LECTUR 02 HBI

 all right before I begin my lecture for today I just want to make a couple of announcements the first is that this

room is actually a little bit small for the number of students who are enrolled

in the class there are more students enrolled than the number of seats

available in the room so I'm going to request all of you that when you come in

try to take up the seats in the front because there will be people who'll be

coming in late and then it's going to disturb everybody if they're going to come you know into the front where there

they can seat so if you if you can just try to be accommodating to everybody and

try to move up front rather than taking up the seats at the back secondly I want

to reinforce the idea that I'd mentioned to you before that the video streaming

is not really meant to be a substitute for coming to class and you'll see why

today because today we're going to engage partly in a kind of a Socratic

exercise where I'm going to ask you some questions and I'm going to you know ask you to respond and we're going to have a

discussion and this sort of thing is not really going to be captured in the video

streaming or on the podcast so you know what you should really be using that for is if you miss a class or if there are

things that you don't understand in class when I'm going a little too fast which is going to happen on occasion

then then what you do is you you go to the audio podcast or the video streaming you know and obviously review it once

again in order to be able to familiarize yourself with the material all right does anybody have any has anybody

encountered any problems with the readings is there anybody who's not able to access the readings for any reason

and if you have any problem you know just ask one of your fellow students or come to me and we'll see if we can

resolve the situation yeah

you should if possible if possible I mean there'll be occasions when you can't do it

I wouldn't fret over it if you can't do it and you know and and generally what will happen is we'll be running behind a

little bit so for example we are behind a little bit right now but that's not at all a problem because the way the syllabus has been structured there are

portions in the middle of the course where we have actually allotted more time than we need for that particular

subject precisely because there'll be occasions when we have fallen behind a little bit but but what you should try

to do is do the reading for the entire week if possible by the Tuesday of that

week okay and that that's where I think it will be most productive for you when you come to class all right there

are seats in the front so just you know don't hesitate just coming and you can see why I said that would be it'll be

best if you know you take up the seats in the front before you take up the seats in the back okay all right so what

I'm going to do today is principally the following and we're going to have a discussion about Orientalism of course

quite a lengthy discussion and I'm going to look at a few passages as well so we're going to discuss it in detail

because this is the foundation for trying to understand what are some of the problems in interpreting the history

of British India in it interpreting in fact any history particularly of the

Orient whatever that term means it's a quaint term today frankly right because

it encompasses obviously if you look at Edwards say it's book Orientalism from which you're reading the first 27 28

pages omni talks about mainly in the Middle East in this book those are the

primary examples although he has in mind as well India and China and other parts

of the world not just the audience so in fact the whole theory of Orientalism as

it's been used and as it's been discussed in fact is used to describe a good deal of the Western discourse about

Africa for example right so you know we don't want to be we don't want to be thinking just about something called the

Orient you know and some of you might be thinking of China or Japan or Southeast Asia or India what

really thinking about is in this case how the West interpreted right other

civilizations that it encountered and in this case what we are interested in is obviously India and and that's where the

second piece by Ronald Indian comes in which I made a little notation on the syllabus that if you don't follow all of

it don't worry about it you know because I am here to try to help you there might be parts of it that are opaque to me in

fact actually but certainly going to try to help you understand exactly what the nature of his arguments are so we're

going to discuss Orientalism and if we have time we will consider the

circumstances under which the British came to India I mean that's and obviously the next lecture will lead

into that and into what you might describe as quote history proper although I'm going to suggest some

caveats about that as well but what I want to begin with is to ask you a question and see what assuming that most

of you know nothing about the history of British India except a bore except the bare bones fact that the British as I

said arrived in India and I mentioned that in my introductory lecture and the early sixteen hundreds right so there

was a charter that was given to the East India Company by Queen Elizabeth and then a number of men decided that they

were going to you know start trading with India so this Charter is to create

a company called the East India Company there it's their stocks in the company obviously and 1601 and thereafter the

first voyages to India will begin right and then and British rule terminates in

1947 terminates at least in a certain sense of the term that is that India

becomes a sovereign country at that point and so that's a period of three hundred and fifty years so my question

to you is this how what what do you suppose is it that made it possible for

the British to rule India so long now there is rule India in the 1600s right

but the actual period of governance you could say is 200 years

right from I mean the official conquest of India is thought to begin in 1757 and

there's going to be gradual expansion and when we speak of the conquest of India by the British in 1757 we're not

saying that the British were able to attain hegemony over all of India this

is the conquest of Bengal in 1757 and then gradually over the course of the

next 100 years the British are going to slowly be able to consolidate the rule

over the rest of India and we could say that in fact by the early 1800s British

dominion over India is fully established that significant chunks of the country

have fallen under their rule and we can speak of an entity called British India at that point in time so

even if we take 1757 that's still 200 years right

how do you suppose that the British were able to govern India for 200 years I mean let's look at a very contemporary

example I'm right and we're not saying that this is a perfect analogy by no stretch of the imagination am i offering

it as a perfect analogy but let's say if you look at and we're all saying that

the Americans have gone to Afghanistan to conquer Afghanistan or that they

waged a war in Iraq to conquer Iraq you

know the the argument might be that well we we went to Iraq in order to overthrow a dictator because there's a

humanitarian responsibility that we have as a world power to ensure that that

people are not oppressed by their own rulers right that's that's the argument

that is given so we've gone there to not only overthrow the dictator but to do

what to lay the seeds for democracy I mean you would agree right that was the

argument I'm not saying whether it has any resemblance to reality at all let's let's not worry about that at the moment

that is the argument furnished by the American administration right and you

could say that in some ways it's tantamount to conquest but you go there

too establish the seeds of democracy well how long are you going to stay there right I mean so if you look at the

