Postcoloniality Artifice

8/22/2019 Postcoloniality Artifice

1/27

Postcoloniality and the Artifice of History: Who Speaks for "Indian" Pasts?Author(s): Dipesh ChakrabartyReviewed work(s):Source: Representations, No. 37, Special Issue: Imperial Fantasies and Postcolonial Histories(Winter, 1992), pp. 1-26Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2928652 .

Accessed: 31/07/2012 17:18

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

University of California Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to

Representations.

http://www.jstor.org
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucalhttp://www.jstor.org/stable/2928652?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/2928652?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucal


2/27

DIPESH CHAKRABARTY

Postcolonialityand the Artifice fHistory:Who Speaks for"Indian" Pasts?Push houghto xtremes.-Louis Althusser

IIT HAS RECENTLY BEEN SAID in praise of the postcolonial project ofSubaltern tudies hat tdemonstrates,perhaps for the first ime since coloniza-tion," hat"Indians are showing ustainedsignsofreappropriating hecapacityto represent hemselveswithin hedisciplineofhistory]."'As a historianwho isa memberof the Subaltern tudies ollective, findthecongratulation ontainedin thisremarkgratifyingutpremature.The purpose of this article s to prob-lematizethe idea of "Indians" "representing hemselves n history." et us putaside forthemomentthemessyproblemsofidentitynherent n a transnational

enterprise uch as Subalterntudies,wherepassportsand commitments lur thedistinctions fethnicityna mannerthat ome wouldregardas characteristicallypostmodern. have a moreperverseproposition oargue. It isthat nsofar s theacademic discourseofhistory-that s, "history" s a discourseproduced at theinstitutionaliteoftheuniversity-is oncerned, Europe" remains hesovereign,theoretical ubjectof all histories,ncluding heones we call "Indian,""Chinese,""Kenyan,"and so on. There is a peculiarway n which all these other historiestend tobecome variations n a masternarrative hat ould be called "thehistoryof Europe." In thissense, "Indian" historytself s in a positionof subalternity;one can onlyarticulate ubaltern ubjectpositions nthe name ofthishistory.Whilethe restofthis rticlewillelaborateon thisproposition, et me enterafewqualifications. Europe" and "India" are treated here as hyperreal erms nthattheyrefer to certainfiguresof imaginationwhose geographical referentsremainsomewhat ndeterminate.2 s figures f the maginary hey re,ofcourse,subjecttocontestation,utfor he moment shall treat hem s thoughtheyweregiven,reified ategories, ppositespaired in a structure f domination nd sub-ordination. realizethat n treating hem thus leavemyself pen to thechargeof nativism,nationalism,or worse, the sin of sins,nostalgia. Liberal-mindedscholarswould immediately rotest hat ny dea ofa homogeneous,uncontested

REPRESENTATIONS 37 * Winter1992 ? THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIF9RNIA


3/27

"Europe" dissolves under analysis.True, but ust as thephenomenon of orien-talismdoes notdisappear simply ecause some of us have nowattaineda criticalawarenessofit, imilarly certainversionof"Europe,"reified nd celebrated nthe phenomenal world of everydayrelationships f power as the scene of thebirth f themodern, ontinues o dominatethe discourseofhistory. nalysis oesnot make itgo away.That Europe works s a silent eferentnhistorical nowledge tself ecomesobvious in a highly rdinaryway.There are at leasttwoeveryday ymptoms fthe subalternityf non-Western, hird-world istories.Third-world historiansfeel a need to refer to works n European history;historians f Europe do notfeelanyneed to reciprocate.Whether t s an Edward Thompson, a Le RoyLa-

durie,a George Duby, Carlo Ginzberg, LawrenceStone,a RobertDarnton,ora Natalie Davis-to take but a few names at random from our contemporaryworld-the "greats" nd the modelsof thehistorian'snterprise realways t eastculturally European." "They" produce theirwork nrelative gnoranceof non-Westernhistories,nd thisdoes not seem to affect hequality ftheirwork.Thisisa gesture,however, hat we"cannot return.We cannot evenafford n equalityor symmetryfignoranceat this evel without aking he riskofappearing "old-fashioned"or "outdated."The problem, I mayadd in parenthesis, s not particular o historians.Anunselfconscious ut nevertheless latant xampleofthis inequality f gnorance"in iterarytudies,for xample, s thefollowingentence n Salman Rushdie froma recenttexton postmodernism: Though Saleem Sinai [ofMidnight'shildren]narrates n English .. his intertexts orbothwriting istorynd writing ictionare doubled: they re,on the one hand,from ndian legends,films,nd literatureand, on the other,fromtheWest-The TinDrum,Tristramhandy, neHundredYears fSolitude,nd so on."3 t is interestingo note how this entence teases outonlythosereferences hat re from theWest."The author sundernoobligationhere to be able toname with nyauthoritynd specificityhe"Indian" allusionsthat make Rushdie's intertexuality doubled." This ignorance, shared andunstated, s partof the assumed compactthatmakes t"easy"to includeRushdieinEnglishdepartment fferingsn postcolonialism.This problemof asymmetric gnoranceis not simply matterof "culturalcringe" to letmyAustralian elfspeak) on our partor ofcultural rroganceonthe part of the European historian.These problemsexist but can be relativelyeasily ddressed. Nor do I mean to takeanythingwayfrom he achievements fthe historians mentioned.Our footnotes ear richtestimonyo the nsightswehave derivedfromtheirknowledgeand creativity.he dominanceof "Europe"as thesubjectofall histories s a partofa much moreprofoundtheoretical on-ditionunder which historicalknowledge s produced in the thirdworld. This

2 REPRESENTATIONS


4/27

conditionordinarily xpresses tself n a paradoxical manner. t is thisparadoxthat shall describe as the second everyday ymptom f our subalternity,nd itrefers o theverynatureofsocialsciencepronouncements hemselves.Forgenerationsnow,philosophers nd thinkers hapingthenatureofsocialscience have produced theories mbracingtheentiretyfhumanity.As we wellknow, hese statements avebeen produced inrelative, nd sometimes bsolute,ignoranceof themajority fhumankind-i.e., thoseliving n non-Western ul-tures. This in itself s not paradoxical, for the more self-conscious fEuropeanphilosophershave always ought theoreticallyo ustify his tance.The everydayparadox of third-worldocialscience s thatwefind hesetheories,nspiteoftheirinherent gnorance of "us," eminentlyuseful in understandingour societies.What allowed the modern European sages to develop such clairvoyancewithregardto societies f which heywereempiricallygnorant?Whycannotwe,onceagain, return hegaze?There is an answerto thisquestion nthewritings fphilosopherswho haveread intoEuropean history n entelechy funiversalreason,ifwe regard suchphilosophyas the self-consciousness f social science.Only "Europe," theargu-mentwould appear tobe, is theoreticallyi.e., at the evel ofthe fundamental at-egories thatshape historical hinking)knowable;all other histories re mattersof empiricalresearch thatfleshes out a theoretical keleton which is substan-tially "Europe." There is one versionof thisargument in Edmund Husserl'sVienna lecture of 1935, where he proposed thatthe fundamental differencebetween "oriental philosophies" (more specifically,ndian and Chinese) and"Greek-Europeanscience"(or as he added, "universally peaking: philosophy")was the capacityof the latterto produce "absolute theoreticalnsights," hat s"theoria"universal cience),whiletheformer etained "practical-universal,"ndhence "mythical-religious,"haracter.This "practical-universal"hilosophywasdirectedtotheworld n a "naive" and "straightforward" anner,whilethe worldpresented tself s a "thematic" otheoria,makingpossiblea praxis"whose aim isto elevate mankindthroughuniversal cientific eason."4A rather similarepistemologicalpropositionunderlies Marx's use of cate-gories like "bourgeois" and "prebourgeois"or "capital" and "precapital."Theprefix rehere signifies relationship hat s bothchronological nd theoretical.The comingofthebourgeois or capitalist ociety,Marx argues in the Grundrisseand elsewhere,givesrise forthefirst imeto a historyhatcan be apprehendedthrougha philosophicaland universalcategory, capital." Historybecomes,forthe first ime, heoreticallynowable.All pasthistories re nowto be known the-oretically,hat s) from hevantage pointofthis ategory, hat s interms ftheirdifferences rom t.Things reveal their ategorical ssenceonlywhentheyreachtheir ullest evelopment, ras Marxput t nthatfamous phorismof the Grund-risse: Human anatomy ontains hekey o the natomy fthe pe."5The category"capital," s I have discussedelsewhere, ontainswithin tself he egal subjectof

WhoSpeaksfor Indian" asts? 3


5/27

Enlightenment hought.6Not surprisingly, arx said in thatveryHegelian firstchapterof Capital,vol. 1, that the secret of "capital,"the category, cannot bedeciphereduntil henotionof humanequalityhasacquired thefixityf a popularprejudice."7To continue withMarx'swords:Even the mostabstract ategories, espitetheirvalidity-preciselyecause of theirabstractness-forllepochs, re nevertheless. . themselves.. a product f historicalrelations.ourgeois ocietysthemost evelopednd themost omplex istoricrgani-zation fproduction.he categories hichxpressts elations,he omprehensionf tsstructure,herebylso allownsightsnto he tructurend therelationsfproductionfallthevanishedocial ormationsutofwhose uins ndelementstbuilttselfp,whosepartlytill nconquered emnantsre carried longwithint,whosemerenuanceshavedeveloped xplicit ignificanceithint, tc. .. The intimationsfhigher evelopmentamong he ubordinatenimal pecies.. can be understoodnly fter hehigher evel-opmentsalready nown. he bourgeois conomyhus upplies hekey o the ncient.8For "capital"or "bourgeois," submit, ead "Europe."

