Spring Symposium Explores the Politics J

and Poetics of South Asian Vernaculars Matt MacKenzie Arindam Chakrabarti

The Center for South Asian Studies held its 19th annual Spring Sympo­sium, "Tongues of Fire: Languages and Literatures of South Asia," this April. The symposium brought together scholars from across the University and across the US­Chicago, Austin, Berkeley, Amherst, Cleveland-to discuss the politics and poetics of South Asian vernaculars. The two-day event consisted of three scholarly panels, a roundtable discussion, a literary reading, three keynote addresses, and a seemingly endless feast of insightful, engaged discussion.

Our first keynote address, "The Locations of Hindi," given by Prof. Vasudha Dalmia, explored the complex interconnections between place, language, experience and identity through an examination of both the history of Hindi as a con-

struct and its use and appropriation in the literature of various locales and by authors such as Bharatendu Harish Chandre and Alka Saraogi.

Prof. Dalmia's talk was followed by the first panel session, featuring papers by Prof. R. N. Sharma and Aaron Rester (University of Chicago). Prof. Sharma's paper, "Magical Births, Curses, and Deadly Ques­tions," traced the role and significance of various mythico-poetic devices­such as curses, boons, and strange, magical births-in the rich tapestry of the classical epics. Aaron Rester's paper, "The Web of Dharma: the Agnipariksha and the Ramayana on the Internet" examined the ways in which Sita's trial by fire is portrayed on several sites on the World-Wide Web. Further, the paper explored the interplay between the medium (or media) of the Internet, particular

narratives, and the larger traditions to which they belong, in an attempt to understand not just the ways in which people tell different versions of the "same" story, but also the ways in which entrance into a new medium can

affect a narrative tradition. Our afternoon session explored the

intersections between history, politics, and language. Prof. Lamia Karim (Women's Studies) presented "The Politics of Reading: Exiled Feminist Writer Taslima Nasreen and Bangladeshi Women," in which she examined how the radical feminist author, Taslima Nasreen, is read by mUltiple audiences-Western media, Bangladeshi women, the Bangladeshi clergy, and the reading public of West Bengal. According to Prof. Karim, for each group, Taslima Nasreen represents a particular voice and a set of concerns. For the Western media and the West Bengal audience, she is the "true" voice of Muslim women's oppression; for Bangladeshis, she is a "publicity-seeker" and not representa­tive of problems facing Bangladeshis. The paper did not claim an intimate knowledge of the feminist author's intentionality, or about her specific audiences, but explored some of the deep disturbances that her work generated among Bangladeshi middle­class and diasporic communities, and what those fears suggest about Bangladeshi middle-class sexual norms and religious identity.

In "History, Heroes and Novelistic Discourse: Hari Narayan Apte and the Marathi Historical Novel" Rohit Dalvi (Philosophy) sought to under­stand what Apte's novels could contribute to the heroisation of Shivaji in nationalistic Hindu context. Dalvi

SYMPOSIUM continued next page

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SYMPOSIUM cont'd tion on the bangla hut, the paper also analyzed the nexus of architecture and language, and considered which one is more "fundamental." Prof. Ashraf

suggests that, in the end, architecture might harbor more of the virtues of "mother tongue" than language if by "mother tongue" is implied an original sense of belongingness, an "at­homeness." In "Mahadevi V arma: The Dialogue of Desire and the Sacrificial · Heroine" Sarah Green (University of Texas) explored the poetic dialogue of desire between self and other-taking up themes of longing, absence, sacrifice, self-recognition, and agency­in Mahadevi' s poetic gestalt, her bounded universe. Menaha Ganesathasan (Philosophy) then spoke to "The Role of Literature in South Asian Morals," through her philo­sophical, ethical, and literary analysis of certain central story's in the Y ogavasishta.

