23 The Nation and its Fragments

Shashwati

1.      Introduction

Partha Chatterjee elaborates on the particular variety of nationalism(s) as it emerged in different colonial contexts of Africa and Asia. With its roots in anti-colonial struggles in most cases, the discourse of nationalism in the so-called Third world is conspicuous by its distinct nature, especially in its divergence from the established discourse of nationalism in the West that emerged since the sixteenth century. In highlighting the distinct nature of postcolonial nationalism, the main intention of Chatterjee is to deconstruct the supposedly universal model of nationalism (of a Western European variety) that is assumed to hold true for all nations alike, which however, refuses to accommodate and acknowledge the differential histories of coming-into-being of nationalisms in different parts of the world. Chatterjee begins his narrative of postcolonial nationalism in India with a critique of Benedict Anderson’s version of the idea of nation and nationalism as an ‘imagined’ community, which acquires a concrete shape through certain institutions, especially that of ‘print capitalism’. According to Anderson, the historical development of nationalisms in Western Europe, the US and Russia serve as modular forms for rest of the world to choose from, especially for the newly independent nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America following the period of decolonization and democratization in 1940s-50s. According to Chatterjee, the specific discourse of nationalism as it developed in the West, with attendant ideas of modernity, development and progress, cannot be delinked from its colonizing propensity that becomes explicit in the context of the so-called Third World. Therefore, the universal model of nationalism as it emerged in the West signifying the onset of modernity cannot but be a hegemonic discourse. It’s unfolding in the nations of Asia and Africa highlights stories of not just colonial exploitation, but also that of a discursive colonization,  whereby political imaginations and possibilities of recovery and development in the newly independent nations remained entangled within the webs of such a hegemonic discourse.

2.  The ‘material’ and ‘spiritual’ of anti-colonial nationalism

Partha Chatterjee’s reading of postcolonial nationalism in the context of India proceeds with a critique of conventional histories that trace the beginning of nationalism with the formation of Indian National Congress in 1885. In such accounts, nationalism is reduced to being a mere struggle for political power. The institutional history of coming into being of Congress party and its gradual ascendance to power covers the history of emergence of nationalism in India and also remains the determining feature of anti-colonial struggle in the country. In contrast, Chatterjee’s own reading of history of nationalism rests on a principle which, according to him, forms basis to the distinct way in which the nationalist discourse takes shape in the specific history of a colonial country like India. According to him, articulation of anti-colonial nationalism rests on a division or separation between two distinct spheres, namely, the spiritual and the material. The material realm is one of economy, statecraft, science and technology, in which the superiority of the West, represented by the colonial power, is an established fact. In the material domain therefore, the historical task before the colonized was to imitate and reproduce for itself, the benefits of the project of colonial enlightenment and modernity. The spiritual realm on the other hand, represented true sovereignty of the colonized. It was a sphere of cultural distinctness from, and also superiority over, the colonizers of the colonized people, and hence needed to be preserved that way. If the material sphere represented the superiority of the colonial rulers, it was the spiritual domain which was the main source of strength and autonomy of the colonized. Therefore, the spiritual domain was one that needed to be preserved from all colonial encroachments. As was evident, beyond a brief phase of enthusiasm on the part of the Indian social reformers for British-initiated reforms in the customs and institutions of traditional society in India, the latter half of the nineteenth century saw a vocal resistance against any action of the colonial state to intervene in the ‘cultural traditions’ of the native people. This, according to Chatterjee, symbolized nationalism among the colonized people. It effectively meant that not only the colonial state was sought to be kept out of the spiritual or inner domain, but also that any kind of reforms or intervention in the said domain would be completely in the hands of the colonized masses. Therefore the essence of the ‘imagined’ nation rested in the so-called spiritual or inner domain in which the colonized masses were sovereign despite being ruled by an alien, foreign power in the material sphere.