IINeitherMarx nor Husserl spoke-not at least in the words quotedabove-in a historicistpirit.n parenthesis,weshould also recallherethatMarx'svision of emancipation entailed a journey beyond the rule of capital, in factbeyondthe notionofjuridicalequality hat iberalism olds so sacred.The maxim"Fromeach according to his ability o each according to his need" runs quitecontrary o the principleof "Equal pay forequal work," nd this s whyMarxremains-the Berlin Wall notwithstandingor not standing!)-a relevantandfundamental ritic fbothcapitalism nd liberalism nd thuscentral oany post-colonial,postmodernprojectofwriting istory. etMarx'smethodological/epis-temological tatements ave notalways uccessfullyesistedhistoricisteadings.There has alwaysremainedenough ambiguityn these statements o make pos-sible the emergence of "Marxist" historicalnarratives.These narrativesturnaround the themeof "historical ransition."Most modern third-world istoriesare writtenwithinproblematicsposed bythis transition arrative, fwhich theoverriding ifoften mplicit) hemesare those of development,modernization,capitalism.This tendency an be located nourownwork nthe Subalterntudies roject.My book on working-class istory truggleswith the problem.9 umit Sarkar's(another colleague in the Subaltern tudiesproject) Modern ndia, justifiablyregarded as one of the best textbooks n Indian historywritten rimarily orIndian universities,pens with hefollowing entences:The sixty ears rso thatiebetweenhefoundationf the ndianNational ongressn1885 nd the chievementf ndependencenAugust 947witnessederhaps hegreatesttransitionnourcountry'songhistory.transition,owever,hichnmanyways emains

4 REPRESENTATIONS


6/27

grievouslyncomplete,nd it swith his entralmbiguityhatt eemsmost onvenienttobegin ursurvey.'0What kindof a transitionwas it thatremained "grievouslyncomplete"?Sarkarhints t thepossibilityftherehavingbeen severalbynamingthree:Somany fthe spirationsrousednthe ourse fthenationaltruggleemained nful-filled-theGandhian ream f thepeasant omingntohisown nRam-rajyathe uleofthe egendarynd the dealgod-king am], s much sthe eft deals f ocial evolution.And as thehistoryf ndependentndia nd PakistanandBangladesh) asrepeatedlyoreveal,ven heproblemsf complete ourgeoisransformationndsuccessfulapitalistdevelopmenterenotfullyolved y he ransferfpower f 1947. 4)Neither thepeasant'sdreamof a mythical nd ust kingdom,northe Left's dealof a social[ist] evolution, or a "completebourgeoistransformation"-it s withinthese threeabsences,these"grievouslyncomplete" cenarios thatSarkar ocatesthestory f modern India.It is also with similarreference o "absences"-the "failure"of a history okeep an appointmentwith tsdestinyonce again an instance f the"lazynative,"shall we say?)-that we announced our projectofSubaltern tudies:It is thestudyofthishistoricailure f henation ocome o ts wn, failuredue to the nade-quacyemphasisdded]ofthebourgeoisies well s oftheworkinglass o eadit ntodecisive ictoryvercolonialismnd a bourgeois-democraticevolutionf theclassicnineteenth-centuryype .. or [of the]"newdemocracy" type]-it isthe tudy f his ailurewhich onstituteshe entralroblematicf he istoriographyf olonialndia.The tendency oread Indian historynterms f a lack,an absence,or an incom-pleteness hat ranslatesnto inadequacy" s obvious ntheseexcerpts.As a trope,however, t s an ancientone, goingback tothehoarybeginnings fcolonial rulein India. The British onquered and represented hediversityf"Indian" paststhrougha homogenizingnarrativeof transition roma "medieval"period to"modernity."he termshavechangedwith ime.The "medieval"was once called"despotic" nd the"modern," theruleof aw." Feudal/capitalist"asbeen a latervariant.When itwas first ormulatedncolonial histories f ndia, this ransition ar-rativewas an unashamed celebration f the mperialist's apacity orviolenceandconquest. To give onlyone exampleamongthemany vailable,AlexanderDow'sHistoryfHindostan, irst ublished nthreevolumesbetween1770 and 1772,wasdedicatedto thekingwith candorcharacteristicftheeighteenth enturywhenone did not need a MichelFoucault touncover the connectionbetweenviolenceand knowledge:"The successof Your Majesty's rms," aid Dow, "has laid openthe East to the researches of the curious."'2 Underscoring this connectionbetweenviolence and modernity, ow added:



7/27

TheBritish ation avebecome he onquerorsfBengal ndtheyught oextendomepartof theirfundamentalurisprudence to secure theirconquest.... The sword s ourtenure.t s an absolute onquest,nd t s so consideredy heworld.1 cxxxviii)This "fundamentalurisprudence"was the "rule of law" thatcontrasted,nDow's narrative,with pastrule thatwas"arbitrary"nd "despotic." n a furthergloss Dow explained that"despotism"did not refer to a "government f merecapriceand whim," orhe knewenough historyo knowthat hatwas nottrueofIndia. Despotismwas theoppositeofEnglishconstitutional overnment; twas asystemwhere "the egislative, he udicial and the executivepower [were]vestedintheprince."This was thepastof unfreedom.Withtheestablishment f Britishpower, he Indian was tobe made a legal subject,ruledbya government pen tothe pressuresof privateproperty "the foundationof public prosperity,"aid

Dow) and publicopinion, and supervised bya judiciarywhere "thedistributersof usticeoughttobe independentofeverythingut aw[as] otherwise he officer[the udge] becomes a tool of oppressionin the hands of despotism" l:xcv, cl,cxl-cxli).In thenineteenth nd twentiethenturies, enerations f elite ndian nation-alistsfound their ubjectpositions, s nationalists, ithin his ransition arrativethat,at various timesand depending on one's ideology,hung the tapestry f"Indian history" etweenthe twopoles of thehomologous setsof oppositions,despotic/constitutional,edieval/modern,eudal/capitalist. ithin hisnarrativesharedbetween mperialistnd nationalistmaginations, he "Indian" was alwaysa figure f lack.There was always, notherwords,roomin this tory orcharac-ters who embodied, on behalf of the native,the theme of "inadequacy" or"failure."Dow's recommendation f a "ruleof law" forBengal/Indiacame withtheparadoxical assurance totheBritish) hat herewasno danger ofsuch a rule"infusing"n thenatives a spirit f freedom":To makethe natives fthe fertileoil ofBengalfree,s beyond hepower fpoliticalarrangement... Theirreligion,heirnstitutions,heirmanners,hevery ispositionftheirminds, orm hem orpassive bedience. o give hem roperty ouldonlybindthemwith trongeriestoourinterests,nd makethem ursubjects; r ifthe Britishnation refershename-moreour slaves. :cxl-cxli)

We do not need to be reminded that thiswould remain the cornerstoneofimperial deologyformanyyearsto come-subjecthood but not citizenship, sthe native was never adequate to the latter-and would eventuallybecome astrandof iberaltheorytself.l3hiswasofcourse where nationalists iffered. orRammohun Roy as for Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay, wo of India's mostprominentnationalist ntellectuals f the nineteenth entury, ritishrulewas anecessaryperiod of tutelagethat ndians had to undergo in order to prepareprecisely orwhatthe British enied but extolled s theend of allhistory: itizen-

6 REPRESENTATIONS


8/27

shipand thenation state.Years ater,n 1951,an "unknown" ndian whosuccess-fully old his"obscurity" edicatedthestory f his ifethus:Tothememoryf theBritishmpiren ndiaWhich onferredubjecthoodnusButwithhelditizenship;To which etEveryonefusthrewutthe hallenge"Civis ritanicusum"BecauseAllthatwasgoodand ivingWithinsWasmade, haped, ndquickenedBythe ameBritish ule.'4

In nationalist ersions f thisnarrative, s ParthaChatterjeehas shown, t was thepeasantsand theworkers, he subaltern lasses,who weregiventobear thecrossof"inadequacy,"for, ccordingto thisversion, t wastheywho needed tobe edu-cated out of their gnorance,parochialism, r,depending on yourpreference,falseconsciousness.'5Even todaytheAnglo-Indianword communalismeferstothosewhoallegedlyfail tomeasureup to the "secular" deals ofcitizenship.That British rule put in place the practices, nstitutions,nd discourse ofbourgeois ndividualismnthe ndian soil s undeniable.Early expressions-thatis, before the beginningsof nationalism-of thisdesire to be a "legal subject"make itclear thatto Indians in the 1830s and 1840s tobe a "modern ndividual"was tobecome a "European." TheLiteraryleaner, magazine ncolonialCalcutta,ran thefollowing oem in 1842,writtennEnglishbya Bengali schoolboy igh-teenyearsofage. The poem apparentlywasinspiredbythesight fships eavingthe coastofBengal "forthegloriousshores ofEngland":

Oft ike sad bird sighTo leave hisand, houghmine wn and tbe;Itsgreen obedmeads,-gayflowersndcloudlesskyThoughpassing air, avebutfew harms orme.For havedreamed fclimesmore rightndfreeWhere irtuewells ndheaven-bornibertyMakes ven he owest appy;-where he yeDoth icken ot o seemanbendthekneeTo sordidnterest:-climeshere cience hrives,Andgenius oth eceive erguerdonmeet;Whereman nhis ll his ruest loryives,Andnature's ace sexquisitelyweet:For hose air limes heave he mpatientigh,There etme ive nd thereetme die.'6



