessary to induct trained female nurses and doctors into India to simultaneously achieve evangelical aims and instil faith in the boon of Western medicine. Clara Swain was the first qualified female medical missionary who came to India in 1870. Hailing from New York, Swain was attached to the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Her missionary zeal was suitably accompanied by her efforts in improving the health facilities available for women in India. She settled in Bareilly, where she took over the work of a previous missionary woman, Mrs. Thomas who had initiated a small class of fourteen native Christian women for a limited course of instruction in medicine. Swain further expanded the class to include training and practical 6 Margaret I. Balfour and Ruth Young. The Work of Medical Women in India. (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1929), 3-4. 7 Some of the important Missions include Church of England Zenana Missionary Societies, Methodist Episcopal Women’s Foreign Missionary Society, Baptist Ladies’ Missionary Society, Women’s Union Missionary Society and Indian Female Normal School and Instruction Society.

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experience in compounding medicines and introduced instruction in anatomy, physiology and materia medica8 to equip them with a certificate level of knowledge.9 The first such missionary from Britain was Fanny Butler who came to India in 1880 after training in the London School of Medicine for women. She was sent by the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society and she was posted in Jubbulpore, Bhagalpur, and Kashmir.10 Her pioneering medical work among women in Kashmir won her a great deal of appreciation. Some of the other prominent female medical missionaries were Rose Greenfield,11 Sarah Hewlett,12 Edith Brown,13 Ida Scudder,14 and Elizabeth Beilby among others. The work of the missionaries across the subcontinent instilled faith and hope among Indian women to improve their health with the aid of Western medicine. In fact, the Maharani of Panna, who had been cured by Beilby, had personally requested the latter to speak to the Queen of England regarding Indian women’s immediate need for more compassionate medical attention. When this message was 8

“materia medica” in this context refers to a compilation of information regarding the healing properties or therapeutic effectiveness of various items or substances used to cure particular conditions of ill health. This information was an essential part of the curriculum for training in medicine. 9 Marthal Nalini, “Pioneer Woman Physician as Medical Missionary to the Women of the Orient: Clara A. Swain, M. D (1834-1910),” International Journal of Innovation, Management and Technology 1, no. 2, (2010): 148. 10 Balfour & Young, The Work, 18. 11 Miss Greenfield came to Ludhiana in 1875 under the Society for Female Education in the East. Beginning her work with teaching zenana women, Greenfield began to show interest in the healthcare facilities for women. She set up a dispensary in 1881 followed by the 10-bed Charlotte Hospital and finally organized the establishment of the Women’s Medical School at Ludhiana. Ibid., 18-19 & Maina Chawla-Singh, Gender, “Medicine and Empire: Early initiatives in Institution-building and Professionalisation, (1890s-1940s),” in Exploring Gender Equations: Colonial and Post Colonial India, eds. Shakti Kak and Biswamoy Pati (New Delhi: Nehru Memorial and Museum Library, 2005), 97. 12 Miss Hewlett came to India in association with the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society in 1877. She assumed responsibility of the Amritsar Dais’ School and also trained Indian girls as assistants in mission hospitals. Balfour & Young, The Work, 18. 13 Dr. Brown came to India in 1891. She carried forward the work of Dr. Greenfield in Ludhiana. With her efforts the North India School for Medicine for Christian Women started functioning from 1894. Maina Chawla Singh, “Medicine and Empire”, 95, 97-99. 14 Dr. Ida Scudder came to India in 1900. She began her work in Vellore trying to reach out to the interior rural areas. With her initiative the Missionary Medical College for Women in Madras was inaugurated in 1918. Ibid., 99-102.

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conveyed to the Queen, she responded thus: “We had no idea it was as bad as this. Something must be done for the poor creatures.”15 She took special interest and urged the subsequent Vicerene, Lady Dufferin, to take up the cause to provide better healthcare to women in India. Lady Dufferin, realising the genuineness of the concern, relentlessly worked towards the establishment and systematic operation of the National Association for Supplying Female Medical Aid to the Women of India (NASFMA or commonly referred to as the Countess of Dufferin Fund) from 1885 to 1888 (the term of Lord Dufferin’s Viceroyalty). The NASFMA was established with the following objectives: 1. To conduct medical tuition for women in India including teaching and training as doctors, hospital assistants, nurses and midwives. 2. To provide medical relief by setting up dispensaries and cottage hospitals as well as opening female wards in existing hospitals under female superintendence for the treatment of women and children. 3. To supply trained female nurses and midwives for women and children in hospitals and private homes. 4. The association also sought to purchase and/or acquire property for purposes of its convenience and for construction of necessary buildings. 5. The association encouraged the promotion and establishment of branches and other societies or other associations with similar objects and the affiliation or amalgamation of such societies or associations with this association. 6. The doing of all such things as are incidental or conducive to the attainment of the above objectives or any of them.16 The efforts and initiatives taken by diverse individuals and groups in colonial India, to propagate the benefits of Western medicine, became successful primarily because women doctors from the West were eager and willing to practice medicine in India. However, the history of women’s entry into the medical profession itself was not without several roadblocks. The standardised and institutionalised framework of medicine requiring prolonged systematic training in the vocation had systematically eliminated women from becoming trained medical professionals across the continents of the world. As for women in most parts of the world, the women in Britain also had to wage a tough battle to acquire the permission and opportunity to 15 16

Balfour and Young, The Work, 20-21. Annual Report. NASFMA. 1910.

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be formally trained as doctors and once again the context of India was invoked to strengthen the claim of women to study medicine. The London School of Medicine for Women was established in 1874, with the efforts of some of the pioneer women in medicine including Elizabeth Blackwell, Elizabeth Garrett and Sophia Jex-Blake. Jex-Blake convincingly pointed out that even those who opposed female physicians practicing in Britain could not “dispute the urgent necessity that exists for their services in India and other parts of the East, where native customs make it practically impossible that women should be attended by medical men.”17 This was presented as a key premise for providing medical training to women in Britain, who later served across the Indian subcontinent in large numbers. With regard to expanding scope for women’s practice of medicine in India, Edith Pechey18 stated that: India presents one attraction to enthusiasts in medical science, in that she offers hospital posts with the opportunities for scientific investigations which hospital practice alone affords. If the appointments to these posts are made permanent in character, and the emoluments connected with them are such as to secure competency, I believe that the Government of India will find candidates amongst really able women who would bring credit to the service and who would contribute greatly to the advancement of medical knowledge in India.19

The enthusiasm expressed by British women with regard to their desire to practice medicine in India, was suitably satisfied by appointing them in important positions in various hospitals within India. Edith Pechey, for instance, was selected to be the senior medical officer at the Cama Hospital for Women and Children in Bombay in 1883. She served here till 1894 and then moved out to establish her private practice. A pattern may be observed wherein a large number of women came to India after graduating from the London School of Medicine for Women (LSMW) to promote the objectives 17 Antoinette Burton, “Contesting the Zenana: The Mission to Make "Lady Doctors for India"- 18741885,” The Journal of British Studies, 35, no. 3 (1996): 369. 18 Dr. Edith Pechey was one of the pioneer women who began her medical studies with Sophia Jex Blake in Edinburgh, and when driven away from that inhospitable home of learning, completed her course and took her degree at Berne, afterwards obtaining the license of the Kings and Queens College of Physicians, Ireland, the first licensing board in the British Islands to open its doors to women. Margaret Balfour and Ruth Young. The Work of Medical Women in India. (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1929) 27. 19 Home Department (Medical) A, May, 1888, File No. 13-14. National Archives of India, New Delhi.

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of their respective missions or to participate in the development of healthcare facilities for women in India.20 This infusion of female medical professionals was additionally facilitated by the establishment of associations including the Medical Women for India Fund in 188221 and the Countess of Dufferin Fund in 1885. Both these funds aimed to set up hospitals and dispensaries in India in order to provide institutional medical care to Indian women (and children) who were perceived to be in dire need of medical attention. The other significant objective of the funds was to provide training to women in India in the science of medicine by inducting them in medical schools and colleges in India. Efforts to train Indian women in Western medicine had been initiated by disparate groups of individuals and reformers in some parts of the subcontinent from the 1870s onwards. Unlike in Britain, women in India had the consistent support of male reformers who were keen to induct more trained women doctors in India.22 In 1875, the first certificate class for ladies in India was started in Madras. Subsequently women were permitted into medical colleges in Bombay, Agra, Calcutta and Lahore by 1890. In 1884, the Calcutta Medical College allowed women to acquire admission into the College, and Kadambini Ganguly became the first and single female student of the batch after encountering severe opposition from multiple quarters. She received the GBMS (Graduate Medical College of Bengal) license to practice medicine in 1886, thereby becoming the first woman to be trained in medicine in Bengal.23 However, Anandibai Joshi was the first Indian woman to obtain a degree in medicine. In 1883, at the age of eighteen, Joshi decided to pursue medicine and sailed to the USA, since no institution in India admitted women to study medicine at the time. She graduated from 20

By 1887, A Report of the LSMW furnishes a list of eight women who were working as missionaries or held important positions in Indian hospitals after receiving their training from LSMW: 1. Miss Edith Pechey, Senior Medical Officer, Cama Hospital, Bombay. 2. Miss Fanny Butler, Medical Missionary Bhagalpur, India. 3. Miss Alice Marston, Medical Missionary, Lucknow, India. 4. Mrs. Scharlieb, Senior Medical Officer, Victoria Hospital, Madras. 5.Miss McGeorge, Medical Missionary, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. 6. Miss Beilby, Medical Officer, Maternity Hospital, Lahore, India. 7. Miss Pailthorpe, Victoria Hospital, Madras. 8.Miss Littlewood, Resident Medical Officer, Cama Hospital, Bombay. Home Department (Education), July, 1887, File No. 64-68. NAI, New Delhi. 21 For details see Mridula Ramanna, Western Medicine and Public Health in Colonial Bombay:1845-1895 (New Delhi: Orient Longman Private Limited, 2002), 184-85. 22 For details see Mousumi Bandyopadhyay, Kadambini Ganguly: The Archetypal Woman of Nineteenth Century Bengal (Delhi: The Women Press, 2011). 23 Ibid.

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the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia, in March 1886.24 Subsequently, a large number of Indian women received training from various institutions in India. Only a small number received the more prestigious MB (Bachelor of Medicine) degree, while a large number trained in the medical schools were given the VLMS (Vernacular Licentiate for Medicine and Surgery) making them legitimate medical practitioners.25 Haimabati Sen, who became a child widow at ten, decided to enrol herself in the Campbell Medical School in Calcutta to obtain the VLMS in 1891, after getting remarried. She has left behind a spectacularly detailed autobiography which is a crucial resource for understanding the experiences of Indian women as students and practitioners of Western medicine.26 This autobiography also talks about Mussammat Indenessa from Mymensingh, the first Muslim woman to study medicine in Bengal. Apart from the more respectable and rigorous MB and VLMS qualifications, there were other courses instituted to give training in midwifery and nursing to Indian women. By the turn of the twentieth century a sizeable number of Indian women were serving in the various Dufferin Fund hospitals across India and a handful of them were able to establish private clinics as well. The Annual Reports of the National Association for Supplying Female Medical Aid (NASFMA) provides a thorough landscape of the gradually expanding reach of Western medicine in India. A brief review of the developments up to 1910 would illustrate the pace of infusion of Western medicine in the Indian context. By 1910 the NASFMA had thirteen branches including one in the United Kingdom, 158 hospitals, wards and dispensaries and 140 local and district associations or committees. The approximate value of its Institutions amounted to fifty lakh rupees, 47 lady doctors of the first grade, 92 assistant surgeons, 670 hospital assistants apart from other practitioners who were working for the Association in 1910. In 24

The Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia established in 1850, was the world’s first medical college for women. Meera Kosambi, “A Prismatic Presence: Anandibai Joshee through Iconized Readings,” in Crossing thresholds: Feminist Essays in Social History, ed. Meera Kosambi (Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2007), 71. 25 For details on Bengal’s women doctors, see Sharmita Ray, “Women Doctors’ Masterful Manoeuvrings: Colonial Bengal, Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries,” Social Scientist, 42 (3-4), (2014): 59-76. For details on medical education of women, see Sharmita Ray, “Indian Women Learning Western Medicine: A Study of the Pioneers from Bengal, ca. 1880-1900,” Indian History, 2, 2015: 37- 66. 26 Geraldine Forbes and Tapan Raychaudhuri eds. The Memoirs of Dr. Haimabati Sen: From Child Widow to Lady Doctor, trans. Tapan Raychaudhuri (New Delhi: Lotus Collecion, Roli Books, 2000).

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the same year, the number of female students in various medical schools and colleges funded by the Association was 594 including those training as nurses and midwives. The Report further stated that a total of 1, 171, 965 women and children received medical aid in the year under review.27 Maneesha Lal argues “The Dufferin Fund was a distinctive example of what became a characteristic effort by the Government of India, to graft onto India the English model of philanthropy, which colonial rulers believed represented a progressive civic ideal.”28 As much as this was one of the reasons for government’s support for the association’s initiatives, the large number of employment that it generated for women doctors was a significant reason for the appreciation of the Dufferin Fund. The earliest women doctors from India, including Kadambini Ganguly, Jamini Sen and Haimabati Sen served in different hospitals funded by the Association across India from the late nineteenth century.29 The long and successful careers of women doctors in India as recounted in various biographical works suggest that their work among Indian women was integral and widely appreciated. The institution of zenana, made their services welcome in India as well as Nepal among the middle classes as well as the royal houses.30 The success achieved through empathy and compassion expressed by women doctors were unmatched to the earlier situation when the majority of women had little scope to either access or communicate their symptoms and ailments to a male doctor. The inception of Western medicine gradually created new avenues for female medical practitioners as well as the recipients of Western medicine to improve the health of a considerable section of Indian women.

The Indian Society’s Response to Western Medical Practices For what is this medical science we bring to you?...It is built on the bedrock of pure, irrefutable science, it is a boon which is offered to all, rich and poor, Hindu and Mohammedan, woman and man. It lifts the purdah without irreverence…Medical science, indeed is the most cosmopolitan of all

27

Annual Report. NASFMA, 1910. Lal, Purdah as Pathology, 61. 29 For details, see Ray, “Women Doctors” 30 Ray, “Women Doctors” 70. 28

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sciences, because it embraces in its merciful appeal every suffering human being in the world.31

The above lines are quoted from a speech delivered by the Viceroy, Lord Curzon on 3rd March, 1899 at the annual meeting of the Countess of Dufferin’s Fund in Calcutta. These lines are reflective of the colonial government’s endeavour to propagate medical science to the widest sections of the Indian population. By means of offering medical aid, the colonizers succeeded in making inroads into the women’s quarters of respectable Indian homes which had been regarded as mysterious spaces of intrigues and superstitions. These quarters which had so far been shielded from British influence was now exposed to a handful of Western women and subjected to critical scrutiny. The missionary women were the first to gain entry into Indian homes and they expressed great bewilderment at the situation of the women’s quarters. The initial impression was one of shock and grave disappointment. The women’s quarters were described as the darkest and the dingiest section of the households with poor ventilation. The living conditions combined with the habits and practices of the women were described as unhealthy, unhygienic and guided by mindless superstitions. The reports of the various missionary societies that operated in India, recounted their laborious efforts to introduce principles of science and hygiene within Indian households. They describe it as an uphill task as the Indian women are described as stubborn and resistant to the reorganization of their living spaces.32 The resistances were largely in keeping with the labyrinth of social customs, superstitions and traditions which were guided by normative notions of purity and pollution. In cases where missionaries provided medications to cure illness, women were suspicious of the mixtures provided, refused to consume medicine, especially in the liquid form and were at times incapable or even unwilling to follow the instructions of dosage or diet as prescribed by the medical missionaries.33 The reluctance of Indian women owed to a large extent on their notions of purity and pollution, whereby the presence and touch of a foreigner or any item to be 31

“Western Medicine In India” The British Medical Journal, 1(1993), March 11, 1899, 613. 32 Reports of the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society are replete with such examples and accounts. 33 Missionaries working with women claimed that women could not follow the instructions as they would sometimes consume the medicine along with the paper in which it was wrapped. Sometimes, medicines would be thrown away due to suspicions regarding their effectiveness or ritual purity.

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consumed, was regarded to have a polluting influence. The missionaries and subsequently the doctors were able to win over the confidence of a sizeable section of Indian women who over time became more agreeable to follow the medical counsel as they realized the health benefits they promised. Negotiation between the doctors and the patients to accommodate some Indian norms such as purdah and segregation on the one hand, and the persuasive administering of Western medicine on the other, played a significant role in bridging the distance between the doctors and patients. The mutual acceptance becomes evident in that the numbers of in-patients and out-patients in the hospitals and dispensaries established from the final decade of the nineteenth century increased substantially over the turn of the twentieth century. Jamini Sen, one of the first women doctors to graduate from the Calcutta Medical College, recorded in her diary entry how the number of indoor patients almost doubled between 1915 and 1916 when she served in the Shikarpur Hospital. This reflected growing faith in Western medicine, but also the relationship based on trust that was nurtured between doctors and patients. A character of intense controversy in Indian society was the indigenous midwife, or the daie. While the Indian society heavily relied upon the services of the daies they were ruthlessly targeted for their presumed “unscientific,” “unhygienic,” and “dangerous” methods.34 Midwifery as a profession in India was exclusively the domain of specific lower caste women and the knowledge of conducting child birth was transferred from one generation to the next. So, the daughters or daughters-in-law performed all the processes they learnt from their mothers/mothers-in-law through hands-on training. The period of child birth was considered to be grossly polluting and it was primarily the daie who had unrestrained access to the accouchement chamber (where the woman giving birth was secluded and confined), provided most of the services during the birthing process, and also looked after the mother and the new-born immediately after. It may be inferred that their presence and performance was of paramount importance although they were situated much lower down in the social ladder. However, owing to their negligent behaviour as evident from the accounts of both Indian and Western observers and medical reformers; and their lack of scientific knowledge in obstetrics, they gained immense notoriety and 34 See Supriya Guha, “From Dais to Doctors: The Medicalisation of Childbirth in Colonial India,” in Understanding Women’s Health Issues: A Reader, ed. Lakshmi Lingam (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1998), and Anshu Malhotra, “Of Dais and Midwives: ‘Middle Class’ Interventions in the Management of Reproductive Health in Colonial Punjab,” in Reproductive Health in India: History, Politics, Controversies, ed. Sarah Hodges (New Delhi: Orient Longmam Private Limited, 2006).

