· Name of institute: Swami
Sahjanand Collages of Commerce and Management of Computer Sciences (SSCCM)
· Topic of the assignment: Post
colonialism- its Indian context
· Roll no: 07
· Name: Drashti V. Dave
· Course: M.phil
· Year-2015
· Paper-2 : Literary theories
and criticism: Background and Contexts
· Unit: 1
Post colonialism is an
interdisciplinary field.
First of all let’s
understand the meaning of post colonialism;
Post colonialism or postcolonial
studies is an academic discipline featuring methods of intellectual discourse that analyze, explain, and
respond to the cultural legacies of colonialism and imperialism, to the human consequences of
controlling a country and establishing settlers for the economic exploitation
of the native people and their land. Drawing from postmodern schools of thought, postcolonial
studies analyses the politics of knowledge (creation, control, and
distribution) by analyzing the functional relations of social
and political power
that sustain colonialism and neocolonialism—the how and the why of an
imperial regime's representations (social, political, cultural) of the imperial
colonizer and of the colonized people. As a genre of contemporary
history,
post colonialism questions and reinvents the modes of cultural perception—the
ways of viewing and of being viewed. As anthropology, post
colonialism records human relations among the colonial nations and the subaltern peoples exploited by colonial
rule. As critical
theory,
post colonialism presents, explains, and illustrates the ideology and the
praxis of neocolonialism, with examples drawn from the humanities—history and
political science, philosophy and Marxist theory, sociology, anthropology, and human geography; the cinema, religion, and
theology; feminism, linguistics, and postcolonial
literature,
of which the anti-conquest narrative genre presents the stories of colonial
subjugation of the subaltern man and woman.
·
Definition: Post-colonialism is an intellectual direction (sometimes also
called an “era” or the “post-colonial theory”) that exists since around the
middle of the 20th century. It developed from and mainly refers to
the time after colonialism. The post-colonial direction was created as colonial
countries became independent. Nowadays, aspects of post-colonialism can be
found not only in sciences concerning history, literature and politics, but
also in approach to culture and identity of both the countries that were
colonized and the former colonial powers. However, post-colonialism can take
the colonial time as well as the time after colonialism into consideration.
·
Post colonialism is an
interdisciplinary field that examines the global impact of European
colonialism; it begins in the 15th century to the present. Post
colonialism as both a body of theory and a study of political and cultural
change. It is broadly a study of the effects of colonialism on cultures and
society.
Postcolonial
identity:
A decolonized people develop a
postcolonial identity from the cultural interactions among the types of
identity (cultural, national, ethnic) and the social relations of sex, class,
and caste; determined by the gender and the race of the colonized person; and the
racism inherent to the structures of a colonial society.
·
Postcolonial writers interested in
nationhood and nationalism
·
Post colonialism deals with the
conflicts between ruler & subject, mainstream & marginalized.
·
Reclaiming the past, searching for cultural and personal
identity
·
Development of postcolonial
theory: The term “decolonization” seems to be of particular
importance while talking about post-colonialism. In this case it means an
intellectual process that persistently transfers the independence of former-colonial
countries into people’s minds. The basic idea of this process is the
deconstruction of old-fashioned perceptions and attitudes of power and
oppression that were adopted during the time of colonialism.
First attempts to put this long-term policy of “decolonizing the minds” into practice could be regarded in the Indian population after India became independent from the British Empire in 1947. However, post-colonialism has increasingly become an object of scientific examination since 1950 when Western intellectuals began to get interested in the “Third World countries”. In the seventies, this interest lead to an integration of discussions about post-colonialism in various study courses at American Universities. Nowadays it also plays a remarkable role at European Universities.
First attempts to put this long-term policy of “decolonizing the minds” into practice could be regarded in the Indian population after India became independent from the British Empire in 1947. However, post-colonialism has increasingly become an object of scientific examination since 1950 when Western intellectuals began to get interested in the “Third World countries”. In the seventies, this interest lead to an integration of discussions about post-colonialism in various study courses at American Universities. Nowadays it also plays a remarkable role at European Universities.
