Arrival and Change

May 30, 2010 Features / Columnists, Ravi Dev

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As I round off this month of articles on Indian Arrival, I am struck at the insidiousness of the colonial power in controlling their subjects through the deployment of hegemonic discourses. One friend objected however, that he didn’t quite see how simple, uneducated villagers could have been ensnared by the “white-bias”, elite educational programs described in last week’s article. Almost none of these villagers, after all, had ever entered one of those schools.
But he missed the essential point about discourses: they are not merely academic and theoretical statements about a phenomenon or subject – in this case Indians. They are that, but much more: they are statements bound up irretrievably with social practices. While the statements purport to objectively describe and define the subject, the framework used to analyse, assess and evaluate that subject is assumed to be the only valid one. The findings, then, provide a normative basis for action – in regards to both means and ends.
Hinduism (with which I have more than a passing acquaintance), for instance was categorised by the British as a “religion”. This meant, as we pointed out, that it was appraised from the standpoint of Christianity – the emblematic “Religion”. That Hindus had dozens of sacred texts, millions of gods, and eight incarnations of God made their religion self-evidently nonsensical.
As conquerors of India, the British had the wherewithal to create a “regime of truth” – one that provided the instruments to determine not only whether examined statements were true or false, but also whether they had any meaning at all! Performatively, these instruments or techniques as a mechanism of control can be seen as “disciplines” to give effect to the analyses in the lives of people – both the ruled and the rulers.
The beliefs and practices of Christianity (of the time in question – that those beliefs and practices had been constantly evolving and changing was studiously avoided) defined “normal” religious beliefs and practices. This constituted its “regime of truth”, with its specific language, symbols, modes of reasoning and conclusions. It was the duty of those in power, of course, to ensure that deviant beliefs and practices were stamped out or at the very least, not approved. There are, then the ‘disciplinary” regime that is put into place to ensure “normal” behaviour.
We are now in a position to appreciate why the British authorities in British Guiana prohibited between 1838 and 1957, for instance, the Hindu practice of cremating their dead. Their belief that the human body had no permanent nexus with an eternal soul and could thus be hygienically and inexpensively burnt was obviously madness since it was self-evident that there was going to be a day when all bodies would be resurrected to be reunited with their souls. Cremation, unlike burial (never mind its ensuing decay) would evidently hinder the latter process. The law prohibiting cremation was enacted and enforced and burial was compelled: the indentureds imitated the “normal” funerary patterns of the Christianised Creoles down to the institution of the “wake”.
The forced compliance by the indentureds in this and other practices – marriage, family structure, gender roles, social divisions, etc – through the mechanisms of the disciplinary apparatus (laws, police, magistrate, jail, fines etc) introduced new forms of behaviour as they attempted to survive within the new regime. We witness, as an example, the singing of kirtans and the rites of the ‘anteyeshti sanskar” (final sacraments) being chanted by the pandit over the burial process (after biscuits and coffee/tea are served, of course).
The discourse, in tandem with its disciplinary apparatus, is thus productive as well as repressive. Some of the syncretistic behaviour and adjustments produced, however, may be adjudged by the powers that be as new deviances and precipitate new rounds of regulations and enforcement. This reinforces, in the meantime, the conviction in the correctness of the original diagnosis. Incorrigible foolishness!
Even when the disciplinary regime might have been intended to facilitate the maximisation of labour on the plantations, and not necessarily to eradicate ‘deviant” behaviour, it produced changes in the “way of life” that was Hinduism. The immigrant was given one day a week off – but this day, Sunday, was not of his choosing – it was to facilitate Christian Church attendance. Back in India, the immigrant knew of temples as places that would be visited on special occasions to make offerings to the deities. Actually, most “religious” observances were undertaken by females in their activities (fasts, vrats, etc.) that might necessitate a visit to the local mandir but more likely was conducted in front of a makeshift shrine in the home.
The six-day workweek and the dawn to dusk workday– not to mention the lack of privacy in the logees – impacted all of that. Hindus eventually started to construct mandirs – initially shrines, such as the Shivalas they had in village India – where individual worship could be performed, but very soon these were converted to larger structures for Sunday congregational worship a la Christianity. The Purohit, who would have gone to the home of the devotee to conduct the periodic ritual (pujas), because each Hindu had his/her unique conception of the Divine, now became a “priest” that led a congregation in Sunday “services”. The expert in rituals is now criticised for his theological and pastoral shortcomings: training, “like priests”, is advised.
Most exponents of Hinduism inevitably became influenced to varying degrees by the “regime of truth” of the Western hegemonic discourse. Hinduism had joined the realm of “subjugated knowledges” that needed its “incoherences” to be explained – of course within the given ‘regime of truth”. The “explainers” from within – especially after indentureship – joined those that had imbibed the new dispensations in the schools: whether as full converts or not, we all became “Educated”. Many now boasted that Hinduism also had one God, one Book and one Exemplar. Praise the Lord!
But we have to give credit to those hardy souls that have kept remnants of Hinduism alive within the interstices of the hegemonising discourse. Even from its syncretised basis, our way of life presents an opportunity for us to glimpse alternative answers to the perennial questions of life.

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