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came to be condemned by both the Indian and colonial reformers and by medical experts. Repeated and consistent attempts were made unsuccessfully to replace or eliminate the daies and introduce in their place the newly trained midwives. Multiple efforts to train Indian women (from respectable backgrounds) as midwives were only partially successful due to the strong stigma of caste and pollution attached with the process of child birth. While on the one hand, midwifery customarily being the hereditary occupation of particular castes of the lower orders of the Indian caste system whose women lacked the time, willingness, resources or the basic educational qualification required to acquire such training, on the other, women belonging to higher castes or respectable families would not engage in the tasks of midwifery due to the strong social stigma attached to it. The women doctors, who primarily engaged in obstetrical procedures, were often treated at par with the daies. To cite an instance, Kadambini Ganguly’s assistant, narrated an incident that at one instance after Kadambini had delivered a child in a private home and had taken a ritual bath, she was served her meal in a verandah with other servants as she was mistaken for a daie and ‘daies’ were essentially considered to be polluted. While the Indian women doctors grew accustomed to such socially prescribed behaviour of segregation, the female doctors from the West were often unable to comprehend the rationale of such discriminatory treatment. In fact, even the family membersKadambini’s daughter-in-law in this case was moved to tears when she heard how her educated mother-in-law had been treated. The norms and principles of conduct on the basis of caste baffled most of the medical personnel who came from the West. They were rarely able to understand or appreciate the taboos imposed upon Indian women with regard to their movements, interaction and food consumption, even more so during the time of childbirth. The ideas/superstitions of purity and pollution adversely affected the work and respectability of the women doctors who sought to serve Indian women. Indian women doctors were better able to suit themselves and operate within the given social framework as they were the products of the same social milieu. They served in the hospitals as well as paid visits to private homes as it continued to be an uphill task to persuade all women to access treatment in hospitals and dispensaries. The doctors from the West were consistently critical and often impatient with the Indian attitude towards Western medicine and its practices. The Indian women doctors on the other hand managed to maintain a better balance among their professional responsibilities, their malleability to accommodate Indian caste norms and customs and compete with the women doctors from the West for demanding better terms of service in hospitals and dispensaries. The Indian doctors trained in Western medicine were

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conscious that Indian society would appreciate their accomplishments and service only if they presented themselves in a seemingly appropriate fashion. Hence, their education, their work with European personnel or even their travels abroad did not bring about any transformation in their way of dressing or day to day conduct. Multiple images of various Indian women doctors depict them in a sari draped in the traditional fashion, sometimes with their heads covered. While the medical profession assigned them the responsibility to bear the knowledge of Western medicine to the threshold of every household and offer relief to suffering women, they stood out as an aberration to both the traditional and modern ideals of the ‘new woman.’ Western medicine set the ground for the meeting and negotiation between the cultures of the East and West by creating the space for their interaction within Indian society by way of dispensation of Western medicine. The hybridisation of Western medicine that came about as a result of assimilation of indigenous medical knowledge and practices with those of the West marked the fruition of the encounter between the Western and the indigenous systems of medicine. To a large extent Indian society accepted the boons of Western medicine on its own terms through remarkable persuasions of course. Western medicine on the other hand, succeeded in making inroads into the urban and rural spaces of the subcontinent by willing to compromise some of its principles by accommodating several Indian mores and customs in order to be well received and appreciated by Indian society at large. And, in this protracted trajectory, the role of women in propagating Western medicine within India and making it more suited to Indian expectations was paramount. Their agency as propagators as well as recipients of Western medicine is crucial in tracing the manner of progress and career of Western medicine in modern India.

The Cultural Encounter Represented in Fiction A number of fictional narratives produced from the latter half of the nineteenth century included plots discussing the association between medical sciences and women in the context of India. These works targeted and explored the complexities of the aspirations and work of medical women in India. Most of the works portrayed service to be the prime objective of the female characters rather than professional success and nursing was repeatedly depicted to be more suitable for women in keeping with women’s assumed nurturing temperament. The priorities of women are questioned and put to test in these works of fiction as they were in their real life experiences as well. An important component of these narratives is the

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manner in which they depicted the interaction between the cultures of the East and the West. The reception and admiration or rejection of the scientific temper of the West are juxtaposed against the resilient culture of the East trying to hold ground in the face of the intrusion of scientific knowledge. Two works will be discussed here as representations of fictions mirroring real-world circumstances. The first text is about a woman who comes from the West to practise medicine in India while the second discusses the ambition of a young Indian woman who travels to Europe to study medicine. In The Naulahka, written by Rudyard Kipling, the female protagonist is Kate Sheriff, a nurse from the West, who comes to India to champion the cause of the ailing and oppressed Indian women.35 This novel depicts peculiar similarities with the prevailing situation wherein medicine was one of the crucial instruments, which brought Western women into meaningful contact with the women in the East. In this novel the notion of Western medical women bringing medical and social “enlightenment” to Indian women is repeatedly questioned throughout the execution of the plot. Kate is inspired by a speech delivered by Pandita Ramabai36 in her school. The knowledge about the miserable plight of the Indian women moved her to come to an alien land to rescue a set of women in desperate need of medical attention. Kate’s attitude is distinctly representative of the racial presumptions and prejudices that moved Western women to sympathise with the “suffering lot” of Indian women. However, the way in which Kate abandons her work in India, in the face of the failure to run a hospital there, and subsequently moves back to Colorado depicts the dilemmas and disillusionment that women from the West coming to India often faced. Works of fiction such as this one are important to corroborate the real life experiences of women who willingly travelled afar with the aspiration to serve and heal. Their trials and tribulations in India were as significant as their success or failure to underscore the attitude of Western women towards Indian women who they sought to redeem from misery and ill health.

35

Rudyard Kipling, The Naulahka: A Story of West and East, (London: William Heinemann, 1892) 36 Pandita Ramabai was an Indian social reformer of world renown. She had converted to Christianity and championed the cause of emancipation of Indian women through education.

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The second work is Rabindranath Tagore’s Dui Bon (Two Sisters).37 It presents a situation in a modern Brahmo38 household in which the female protagonist Urmimala (Urmi) expresses her wish to go to Europe to be trained as a doctor so that she may take charge of the hospital that her father, Rajaram wishes to establish. The author points out that Rajaram gives his consent to such a desire without considering it to be an odd proposition made by a girl. The novel tells us how Nirod, a doctor and her fiancé, takes the responsibility to “mould his future wife according to his own design, scientifically planned in the manner of a laboratory experiment.” Subsequently, when Urmi is called upon to look after her ailing sister Sharmila, she reasoned that nursing her sister was in a way related to her ambition to become a doctor. After considerable distractions and turmoil within the family, Urmi finally sets out for Europe to become a doctor. The novel raises significant questions regarding women making career choices or organizing priorities, about conditioned consent granted to women to pursue their ambitions, about complexities of social relations/circumstances, which influence a woman’s decision regarding her career as well as the way in which society often trivializes a woman’s career goals for the sake of a family crisis or for the insurmountable importance attached to a woman’s role within the household. Urmi’s dilemmas and pressures to perform her domestic responsibilities are similar to those of the Indian women doctors including Haimabati Sen, Jamini Sen and Kadambini Ganguly as reiterated in their biographical writings. In several ways the cause of learning and practising Western medicine provided these women with a lucrative opportunity to realise and establish their potential as individuals with a noble purpose in life.

Conclusion India’s encounter with Western medicine marked the beginning of a new pattern of interaction and exchange between the Eastern and Western cultures. The dichotomies inherent in the colonial-colonised binary were either selectively reinforced or diluted in the course of the spread of Western medicine in India. This essay has vividly portrayed the crucial role of 37

Rabindranath Tagore, Dui Bon, (1933), trans. Sukhendu Ray and Bharati Ray in Three Novellas: Nashta Nir; Dui Bon; Malancha (New Delhi: Oxford University Press. 2010), 73. 38 The followers of the principles of the Brahmo Samaj, a movement initiated by Rammohun Roy in 1828, were referred to as the Brahmos. They were regarded to have a more liberal and progressive attitude towards women. Brahmo women were encouraged to acquire an education and contribute to the society.

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women in this process using Western medicine as a catalyst for strengthening the bond between the East and the West. The extent and impact of women’s collaboration with medical science becomes abundantly evident in the steady growth of the numbers of women engaging in the medical profession in late colonial India and the expansion and healthy reception of their services within Indian society. Women played an integral part in the dissemination of Western medicine and used this as an opportunity to bring about consistent changes in the attitude of Indian society towards Western medicine. The introduction of Western medicine inaugurated fresh avenues to be explored by women. India providing a fertile ground for service and experience for medical women across the world became mutually beneficent for the propagators and the recipients of Western medical aid. First and foremost, it provided women with an alternate career opportunity whereby they could successfully perform their professional calling hinging on service to the society and fulfil their personal and domestic obligations. The balancing of the professional and the personal was of utmost importance, especially for Indian women doctors, in order to be respected and appreciated for their work outside of the home. The medical practise instilled confidence and gave autonomy to women doctors in a patriarchal social milieu wherein, they could take charge of and operate in hospitals and dispensaries that were run exclusively for and by women. The women doctors also stretched themselves and exhibited exemplary patience and courage to suit the distinctive needs of an Indian milieu by accommodating their scientific and medical knowledge to a variety of social mores and taboos specific to the Indian context. The work of the women missionaries and doctors added credibility and prestige to the medical profession in India. Western medicine steadily reaching out to more and more respectable Indian homes and particularly women being able to access medical aid was made possible by the enthusiasm and hard work of women in the medical profession. The objective of Western medicine to employ agents to improve and augment the health facilities for Indian women, sought to equate the “metaphorical health of the empire” with the health of the colonized in general and Indian women in particular.39 In order to appreciate the Indian encounter with Western medicine, it is important to acknowledge the way in which the knowledge and principles of Western medicine were being simultaneously accommodated, modified and challenged within Indian society. 39

Kristine Swenson, Medical Women and Victorian Fiction (Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 2005), 179.

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Bibliography Arnold, David. Colonizing the Body: State Medicine and Epidemic Disease in Nineteenth-Century India. California: University of California Press, 1993. Balfour, Margaret and Ruth Young. The Work of Medical Women in India. Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1929. Bandyopadhyay, Mousumi. Kadambini Ganguly: The Archetypal Woman of Nineteenth Century Bengal. Delhi: The Women Press, 2011. Burton, Antoinette M. “Contesting the Zenana: The Mission to Make "Lady Doctors for India"- 1874-1885,” The Journal of British Studies 35, no. 3 (1996): 368-397. Forbes, Geraldine H. and Tapan Raychaudhuri eds., The Memoirs of Dr. Haimabati Sen: From Child Widow to Lady Doctor. Translated from Bengali by Tapan Raychaudhuri. New Delhi: Lotus Collecion, Roli Books, 2000. Forbes, Geraldine H. Women in Colonial India: Essays on Politics, Medicine and Historiography. New Delhi: Chronicle Books, 2005. Guha, Supriya. “From Dais to Doctors: The Medicalisation of Childbirth in Colonial India.” In Understanding Women’s Health Issues: A Reader, by Lakshmi Lingam. New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1998. Hodges, Sarah, ed., Reproductive Health in India: History, Politics, Controversies. New Delhi: Orient Longmam Private Limited, 2006. Kipling, Rudyard. The Naulahka: A Story of West and East. London: William Heinemann, 1892. Kosambi, Meera. Crossing Thresholds: Feminist Essays in Social History. Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2007. MacLeod, Roy and Milton Lewis, eds.. Disease, Medicine, and Empire: Perspectives on Western Medicine and the Experience of European Expansion. London: Taylor and Francis, 1988. Nalini, Marthal. “Pioneer Woman Physician as Medical Missionary to the Women of the Orient: Clara A. Swain, M. D (1834-1910),” International Journal of Innovation, Management and Technology 1, no. 2, (2010): 147-151. Pati, Biswamoy and Shakti Kak, eds. Exploring Gender Equations: Colonial and Post Colonial India. New Delhi: Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, 2005. Ramanna, Mridula. Western Medicine and Public Health in Colonial Bombay, 1845-1895. New Delhi: Orient Longman Private Limited, 2002.

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Ray, Sharmita. “Women Doctors’ Masterful Manoeuvrings: Colonial Bengal, Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries.” Social Scientist, 42 (3-4), (2014): 59-76. —. “Indian Women Learning Western Medicine: A Study of the Pioneers from Bengal, ca. 1880-1900.” Indian History, 2 (2015): 37- 66. Ray, Sukhendu and Bharati Ray. Three Novellas: Nashta Nir; Dui Bon; Malancha. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. 2010. Swenson, Kristine. Medical Women and Victorian Fiction. Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 2005.

INDIAN MYTHOLOGY IN DEREK MAHON’S AN AUTUMN WIND TAPASYA NARANG

Every writer in the modern world—since he can’t be in all literary traditions at once—is the inheritor of a gapped, discontinuous, polyglot tradition…. Nevertheless, if the function of tradition is to link us living with the significant past, this is done as well by a broken tradition as by a whole one. —Thomas Kinsella, 1966 address to the M.L.A., New York

Thomas Kinsella points out that modern writers, unable or unwilling to derive inspiration from one coherent tradition, inherit a ‘gapped, discontinuous, polyglot tradition.’ They do not seek solace in the coherence that these models provide but rather use them in order to scrutinize the contemporary world of ‘flux’ and plurality. Their secular vision persuades them to not have an idolatrous relationship with inherited traditions; they nevertheless engage with those traditions while addressing existent reality. One may observe similar stances in the poetry of the Northern Irish poet Derek Mahon, who deals with a whole range of literary associations from Greek and Roman mythology to Indian and Chinese scriptures, borrowing fragments from different sources and innovatively reworking them to address contemporaneity, without an expression of loss at being unable to appropriate authentic or coherent cultures. The context and cultural scenario in Ireland,1 where Mahon composes his poems, leaves a lasting impression on his work. In Ireland, according to Gerald Dawe, there is a widely-held perception of the poet as some kind of public figure who, ‘in regards to both his social life and beliefs, voices on behalf of “The People” an accessible articulation of their spiritual and cultural beliefs.2 The audiences relegate responsibilities on them to address 1

By Ireland I mean both Northern and Republican Ireland because Mahon was born in Northern Ireland but now lives in Republican Ireland. 2 Gerald Dawe, ‘A Question of Imagination: Poetry in Ireland Today’, in Cultural Contexts and Literary Idioms in Contemporary Irish Literature, ed. Michael Kenneally (Buckinghamshire: Colin Smythe Limited, 1988), 191.

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certain issues; for instance, colonial rule, which scarred Irish history, exercised a hegemonic control on the language and consequently deprived the poet from inheriting an “authentic” Irish cultural milieu. Irish readers expected poetical works to echo their own nostalgic preoccupations with the past. However, Mahon is opposed to this idea of poetry that helps in naturalizing traditional and inherited ways of reading by assuming a revivalist approach and engendering nationalist exclusivist ideologies. Mahon wants his audience to deal with the fragmented reality of modern times, rather than to mourn what has elapsed. Belonging to a generation of poets of the Troubles3 in Northern Ireland who insist on their identity as Irish poets but resist the idea of conceiving literature inspired by a nationalist agenda, Mahon, Richard Murphy, and Michael Longley offer ways to Irish poetry to become cathected by the wider issues of the world. They embrace the cultural fragmentation of contemporary times in order to address the contemporary industrialized and urbanized situation. Mahon describes the difference between southern and northern poetry in his 1970 essay, titled ‘Poetry in Northern Ireland’: Like Ireland itself (and I intend no sneer), the (Southern) ‘Irish’ poet is either unwilling or unable to come to terms with the ‘twentieth century’…to an extent that the Northern poet, surrounded as he is by the Greek gifts of modern industry and what Ferlinghetti called ‘the hollering monsters of imagination of disaster’, shares an ecology with the technological societies his rulers are so anxious to imitate, he must to be true to his imagination, insist upon a different court of appeal from that which sits in the South.4

The attempts at reiterating or archiving Irish history or regionalist attempts at idealizing tribal achievements are opposed by the Northern poets, as indicated by Mahon. He defines Northern poetry as taking shape from the experiences of industrialization and the fragmentation of imagination; this definition helps us understand the ambitions that he aims to realize through his own poetry. His intent is to come to terms with this reality through an active employment of one’s imagination that has been fueled by the experience of the poet’s existence in a splintered past. As a contemporary writer who is highly sensitive towards the role and the nature of art, Mahon’s poetic form resists any attempts at providing 3 The Troubles (1960s-1998) refers to the conflict in Northern Ireland between the loyalist and the Irish nationalists concerning the constitutional status of Ireland. It led to an unfolding of systematic violence by paramilitary groups. 4 Quoted in Kennedy-Andrews, Elmer, ed., The Poetry of Derek Mahon (Buckinghamshire: Collin Smythe Limited, 2002), 6.

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complete narratives; the poetry conveys meaning through images, landscapes, and descriptions of various visual and aural elements. This requires an active participation by the reader in the process of meaning making.5 This style engenders from Mahon’s understanding of aesthetics, reflected in the final stanza of his poem ‘New Space’; after drawing similarities between poetry and the art of still life drawing, he states: The weight of a bone handled knife signifies more in human life than our aesthetics ever can; form follows function. Once again we look to the still living whole to heal the heart and cure the soul.6

Mahon’s poetry, while visiting mythology and inherited cultural allusions, energizes itself with images from the physical world and by devouring and representing stimuli available to the senses. Instead of sermonizing on various issues, Mahon, through a highly sensitive power of archiving multiple experiences, reflects on the larger concerns of economics, ecology, morality, and social existence in various parts of the world. In An Autumn Wind, a 2010 collection, Mahon addresses the contemporary situation by making the poetic voice visit different geographical areas and, in the process, also alludes to mythologies connected with those locations.7 He comments on the commonality of challenges faced by various communities and specifically deals with the questions of imperialism, relocation of natives, capitalist exploitation of individuals and resources, as well as American dominance. The mythology of the places that he visits widens the imaginative range of his poetry and hones his satire of the world.