9/27

In its echoes of Milton and seventeenth-centurynglish radicalism,this isobviouslya piece of colonial pastiche.17Michael Madhusudan Dutt, theyoungBengali authorof thispoem,eventually ealizedthe mpossibilityfbeing"Euro-pean" and returnedtoBengali literature o becomeone ofourfinest oets.LaterIndian nationalists,however, bandoned such abject desire to be "Europeans"themselves.Nationalist houghtwas premisedprecisely n theassumed univer-sality f theprojectofbecoming ndividuals, n theassumption hat"individualrights" nd abstract equality"wereuniversals hat ould findhome anywhere ntheworld,thatone could be bothan "Indian" and a "citizen" t the same time.We shall soon explore someof thecontradictions f thisproject.Manyof thepublicand privateritualsofmodernindividualism ecame vis-ible in India in thenineteenth entury. ne sees this, or nstance,nthesuddenflourishingn thisperiod of thefourbasic genresthathelp expressthemodernself: thenovel,thebiography, heautobiography,nd history.18longwith hesecame modern ndustry,echnology,medicine, quasibourgeois thoughcolonial)legal system upportedbya state thatnationalismwas to take overand make itsown. The transitionnarrative hat have been discussingunderwrote, nd wasin turnunderpinned by, heseinstitutions. o think hisnarrativewas to thinkthese institutionst the apex of which sat themodern state,19nd to think hemodern or the nation statewas to think historywhose theoretical ubjectwasEurope. Gandhi realized thisas earlyas 1909. Referring o the Indian national-ists'demands formorerailways,modernmedicine, nd bourgeois aw,he cannilyremarked n hisbook HindSwarajthatthiswas to "make India English"or,as heput t, ohave "Englishrule without heEnglishman."20his "Europe,"as MichaelMadhusudan Dutt'syouthful nd naivepoetry hows,was of coursenothingbuta piece of fiction old to the colonized bythe colonizer in the very process offabricating olonial domination.21 andhi'scritiqueof this"Europe" is compro-mised on many pointsbyhisnationalism, nd I do not ntendto fetishize istext.But I findhisgestureuseful n developingtheproblematic fnonmetropolitanhistories.

IIII shallnow return o thethemesof"failure," lack," nd "inadequacy"thatso ubiquitously haracterize hespeakingsubjectof "Indian" history. s inthepracticeofthe nsurgentpeasantsof colonial India, thefirsttep n a criticaleffortmust risefrom gestureof nversion.22et us beginfromwherethe tran-sitionnarrative nds and read "plenitude"and "creativity" here thisnarrativehas made us read "lack" and "inadequacy."Accordingto thefableof theirconstitution,ndians todayare all "citizens."

8 REPRESENTATIONS


10/27

The constitutionmbracesalmost a classicallyiberaldefinition fcitizenship. fthe modern stateand the modern ndividual, hecitizen, re but the two nsepa-rable sides of the same phenomenon, as WilliamConnolly argues in PoliticalTheoryndModernity,t would appear thatthe end ofhistorys in sightfor us inIndia.23This modern individual,however,whose political/publicife s lived incitizenship,s also supposed to have an interiorized private" elf thatpours outincessantlyndiaries, etters, utobiographies,novels, nd, ofcourse, nwhat wesayto our analysts.The bourgeois individual s not born untilone discovers hepleasures of privacy.But this s a very pecial kind of "private"-it is, in fact,deferred"public,"for thisbourgeoisprivate, sJurgenHabermas has remindedus, is "always lreadyoriented toan audience [Publikum]."24Indian publiclifemaymimicon paper thebourgeois egal fiction f citizen-ship-the fiction s usuallyperformed s a farce n India-but what about thebourgeois private nd itshistory? nyonewho has triedto write French" ocialhistorywith ndian materialwould know howimpossibly ifficulthe task s.25tis not that theformof thebourgeoisprivatedid not come withEuropean rule.There have been, since themiddle of the nineteenth entury,ndian novels,dia-ries, etters, nd autobiographies,butthey eldomyield picturesof an endlesslyinteriorizedsubject. Our autobiographies are remarkably public" (withcon-structions f public life thatare notnecessarilymodern)whenwritten ymen,and they ellthestory f the extendedfamilywhenwritten ywomen.26n anycase,autobiographies nthe confessionalmode arenotablefor heir bsence. Thesingleparagraph (out of 963 pages) thatNirad Chaudhuri spendson describingtheexperienceof hiswedding night n the second volume of his celebrated andprize-winning utobiography s as good an example as anyother and is worthquoting at some length. I should explain that this was an arranged marriage(Bengal, 1932), and Chaudhuri was anxious lest his wife should not appreciatehis newly acquired but unaffordably xpensive hobbyof buying records ofWestern lassical music.Our readingofChaudhuri ishandicapped inpart byourlack of knowledgeof the intertextualityf his prose-there mayhave been atwork,for nstance, n imbibedpuritanical evulsion gainstrevealing too much."Yet thepassage remainsa telling xercise n the constructionfmemory, or t sabout what Chaudhuri "remembers" nd "forgets" f his "first ight'sexperi-ence." He screensoff ntimacywithexpressions ike"I do not remember"or "Ido not knowhow" notto mention heveryFreudian"making clean breastof"),and this elf-constructedeil sno doubta partof the selfthat peaks:I wasterriblyneasy t theprospectfmeetingswife girlwhowas complete trangertome, nd when hewasbroughtn .. and efttandingeforeme hadnothingosay.I sawonly very hy mile n herface, ndtimidlyhe cameand satbymy ide on theedgeofthebed. do notknow ow fter hat oth fusdriftedo thepillows,o ie downsidebyside.[Chaudhuri dds in a footnote:Ofcourse, ully ressed.We Hindus ..



11/27

consider othextremes-fullyladand fully ude-to be modest,nd everythingn-betwelensgrosslymmodest. o decentmanwants iswife obe anallumeuse."]henthefirst ordswere xchanged.he took pone ofmy rms, elt t nd said: "You reso thin.I shall akegoodcare ofyou." didnotthank er, nd I do notrememberhat eyondnoting hewords evenfelt ouched. he horribleuspenseboutEuropeanmusichadreawakenednmymind, ndI decided omake cleanbreast f tat once and lookthesacrifice,f twascalledfor,traightn theface ndbegin omancen such ermsswereofferedome. I askedhertimidlyfter while: Haveyou istenedoany Europeanmusic?" heshookherheadtosay No."Nonetheless,took nother hance nd this imeasked: Haveyouheard henameofa man alledBeethoven?"he nodded ndsignified"Yes." wasreassured,utnotwhollyatisfied.o I askedyet gain:"Canyou spell hename?" he saidslowly:B, E, E, T, H, 0, V, E, N." I felt ery ncouraged.. and [we]dozedoff.27The desireto be "modern" creamsout ofevery entence nthe twovolumes

of Chaudhuri's autobiography.His legendaryname now standsforthe culturalhistory f Indo-British ncounter.Yet n the 1500-oddpages thathe has writteninEnglishabouthis ife, his stheonlypassagewhere the narrative fChaudhu-ri'sparticipationnpublic ife nd literaryircles s nterrupted o makeroom forsomething pproaching the ntimate.How do we read thistext, his elf-makingof an Indian male whowas second tono one in his ardor for hepublic ifeofthecitizen,yetwho seldom, if ever,reproduced in writing he other side of themoderncitizen, he nteriorized rivate elfunceasingly eachingout for n audi-ence? Public withoutprivate?Yet another instanceof the "incompleteness" fbourgeoistransformationn India?These questionsare themselves rompted bythe transition arrative hat nturn situatesthemodern individualat thevery nd ofhistory. do not wish toconfer on Chaudhuri's autobiographya representativenesst may not have.Women'swritings,s I have alreadysaid, are different,nd scholars have ustbeguntoexploretheworldofautobiographies n Indian history. utifone resultofEuropean imperialismn India was to ntroduce he modernstate nd the deaof thenationwiththeir ttendantdiscourseof "citizenship,"which,bytheveryidea of "thecitizen's ights"i.e.,"therule of aw"),splits hefigure f the modernindividual nto"public"and "private"partsof theself as theyoungMarx oncepointedout in his On the ewish uestion),hesethemes have existed-in contes-tation, lliance, and miscegenation-with othernarratives f the self and com-munity hatdo not look to the state/citizenind as the ultimate onstruction fsociality.28his as such willnot be disputed,butmy point goes further.t is thattheseother constructions f self and community, hile documentable n them-selves,willneverenjoytheprivilegeofproviding he metanarratives r teleolo-gies (assuming that there cannot be a narrative without at least an implicitteleology)of our histories.This is so partly ecause these narratives ftenthem-selvesbespeakan antihistoricalonsciousness; hat s,they ntail ubjectpositions

10 REPRESENTATIONS


12/27

and configurations f memorythatchallenge and underminethe subjectthatspeaks in thename of history. History" s precisely he sitewhere the strugglegoes on to appropriate,on behalfof the modern (my hyperrealEurope), theseother collocationsofmemory.To illustrate hesepropositions, willnowdiscuss fragment f this ontestedhistoryn which the modernprivate nd themodern ndividualwere embroiledincolonial India.29

IVWhat I presenthere are theoutlines, o to speak,of a chapter n thehistory fbourgeois domesticityn colonial Bengal. The material-in the maintextsproduced inBengali between 1850 and 1920 forteachingwomenthatvery