The historic task before the nationalists was to preserve the sovereignty of their spiritual or inner domain, while at the same time, to re-fashion it to fit the need of the changing times, that is, they sought to reform and recreate the national culture to make it ‘modern’ in all respects. Visible efforts on the part of the nationalists were to produce a ‘modern’ national culture, which was yet prominent in its difference from the colonial culture by being rooted in indigenous traditions and values. Therefore, nationalism manifested itself in the spiritual domain in a completely different way than its course in the material domain where it increasingly sought to be like the colonizers. In the remaining chapters of the book, Chatterjee traces the history of nationalism- through examples from history of colonial Bengal- as it charts a particular course in its efforts to reform the different aspects of the so-called spiritual or inner domain. These different aspects of cultural domain include that of language and literature, education, and family which the nationalists sought to modify to make them in tune with the requirements of the modern world. European influence on the Indian social reformers in each of these cases was visible enough. However, the social reformers including the nationalists embarked on a historical project to assert and establish their cultural differences with the West and prove at the same time through necessary reforms, their own capabilities to determine their future by fashioning a modern self for the nation.  Chatterjee cautions us against reducing the dual scheme of material and the spiritual to being merely indicative of any kind of exceptionalism as far as Indian nationalism is concerned. Rather, he insists that the respective histories of development of the two domains of material and spiritual must be perceived in their mutuality to understand the nationalist discourse in India. A nationalist historiography in the Indian context must take into consideration the intertwined geneses of both spheres; each sphere posed as a limitation as well as cast an impact on the other, determining it particular shape. The project of modern politics introduced by the British in the colonial sphere had to negotiate with and accord concession to the inner, cultural politics of the nationalists to produce consent. Likewise, the ‘inner’ domain of subaltern politics had to readapt to the institutional mechanisms introduced by the colonial rule in the elite or material domain. This interaction between the two domains of politics is a characteristic feature of postcolonial nationalism and has deep implications for the perceived universality of the Western concept of nationalism. It also provides for a deeper analysis of the role played by colonialism in the modern regime of power. Far from being a mere tangential question to the discourse of power in modern times, colonialism is deeply implicated in way in which modern forms of power manifest themselves in different historical contexts. Therefore, a nationalist historiography which links the end of colonialism with displacement of political rule of the foreign power is an incomplete one. The historical narrative of unfolding of modernity in the context of India is a story of continued colonization, a product of modern regime of power.

3.  Rule of colonial difference as modern disciplinary power

Chatterjee’s analysis is influenced by Michel Foucault’s reading of modern concept of power; by this scheme, power is productive or facilitative rather than being prohibitive. Modern technologies and institutions of power rule not by being restrictive; rather, they aim to normalize social regulations to guide or enable self-disciplining among subjects. Instead of being prohibitive, modern power reconfigures the social environment in order to guide and affect conduct of the inhabitants of that environment. According to Partha Chatterjee, colonialism in the context of countries of Asia and Africa was the main channel through which the disciplinary power of the modern state was exercised. It is through the rule of colonial difference that the foreign rule maintained its power and also produced consent for its rule. Rule of colonial difference implied that modern institutions of self-representation and democracy could not be replicated in a society like that of India, rooted as it was in deep-rooted hierarchies based caste and religion which made it naturally unsuited to democratic organization and functioning. That the otherwise universal principles and institutions of democracy and self-governance could not be applied to the Indian context, was seen as an inevitable outcome of an inherently backward, superstitious and authoritarian society in India. Therefore, the colonial powers in India saw their primary task as being limited only to the administration of the country, and ensuring welfare of the people, and professedly disowned the task of educating the masses in liberal democratic politics. As a consequence, the colonial rule managed to establish its difference from the colonized society, and needless to say, race as a category became crucial to the articulation of that essential divide between the colonizers and the colonized. Superiority of the colonial rulers as against the inherent backwardness of the colonized society was affirmed by racial differences between the two broad communities.

The established rule of colonial difference had a more profound role to play in the colonial scheme of things. It’s more important contribution was to accord legitimacy to the grand exercise of modern colonial state to survey, classify and enumerate its subject populations. On the pretext of knowing better the society that was meant to be ruled, modern colonial state strived to gather as much information about the colonized terrain. All the information gathered systematically through scientific ways, formed basis to codification of laws, and it was this access to knowledge that was a source of power for the colonial rulers. The link between knowledge and power here cannot be overemphasized because it was owing to its prerogative in classifying and enumerating the colonial society that the colonial rulers managed to cast an order on it, one that served their interests and was in their control. This particular modality of governance by the  modern colonial state was facilitated by rule of colonial difference which affirmed the disciplinary hold of colonial state over the colonized society. It was through rule of colonial difference that the access of Indians to fair recruitment in colonial bureaucracy, freedom of press, and public opinion was denied. A society considered not fit for a responsible democratic system could find no use for its institutions as well.