British arguments for being in India my question to you and I really want you to

engage it don't worry if you think you don't have the right answer but just make a stab at it what is it that made

it possible for the British to stay on in India for 200 years I mean imagine how difficult it is for

the Americans to stay on in Afghanistan for a decade a decade now we're talking

about 200 years yes they got they insta giving their consent how did they okay but but that begs the

question why did the Indians give their consent because they created a they created a created and knowledge or a so

called common knowledge and then like it was expanded within the academia and writers and artists and and then like

within their like it's like people accepted it they internalized they

internalized like FEMA was like as I said I remember saying backwards

yeah so I think it won't generalize it and then I grant you sense of concern like it was like subtle okay so Indians

largely accepted the view that the British had put forward that they are a backward people in need of Christian

civilization yes you think you think that you think that the bulk of Indians actually accepted

that you I mean that apart from the educated elite such as they might have

been do you think that do you think that most of the people in this vast terrain

actually accepted the view that well you know the British are claiming to bring a

superior civilization to us and we accept that and so they will accept British rule okay so all right yeah

but that the British continued a lot of policies started by people like the

Mughals where they didn't change necessarily didn't try to convert people

or change their religion but sort of let them stay as they were as long as they followed certain guidelines of the

British Empire okay but wouldn't that suggest to you let's let's take your argument really seriously and push it a

bit you're saying that in India at least people really didn't care who they were

governed by so long as the new set of rulers who replace the Mughals in this

case the British so long as they more or less guaranteed some kind of semblance

of law and order so so long as most Indians thought that what we can continue to do what we have always done

it really doesn't matter who rules us right now would you say that that is

quite characteristic of people all over the world I mean doesn't it let's supposing that tomorrow the Indians came

into the u.s. in droves okay over a period of two decades and and gradually

what you find is that all the top layers of administration are taken over by Indians would you say that most

Americans would say that well frankly we don't really care who we are governed by any longer right so long as I can

continue to go to Burger King or so long as I can continue to be a stockbroker at Wall Street frankly I don't really care

who governs me would you say that most Americans would be amenable or agreeable

to that idea I don't think so I don't think so yes yeah

manipulation over the resources I think I have a vague idea what you mean but I

would like you to elaborate on that if you can you mean natural resources cultural resources that because remember

what the question is the question is that India was under colonial rule for

at least 200 years that's we're taking 1757 as a formal date it's very clear

that there parts of India where the British have established their Dominion even before that but let's take that

date 200 years oh right so the question is so you're saying that that the reason

why the British were able to stay on so long as they were able to manipulate the resources right but then of course that

again begs the question why were they able to manipulate the resources I mean would would most countries in the North

in the industrialized North today that we call it would they be agreed or acceptable to having people coming from

elsewhere manipulating their resources no so then is there some intrinsic difference right and I'll get to all of

you in just a moment yeah is there some intrinsic difference then between the

character of the Americans and the character of the Indians does it come down to that for example right some and

some people may well argue I mean and that is partly what orange wisdom is going to be about that is in there are

intrinsic differences between the civilization or what we might call the

West very broadly I'm saying the West rather than Europe because now I'm

obviously including you know offshoots of European civilization including the United States Canada Australia so forth

and so on right that there's some intrinsic difference now if there is then we've got a problem because then

we're because then we'll have to contend with a different Enlightenment idea that

is vastly prevalent in Europe namely that human nature and human knowledge is

unitary that that fundamentally they're human beings share certain

characteristics that we cannot say that the proclivity for truth

is greater in this civilization than in others that Americans or French appreciate beauty more than do the

Indians and the Chinese and the Africans and so forth and so on right that's when

we get to these so-called essential differences because it was a cardinal

aspect of European thought to argue for example that the Indian gives no

credence to the idea of truth the Indians always lie I will give you a very dramatic illustration of a case and

then I'll get to the rest of you because I want to finish my train of thought here in the late 18-hundreds I wrote a

very long article on it so you can find it on Manus in the late 18-hundreds 1890s and so on there are two court

cases that come up in British India I'm not going to tell you the cases at any

length what I want to do is just give you the bare facts the bare facts are in

both of these cases a father is convicted on the basis of testimony

given by the father's own minor child in one case a son who's six years old

in another case a daughter who's seven years old imagine that you are convicted

okay of murder on the basis of testimony given by your own child who's six years

old and seven years old now in England this could never happen why could it not happen because the testimony of a six

year old would not count it would not be considered acceptable one of the reasons

it would not be considered acceptable is because you can tutor a child you know if you say something to a child who's

that young often enough they'll get to believe it okay that the children can be

easily manipulated because the faculty or reason is not fully developed so in

England you could not convict a person okay on the basis of a testimony given

by a six year old or a seven year old in India you could why and when we say India we are talking about British India

at this time why could you do that in India you could do that in India because the British theory was in India

adults always lie only children do not lie because children are innocent

children are innocent that's a very bizarre we're thinking about the world

so this relies upon this whole romantic theory that you find in Wordsworth and

poets like that that the soul of a child is really innocent you know and we all tend to think of children as pure

uncontaminated right innocent etc etc so the argument here is that okay the

problem in India is that you get a witness to come into court almost every witness will lie because if

they would have been bribed or they'd have been manipulated or they'd have been coerced or they've been threatened the Indian simply does not have a