Prof. Radhakrishnan' s keynote was an attempt to theorize postcoloniality across the asymmetry of the metro­politan-third world divide. If postcoloniality is to be understood differentially and heterogeneously, Radhakrishnan argued, it can be done so only the basis of an abiding double-consciousness that has to be produced agentially. Works produced in South Asian languages problematize the exemplarity of the metropolitan postcolonial model by opening up a different relational-global space where there are possi­bilities for multi-lateral translations and transcreations of literary value. The paper suggested that there indeed are rich possibilities for substan­tive and semantically rich

"fusion" among different horizons so long as the fusion is undertaken in the name of a radical Alterity that is not reducible to the practice of dominant representation or the vapid pieties of

South Asia News/Summer 2002

an apolitical and non-perspectival multiculturalism.

Conducted by S. Shankar, the roundtable on translation revolved around the following questions:

1. What are the responsibilities of a translator from South Asian languages such as Nepali, Urdu, Oriya or Sinhalese, Bengali or Tamil into English? They are often faced with the choice of either producing a scholarly translation (with footnotes, glossaries, parenthetical interruptions,lengthy introduc­tions, so on) or a literary transla­tion (without such surrounding paraphernalia) which aims at a certain seamlessness What are the advantages and disadvantages of each type of translation?

2.What is or should be the relation­ship between translation and · original? Is there any way better than an original? Is there any way in which the translation changes the original?

3. What are the politics and the economics of postcolonial translation today? Could South Asian literature survive merely in the vernacular market without English translations today? Who or what determines what gets translated, when and how?

4. How important is theoretical inquiry into the nature of transla­tion for the practice of transla­tion? What does a philosophical inquiry into translation teach us about literature, language, and texts?

Dipesh Chakrabarty, as a panelist, also brought in the question of nonliterate, bodily presence of the word such as in thumb-impressions which were so important for legal documentation and therefore for much

continued page 7

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South Asia New/Summer 2002

Book Review

Nicholas B. Dirks Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modem India, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001,315 pages.

By Himanee Gupta (Political Science)

Gstes of Mind: ColoniiUism and the Making of Modem India, meticu­lously explores the relationship between British colonialism and caste. This detail-packed study by Nicholas Dirks examines references to caste in both precolonial and colonial writings as well as those prepared by both Indian and non-Indian scholars in the decades following India's indepen­dence. It covers, among other things, missionary commentaries, ethno­graphic writings by colonial adminis­trators, the role of caste in establish­ing enumerative categories in the late nineteenth-century census, and discussions of caste that emerged among Indians during the nationalist movement and in contemporary political and socio-economic debates.

Dirks' hypothesis, which elabo­rates on a thesis he put forth in a 1992 piece in the journal Representations, is fairly straightforward. Dirks argues that while caste existed in India prior to the colonial encounter, how we understand caste today owes its genealogy to how British colonialist discourse constructed caste as the primary ordering principle of Indian society. This is not to assert that the British "invented" caste, as Dirks repeatedly states. However, as he argues, the colonialist role in articu­lating caste as-not only uniquely and timelessly Indian but also as the sole means through which Indians concep­tualized their own society and social relationships within it should not be understated. Whereas caste had been one category among many through which Indians were defined and

defined themselves prior to the colonial encounter, Dirks states that "it was under the British that 'caste' became a single term capable of expressing, organizing, and above all, 'systematizing' India's diverse forms of social identity, community, and organization .... In short, colonialism made caste what it is today." (5)

Questions of ethnography inhabit a central space in Dirks' argument. Perhaps the most provocative aspect of Castes of Mind is how Dirks illustrates the role that colonial ethnography played in defming, disciplining and managing Indians. British administrative practices of amassing knowledge on the Indian populace contributed to the forma­tion of what Dirks calls the ethno­graphic state, particularly after 1857 when India was brought under direct Crown rule. Doing ethnography, Dirks suggests, was a way of not only knowing India but also controlling India by shaping how it was that India was to be known. "To keep India, the British felt the need to know India far better than they had ... ," Dirks writes. And, thus, "the ethnographic state was driven by the belief that India could be ruled using anthropological knowledge to understand and control its subjects, and to represent and legitimate its own mission." (44 ) Yet, even as the British amassed more know ledge, India grew more unknowable. The response was not to question the approach being taken to knowledge itself but rather to collect more data. "The empiricist response was always to know more, even as the British could never acknowledge the deep uncertainty about the possibil­ity of real knowledge about subjects increasingly cast in terms of incommensurability." (44)