A major aspect of post-colonialism is the rather
violent-like, unbuffered contact or clash of cultures as an inevitable result
of former colonial times; the relationship of the colonial power to the
(formerly) colonized country, its population and culture and vice versa seems
extremely ambiguous and contradictory.
This contradiction of two clashing cultures and the wide scale of problems resulting from it must be regarded as a major theme in post-colonialism: For centuries the colonial suppressor often had been forcing his civilized values on the natives. But when the native populations finally gained independence, the colonial relicts were still omnipresent, deeply integrated in the natives’ minds and were supposed to be removed.
So decolonization is a process of change, destruction and, in the first place, an attempt to regain and lose power. While natives had to learn how to put independence into practice, colonial powers had to accept the loss of power over foreign countries. However, both sides have to deal with their past as suppressor and suppressed.
This complicated relationship mainly developed from the Eurocentric perspective from which the former colonial powers saw themselves: Their colonial policy was often criticized as arrogant, ignorant, brutal and simply naïve. Their final colonial failure and the total independence of the once suppressed made the process of decolonization rather tense and emotional.
This contradiction of two clashing cultures and the wide scale of problems resulting from it must be regarded as a major theme in post-colonialism: For centuries the colonial suppressor often had been forcing his civilized values on the natives. But when the native populations finally gained independence, the colonial relicts were still omnipresent, deeply integrated in the natives’ minds and were supposed to be removed.
So decolonization is a process of change, destruction and, in the first place, an attempt to regain and lose power. While natives had to learn how to put independence into practice, colonial powers had to accept the loss of power over foreign countries. However, both sides have to deal with their past as suppressor and suppressed.
This complicated relationship mainly developed from the Eurocentric perspective from which the former colonial powers saw themselves: Their colonial policy was often criticized as arrogant, ignorant, brutal and simply naïve. Their final colonial failure and the total independence of the once suppressed made the process of decolonization rather tense and emotional.
Post-colonialism also deals with conflicts of identity
and cultural belonging.
Colonial powers came to foreign states and destroyed main parts of native
tradition and culture; furthermore, they continuously replaced them with their
own ones. This often lead to conflicts when countries became independent and
suddenly faced the challenge of developing a new nationwide identity and
self-confidence.
As generations had lived under the power of colonial rulers, they had more or less adopted their Western tradition and culture. The challenge for these countries was to find an individual way of proceeding to call their own. They could not get rid of the Western way of life from one day to the other; they could not manage to create a completely new one either.
On the other hand, former colonial powers had to change their self-assessment. This paradox identification process seems to be what decolonization is all about, while post-colonialism is the intellectual direction that deals with it and maintains a steady analysis from both points of view. So how is this difficult process of decolonization being done? Language is the intellectual means by which post-colonial communication and reflection takes place. This is particularly important as most colonial powers tried to integrate their language, the major aspect of their civilized culture, in foreign societies. A lot of Indian books that can be attached to the era of post-colonialism, for instance, are written in English. The cross-border exchange of thoughts from both parties of the post colonial conflict is supported by the use of a shared language. To give a conclusion of it all, one might say that post-colonialism is a vivid discussion about what happened with the colonial thinking at the end of the colonial era. What legacy arouse from this era? What social, cultural and economical consequences could be seen and are still visible today? In these contexts, one examines alternating experiences of suppression, resistance, gender, migration and so forth. While doing so, both the colonizing and colonized side are taken into consideration and related to each other.
As generations had lived under the power of colonial rulers, they had more or less adopted their Western tradition and culture. The challenge for these countries was to find an individual way of proceeding to call their own. They could not get rid of the Western way of life from one day to the other; they could not manage to create a completely new one either.