5

Mahon recognizes the role of the context in understanding of poems; in his early piece, ‘Heraclitus on Rivers,’ he states ‘Your best poem, you know the one I mean,/The very language in which the poem/Was written, and the idea of language,/All these things will pass away in time’. (Cited in Ciaran Carson 105) The lines seem to imply that the thought of the writer behind composition of the poems fades away with reception of the text in various scenarios. 6 ‘New Space’, in An Autumn Wind. All page numbers related to Mahon’s poems are from the following edition: Derek Mahon, An Autumn Wind (Loughcrew: Gallery Press, 2010). 7 An Autumn Wind visits various landscapes in its three parts: the first part concerns itself with Irish and European locations, the second with the Chinese cultural heritage, and the third with the Indian and South Asian communities.

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Mahon begins his collection with a representation of the western landscape; he reflects on the climactic and political scenarios of the places he visits. This representation of the political state of affairs allows the reader to recognize the phenomenon, which in theoretical terms is described as the hegemonic control of the powerful, and neo-imperialism. However, I intend to suggest that Mahon’s project doesn’t concern itself primarily with critiquing the trends of the West or extending sympathies to the East. His understanding of human phenomena does not allow him such simplistic dichotomization between these two geographical entities. He consciously composes his poems, honing their stylistic and thematic elements in An Autumn Wind, in order to challenge the readers’ preconceived notions and stereotypical views about developing countries like India. In this essay, I shall concern myself primarily with Mahon’s representation of India and his engagements with Indian mythology from the perspective of an Irish poet. In the final section ‘Raw Material’, Mahon assumes the persona of a fictitious Hindi poet, Gopal Singh, and reworks Indian myths and traditional values to contemplate the contemporary Indian scenario. Mythology provides both inspiration and effective models to critique the contemporary situation. Mahon also engages with the violence and orthodoxy that has been an essential part of traditional and religious discourses. By visiting those models and narratives from a neutral and distant perspective and by depriving those cultural symbols of the sublimity attached to them, he succeeds in directing them towards his topical concerns and his secular critique. Many poems in the collection present the hustle and bustle of various cities through the lens of a wandering poet who begins to get disillusioned with the landscape, experiences discomfort at its decadence, and seeks new alternatives. In the poem, ‘A Quiet Spot’ the poetic voice expresses a desire to seek refuge in ‘continental shelf,/ far from hysteria,’ away from places where ‘you start to choke/on signage, carbon monoxide’ (17). In ‘The Thunder Shower,’ the city landscape is described after rains: …there’s city noise, bits of recorded pop and rock, the drums, the strident electronic shock, a vast polyphony, the dense refrain of wailing siren, truck and train and incoherent cries. (18)

The poet visualizes the bustle that the city experiences after showers, where, unlike the forests, the landscape after rains is not cleansed and reenergized but where ‘Squalor and decadence,/the rackety global franchise

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rush,/ oil wars and water wars, the diatonic/ crescendo of a cascading world economy’ overpower the presence of rain and thunder in the atmosphere. The closing lines of the poem express stark disappointment; amid all the chaos of city life, the speaker states: ‘the storm that created so much fuss/has lost interest in us’ (19). The speaker disdains the atmosphere of the modernizing and urbanizing world. It seems to him that human built infrastructure has muted and tamed the natural world and challenged the possibilities of an individual’s intimate interaction with the objects of nature. In other poems, the speaker visits non-urban landscapes but to observe how these spaces have also been affected because of human interventions in natural processes and the dominance of capitalism. His description of the country in the poem ‘Growth’ reiterates this point: After the dawn commuters leave in Range Rovers, four by four, the quiet of an hour’s reprieve except on a few building sites. the global oil-price crisis bites; an April mist lifts from the shore. (25)

The lines simultaneously reflect on the natural landscape and the paraphernalia of modernity. The poet registers the omnipresence of capitalism and influences of globalization, where human economic activities have spread their domain and have left indelible traces. In ‘World Trade Talks’, the poet finds himself face to face with the devisors of various economic and political policies from the developed world. Here the disinterested observing-speaker steps aside to give way to the much more sarcastic poet commentator; he states: A ‘Hindu’ growth rate, hedges against the winds of double edged finance; organic crops and comely maidens, is it too late to push for these demands and pious hopes? (23)

The speaker mocks the rhetoric used by the economists associated with the IMF and the World Bank, who constantly complain about the lack of positive responses from countries like India towards the acceptance of

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economic strategies introduced by the USA.8 The poem refers to such rhetoric as ‘the dirty tricks and genocidal mischief/ inflicted upon the weak’. However, ‘World Trade Talks’ ends on an optimistic note, as the poet invokes the spirit of the hare,9 who manages to survive despite the presence of the war machinery that scares it. This kind of revolutionary energy is often manifested in Mahon’s poems, along with a sense of defiance against the excesses of American capitalism, a defiance that sometimes takes the form of apocalyptic imagery or violent appeals by the speaker.10 A sense of awareness and responsibility towards the world affairs is explicit in Mahon’s critique of the idiosyncratic commercial interests of developed nations, and in his engagements with the American and European landscapes. This sense of responsibility is carried forward by actually placing the poetic persona in South Asia. He introduces the author of ‘Raw Material’: The fictitious poet Gopal Singh was born in Kashmir in 1959 and lives in Delhi, where for many years he was Arts Editor of the monthly New India…. Singh’s is a highly inter-textual poetry which frequently references the work of others— Bengalis, Tamils—with the result that it almost reads like a telescopic anthology of the contemporary Indian canon. I would like to thank him for his help and forbearance (much has been lost in translation)…. (66)

The phrase used to describe the collection—‘a telescopic anthology of the contemporary canon’—denotes a conscious desire to appropriate devices from Indian literature, with such an adherence that an original work reads as an anthology of pieces from a pre-existing canon. The poet also gains authority by assuming the persona of an Indian but the distance of the author from his subject is conveyed through an acknowledgement of the difficulties experienced in translations. As the collection progresses, Gopal 8

Mahon cites Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine, published in 2007, which exposes how ‘free-market’ doctrine helped America to establish dominance over the world. According to Klien, America exploited the anxieties of disaster-shocked people, persuading them to accept the security-enforcing strategies of America that actually served the interests of the American market. 9 The hare, according to Scottish mythology, is an embodiment of corn. His survival in the poem allegorizes the survival of crops, despite threats posed to them by scientific interventions in agricultural activities through various means like genetic modification. 10 ‘Blueprint’ (15-16) ends with a violent appeal from the speaker, who asks the addressed to return the land resources to the Native Americans. He states, ‘give Algoquin back/ the shiny vein of ore we [here, the people of Manhattan] stuck/ and watch them re-enchant the world.’

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Singh skeptically reflects on the surroundings and the phenomena in the cities of India and appropriates the voice of different individuals from the landscape, who perceive threats from the chaos that is not only elemental (symbolized by floods and wilderness) but, more significantly, man-made (pollution, depleting of life-sustaining resources). In ‘Raw Material,’ the raw material to which the speaker refers is what is seen as waste or refuse, with a perceived presence of the potential to regenerate. The poem begins with reflections upon the importance of recycling: ‘The recycling of old shoes/ as raw material/ makes artwork/ of the contingent real’ (69). The poet, talking about the scientific process where waste material takes the form of new products, alludes to the message from the Bhagwad Gita. Only material forms die says the Gita, the dusty souls within alone survives even as we discard one body for another. (69)

The allusion in the given lines is to Canto 22 of Chapter II in the Gita, where Krishna states to Arjuna that the soul discards its body to assume another form just as human beings discard their worn out clothes. The next canto in the Gita states that one shall not mourn the loss of material forms because death is inevitable and after death there is after-life. The poet also reassures his readers that ‘there is life to come/ when we rejoin the dust/ or drift downstream/ and sink into the sand like foam.’ The lines seem to be providing spiritual alleviation to the soul and solace to modern individuals, yet one should not miss the ironical undertones of the poem. The speaker juxtaposes the mundane with the spiritual and prioritizes the focus on the lasting nature of material forms, thus stressing the significance of the efficient management of waste. The poet’s concern over inefficient management of waste is also explicit in the ‘Recycling Song’ where he again reminds the reader, ‘The Gita/ warns us that we never die’ and states that Our smoke and methane rise above the world of matter in viral columns to a busy sky. (75)

The speaker instead of providing consolation by sharing religious wisdom that ensures immortality to individual’s souls persuades the readers to ‘recycle the vilest rubbish, even/ your own discarded page’. The mythological

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allusion is used again to express the speaker’s discontent with the longlasting nature of material forms, which disturbs him and makes him express the need for human participation in providing for the process of regeneration. In the poem ‘The Great Wave,’ the rubble left after the tsunami appears as the raw material; the calamity and the overwhelming presence of the debris become inspiration for Mahon’s poetry. Mahon explores possibilities in this disaster, a distaster that jeopardizes objects and landscape. It provides a rich source of imagery for Mahon’s poetics, and he states: ‘If “waste is the new raw material” as they say/ our resources are infinite’. (‘Raw material’ here can be seen to represent poetic inspiration.) The poems (‘Raw Material,’ ‘Recycling Song,’ and ‘The Great Wave’) choose for their subjects the most prosaic object, filth. This throws some light on the understanding of poetic subjects by Mahon and his contemporaries. They embark on the project of translating modern reality into poetry for the audience and because this reality is deprived of any grandeur, the subject of the art also deals with what is deprived of grandiosity. In the instances demonstrated above, his poems allude to the message of the Gita, bringing forth philosophical questions about human existence, mortality and immortality; at the same time, they engage with elemental details, preventing the reader from escaping contemporary reality marked by industrialization, exhaustion of natural resources, and climate change. Mahon’s reworking of mythology and his formal experiments seem to be ensuing from the recognition of his need to persuade the readers to approach the East in ways that discourage stereotyping and the employment of preconceived notions. Apart from these mythological reworkings, Mahon’s work in the Indian section also takes humorous turns, leveling a critique of certain cultural practices in sarcastically charged ways. He observes profit-oriented engagement in religious activities in the poem ‘Dharma Bums.’ The poet assumes the tone of a preacher in order to highlight the absurdities of religious rhetoric. The character that the speaker presents complains about young individuals wasting time on the streets while, according to the speaker, they should be: Advertising the benefits Of our spirituality— Ganesh the god of profit, Saraswati the celebrant of it, Rama of many dominions And Krishna, ‘brighter than a thousand suns’. (71)

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The speaker’s use of the word ‘Advertising,’ in relation to spirituality suggests how preachers have been commodifying the spiritual to persuade youngsters to engage with it. The tone seems starkly ironic when one notices that the attributes attached to each deity are either mercenary or related to power and control. Through this ironic portraiture of the preacher, Derek Mahon critiques the close links between profit extracting and religious activities. The title also appears to be a critique of writers like Allen Ginsberg and the Beats who came to India seeking spirituality from gurus (Dharma Bums is a title of Jack Kerouac’s famous novel about his engagement with Buddhism). Apart from providing a critique of this profitoriented delineation of religion to the masses, the collection also succeeds in engaging with Indian mythology and its relevance to the contemporary culture for literary inspiration, but along with an awareness that it inhibits individuals’ progressive ideologies when accepted uncritically. This is most evidently visible in the poem, ‘Up at the Palace.’ In the poem, ‘Up at the Palace,’ the poetic persona is portrayed as belonging to the more privileged section of Indian society and is staying amidst the ‘packed streets of Jaipur’. The poet argues that, despite the fact that a ‘bomb went off, the individuals go on ‘having their being’. The speaker belongs to a class that revels in the luxuries provided to them; while ‘up at the palace,’ he visits the ‘concert [which] has been laid for the visitors’ and has ‘ragas and Rameau under climbing stars’ being performed. At the concert, as stated in the second stanza, the poets talk about the environmental decadence and the moral depravity of people, but the listeners do not concern themselves with the persuasions of the poets. In the third stanza of the poem, the speaker observes that the ‘boy putting up posters for pittance/and Dalit girl-child scratching at Toyota/ windows for spare change’ are made to stay absolutely away from the extravagant lifestyle that the speaker has been leading. In the fourth stanza, the speaker reiterates what traditionally has been mythologized in order to justify the hierarchies: ‘The curse of karma keeps them in their places…terrible things you must have done.’ However, the poet negates the possibility that the dispossessed must have done ‘terrible things’ but states, in the final stanza: No, you did nothing of the kind of course but you were born into a dream of shame whose violent colours filled the universe and left you silent, each with a secret name, listening to the music of other spheres. You too will sip champagne one of these years despite the old, self perpetuating pantheon; but what do we worship now the gods have gone? (78)

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The speaker discards the rhetoric that justifies the perpetuation of the sufferings of the poor and the lower castes in terms of the karma cycle, which has been upheld by various Hindu communities, justified in texts like Manu Smriti, and held sacred by the practitioners of Hinduism. It is recognized that this rhetoric maintains the edifice of caste systems in society, alienating the lower castes and the dispossessed by perceiving and representing them as sinners. In the last stanza of the poem, (quoted above) the poet states that it is mere arbitrariness of birth because of which individuals belong to a certain classes or castes. The passivity of the rich has already been brought to the audience’s attention in the previous stanzas; they are clearly implicated in the process of the perpetuation of economic disparities and are held to be responsible for the ‘dream of shame.’ The speaker has already discarded the metaphysical justification; he believes that the poor may as well break out of the cycle of poverty and also revel in the luxuries, ‘drink champagne.’ However, in the final lines of the poem, the speaker himself questions the possibility of the absolute separation of spiritual thoughts from life and seems to acknowledge the human impulse that seeks for a level above the material that shall continue to justify one’s suffering. Mahon’s poem seems to lament the state of human psyche that requires a reliance on metaphysics, making an individual’s suffering and inhibitions in the face of orthodoxies as much self-imposed as they are externally generated. The concerns of the poet expand from his own place in Northern Ireland to different nations in the world and then towards the human psyche, where each individual seeks comfort in metaphysical narratives and therefore prevents an absolute eviction of the edifices of religion and spirituality. One may perceive an attempt here to reflect on the essential condition of human life along with particular events. His constant references to ancient writings and contemporary chaos reinvests an imaginative charm into his work, helping in ‘extending the range and idiom of Irish poetry.’11 However, although Mahon has inherited tradition, he casts a skeptical eye on it, and thoroughly reworks it to further his critique of political and cultural phenomena. The renewed formal elements in his poetry persuade the reader to cast aside inherited ways of reading, of exoticizing, nostalgically lamenting, or blindly valorizing the venerable heritage of older civilizations; readers are invited to derive their own meanings through reading. He distances himself from any collusion with his poetic voice. Mahon is twice 11

Elmer Kennedy-Andrews, ed. ‘Introduction: The Critical Context,’ in The Poetry of Derek Mahon, 8.

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removed from the narrative; he speaking through the voice of Gopal Singh, and Singh’s own voice is not collapsed into the voices in the narrative. Mahon builds a sly and cunning but nevertheless absolutely clear indictment of the modern world, even as he is full of wonderment about what will happen now the gods have gone.

Works Cited Carson, Ciaran. ‘The Ekphrastic Muse.’ The Yellow Nib 7, 2012, 95-105. Dawe, Gerald. ‘A Question of Imagination: Poetry in Ireland Today’. In Cultural Contexts and Literary Idioms in Contemporary Irish Literature. Ed. Michael Kenneally Buckinghamshire: Colin Smythe Limited, 1988. Kennedy-Andrews, Elmer, ed. ‘Introduction: The Critical Context’. In The Poetry of Derek Mahon. Buckinghamshire: Collin Smythe Limited, 2002, 1-28. Kinsella, Thomas. ‘Nightwalker’, Poems 1956-1973. Dublin: The Dolmen Press, 1980, 105. Mahon, Derek. An Autumn Wind. Loughcrew: Gallery Press, 2010. The Bhagwad Gita. Trans. A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Mumbai: Bhaktivedata Book Trust, 1990.

WORDS KNOW NO BORDERS: DECODING YOUTH CULTURE IN THE TWENTIETH-CENTURY WORLD TITAS DE SARKAR

Introduction - texts as entry points Any historical exploration cannot help but begin with contextualizing, that is, by tying down the individuals and communities under consideration, in their own time and place and then interpreting causalities which made the actants behave in the way they did. This provides an important perspective because the actants themselves contain enough indications of their surroundings, the milieu which they shape, and vice-versa. The texts produced at any time, themselves contain traces which speak of certain ideas which they are trying to give voice to, practices which they tend to counter, and problems that are specific to a certain moment. In the present article, I will explore the youth cultures in 1960s Calcutta and San Francisco, through two poems created close to one another in time. Both poems were questioned by society and played an active role in bringing about a transformation in the literary scene and helped in beginning a dialogue between individuals with very different notions of morality, ethics and what was printable. ‘Stark Electric Jesus’ (1964) by Malay Roychoudhury, the founding member of the Hungry generation of poets, and ‘Howl’ (1956) by Allen Ginsberg, the seminal Beat poet and counter-culture figure, could be read as pieces which were archives in themselves – a Pandora’s box of emotions, interrogations, and alternative opinions. We will initially try to locate common points of reference between the two young poets and then move on to the differences between them. As will be seen, the plane of relatability transcends regional barriers and responds to broader cultural and social structures. These self-expressions were a reflection of the interplay between the socio-economic environment they inhabited, of individual autonomy, and a conscious effort to mark one’s uniqueness, giving rise to newer identities in a post-Second World War world, to which these young poets belonged. Tony Jefferson has referred to

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this as studying the “psychic dimension of biography” where “there is an engagement…with the ‘big picture,’ an attempt to connect (changing) practices and values…”.1 One could talk about ‘taste cultures’ in this regard, in line with the ideas of Sarah Thornton, although in a slightly modified manner. Taste culture could help one in understanding how these avantgarde activists imagined themselves, and stood out of the marginalised mass by putting themselves and their innermost anxieties in their own creations, thus creating a sort of ‘cultural field.’2 This established a kind of cultural capital which is resistant to conventional signs and codes. The notion of the conventional is tied to a specific temporality, and, in that sense, one studies the moment in which such writings were possible, yet were resisted by them. In Calcutta, as well as in San Francisco, these poems would not have been possible without a ‘conjunctural shift’ and an attempt is made to read such cultural configurations across space. On a different note, I will be focussing comparatively more on Roychoudhury than on Ginsberg who will come only in conversation with the former, simply because a range of work already exists around the Beat generation and on ‘Howl.’ Rather than merely repeating them, we would take these texts to help us extend the conversation to that of global youth cultures in general and the Hungry poets of Calcutta in particular.