Victorian ubject, domestic cience"-relates to theBengali Hindu middleclass,the bhadralokr "respectablepeople." Britishrule instituted nto Indian lifethetrichotomousdeational divisionon which modernpolitical tructures est, .g.,thestate, ivil ociety,nd the bourgeois) family.t was therefore otsurprisingthat ideas relatingto bourgeois domesticity, rivacy, nd individualityhouldcome to India via British ule. WhatI want to highlight ere, however, hroughthe example of the bhadralok,re certain cultural operations by which the"Indians" challengedand modified hesereceived deas insuch a wayas toputinquestion two fundamental tenets underlyingthe idea of "modernity"-thenuclear family ased on companionate marriage nd thesecular,historical on-struction f time.As MeredithBorthwick,Ghulam Murshid,and other scholars have shown,the eighteenth-century uropean idea of "civilization" ulminated, in earlynineteenth-centuryndia, in a full-blownmperialist ritiqueof Indian/Hindudomestic ife,which was now held to be inferior owhatbecame mid-Victorianideals of bourgeois domesticity.30he "condition of women" question innineteenth-centuryndia was part of that critique,as were the ideas of the"modern" ndividual, freedom," equality,"nd "rights."n passagesremarkablefor theircombinationofegalitarianism nd orientalism, amesMill's TheHistoryofBritish ndia (1817) joined togetherthe thematicof the family/nationnd ateleology f "freedom":The conditionfwomen s one ofthemost emarkableircumstancesnthemanners fnations.... The historyfuncultivatedations niformlyepresentshewomen s in astate f abject lavery,romwhich hey lowly merge s civilisationdvances.... Associety efines pon itsenjoyments . the condition f the weaker ex is graduallyimproved,ill heyssociate nequalterms ith hemen, ndoccupy heplaceof volun-tarynduseful oadjutors. state fdependencemore trictndhumiliatinghan hatwhichsordained or heweaker examong heHindus annot eeasily onceived.31



13/27

As is wellknown, he Indian middleclassesgenerallyfelt nswerableto thischarge. From the earlynineteenth-centurynward a movementdeveloped inBengal (and otherregions) to reform"women's conditions" nd to give themformaleducation. Much of thisdiscourseon women'seducation was emancipa-tionist n that tspoke the language of "freedom," equality," nd "awakening,"and was stronglynfluencedbyRuskinian deals and idealizationof bourgeoisdomesticity.32f one looks on thishistory s part of thehistory f themodernindividual n India, an interestingeature merges. t is that nthis iterature nwomen'seducationcertainterms, fter ll,weremuch morevigorously ebatedthanothers.There was,forexample,a degreeofconsensusoverthedesirabilityof domestic discipline" nd "hygiene" s practices eflectivef a stateof moder-nity, ut the word freedom,etanother important erm n the rhetoricof themodern,hardlyever acted as the register f such a social consensus. It was apassionatelydisputedword,and we wouldbe wrongtoassumethatthepassionsreflected simpleand straightforwardattleofthesexes. The wordwas assimi-latedto thenationalist eed toconstruct ulturalboundaries that upposedlysep-arated the "European" fromthe "Indian." The disputeoverthiswordwas thuscentralto the discursive trategies hroughwhich a subjectpositionwas createdenabling the "Indian" to speak. It is thissubject positionthat want to discusshere in somedetail.What the Bengali literature n women's educationplayed out was a battlebetweena nationalist onstruction f a culturalnorm of the patriarchal,patri-local, patrilineal,extended family nd the ideal of the patriarchal,bourgeoisnuclear familythat was implicit n the European/imperialist/universalistis-course on the "freedoms"of individualism, itizenship, nd civilsociety.33hethemesof"discipline" nd "order"werecriticalnshapingnationalistmaginingsof aesthetics nd power."Discipline"was seen as thekey o thepowerofthecolo-nial i.e.,modern)state, ut trequiredcertainproceduresforredefining he self.The Britishwerepowerful, t wasargued,because theyweredisciplined, rderly,and punctual in everydetail of their ives,and this was made possible bytheeducationof "their"womenwhobrought he virtues fdiscipline nto thehome.The "Indian" home,a colonialconstruct, ow faredbadly nnationalistwritingson moderndomesticity.o quote a Bengalitext n women's ducationfrom1877:The houseofany iviliseduropean s ike he bodeofgods.Every ousehold bjectsclean, et n tsproper laceanddecorated; othingeems nclean r smells oul.... Itis as if the oddess f]order srinkhala,order, iscipline";rinkhal,chains"] ad becomemanifestopleasethe human] ye. n themiddle f theroomwouldbe a covered ablewith bouquet fflowersn it,while round t wouldbe [a few] hairs icelyrranged[with]verythingparklinglean.Butenter house nourcountryndyouwould eel sifyouhad beentransportedhere yyourdestinyo makeyouatonefor ll the insofyour ife.Amass f]cowdungorturinghe enses.. dust nthe ir, growingeapofashes, lies uzzing round .. a little oyurinatingnto hegroundndputtinghemessback ntohis mouth.... Thewholeplace s dominatedy stenchhat eems o berun-

12 REPRESENTATIONS


14/27

ning ree ... There s no order nywhere,hehousehold bjectsre so unclean hat heyonly vokedisgust.34This self-divisionf the colonial subject, he double movement frecognition ywhich tbothknows ts"present" s the siteof disorder nd yetmovesawayfromthis pace indesiring discipline hat anonly xist n an imaginedbut "historical"future, s a rehearsal, n the context fthe discussionofthebourgeoisdomesticin colonial India, of the transition arrativewe have encounteredbefore.A his-toricalconstruction f temporalitymedieval/modern,eparated by historicaltime), n otherwords, s precisely he axis along which thecolonial subjectsplitsitself.Or to put itdifferently,hissplit s what s history;writing istorys per-forming his plitover and overagain.The desirefororder and discipline n the domestic pherethusmaybe seenas havingbeen a correlateof the nationalist,modernizingdesire fora similardiscipline n thepublic sphere,that s for rule of awenforcedbythe state. t isbeyond thescope of thispaper to pursue thispointfurther, ut theconnectionbetweenpersonaldiscipline nd disciplinenpublic ifewas to reveal tselfnwhatthenationalistswrote bout domestichygiene nd publichealth.The connectionisrecognizablymodernist,nd it s what he ndian modernsharedwith heEuro-pean modern.35What I wantto attendto, however, re the differences etweenthe two. And this s whereI turn totheother mportant spectoftheEuropeanmodern,therhetoric f"freedom" nd "equality."The argument bout "freedom"-in the textsunder discussion-was wagedaround thequestion of theVictorian deals of thecompanionate marriage, hatis,over thequestionas to whether r not thewife hould also be a friend o thehusband. Nothingthreatened the ideal of the Bengali/Indianextended family(ortheexaltedpositionofthe mother-in-law ithin hat tructure)more than thisidea, wrapped up in notionsofbourgeois privacy, hatthewifewas also to be afriend r,toput tdifferently,hat he womanwas now tobe a modern ndividual.I mustmentionherethat hemodern ndividual,who assertshis/herndividualityover the claims of the oint or extendedfamily,lmostalwaysappears in nine-teenth- nd early twentieth-centuryengali literature s an embattledfigure,often hesubjectofridicule nd scorn nthesameBengali fiction nd essaysthatotherwise xtolledthe virtuesof discipline nd scientific ationalityn personaland public ives.This ironyhad many xpressions.The mostwell-known engalifictional haracterwhorepresents hismoral censureofmodernindividualitysNimchandDattain Dinabandhu Mitra'splaySadhabar kadashi1866). Nimchand,who is English-educated, uotes Shakespeare,Milton,or Locke at the slightestopportunity nd uses this educationarrogantly o ignorehis duties towardhisextended family, indshisnemesesin alcohol and debauchery.This metonymicrelationshipbetween the love of "modern"/Englishducation (whichstood forthe romantic ndividual n nineteenth-centuryengal) and theslipperypathof



15/27

alcohol is suggested n theplay bya conversation etweenNimchand and a Ben-gali official fthe colonialbureaucracy, Deputy Magistrate.Nimchand'ssuper-cilious braggadocio about his command of the English language quicklyandinevitablyuns to thesubjectof drinks synonymous,nmiddle-classBengali cul-tureoftheperiod,with bsolutedecadence):I readEnglish, rite nglish,peechifynEnglish,hinknEnglish, reamnEnglish-mind ou,t's ochild's lay-now ellme,my oodfellow,hatwouldyou ike odrink?-Claret or adies, herryormen ndbrandy orheroes.36

A similar onnectionbetween themodern,"free" ndividual and selfishnesswas made in the literature n women's education. The constructionwas undis-guisedlynationalist and patriarchal).Freedomwas used to mark a differencebetweenwhatwas "Indian" and what was "European/English."The ultra-freewoman acted likea memsahibEuropean woman),selfish nd shameless.As Kun-damala Devi, a womanwriting ora women'smagazineBamabodhiniatrika,aidin 1870: "Oh dear ones! Ifyouhave acquired real knowledge, hengiveno placeinyourhearttomemsahib-likeehaviour.This is notbecoming na Bengali house-wife."37he idea of "truemodesty"was mobilized to build up thispictureof the"really"Bengali woman.38Writingn 1920, Indira Devi dedicated her Narirukti[A Woman Speaks]-interestinglyenough, a defense of modernBengali wom-anhood against criticisms y (predominantly)male writers-to generationsofideal Bengali women whom she thus described: "Unaffectedby nature, ofpleasantspeech,untiringn their ervice to others], bliviousoftheirownplea-sures, while]movedeasily bythesufferingfothers, nd capable ofbeingcon-tentwithvery ittle."39This model of the "modern"Bengali/Indianwoman-educated enough toappreciate the modern regulationsof thebody and the state butyet"modest"enough to be unselfassertivend unselfish-was tied to the debates on "free-dom." "Freedom" ntheWest, everal authors rgued,meantathechhachar,o doas one pleased, theright o self-indulgence.n India, it was said,freedom eantfreedomfrom heego, thecapacity o serveand obey voluntarily. otice how theterms reedomnd slavery avechanged positions nthefollowing uote:To be abletosubordinateneselfoothers nd todharmaduty/moralrder/propercton]... tofree he oulfrom he laveryf he enses,rethe irstasksfhuman reedom....That swhynIndianfamiliesoys ndgirls re subordinateo theparents, ife o thehusband ndtotheparents-in-law,hediscipleotheguru, he tudentothe eacher ..theking odharma.. thepeople otheking,andone's]dignityndprestigeo that f]the ommunitysamaj]40There was an ironical wist o this heorizing hatneeds to be noted.Quiteclearly,this heory f"freedom-in-obedience"id notapplytothe domestic ervantswhowere sometimesmentioned n this iterature s examples of the "truly" nfree,thenationalist ointbeingthat European) observers ommenting n the unfree