disposition towards telling the truth because this particular disposition is a

more characteristic feature of the West where such virtues have been more highly

developed according to this strand of thought so in India ironically only a child can be relied upon to give

accurate testimony that's it's extraordinary if you think about it and

if you have a criminal justice system based on a concept like this it's I would say absolutely extraordinary all

right so when the question now is what is it that you think knowing assuming

that you know very little about the history of British India and we might not really know the answer because this

might be one question where we might say that well they've been historians who've been tackling this for thirty years and can't really figure out exactly what is

it that permitted the British to be able to rule India for so long you know okay yeah

so it's the British are there obviously they'll probably need the Indian people

for manpower so I'm thinking that they would probably threaten them and maybe

manipulation I feel like that's going a little too far because people can obviously for themselves yes good to

know that they were but the number of

British was in India was good now now

that this the you know look this is not you see this is not quite I mean let me

use the cliche this is not quite the Wild West of America okay I mean it's

not as though you've got machine guns against the arrows bows and arrows of

okay Native Americans all right you know if you read John Ellis fantastic book he

wrote I'm going to drop these by the way these recommendations you know and if you're ever interested you take them up

many of them will have nothing to do with India I mean you wrote this book it's called the social history of the machine gun okay what happened when the machine gun

Wright comes into place so if you look at these battles that were fought so-called battles that were fought in

Africa okay between between colonial armies and Zulu

warriors let's say you know for every 1000 Zulus that were killed

one British er would be killed you position the machine gun on top of a hill right and these guys are Spears and

you just completely mow them down because what's happened is that there's a disproportionate advantage right that

one side has that was never the case in India it was never the case in it I mean they might have been some differences in military technology in

fact it is widely understood that the military technology that some Indians had some Indian rulers had was superior

to the military technology that very often that the British had and and your if when we look when we go into the 18th

century into the second half of the 18th century you're looking at rulers such as Tipu Sultan we're going to find that his

armies are actually be trained by the French right they're French military advisers that he has and fairly fairly

quote scientific and modern ok right so I'm not I'm not so sure about that yes

yeah people have to see some kind of

mutual beneficial things ok especially since the first thing that they establish yeah I think it started more

as an economic relationship they probably saw it works in the eyes and over time you're going to be exerting more soft power

yeah yeah I was waiting for someone to

use a face soft power right but that because that's one of the ways in which is very often described of course we're

going to have to now figure out what was the nature of that so-called soft power that the colonial state exercised in a

place like India so when you say that well some people have to see it at least some people in India had to see this as

mutually beneficial right I think that there's some merit to that certainly we

can use a more dirty word if you like collaborationists that no such rule can

survive without there being a large number of collaborationists right that would be another way to look at it right

but let's try to see if we can give a bit more of an ideological argument in

other words let me let me prompt prompt you all for example if you look at the

case of the Americans what are some of the largest what are two or three of the

most prominent justifications that have been given right for the war on

Afghanistan what would you say can you think of can

you think of something that immediately comes to mind right there isn't yeah

American American national interest national

interest right yeah but that's is there

some let me rephrase your question is there some particular shortcoming in

those societies which is always mentioned as a justification for the

Americans being present in Afghanistan yes sorry

religious conflict between whom now if you're going to give if if you say

religious conflict who was a who's a religious conflict the Americans are not saying by the way that they went into Afghanistan because there is real

religious conflict in Afghanistan and they're going to try to sort out that mess no that's not really I mean because

if you say religious conflict then it would mean it's a predominantly Muslim Muslim country right so it would be

conflict between different ethnic groups for example you know the patterns versus

the other groups let's say or the Shias versus the Sunnis but know this some

other story somebody who's yes honey yeah democracy and freedom yeah okay so

but that's you know let's get concrete I mean democracy and freedom every place the Americans go

they say they want to bring democracy and freedom organized systems of governing yeah organized you have to

spell it out because that's the same as democracy essentially if I if you know what I mean that they're going to bring

certain kinds of democratic institutions you know to a people who do not have

these systems of governance right I want to ask some people who haven't raised

their hands yet yes

yeah go in there right but but that's a

variation of the democracy freedom liberty you know these abstractions are always

so it's not very nice yes in relations

to they want to go in there to make sure that we feel safe make sure that they

still stand you know in power and not

okay yes right right but but what I the

question is this okay let's go back think about what I'm trying to say this is what I mean by the

Socratic exercise we're just going to continue this until you understand exactly what it is that we are searching

for the question that we began with was what is it that enabled the British to

rule India for 200 years or more all right and so I said all right now by

way of let's take a modern-day example because you know a bit more about that than you do about British India right

what are the justifications furnished by the Americans for the war on Afghanistan

so forget about 9/11 yes that's always there we know that okay 9/11 you know the Taliban were there we want to root

them out smoke them out whatever your favorite metaphor is okay what for those

of you or development majors you do Global Studies there is something called the UNDP United Nations Development

Programme and they bring out a human index right how you rank countries which

is the most developed country in the world which is the second third and then you go all the way down what is it about