Immediate contexts In order to understand the poems, and the poets writing them, one must try to understand the conditions in which such ideas come about. A look at the history of 1940s Bengal would take us to the famine of 1943 with its death toll of around three million, to the communal riots of 1946, and with strikes and protests being a regular feature in Calcutta. The independence of India in 1947 was also witness to the partition of Bengal, resulting in massive displacement of people, and widespread conflict among them. With the central government taking control of West Bengal’s (eastern Bengal becoming a part of the newly formed nation of Pakistan), agriculture and industry in order to manage inflation and form policies, the state government was left with hardly any real power to mitigate the distressing situation.

1 Stuart Hall, Tony Jefferson, Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain (Routledge, 2006). 2 Sarah Thornton, Club Cultures: Music, Media, and Subcultural Capital (Wesleyan University Press, 1996).

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Economically, West Bengal was left behind by other states by the midsixties. Partition robbed the state of a crucial resource—land to cultivate jute or to grow rice. Thus, the state lost its economic primacy, as its share in world production of jute went down to 10-12% from the previous 85%. A lack of the staple diet of rice meant regular ‘hunger marches’ on the streets of Calcutta. A state of de-industrialisation set in with the decline in public investments, managerial crisis, and confrontations between workers and the authorities. The magnitude of the crises was heightened by regular migration from East Bengal. Between 1946-1964, about five million refugees made their way to India. By 1961, Calcutta had around 75,000 people per square mile. As Amaresh Bagchi said, Calcutta was an ‘urban disaster’ with its water-logged roads, traffic jams, and unavailability of water and electricity in large portions of the city especially in the newly formed ‘squatter colonies.’ The ratio of poverty was 62.2% in West Bengal in 1961-62, which rocketed to 80.6% in 1967-68. It is no surprise that incidents of criminal violence went up quite sharply during the 1950s and 1960s.3 The influx of refugees also had a direct impact on the job market, as the demand for jobs grew manifold. In the changed circumstances, as women too came out of their households in search for jobs, the comparatively secure lives of middle-class Bengalis became a thing of the past. San Francisco was, as Raskin put it, a space which was comfortable with a bohemian lifestyle. It was far away from the administration’s centre in Washington D.C. which lent it the much-needed freedom of expression. Even being a part of America, it had its share of left-leaning thinkers. This is significant because the 1950s and 60s was the heyday of the Cold War, when a clash of ideologies was threatening world peace all over again. San Francisco was that rare sanctuary which accommodated ideas that were opposed to McCarthyism.4

3

For detailed discussions see, Joya Chatterji, The Spoils of Partition: Bengal and India, 1947-1967 (Cambridge University Press, 2007), Sekhar Bandyopadhyay, Decolonization in South Asia: Meanings of Freedom in Post-independence West Bengal, 1947–52 (Routledge, 2009), Amaresh Bagchi, ‘Planning for Metropolitan Development: Calcutta's Basic Development Plan, 1966-86: A PostMortem’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 22, No. 14 (Apr. 4, 1987), Manas Ray, ‘Growing up Refugee’, History Workshop Journal, No. 53 (Spring, 2002), Asok Mitra, ‘Revisiting Calcutta: Dusk or Dawn?’, India International Centre Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 3/4, The Calcutta Psyche (Winter 1990/1991),amongst others. 4 Jonah Raskin, American Scream: Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’ and the Making of the Beat Generation (University of California Press, 2004), 94-95.

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The poems must be understood in this context. While Calcutta was becoming claustrophobic, where political independence brought on massive unemployment and food shortages, the lively spaces of debate from the Indian Coffee House to Khalashitola provided an outlet for the thinking mind. ‘Stark Electric Jesus’ was an amalgam of this depressing yet confrontational environment. ‘Howl’ for large portions is a far more socially aware piece than ‘Stark.’ It is a criticism of America that had tested the atom bomb, of its military industrial complex, of its not so very different authoritarianism than Russia, of Capitalism and its hegemonic ideals. Ginsberg wrote this in the mid-1950s, with the hindsight not available to Roychowdhury. He was both temporally and spatially detached from many of the structures he was trying to take down. In the following sections, we will explore how these historical conditions were shaping the minds of these poets and the ways they were articulating their anxieties regarding their societies, and regarding their place in that society.

‘Alternative Language’, Autonomous Art Coming to the two poems in particular, it is evident that, first and foremost, they were positioned as a part of avant-garde literary movements. Ginsberg and Roychoudhury took to writing as an act of guerrilla warfare, a means to strike terror at the heart of the state and its beliefs. This act of violence is on the language itself – the language created and nurtured by the institutions upholding conventional social codes. Roychoudhury writes: “I haven't had to learn copulation and dying I haven't had to learn the responsibility of shedding the last drops after urination Haven't had to learn to go and lie beside Shubha in the darkness Have not had to learn the usage of French leather while lying on Nandita's bosom”

It is difficult to translate the colloquial tone of these lines in Bengali but the disregard for a purified mode of communication is evident. These anti-establishment poets hoped to liberate themselves by expressing themselves in an ‘alternative language.’ This language would be an admixture of the author’s experience along with his creativity. As Saileshwar Ghosh, another Hungry poet said, “We have boycotted those literatures which entertain the masses.”5 According to him, the language 5 Saileshwar Gosh, ‘Bhasha Bimochan’ in Sabyasachi Sen (ed.), Hungry Generation Rachana Sangraha (Dey’s Publishing, 2015), 288-296.

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which is at the mercy of the bourgeois society, with its capitalistic sensibilities, is the carrier of its worst ideals. A highly indicative survey was undertaken by the University Departments of Statistics and Anthropology in 1954 which found out that 33% of the Calcutta undergraduates were below the poverty line and as much as 84% were undernourished.6 This shows that although a proportion of the educated when compared with the total population was low, it is not that university access was closed to a section of the subaltern population. The educated poor, coming from lower to lower middle class backgrounds were in fact a crucial component of the youth culture of Calcutta. It is because of this that a “linguistic revolution” became necessary. Malay declares: “I’ll kick all Arts in the butt and go away Shubha”7

These movements reserved their most scathing criticism for power and the people wielding it to maintain the status quo. To them, it curbs people’s sensibilities, whereby they become unable to think beyond the drawn boundaries, beyond which all remains taboo, thus unacceptable. Ultimately, they lose touch with reality – or the reasons for their distressed existence. Both the movements were anti-establishment and anti-nationalist, among other things, and both had, as a core component, a challenge to the notion of autonomous art by bringing the social into its fold, and a desire to go beyond the language’s known signifying capabilities. A distinctive parallel between the Hungry Movement and the Beats can be seen in what Georges Bataille refers to as ‘base materialism’, with which art seeks to unravel the most bestial aspects of human existence, and which was considered to be offensive in those literary circles which did not share such ideals.8 The following lines from ‘Stark’ makes the point: “Let me enter in to the immemorial incontinence of your labia majora In to the absurdity of woeless effort In the golden chlorophyll of the drunken heart”

Both were considered anarchic in spirit, even if not self-proclaimed.

6

Sukanta Chaudhuri, Calcutta: The Living City, 202-206. From Malay Roychoudhury’s Stark Electric Jesus. Translated from Bengali by the poet. Online link - http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/stark-electric-jesus/ 8 David Hopkins, Dada and Surrealism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2004), 68. 7

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Figure of the Poet What is further evident from the works of the two poets is the central role assigned to the figure of the poet in liberating society. To them, a person becomes a true poet when he is able to uncover the conspiratorial existence of power and its institutions, and open up newer ways of understanding those objects with his liberated consciousness. The poet performs the dual task of attacking the nerve centre of conventional moral codes and widening the scope of the possibilities of human imagination to bring out the uncomfortable realities from which society suffers but it is also discomfiting to give voice to. His words lead him to a path of self-discovery as he strays from known conduct and rituals which are expected of him. Immediately after those lines quoted above, Malay introspects: “Would I have been Malay in the womb of other women of my father? Would I have made a professional gentleman of me like my dead brother without Shubha? Oh, answer, let somebody answer these”

This, the movement fuses with another core doctrine of theirs, namely: the individualism of the poet, whereby his subject is he himself. The language of the poet, then, acts as a bridge between his internal realm and external reality, with which he is in a dialogue, and which shapes his lived experience. In this way, language itself becomes a site of conflict between the bourgeois middle class sensibilities and that of the repressed. The poets of the movement thus had the task of liberating language from the trappings of power and giving rise to new signifiers which would reflect the struggles of the oppressed. A “total identification” with the people of the world happens with this introspective poet precisely because of the universal tone of his otherwise most private desires and obsessions.9 Because the poet has uncovered the façade of modern existence, he is a criminal in the eyes of most of those who are still hegemonized by the seduction of the capitalistic order, but he has no sense of regret. He is a sinner without any repentance.

Subversion and the marginalized Youth That these are not only the poems of the underground but were also challenged in the court of law gave them a kind of credence among the new generation and upcoming artists with similar views. The poems were not 9 Saileshwar

Ghosh, Hungry Generation Andolan (Dipankar Press, 1995), 80-81.

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merely so, but an identity in themselves, unique to the post Second World War generation. The subversion, the throbbing danger made it a thrilling experience for youngsters, whose language the elders could not quite comprehend. It was almost conspiratorial in spirit, a conscious resistance against high-brow culture. Ginsberg said that with ‘Howl’ he was “leaping out of a preconceived notion of social ‘values,’ following my own heart’s instincts…overturning any notion of propriety, moral ‘value,’ superficial ‘maturity’.”10 Malay too shares this non-deference to conventional codes: “Shubha, ah Shubha Let me see the earth through your cellophane hymen Come back on the green mattress again As cathode rays are sucked up with the warmth of a magnet's brilliance I remember the letter of the final decision of 1956 The surroundings of your clitoris were being embellished with coon at that time”

Ginsberg, in one of his interviews, said: “We got the bottom-up vision of society. We saw wealth and power from the point of view of down-andout people on the street. That’s what the Beat generation was about.”11 The Hungries faced similar experiences. The twenty something poets in Calcutta lived in stark poverty. Most of them were victims of the Partition, and they lived in unenviable squatter colonies, surrounded by noise and filth. One of the reasons they took to writing was precisely because they could not find these lives reflected in the Bengali literature of their time. Bengali literature at that time excised these poor lives as if they were too unclean for the reader’s consumption. The writings of both the Beats and the Hungry were in themselves proof of a society fractured from within, where the old structures were imploding to give way to the voices that were overlooked for far too long. It was a ‘culture war.’

Thoughts, uninterrupted Both ‘Howl’ and ‘Stark Electric Jesus’ read as long monologues, as steady stream of conscious and unconscious emotions flowing on paper. Both of them found a form of expression which could be said to be, as Kerouac put it, a “bookmovie” or a “movie in words.”12 It feels like a movie because of the inherent motion which the poems carry within them, 10

Raskin, American Scream, 45. Raskin, American Scream, xiv. 12 Raskin, American Scream, 129. 11

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including a fast-paced narration of events, capturing the contingent images of the mind. It was as if the poets were revealing themselves in first person to the wider world through lengthy descriptions of people and experiences. Making themselves one with the poem was cathartic in a world not ready for their thoughts and ideas. Ginsberg said: “You write to relieve the pain of others, to free them from the self-doubt generated by a society.”13 The self-doubt for Ginsberg was such that he had to undergo counselling regarding his doubts about his sexuality at a time when same-sex relationships were condemned. For Roychoudhury, even writing about physical intimacy with a woman proved fatal, because of the blatant nature of the text. Their spontaneities were against these repressive societies. ‘Death’ becomes a metaphor and is featured repeatedly, referring to the end of ideas in this conformist atmosphere: “I do not know whether I am going to die Squandering was roaring within heart's exhaustive impatience I'll disrupt and destroy I'll split all in to pieces for the sake of Art There isn't any other way out for Poetry except suicide”

The poem and the personal Whether it was about breaking literary boundaries, or criticising society at large, the poems were nothing if not personal. Ginsberg said that ‘Howl’ was an autotelic poem and this could well be said about ‘Stark Electric Jesus.’ If ‘Howl’ was about Ginsberg himself, about his mother, and about the bonding with his hipster friends, ‘Stark Electric Jesus’ was an acknowledgement of the poet’s deepest frustrations, his loneliness, and his fantasies. These were uncensored insights into the volatile lives of these two young poets, who were trying to make sense of the world and were inviting that world to peek into their personal hell. What made it problematic was that these confessions were not whispered in private, but were made to stand naked, out in the open for the public to devour. This was cultural treason which ensured that these poets were not taken seriously by their contemporaries, at least for a long while. Lines such as the following from ‘Stark’ proved downright shocking, to say the least:

13

Raskin, American Scream, xvi.

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“Why wasn't I lost in my mother's urethra? Why wasn't I driven away in my father's urine after his self-coition? Why wasn't I mixed in the ovum -flux or in the phlegm?”

Ginsberg too was “sick of preconceived literature and only interested in writing the actual process and technique, wherever it leads.”14 What made it relatable, on the other hand, was probably the sense of liberation it ensured, the audacity to utter the bottled-up desires of the masses. As his father Louis said: “It’s a hot geyser of emotion suddenly released in wild abandon from subterranean depths of your being.”15

Mad lives, mundane words What made these creations more unnerving was probably the mundane nature of the language and experiences which they described. The Hungry agenda was precisely to use colloquial and freely exchanged words without a care for its aesthetic appeal. This was fused with the guttural screams of a generation, whose words society failed to register and whose lamentations for Shubha go unheard. Likewise, Ginsberg was also drawn to figures like Herbert Huncke and individuals with varying shades of crime and dangerous living such as pickpockets and drug addicts. This method of writing was profane to some, sheer narcissism to others, and a “New Vision” to the poet himself. It was the polar opposite of what T.S. Eliot said in 1947: “If every generation of poets made it their task to bring poetry diction up to date with the spoken language, poetry would fail in one of its most important obligations.”16 Keeping aside the conflicting worldviews, it is not difficult to realise that these were written at times of crisis, both personal and otherwise. From the mundane, the poems easily turn to madness—madness about the state of affairs, about the atom bomb, about the megalopolis, and an oedipal madness about the loved one. The central figure in ‘Howl’ is an American madman and in ‘Stark Electric Jesus’ is a man on the brink of madness due to sadness and deprivation. They are suicidal, trapped in their own mind, and living a nightmare. Madness here has a positive connotation, a sign of difference which the society was unable to fathom. However, the characters in the poems are also responsible for their own suffering, letting themselves be dictated by Moloch’s machinations or by Malay’s comfort in self-pity. The sense of disharmony runs through both the poems and acts as

14

Raskin, American Scream, 206. Raskin, American Scream, 27. 16 Raskin, American Scream, 85. 15

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a central trope to give vent to diverse anxieties from global horrors to personal vulnerabilities.

The Body The body, and arguably, the excess of it in the poems, is another connecting bridge. Ginsberg’s coming to terms with his homosexuality was a long and complicated process. Writing about it was not allowed in Columbia, his alma mater. Writing poems was itself an ‘effeminate’ endeavour. Muriel Rukeyser notes that “Poetry as an art is sexually suspect.”17 Ginsberg thus hinted at it through coded words. And then, there were candid descriptions of every kind of sex, bordering on the pornographic. Jonah Raskin talks about how Ginsberg followed Clifford Howard’s idea of the phallus as “the embodiment of creative power.” His symbols were almost always sexual and celebrated the “cocksman.” Although highly symbolic, he maintained that “To the wise it is direct and inevitable fact speech…So it is not a secret language really.”18 The fixation with female genitalia, Roychoudhury wrote later, was also not entirely literal. He too looked at it as more than something necessary for reproduction, or for that matter, simply pleasure. His displeasure at himself in the poem is more than sexual and touches upon the creative, whereby he wants to return to the ultimate source of creation, to enter the void to be born as an artiste once more. “Shubha let me sleep for a few moments in your violent silvery uterus Give me peace, Shubha, let me have peace Let my sin-driven skeleton be washed anew in your seasonal bloodstream Let me create myself in your womb with my own sperm”19

Despite all this, both poems betray youthful mischief in talking about sex—men, high on hormones, provoking the powers that be, and constantly widening the notion of what is acceptable in literature.

Making sense of youth cultures across space Studying the differences between the two poems becomes interesting when one finds how similarly conservative the reactions were against them. 17

Raskin, American Scream, 87. Raskin, American Scream, 57, 73, 145. 19 http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/stark-electric-jesus/ 18

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From terming the Hungries as anti-national and licentious and arresting them in 1964, to expelling them from their jobs in educational institutions, to J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI director declaring that the Beats were more dangerous than the communists, both poets faced legal action for their creations. The question then arises as to how and why they were so successful in irking the establishment, which from San Francisco, US, to Calcutta, India, was run by very different kinds of government. Not to mention the literary crowd which often marked these poets as upstarts and pretentious, surviving merely on shock value. One possible response could be how every generation reinterprets the society around them, and modifies the conventional signs to reflect their own anxieties. The agency that the youth of India and USA had, came from fairly opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum. While post Second World War US enjoyed economic prosperity along with the rise of the baby boomers, the youth could increasingly afford to give voice to their feelings. On the other hand, Partition created a mass of unemployed youth, having to fend for themselves, now that the older family ties were largely absent. Malay Roychoudhury, in particular, occupies a unique position in the history of postcolonial Bengali literature. He hails from one of the most prosperous families in Bengal and yet in the course of his family’s history is made to spend his youth in the disrespectable small town of Dariyapur, Bihar. Technically, he draws his lineage from amongst the oldest residents of Calcutta, and yet had to struggle like a refugee to gain a foothold in the city. He is exposed to western literature and music and is equally aware of Hindi films and Bengali poems.20 The period of youth in human life is vastly seen as a time of transition, when ideologies are not always reinforced and when one is accommodating of diverse influences. This often leads to conflict with set, conventional norms as is seen with his poem(s). Moreover, the audacity arguably arises out of youthfulness which is also a period of ‘structured irresponsibility,’ where the person has gained an insight into the world, but is still not weighed down by it. Theorising the youth separately and creating a sub-genre, that is subculture as it is widely referred to, was a post Second World War development. The earliest contributions came with the establishment of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) in 1964, out of which grew the Birmingham School of Cultural Studies. Here, we are dealing with two individuals who consciously belonged to such subcultures, and it is not difficult to see how they went on creating their own ‘maps of meaning’ 20 A detailed discussion about Roychoudhury’s youth could be found in his memoir Chhotoloker Yuvabela (Kolkata: Ravan, 2007).

