Slide 1: Title Slide

Colonising Histories: The Politics of Knowledge Dr. Neena Bansal

Slide 2: Introduction – The Question of Colonized History

●​ Is there a connection between 'Colonising' and 'History'?

●​ Are there critical implications for the present and the future of society, nation-building,
and cultures?
●​ The paper delves into how and why histories are appropriated to serve the political
needs of masters, especially colonial ones.
●​ Colonial malevolence “assumes elusive forms that can silently subsume cultures and still
write histories of its own development. Once this history passes down through ages, time
tends to become its solidifier.”

Slide 3: The Imperial Design – History as a Pliant Tool

●​ History is crucial for understanding the present, but it has often been made a pliant tool
by imperialist masters.
●​ Its purpose was to destroy indigenous lineages and construct new cultures, laws,
rules, customs, traditions, ideologies, and institutions to suit their own interests.
●​ Negation of the indigenous view of history was essential for asserting colonial creed,
as these views were considered 'primitive,' 'incorrect,' and challenging to colonization.
●​ Reclaiming histories is an uncomfortable but vital and crucial phase of
decolonization itself.
●​ Decolonization means raising concerns of indigenous peoples and considering their
worldviews, not a complete dismissal of all Western knowledge.

Slide 4: Justifying British Rule in India

●​ As the British extended their rule (late 18th/early 19th centuries), they needed to build a
foundation to justify it.
●​ They identified themselves as ‘modern’ and ‘civilized’ Europeans, based on
Enlightenment ideals, to create the notion of an ‘Other’ (savage or vicious).
●​ Dilemma: Their ideals of liberty and democracy sharply contrasted with establishing
monocratic administrative rule in India.
●​ Resolution: Commissioning research on ancient Indian literature, encouraging Sanskrit
learning, and initiating English education.
 ●​ ‘Knowledge’ was a subtle, but most crucial component employed by the British for
consolidation in India.

Slide 5: Orientalism and the "Gentoo Code"

●​ Orientalism: A discourse about the Orient as the ‘Other’ of Europe, popularized by

Edward Said.
●​ Said argued that colonial Orientalists directly or indirectly supported colonial ascendancy
through translations, scholarship, and institutions.
●​ East India Company's primary concern in Bengal (1770s): Revenue collection
through an efficient civil and juridical administration.
●​ Europeans needed a ‘clear and undisputed corpus of law’ for adjudication, as Hindu
customs were heterogeneous and inaccessible.
●​ Warren Hastings commissioned the ‘Gentoo Code’ (Sanskrit code translated to
Persian, then English by Nathaniel Brassey Halhed in 1776).
●​ The Code was a "failure from a practical point of view" but a "great success as a literary
curiosity".

Slide 6: The Discovery of Sanskrit and William Jones

●​ Halhed’s work on the ‘Gentoo Code’ allowed him to formulate theories about the
relationship of Sanskrit to other languages.
●​ Sanskrit was "discovered" to be pure and refined, justifying a close proximity with
European languages and an Indo-European connection.
●​ William Jones wrote, “The Sanskrit language… is of a wonderful structure; more perfect
than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than the
either…”.
●​ Jones believed Sanskrit, Gothic, and Celtic languages stemmed from a "common
source".
●​ Charles Wilkins published the first English translation of The Bhagvat Geeta in 1785.

Slide 7: Institutionalizing Control – The Asiatic Society of Bengal

●​ Established in 1784 under Governor General Warren Hastings, with William Jones as
its first president.
●​ Objective: To carve out a legitimate base for British control and authority in India.
●​ Jones’s essays (1789-1790) were considered the “final and definitive statement of the
claims and nature of Hinduism,” despite later shortcomings.
●​ Jones's studies and translations reached a wide European audience, creating new
awareness of Hinduism.
 ●​ British finance supported Oriental studies in British universities on Indian topics like
political institutions, caste, law, and society.
●​ Jones "reinvented Indian legal traditions," leading Edward Said to call him the
‘undisputed founder of orientalism’.
●​ German Indologist Max Mueller, hired by the East India Company, translated ancient
scriptures into the 50-volume Sacred Books of the East series (1879-1910).

Slide 8: Macaulay and the Legal System

●​ Thomas Babington Macaulay arrived in India in 1834, after the Government of India Act
of 1833, by which time the background for effective control of the Indian legal
system was laid.
●​ He became the first Law Member of the Governor’s Council and Law Commissioner,
receiving a high salary.
●​ Macaulay, who had been struggling as a writer, saw the Indian position as a means to
make significant wealth.