14 REPRESENTATIONS


16/27

statusof Indian womenoftenmissed (so some nationalists rgued) thiscrucialdistinction etweenthehousewife nd thedomestic.Obviously, heservantswerenotyet ncludedinthe India of the nationalistmagination.Thus wenttheBengali discourseon moderndomesticityna colonial periodwhentherise ofa civil ociety nd a quasimodern statehad already nserted hemodernquestionsof "public"and "private" nto middle-classBengali lives.Thereceived bourgeois ideas about domesticity nd connections between thedomestic and the national were modifiedhere in two significantways. Onestrategy,s I have soughttodemonstrate,wastocontraposetheculturalnormofthe patriarchal xtendedfamily o thebourgeois patriarchal deals of the com-panionatemarriage, ooppose thenewpatriarchy ith redefinedversion ftheold one(s). Thus was fought he dea ofthemodernprivate.The otherstrategy,equally significant, as tomobilize,on behalfof the extendedfamily,orms ndfigurations f collectivememory hatchallenged,albeitambiguously, he seem-ingly absolute separation of "sacred" and "secular" time on which the verymodern "European") idea ofhistorywas/is ased.41 he figure fthe"truly du-cated,""trulymodest," nd "trulyndian" woman sinvested,nthisdiscussionofwomen's education, with a sacred authority y subordinating he question ofdomestic ife toreligious deas of femaleauspiciousnessthatoined theheavenlywith hemundane ina conceptualization f time hat ould be only ntihistorical.The trulymodernhousewife, t was said,would be so auspicious as to mark theeternal returnof the cosmic principleembodied in the goddess Lakshmi,thegoddess of domesticwell-beingbywhose grace the extended family and clan,and hence,byextending hesentiment,henation,Bharatlakshmi)ived and pros-pered. Thus we read in a contemporary amphlet:"Womenare the Lakshmisofthecommunity.f theyundertaketo mprove hemselvesnthesphereofdharmaand knowledge . . therewillbe an automatic mprovementn [thequalityof]social life."42 akshmi,regarded as theHindu god Vishnu's wifebyabout A.D.400, has for long been held up in popular Hinduism, and in the everydaypantheism fHindu families, s themodel of theHindu wife, nited ncompleteharmonywithher husband (and hisfamily) hroughwillful ubmission,oyalty,devotion,and chastity.43henwomendid notfollowher ideals,itwas said, the(extended) family nd thefamilyine were destroyedbythespirit fAlakshmi(not-Lakshmi), hedarkand malevolent everse ftheLakshmiprinciple.Whilewomen'seducationand the dea ofdiscipline s such were seldomopposed inthisdiscourseregarding hemodern ndividual ncolonialBengal,the ine wasdrawnat thepointwheremodernitynd thedemand forbourgeoisprivacy hreatenedthepowerand thepleasuresof the extendedfamily.There isno questionthat hespeakingsubjecthere is nationalist nd patriar-chal, employingthe clichedorientalist ategories, the East" and "the West."44However, of importance to us are the two denials on which this particularmomentofsubjectivityests:thedenial,or at leastcontestation,fthebourgeois



17/27

private nd, equally mportant, hedenial of historical imeby makingthefamilya siteiwhere hesacredand thesecularblended in a perpetualreenactment faprinciplethatwasheavenly nd divine.The culturalspace the antihistoricalnvokedwas byno means harmoniousor nonconflictual,houghnationalist hought fnecessityriedtoportrayt tobeso. The antihistorical ormsof the patriarchalextended family, orexample,could onlyhave had a contestedexistence, ontestedbothbywomen'sstrugglesand bythoseof the subaltern lasses.But these truggles idnotnecessarily ollowany ines thatwould allowus to construct mancipatory arratives y putting he"patriarchals" learlyon one side and the"liberals" n theother.The history fmodern "Indian" individualitys caughtup in too manycontradictions o lenditself o sucha treatment.I do nothave thespace heretodevelopthepoint, o I willmakedo withoneexample. It comes fromtheautobiography f Ramabai Ranade, thewifeof thefamousnineteenth-centuryocial reformer romtheBombayPresidency,M.G.Ranade. Ramabai Ranade's struggle or elf-respect as inpartagainstthe"old"patriarchalorder of the extended family nd forthe"new"patriarchy f com-panionatemarriage,whichherreform-mindedusbandsawas themostcivilizedformof theconjugal bond. In pursuitof this deal,Ramabai began to shareherhusband'scommitment opublic ifeand would often akepart in the 1880s) inpublicgatherings nd deliberations f male and femalesocial reformers.As sheherself ays:"It was at thesemeetings hat learntwhata meetingwas and howone should conduct oneselfat one."45 nterestingly,owever,one of the chiefsources of opposition to Ramabai's effortswere (apart frommen) the otherwomen in the family. here is of course no doubt thatthey,hermother-in-lawand herhusband'ssisters, pokefortheold patriarchal xtendedfamily. ut it squite instructiveo listento theirvoices as they ome acrossthroughRamabai'stext),forthey lso spoke for their wn senseofself-respectnd theirownformsofstruggle gainstmen:Youshouldnotreally o tothesemeetingstheyaidtoRamabai] ... Even fthemenwantyouto do these hings, ou hould gnore hem. ou neednot ayno:but fter ll,youneednotdo it.Theywill hengiveup,outof sheerboredom.... Youareoutdoingeven heEuropeanwomen.Or this:It is she [Ramabai]herself ho oves his rivolousnessfgoing omeetings.ada [Mr.Ranade] s not t allso keen bout t.But should henothave ome enseofproportionofhowmuchthe women hould ctually o? Ifmentellyouto do a hundred hings,women hould akeup ten t themost.Afterll mendo notunderstandhesepracticalthings!.. The goodwomanin hepast]never urned rivolousike his.... That swhythis argefamily.. could ive ogetherna respectable ay.... But now t s allso dif-ferent!f Dada suggestsnething,hiswomansprepared o do three.Howcanwe ivewithny ense fself-respecthen ndhow an weendure ll this?84-85)

16 REPRESENTATIONS


18/27

These voices,combining hecontradictoryhemesofnationalism, fpatriar-chal clan-basedideology, f women'sstruggles gainstmen,and opposed at thesame time to friendshipbetweenhusbands and wives,remindus of the deepambivalencesthatmarkedthe trajectoryf themodern privateand bourgeoisindividualityn colonial India. Yet historiansmanage, bymaneuversreminiscentof the old "dialectical" ard trick alled "negationofnegation," odenya subjectpositionto thisvoice of ambivalence.The evidence of what I have called "thedenial ofthebourgeois private nd of the historicalubject" sacknowledgedbutsubordinated in theiraccounts to the supposedly higher purpose of makingIndian historyook likeyetanotherepisode in the universaland (in theirview,theultimately ictorious)marchofcitizenship, f the nationstate,of themesofhuman emancipationspelled out in the course of theEuropean Enlightenmentand after. t is thefigureof thecitizen hatspeaks through hesehistories.Andso longas thathappens, myhyperreal urope will ontinually eturn o dominatethe stories we tell. "The modern" will then continue to be understood, asMeaghan Morris has so aptlyputit ndiscussingher own Australian ontext, asa known istory,omethingwhich has already appened lsewhere,nd which s tobe reproduced,mechanically r otherwise,witha local content."This can onlyleave us witha taskof reproducingwhat Morris calls "the projectof positiveunoriginality."46

VYet the"originality"-I concede thatthis s a bad term-of the diomsthroughwhichstruggleshave been conducted in the Indian subcontinenthasoftenbeen in the sphereof thenonmodern. One does not have to subscribetotheideologyof clannishpatriarchy, or nstance, o acknowledgethat the meta-phorof thesanctifiednd patriarchal xtendedfamilywas one ofthe most mpor-tant lements ntheculturalpolitics f ndian nationalism. n thestruggle gainstBritishrule,it was frequently heuse ofthis diom-in songs, poetry, nd other

forms f nationalistmobilization-that allowed "Indians" to fabricate sense ofcommunity nd to retrievefor themselvesa subject position from which toaddress the British. will llustrate hiswith n examplefrom he ifeofGandhi,"the fatherof the nation,"to highlight hepolitical mportanceof this culturalmoveon thepartof the"Indian."Myexample refers o theyear 1946. There had been ghastly iotsbetweenthe Hindus and the Muslims in Calcutta over the impendingpartitionof thecountry nto India and Pakistan. Gandhi was in thecity, astingn protestoverthe behaviorof his ownpeople. And here is howan Indian intellectual ecallstheexperience:



19/27

Menwouldcomebackfrom heir fficesntheeveningnd find oodprepared ythefamilymeaninghewomenfolk]eady or hem; ut oon twouldbe revealed hat hewomen f thehomehadnot aten hewhole ay.They apparently]adnotfelt ungry.Pressed urther,hewife r themother ould dmit hat heyouldnotunderstand owthey ouldgoon [eating] henGandhijiwasdying or heirwn rimes. estaurantsndamusemententres id little usiness;omeofthemwerevoluntarilylosedbythepro-prietors .... The nerveof feelinghad been restored;thepain began to be felt .... Gan-dhijiknewwhen o startheredemptiverocess.47

We do not have to take thisdescription iterally,ut thenatureof thecom-munity maginedin these ines s clear. t blends, nGayatri pivak'swords,"thefeelingof community hatbelongs to national inks and politicalorganizations"with thatotherfeelingofcommunitywhose structuralmodel is the[clanor theextended] family."48olonial Indian history s replete with instanceswhereIndians arrogatedsubjecthoodto themselves recisely ymobilizing,within hecontextof "modern" institutionsnd sometimeson behalfof themodernizingprojectofnationalism, evicesof collectivememory hatwere bothantihistoricaland antimodern.49his is not todenythecapacity f"Indians" to act as subjectsendowed withwhat we intheuniversities ould recognizeas "a senseofhistory"(whatPeterBurke calls "the renaissanceof thepast")but to nsist t the same timethat therewere also contrary rends, hat n the multifarioustruggles hattookplace in colonialIndia, antihistoricalonstructionsfthepastoftenprovidedverypowerfulforms f collectivememory.50There is thenthisdouble bindthroughwhichthesubjectof"Indian" historyarticulatestself.On theone hand, it s boththesubject nd theobjectof moder-nity, ecause it stands for an assumed unitycalled the "Indian people" that salways plit nto two-a modernizing liteand a yet-to-be-modernizedeasantry.As such a split ubject,however, tspeaksfromwithin metanarrative hatcele-brates thenationstate;and ofthismetanarrative he theoretical ubjectcan onlybe a hyperreal Europe," a "Europe" constructed ythe tales thatboth imperi-alism and nationalismhave told thecolonized. The mode ofself-representationthat the "Indian" can adopt here is what Homi Bhabha has justly called"mimetic."51ndian history,ven in the most dedicated socialistor nationalisthands, remainsa mimicry f a certain"modern"subjectof "European" historyand is bound torepresent sad figure f ack and failure.The transition arrativewillalwaysremain"grievouslyncomplete."On the otherhand, maneuvers are made within hespace ofthe mimetic-and thereforewithin heprojectcalled "Indian" history-to representthe "dif-ference" nd the"originality"fthe"Indian,"and it s inthis ause thatthe anti-historicaldevices of memory nd the antihistorical histories" f the subalternclasses are appropriated.Thus peasant/workeronstructionsf"mythical" ing-doms and "mythical" asts/futuresind place in textsdesignated"Indian" his-tory recisely hrough procedurethat ubordinates hese narratives o the rules

18 REPRESENTATIONS


20/27

of evidence and to thesecular, inearcalendar thatthewriting f"history"mustfollow.The antihistorical,ntimodern ubject,therefore, annot speak itself s"theory"within the knowledge procedures of the universityven when theseknowledgeproceduresacknowledge nd "document" ts xistence.Much likeSpi-vak's "subaltern" or the anthropologist's easant who can onlyhave a quotedexistence na largerstatement hatbelongsto theanthropologist lone), this ub-ject can onlybe spoken for and spoken of bythe transition arrative hatwillalwaysultimately rivilege hemodern i.e., "Europe").52So long as one operateswithin he discourse of "history" roduced at theinstitutional iteof theuniversity,t snotpossible simply o walk out of thedeepcollusionbetween history"nd themodernizing arrative(s) fcitizenship, our-geois publicand private, nd the nationstate. History" s a knowledge ystemsfirmlymbedded in institutional racticesthat nvokethe nation state at everystep-witness theorganization nd politics fteaching, ecruitment,romotions,and publication nhistory epartments, olitics hat urvive he occasional braveand heroicattempts y ndividual historians o liberate history" rom hemeta-narrative f thenation state.One onlyhas to ask,for nstance:Why s historycompulsory part of education of the modern person in all countries todayincluding hose thatdidquitecomfortably ithout tuntil s late as theeighteenthcentury?Why houldchildren ll over theworldtodayhave tocometo termswitha subjectcalled "history"when we know that thiscompulsion s neithernaturalnor ancient?53t does nottakemuchimagination o see that the reason for thislies in whatEuropean imperialism nd third-world ationalismshave achievedtogether:the universalization f the nation state as the most desirableform ofpolitical ommunity. ation stateshave thecapacity oenforce heir ruth ames,and universities,heir ritical istancenotwithstanding,re partofthebattery finstitutionsomplicit n thisprocess. "Economics" and "history"re the knowl-edge forms hatcorrespondto the twomajorinstitutionshattherise and lateruniversalization) f the bourgeois order has givento theworld-the capitalistmode ofproductionand thenationstate "history"peakingto thefigure f thecitizen).54 criticalhistorianhas no choice but to negotiate hisknowledge.Sheor he thereforeneeds to understand the stateon itsownterms, .e., in termsofitsself-justificatoryarratives f citizenship nd modernity. ince these themeswillalwaystakeus back to the universalist ropositions f "modern" European)politicalphilosophy-even the "practical" cience of economics that now seems"natural" to our constructions f world systemss (theoretically) ooted in theideas of ethics n eighteenth-centuryurope55-a third-world istorian s con-demned toknowing Europe" as theoriginalhome of the"modern,"whereas the"European" historiandoes not share a comparable predicamentwithregard tothepastsof themajority fhumankind.Thus follows heeveryday ubalternityofnon-Western istorieswithwhich began thispaper.

Yet theunderstanding hat we" all do "European" historywith ur differentWhoSpeaksfor Indian" asts? 19


21/27

and oftennon-Europeanarchives pens up thepossibilityf a politics nd projectof alliance between the dominant metropolitanhistories and the subalternperipheral pasts. Let us call this the projectof provincializing Europe," the"Europe" that modernimperialism nd (third-world) ationalismhave,bytheircollaborativeventure and violence,made universal.Philosophically,hisprojectmustground itself n a radical critique nd transcendence f liberalism i.e., ofthe bureaucratic constructions f citizenship,modernstate, nd bourgeois pri-vacythat classical political philosophyhas produced), a ground that ate Marxshareswithcertainmoments nbothpoststructuralisthought nd feminist hi-losophy. n particular, am emboldenedbyCarole Pateman's ourageous decla-ration-in herremarkablebook TheSexualContract-that hevery onceptionofthemodern individualbelongstopatriarchal ategories fthought.56

VIThe projectof provincializing Europe" refers o a history hat doesnot yetexist; I can thereforeonly speak of it in a programmaticmanner. Toforestallmisunderstanding,owever, must pelloutwhat t s notwhileoutliningwhat t could be.To beginwith,tdoes not callfor simplistic,ut-of-hand ejection fmoder-nity,iberalvalues,universals, cience,reason,grandnarratives,otalizing xpla-

nations, and so on. FredricJameson has recentlyreminded us that the easyequationoftenmade between a philosophical onception ftotality"nd "a polit-ical practiceoftotalitarianism"s "baleful."57What ntervenes etweenthetwo shistory-contradictory, lural,and heterogeneous truggleswhose outcomes areneverpredictable, ven retrospectively,n accordance with chemasthatseek tonaturalizeand domesticate hisheterogeneity. hese strugglesnclude coercion(bothon behalfof and againstmodernity)-physical, nstitutional,nd symbolicviolence,oftendispensedwithdreamy-eyeddealism-and it sthisviolence thatplaysa decisive role in the establishment f meaning, n the creation of truthregimes,ndeciding, s itwere,whose and which universal"wins.As intellectualsoperating nacademia, we are not neutraltothesestruggles nd cannotpretendto situateourselves outsideof theknowledgeproceduresofour institutions.The projectofprovincializing Europe" therefore annotbe a projectof"cul-turalrelativism."t cannotoriginatefrom hestance that he reason/science/uni-versalswhichhelpdefineEurope as the modern are simply culture-specific"ndtherefore nlybelongto theEuropean cultures.Forthepoint snot thatEnlight-enment rationalism s alwaysunreasonable in itself utrather matter fdocu-menting how-through what historicalprocess-its "reason,"which was notalwaysself-evidentoeveryone,has been made to look "obvious"farbeyondthegroundwhere toriginated. fa language,as has been said, sbuta dialectbacked