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through their poems, loaded with ‘subterranean values.’ Brake sums it up when he says: “subcultures arise as attempts to resolve collectively experienced problems resulting from contradictions in the social structure.”21 Knowing the backgrounds of the poets, one can gain an insight as to why they were the ‘Others,’ the marginalised. As Thornton says, subculture is that space which is taken up by the youth and their codes of morality which is not accepted by the larger society.22 This alternative culture thus stands as a ‘resistance’ to the dominant culture. One must mention, here, that this culture of the youth was not a distinctly unique or a newly invented culture but a ‘sub’-culture as their politics were to take the existent signs and language and turn them on their head, to create something unprecedented. This is what Levi-Strauss meant when he referred to it as bricolage. Not only is the subculture within the dominant one, it is also the product of inter-related subsystems.

Conclusion: Beyond ‘Youth’fulness However, it would be quite insufficient to merely say that the poets wrote what they did simply because they were young. The obvious fallacy in such a proposition is that the majority of youth were not articulating in such terms at all. Thus, age in itself is not a precondition for such radical outbursts of emotion. It is true that both Ginsberg and Roychoudhury faced their respective social crises first hand, which went a long way in their literary productions. However, what united them, amidst all the differences in their worldviews, ideology, and language, was not only the overall inhibitions of society about sexuality, slang, and sophistication in art, which cut across borders, but their way of dealing with these crises. On final count, there are immense possibilities which the poems speak about. In all the sorrows and regret that the poems are immersed in, they are rather hopeful. Ginsberg talks about his mates as “angels.” Heaven is “everywhere about us.”23 Malay pines for love “as cathode rays are sucked up with the warmth of a magnet’s brilliance” and wants to submerge himself “in the golden chlorophyll of the drunken heart.”24 There is immense ecstasy in being mad. The concept of rebirth comes as a solution in both the poems—rebirth from an apocalyptic world and rebirth from the womb of a woman to know 21 Mike Brake, Comparative Youth Culture: The Sociology of Youth Cultures and Youth Subcultures in America, Britain, and Canada (Routledge, 2013), preface. 22 See Sarah Thornton, Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital (John Wiley & Sons, 2013). 23 Raskin, American Scream, 139. 24 http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/stark-electric-jesus/

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oneself anew. If anything, the poems speak of a more tolerant world. Comparing the two poems reveals the coping mechanism of a generation of misfits and the optimism shared between them. It is not the age of the poets but this reconstructive appeal of the poems that makes it a marker of youth culture, a quintessential spirit break through to the other side of language, ethics, and consciousness.

Select Bibliography Baker, Deborah. A Blue Hand: The Beats in India. New Delhi: Penguin Press, 2008. Bhattacharjee Chowdhury, Maitreyee. The Hungryalists: The Poets Who Sparked a Revolution. Gurgaon: Penguin Viking 2018. Brake, Mike. Comparative Youth Culture: The Sociology of Youth Cultures and Youth Subcultures in America, Britain, and Canada. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013. Chattopadhyay, Pranabkumar (ed.). Hungry Sahitya Andolan: Tatya, Tathya, Itihas. Kolkata: Pratibhash, 2015. Chaudhuri, Sukanta. Calcutta: The Living City, Volume ii: The Present and Future. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990. Ghosh, Shaileshwar. Hungry Generation Andolan. Dipankar Press: Kolkata, 1995. Hall, Stuart and Jefferson, Tony. Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britan. Abingdon: Routledge, 2006. Hopkins, David. Dada and Surrealism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Morgan, Bill and Peters, Nancy J. Howl on Trial: The Battle for Free Expression. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2006. Raskin, Jonah. American Scream: Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’ and the Making of the Beat Generation. California: University of California Press, 2004. Roychoudhuri, Malay. Chhotolok er Yuvabela. Kolkata: Ravan, 2007. Sen, Sabyasachi (ed.). Hungry Generation Rachana Sangraha. Kolkata: Dey’s Publishing, 2015. Shinder, Jason. The Poem That Changed America: “Howl” Fifty Years Later. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006. Thornton, Sarah. Club Cultures: Music, Media, and Subcultural Capital. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1996.

DEATH OF AN EMPIRE: SUBJECTIVITY AND ASIAN PRAGMATISM IN JOSÉ MARTÍ’S ANNAM1 VINH PHU PHAM

Generally speaking, in late nineteenth century Latin American literature, where independence was still a new topic, the nationalist project represented one of the most common themes. Because it was common practice, writers from each newly independent state would attempt to produce literary pieces highlighting the particularities of their country in order to distinguish themselves from their neighbors. This type of writing not only served as a way to establish a national spirit, but also functioned as a civilizational marker—that is, establishing how great and modern their own nation is in contrast to other modern nations, through its literary production. During this time, far away locales such as Southeast Asia, and even the Philippines, which was still part of the Spanish empire, were often regarded as mysterious and exotic lands outside of the realms of high civilization. It is very rare, thus, to find Latin authors who write about territories beyond the Americas and Europe in a positive light. As expected, representations of Southeast Asia at the time were often produced by colonists and missionaries whose objective was to civilize the natives, or they were romanticized second hand accounts of travelers, which themselves are also often very misinformed. In either case, there are only a few examples wherein writers would treat the inhabitants of these faraway lands with a sympathy that is free from a certain imperial gaze. While often overlooked, José Martí’s short story “un paseo por la tierra de los Anamitas,” published in 1889 in the collection La edad de oro, is an example of a literary work that 1

This is an old term that refers to the kingdom and people of what is now central Vietnam. In Vietnamese “An Nam” can be translated as “peaceful south” or “pacified south”. While the term was widely used during the French colonial period between (1883-1945) and was often associated with the NguyӉn dynasty, it has fallen out of use in modern Vietnamese. Even as the term continues to be used within a historical context, central Vietnam is now referred to as “Trung KǤ”.

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exhibits very strong cross-cultural sympathy.2 Although other works within this collection have received some scholarly critique, this particular story has not managed to gain much critical attention, most likely since the collection was targeted to children. Speaking through a narrative voice that goes beyond mere didactic literature, Martí produces a representation of Annam that simultaneously reaches into the discursive space of colonial subjectivity, as well as questioning the East versus West positionality. Long considered the voice of the people, Martí’s life and works have generally been regarded as a testament to his enduring commitment to social justice and equality. In one of Martí’s most well-known essays titled “Nuestra America” (Our America) he not only articulates an emphasis on the language and significance of a certain nationalism, but also how the articulation of this imagined community could serve in the project of defining a social relation to territory.3 A central aim of the national project is the creation of an internalized and localized structure of power, where the sense of governance is projected from within.4 As such, the sense of individuality, which is the capacity to belong to oneself, is proclaimed not only for an individual citizen, but also for the nation. Ángel Esteban understood this when he explained in the introduction of the collection that Martí’s philosophy is a proclamation for a proper soul of the individual, as well as the nation when adapted to La Edad de Oro (64).5 This emphasis on individuality along with the conflation of man and nation is precisely what makes the text stand out, since it suggests the exceptionalism of the nationstate. Additionally, what is significant about his ideas about selfdetermination and the desires of the oppressed is that while they do speak to the particularity of Latin America, and specifically that of Cuba, they were also applicable to other nations beyond the western hemisphere. It is precisely within this spirit, as I would suggest, that Martí’s short story should be reconsidered. This paper will argue for the need to re-read “un paseo por la tierra de los Anamitas” as a text that extends well beyond the didactic boundaries of a children’s story. What this ‘beyond’ necessarily means will be discussed 2 The title is translated as The Golden Age while the story is translated as “A Stroll Through the Land of the Annamites.” 3 Benedict Anderson, “The Origins of National Consciousness,” The Critical Tradition Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends, ed. David H. Richter, New York: Bedford, 2007. 4 José Martí, “Nuestra América,” José Martí Nuestra América: Edición Crítica. Guadalajara: Guadalajara UP, 2002, 15-22. 5 Ángel Esteban, “Introducción”, La Edad de Oro y otros relatos, Madrid: Catedra, 2006, 67.

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in terms of colonial subjectivity via an explication of the Hegelian dialectic, the idea of an amorphous ‘Asian pragmatism’ as the positing of an uneven power structure, and the ways in which Martí’s personal political ideology, as it related to liberty and national education, is reflected within the narrative voice.6 Furthermore, I will suggest that within this specific spatial-temporal representation of Annam, it is possible to draw out a language of a transnationalism, which might serve as a rhetoric of resistance against imperialism. Put differently, rather than reading the story of the poor Annamite, as just another case of colonial oppression, I posit that Martí’s instrumentalization of sympathetic language provides an argument for a more just world on the basis of equality. While the aspect of global capital and the ways in which it incites the framework for trans-nationality is considered, the sense by which it is utilized in this paper speaks to a particular understanding of trans-nationality that is not constrained by the language of capital flow. Moreover, by calling to this nuanced definition of the trans-national, I seek to articulate how these imagined communities of peoples, places, and networks can generate, through Martí’s language of sympathy, a unifying humanistic idealism that exceeds the idealized nationstates in which it is formed. It is within this configuration that the essay aims to trace out another instance in Cuban literature, upon which the fraternal narrative of Cuba-Vietnam relations is mythologized and insisted, even to this day by both countries.7

On Truth and Subjectivity Somewhere in the Far East, tucked away between the large territories of India and China, lies a stretch of land that was once called Indo-china.8 The nomenclature that is used to designate and encompass this land of inbetween not only indicates a certain geo-political relationship to the polities 6 Throughout this essay the terms “subject” and “subjectivity” are used in the Hegelian sense. That is to say, to denote one who is capable of being perceptive to, or (sub)jected to a phenomenon. Furthermore, subjectivity is taken here as a dialectical self-awareness that is constituted rather than given. 7 Ever since the 60s both Cuba and then North Vietnam have expressed support for one another through diplomatic ties. See “Vietnam Sends Condolences Over Fidel Castro’s Death,” Vietnamnews, 26th Nov, 2016. 8 While the name Indochina tends to be synonymous with to French Indochina, which consists of the kingdom of Laos, the Khmer kingdom, and the three territories: Tonkin, Annam, and Cochinchina, which make up Vietnam; the name originally referred to the entire Indochinese peninsula, this included the current territories of Thailand and Burma.

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surrounding the land, but also how it is neither of its constituting referents. Put differently, while the category of the loosely defined geographical space called Indo-China was dependent upon the polarity of its larger neighboring political entities as a point of reference, its very incitement stood for a marker of difference: a third space, and within it lay Annam.9 In describing the location of the Annamites, Martí writes, “the poor Annamites, those who live by fishing and rice and dress themselves in silk, there in the distance, in Asia, by the banks of the sea, under China.”10 While romantic in nature, this geographical description localizes Annam not only as, to the “south” of China, but suggests, as we will see elsewhere in the text, that it is also hierarchically below it. Whether or not it is a conscious choice, this usage of a deictic referent manages to denote the land through an inferior relationship with China. In doing so, the trope of otherness is attributed to the land, as well as the people that inhabit it from the very beginning. Moreover, it is through this understanding of the space of in-betweeness and polarity, that one could make an argument for the structural organization of “Un paseo por la tierra de los Anamitas.” Different from Daniel Palomino Zapata’s division of the short story into five parts, this essay will instead, take the position that the story is divided into three sections separated by themes.11 The first section, which is told as an Indian parable of the blind men and an elephant, acts as the moral lens through which the rest of the story ought to be read. Meanwhile, the second section introduces the common Annamites and their plight against French colonial oppression, as well as their history as a civilization. The third section, which gives an account of the life of the Buddha, acts as the theological interlude that explains the outlook to life represented in both the second, and what would normally be considered the fourth section. The last section, which is not really considered a section of its own in this essay, talks about the dynastic history of the Annamites in relation to these Buddhist practices, through the lens of theatre. As such, one can see how the third section serves more as a theological bond between the themes of the common man, history, and issues of colonialism rather just a sectional divide. When looking at the totality of the sections by way of their relative placement, the most salient aspect is noted by the way that the common 9

Again, even as Annam is the proper name of only the central region of what is now Vietnam, in Martí’s usage, an Annamite is a general figure of the native that might be from any region of the colony. 10 José Martí, La Edad de Oro y otros relatos, Madrid: Catedra, 2006, 230. 11 Although Zapata’s division is quite useful for a structural analysis of the story, I find that shifting the groupings in this way can help to open a different reading. See La Edad de Oro: analogía, virtudes y símbolos. Pg. 201-213.

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Annamite peasant, as represented by the second section, is sandwiched between the forces of an “Eastern” ideology and baggage of dynastic historiography. In the Hindustani fable, Martí tells of a tale which involves four blind Hindus who wanted to see an elephant. One day, the men decided that they will visit the Raja so that they may experience what it is like.12 The Raja, who is fascinated and inspired by these men’s attempt to acquire knowledge happily agrees, claiming that it is a virtue for men to desire knowledge, and that one should never believe without questioning, or to not think as slaves by believing what others tell them.13 With this spirit of inquiry, the men were led to the elephant. When the men were finally presented with the elephant, each of the three men touched a different part of the elephant while the fourth touched a handle of a rice container. Believing what they had touched to be the true description of the elephant, each man claimed to know the true elephant while negating the truth of his peers. The fable ends here with a moral about the nature of men stating: And as such are men, that each one believes only what he thinks and sees as the truth [ …] the same as the four blind men of the elephant, when what should be done is to study with care what the men have thought and done, and that gives great pleasure, to see that all men have the same pains, and history as well, and the same love, and that the world is a handsome temple, where all the men of the earth fit in peace, because all have wanted to know the truth […] and have suffered and fought to be free, free in their land, free in their thoughts.14

As stated previously, this moralistic end to the first section provides the framework through which the rest of the story can be read. That moral framework, then, has very little to do with the subjective nature of truth per se, but more so with how truth, as it is experienced to the individual, is always utilized to rationalize one’s will within human conflict. In this understanding, thus, truth is not what is, but rather that towards which man ought to aspire. If one is to follow what the tale suggests, then, for truth to be the key to liberation, there must be a recognition of the right of each individual to arrive at the said truth. Of course, this would mean upholding a multiplicity of subjectivities, which signals a coexistence of various truths without the necessity of inciting their violent subordination. Furthermore, it is through this process of mutual recognition of subjectivity, when it comes to truth that any sort of community or political relations could be achieved. 12

A Raja is monarch or sovereign in South and Southeast Asia. Martí, La Edad, 230. 14 Ibid. 13

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During his youth in Madrid, Martí spent a lot of time in intellectual circles where he was introduced to the writings of thinkers such as Kant and Hegel. Writers such as José Francisco Vales and Gonzalo de Quesada have pointed out how the influence of these German philosophers have reached Martí’s writings.15 Given that the Hegelian dialectic was one of the most generative formulations with regard to power and subject formation in the continental tradition, it will be useful to look at certain understandings of what this subjectification process implies, as to better understand how Martí uses it. In his reading of Hegel on the topic of desire, Robert Stern focuses on certain passages from the Phenomenology of Spirit to explain how subjectivity is created.16 Per Stern, under Hegelian logic, the subject and its desire for self-recognition as a certainty is always contingent upon its dialectical relation to the object.17 It is through this understanding of the dialectical relationship between different subjects that the colonial relationship could be explained. He states that “essentially, each selfconsciousness must acknowledge the other as an autonomous subject […] each self-consciousness must also realize and accept that its well-being and identity as a subject is bound up with how it is seen by the other selfconsciousness.”18 Through this understanding of self-consciousness as a continuing dialectical process, one can see how Martí’s following description of the Annamites presupposes a duality of subjectivities. Martí writes, “[t]hey do not appear to us as handsome bodies, nor do we appear handsome to them: they say that it is a sin to cut hair, because nature gave us long hair, and it is conceited to believe oneself to be wiser than nature.”19 In this initial description of the physical traits of the Annamites, Martí presents two competing systems of aesthetics that appear incompatible with each other, but at the same time are inherently referential. This is to say, through the substantiation of the anthropological differences between the 15 José Francisco Vales, “La influencia de la cultura alemana en la formación del pensamiento de José Martí,” Iberoamericana vol. 20 issue 1 (1996): 5-25. 16 Even though I use Robert Sterns’s reading of the dialectic for its concise description, I find that a reading done by Alexandre Kojève could also be substituted for the same effect. For Kojève’s reading see Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit. For Hegel’s own formulation, which I find more drawn out, see the section “self-consciousness” in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. 17 Robert Stern, Hegel and the Phenomenology of Spirit, New York: Routledge, 2002, 73. 18 Ibid, 74. 19 Martí, La Edad, 230-231.