Afghanistan Society that the Americans say they found repellent and we're going

to do something about it yes yes but you see again that's too broad I

mean from the American standpoint standpoint there are lots of places that are uncivilized you know frankly yes ah

with women's rights that's what I wanted to hear you know if you look at American

reports they'll tell you that one of the biggest justifications for going into Afghanistan is the fact that the fact

that have gone in Afghanistan women have no rights you remember the case of that

you know the young woman who's become a world hero now right because she was

shot in the head and she survived that attack right which is only a few months

ago exactly Yeah right why does this story become such a big story because

the idea here is that hey you know in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan women are not treated properly this is a

very old colonial argument what I'm trying to suggest you is the following

that if you look at British rule in India and this is the case with what the

Americans are doing in Afghanistan if you look at British rule in India it's very clear that by the early 19th

century the British had come around to the view that one of the best justifications they could offer to

themselves and to the Indians for why they were necessary why it was necessary

for them to be in India one of the best justifications was that we will in fact

help to improve the condition of women now you might say well why is that so

important isn't it self and somebody might say well it's it's self explanatory why it's important after all they constitute 50% of the race well in

fact it's not suffix self-evident because clearly in all cultures and

civilizations they've been a huge number of people not just women who been oppressed include for example

african-american men right let's assume that that women have been put down and

all societies but there's really other constituencies as well which have been

put down either on grounds of their religion or their ethnicity right or

their beliefs so the argument that is going to develop and we're going to

revisit this argument later on the argument that's going to develop in the early nineteenth century is the

following that essentially we develop an evaluative scale where we place one

civilization in relation to another and we judge them so for example one of the

ways in which you which you evaluate civilizations or nation-states today rather is you say and that's what the

UNDP report does what is the percentage of literacy in a country what is the

number of doctors per hundred thousand people what is the number of hospital

beds four hundred thousand people what percentage of the population has access to drinking water potable drinking water

what percentage of that of the population has access to electricity etc

etc one of the largest indices of this kind is what are the rights available to

women in the 19th century in early 19th century British India this is going to become a critical argument because and

this is the philosophical ideological component of the argument you judge a civilisation and judge how advanced it

is according to how it treats its women okay so this is one reason why for

example if you look at State Department reports official reports on Afghanistan

the argument will always be furnished that one of the principal reasons why we

as Americans had to move into Afghanistan is that we have to liberate

their women and remember what's happening you're liberating brown women

from brown men and you need white men to do that that's what I want you to

remember you're liberating Brown women from the clutches of brown men and the

way you do it is you bring white men into the this is exactly what's happening in

Afghanistan today in many ways mirrors the kind of arguments that you're going

to find in early 19th century India now I'm not going to be able to take any more answers for the moment because I

want to just continue with my train of thought here right so we started with that because this is one way to get into

the subject of Orientalism so one of the many justifications given for example

for British rule in India was I nobody really mentioned this in those terms is

that they were going to bring law and order to a country where there was

energy that's their view okay they're going to bring law and order in fact

Henry Sumner Maine who is the a member of the Council of the Viceroy in the

1860s is what's called the law member so the law member means the equivalent of the Secretary of State for law let's say

today okay if there was such a position right the law member Henry Sumner Maine

in the 1860s a said India is a country that is benefit ie

empty of law there's no law in India it's just sheer chaos and one reason why

we're here is to bring law and order because people everywhere appreciate law

and order because those are the conditions under which you can raise a family do your job right create a civil

society and of course then you have to ask well how did India survive for four thousand years if there was no law in

order what what was the nature of that society I mean after all there's been a civilization there for for Bill enniaa

before the British actually came along and so what was the nature of that

argument that we are going to furnish law and order to India right and this

question the answer that was mentioned here at the outset the idea of consent is important what we have to understand

is how were the British able to gain the consent of Indians right this is going

to be an endeavor that we're going to be interested in for a period of time now let me form with those remarks move into the

question of Orientalism as Edward Saders described it so what is Orientalism yes

yeah you're right but you have you have

you've gone way ahead way ahead because that's the difference between what we might describe as the positivist

conception versus the Romantic conception of Orientalism but that that's where head first let's think what

exactly is Orientalism yes without

actually going to the east so do you think going to the East makes a difference I mean does that make you better equipped to study a place necessarily

before is that pretty much like a bunch of artists basically how the women

looked how the men looked what the religion was like the architecture everything as she was saying it's just a

romantic yes okay but does the does she

do you think that Western civilization has a monopoly on that I mean don't people elsewhere in the world I mean for

example I won't give you concrete examples but I know in my conversations

with middle-class Indians over the last 40 years if my memory goes back to at least 40

years about this sort of thing that Indians have all kinds of conceptions about African Americans for example

right and they have certain conceptions about the Chinese and the Chinese are

certain views about Indians right so what's the exact nature of something

called Orientalism okay

okay so it's a discourse created by people who have power right all right so

let me I accept what you're saying we want to see we can sharpen it a bit okay

we want to see if we can sharpen it a bit so would you agree with me that historically in most societies in the

world men have exercised power over women would you agree with me you would

right so then would you say that most men's narratives about women are all

quote orient lists and I'm just going by the definition that you sort of mentioned right that that that

Orientalism is a discourse of power so and incidentally in a certain way we

just try to sharpen it in a certain way I have power over you right I mean there's a hierarchical

relationship between students and faculty now they may be limits to that hierarchical relationship but there is

it's a hierarchical relationship right so clearly we would not use a word or a

list however to describe my relationship to you all now I think you would agree

even though it's a relationship of power to some degree to some degree all right so that's what I mean let's sharpen it a

bit okay and I want to also bring into play a word that was used representation

representation right how would you bring it further into play right somebody else

had their hand up they wanted to yes

yeah

okay it has less to do with the orient itself than with how the West perceives

it so good I agree here's the question that follows that and that question is is there a real

