Most Popular Resistance in India to British Rule Can Be Described as
Onni Gust
2017 marks the lxxth anniversary of the end of British dominion in India, and the emergence of India and Pakistan equally independent nation states. To commemorate this ceremony, the British authorities announced that this year would be celebrated every bit the 'UK-India Year of Civilisation.'
'Threads of Empire: rule and resistance in colonial Bharat', an exhibition currently at the Academy of Nottingham'southward Weston Gallery, was planned to coincide and complement the 'celebrations' as function of the 'United kingdom-Bharat Year of Culture.' The exhibition displays aspects of the University's all-encompassing archival documents relating to colonial India and introduces the public to the history of the British Empire in India through a display of those documents.
The University'south archives hold the collections of a number of landed families in the East Midlands who had trade and military connections with India every bit function of the British Empire. These include the official and personal papers of Lord William Cavendish Bentinck (1774-1839), Governor General of Bharat between 1828 and 1835, held every bit part of the Portland Collection.
Colonial athenaeum and curatorial challenges
As a historian of the British Empire with a focus on India, I have been deeply sceptical about the 'UK-India Year of Culture' from its outset, when the and so Prime Minister, David Cameron, claimed that:
'The smashing partnership between India and the UK extends across economical ties to the boards of The Bard and the beaches of Bollywood. We have some of the all-time cultural exports in the globe – and information technology's about time we celebrated this together.'
Conveniently glossing over the long history of violence and plunder that has underpinned Britain's relationship with the Indian sub-continent, the 'UK-India Twelvemonth of Civilisation' appears equally a whitewashing of colonialism, with the implicit assumption that 'culture' represents a neutral political terrain. From the beginning, then, my aim for the exhibition was to provide an interpretation of the rise of the British Empire in Bharat that critiqued the notion of culture equally somehow a-political, and to focus on the function of Due south Asian people in shaping and resisting colonial power. Every bit colonial and post-colonial historians are well aware, however, de-centering elite, British men from the narrative of empire is extremely challenging!
Curating an exhibition based on a relatively small number of dissimilar archival collections posed other challenges. We had effectually 1500 words in total, spread across 6 boards, in which to cover the rise of the British Empire in India from 6 different thematic perspectives. Those perspectives had to tie in with the archival materials, which heavily dictated the shape of the historical narrative. The average visitor would probably read no farther than the showtime 50 words of each board, if that, so the message needed to exist clear and concise. Furthermore, the contents of the exhibition needed to be visually appealing. Fascinating though the majority of reports and letters were, beneath a glass chiffonier they merely looked like a scruffy mass of newspaper filled with scrawly handwriting.
My own reluctance to use images drawn from white supremacist, nineteenth-century children's books, or photos from a later flow, presently dissipated when faced with the prospect of empty walls. I also developed an enthusiasm for military machine regalia that I did non know I possessed – including a sepoy'due south sabre and Highland cap badge loaned from Nottingham Castle!
To reinforce the centrality of textiles to the rise of the Due east India Visitor, and to promote local textile art, I deputed three Nottingham-based artists to develop a piece of fabric art that responded to the themes of the exhibition. Funded past the Vice Chancellor's grant for impact, the artists adult a triptych, 'Entangled Freedoms I, II and Three' that represented the trade, the plunder and the bloodshed that was an inherent function of the colonial project. The triptych brings colour and vibrancy to the exhibition, and serves as a reminder of the office that artists can play in interpreting, critiquing and representing history from dissimilar perspectives and using very different mediums.
Threads of Empire
Nosotros began the archival research for the exhibition in September 2016. Along with Ibtisam Ahmed – who worked alongside me as a inquiry assistant – I started with eighteenth-century indentures and bonds of sale. Trade, and peculiarly the cloth trade was, after all, the foundation of the Eastward India Visitor, it's raison d'etre.
As cultural historians, however, our enthusiasm spiked when we establish a letter of the alphabet, written in 1743 by an anonymous Anglo-Indian woman based in Madras. She described in great detail a meeting with the wives of the Nawab of Arcot, their apparel, make-up and jewelry, equally well as their marvel at her own petticoat hoops. It was this letter, alongside a printed document entitled 'Necessaries for a Buck proceeding to India' (1824) that generated the championship of the exhibition, 'Threads of Empire.'