4.  Nationalist Response as an Act in Self-discipline

What was the response of the nationalists to the growing intervention of the colonial rulers? The universality of modern regime and institutions of power, howsoever imposed, was acknowledged by the nationalists in the material sphere and they were vehemently opposed to rule of colonial difference which they saw as an assault on that universality. Therefore, nationalist politics was aimed at removing any kind of difference between the colonizers and the colonized in the outer domain of politics. Nationalist resistance to the dominance of the colonizers in the material sphere was deemed possible only by fulfilling the lack in self, that is, by equipping oneself with the superior techniques of the colonizers as far as material life was concerned. This relation of subordination of the nationalists in the material sphere was complemented by a relation of dominance in the cultural sphere. The cultural realm was the domain of sovereignty for the nationalists which they increasingly sought to keep out of the reach of any kind of colonial intervention. Therefore, it from within the inner or spiritual domain of indigenous culture- radically different from that of the colonizers’- that the nationalists derived an autonomous agency or subjectivity that was articulated as key form of resistance to the corrupting influences of colonial modernity.

Chatterjee’s insightful intervention is that the hegemonic project of nationalism in colonial context of India was based on mediation between these two spheres, which exposed both its possibilities and limits. The historic task to prove that the colonized were not the ‘inferior other’ as projected by the rule of colonial difference, took the nationalists to ‘modernize’ themselves in the material sphere. In contrast, the cultural or  spiritual essence of the nation needed to be preserved in its pristine and distinctive form, precisely because it was the source of self-identity of the nation. This led the nationalists, as Chatterjee says, to selectively appropriate aspects of western modernity, based on the ideological premise that modernity of the west must be tamed so as to retain the essence of national culture. The process of construction of a national culture that was both ‘modern’ and ‘Indian’ at the same time was an act in self-disciplining, that is, an internalization of the disciplinary element of the modern regime of power. The nationalists took upon themselves to reform and modernize aspects of cultural sphere to make them suitable for modern times. Therefore in complex ways, the outer and inner, material and spiritual, public and private corresponded to give shape to the hegemonic project of nationalism in postcolonial society in India.

5.  Nationalist Construction of a Historical Past: Role of the Colonized middle classes

Partha Chatterjee calls the project of nationalism as the project of mediation in which the historic leadership was provided by the colonial middle classes in Bengal. The ideology of nationalism, including its dominant cultural form and institutions, were fashioned by the enlightened intervention of the modernizing middle classes. Trained in the modern-day language of legal constitutionalism and new forms of public discourse, the middle classes adapted themselves to principles of modern government and political mobilization. As citizens in a modern society exposed to western education and with access to bureaucratic apparatus, the middle classes called for eradicating rule of colonial difference which in itself made a mockery of principles of liberal democratic order. In this way, the emergent nationalism in the political domain, led by the middle classes, put faith in the modern regime of power and internalized it to cull out a modern public image for itself. By contrast, in the sovereign sphere of culture, the colonized middle classes, as script-writers of the nationalist discourse, had a completely different role to play. As said earlier, the nationalists had to reformulate the inner cultural domain of nation as per the requirements set by the new, modern times. Such a nationalist endeavor began with recreating a past for the country, especially in form of a written history. History-writing was pressed into service to lend credence to the nationalist project of building up a nationalist culture that was indigenous (that is, one based on traditional values, different from that of the west) yet modern. Such history-writing, on one hand, recreated a past by, what Chatterjee terms as, a classicization of tradition. Traditional values symbolizing the essence of an indigenous culture were invoked, in turn making them timeless and indispensable to the history of the nation. On the other hand, during the course of history-writing, the nation’s past was divested of all the undesirable values, both in terms of form and content, that reflected its un-modern status, Therefore, the past of the nation was codified via- to use Chatterjee’s expression- an appropriation of the popular that is, by including those values and beliefs that naturally existed in the indigenous tradition/culture of the country, and which remained unsullied by dictates of ruthless reason. At the same time, the process of history-writing was itself a disciplinary process whereby the past of the nation was reproduced in a way to accord it a normalized status. All negative aspects like vulgarity, coarseness, localism, sectarianism, sexualized femininity associated with the traditional culture of society in India were sought to be eradicated from the new codified nationalist history of the country. It is not surprising then that the nation’s history was built on the identity of an ‘Indian’ tradition that was explicitly Hindu. All rival traditions like Buddhism, Jainism were appropriated within the recreated Hindu fold by virtue of being born in the same country, and this incorporation reflected the element of ‘syncretism’ of Indian tradition. Islam, as a contending classical tradition, was ‘otherized’ as being of a foreign origin during the course of construction of a nationalist past.