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French and the Annamites, both parties are reaffirmed of their own notion of self. By using the language of appearance, which is a reference to the perception in the fable, and the positing of a differentiating subjectivity demonstrated by “they” and “we,” Martí establishes a relation of mutual recognition between the reader-subject and the literary Annamite-subject. Within this formulation, the differences that could be derived from the understanding of an “us” versus “them” is based upon the acceptance that “they,” too are subjects under a certain network of signs and conditions. In other words, what makes me, me, is that I am not them, with the understanding that they are capable of the same conscious distinction. Likewise, the symmetry that Martí presents within the mutual rejection (negation) of the other posits that it is not a question of one’s truth being dependent on the falsity of the other, alternatively it accepts both to be true or part of the totality. This phase of self-recognition through an exterior referent could be compared to Jacques Lacan’s theorization of the mirror stage, wherein the infant recognizes them self as a whole being, or as an “I” subject, the instant they see them self in a mirror. Lacan writes: This development is experienced as a temporal dialectic that decisively projects the formation of the individual into history. The mirror stage is a drama whose internal thrust is precipitated from insufficiency to anticipation—and which manufactures for the subject, caught up in the lure of spatial identification, the succession of fantasies that extends from a fragmented body-image to a form of its totality that I shall call orthopedic.20

What this passage means in relation to Martí’s text is that in reading about the Annamite, as a subjected literary other, the reader can locate his or her own subjectivity, and identify himself/herself as belonging to a different plane of reference, or the imago for Lacan.21 This is not simply readers knowing the difference between themselves and the text as a matter of truth, but rather an acknowledgement of how the real people to which the actors within the text refer, are also living subjects capable of selfrecognition and truths of their own, albeit deferred. An example of this is that the very creation of the categories of Annam and Annamite are made possible only through a dialectical relationship with China, India, or the Khmer empire. Certainly, if one is to invest in the individual and particular subjectivities of these categories as truth bearing categories, then there must 20

Jacques Lacan, “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience,” The Critical Tradition Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends, ed. David H. Richter, New York: Bedford, 2007, 1126. 21 Ibid, 1126.

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be an acceptance of the perceptual conditions from which these differences generate. These conditions are, of course, laid out by Martí via the explanations of various customs that are typically associated with this geographic area. In reference to the conical hats, often worn by Annamite women, he writes, “they [the Annamite women] say that the hat is for making shade, [and] not as a way to show command [like] in the house of the governor.”22 While this description could be read as Martí giving the story a touch of anthropological logic in the spirit of nineteenth-century positivism, it also suggests the notion of cultural practice as a form of subject-formation. As such, one’s subjectivity is not only defined by a certain recognition in relation to the other, but also through the embodiment and exercise of selfinforming cultural practices. But is it sufficient to speak of subjectivity simply through this lens of habitus? In reading Mauss on the topic of the body, Talal Asad explains that the human body is not simply a tabula rasa on which culture is imprinted, and much less a locus of its own enunciations, but rather a self-developable means to achieve things from styles of walking, to states of emotional being, to spirituality.23 This conflation between body-as-practice and subjectivity as constituted self-recognition becomes quite clear a few sentences after, when Martí writes “they say that in their hot land one should dress loose and light, so that air may reach the body […] they say that man does not need strong backs because the Cambodians are taller and more robust, but in war the Annamites have always won against their Cambodian neighbors.”24 In this example, Annamite subjectivity is defined neither by the state nor the quasi-scientific physiological differentiation to the Cambodians, which are anthropological accounts, but rather, it is formulated out of the relationship with a particular system of values derived from their personal relation to their bodies. This recognition is one that separates the potentiality of the subject from the physical body, yet at the same time draws meaning from it. As a final point on the topic of subjectivity, it is important to note how this Annamite subjectivity is played out in relation to the description of the French. In responding to what the French suppose as physical and cultural deficiencies of the Annamites, such as the Annamite rejection of beards, Martí points out these contradictions as a power struggle. While Annamites consider beards as a thing of beasts, the French retort is one of negation, 22

Martí, La Edad, 231. Talal Asad, “Remarks on the Anthropology of the Body,” Religion and the Body, Ed. Sarah Coakley, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997, 47. 24 Martí, La Edad, 231. 23

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saying that the native disdain for beards is no more than envy. In this way, the native claim for truth is negated by the French as falsity. Martí questions these negative assertions by using a native voice. Here, he writes, “and for what do we need the biggest eyes […] nor the narrowest nose? With these almond eyes that we have, we have built the great Buddha of Hanoi […] we have raised the pagoda25 of Angkor.”26 What these romanticized rhetorical questions imply is a refusal by the Annamites to accept a French subjectivity. That is to say, the rejection of a dialectical self-recognition that is imposed rather than negotiated. This, in Hegelian terms, is understood as the failure of the master and slave dialectic, because the Annamites never actually reach the freedom as a classical understanding of Hegel would suggest.27 By presenting the colonial relationship in this way, Martí creates an idealized version of the world where the voice of the subjugated can be expressed. The Annamite question of, “for what do we need the biggest eyes?” mirrors the Raja’s declaration from the first section, where he insists that men not think as slaves by thinking as they are told. It is a subject refusing to be called an object. Therefore, their question which repudiates the master and slave dialectic not only presents a voice of resistance, but also presents an alternative to colonial, hegemonic truth. Where subjectivity is concerned, the Annamite shows that their measurement for truth is not dependent on the falsity of French truth, but in recognizing the differences between each truth claim as part of the totality.

On the Myth of Asian Pragmatism28 Open a travel book, or do some simple online searches on Southeast Asia and more than likely, one will find the word “pragmatic” as the choice adjective in describing the life outlook of the people inhabiting these lands.29 Yet, like many generalities, this insistence on the idea of an Asian pragmatism is but a multiplicity of Orientalizing narratives folded-over unto 25

The Pagoda refers to the temple complex of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Although Martí attributes this monument erroneously to the Annamites, possibly for dramatic effect, the complex was built by the Khmer empire under Suryavarman II. “Angkor Wat,” Britannica.com, 25th Aug, 2018. 26 Martí, La Edad, 230. 27 Stern, Hegel and the Phenomenology of the Spirit, 71-96. 28 Not to be confused with the Buddhist form of Pragmatism, here the term is understood within the American philosophical tradition of the 19th and 20th century. 29 While a list would publications where this use of pragmatism would be too extensive for this work. One such example is in Henry Kamm’s Ascending Dragon: Vietnam and the Vietnamese. See. Pg. 144.

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themselves.30 My goal here is not to make a critique of orientalism, but to unpack how the myth positions a particular form of power that is deeply opposed to its perceived intentions. On the topic of myth, Lévi-Strauss writes, “poetry is a kind of speech that cannot be translated except at the cost of serious distortions; whereas the mythical value of the myth is preserved even through the worst translation.”31 What this suggests about myths, is that even through a process of retelling, where information may be lost or gained, the structure of the myth is preserved because of a deeper universal structure. This begs the question, what makes the myth of Asian pragmatism seemingly universal, or universally accepted? Once again, orientalism comes to mind, particularly in the sense that narratives are created through repetition. Yet, is it possible to postulate that the basis for understanding the myth of pragmatism may necessarily have to do with a sympathetic understanding of the colonial experience itself? In other words, is it possible to speak of pragmatism, within a context of colonial oppression, differently than how it currently appears? Indeed, when speaking of colonialism, one is not limited to just the framework of a state claiming ownership of another state, but rather of a given situation wherein an entity may be (subject)ed to the other’s will. Pragmatism, within this configuration draws from the universality of a power struggle, whether from colonialism or otherwise, to speak about the ways in which resistance and survival are carried out. Unfortunately, from the perspective of world history, this struggle of self-subjectivity, as well as the virtue of pragmatism, is more often than not, represented by the struggle of the West and the Rest. In this regard, one can understand how pragmatism, as a reactionary condition of inequality, could be understood through Naoki Sakai’s articulation of the putative unity of the West—that is, not only is this unity a myth, but also how this myth affords the West the status of universality in contrast to the particular non-west.32 By this postulation, the people of the colonized lands of Southeast Asia must be described as pragmatic or spoken about in pragmatic terms, because it is they who stand for the reactionary condition of oppression and colonization. As such, the nomination of the pragmatic is not the attribution of positive virtue, but rather the necessary, descriptive qualifier of lived experience. 30

See Edward Said’s Orientalism. Lévi-Strauss, Claude, “The Structural Study of Myth,” The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends, ed. David H. Richter, Boston: Bedford, 2007, 862. 32 Naoki Sakai, “‘You Asians:’ On the Historical Role of the West and Asia Binary,” The South Atlantic Quarterly Vol. 99 issue 4 (2000): Project Muse, October 7 2015, 791. 31

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Furthermore, their struggle is seen as the result of not having arrived at the universality represented by the West and, consequently, what justifies colonialism. This understanding of the myth of Asian pragmatism, as a reactionary condition, is useful insofar as it allows us to understand the response of the Annamite in the face of colonialism. Twice in the short story, while addressing the theme of oppression under the French, Martí speaks through the voice of the Annamite in proclaiming, “who knows!” 33 The first instance appears at the end of a passage where Martí uses the Annamite voice to explain how the natives felt when French took over. Here, he writes: …and when the French had come to take away our Hanoi, our Hue, our cities of palaces of wood, our ports full of bamboo houses and boats of reed, our stores of fish and rice, still, with these almond eyes, we have known [how] to die, thousands upon thousands, to stop them in their way. Now they are our lords; but tomorrow who knows!34

Of the several significant themes present in this passage, the most notable are the ideas of loss, community, acceptance of death, and above all, an optimism that accompanies the “who knows!”. What these ideas have in common with each other is that they are reflected within Martí’s description of Buddhism, wherein he highlights the four noble truths: life is suffering, that suffering comes from desire, so to live without suffering is to live without desire, and finally that Nirvana cannot be achieved while being alive.35 Drawing from this reading between Martí’s explanation of Buddhist virtues in conjunction with how he writes of the Annamite acceptance of the colonial regime, it is possible to see where pragmatism, as an acceptance of colonial reality, and Buddhism as a practice of enduring suffering, are intertwined. While it is true that death and suffering, within the Buddhist context, are both seen as a reality that can never be escaped, the manner in which Martí romanticizes both experiences effectively relegates them to a position of virtue. What is of interest, however, is that far from just accepting death and suffering as the condition of life, here, the “who knows!” also signals an open-ended optimism that is yet to be determined. In this way, even when pragmatism is seen as a conditional virtue, it is, at the same time, not understood as a resignation of life. Through his work on orientalism and religion, Richard King explains that Buddhism as a category of ‘religion’ was very much a nineteenth33

Martí, La Edad, 232, 240. Ibid, 232. 35 Ibid, 236. 34

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century Western enterprise, in that it was written about as a way to essentialize Eastern spiritual practice.36 In this sense, when Martí writes, “we have known to die,” it is not only a matter of the native recognizing death as an inevitability, but that such a recognition is what separates them from their colonizers. King further explains, “this nostalgia for origins provided (for the West), on the one hand, a much-needed sense of continuity with archaic traditions and the natural world and, on the other, a way of defining the West as quintessentially ‘modern’ in contrast to the ‘primitive’ or ‘traditional’ cultures of the East.”37 From this perspective, Martí’s formulation of the spiritual Annamite who accepts death because of his primitive nature was in dialogue with many other writings trying to understand Buddhism at the time. As such, pragmatism, once a result of suffering, is now doubly associated with both Eastern tradition and backwardness. The Annamite accepts death because of his backward traditions, because it is what he knows, because he is pragmatic. It is on this basis, that even during all the brutality of the Vietnam war, arguments defending village bombing, or collateral damage, could be made by stating that life was not precious in the East.38 In another instance, when Martí describes the Annamite leaving a theater show about the Annamite dynasties, he writes, “from the pagoda they leave quietly, with the head low, with hands in the pockets of blue shirts. And if a Frenchman asks them something on the way, they tell him in their language: ‘I don’t know.’ And if an Annamite speaks to them about something in secret, they tell him: ‘Who knows!’”39 Rather than being associated with accepting death, suffering, or backwardness, here, pragmatism within the phrase of “who knows” reveals optimism in uncertainty. In the context of colonialism, where theatre represents a mockery and provides distraction from everyday life, leaving the theatre can suggest a return to reality, toward oppression, toward uncertainty. In this reality, it is not the Annamite kings or bearded mandarins who run the show, but instead, it is the French—and so, the Annamite holds his head low and holds onto the optimism provided to him by the pragmatic, “who knows!”. What stands out with this ending is that Martí does not reveal neither the Frenchman’s question, nor the fellow Annamite’s secret. Perhaps the question is for directions, and the secret is about rebellion. Or perhaps it is not important what they say at all, but rather it is how the Annamite 36 King, Richard, Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial theory, India and ‘the mystic East’, New York: Routledge, 1999, 148. 37 Ibid, 147. 38 See the documentary film Hearts and Minds (1974). 39 Martí, La Edad, 240.

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responds. If one believes that the Annamite is inclined to live by his Buddhism, then the pragmatism in his answer is that there is only one certainty—that of the unknown. Pragmatism, if understood as a means of survival, then, does not mean to ignore the Frenchman and nor is it a call to subjectivity. Moreover, to respond does not mean one needs to use the same language, or to accept the terms of this condition. Here, Martí’s ideology becomes clear; pragmatism in the face of colonialism must be engagement, even if the causes and outcomes are uncertain.

Annam as Cuba and the Rhetoric of Trans-nationality Earlier in the essay, the idea of trans-nationality was defined as a unifying sentiment that can transcend the space between national borders. What this speaks to is a nationalism that is more humanistic in nature than it is political. It is for this reason that I refrain from thinking about the gesture in terms of a cosmopolitics à la Habermas, which considers the political within a frame of a post-national futurity.40 I do not believe this was Martí’s project.41 Within this section, the concept of trans-nationality will be explored as how one could talk about the ideal state; not by referring to a distant or possible polity, but through the language of sympathy.42 As such, it will be argued that the ideas which Martí presents on nationalism in “un paseo por la tierra de los Anamitas” is indeed an articulation of transnationalism, wherein the true object of discussion is not the fate of Cuba via Annam, but the symbolic gestures that sees a commonality beyond immediate boundaries. In order to solidify these connections, it is necessary to once again refer to Martí’s ideas as expressed in his essay “Nuestra América.” Furthermore, it is necessary to examine where the idea of education fits into this discourse. 40 See Habermas’ essay “Kant’s Idea of Perpetual Peace” in Perpetual Peace: Essays

on Kant’s Cosmopolitan Ideal. 41 While there is certainly no doubt that certain affinities and influences may exist between Martí’s understanding of a cosmopolitan world and that which was written by Kant, I do not think Martí’s emphasis was necessarily within the realm of the state, as it is for Kant. This is to say, for Martí, the envisioning of such a world is emphasized more on an ethical model, based a certain understanding of humanism, rather than a transcendental ethics that is sustained by a world federation. See Kant’s work “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch.” 42 By state, of course, I do mean nation-state in the sense that Martí envisions it in “Nuestra América.” Although, to some theorists, the idea of the state in and of itself, already precludes the element of exclusion, for Martí, this state is the most concrete form through which sympathy could be enacted beyond the national level.

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On the topic of nationalism and governmentality in “Nuestra América” Martí writes “one has to pay attention to govern well; and a good governor in America is not one who knows how to govern Germany or France, rather one who knows what elements his country is made of.”43 What Martí means by bringing up both Germany and France, is not a critique of either country, but is rather a call for nativism within governmentality. This nativism does not necessarily imply the idea of indigeneity, though he does mention this, instead it is a call towards a sovereignty whose understanding comes from within. This critique, of course, corresponds to the fact that prior to, and even during the fin de siècle, most of the men in positions of power were educated in European capitals. In Martí’s views, this ‘outside’ education created a gap between the governors and the governed that constitutes an equation for political failure, because of alienation.44 What he suggests, instead, in the construction of local, understood here as national, are methods and institutions from which a rational, educated, and national body can be generated. This sort of nationalism, of course, is not something that can be imposed from the top down, but rather must stem from the common man. In “un paseo por la tierra de los Anamitas” Martí’s emphasis on the common Annamite as the core of resistance to colonial rule, stands in line with an understanding of nationalism that is outlined in his essay. That is, the Annamite is portrayed as being able to see himself within a political system that does not represent his own interests. While describing the work of a foot trotter, Martí writes, “it is a carriage with two wheels, that the poor Annamite goes pulling: trot, trot like a horse: more than a horse walks, much quicker: and inside, without pity, without shame and without embarrassment is a man sitting. Like horses they afterwards die from the misery of such running, the poor trotters.”45 This description of the manual labor touches upon the animalization and subjugation of the colonized body, wherein the death of the Annamite is caused not by the sword or gun, but by exhaustion from pulling the weight of those who are above him.46 43

José Martí, “Nuestra América,” Nuestra América: Edición Crítica, Guadalajara: Guadalajara UP, 2002, 17. 44 One of the most central points in this essay is that; a governor who is educated in Europe will always fail to govern properly in Latin America. This is because an education on governance, based solely on a European conception of the world will always make this man blind to the specificities and particularities for which governing in Latin America would require. 45 Martí, La Edad, 232. 46 While I recognize that a more materialist critique could be done here, it is not my goal.