Slide 9: Constructing Indian Narratives

●​ It was established that ancient Indians ‘lacked a sense of history, especially of the
‘factor of time and chronology’ and were 'engrossed in the problems of the next
world'.
●​ Alexander Dow declared that Indians were accustomed to despotic rule, and their
‘return to liberty is arduous and almost impossible’.
●​ Such researches justified vesting all powers in the viceroy, asserting that the British had
to manage the affairs of the 'colonised' in 'this world'.
●​ European imperialist powers pursued a ‘civilizing mission’ for 'betterment' and 'moral
and material progress'.
●​ This mission triumphed partly because colonized populations accepted the
‘hegemonic claims’ of their oppressors.
●​ These Oriental researches set the tone for future investigations in India, influencing
both Western and some Indian scholars.

Slide 10: Counter-Narratives: The Existence of Republics

●​ Oligarchic and Republican governments, such as the Lichchhavis, Sakyas, and

Mallas, existed in India around the sixth century B.C..
●​ Buddha spoke highly of the Lichchhavis and their system of administering justice.
●​ Megasthenes recorded numerous democratic States flourishing in the fourth century
B.C..
 ●​ However, these non-monarchical states were wiped out with the setting up of the
Mauryan Empire, as they could not coexist with large, centralized empires.

Slide 11: The Contrivance of Religion, Language, and Culture

●​ The motive of alien rule is the control of peoples’ wealth, which includes not only
material affluence but also ‘religion’, ‘language’, and ‘culture’.
●​ Appropriating these resources makes material control smoother, leading to longer and
more sustained colonization.
●​ An effective way to gain this grip is to control the Education System.
●​ British scholars sought to identify a ‘Christianity-like coherence’ in Hindu sacred
texts (the ‘Bedas’).
●​ Europeans were determined to make Hindu devotional practice into a coherent
religious system.

Slide 12: The Invention of "Hinduism"

●​ The English word ‘Hinduism’ is of comparatively recent, colonial origin, unlike the
ancient term ‘Hindu’.
●​ Julius Lipner discusses how ‘Hinduism’ has suffered from ‘big gaps between the
fiction of a homogenising label and the fact of a rich diversity of belief and
practice’.
●​ He notes that there is “no discernible human founder of Hinduism,” unlike other
major religions.
●​ The term started as a cultural expression and was later abstractified with the suffix
“-ism,” which does "serious injustice to the faiths they are meant to denote".
●​ J.S. Hawley states, “Hinduism - the word, and perhaps the reality too - was born in
the 19th century,” with a "middle class and British" father and "India" as the mother.
●​ It became common after Sir Monier Monier-Williams’ 1877 handbook, placing it "on a par
with Buddhism, Judaism, Confucianism, and all the other ‘isms’".
●​ Monier-Williams himself admitted the system’s “variable character” and that
‘Brahmanism and Hinduism’ were not names recognized by natives.
●​ Rammohan Roy was among the first Indians to use the term, due to his close
association with Englishmen.

Slide 13: Christian Missionaries and 'Civilizing Mission'

●​ Before official missionary activities (post-1813 Charter Act), Christian literature was
published calling for diffusion of Christianity in India.
 ●​ Charles Grant (Evangelist) insisted on an open civilizing program for India’s
religious and moral advancement (1790s).
●​ He believed Hinduism was despotic and responsible for the 'corrupted state of Indian
society'.
●​ Grant advocated for an ‘education programme run by Christian missionaries’.
●​ Secular groups (Scottish Enlightenment, Utilitarian) substituted ‘human’ for divine justice,
providing imperialists with vocabulary like ‘rule of law’ and ‘good government’.
●​ British ideas and institutions were introduced into the governance of India.
●​ James Mill’s The History of British India (1817), written without visiting India or knowing
oriental languages, served as a primary textbook for East India Company civil
servants for 25 years.
●​ This reinforced the Western understanding of Hinduism as a ‘static, unchanging
culture,’ once sublime but now ‘corrupt and fallen’.

Slide 14: Language and Colonial Control

●​ Sanskrit attracted little European attention for nearly 300 years, primarily due to the
absence of 'need' by merchants and soldiers and the prevalence of Persian as the
court language.
●​ In the 18th century, as the British carved out an empire, they needed command over
languages like Persian and later, Sanskrit.
●​ William Jones produced the first Persian grammar for English speakers in 1771.
●​ Sanskrit, regarded as the sacred language of Brahmins, became a ‘necessary
instrument of colonial control’.
●​ Indology is said to have "come into being when European scholarship discovered
Sanskrit," around 1784.
●​ Translations of major Sanskrit texts opened an “exotic civilisation” to the literati of the
West and introduced the study of ancient and medieval India into US and European
universities.

