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- Convenor:
-
Vasudha Bharadwaj
(ETH Zurich)
- Location:
- 22G74
- Start time:
- 23 July, 2014 at
Time zone: Europe/Zurich
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
This panel focusses on the creation of newly empowered and empowering "centres" via nationalistic discourses in late colonial India, and the resulting generation of new margins that tended to fragment nationalist notions about the nation and its unity.
Long Abstract:
Nationalism in South Asia came into its own in the late colonial period, giving rise in the early twentieth century to patriotic rhetoric that cast identity, love for nation and self-rule in narrowly, and sometimes vaguely, defined terms. These discourses were universalizing at multiple levels, and cast India as a natural nation-state to better articulate a case for independence. However, the very strategy designed to unite diverse communities and empower disempowered peoples exposed internal dissonances arising from the contingencies of experience. The proposed panel explores how various political, cultural, and economic realities gave rise to complex personal and collective experiences of domination, resistance, and negotiation. Some papers explore how different "elite" groups negotiated the new structures of dominance and subordination constructed by discourses of nation. Others study instances wherein national fervour was used, explicitly and implicitly, to justify oppression. The panel as a whole emphasizes how the creation of newly empowered and empowering "centres" during the struggle for Indian independence generated new margins that fragmented nationalist notions about the nation and its unity.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the relationship of the Anglo-Indian community with nationalist discourse in late colonial and early post-colonial India.
Paper long abstract:
This paper examines the relationship of the Anglo-Indian community with nationalist discourse in late colonial and early post-colonial India. Eurasian by birth, having English as its native language and Christianity as its religion, the Indian-ness of this community was often questioned, even negated outright, by some nationalist voices. At the same time, prominent members of the community made arguments that established Anglo-Indians as undeniably Indian. The hybrid identity and heritage of this minority group posed a discursive problem when it came to the question of defining India as a nation. How did this group, the progeny of both colonizer and colonized, fit into an anti-colonial rhetoric? And how did members of the Anglo-Indian community respond to assumptions of their "foreignness" in public debate? This paper examines controversies related to minority rights and language in order to address some of these questions.
Paper short abstract:
This paper focuses on the creation of the category called 'Indian Muslims' during the early 20th century and the uncertainty of the Tamil Muslims
Paper long abstract:
When the nation building process was gaining momentum during the early 20th century, all the communities in British India had to participate in the process and the Muslims were no exception. Though the Muslim community in British India was as divergent as any other community, there was an attempt to unite them under the identity of 'Muslims' during the first half of the 20th century. But the Tamil Muslims remained aloof from the idea of an 'Indian Muslim Community'. They had a double consciousness of being a Tamil as well as a Muslim. They highlighted their 'Tamilness' more than their 'Muslimness'. More than the Muslim League, their involvement with the Dravidian Movement was substantial. They supported both the movement for Dravidasthan as well as Pakistan. This paper will look into the process of 'nation making', particularly a 'Muslim nation' and the anxiety of the Tamil Muslims during these processes. It will analyse the reasons behind the Tamil Muslims being alienated from the other Muslims, the British colonialist denying the identity of 'pure' Muslims to the Tamil Muslims and their involvement in the Dravidian Movement
Paper short abstract:
This paper maps out the trajectory of the idea of Indian nation and the centrality of regional imaginaries to this supposedly normative concept by analyzing the dialectical relationship between the structures of capital and culture.
Paper long abstract:
The road taken to the making or even imagining the idea of a nation in a colonial context was often besieged with internal contradictions centered over the complex relationship between economy, polity and culture. The nationalist imaginaries about the Indian nation and its form were immensely diverse and competitive drawing from different geographical locations and regions, the latter oftentime characterized as the voices of dissent from the margins or peripheries of the nation-in-making. In my paper, I aim to map out the trajectory of the idea of Indian nation and its peripheral forms by analyzing the dialectical relationship between the structures of capital and culture. This relationship was regionally varied and differed to the extent that multiple forms and imaginations of the Indian nation began to be articulated from regional frontiers and borders inhabiting the cultural-linguistic zones of its economy and politics. In this regard, the territorial nationalism of twentieth-century colonial India is one of deep-seated antinomies centered over the relationship between core and periphery or the centre and its margins, particularly in the spheres of languages and their cultural habitus. This challenges any kind of uniform notion of a nation and allows us to take into consideration, quite seriously, the lesser known histories and voices of resistance against the hegemonic and totalistic notions of a nation.
Paper short abstract:
The paper explores the role of circus in Colonial Bengal in breaking the Colonial stereotyping of 'effeminacy' by providing a platform for development of indigenous physical culture and its fascinating effect as a physical and visual art form on the Bengali spectators.
Paper long abstract:
The colonial stereotype of the 'effeminate' Bengali babu challenged by the physical culture protagonists allows a deeper appreciation of the political processes influenced to a large extent by nationalism. Middle class Bengalis made several efforts to cultivate and instil a sense of pride in their physical prowess. Circus in Bengal started with the European circus which attracted young enthusiastic Bengali physical culturists who grabbed this opportunity of witnessing the western techniques of physical feats and started practicing this new style of exercise in their own akharas or gymnasium. The genesis of Bengali circus can be traced back to the Hindu Mela days but the Bengali Circus tasted the true flavor of success with the Great Bengal Circus of Professor Priyanath Bose. Circus in colonial Bengal became very much intertwined with the physical culture. It was a regular form of entertainment as well as it became one of the important forms of acrobatic and gymnastic attributes for the natives. Even some Bengali women showed their extra-ordinary acrobatic skills in this arena. The acrobatic shows and circus used to draw large crowds and newspaper coverage and advertisements featuring the zealous feats of Bengali acrobats were a means of allurement to the emotional conductibility of Bengali spectators with the physical prowess.