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Martí puts even greater emphasis on the animal-like treatment of the Annamite when he compares it with how different the death of passengers in the carriage are from them. On this, he writes, “And from drinking clarete47 and burgundy, and from much eating, they die, colored and fat, those who let themselves eat in the djirincka,48 fanning themselves: The English military men, the French associates, the Chinese merchants.”49 This contrast in terms of death not only brings about the need for liberation, but also brings back the question of pragmatism. This is a pragmatism that is not seen as a virtue, but as a condition of suffering caused by a colonial occupation. Furthermore, Martí highlights that the ones riding on the back of the Annamite are not only the French, but the English military and the Chinese merchants as well. With these examples, three aspects of oppression are present: military, social, and economic. However, they are not the only ideas that are represented. In presenting these three points, Martí sets up a sort of schema that could be understood by Zapata’s reading of the oppositions that the story employs. The setup is as follows: Tolerance vs. Intolerance Liberty of thought vs. censorship Physical liberty vs. slavery50 Through Zapata’s schema, it is possible to see how the oppositions themselves represent the two sides of the colonial relationship. Yet, beyond just merely showing the contrast between one state of being and another, this set up is also useful to explain the element of desire within the discourse of nationalism. This means that insofar as there is a desire for tolerance, free thought, or liberty, this binary relationship must dissolve. For Martí, the key to the deconstruction of this system is the cultivation of a nationalist spirit from within. To put this another way, if nationalism, as a political ideal, is the conglomeration of a multiplicity which presents itself as a unitary subject, then the very act of existing already implies the negation of an imposed subjectivity, or produces a dialectic that guarantees the subjectivity. To this point, Martí writes, “with the oppressed one had to make a common cause, to secure the system that opposes the interests and 47

Light red wine. While it is used differently elsewhere in La edad de oro, here it is a cart that is pulled by hand. See the short story “historia de la cuchara y el tenedor” for a different example. Pg. 242-245. 49 Martí, La Edad, 232. 50 Zapata, Daniel Palomino, La Edad de Oro: Analogía, virtudes y símbolos, Mexicali: Baja UP, 2000, 212. 48

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manners of command by the oppressors […] independence was not a change of form, but of the spirit.”51 What better way to draw out this change of spirit than through the language of sympathy? Hence, the logic here is that if the Annamite does not establish this unified subjectivity, which negates pure potentiality in order to be a subject, then he will remain perpetually enslaved, or object. Similarly, in thinking of Latin America during the 19th century, the argument is as follows: if an independent and prosperous Latin America is to come into being, it will be done so in the spirit of sympathy and change from within, as its own subject. Moving on to the topic of education, for Martí it was particularly significant within this configuration of nationalism, especially in terms of the spreading of nationalism, that education be at the forefront of humanist endeavor. In regards to this subject, Martí questions, “how is it possible that they, the governors, could come out of universities if there are no universities in America where one teaches the [fundamentals] of the art of governing, which is the analysis of the peculiar elements of the American people?”52 In inciting this question, Martí frames how it is both necessary to have education and for that education to be localized. Furthermore, if nationalism, or the concept of a unified people, is to stand in place for the highest ideals of a society, then education must be the base upon which those ideals are built. Moreover, government as used in Martí’s essay does not necessarily limit itself within the structure of the state. Instead, governor in this usage should be understood within the framework of visionary leadership. That is, one who is intellectually capable of leading, either on the local level or on a larger scale. Like many men during Martí’s time who were coming out of a enlightenment foundation, intelligence and the concept of rationality went hand in hand. That being the case, one always assumed that the educated man was the rational man, and since one assumes that a rational man would want liberty, equality, and so forth, it would be logical that he would seek to educate others around him as well. In thinking of Martí’s other works, one cannot help but notice that he not only wrote about education in this way, but also lived his life by it. One aspect that is worth considering while still on the topic of education is the fact that the collection La Edad de Oro itself was intended to be both entertainment and educational for children. Education here is understood as not only being limited to the realm of quantifiable knowledge, such as numbers and events, but also refers to the capacity for analytic thought. This education with nationalistic goals can be conferred from his other text Latin 51 52

Martí, “Nuestra América”, 19. Ibid, 17.

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American Children, where he affirms the ideas of self-determination on both a personal and national level, and also a belief in the non-superiority of Europeans and the importance of humanism.53 Coming almost full circle, it is possible to see why Martí chose to preface “un paseo por la tierra de los Anamitas” with the tale of the blind Hindus. That is to say, within the realm of what one conceives as practical or pragmatic knowledge, what matters is to have curiosity, and the desire to seek answers, as well as never to think simply as one is told to think. Yet, above all this, there is the necessity to accept and be open to the truths from others around oneself. In this way, even under the guise of children’s stories, Martí’s politics still shine through. This is not to deny the possibility that “un paseo por la tierra de los Anamitas” might just be a story about Annam. However, that has been the pervading view for more than a century, which has left the story very much neglected of criticism. It is entirely possible to read this story as only orientalizing, and with eroticized imagery meant to fascinate children, but what would be lost within that reading? In recognizing the significance of this work Fernando Campoamor once wrote, “and we have asked why the official initiative of our republic does not launch an edition of La Edad de Oro for all the children of Cuba, from the cities and the countryside; a temperate edition that inundates the island to the coasts.”54 This call for the proliferation of the collection highlights both how significant the work is thought to be and suggests the degree to which it has the capacity reach beyond, despite being a work for children. Perhaps, it is this very trait that makes it even more significant. While Campoamor is concerned with level of the cultural, he also notices the way in which imbued politics affects the texts tremendously. To return to the question of Trans-nationality, one must ask: is it sufficient to see the story as depicting the plight of the Annamite against colonialism and inciting the possibility of a liberated tomorrow without insisting that the story only pertains to more than Annam? Additionally, what is the value of producing a work that speaks of the suffering of colonized peoples in a far-away land only as a form of entertainment? Trans-nationality in this view, does not need to be spelled out as a political strategy, rather it is perceived through the understanding of sympathy. The Annamite is never just himself.

53

Armando García de la Torre, "The Contradictions of Late Nineteenth-Century Nationalist Doctrines: Three Keys to the 'Globalism' of José Martí's Nationalism." Journal of Global History 3, no. 1 (03, 2008): 67-88. 54 Fernando Campoamor, "Una Página Del Pasado / Uma Página Do Passado: Hispania 24” (1941): 178." Hispania 83, no. 1 (2000): 151.

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Conclusion This essay has suggested the need for a re-reading of José Martí’s collection La Edad de Oro and specifically the short story “un paseo por la tierra de los Anamitas,” in order to engage the text beyond the lens of a children’s story. To do so, the topic of colonial subjectivity was explored as a means by which the native voice can stand for resistance. Following this, the myth of Asian pragmatism was addressed, and in particular, how exactly this pragmatism plays out within the context of colonialism as a conditionality of suffering rather than a virtue. Lastly, the concept of transnationality is discussed as the envisioning through which it is possible to speak about suffering and resistance to colonial rule in “un paseo por la tierra de los Anamitas,” as an articulation of sympathy that transcends national boundaries. Furthermore, education was highlighted as a crucial tool for carrying out the national project. When considered together, the ideas that come out of Martí’s essay “Nuestra América” in relation to “un paseo por la tierra de los Anamitas,” not only signal how one can encounter subjectivity and resistance, but also how education can solidify these goals. Through a reading of the Hegelian dialectic and the Lacanian mirror stage, it was postulated that colonial subjectivity is always a dialectical act of constituency. Within this framework, the idea of recognition as a claim for identity became as important for the Annamite as it was to the French. Yet, this subjectivity is not limited to the individual but also to the nation. As such, in inciting the nationalistic claims of the Annamite to be able to construct great things, despite the supposed physiological shortcomings the French imposed on them, Martí articulates a spirit of unity and humility, ideas that extend beyond the borders of Southeast Asia. Throughout this essay, I have highlighted the ways in which it is possible to have a different reading of “un paseo por la tierra de los Anamitas” and how such a reading might open the text to a reading other than that of orientalist literature. Finally, on trans-nationalism, when one asks how it may be possible for today’s Cuba claim Vietnam, the modern-day Annam, as one of its closest and allies? One need not look further than what Martí has written over a century ago. This is not to say the two counties’ history have always been intricately connected, but rather, where trans-nationalism is concerned, both countries saw and drew solidarity from a common plight against imperialism. While the politics of the present day differ greatly from the past, one must question whether the humanistic language of suffering, resistance, and liberty currently spouted in both counties deviated much from Martí’s work at the turn of the century.

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Bibliography Anderson, Benedict. “The Origins of National Consciousness.” The Critical Tradition Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. David H. Richter. New York: Bedford, 2007. 1815-1820. “Angkor Wat.” Britannica.com. Accessed August 26, 2018. Asad, Talal. “Remarks on the Anthropology of the Body.” Religion and the Body. Ed. Sarah Coakley. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997. Campoamor, Fernando. “Una página del pasado.” Hispania 83.1 (2000):151-152. JSTOR. Web. November 9, 2015. Esteban, Ángel. “Intoduction.” La Edad de Oro y otros relatos. By José Martí. Madrid: Catedra, 2006. García de la Torre, Armando. "The Contradictions of Late NineteenthCentury Nationalist Doctrines: Three Keys to the 'Globalism' of José Martí's Nationalism." Journal of Global History 3.1 (2008): 67-88. ProQuest. Web. October 8. 2015. Habermas, Jürgen. “Kant’s Idea of Perpetual Peace.” Perpetual Peace: Essays on Kant’s Cosmopolitan Ideal. Edited by James Bohman and Matthias Lutz-Bachmann. Cambridge: MIT UP, 1997. 113-154. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. Phenomenology of Spirit. Translated by A.V. Miller. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997. Hearts and Minds. Directed by Peter Davis. BBS Productions, 1974. Kamm, Henry. Ascending Dragon: Vietnam and the Vietnamese. New York: Arcade, 1996. Kant, Immanuel. “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch.” Kant: Political Writings, Edited by H.S. Reis. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003. 93-130. King, Richard. Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial theory, India and ‘the mystic East’. New York: Routledge, 1999. Kojève, Alexandre. Introduction to the Reading of Hegel. Translated by James H. Nichols, Jr. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1980. Lévi-Strauss, Claude. “The Structural Study of Myth.” The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. Ed. David H. Richter. Boston: Bedford, 2007. 860-868. Lacan, Jacques. “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience.” The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. Ed. David H. Richter. Boston: Bedford, 2007. 1123-1128. Martí, José. La Edad de Oro y otros relatos. Madrid: Catedra, 2006. —. “Nuestra América.” Nuestra América: Edición Crítica. Guadalajara: Guadalajara UP, 2002.

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Pedraza y Jiménez, Felipe Blas and Milagros Rodríguez Cáceres. Historia esencial de la literature Española e hispanoamericana. Madrid: EDAF, 2000. Said, Edward. Orientalism. London: Penguin, 2003. Sakai, Naoki. “‘You Asians:’ On the Historical Role of the West and Asia Binary.” The South Atlantic Quarterly 99.4 (2000): 789-817. Project Muse. Web. October 7 2015. Stern, Robert. Hegel and the Phenomenology of Spirit. New York: Routledge, 2002. Vales, José Francisco. “La influencia de la cultura alemana en la formación del pensamiento de José Martí.” Iberoamericana (1977-2000) 20.1 (1996): 5-25. JSTOR. Web. 4 Oct 2015. “Vietnam sends condolences over Fidel Castro’s death.” Vietnamnews.vn. Accessed November 26, 2016. Zapata, Daniel Palomino. La Edad de Oro: Analogía, virtudes y símbolos. Mexicali: Baja UP, 2000.

A SOVEREIGN SURRENDER? DIGITAL MODERNITY AND THE SUBJECT OF NEOLIBERAL CONTROL DEBADITYA BHATTACHARYA

In the very preface to his magnum opus Technics and Time, Bernard Stiegler issues a warning against western philosophy’s relationship with technology. He begins with the injunction: “Inasmuch as the field of digital humanities declaredly attempts to remediate the ‘digital’ in the ‘human qua humanities,’ it evidently is an encounter with the unthought. It is a pledge to think through its history precisely in the evidence of its absence.”1 This paper, therefore, will work around the originary split between technology and thought, before investigating the sudden turn of the digital in knowledge production. My contention places itself in opposition to the official narratives of digital humanities, which claim to be furthering democratic access to knowledge and potentially infinitizing the production of it. In this, I seek to understand the current proliferation of technological media not as a moment of emancipatory excess, but as essentially marking a neoliberal moment of control and containment. My agenda here is to renegotiate the question of the political in the field of the technological, and to look at ways in which the logic of ‘excessive access’ is in effect a mode of alienation between the digital and the human-in-humanities. Taking off from certain key concepts formulated by Gilbert Simondon and Stiegler, I shall examine how the digital is increasingly becoming part of a network of the proprietorial, despite its much-hailed illusion of commons. Crucially beginning with a history of what Stiegler refers to as the ‘invention of the human’ (1998: 19-179), I will trace the weakening alliance between the knowing subject and the object of knowledge till the latter becomes part of a network of state-owned property. The consequent need to correct virtual transgressions through a real legislative ethic of crime-and-punishment has never been more pronounced than today. 1

Bernard Steigler, Technics is the Unthought. (1998: 6).

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Let me begin with two anecdotal examples from the recent political past of India, both of which serve to enunciate a few pertinent questions about the nature and potential of technologized knowledge. In late 2011, the thenTelecom Minister Kapil Sibal eulogized the story of India’s development through just one easy stroke of a reference. For him, the best proof of the nation’s uncontested claim to progress was in the fact that it can boast of some 860 million telecom users.2 The statistical data is correct, but the rational inference about ‘progress’ arising out of it is cause for much worry and alarm. If the sheer possession of mobile devices by slightly over 70 percent of a nation’s population is sure evidence of its ‘economic prosperity,’ then the horror is far from being over. Hence, soon enough, in just a few months’ time from then, the government seemed to retract from its own statistical index of a ‘shining India’ by ordering a regulation of telecom services through prohibitive curbs on calls, messaging services and social networking sites.3 Almost immediately after the state identified and hailed the invasion of its geographical imaginary of ‘remoteness’ by the telecommunications industry, it attempted a containment of the same by restricting access to those services and imposing limits on them. And, in the name of maintaining law and order, it claimed to prevent mass hysteria through the insidious logic of censoring the mass media. The internet blackout in Kashmir since August 5, 2019 (following the illegal abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution), is the most recent and most brazen example of this clampdown. What has effectively happened thus far is an advertisement of mass empowerment through technology, followed by a curtailment of that same power in the cause of protecting the sovereignty of the mass-as-state. The latest addition to this state-machinery of technological censorship was in the government’s proposal to set up cyber surveillance agencies, which would

2

See ‘Sibal to chair first roundtable with consumers today’, in The Economic Times (July 05, 2011), available at https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/telecom/sibal-to-chair-firstroundtable-with-consumers-today/articleshow/9107017.cms (as accessed on 27 October 2018); see also ‘Telecommunication’, India Brand Equity Foundation Report (June 28, 2011), available at https://www.ibef.org/pages/29265 (as accessed on 27 October 2018). 3 Refer to Devidutta Tripathy and Anurag Kotoky, ‘Online uproar as India seeks social media screening’, Reuters (December 06, 2011), available at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-internet/online-uproar-as-india-seeks-socialmedia-screening-idUSTRE7B50CV20111206 (as accessed on 27 October 2018).

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work in collusion with security agencies and local police.4 The strategic merging of networks of mass-mediated knowledge with repressive mechanisms of law enforcement was evidently not the result of isolated cases of transgression, but in fact a foundational moment in the history of industrial technology. So, we can see how the disbursal of excess necessarily becomes a pretext for monitoring the use of it, and thus maximizing the jurisdiction of state control. While it might apparently seem that the government’s policy of a telecommunicative ban runs counter to its own agenda of development as technological penetrability, I would argue that the latter is just a precondition for the former. In my understanding of technological modernity, the logic of censorship entails not a restriction of access in the first place but, on the contrary, a preliminary expansion of it. As Marxist thinkers have severally maintained, the most effective process of domination is in the policing of difference rather than a forceful elimination of it. By first enabling a wider space of technological entitlement through gifts of free access and minimal costs of maintenance, the state seemingly advocates its liberal-welfarist ideal of progress. However, it is in this moment of charity that the state simultaneously consolidates its claim to sovereignty by bringing those invisible-because-geographically-remote masses within its own machinery of surveillance. The widening of technologized publics is conversely an enlistment of larger numbers of citizen-subjects within the network of control. Access hence becomes the apology for an increasing omniscience of control. Through its ownership over and alliance with corporate service providers, the state can now effectively monitor the finger movements of a mass of telecom user-subscribers, which was hitherto only a numerical presence in census reports and never beyond.5 By an epidemic enfranchisement via the right to global communications, the state today owns the masterroster of the everyday activities of untold multitudes, all of whom can now be tracked down with an IMEI number or through a digital scanning of input information. We are a people participating in our own surveillance. And then there is even more. Now, the imposition of a legal-censorial ethic on cyber activity might end up not only deterring people from online crimes but also from the use of such technology altogether. Excessive 4 See Shalini Singh, ‘India’s surveillance project may be as lethal as PRISM’, in The Hindu (June 21, 2013), available at https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/indias-surveillance-project-may-be-aslethal-as-prism/article4834619.ece (as accessed on 27 October 2018). 5 See Pranesh Prakash, ‘How Surveillance Works in India’, in The New York Times (July 10, 2013), available at https://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/10/howsurveillance-works-in-india/ (as accessed on 27 October 2018)

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availability entails the maximal possibility of abuse, and we are consequently caught in a moment where transgression need not be a conscious self-willed act of violation. Faced with daily instances of hacking of private accounts in a relentlessly public network of interfacing, the line between innocence and criminality is fast fading and the diagnostic apparatus of law increasingly runs the risk of producing false indictments. The criminal is most often not the perpetrator but just a traceable source of illegal practice committed by the other. Furthermore, in the language of cyber-crime, illegality consists not in private consumption of ‘objectionable material,’ but in the sharing of it.6 And, there lies the irony. Penal morality has— within the order of cybernetics—shifted from the realm of production or consumption to circulation, from poiesis to phusis, from the moment of formation of knowledge to the mediation of it. But, inasmuch as the logic of social media is in the exhibition of its excesses, the criminal sharing of content (rather than the sharing of criminal content) is in fact a moment of its origin. To cite an example, the sharing of pornographic images on the internet does not necessarily require one to visit a porn site. Rather, almost every sundry otherwise-respectable webpage ‘shares’ nude or semi-nude pornographic images as a means of revenue generation. Given this order of online activity, where exhibition as the logic of public sharing itself becomes constitutive of the criminal, there are two possibilities for us cyberusers. Either the penal code of cyber-conduct prevails in reminding us that the whole of cyberspace is criminal (and that the moment of its origin is also the founding moment of criminality), or—faced by the abundance of the obscene and the ubiquity of guilt—we are desensitized to legal vocabularies as well as to the fact of our constant surveillance. And, what comes out of either of these two possibilities is a loss of the experience of fear associated with censorship. We are made aware of the need for a timeless machine of policing around us, and yet we give in to it without the anxieties or the fears of victimization. Despite the checks and curbs on cultures of cybersociality, there is absolutely no impact on the use of it. This brings me to another amusing-yet-alarming anecdote. With the government’s decision to institute competent cyber-surveillance agencies came a compensatory relaxation of punishment for ‘first-time offenders.’7 6

See Nikita Malusare, ‘Know this law well: It can get you arrested for a Facebook post or text message’, in Citizen Matters (July 07, 2014), available at http://bengaluru.citizenmatters.in/know-this-law-well-it-can-arrest-you-for-afacebook-post-or-text-message-6582 (as accessed on 28 October 2018). 7 Refer to Anuradha Shetty, ‘Govt may introduce graded responses to first-time cyber offenders’, in FirstPost (September 17, 2012), available at

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To prevent an adverse impact on the subscription of cyber-services, the state planned to adopt a policy of grading cyber-crimes on the basis of the duration of one’s association with criminality. From what I discussed above, it appears that first-time offenders of cyber-law are, by default, first-time users of cyber-services. Because, the space itself is of the order of a forbidden exhibitionism. The clause about legal relaxations therefore is only an attempt on the part of the state to dispel potential fears around the stringency of cyber-law, and thus prevent a loss of its user-base, which in fact is a measure of its own reach and control. Having placed the current order of technological rationality within a legislative theory of sovereignty, it is necessary for us to understand the place of technology in human history. Although the beginnings of western philosophy insist on an antithetical relationship between knowledge and technology, later theorists like Heidegger and Derrida pointed at the originary concurrence of being-human and the technological. Plato, in his Socratic dialogue with Meno, references the self-division within forms of knowledge through two categories: episteme and techne. While for him, episteme represents the theory of true knowledge as integrally produced by the mind of the human subject (which therefore stands in for logos, or the truth-as-idea), techne implies a prosthetic displacement of knowledge outside of the human body through craft or practice. The latter, in being the womb of the word ‘technology,’ hence signifies an exteriorization of skills, with the aid of tools beyond the purview of the human consciousness. Since, in Platonic theory, the self is the bearer of true truth in the form of ideas, whatever requires the help of or lies outside of the self is divorced from knowledge. What is born of this classical moment of definition of terms is a continuing disdain, in western philosophy, of the technological as unworthy of truth or knowledge. The trend permeates the history of subsequent thought by carefully disentangling philosophy (which in turn is appropriately the study of knowledge-systems) from questions of technology as non-knowledge. Attempts to demarcate the limits of the human have conveniently foisted techne, as the radical other to a knowing consciousness, as the extra-human and the inorganic. It is this classical disequilibrium between the human and the technical as running through the whole of philosophical discourse that Bernard Stiegler tries to correct. Interestingly enough, his project is to bridge the chasm between integral-theoretical reason and prosthetic-practical

https://www.firstpost.com/tech/news-analysis/govt-may-introduce-gradedresponses-to-first-time-cyber-offenders-3608465.html (as accessed on 27 October 2018).