Castes of Mind sensitizes readers to the legacy of colonial domination in the shaping of a decolonizing

. India. At the same time, it urges

CASTES continued on page 11

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Thursday. April 11. 2002

Opening Remarks: Lila Sahney, G. J. and Ellen Watumull Foundation

9:00 - 10:15 a.m.: Keynote I

Vasudha Dalmia Distinguished Professor of South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Caifornia, Berkeley

"The Locations of Hindi"

10:30 - 12:00 a.m. Session I: Chair: Peter Hoffenberg (History)

"Magical Births, Curses, and Deadly Questions" Ramanath Sharma (Indo-Pacific Languages and Literatures)

"The Web of Dharma: the Agnipariksha and the Ramayana on the Internet" Aaron Rester (University of Chicago)

1: 15 - 3: 15 p.m. Session II: Chair: S. Charusheela (Women's Studies)

South Asia News/Summer 2002

Lamia Karim (Women's Studies)

"History, Heroes, and Novelistic Discourse: Hari Narayan Apte and the Marathi Historical Novel" Rohit Dalvi (Philosophy)

"The Language of Dancing-Girls and Prostitutes: Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan and the Making of a New Subjec­tivity in Urdu, 1857-1898" Jennifer Dubrow (University of Chicago)

3:30 - 5:30 p.m. Session III: Chair: Eliot Deutsch (Philosophy)

"Is There a Mother Tongue to Architecture?" Kazi Ashraf (Architecture)

"Mahadevi Varma: The Dialogue of Desire and the Sacrificial Heroine" Sarah Green (University of Texas, Austin)

"The Role of Literature in South Asian Morals" Menaha Ganesathasan (Philosophy)

Friday, April 12, 2002

10:30 - 11:45 a.m.: Keynote III

R. Radhakrishnan "National Identity and the Politics of ReadingTaslima Professor of English, University of Massachusetts, Nasreen" Amherst

South Asia New/Summer 2002

"Post-Coloniality: The Vernacular Difference"

1:15 - 2:45 p.m. Session IV: Roundtable: The Politics and Poetics of Translation

S. Shankar (Moderator), Dipesh Chakrabarty, R. Radhakrishnan,Vasudha Dalmia, and Arindam Chakrabarti

3:00 - 4:15 p.m. : Keynote IV

Dipesh Chakrabarty Professor of South Asian Studies and History, Univer­sity of Chicago

"Bilinguality and the Writing of History"

SYMPOSIUM from page 4 subaltern history.

In his much-awaited keynote address on bilingulaity, Dipesh Chakrabarty confessed that his own relationship to his vernacular Bengali has been erotic-so much so that his current lived distance from that language has only made his involvement with it even more poignant. In answer to questions from the audience he withheld his judgement on the question: Would vernacular South Asian

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7:00 - 9:00 p.m.

Samrat Upadhyay Assistant Professor of English, Baldwin-Wallace College

Reading from his collection of short stories, "Arresting God in Kathmandu" (Supported by MANOA Journal)

Our thanks to:

The G.]. and Ellen Watumull Foundation

Manoa Journal

College of Languages, Linguistics, and Literatures

Departments of History and English

Center for Korean Studies

The Sydney Stern Memorial Trust

languages survive as vibrant sites of literary activity after globalization and the unstoppable hegemony of English? But he also added that he himself sees no sign of their death or sickness and hopes that Bengali will be alive and bursting with creative energy as long as he lives. After that it mayor may not die. Languages do die after all and also sometimes get changed beyond recognition.

The dialectic of a bilingual consciollsness was very mllch at the center of Chakrabarty's talk which was

continued on page 12

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Center news

Spring 2002 events

Thovil: Ritual, Healing, and Theatre in Sri Lanka

Kirstin Pauka (Theatre and Dance)

Based in animism, Buddhism, and traditional healing methods, Sri Lanka's Thovil ceremonies incorpo­rate theatre, dance, and trance by professional performers under the leadership of a shaman healer. The aim of the performance is to restore to balance and health sick individuals in their Sri Lankan communities. Prof. Pauka's presentation focused on the roles of theatre and dance within Thovil and how these elements contribute to the efficacy of this ritual.