Orient other than the Orient that is described in these texts I mean if you think that

that's what Syed is saying that look these texts and what are these texts look it could be any number of things it

could be grammars dictionaries Travel narratives you know a British Council

officer in in Cairo in 1800 writing a report back saying hey I think Egyptians

are you know lazy deceitful Islam is a fanatical religion blah blah blah right

that's that's what he's writing in 1800 right and you could say that that's the an example of an Orientalist

text okay but it could be a travel narrative it could be fiction it could

be fiction you know the way you draw up your character essentially you make the characters stand for certain things

films today all of that so so clearly the range that he is talking about it

would say he is is vast right and and all of these things together create a

certain kind of discourse they create a certain kind of discourse right now in

order to sharpen this we have to ask a number of questions the first question is what do we mean when we say

representation who represents whom yes

okay we can capture their essence and can you explain a bit more what you

understand by essence I agree with you but I want to know what what that means

okay

okay so would you then agree with the proposition that oriental is discourse

tells you perhaps something or nothing even about the Orient but it tells you

something definitely about the persons who created that discourse yeah yeah it

might not have to be a bully at all I mean this is where soft power comes in we'll have to we'll have to be very

careful with that because and that's why you know in my in my first class I just gave you that brute fact that they would

never more than a hundred thousand brittish's in India okay and sure they're backed up by an

army and so forth and so on but the army by the way is staffed almost by Indians I mean except for the the officers who

were British errs and of course they made sure that they artillery was never in the hands of Indians because that's fatal you know you don't want artillery

in the hands of Indians I mean you know you'll get shelled to extinction conceivably right so but it what's very

clear is that clearly you know the notion of the bully for example here is

not really critical right for understanding what what it is that we're talking about when we speak of something called you know Orientalism right there

was a hand at the back yeah yeah okay I agree with that that

essentially the East is being represented by the West and some of

these representations may not be you know accurate and so on right but let me tell you what the difficulty is if you

put it in that fashion the difficulty if you put it in that fashion is that the West will argue that

an intrinsic part of Western intellectual history is what is called

the self-correcting tendency namely that yes we admit that what we thought about

the Indians or the Afghans is incorrect but will may commence now we write a

better history okay now we'll be more attentive to the facts and we look up

our sources we'll check our sources will produce a better history now I don't think that by the way that that is what

that or that that would satisfy Edwards say that certainly won't satisfy me that this is not going to resolve the problem

of voyeurism right if that's not going to resolve the problem of volunteerism because that's simply an empiricist way

of saying that look we all try to understand the other in a very casual

sense you could say that very casual sense it's not it's not going to help us but let's begin with a very casual

colloquial sense Orientalism is a way of understanding the other right proposition number one

it's a way of understanding the other or it purports to be a way rather of understanding the other right it's not a

way it doesn't purport to be a way of understanding oneself it purports to be way of understanding the other although

in fact it may be the only way in which the West understood itself was it had to

create a radical difference between itself and something called the other

okay let me just finish to the train of thought okay that in

fact Orientalism may have absolutely no

relationship to something called the Orient we have no relationship at all and Ronald Reardon in his piece which is

an elaboration with specific reference to India okay of what Edwards say either saying

he is very clear when he argues that this knowledge construct that he is

giving you is not meant to suggest that there are actual facts about India that

are going to be therefore revealed it's not as though that once you knew what Orientalism was about then you couldn't

come to the conclusion that well now we are in a position to understand something called the real India now that

is not Orientalism is not designed to make you understand there the critique of Orientalism is not designed to make

you understand the real india as such what Edward Sayid is doing alright so

now I want to go through it systematically I'm going to look at a couple of passages as well and I'm going to suggest a few different ways in which

you can tackle this whole question of Orientalism Orientalism very broadly is about the politics of representation

okay who represents whom with what authority with what right and with what

consequences and who speaks for who substitute that word for representation

this is epitaph which appears in the beginning of Orientalism from Marx okay

from the eighteenth Brumaire of Bonaparte a they cannot represent themselves they must be represented

right that is a whoever that day here is in this case Indians now for for our

purposes they cannot speak for themselves we are going to speak for them and let me let me transfer it

translate that into a much more colloquial expression in English the Orient we are telling the Indians we

know you better that you know yourself we know you better and and that is one

reason why you must accept Orientalist heads be we understand and know you better than you know yourself okay so Orientalism is

not simply here in this case an entire apparatus okay for making the Orient

understandable to the West it may be that if you want to put it that way

it's actually an entire intellectual apparatus from making the Orient

understandable to the Orient itself to the Orientals themselves right that's so

that's the first proposition that we're looking at and and Edwards I eat says on page page two okay here he gives a

definition or in tourism is a style of thought based upon an ontological and

epistemological distinction made between the Orient and most of the time something called the Occident right

because obviously it assumes that there is a difference between the East and the West the Orient is a is the Occident is

the west all right however he is also very clear that we

cannot simply say that what we are going to do when we have an understanding or

oralism is come to a wareness of the real orient that's not the interest that either Sayid has or Indian has or

anybody else who has been looking at this particular theory page one nine six the Orient was almost a European

invention that should make it very clear it's not that we're interested in

something called the real Orient here okay the problem therefore is that when

you are reading these British texts written about India it's not the case

that it necessarily telling you anything about India at all what they are telling you about is the intellectual Ballou of

the people who wrote those texts what intellectual milieu they came from what

was their intellectual background what were their epistemological assumptions about another society that's what it's

really telling you okay now let's look at some of the nitty-gritty problems that you come up with and