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experience by alluding to classical myths about the origin of humanity. In building up an extremely convincing argument, Stiegler returns to how Prometheus’ stolen gift of ‘fire’ has been made into an affirmative sign of the beginnings of human rationality. Yet, not only was this ‘gift’ stolen from the godly other to mankind, it was also a technical implement that then set in motion the chronicle of rational evolution. What is even more important, according to Stiegler, is not the elision of Prometheus’ criminality as a stealer nor the prosthetic nature of his ‘gift’, but a sustained erasure of the preceding myth of human origin in the figure of Epimetheus (Prometheus’ brother and a fellow-Titan). Having populated the earth with animals and humans, Epimetheus was entrusted with the task of empowering each of these new creatures with innate faculties and unique capacities of their own. In all the frenzy of his creative enterprise, the Titan endowed varying gifts of ‘speed’ to all the animals but when it finally came to the humans, he realized that he had nothing distinctive to offer. It is then that Prometheus had to step in and salvage the fate of humankind through an act of theft – a compensation for the lack of internal traits with external technology. Insofar as this gift of extra-human practice becomes the foundational moment of human reason, Prometheus is sculpted into a champion of mankind and his brother forgotten from the annals of it. Stiegler resurrects the myth in its entirety to effectively indicate that the default origin of the human is in the fault of Epimetheus and not the compensatory donation of Prometheus. In other words, the birth of the human is in a moment of double ‘lack’ (first, due to the forgetting of humans by Epimetheus, and then the supplemental granting of a stolen implement by Prometheus). Consequently, technology invents the history of the human pursuit of knowledge by making up for its originary lack. Reason, it seems, is born out of a reliance on technological practice as the inaugural ‘event’ of human progress. My argument here consists in an extension of Stiegler’s narrative about the originary self-splintering of human rationality, and an application of it to Heidegger’s idea of modern technics. In setting out from the mythical beginnings of a symbiotic interdependence between the human and the technological, Heidegger asks a few fundamental questions regarding the essence of modern technology. (1977: 3-35) What is the contribution of modernity to the myth of man’s relationship with the machine? Are we still just as reliant on the organized inorganic being of the machine in producing knowledge? Or, has the humanist subject been able to conquer and master the technological supplement as only a means to an end? Or, is it that technology today—through its continued history of evolution—has finally managed to take over the realm of the human? These are questions that echo a long tradition of thinking about the advent of industrial modernity, and

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have thus been repeatedly posed in different ways. In a nutshell, the puzzle that shall hopefully return us to the current malaise is: how has knowledge been affected by changing configurations of the nexus between the human and the machinic, through a subsequent movement from industrial technology to information technology? The answer lies in a brief survey of the mechanisms of knowledgeproduction through the history of capitalist modernity. In the whole of his work, Marx crucially addressed the philosophical estrangement between knowledge and technology. While he insistently advocates against the alienating impact of the machine and considers it culpable as the means of class-domination, his contribution lies in a reordering of the knowing human subject within the realm of technology. Knowledge, within the Marxian paradigm of viewing capitalist modernity, is only a false consciousness of man’s relationship with technology, and true knowledge, conversely, lies in a potential freedom from these relations of production. Terming such forms of knowledge ‘ideology,’ Marx sees human consciousness as not divorced from industrial-technological processes but as continuously re-presenting them as productive conditions of social existence. Industrial modernity, it seems, works by instituting false regimes of representation of the man-machine relationship as constitutive of knowledge. This is a self-alienating consciousness manufactured by those in power to protect the status quo. Now, with the coming of information technology as the mark of an advanced capitalism, there is a distinct shift in man’s relationship with processes of knowledge-formation and retention. Such technology, interestingly, begins with the promise of the originary gift that Epimetheus forgot to bestow on mankind: the gift of speed, and a challenge to the inexorable scourge of time as perpetually moving toward death and decay. With speed at its disposal, humankind launches a struggle against the singular condition of its incompleteness: mortality, as the governing destiny of all knowledge. Since the mortality of knowledge was in effect the result of a more fundamental mortality of the knowing body, technology now needed to enable an outside to the ever-dying human subject as the sovereign space for knowledge. The focus of invention went from being the domain of knowledge-production to that of knowledge-preservation. And, consequently, human memory now assumed fertile potential for exploitation by the technological apparatus. This leads, as Stiegler wonderfully articulates, to an industrialization of memory as exterior to the human mind, and therefore effecting a physical alienation between the knowing body and the body of knowledge (1998: 17). The current order of technological rationality is marked by a proliferation of memory space outside of the

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mortal body through what is called ‘mnesic devices,’ like the mobile phone, the computer, or even the USB hard-drive. Contrary to the Marxian diagnosis of ‘knowledge’ (read: ideology) as distorting the relationship between man and machine, what happens here is that the machine brings about a complete disengagement between man and knowledge. Alienation, instrumented by technological modernity, results not in a misapprehension of knowledge, but in a death of the knowing subject, through the transfer of memory onto a space outside of oneself. In an interesting turn of phrase, Stiegler hints at this as a process of increasing proletarianization in the moment of divorce between the body of the labourer and his skills (2010: 27). The storage of skills-as-knowledge in the exteriorized memory of the machine leads to an apparent ethic of everyday convenience that becomes the stuff of the state’s advertisable project of lifestyle development; but, in truth, it implies a heightened modernist predicament of alienation. The will to knowledge—so long considered the touchstone of modern histories of power—has now given way to the will to renounce knowledge in the hope of belating its death. The industrialization of memory through information technology has given way to a consensual ethic of the loss of knowledge, through surplus storage capacities external to the knowing self. Ironically, those devices that now become a prosthetic extension of human memory form part of a network of communication services over which the state reserves control. While the reach of mobile and cyber-technologies to rural sectors becomes, for the state, a congratulatory measure of its claim to progress, the consequences of it are twofold. One, the access to mnemotechnology necessarily acts as a replacement for the user’s own memory (whereby, every bit of information now becomes an invitation for the coming to existence of a chip or a byte). Two, an awareness of the decomposability of biological existence privileges the technological as a superior substitute, such that we suffer a radical splintering of the bios from the logos, the body from its skills, the subject from its consciousness. Victims of a chronic symptom of proletarianization, we surrender knowledge to an order of digital mnesic devices that the state can monitor, regulate, reproduce, and ban. Conversely, mnemotechnological modernity is in relinquishing the human to a cyberpanopticon. One can see through the modern rhetoric of development as being just an alternative strategy for disempowering the masses, by first transferring knowledge onto the device and then instituting a community of psychotechnological surveillance through an ownership of services and devices. On the one hand, the transposition of biopower onto technical devices leaves as residue an unknowing, uncritical, and unthinking mass of

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governable subjects, while, on the other, governance itself now becomes an exercise of monitoring devices and not desiring-demanding subjects.

Bibliography Bardin, Andrea. 2015. Epistemology and Political Philosophy in Gilbert Simondon: Individuation, Technics, Social Systems. London: Springer. Boever A.D., Murray A., Roffe J. and Woodward A. (eds.) 2012. Gilbert Simondon: Being and Technology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Derrida, Jacques. 1974. Of Grammatology. (trans.) Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. —. 1987. ‘Geshlecht II: Heidegger’s Hand’, in John Sallis (ed.) Deconstruction and Philosophy: The Texts of Jacques Derrida. (trans.) John P. Leavey (pp. 161-196). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Heidegger, Martin. 1967. Being and Time. (trans.) John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. Oxford: Blackwell. —. 1969. ‘The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking’, in David Farrell Krell (ed. and trans.) Heidegger: Basic Writings (pp. 369-392). New York: Harper and Row. —. 1977. The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays. (trans.) William Lovitt. New York: Garland Publishing. Marx, Karl. 1976. Capital. Volume 1. (trans.) Ben Fowkes. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Mills, Simon. 2016. Gilbert Simondon: Information, Technology and Media. Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield International. Plato. 2005. ‘Meno’, in Meno and Other Dialogues. (trans.) Robin Waterfield (pp. 97-143). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Scott, Dominic. 2005. Plato’s Meno. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stiegler, Bernard. 1998. Technics and Time 1: The Fault of Epimetheus. (trans.) Richard Beardsworth and George Collins. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. —. 2009. Technics and Time 2: Disorientation. (trans.) Stephen Barker. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. —. 2010. For a New Critique of Political Economy. (trans.) Daniel Ross. Cambridge: Polity Press. —. 2011. Technics and Time 3: Cinematic Time and the Question of Malaise. (trans.) Stephen Barker. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.

EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Editors Aditi Chandra is assistant professor of art history at the University of California, Merced and is a recipient of the 2019-20 UC President’s Faculty Research Fellowship in the Humanities. Her current work examines how landscaping, site museums, postcards, and the eviction of refugees, produced Delhi’s Islamic architecture into modern, tourist monuments in the 19th & 20th centuries. These processes were questioned by non-elite publics on the margins of society making the modern monument a space with the potential of disrupting state authority. She has published and curated exhibitions of visual material on this subject. Vinita Chandra is an Associate Professor in Ramjas College, Delhi University, India. She has been teaching English Literature since 1986. Her area of specialisation is Postcolonial Theory and Literature. Her research focuses on the battles over construction of identity in post-colonial nations through literature, and the dangers of silencing marginalised voices.

Contributors Dr. Sarvani Gooptu is Professor of Asian Literary and Cultural Studies in Netaji Institute for Asian Studies, Kolkata. Her areas of research are Nationalism and Culture in colonial and post-colonial period. Among her publications are- The Actress in the Public Theatres of Calcutta (Primus Books, New Delhi, 2015) and The Music of Nationhood: Dwijendralal Roy of Bengal (Primus Books, New Delhi, 2018), and a co-edited volume On Modern Indian Sensibilities: Culture, Politics, History, Routledge, London, 2018). She has recently presented papers on Asia as represented in Bengali literary journals, Women’s Travel Narratives, Asian Buddhist pilgrimage in the past and present and Actresses in Bengali theatre in national and international conferences and contributed articles in edited volumes and reputed journals. She is presently working on two books, Knowing Asia: being Asian: cosmopolitan and nationalist ideas in Bengali journals (18601940) and Women’s travel narratives: East and West (including translations of original articles).

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Mithilesh Kumar Jha teaches political science in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, India. He works around the areas of political theory and political thought, Indian politics, especially language, and related issues of state formations in modern India. He is the recipient of Charles Wallace Scholarship, 2012. His most recent publication is Language Politics and Public Sphere in North India: Making of the Maithili Movement (Oxford University Press, 2018). At present, he is working on a project on social and political imaginaries in early twentieth century Mithila. Navras J. Aafreedi is an Assistant Professor of History at Presidency University, Kolkata, where he teaches a course each in Jewish History, Genocide Studies, Interfaith Relations and Minority Studies. He is the author of the monograph Jews, Judaizing Movements and the Traditions of Israelite Descent in South Asia (New Delhi: Pragati Publications, 2016), several papers in peer-reviewed journals, such as Shofar and the Journal of Indo-Judaic Studies, chapters in edited books published by Indiana University Press, Lexington Books, De Gruyter, and Cambridge Scholars Publishing. He has also published numerous articles and essays in quasiacademic publications, such as Asian Jewish Life, Himal Southasian and Café Dissensus, leading newspapers, such as Times of India, Pioneer, Telegraph, and popular media. Other than English, his writings have also appeared in Urdu, German and Spanish. He writes on Indo-Judaic Studies, Interfaith Relations, Antisemitism Studies, Genocide Studies and Jewish Literary History, with focus on South Asia. Vijayta Mahendru is a PhD candidate at the Centre for European Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Currently she is working on her thesis titled “Immigration and Integration of the Sikhs in the United Kingdom”, exploring the immigration experiences of Sikhs and their integration viz-a-viz the evolution of the integration discourse in the UK. She has presented her research in various international conferences including the International Sikh Research Conference at Warwick and the Punjab Research Group Conference at Oxford. Her most recent publication is a chapter on refugee issues in an edited book titled ‘Challenges in Europe: Indian Perspectives’ published by Palgrave Macmillan. She is a recipient of Senior Research Fellowship from the University Grants Commission of India. Her research interests include issues related to migration, diversity, identity, citizenship and refugees.

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Purba Hossain is a PhD Researcher and Postgraduate Tutor in History at the University of Leeds. Her doctoral project focuses on colonial spaces of discussion on indentured labour migrations in mid-nineteenth century Calcutta, and post-slavery labour debates. Her research interests include transnational migration, colonial cities, imperial networks, urban history and colonial archives—interests that emerged partially from participating in two research projects on colonial cemeteries and colonial networks of cultural encounter, and an internship with the West Yorkshire Archives. Sudipto Mitra is a PhD candidate and Crossland Fellow at the Department of History, Royal Holloway College, University of London. He was formerly also an Undergraduate Seminar Tutor there. His doctoral research investigates recruitment patterns of Indian indentured labourers in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, and the function of intermediaries associated with it. He has been elected Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Sharmita Ray is Assistant Professor in the History Department at Hans Raj College, University of Delhi. She has published papers in the Social Scientist and the Indian History in the field of social history of medicine. She has received the award for Best Paper in the Section on Modern India in the Indian History Congress, 76th Session held in 2015, in Malda, India. Her research interest includes gender history in the context of South Asia. Her current research on the health of women in late colonial Bengal relies on interdisciplinary comprehension by bringing together sociological, anthropological and literary perspectives in studying history. Bengal being the key area of her academic research, she is enthusiastic to expand the archive for historical research on gender by creatively corroborating evidential material present in the official archives with publications in medical and women’s journals (and periodicals) published in Bengali in the late colonial period. Tapasya Narang is doing her PhD in Irish and Indian late modernist poetry from Dublin City University. She did her Masters' in English language and literature from Jawaharlal Nehru University after completing her Bachelors' from Ramjas College, University of Delhi. Her work aims to fill the cracks in the existent literary scholarship by looking at texts' paratextuality and correspondence among literary personnel.

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Titas De Sarkar is currently pursuing his PhD from the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago. He has his Bachelor’s, Master’s, and MPhil degrees from the Department of History, Jadavpur University. He was also briefly affiliated with the Center for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. He is interested in the politics of representation of youth cultures across art forms in postcolonial Calcutta. He looks at evolving desires and anxieties with youth from nineteen fifties to nineteen seventies. He explores perceptions on youth from around the world in this particular period and the changes that the construct of ‘youth’ undergoes according to specific contexts. His publications on the ‘Hungry Generation’ poets include articles in Issue 26 of Café Dissensus and in the proceedings volume of Indian History Congress 2016, published in 2017. He has also contributed articles to online platform Youth Ki Awaaz. Vinh Phu Pham is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of Comparative Literature at Cornell University. He received his B.A. and M.A. in Spanish Literature from Florida Atlantic University and is a postcolonial studies scholar whose research is focused primarily on the intersections between Latin America, Europe, and Southeast Asia. More specifically, he is interested in expressions of traumatic time and modernity in Vietnamese Francophone, Philippine Hispanophone, Cuban, and Spanish Peninsular literature from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. His other theoretical interests include: postcolonial theory, broadly speaking, concepts of worlding, cosmopolitanism, relationality, nationalism, and the figure of translation. Among other works, he also authored an article on contemporary Spanish politics titled, “The Dangers of Myth: Lessons from Derrida on Responsibility and the Extreme Right in Spain.” Debaditya Bhattacharya teaches literature at Kazi Nazrul University, West Bengal. His current interests cohere around a ‘historical sociology’ of higher education, with specific attention to Indian policy contexts. His edited anthologies, The Idea of the University: Histories and Contexts and The University Unthought: Notes for a Future, have been published as companion volumes from Routledge. He is co-editor of Sentiment, Politics, Censorship: The State of Hurt (SAGE, 2016).