Gandhi, Nonviolence, and Moral Casuistry

Roy Perrett Senior Research Fellow Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics Charles Sturt University Canberra, Australia

Gandhi's theory of non-violence (ahimsa)is an important and original contribution to a global ethic. Critics have claimed, however, that the theory is vitiated by its replication of a dilemma that is also present in the traditional Hindu moral theory Gandhi drew upon: namely, an uneasy oscillation between, on the one hand, an elaborate code of conduct regulat­ing the minutest details of everyday life and, on the other, a set of highly abstract ideals with the minimum possible rules to guide their practice. For the most part, the fonner is recommended for ordinary folk and the latter for a moral elite. The result has often been an unthinking con­formism at one end of the social spectrum and limitless freedom at the other. Gandhi's theory, it is charged, not only failed to solve this traditional Hindu dilemma, but accentuated it.

Perrett defended Gandhi against this charge by arguing that he is best interpreted as a kind of principled moral casuist: that is , one who believes both in use of the "method of cases" to provide practical advice in situations where more than one moral principle applies, and in the impor­tance of moral principles as regulative ideals. On this account, casuistry is . not an alternative to, but a comple­ment of the development of moral principles - even though the weight of a principle in a particular case cannot be determined in the abstract. Understood in this way, Gandhi has a plausible reply to the critics' charge that his moral theory is both too conservative and too indeterminate. Moreover Gandhi's principled casuistry also offers a model for a (suitably modest) global ethic, where this is understood as less a search for an overarching moral theory than an international and intercultural concern with problem-driven specific agendas whicb allow only a limited role for theory.

Unruly Immigrants: South Asian social change politics in the US (Sponsored by Women's Studies)

Monisha Das Gupta Syracuse University

South Asians in the US are usually portrayed as "model minorities" who are trouble-free and economically successful, and therefore, have no need for social change-oriented politics. Yet, feminist, queer, and labor organizations have mush­roomed in immigrant South Asian communities since 1985. They draw attention to key, but often erased, immigrant realities of labor exploita­tion, violence against women, homophobia, racism, and nativism. By doing so, they break the silence imposed by the model minority image which the state and the South Asian mainstream actively co­produce. The organizations, in their

South Asia News/Summer 2002

negotiations with the state, South Asian communities, and the social movements in which they participate, address what it means to be immi­grant. They make visible the ' racialized, gendered, sexualized, and class dimensions of immigrant status thereby opening up grounds for alliances with other minoritized groups struggling for social justice.

Lyrics of Love/Love of Lyrics: The Social Impact of Mirabai Across Caste and Gender

Nancy Martin Associate Professor of Religion and South Asian Studies, Chapman University

The sixteenth-century bhakti saint Mirabai is immensely popular, with her appeal crossing the boundaries of caste and gender. The breadth and nature of her social impact can be seen through, first, an examination of low-caste performance traditions of Mira's story and songs. Here she serves as an inspiring figure who chooses to live in solidarity with the low-caste, suffers as they do, but also asserts the dignity of their lives and the equality of all before God even as she rejects the value system which lauds the wealthy and the powerful. Singing in Mirabai's name becomes an avenue for people within low-caste communities in Rajasthan to articulate their own resistance and theological insight. Yet Mirabai has also played a role in Hindu nationalist and Rajput

EVENTS continued page 11

South Asia New/Summer 2002

Center news Faculty Notes Barbara Andaya (Asian Studies ) re­cently published an article which looks at the early religious links between Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, "Localising the Universal: Women, Motherhood and the Appeal of Early Theravada Buddhism." Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 33, 1 (February, 2002): 1-30.

