A
Engaging India - Week 5: Post-Colonialism
1
Get started
Post-Colonialism is a story area that deals with the cultural and economic fallout of colonialism
in India.
2
Hear from the Expert
Post-colonialism is not necessarily opposed to colonialism. The idea was launched only in the
1980s and it is based on what is conceived as the colonialist way, but it is also a reaction to it.
Post-colonialism can be considered a temporal description of what happened after the end of
colonialism, so it will never end as this will never change. Also, in a cultural way, it could be
considered a reaction to and a follow-up on colonialism. Not all of the colonial developments
can be discarded (railway? Cricket? Gin & Tonic?), and revivalism of pre-colonial things is not
always a good development either. A balance has to be found.
Also: India is no longer a “third world country” but has been rebranded as an “emerging
economy”.
It’s a perspective and the experience of colonialism is important to understand the interaction
of the colonial and the colonised. “What is wrong with colonialism?” Do we need to reject
everything? Changing names of places, revivalism, etc. – are they really necessary?
The post-colonial project is also busy dealing with the missing voices in the story of India: the
historical sources are usually limited to the official records – and those mainly deal with the
upper and privileged classes. They do not tell us a lot about the vast majority of the
population, except in marginal cases. There are efforts to include the voices of the subalterns
(the marginalised, originally used to described a lower class in the army), meaning the poor,
peasants, lower castes, to fill in the gaps in the project of India in a post-colonial viewpoint.
It’s about filling in the gaps in modern history. Voices and silences that have not been taken
into account earlier. Critical revisionisms. Not rewriting history, but retelling some of the
narratives that were taken as the ONLY narratives. Adding to the story, giving it more depth.
Subaltern studies is a kind of post-colonial critique.
For a long time, history relied on archives and records, but is now looking for other types of
materials, folk stories, memories, oral narratives.
Why is post-colonialism important part of Indian studies? Since it does not really reject
colonialism, it considers the experience of colonialism in trying to understand why India’s past
and present are intertwined.
Where are the legacies of colonialism important to modern society? English language; Indian
English is a lively thing that has changed in different ways in different parts of India.
Furthermore, we can ask the question what is being done with the legacies of colonialism.
Institutions date back to the Raj. Elections are a legacy, but Indians look differently towards
elections. Sometimes a new way takes over.
“We cannot use the Western idea as the sole measure of things in India.” The understanding
of what elections are varies between the English and the Indian today. This makes the
measure of things unreliable.
“Indian democracy”, “Indian secularism”, “Indian citizen”. These ideas have been taken from
colonialism and been remodelled to Indian understanding. There is no point to dig up things
from before colonialism, especially since this might not be so useful, not much knowledge.
The institutions from the West have acquired a different life in India, creative use to explain
modern India.
Secularism: India = not religious, but “equality of all religions”. The concept has been
Indianised.
Words are not literally translated, but conceptually translated. Where is the limit to
translatability? What about new ideas with new terms that were translated.
Sudharo (Indian civilisation) <> kudharo (Western or modern civilisation). Different Indian
words express similar things but are all translated this to civilisation.
Desh = nation, country, village, etc.
3
Go deeper
Diverse readings.
4
Discuss
a What do these three maps of India, taken from 1700s, 1947 and 2013 suggest to you about
boundaries and representations of space, time and identity?
1700
1947
2013
An interesting choice of maps: the first one (1700) shows the Mughal Empire with a
remarkably uniform colouring, suggesting that this was a unified country, although throughout
the empire there were revolts of a political or ethnical nature (ex: the Marathi revolts), as well
as the continued existence of the constituent kingdoms and regions with their own “heads of
state”.
The second map shows the re-emergence of those political units after the end of colonisation
and at the eve of the separation into India and Pakistan, with Sri Lanka already marked as a
potentially separate country, and Jammu & Kashmir (with an interrupted Pakistani/Indian
border showing the first signs of discord and future altercations appearing on the map).
Hyderabad is also marked as a large area that is marked for potential independence, leading to
an invasion by the Indian army to avoid having a potential enemy in the heart of the new
country.
The third map shows a synthesis of the two previous ones: as mentioned in the readings, the
notion of a nation state was not entirely embraced, but needed to be developed as a reaction
to the existence of nations all around, to stand India’s ground on the international platform.
However, internally, the diverse states, territories and provinces are displayed, marking the
regional nature of culture and political organisation as already present from pre-Mughal times.
What strikes me though, is that much of the southern half of India has very different borders
now than it had at independence (clearly, Hyderabad has been cut into pieces for strategic
reasons, but the surrounding areas?).
In the end, all three maps tell something about the reason to display the subcontinent this way
in terms of the ruler's own understanding of the current situation: while the Mughal Empire
considered itself to rule over all without reservations and needed to purport an image of
control and power, the 1947 map indicates a huge portion of uncertainty and also a certain
amount of tiptoeing to make sure not to wake sleeping tigers anywhere. The 2013 map, tries
to show an image of equality and unity in diversity. All clearly have a political agenda.