6.  National Project and the Woman’s question

For the nationalists, woman’s question was firmly positioned within the autonomous cultural realm that was the basis of self-identity of the nation. To repeat an earlier point, the nationalists had no option other than to accept the dominance of modernity in the material or outer sphere. It was in the spiritual or inner realm that nationalists assumed sovereignty from any external domination, and this was precisely because East was considered superior to the West in spiritual terms. The duality between the material and spiritual found corresponding references in dichotomies of inner and outer or home and the world. Family- as opposed to the outer world which was subject to vagaries of material reality- was seen as a private realm that embodied one’s true identity; it was reflective of one’s autonomous self. This source of self-identity needed to be preserved against encroachments by forces of modernity. If the colonized could not escape being hegemonized by modernity of the west in outer material domain, they had to do so without compromising on their true, autonomous identity in the spiritual realm. The complex dialectic between the material and spiritual led to a division of social space into home and outside world, with corresponding gender roles and a sexual division of labor. Women as belonging to the essential space of the home, were the repository of values of the inner, essential cultural sphere. The question of family, its space within the hegemonic discourse of the nation, the corresponding role of the woman within the family and simultaneously towards nation-building, her education etc were some questions that need to be located against this complex exchange between the material and spiritual worlds. By relegating the question of women within the inner realm of culture, the nationalists managed to depoliticize it, that is, as Chatterjee says, the nationalists refused to see women’s question as holding any value in terms of political negotiation with the colonial state. Resolution, if any, of the so-called women’s question was to be found only by the nationalists, and that too in keeping with framework of the traditional values of the indigenous culture. Therefore Chatterjee notes a distinct reluctance on the part of nationalists and social reformers by the end of nineteenth century, to allow any colonial intervention in matters of socio-cultural reforms, and especially ones related to position of women in colonized society.

For the colonizers, the inferior status of women in colonized society was reflective of the inherent barbarism of traditional culture of the colonized. With the self-assumed role of imparting ‘civilization’ to the subject population, the British were able to bring to light the oppressive nature of social customs of the colonized, and also drew justification for their hold over colonial society on the pretext of reforming the latter by introducing a proper framework of procedural law and rational methods of governance. The nationalists on their part saw any effort on the part of colonial rulers to introduce reforms in matters of indigenous culture as an assault on their private autonomous sphere constituting essential identity of the nation. As per the nationalist agenda, therefore, the chief question was concerning the role and conduct of women in changing conditions of the modern world. For both nationalists and the colonialists, the question concerning the status of women was much beyond than what was evident at first instance: it was a question of political confrontation between a colonial state and the so-called ‘traditions’ of a colonized nation, and this largely determined the stance with which each sought to resolve women’s issues.

According to Chatterjee, the approach of the nationalists towards resolution of women’s question was one that was based on selective modernization. Selective modernization led to a new patriarchy that was based on reinvention of tradition, and it did not lead to any substantial transformation in the lives of women of middle class families. For example, education was encouraged because it enabled cultural refinement in women and helped them to fulfill their duties within the families in a better way. Women as embodiment of cultural values of the nation were endowed with the responsibility to keep intact the sanctity and purity of the inner spiritual realm while men braced themselves to withstand the assaults of forces of modernity in outer realm of politics and economy.

7.  Nation and its inescapable ‘other’

The unfolding of the universal narrative of modern state in India was far from being a smooth process. Certain inescapable conditions posed as hindrances in its smooth transition. The conceptualization of a singular ‘national’ community had to look for ways to deal with pre-existing forms of communities and consciousness that existed among the colonized subject populations. Peasantry as a community- and often a rebellious one- was a specific problem which made their absorption in the nationalist anti-colonial struggle  ever important. Peasantry as backward, superstitious and ignorant, unsuited to the dynamics of modern times was a perception shared by the colonizers and nationalists alike. Likewise, the identity of the class of peasantry as the trouble-maker because of its rebellious nature was another image internalized by both the colonialists and nationalists. Then there was the question of caste. Caste as a marker of the so-called traditional society in India, represented hierarchy, rigidity and backwardness, which threatened to deny the country, opportunities of modern self-governance. This was a widely held belief of the colonizers on the basis of which they justified their on hold over colonial India. For the nationalists, it was only proper to deny that caste was a core feature of Indian society. However, it was the institution of caste that made the Indian society essentially different form the West, and in such a perception, caste as an ideal system based on functional division of labor that brought order and stability in society was stressed upon. According to Chatterjee, both positions of the nationalists concerning the caste question were well placed within the framework of modernity; liberal equality entrenched within bourgeois modernity called for a condemnation of oppressive caste practices, while the latter position maintained that caste in its ideal form was not incompatible with principles of universal modernity. The institution of caste as contributing to maintaining unity and stability of social order is, in the words of Chatterjee, a synthetic theory of caste. Synthetic theories of caste naturalize the condition of relation of dominance and subordination that constitute the principle of hierarchy between numerous castes. By stressing instead upon the ideology of dharma which determines the unity of mutual separateness and mutual dependence between jatis, such theories enable a continued reproduction of the caste system. The construction of a nationalist culture on basis of such synthetic theories of caste, according to Chatterjee, turns its back against an immanent critique of caste, which renders futile even formal recourse offered by the legal framework of bourgeois freedom and equal rights.