I'll give you a full-fledged account getting into such things as discuss information and tropes and so forth okay

if you look at say each text okay it's

very clear that Orientalism is an entire intellectual apparatus that comes into

shape in the 18th century and why the 18th century that's a period of the Enlightenment of course right it's also

the period of colonialism this is full-blown colonialism now and he's looking incidentally here at

largely at the British and the French I mean you know that of course by the 18th century the Portuguese have now become a

minor power the Spanish obviously are not as great a power as it used to be there are other players as well they're

the Dutch they're the Belgians Germany is not unified at this point in time so the Germans can't get into it of course

the minute German unification is achieved the Germans will get into it and grab whatever little remains in the

world is not very much that remains at that point in time for example German Southwest Africa so so what he's talking

about is is in essence that there's no real difference between these colonial powers and I and and I would really

caution you about playing this game which many scholars play where they say ah let's make a distinction between the

good colonialism the bad colonialists no there's really no such distinction I mean they're different styles of

governance they're different theories with which the British and the French and the Dutch governed their subjects

but colonialism is colonialism we have to be very clear about that right and if

somebody says that well you know he doesn't really use enough examples from Spain from Spanish colonialism and

Portuguese and Dutch that's really immaterial because what he is looking at

are essentially the British and the French who undoubtedly by the second

half of the 18th century are the two major colonial powers all right and

certainly going into the 19th century unquestionably so all right so I just want to clear that all right now here

are some other complications that you need to understand first if you get a question on your exam what is

Orientalism and you you write or even ISM is a set of prejudices No that's not sufficient because we all

have prejudices most of us won't admit to them but we all have prejudices about

the other right even the most enlightened person has tacit prejudices

about the other so it's not simply a set of prejudices number one number two not

all prejudices are equally harmful that might seem strange we are putting it let

me explain what I mean white people have prejudices about black people and black

people have prejudices about white people if somebody told me that black people don't have any praise it is about white people I wouldn't be able to agree

with that I think they do there's no question about it however the two are not equivalent and the reason they're

not equivalent is because the prejudices of white people have an institutional

backing they have a consequence for

people who are not white the prejudices

of black people may not have the same consequences and partly they don't have

so black people you know let's take a look Leo white white men can't play basketball they can't jump you know

whatever right something like that I mean they're even films that have been made with you know suggestive titles of

that kind as you know right now you could say the dance of prejudice right but frankly in the long run it does not

pack a punch that is that if if in the

18th century white people have prejudices about Indians they're lazy they're deceitful they're effeminate

there are no real men in that society you know etc etc etc right I give you a

whole list we'll be here until midnight okay but those prejudices have

consequences now if white if ever Hindu things are this English man he never takes a bath

for a week he stinks because you know it was not common taking a bath by the way in Europe I hope you know that I mean

the English learn to take a daily bath after the - India frankly okay and that's one

reason why they invented perfumes in Europe you know you just put a little bit perfume here and there and you just hope it this guy's disguises all the bad

Smiths you know it was not at all common in Europe for people to take a bath more

than once a week you know whereas in India the the habit of taking a daily bath has been there for as long as you

can remember I mean in fact British takes themselves talk about it so you know I use whatever prejudice and say I

you know these people they just stink to high heaven you know that's a prejudice now okay but what effect does it have

because who is governing whom who is governing home right so therefore when

you say ah in Orientalism is really a fury about the prejudices that a group of people have about another group of

people know that is simply not sufficient it is much more than that okay Oh number one number two there have

always been people who have had what we might provisionally call orientalist

views about the other for example if you're a student of literature and you've ever read Dante one of the great

figures in Western literature okay so you read the infernal The Divine Comedy

and there are three parts to it right okay you know where the Prophet of Islam is consigned to in has anybody here read

Dante no okay the Prophet of Islam Muhammad is relegated to the lowest ring

of Hell in Dante so somebody could say

ah well Dante was extremely prejudicial about Mohammed and about Islam in

general no surprise here frankly I mean who wasn't it you know that that would

be one way to look at it that it's a problem when you look at European intellectual thought it's seriously

contaminated by racism across the board frankly okay but that's

not exactly what we're talking about it's not a matter of well Herodotus and maybe some

read Herodotus you know right so Herodotus writes an account dates back

to two thousand five hundred years and how he describes people in Asia who are

half-human half-animal I'm putting it to you in a nutshell you know okay

people with the weirdest possible countenance and looks that you can imagine you know okay and so you could

say so would we be entitled to say therefore that Herodotus was an Orientalist and that Dante was an Orientalist no we

would not because that's where prejudice comes in that they are going to be innumerable examples of these kinds of

prejudices what Sayid is saying is something very different what he's saying is that in the 18th century and

that is the heyday of colonialism that's what you have to bear in mind in the

18th century a particular relationship developed between power and knowledge

there is always been a relationship between power and knowledge in the 18th century a very particular relationship

developed between power and knowledge okay and it developed under the

conditions of colonialism where an entire intellectual apparatus was

created for representing the other an

entire intellectual apparatus and and academic disciplines organizations

entire societies were complicit in this enterprise okay so this is a systemic

way it's not a matter of an individual here or there Dante here or they're having a prejudicial view about Islam or

the profit or Herodotus thinking or people in India really funny you know because they look like this or that now

that's not what we're talking about what we're saying is that in the 18th century Orientalism essentially comes into being

in the 18th century Orientalism becomes a systematic way of

representing the other and you cannot escape that any longer this systematic

institutional apparatus is all encompassing ok so that a certain interpretation

acquires a certain kind of epistemic value okay what Foucault and this is

where his name comes in what Foucault would call in episteme that a certain way of thinking okay now is not simply a