Slide 15: Difficulties in Codifying Indian Law

●​ Sanskrit texts were a ‘heterogeneous polymorphous system’, unlike European and

Islamic scripts.
●​ Henry Colebrooke noted the difficulties in forming a unified legal code, as Indian law was
dispersed among many lawgivers, countless commentaries, and varied regional
interpretations.
●​ Nandini Bhattacharyya demonstrates how the British used manuscriptology as an
‘instrument’ of ‘subordinating the subject people’.
●​ She concludes that the ‘whole idea of Hindu law was a British administrative
invention’ designed to accommodate their economic interests.
 ●​ The Dharmashastras’ primary concern was the community and individual, not the state,
yet it was repeatedly referred to as the ‘legal tradition of the country’ by European
Indologists.

Slide 16: The Intent of Orientalist Scholars

●​ Orientalism became a full-fledged subject for classical scholars, shifting from Greek and
Latin to Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit.
●​ These scholars took to studying the Orient not to learn anything new or of lasting
value, but “to gather information that would be certainly useful for the
administrators, legislators and rulers in their policy formations and decisive
actions”.
●​ Literacy was used to assess societal development, but even highly literate cultures
like India, China, and Japan were deemed uncivilized by the West; their literacy did
not count as legitimate knowledge.
●​ While William Jones initially considered India the "cradle of civilization," this view shifted
outside India to Europe with the consolidation of imperial power.

Slide 17: Culture as a Weapon of Subjugation

●​ The British conquest in India was prolonged, facing internal rivalries and strong Indian
resistance.
●​ Coercion as a method of domination has limitations; thus, the most profound tool
for prolonged colonization is the control of culture.
●​ Culture signifies a society’s life, including arts, religion, language, institutions, morality,
and laws.
●​ The methodology ranges from ‘critical scrutiny, disapprovals and rejections, to
appropriation and hegemonization’.
●​ African novelist Ngugi Wa Thiongo calls culture the ‘greatest weapon of subjugation’
and a ‘cultural bomb’.
●​ Its impact is to “annihilate a peoples’ belief in their names, in their languages, in
their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacity and
ultimately in themselves.”
●​ Many museums in Europe and England are, in fact, "colonial museums," evidence of
"colonial plunder".

Slide 18: Psychological Impact and Legacy

●​ Cultural intrusions are subtle and less noticeable, creating ideological foundations
that facilitate changes in both the manifest and psychological universe of the subjugated.
 ●​ These alterations aimed to create a sense of inferiority and dependency complex.
●​ Example: Malaysian laborers in rubber plantations began to believe in their own
laziness, a phenomenon Syed Hussain Alatas calls ‘The Myth of the Lazy Native’.
●​ Some Indian figures, like Rammohan Roy, believed India benefited from association with
Englishmen.
●​ The educated intelligentsia became "actual carriers and disseminators of colonial
culture," seeing the colonial metropolis as their cultural capital.
●​ This situation is described as the “worst pathology of colonial domination,” as it
deprives the subjected of their own culture without granting full access to the colonizer's.
●​ India's "rich and complex intellectual and cultural resources" saved it from a
complete adaptation and reconstruction by the British.
●​ S. Radhakrishnan observed the irony that the West tried to persuade India its culture
was absurd, grotesque, and barbaric, and now, as the West questions its judgment,
some Indians insist it was right.

Slide 19: Resistance and Enduring Colonial Legacy

●​ Voices in England, like John Dickinson, were raised against power abuse, destruction of
local self-government, and exclusion of Indians from administrative jobs.
●​ Dickinson’s 1852 book, Government of India under a Bureaucracy, was a “scathing
attack on British imperialism”.
●​ He criticized the British for assuming Indians were barbarians and for replacing their
simple, prompt judicial system with an “obscure, complicated, pedantic system of
English law,” which increased expenses and defeated justice.
●​ India still uses some laws made by the English masters during the colonial era,
demonstrating a persistent "colonial mind-set".
●​ Justice S Abdul Nazeer of the Supreme Court emphasized the need to ‘Indianise’ the
judicial system and noted that practices like addressing judges as ‘lordships and
ladyships’ show a deep colonial imprint.

Slide 20: The Status of Sanskrit Today

●​ Nathaniel Brassey Halhed (1771) remarked that Sanskrit is “more copious” than
Greek or Latin and has a better claim to be a parent language than Phoenician or
Hebrew.
●​ The question today is: “Whither Sanskrit as a language in our country today?”
●​ Many native institutions, traditions, social norms, codes, ethos, and laws were
subsumed by colonial hegemonizing.
●​ While Sanskrit remains essential for Indology, an important key to understanding India’s
past seems to be lost to colonial appropriation of language, culture, religion, and
history.