Arindam Chakrabarti (Philosophy) de­livered "Perception, Apperception and Nonconcpetual Content" at an interna­tional conference on Consciousness at Jadavpur University Calcutta, on Janu­ary 2-4. He published "Frege' s Regress Argument Against Correspondence Theory of Truth" in the Journal of De­partment of Philosophy Rabindrabharati University Calcutta and submitted an invited long article on "Problems in the Epistemology of Testimony " to Stanford Online Encyclopedia of Phi­losophy in March.

Arindam is scheduled to deliver three distinguished lectures on "Ethics of Speech" at the Central Institute of In­dian Languages and Linguistics at Mysore, India in July. He is also pre­senting a plenary paper, "Making Sense of the Vedic and Tantric Divinities" at The Giobal Renaissance conference at Columbia University Center for ~ud­dhist Buddhist Studies in July 24-29.

Vrinda Dalmiya (Philosophy) has re­cently published, "Cows and Others: Towards Constructing Ecofeminist Selves" in Environmental Ethics Sum­mer, 2002, and "Caring to Know" in Hypatia 17.1, Winter 2002. She co-ed­ited (with Xinyan Jiang) the American Philosophical Association Newsletter for the Status of Asian/Asian American Philosophers and Philosophies on "Asians and Asian Americans in Phi­losophy" Spring, 2002. In April, she presented, "Representing Excellence: The Authoritative in South and East Asian Art and Literature" in an NEH sponsored workshop in Nashville.

Peter H. Hoffenberg (History), in addi­tion to a piece on the Calcutta Interna­tional Exhibition, is also researching and writing an article about the Journal of Indian Art and Industry (1884-1917) for a special issue of Victorian Periodi­cals Review devoted to Indian and Anglo-Indian periodicals.

Sankaran Krishna (Political Science) recently presented his ongoing work at the Association of Asian Studies meetings in Washington DC (April 2002). He will be presenting a paper on Indo-Sri Lankan relations at the 20th an­niversary celebrations of the Interna­tional Center for Ethnic Studies (ICES) in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in August 2002. Recent publications include:

"Methodical Worlds: Partition, Secular­ism and Communalism in India" in the journal Alternatives, Special Issue on "Partition" jointly edited by Sankarari Krishna and R.B.J. Walker, 27, 2 (April-June) 2002: 217-243. This spe­cial issue also has essays by, among others, Gyanendra Pandey and Urvashi Butalia. "Partition: On the Discrimina­tions of Modernity" Introduction to the above special issue, co-authored with R.B.1. Walker, Alternatives 27, 2 (Apr­Jun) 2002, 143-146. "In One Innings: National Identity in Postcolonial Times" in Geeta Chowdhury and Sheila Nair (eds)., Power, Postcolonialism and International Relations: reading race, gender and class, Routledge, 2002: 170-183.

J. P. Shanna (History) just finished fi­nal page-proofs of his edited volume, Individuals and Ideas in Traditional In­dia: Ten Interpretive Studies, which is published by Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, New Delhi, 2002. It includes papers by some of his students, Priti K Kitra, Julie Trott,Surojit Mohan Gupta ,Gregory Mascarinec and me and one by Prof Walter Maurer. His next book will be the revised and enlarged sec­ond edition of my Republics in Ancient India from 3000 - 500 Be, which he hopes to finish in summer 2002.

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R.N. Shanna (Indo-Pacific Languages) Presentations: March 1-2, 2002, Stanford University, invited presenta­tion at the panini workshop of Depart­ment of Linguistics, under the title, "Once again on conflict among rules of equal strength;" March 4, 2002, Uni­versity of California at Berkeley, invited presentation at the Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies under the title, "Rule-interaction in Panini' s Grammar". Publications: Sharma has completed his six-volume study on Panini's grammar. He started working on this study in 1979 and completed it in 1999. Five of these volumes have al­ready been published by Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers of New Delhi.

