ENG 515A Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Colonial India, Authoritarianism, Majoritarianism
PAMSA seminar – Week 14
Tuesday, 21st November, 2017
• Indias success in the cultural realm hides many of the fissures in the society.
• Methodological nationalism – that every country must have its own individual history.
But when the country just came into existence, it does’t hae its o history, hat do
you do then? You invent it.
• Idia ad pakista’s histories are itertied
• It is inaccurate to take the stance that nationalist historiography takes – that of a clean
break from the past, in both Pakistan and indias individual history books.
• Faulkner – the past is never dead, in fact it is not even past, its still with us.
• Partition of memory and history – blinds us to our common past
• Some of the challenges of so-called nation building in the early post-colonial period
were very similar. Despite diff structures, some responses in both india and Pakistan
were the same too.
• Eg Pakistan has had dictatoriships but also iilia leaders. While there has’t ee a
history of dictatorship in india, central govt has tried to manipulate certain provinces eg
assam, Manipur. Governor raj/military rule in these disturbed areas which were not
happy with the all india central federation.
• Postcolonial constitution in india – the way india functioned under Nehru had a certain
stamp of authoritarianism despite taking the shape of democracy.
• How did Nehru rule immediate post colonial india? What were the dynamics of the
political strutures. Nehru ad ogress leadership’s relatioship ith the pries ad
the control of the center?
• Pg 169 – pg 459 of PDF – the Argument that muslim league was not equipped to tackle
the political arena when pakistan was created - however, jalal and bose argue against
the discourse of indias political success as a result of congress' experience in the political
scene. However, congress needed the backing of the bureacracy, military and police to
enforce central authority.
• Law & order, status quo, development – coming directly from colonial discourse.
• Inherent tension between development and status quo.
• British carried out ethnographic surveys – colonial state was an anethma to any kind of
revolution etc – effect of maintaining the status quo was to freeze certain social
relations in time. Ideology of the raj was to stick to the status quo – at least the ideology
of the bureaucracy that was part of the raj.
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Document Summary
Indias success in the cultural realm hides many of the fissures in the society: methodological nationalism that every country must have its own individual history. Despite diff structures, some responses in both india and pakistan were the same too: eg pakistan has had dictatoriships but also (cid:272)i(cid:448)ilia(cid:374) leaders. While there has(cid:374)"t (cid:271)ee(cid:374) a history of dictatorship in india, central govt has tried to manipulate certain provinces eg assam, manipur. What were the dynamics of the political stru(cid:272)tures. Inherent tension between development and status quo. revolution etc effect of maintaining the status quo was to freeze certain social relations in time. But the govmental structures depended on the support they garnered based on the existing status quo. Cuz the upper caste interests are entrenched within the congress. Yes, congress made some changes, but those gestures did(cid:374)"t go far enough cuz theres always been a tension between maintaining the status quo and developmental schemes.