20 REPRESENTATIONS


22/27

up byan army, he same could be said of the narratives f "modernity" hat,almostuniversally oday,pointto a certain"Europe" as the primaryhabitusofthemodern.This Europe, like "theWest," s demonstrablyn imaginary ntity, ut thedemonstrations suchdoes not essen ts ppeal orpower.The projectofprovin-cializing "Europe" has to includecertainotheradditionalmoves: 1) therecogni-tion thatEurope's acquisitionof theadjectivemodernor tself s a piece ofglobalhistoryf which n integralpart s thestory fEuropean imperialism; nd 2) theunderstanding hat his quatingofa certainversion fEurope with modernity"is not the work of Europeans alone; third-world ationalisms, s modernizingideologiespar excellence,ave been equal partners n theprocess. I do notmeantooverlooktheanti-imperialmomentsn the careersofthesenationalisms; onlyunderscore the point that the projectof provincializing Europe" cannot be anationalist, ativist,ratavistic roject. n unraveling henecessary ntanglementof history-a disciplined and institutionally egulated form of collectivememory-withthe grand narratives f "rights," citizenship,"he nation state,"public"and "private" pheres,one cannot butproblematize India" at the sametimeas one dismantles Europe."The idea is to write nto thehistory fmodernityheambivalences, ontra-dictions, heuse of force, nd thetragediesand the ironies that attend t.Thatthe rhetoric nd the claims of (bourgeois) equality,of citizens'rights, f self-determinationthrough a sovereignnation state have in many circumstancesempoweredmarginalsocial groups in their truggles s undeniable-this recog-nition s ndispensableto theprojectof Subalterntudies.Whateffectivelysplayeddown,however,nhistories hat ither mplicitlyrexplicitlyelebrate he adventofthemodern state nd the dea ofcitizenships therepression nd violence thatare as instrumentaln thevictory fthemodern as is thepersuasivepowerofitsrhetorical trategies.Nowhere is this rony-the undemocratic foundationsof"democracy"-more visible than in the historyof modern medicine, publichealth, and personal hygiene, the discourses of which have been central inlocatingthebodyofthemodernat the ntersectionfthepublicand theprivate(as definedby, nd subjectto negotiationswith, he state).The triumphof thisdiscourse,however,has alwaysbeendependenton themobilization,n itsbehalf,of effectivemeansofphysical oercion. say"always" ecause this oercion s bothoriginary/foundationali.e., historic) s well as pandemicand quotidian.Of foun-dational violence,David Arnold givesa good example in a recentessayon thehistory f theprison n India. The coercion of thecolonialprison,Arnoldshows,was integralto some of the earliestand pioneering researchon the medical,dietary, nd demographic statistics f India, for the prisonwas where Indianbodies were accessibleto modernizing nvestigators.58f the coercionthatcon-tinues n thenames of thenation and modernity, recentexample comes fromthe Indian campaign to eradicatesmallpox n the 1970s. Two American doctors



23/27

(one ofthempresumably f "Indian"origin)whoparticipatedntheprocessthusdescribe theiroperations na villageofthe Ho tribe n the ndian stateof Bihar:In themiddle fgentlendiannight,n intruder urst hroughhebamboo oorofthesimple dobe hut. He wasa governmentaccinator,nderorders o breakresistanceagainstmallpox accination.akshmiingh woke creamingnd scrambledohideher-self.Her husband eapedout ofbed,grabbedn axe,and chased he ntrudernto hecourtyard.utside squadofdoctors ndpolicemenuicklyverpowered ohan ingh.The instant ewaspinned o theground, secondvaccinatorabbedsmallpox accineintohis rm.Mohan ingh, wiry 0-year-oldeader ftheHo tribe,quirmed way romtheneedle, ausing hevaccinationite obleed.Thegovernmenteamheldhim ntil heyhadinjected noughvaccine ... While hetwopolicemenebuffedim, herest f theteam verpoweredhe ntire amilynd vaccinatedach nturn. akshmi ingh itdeepinto ne doctor's and,but o no avail.59There is no escapingthe dealism that ccompaniesthisviolence. The subtitle fthe article nquestionunselfconsciouslyeproducesboththemilitarynd thedo-gooding instinctsf theenterprise. t reads: "How an armyofsamaritansdrovesmallpoxfrom he earth."Histories thataim to displace a hyperrealEurope from the center towardwhich all historicalmagination urrently ravitateswill have to seekout relent-lesslythis connection between violenceand idealism that ies at the heartof theprocessbywhich the narratives fcitizenshipnd modernityome to find nat-ural home in "history." register fundamentaldisagreementhere with posi-tion taken by Richard Rortyin an exchange withJurgen Habermas. RortycriticizesHabermas for the latter's onviction thatthestory f modernphilos-ophy san important artof thestory f thedemocratic ocieties' ttempts t self-reassurance."60 orty's tatement ollows hepractice fmany Europeanistswhospeak of the historiesof these "democratic societies" as if these were self-containedhistories omplete n themselves, s iftheself-fashioningf the Westwere something hatoccurredonlywithin tsself-assigned eographicalbound-aries. At the very east Rorty gnoresthe role that the "colonial theater" bothexternal and internal)-where the theme of "freedom"as definedbymodernpolitical philosophywas constantlynvokedin aid of the ideas of "civilization,""progress," nd latterly development"-played in the processof engenderingthis"reassurance."The task,as I see it,will be to wrestle deas that egitimizethe modern state and its attendant nstitutions,n order to return to politicalphilosophy-in the same wayas suspectcoins returned to theirowners in anIndian bazaar-its categorieswhoseglobal currency an no longerbe taken forgranted.61And, finally-since "Europe" cannot afterall be provincializedwithintheinstitutionaliteoftheuniversity hose knowledgeprotocolswillalwaystake usback to theterrainwhere all contoursfollow hatofmyhyperrealEurope-theprojectof provincializing urope mustrealize within tself ts own impossibility.

22 REPRESENTATIONS


24/27

It therefore ooks to a history hat embodies thispolitics f despair. It will havebeen clear bynow that this s not a call for culturalrelativism r foratavistic,nativist istories.Nor is this programfor simplerejection fmodernity, hichwould be, inmanysituations, olitically uicidal. I ask for a historyhatdeliber-atelymakesvisible,within hevery tructure f tsnarrative orms,tsownrepres-sive strategies nd practices, hepartitplays n collusion withthenarratives fcitizenshipsn assimilatingotheprojectsofthe modern state ll otherpossibili-tiesof human solidarity. he politics fdespairwillrequireof suchhistory hatit aysbare to its readers thereasonswhy uch a predicament s necessarilynes-capable. This is a historyhatwillattempt he mpossible:to look toward ts owndeathby tracing hatwhichresists nd escapes the best humaneffortt transla-tionacrosscultural nd other semiotic ystems,o that heworldmayonce againbe imaginedas radicallyheterogeneous.This, as I havesaid,is impossiblewithintheknowledgeprotocolsof academichistory,ortheglobality f academia is notindependentoftheglobalityhattheEuropean modern has created.To attempttoprovincialize his Europe" is to see the modern as inevitablyontested, o writeoverthegivenand privilegednarratives fcitizenship thernarratives fhumanconnections hatdrawsustenancefromdreamed-up pastsand futureswhere col-lectivitiesre definedneitherbytherituals fcitizenship orbythenightmare f"tradition" hat modernity"reates.There are ofcourseno (infra)structuraliteswhere such dreams could lodge themselves.Yet theywillrecur so long as thethemesof citizenship nd the nationstatedominateour narratives f historicaltransition, orthesedreams are whatthe modernrepresses norder to be.

NotesManydifferentudiences in the United States and Australiahave responded to ver-sions of this paper and helped me with their criticisms.My benefactorsare toonumerous to mention ndividually ut thefollowing ave been particularly elpful:the editorial board of Representationsor criticisms onveyed through ThomasLaqueur; Benedict Anderson, Arjun Appadurai, David Arnold, Marjorie Beale,ParthaChatterjee,NatalieDavis,NicholasDirks,SimonDuring,JohnFoster,RanajitGuha,JeanetteHoorn, MartinJay, ennyLee, David Lloyd,Fiona Nicoll,GyanendraPandey, Craig Reynolds,Joan Scott, nd Gayatri pivak.And very pecial thanks toChristopherHealy forsharingboththeintellectual nd thephysical abor thatwentinto thispaper.1. Ranajit Guha and GayatriChakravorty pivak, eds., Selected ubaltern tudiesNewYork,1988); Ronald Inden, "Orientalist onstructions f India,"ModernAsianStudies20, no. 3 (1986): 445.2. I am indebtedtoJeanBaudrillard for he termhyperrealsee his SimulationsNewYork,1983]),butmyuse differs romhis.

