The start of British Rule
As the British rule spread in India, learning our language become very
essential for them to ‘control over the people and the land’. Around 1770
the British began the program of appropriating Indian languages to serve as a
crucial component in their construction of the system of rule. More and more
British officials were trying to learn the “classical” languages of India. They
considered SamskRutham, Persian, and Arabic as classical languages.
Because of the Muslim rulers, the British thought that Persian and Arabic were used
in India along with Indian languages. They considered other languages as
“vulgar languages”. After 1770 “in which the British were beginning to produce
an apparatus for control and administration of the land: grammars,
dictionaries, treatises, class books, and translations about and from the
languages of India” were being created. (1)
Some of the books of the time, among others were: The
History of Hindostan by Alexander Dow, 1770; A Grammar of the Persian Language
by Sir William Jones, 1771; The Practical and Vulgar Dialect of the Indostan
Language Commonly Called Moors, by George Hadley, 1772; A code of ‘Gentoo Laws’
or, Ordinations of the Pundits, 1776; & Grammar of Bengal Language, both by
N. B. Halhed, 1778; A dictionary of English, Persian and Arabic, by John
Richardson, 1780; Institutes Political and Military of Timour by William Davy,
1783; The Forms of the Herkern by Francis Balfour, 1781; The Bhagavat Geetha by
Charles Wilkins, 1785; A Vocabulary, Persian, Arabic and English, Containing
such Words as Have Been Adopted from the two Former Languages and Incorporated
into the Hindvi by William Kirkpatrick, 1785; Ayeen i Akberry or
the Institutes of the Emperor Akbar by Francis Gladwin, 1783-1786; and A
Dictionary English and Hindustanee, Part 1, by John A. Gilchrist, 1787”.(2)
“The production of these texts and others that followed
them, began the establishment of discursive formation, defined an
epistemological space, created a discourse (Orientalism), and had the effect of
converting Indian forms of knowledge into European objects. The subjects of
these texts were first and foremost the Indian languages themselves, "re-presented"
[presented again] in European terms as grammars, dictionaries, and teaching
aids in a project to make the acquisition of a working knowledge of the
languages available to those British who were to be part of the ruling groups
of India,” (3) and also to those of the land who were to be the
tools of the rule. These ‘re-presented’ (presented again) forms of Indian
linguistics, culture and history are still being used. Thus, even now, what people
learn is not what are our real linguistics, culture and history, but converted
Indian Forms of knowledge into “European forms and subjects”. On the surface it
may look Indian but in thought, words and acts it is all European imitations. So,
the so-called intellectuals, who “--a class of
persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in
morals and in intellect” were created. They said; “To that class we may leave
it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects
with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render
them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the
population”, (4) And this is what exactly they planned and did
with the Education System they brought in. Yes they definitely did leave our
people “Indian in blood and colour”; but sure
they “made the people of India who went through that education system English
in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect.” They also made our
people do “enrich”; actually entrench our
languages “with terms of not only science” but also other words “borrowed from
the Western nomenclature, and they sure rendered us some “fit vehicles for
conveying” our “knowledge to the great mass of the population” corrupted
with their form and structure. Thus we become Indian in look and “English in tastes, in opinions, in morals” which were all
too far from our cultural and spiritual values. A lot of our people become “intellect”
and act or (try to act) European” and with the at most of perverseness for
anything and everything of ours.
Around late 1700s the people of the country were called
“Gentoo” (not “Hindus”) by the British, and thus the British thought that the
translations of “Gentoo Laws” and Geetha shall “be keys with which to unlock,
and hence make available, knowledge” of the law and the principles of braHMavidya
(which they considered to be the commandments or tenements of the ‘Gentoo Laws’
which they later changed to “Hindu” Laws at a later stage) held by our
forefathers. The British also described and propagated through writings that
the “Gentoo Laws” were held “tightly by the ‘mysterious’ Brahmans”. (5) The word “Hindu” got into the regular
use in the mid-1800s and this is the reason westerners and some Christians in
our “Good old bhAratham” claim that “Hinduism” was established in the 1800s
only.
The “Gentoo Laws” they used was smRithis and they
most probably the ManusmRithi and thus the British made ManusmRithi
the Laws of the “Gentoos”. ManusmRithi which should have been discarded
by then as the laws where changed with almost every administration. Thus ManusmRithi
got importance in every British dealings and it got transferred to the
people. Now a large number of people refer to it just to abuse others. This is
perhaps because people had lost the idea that smRithis have to be
changed as the time passes. And now we have a constitution and laws enacted by
a parliament and other legislators. But as the interpretations of ManusmRithi
also got “re-presented” in to European “forms and subjects” and also to the
people of the land.