matter of a prejudicial view here or there it becomes an entire epistemic

this into a different language for you and give you some examples okay I'll give you two very different kinds of

examples because these are different ways for you to understand what are the real substantive intellectual issues

involved here because once you've got this cornered essentially you'll be able to figure out

what are some of the problems in these texts that you're reading okay so the two different illustrations are of the

following kind and one has nothing to do with India all right there's a French

writer his name is Roland birth and he writes a book it's a fabulous book I

mean it's fabulous because it's intellectually engaging I don't agree with much of what he says that's a

different matter at the book is called Empire of signs okay Empire of signs now

this book has anybody here read the book no okay so this book is about Japan it's

a book about Japan so it's got like 15 20 short chapters what are the chapters called okay so chapters are going to be

called samurai kabuki okay I hope you

can see where I'm going with this now right I mean if you were writing the book today he would have also probably

had a chapter called Toyota or Nintendo okay right let's supposing you had to

capture the essence of Japan somebody had used the word essence in a correction okay

let's suppose it you had to capture the essence of Japan and I said to you how would you capture the essence of Japan

you know what are the things that immediately come to mind when I say the word Japan you know okay

so instinctively you think ah ramen sushi

think about it right I mean what's going to come to mind is not democracy or literature no of course not I mean not

that they don't have democracy or literature but if I said to you what instantly comes to mind when I say Japan

you say sushi ramen Toyota Honda Sony okay cup if you do a little bit more

about Japan you might say a kabuki okay right or no no is you know one form of

Japanese performance heart okay right right so on and so on and if I said to

you okay what instantly comes to mind instantly comes to mind when I say India

mentioned five things to me I'm sorry Hinduism curry curry okay and what else

Taj Mahal I was waiting for that one Taj Mahal absolutely right Taj Mahal you

know if you're in the dies for samosa perhaps you know everywhere you go there's a samosa there curry okay of

course in the 1930s 1940s the Hindu fakir for example some people would say Gandhi

for example Brandi might instantly come to mind right now what are we doing here

what we are saying is this there is often a tendency to capture an entire

civilization through its essences and

this becomes for Roland but it's an empire of signs you know you have to go

somewhere I mean before iPhone and all of this right I mean what would you do you'd

follow the signs if 30 years ago you're on the road you have to go from here to Fargo North Dakota don't ever go there

but if you had to go to Fargo North Dakota okay what would you do you'd follow the signs you know take take the

101 405 this or that you know then do this do that etc etc that's what signs are why does he call it an empire of

science that through these signs so to speak it's it's I'm creating a entire

world view about that civilization okay and of course it's full of

hazards full of hazards you know I mean if you try to capture all of Japan

through sushi and ramen and Sony and Nintendo you know this and that and similarly if you try to capture all of

India through the Taj Mahal and the samosa and Bollywood right I mean if we

spend another man I'm sure Bollywood have come out immediately you know right right so over this one that that would

be the Empire of science through which you would create an entire worldview about India and so that's of course a

certain form of reductionism so one of the ways in which you can understand the critique of realism is that it is a

critique of highly reductionist accounts of Indian society now this is where the

second example comes in because now we are on India when I say a highly reductionist account of Indian society

what do I mean by that okay this is where you come into the idea of a discursive formation Foucault is going

to argue that that a certain dominant

discourse creates a discursive formation okay it's it's it's to be found in a

book of his argument I mean a scattered across his writings but if you were interested you could look at a book called the archeology of knowledge okay

the archeology of knowledge the first 50 pages will give you a pretty good idea what's what is really talking about but

you don't really need to know that because I'm the way I'm going to explain to you that will be sufficient for your purposes at least for this class that a

dominant discourse creates a certain kind of discursive formation that is

that there are there are certain elements to this discourse okay which

give it coherence internal coherence it may not give it the coherence that its

creators think they are giving it when they think that it might give us a full

view of the world in this case of India or the Orient or Africa or whatever the case might be but from their point of

view it has a certain kind of internal consistency this discursive formation

they're sort of elements to this discursive formation now what were

some not all what were some of the elements of the discursive formation

that came about as a consequence of British writings on India yes yeah Widow

emulation yeah yeah absolutely you

mentioned two which are critical caste okay they you know if you want to

explain the nature of Indian society there's something called caste right and and if you know something about caste

according to this view you're going to get a grip on Indian society okay and

the second element that she mentioned there many others we're going to look at this four or five very briefly the second element she mentioned is

unchanging India timeless India by the way constantly replicated even today you

know this idea of the mystical India which you find on television all the time frankly okay you know in India

where things have it things have always been going on forever you can't really even put dates to things you know

institutions practices or certain kinds certain rituals they've been there since

time immemorial India doesn't fundamentally change now you might say what's a concrete illustration of that

take a third trope and see its relationship to the second one third trope oriental despotisms what is

oriental despotism okay before we can answer that I have to ask you what is

despotism anybody want to take a stab at it what is despotism anything that comes

to mind how would you define it yes a dictatorship okay it's a dictatorship so

when Marx wrote about the dictatorship of the proletariat number in communist

manifesto he talks about what are the ends we want a dictatorship of the proletariat did he was

did he have in my despotism no I mean I think I think co-localize

a kind of a loose synonym I want a little bit more precise definition when

you say dictatorship yes but the word dictatorship can be used in many

different registers monarchy so Britain is a monarchy today is it a despotism it

is in Britain a monarchy it is Britain is a monarchy Sweden is a monarchy by

the way even today these countries are all monarchies actually you know there might be constitutional monarchies right