3. Linda Hutcheon,ThePoliticsfPostmodernismLondon, 1989),65.Who Speaks for"Indian"lPasts? 23


25/27

4. Edmund Husserl, The Crisis fEuropeanSciences nd Transcendentalhilosophy,rans.David Carr (Evanston, Ill., 1970), 281-85. See also Wilhelm Halbfass, India andEurope:AnEssay nUnderstandingNewYork,1988), 167-68.5. See the discussion in Karl Marx, Grundrisse: oundations f theCritique fPoliticalEconomy,rans. Martin Nicholas (Harmondsworth,Eng., 1973), 469-512; and inMarx,Capital:A CritiquefPolitical conomy,vols. Moscow, 1971), 3:593-613.6. See Dipesh Chakrabarty, RethinkingWorking-Class istory:Bengal, 1890-1940(Princeton,N.J.,1989), chap. 7.7. Marx,Capital,1:60.8. Marx, Grundrisse,05.9. See Chakrabarty, ethinking orking-Classistory,hap. 7, in particular.10. SumitSarkar,Modernndia,1885-1947 (Delhi, 1985), 1.11. Guha and Spivak,Selectedubalterntudies,3. The wordsquoted here are Guha's. ButI think heyrepresent sense ofhistoriographical esponsibilityhat s sharedbyallthemembersof the SubalternStudies collective.12. AlexanderDow,History fHindostan, vols. London, 1812-16), dedication,vol. 1.13. See L. T. Hobhouse, LiberalismNew York,1964), 26-27.14. Nirad C. Chaudhuri,TheAutobiographyf n Unknownndian New York,1989), dedi-cationpage.15. Partha Chatterjee,Nationalist houghtnd theColonial World:A Derivative iscourse?(London, 1986).16. Mudhusudan achanabaliBengali] (Calcutta,1965), 449. See alsoJogindranathBasu,MichaelMadhusudan atterjibancharitBengali] Calcutta,1978), 86.17. My understanding fthispoem has been enrichedbydiscussionswithMarjorieLev-inson and David Bennett.18. I am notmakingthe claim that ll ofthesegenres necessarily mergewithbourgeoisindividualism. ee Natalie Zemon Davis, "Fame and Secrecy:Leon Modena's Life san EarlyModern Autobiography," istorynd Theory7 (1988): 103-18; and Davis,"Boundaries and Sense ofSelf n Sixteenth-Centuryrance," nThomas C. Heller etal., eds., Reconstructingndividualism: utonomy,ndividuality,nd theSelf n WesternThoughtStanford,Calif., 1986), 53-63. See also PhilippeLejeune, OnAutobiography,trans.KatherineLeary Minneapolis,1989), 163-84.19. See thechapteron Nehru inChatterjee,Nationalisthought.20. M. K. Gandhi,Hind waraj 1909), in Collected orksfMahatma andhi, ol. 10 Ahmed-abad, 1963), 15.21. See the discussion n Gauri Visvanathan,MasksofConquest: iterarytudiesndBritishRulein ndia (London, 1989), 128-41, passim.22. Ranajit Guha, Elementaryspects fPeasant nsurgencyn Colonial ndia (New Delhi,1983), chap. 2.23. WilliamE. Connolly, olitical heoryndModernityOxford,1989). See also David Ben-nett, "Postmodernism and Vision: Ways of Seeing (at) the End of History"(forthcoming).24. Jirgen Habermas, The StructuralransformationfthePublicSphere:An InquiryntoCategoryfBourgeoisocietyCambridge,Mass., 1989), 49.25. See SumitSarkar, Social History:Predicament nd Possibilities,"n Iqbal Khan, ed.,Fresh erspectiven ndia and Pakistan: ssays nEconomics,olitics,ndCultureOxford,1985), 256-74.26. For reasons of space, I shall leave thisclaim here unsubstantiated,hough hope tohave an opportunity o discuss t ndetail elsewhere. shouldqualify hestatement y24 REPRESENTATIONS


26/27

mentioning hat nthe main trefers oautobiographiespublishedbetween1850 and1910. Once women join the public sphere in the twentieth entury, heir self-fashioning akes on different imensions.27. Nirad C. Chaudhuri,Thy and,GreatAnarch!:ndia,1921-1952 (London, 1987), 350-51.28. See KarlMarx,On the ewish uestion,nEarlyWritingsHarmondsworth, ng., 1975),215-22.29. For a more detailed treatment f whatfollows, ee mypaper "Colonial Rule and theDomesticOrder,"to be published nDavid Arnold and David Hardiman,eds., Subal-tern tudies, ol. 8.30. MeredithBorthwick,TheChangingRole ofWomennBengal,1849-1905 (Princeton,N.J.,1984); Ghulam Murshid,Reluctant ebutante: esponse fBengaliWomenoMod-ernisation,849-1905 (Rajshahi, 1983). On the history f the word civilization,eeLucien Febvre,"Civilisation: volutionof a Word and a Group of Ideas," in PeterBurke,ed., ANewKindofHistory:rom heWritingsfFebvre,rans. K. Folca (London,1973), 219-57. I owe thisreference o Peter Sahlins.31. JamesMill,TheHistory fBritishndia,vol. 1,ed. H. H. Wilson London, 1840), 309-10.32. Borthwick, hanging ole.33. The classic text where thisassumptionhas been worked up into philosophy s ofcourseHegel's hilosophyfRight, rans.T.M. Knox (Oxford, 1967), 110-22. See alsoJoanna Hodge, "Women and the Hegelian State," in Ellen Kennedy and SusanMendus, eds., Womenn WesternhilosophyBrighton, Eng., 1987), 127-58; SimonDuring,"Rousseau's Heirs: Primitivism, omance,and OtherRelationsBetween theModern and the Nonmodern" (forthcoming); oan B. Landes, Womennd the ublicSpheren theAge oftheFrenchRevolutionIthaca, N.Y., 1988); Mary Ryan,WomennPublic:Betweenanners ndBallots, 825-1880 (Baltimore, 1990).34. Anon.,Streesiksha,ol. 1 (Calcutta, 1877), 28-29.35. I develop thisargumentfurthern Dipesh Chakrabarty,Open Space/PublicPlace:Garbage,Modernity,nd India," SouthAsia forthcoming).36. Dinabandhu acanabali, d. KshetraGupta (Calcutta,1981), 138.37. Borthwick, hanging ole,105.38. I discuss this nmore detail nChakrabarty,Colonial Rule."39. Indira Devi,NariruktiCalcutta,1920), dedicationpage.40. Deenanath Bandyopadhyaya,NanabishayakrabandhaCalcutta,1887), 30-31. For agenealogyof the terms laverynd freedoms used in the colonialdiscourseofBritishIndia, see GyanPrakash,BondedHistories: enealogiesf aborServitudenColonial ndia(Cambridge, 1990).41. PeterBurke,TheRenaissance ense f he ast London, 1970).42. Bikshuk ChandrasekharSen],Ki holo! Calcutta, 1876), 77.43. David Kinsley,Hindu Goddesses: isions f he ivineFemininen theHinduReligious ra-dition Berkeley, 1988), 19-31; Manomohan Basu, Hindu acar byabaharCalcutta,1873), 60; H. D. Bhattacharya, MinorReligiousSects," n R. C. Majumdar,ed., TheHistorynd Culture f he ndianPeople:TheAge of mperialUnity,ol. 2 (Bombay,1951),469-71; Upendranath Dhal, Goddess akshmi:Origin ndDevelopmentDelhi, 1978).The expressioneverydayantheismassuggestedto mebyGayatriChakravorty pivak(personalcommunication).44. See thechapteron Bankim nChatterjee,Nationalisthought.45. Ranade:His Wife's eminiscences,rans.KusumavatiDeshpande (Delhi, 1963), 77.

Who Speaks for "Indian" Pasts? 25


27/27

46. Meaghan Morris,"Metamorphosesat SydneyTower,"NewFormations 1 (Summer1990): 10.47. Amiya Chakravarty, uoted in Bhikhu Parekh,Gandhi's olitical iscourseLondon,1989), 163.48. GayatriChakravorty pivak,"Can the SubalternSpeak?," in CaryNelson and Law-renceGrossberg, ds.,MarxismndthenterpretationfCultureUrbana, Ill., 1988), 277.49. See Subalterntudies, ols. 1-7 (Delhi, 1982-91); and AshisNandy,The ntimatenemy:LossandRecoveryf elfUnder olonialismDelhi, 1983).50. Subalterntudies, ols. 1-7, and Guha,Elementaryspects.51. Homi Bhabha, "Of Mimicry nd Man: The Ambivalenceof Colonial Discourse," nAnnetteMichelsonetal., eds.,October: heFirst ecade, 976-1986 (Cambridge,Mass.,1987), 317-26; also Bhabha, ed.,Nation ndNarrationLondon, 1990).52. Spivak,"Can the SubalternSpeak?" Also see Spivak's nterview ublishedin SocialistReview 0, no. 3 (July-September 990): 81-98.53. On the close connectionbetween mperialistdeologiesand theteachingofhistoryncolonial India, see RanajitGuha,An ndianHistoriographyfndia: ANineteenth-CenturyAgenda nd ts mplicationsCalcutta, 1988).54. Without nany way mplicating hem ntheentiretyf this rgument, maymentionthatthereare parallelshere betweenmy tatement nd whatGyanPrakashand Nich-olas Dirks have argued elsewhere.See GyanPrakash,"Writing ost-Orientalist is-toriesof the Third World: Perspectivesfrom ndian Historiography," omparativeStudiesnSocietyndHistory2, no. 2 (April 1990): 383-408; Nicholas B. Dirks,"His-tory s a SignoftheModern,"PublicCulture , no. 2 (Spring 1990): 25-33.55. See AmartyaKumar Sen, Of Ethicsand EconomicsOxford, 1987). Tessa Morris-Suzuki's A History fJapaneseEconomicThoughtLondon, 1989) makes interestingreading in thisregard. I am grateful oGavan McCormack forbringing hisbook tomy ttention.56. Carole Pateman,TheSexualContractStanford,Calif.,1988), 184.57. FredricJameson, "Cognitive Mapping," in Nelson and Grossberg,Marxism nd theInterpretationfCulture,54.58. David Arnold,"The Colonial Prison:Power,Knowledge, nd Penology nNineteenth-Century ndia," in Arnold and Hardiman, Subalterntudies, ol. 8. I have discussedsome of these ssues na Bengali article:Dipesh Chakrabarty,Sarir, amaj,o rashtra:Oupanibeshikbharate mahamariojanasangskriti,"Anustup, 988.59. Lawrence BrilliantwithGirijaBrilliant, Death for KillerDisease," Quest,May/June1978,3. I owe thisreference oPaul Greenough.60. RichardRorty, Habermas and Lyotardon Postmodernity,"n RichardJ. Bernstein,ed.,HabermasndModernityCambridge,Mass., 1986), 169.61. For an interestingnd revisionist eadingof Hegel in thisregard,see theexchangebetween Charles Taylorand ParthaChatterjee nPublicCulture , no. 1 (1990). MybookRethinking orking-Classistoryttempts smallbeginning nthisdirection.

26 REPRESENTATIONS

Documents

Postcoloniality Artifice