With these translations, identified as “texts”; they
planned an “invasion of an epistemological space occupied by a great number of
diverse Indian scholars, intellectuals, teachers, scribes, priests, lawyers,
officials, merchants, and bankers, whose knowledge as well as they themselves
were to be converted into instruments of colonial rule. They were now to become
part of the army of all kinds of officials” and non-officials who will help
them to control and run the everyday affairs of the “British Raj” and rule over
the country, “under the scrutiny and supervision of the white sahibs”. (6)
This sure gave those “instruments of colonial rule” upper hand in the
community. Naturally those “instruments of colonial rule” were the so called
“upper caste” people or we could say they become the “upper caste” in that
process. With the special treatment, benefits and privileges they got from the
British, they were bound to become the “SavaRNaR” and the rest the “AvaRNnaR”.
The task of ruling the country was not easy or short. The
British were small in number compared to the local people. The knowledge which
this small group of British officials shall gain should be the tool of
controlling the “instrumentality through which they were to issue commands and
collect ever-increasing amounts of information. This information was needed to
create or locate cheap and effective means to asses and collect taxes, and
maintain law and order to collect that taxes; and it served as a way to
identify and classify groups within Indian society”, for the purpose of
building of a strong foundation and the infrastructure for their rule. The “Elites
had to be found”, [or made] “within Indian society, who could be made to see
that they had an interest in the maintenance of British rule. Political
strategies and tactics had to be created and codified into diplomacy through
which, the ‘country powers’ could he converted into allied dependencies. The
vast social world that was India had to be classified, categorized, and bounded
before it could be ordered”. (7)
They did exactly that; they classified, categorized and divided the whole
manpower into various groups administratively, and ordered. A basic division of
labor structure based on the professions of each individual was available to
build on. And also a broad based four group administrative division based on
the “intellect and innate disposition of each individual” was also available. (8) They were “JAthi” and “ChAthur
VaRNiyam”. The British worked on some changes on to them with the “Senses Survey”
and administrative decisions and reorganized them into ‘one’ and also documented
it as the “Caste System” administratively; and gradually made it into the
present form. (In 1947 they left. But practically people still follow those
orders.)
“As with many discursive formations and their discourses,
many of its major effects were unintended, as those who were to be the objects
produced by the formation often turned it to their own ends. Nonetheless, the
languages that the Indians speak and read were to be transformed. The
discursive formation was to participate in the creation and reification of
social groups with their varied interests. It was to establish and regularize a
discourse of differentiations that came to mark the social and political map of
nineteenth-century India.”(9) So it becomes clear that what the British wanted
was to transform our languages first. They planned to use of those languages, to
treat something abstract (theoretical or conceptual) as if it existed as a real
and tangible object which ‘was creation of various social groups’ with
their varied interests. Here they had something little more than conceptual.
All they have to do was to just transform it a bit to suite to their needs of
administrative control. With that they aimed at establishing, standardizing and
legalizing such groups of differentiations. So that it can help them in
controlling and ruling over the mass populous of the land. But along with their
control and rule the people of the country was also divided and the social map
of nineteenth-century India was made into mutually opposing and distrusting
social groups. Even though the divisions were there earlier, the fight for
superiority was not there, as each had a special duty to perform and they all
understood what it was. But the British played groups against group in order to
keep their supremacy. This created a much confrontational atmosphere. And now,
even after decades of independence from British rule people keep that complex.
Now this has spilled into the political fields also. Thus the politics has
completely turned into a “caste” based drama. And this is what they did by
these “texts” and the information they collected and sometimes created and then
decimated to the people of Our “Good old bhAratham” through their
administrative arm. The “British Education System” was the training ground for
this purpose. And they did that very well and both did give results they wanted
and the people are still under its grip.
Bibliography
1.
Colonialism and
its forms of knowledge by Bernard S. Cohn, Page 20, 21
2.
Colonialism
and its forms of knowledge by Bernard S. Cohn, Page 164, 165
3.
Colonialism and
its forms of knowledge by Bernard S. Cohn, Page 21
4.
Para 34 of Minute by the Honorable T B
Macaulay dated the 2nd February 1835, as seen at Source: http://www.mssu.edu/projectsouthasia/history/primarydocs/education/Macaulay001.htm) and also from http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/macaulay/txt_minute_education_1835.html
5.
Colonialism and
its forms of knowledge by Bernard S. Cohn, Page 21
6.
Colonialism and
its forms of knowledge by Bernard S. Cohn, Page 21
7.
Colonialism and its
forms of knowledge by Bernard S. Cohn, Page 21, 22.
8.
The Bhagavad Gita
by Nataraja Guru, published by Narayana Gurukula Foundation in 1989; Page 227
to 232. And The Bhagavad Gaeta by Swami ChinmayAnanda, published by Central
Chinmaya Trust, Mumbai-400072 in 2008; Page 280 to 283.
9.
Colonialism and
its forms of knowledge by Bernard S. Cohn, Page 21, 22.
(Will continue; Copyright
© Udayabhanu Panickar)
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