as opposed to the older kinds of monarchies that we might be thinking of you know some of these some of these

monarchs for life and you know ivory coast you know somebody appoints himself you know I'm Emperor forever you know

right I mean I think that that's what you really have in mind actually probably when you speak of monarchy or

or dictatorship I want a actually a precise kind of a

definition what does despotism mean as a form of government it's it's a form of government I mean you might not like

that form of government but it's a form of government right so yes okay yeah

that's critical right that because despotism comes from the word despot

who's a test but somebody who exercises supreme uncontradicted unchecked power

right in a despotism the life and property of no one is secure because all

life and property are hostage to the

desperate that's what despotism is now the British were convinced that India before they

came there was an oriental despotisms okay or into a despotism so what does

that mean let's let's draw a pyramid here nature structure of Indian society okay so for one thing you have castes

you have castes right and I can't as is a system actually it's not really

a system of stratification as such or the colloquially you can speak of it as

a system of stratification one thing that is very clear is in castes you

don't move up and down according to the British view right there is no mobility it's fixed you're born into a caste

that's your caste for life right that's your caste for life so this is how you

would distinguish caste from class because you may be born a popper but you

may die a prince so to speak or you may be born a prince and you may die a popper I'm using the phrase you know the

phrase from Mark Twain's favorite famous story The Prince and the pauper right but it's a rags to riches so you may you

know today you may be really wealthy and then a stock market crash 2008 and suddenly you know the person who's got

ten million dollars finds that well it's all worth nothing right and they've got to sell their BMWs and Jaguars or

whatever it is okay so now they become lower-class that's mobility it's not always upward

mobility it could be downward mobility too right caste there is no mobility in this view and I'm not giving you my assessment of

what caste is or is not is telling you what this view is okay so you've got these you've got a caste system in India

and this is what according to the Orientalist view makes India distinct

right because that forms the basis of that society the basis of that society

now the pyramid that we are talking about we're not interested in the whole

pyramid we're interested in the oriental despot that's the OD okay the oriental

desperate who sits at the top according to one dominant view of the nature of

history in India in fact let me put it be very dramatically according to some British commentators India had no

history India had no history actually what does that mean what it means is

partly that when history happens so to speak this change isn't there right I

mean you know this phrase that is used in America all the time is you so often you would think that you know we had

nothing except tree here history in the making you know Shaq O'Neal score 60 points that's

history you know that becomes history everything becomes history you know the most trivial thing becomes history okay

that's a different problem you know right but what that means is change

their things influx things are in process according to some British

commentators there is no history in India at all why is there no history in India because

all that happens is that the guy at the top the oriental desperate he enjoys

life as long as he can before somebody else comes you Serbs his power and becomes an egg story until desperate

change takes place at this apex over here the rest of Indian society the

masses the toiling peasants they are going to go on with their life just as

they have it really makes not the slightest difference who is at the top

to them that may be one reason why British who were able to survive British

rule was able to survive in India so long according to this view that frankly so long as most people said well you

know I'm a peasant I've got a pretty tough life ten hours I'm toiling on in

the hot Sun what do I really care whether the person who's ruling over me

is white skinned or brown skinned what do I really care you could say that that was you know I mean and and the British

are going to say that that is indeed the case frankly they don't care now I think if we need much more complex narratives

for understanding what is it that made it possible for the British rule in there for so long but we're taping that

aside for the second because I'm on the subject of what I call the discursive formation and we said let's look at this

discursive formation okay what are these dominant ideas which become essences by means of which all of

India is going to be made comprehensible understandable to the British right okay

and so we gave three elements of that cast the caste system unchanging India things never really

change in India yeah rulers come and go at the top but the a sub indian society basically remains

the same okay and one of the reasons of course we haven't given all the reasons why things don't change in India one of

the reasons why they don't change is that India basically is a dreamland it's a dreamland right so this is the

opening quotation now we read from this is from Euler's constructions of India the piece that you have where he begins

with a quotation from from Hegel from the philosophy of history where there's

a whole section on India right and I'm going to just read this out and comment

on it and then we're going to end for today now it is the interest of spirit that external condition should become

internal ones that the natural and the spiritual world should be recognized in this subjective aspect belonging to

intelligence okay by which process the unity of subjectivity being generally or

the idealism of existence is established let me skip a few lines let me go to the end since however it is the abstract and

absolute thought itself that enters into

these dreams as their material we may say that absolute being right so you

know if Hegel has this conception of the absolute being the spirit okay is

presented here here meaning in India as in the ecstatic state of a dreaming

condition a dreaming condition okay by

which he means Hegel that essentially in

the comprehension of India it's as if we had to comprehend a dream you know and

that is many different consequences here one of the consequences is that again

I'm giving it your very colloquial terms okay very colloquial terms one of the

consequences is that frankly Indians do not really care about the material life

now this is good you can see how this is going to become a justification for very shrewd hey you know Indians they're

always immersed in philosophical thought it's a dreamlike existence

frankly you need somebody to rule a country you know we'll do it for them they are always lying in this vapour

bath of a dream so to speak okay we the British we represent a hardy European

stock you know we value the material life right this is going to become one

of the ways in which of course the British are going to proceed when they're in India so it my remarks to you

on Thursday I'm going to briefly briefly continue by discussion or going to ISM just very briefly because I think I've

laid it out quite clearly and then we're going to move immediately into the the

background of British presence in India you know when when they come to India

well what's there what is the nature of that history at that point in time

 

History of British India