As far as the question of peasantry was concerned, the importance of appropriating the peasantry for rendering a mass appeal to the nationalist movement was recognized morethan ever. However, the structure of peasant politics was way different from that of nationalist politics, which made such appropriation a difficult process for the nationalists. Peasant politics as the ‘other’ of the formal realm of national politics with roots in bourgeois institutional framework, often posed as a challenge before the latter. Therefore, the nationalists in their approach to the peasants were no different from the colonizers: the peasants were turned into ‘objects’ of their strategies, with no voice or agency of their own. This meant that as the peasants were sought to be appropriated within the new discourse of the nation, they were sheared off any consciousness of their own; any kind of mobilization among the peasantry was relegated to the cultural sphere, lacking organization and sense of politics. Peasants were persistently approached by the nationalists as the population that needs to be controlled and led, even if as a part of anti-colonial movement. This partly grew out of a deep-rooted sense of suspicion and distrust that the nationalist leadership harbored for the peasantry, supposedly ignorant and backward as they seemed to the former. The contours of the domain of bourgeois politics as adopted by the modernizing elite failed to grasp the specifics of peasant politics and consciousness. Therefore, as Chatterjee says, the historical narrative of modernity, and that of the modern state, refused to see the peasantry as active subject of history which placed considerable challenges before both colonial and nationalist historiographies by its forms of action and consciousness. The coming into being of a nation in the Indian context, involved a politics whereby the domain of politics of the peasants was kept invisible and detached from the concrete political processes, and hence denied any historical subjectivity.

Chatterjee concludes by saying that the postcolonial state in India remains caught up in a kind of discursive colonization, in terms that it has completely internalized the logic of governmental logic of the modern colonial state.

Further Reading

·         Partha Chatterjee. 1994. The Nation and Its Fragments, Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Delhi: OUP

·         Partha Chatterjee. 1986. Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World, A Derivative Discourse. London: Zed Books

·         Partha Chatterjee. 2010. Empire and Nation: Selected Essays. Columbia: Columbia University Press

·         Partha Chatterjee. 1999. Anderson’s Utopia, Diacritics, 29/4, pp. 128-134

·         Partha Chatterjee. 1998. Beyond the Nation? Or Within? Social Text, 56, pp. 57-69

·         Partha Chatterjee. 1989. Colonialism, Nationalism, and Colonialized Women: The Contest in India, American Ethnologist, 16/4, pp. 622-633

·         Partha Chatterjee. 1983. Peasants, Politics and Historiography: A Response, Social Scientist, 11/5, pp. 58-65

·         Partha Chatterjee. 1989. Caste and Subaltern Consciousness, in Ranajit Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies VI, Delhi :OUP

·         Partha Chatterjee. Bengal: Rise and Growth of a Nationality, Social Scientist, 4/1, pp. 67-82

·         Partha Chatterjee. 2008. Nation in Heterogenous Times, in Umut Ozkirimli (ed.) Nationalism and Its Futures, New York: Palgrave Macmillan

·         Gyan Prakash. 1990. Writing Post-Orientalist Histories of the Third World: Perspectives from Indian Historiography, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 32, pp 383-408

·         Lata Mani. 1989. Contentious Traditions: The Debate on Sati in Colonial India, in  K. Sangari and S. Vaid (eds), Recasting Women in India: Essays in Colonial  History, NJ: Rutgers University Press

• Michel Foucault.  1980.  Power/Knowledge:  Selected  Interviews  and  OtherWritings, 1972-1977, Edited by Colin Gordon, New York: Panthoen