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Center news A second revised edition of his fIrst volume on the treatment of Panini's grammar as a linguistic device came out in April 2002. The last volume is sched­uled for release before the end of sum­mer. He is currently working on a four­volume study on the Kashika-vrtti of Vamana-Jayaditya. He will soon be submitting its fIrst two volumes for pub­lication to Munshiram. The Center for Studies in Civilizations (New Delhi) has published Sharma's paper "Panini, Katyayana and Patanjali" in its History of Science, Philosophy and Culture, volume I: The dawn of Indian Civili­zation. Two other papers on "System­atization of Sanskrit Grammar", and "Sphotavaada" will soon be published in other volumes. , Student Notes Rohit Dalvi (Philosophy) is continu­ing to explore the concepts of "relation" and "difference" in Indian philosophy under the guidance of Prof Chakrabarti. This research toward a dis­sertation includes texts from the Nyaya, Dvaita and Buddhist intellectual tradi­tions. Rohit is teaching a summer course in Philosophy which will focus on Buddhist and Greek thought. He is also working on translating the work of some French Indologists into English.

Himanee Gupta (Political Science) or­ganized the panel, "DefIning Nation and Diaspora in India's (Trans )national Present: Narratives of Gender, Culture, and Nationality," for the East-West Center International Graduate Student Conference, Feb. 21-23, Honolulu. She presented the paper, "Amid the 'Ruins' in Ayodhya Lies a Narrative of India's National 'Present, '" as part of the panel. She is teaching two political science courses this summer.

Menaha Ganesathasan (Philosophy) is currently working on her dissertation: The Kingdom within the Hut: Ethical Education and Story-Telling in the Y ogavasistha. She presented a paper,

The Role of Literature in South Asian Morals, at the recent CSAS symposium.

Jill Keesbury (Political Science) is cur­rently completing work on her disser­tation, "Evaluating the Effectiveness of the International Population Regime: An Examination of International Influ­ence and National Policy Change in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh." In February 2002 she presented a paper based on this work, "The Politics of Reproductive Health: Toward and Ex­planation of Differences in South Asian Program Strategies," at the East-West Center International Graduate Student

South Asia News/Summer 2002

Conference.

Matt MacKenzie (Philosophy) will be participating in the AIlS Summer San­skrit Program in Pune this summer, thanks to the Watumull Scholarship. His paper, "The Five Factors of Action and the Decentering of Agency in the Bhagavad Gita" recently appeared in the journal, Asian Philosophy. In the Fall he will present his paper, "From Resentment to Freedom: celebration of the body in the Y ogavasistha" at the American Academy of Religion East­ern Division meeting in Toronto. He will also present his paper, "Does Self-

South Asia New/Summer 2002

A wareness Require a Self? Buddhist Reductionism and the Reflexivity of Consciousness" at the Eastern AP A meeting of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy in Philadel­phia. He will eventually find time to complete his dissertation.

EVENTS cont'd from page 8 identity politics, where she was seen as a model for the ideal Indian woman, though to present her as such meant that all hint of her rejection of her husband's world had to be expunged from her story and her story was "purified" in this way by a small group of men related to her natal and marital families who played a key role in the historical writing of the late nineteenth century. This telling of ~irabai's story was widely popular­Ized but has no more claim to authenticity than do the tellings of low-caste communities. Mirabai has also served as a model for uppercaste women, who have chosen to live lives of religious devotion outside of marriage, the wider society and they themselves coming to terms with their choices through their identification with the saint. Mirabai remains a powerful presence though an ambivolence still attends her behavior as a woman. For some she is too rebellious, while for others she seems only an exception that proves the rule for women, reinforcing marital hierarchical imagery even as she transposes it to the human divine relation. But many, across the spectrum of caste an4 gender, look upon her with great affection, her

lyrics articulating love of both God and human, resistance and dignity, unshakable conviction and absolute devotion. She belongs to all and yet none, with new stories continuing to ?e told about her and new songs sung mhername. -~. ~. ~i~.

PORTRAITS cont'd from page 3 Akbar, left by Jahangir, cited as an epigraph above. There are no great poetic flourishes in the description, and it remains brief. But one begins to sense the presence of an individual through these words. There are built into them references to divine glory, and a mention of the "science of physiognomy" according to which appearances can be interpreted, but some palpable facts, specific to the individual described, come one's way: the complexion, the colour of eyes and eyebrows, the frame, the height, the quality of voice, and the like. One seems to enter here a world of observation rather than of conven­tion and imagination.