Civilisation was a critical and contentious component of imperial rule and played an important office in resisting it. References to dress and cloths kept appearing in the records, nonetheless hats played a especially prominent role in the history of resistance to colonial rule. In a translation of a 1782 briefing between the ruler of Mysore, Haidar Ali (1780-1782), and an Due east India Company agent, Shrinas Rao, an outraged Haidar Ali referred to Europeans as 'hat wearers' and decried the East India Visitor'south duplicity, stating that 'all is deceit!'
The reports of the Vellore Mutiny were even more than hat-oriented. In 1806, Sikh, Muslim and Hindu soldiers (sepoys) rebelled against the East India Company'southward modify in uniform regulations. The sepoys objected to the new headdress, which they claimed was non a turban, but a topi containing leather. This sparked fears that the East India Company were looking to convert troops to Christianity. Their concerns unheeded, they rose upward in what was the biggest rebellion prior to the better-known 'Indian Wildcat' of 1857, killing 150 European officers. The mutiny was brutally suppressed by Colonel Gillespie, with nearly 800 sepoys killed in the tearing reprisals. In the documents legislating compatible codes and the reports into the Vellore ascent, displayed as role of the exhibition, it is articulate that 'culture', as represented in this case through clothing, was anything but politically neutral.
Dominion and resistance
Our aim for the exhibition was besides to identify and recognize resistance as a productive and vital component of rule. In doing so, we drew on the methodologies and insights generated by historians of South Asia and the British Empire. Over 30 years ago, the Subaltern Studies school, a collective of socialist historians working on Southern asia and influenced by Marx and Gramsci, adult a method of historicizing resistance to commercialism, even when reliant on colonial athenaeum. Reading 'against the grain' of the official records of peasant revolts and workers' struggles, they showed how the most oppressed and forgotten people in society could exist recognized as historical agents.
Furthermore, feminist historians such as Lata Mani, Gayatri Spivak and Urvashi Butalia have shown how the voices of women are often completely absent in the records, even when debates, such as those over sati (widow immolation) direct impact them. Overall, these historians' approaches influenced the analytical framework of the exhibition.
The forms of resistance that nosotros identified and have displayed every bit office of 'Threads of Empire' were remarkably varied, encompassing very different socio-economic and religious groups, from Prince Jamh O'Deen (1792-1842), the younger son of Tipu Sultan, to nameless soldiers. Their views were not necessarily always what we might consider 'progressive', yet as historians we do not have to concur with them to recognize them as active agents and participants in the shaping of imperial rule.
This is specially the case with the debates over sati, the practice of burning a widow on her hubby's funeral pyre, which the Due east Bharat Company government made illegal in Bengal in 1829. For example, a four-meter-long petition written and signed by elite, Brahmin men in Calcutta in 1828 protests against the Due east Republic of india Visitor government's plans to ban sati (widow immolation). In one of the reports on sati, an anonymous 'Hindu adult female' is reported to have statedthat whilst her own preference was for prayer, she believed that for the government to ban sati would be 'tyrannical'. Given the lack of surviving testify of women'south perspectives on sati, this fragment offers a very rare glimpse of a woman'south complex and nuanced appointment with politics.
The by through the lens of the present
Taken together, the documents included as role of the exhibition illustrate the precarious foundations of British imperial rule and the constant and varied strategies of resistance that shaped imperial power. Our focus on resistance was borne partly of the documents bachelor in the archives, just also past today's context of increasingly authoritarian ability structures in Due south Asia and in the West. The lens through which nosotros read the archival documents was 1 of growing alarm at the Indian and Pakistani governments' attempts to shut downwards all dissent past imprisoning those who critiqued the state. Scholars and activists such as G.Due north. Saibaba or Junaid Hafeez have been imprisoned on spurious charges of terrorism, sedition or blasphemy. Our colleagues in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh face threats and dangers from both pop religious fundamentalists and nationalists, too equally their own governments.
Here, in Great britain, similar trends of undermining human rights and shutting down critique are evident on the streets, in the press, as well equally from government. In today's political climate, in which dissent is marked as 'sedition', and critique every bit 'anti-national' or 'unpatriotic', focusing on the role of resistance in configuring power appears increasingly necessary. 'Threads of Empire'southward' reveals the myriad voices and forms of resistance that shaped British imperial power in Bharat, highlighting the importance of dissent and disagreement in the past, as a lesson for the nowadays.
Dr Onni Gust is lecturer in colonial and postcolonial history at the University of Nottingham.
Source: https://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/threads-of-empire-rule-and-resistance-in-colonial-india/
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