The two approaches are clearly different, and one senses their continued presence even in a number of Rajput portraits made in the awareness of, and certainly inspired by, Mughal portraits. Portraiture, as established at the Mughal court, became very quickly a favoured genre of painting at all Indian courts as one knows. But approaches to it ' often varied. And it is of interest to track the differences down for the next two hundred years.

It is of interest to recall at the same time that establishing

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portraiture as a genre, in fact favouring the very art of painting, could not have been easy in the initial stages, even for the great Akbar. For there must have been opposition to the art from the orthodox among the Muslims, who had their familiar reservations about the making of images that exist in Islam. But the Emperor seems to have met these 'objections' in his own manner, using both his power, and his philosophical way of explaining things, to do this. As his chronicler and friend, Abu'l Fazl wrote, such men as are opposed to painting "His Majesty does not like." For, in the emperor's consid­ered view, a painter had 'peculiar means of his own' to recognize the glory of God.

There is much to read between the lines in the chapter on the Art of Painting that Abu 'l Fazl brings in, in his great Ain-i Akbari. But one certainly knows that, as a result of the interest that the Emperor took in the matter, an enormous album of portraits was made for him by his painters. This could only have helped clear the way for the great portraiture that was to follow in the succeeding reigns: those of Jahangir and Shah Jahan.

CASTES cont'd from page 5

-~ ....,.·v '

readers to keep in mind the fact that the dominating power that colonial­ism attained did not arise through British authority alone. Missionaries traders and administrative authorities' relied on local informants for data. Because these informants typically were Brahman, scriptural and other references to Brahman superiority in a varna-based hierarchy attained an importance that was not necessarily reflective of on-the-ground caste practices in daily life in localized settings. Yet, this privileging of Brahman authority came to be the reality that shaped late colonial India. It remains, Dirks argues, a primary dynamic in caste politics today.

As noted, this study is detail heavy. The text, as a result, can be

continued next page

South Asia New/Summer 2002

CASTES cont'd daunting, especially for non-India specialists. For special-ists, the historical material that Dirks presents is fascinat­ing but not particularly new; this makes the energy he puts into backing up a hypothesis he presents quite elegantly in his opening chapters a bit tiresome at times. In addition, more is needed on the interplay of caste and gender. Dirks notes that power in both precolonial and colonialist ' understandings of caste "functioned in the service not only of Brahmans but of men more generally" and that "in the

Center for South Asian Studies School of Hawaiian, Asian and Pacific Studies Moore Hall 411 1890 East-West Road University of Hawai'i-Manoa Honolulu, Hawai'i 96822 USA

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. political milieu of the old regime and then increasingly Brahmanical forms under colonial rule, the most pervasive forms of oppression were directed at women." (72) He also notes that women, while "the most important objects of social regulation," generally were absent in caste discus­sions. (72) However, he does not elaborate on the i'ssue

. further. Nevertheless, Castes of Mind is a worthy contri­

bution to studies of colonialist discourse and the insidious traces that they leave on the post-colonial state. It offers a ' reminder that, as Dirks states in Representations, "India's postcolonial condition is not its precolonial fault."

~

SYMPOSIUM from page 12

followed by an hour of lively question and answer session. Friday evening, we wrapped up our two-day sympo­

sium with a reading from critically-acclaimed Nepali­American author, Samrat Upadyay, co-sponsored by Manoa Journal. Prof. Upadyay read from his collection of short stories, Arresting God in Kathmandu. The well­attended reading was followed by a lively and wide­ranging discussion.

Finally, CSAS would like to extend our sincerest thanks to the G. J. and Ellen Waturimll Foundation, Manoa Journal, the College of Languages, Linguistics, and Literatures, the Departments of History and English, the Center fot Korean Studies, Linda Miyashiro, and all of our particiapants and attendees for helping to make our symposium such a success. Next year's symposium, we think, will focus on the role of food in South Asian culture and society. We hope that you will join us.