On the other hand, former colonial powers had to change their self-assessment. This paradox identification process seems to be what decolonization is all about, while post-colonialism is the intellectual direction that deals with it and maintains a steady analysis from both points of view. So how is this difficult process of decolonization being done? Language is the intellectual means by which post-colonial communication and reflection takes place. This is particularly important as most colonial powers tried to integrate their language, the major aspect of their civilized culture, in foreign societies. A lot of Indian books that can be attached to the era of post-colonialism, for instance, are written in English. The cross-border exchange of thoughts from both parties of the post colonial conflict is supported by the use of a shared language. To give a conclusion of it all, one might say that post-colonialism is a vivid discussion about what happened with the colonial thinking at the end of the colonial era. What legacy arouse from this era? What social, cultural and economical consequences could be seen and are still visible today? In these contexts, one examines alternating experiences of suppression, resistance, gender, migration and so forth. While doing so, both the colonizing and colonized side are taken into consideration and related to each other.
·
Post
colonialism mainly focuses on these three things: racism, nation/nationalism or
national problems and minority ethnic groups like; African, Asian, Native
people etc.
Major Figures of postcolonial
writing:
Some of the best known names in
Postcolonial literature and theory are those of Chinua Achebe, Homi
Bhabha, Edward Said, Buchi Emecheta, Frantz Fanon, Jamaica Kincaid, Salman Rushdie, Wole Soyinka, and Gayatri
Chakravorty Spivak.
Post colonialism
includes a vast array of writers and subjects. In fact, the very different
geographical, historical, social, religious, and economic concerns of the
different ex-colonies dictate a wide variety in the nature and subject of most
postcolonial writing.
Post colonial writers in LITERATURE: Chinua Achebe, Aimé Cesaire, John Pepper
Clark, Michelle Cliff, Anita Desai, Buchi Emecheta, Nuruddin
Farah, Amitav Ghosh, Rohinton Mistry, Ezekiel
Mphahlele, V.S. Naipaul, Taslima Nasrin, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Flora Nwapa, Grace Ogot, Molara Ogundipe-Leslie, Gabriel Okara, Ben
Okri, Michael Ondaatje, Arundhati Roy, Salman Rushdie, Leopold Senghor, Vikram Seth, Wole Soyinka etc.
Post colonial critics: Edward
Said, Bill Ashcroft, Nagugi wa Thiongo, Homi Bhabha, Frantz Fanon, Chinua
Achebe, Leela Gandhi, Gayatri Spivak, Hamid Dabashi, Helen Tiffin.
Some of the writers’ contribution
is notable in post colonial writing.
® Edward
Said:
In
his work he describe the "binary social relation" with which Western
Europe intellectually divided the world—into the "Occident" and the "Orient"—the
cultural critic Edward
Said
developed the denotations and connotations of the term Orientalism (an art-history term for Western
depictions and the study of the Orient). This is the concept that the cultural
representations generated with us-and-them binary relation are social constructs. He should be considered as the ‘father of post colonialism.’
® Gayatri
Spivak:
In
establishing the Postcolonial definition of the term Subaltern, the philosopher and theoretician Gayatri
Chakravorty Spivak
cautioned against assigning an over-broad connotation Spivak also introduced
the terms essentialism and strategic essentialism to describe
the social functions of post colonialism. Spivak developed and applied
Foucault's term epistemic violence
to describe the destruction of non–Western ways of perceiving the world, and
the resultant dominance of the Western ways of perceiving the world. Her work
like ‘can subaltern speak’ is deal with this.
®
Homi Bhabha:
Homi
Bhabha’s work including ‘The location of culture’ focuses on the politics,
emotions and values that exist in the space between the colonizers and
colonized. Bhabha like to use the word “Hybrid” to describe post colonial
people.
·
Post-colonial development in
India:
The Partition of India (also
called the “Great Divide”) lead to huge movements and an ethnic conflict across
the Indian-Pakistani border. Today, apart from the significant economic
progress, India is still facing its old problems: Poverty, overpopulation,
environmental pollution as well as ethnic and religious conflicts between
Hindus and Muslims. Concerning post-colonial literature, Edward Said’s book
“Orientalism” (published in 1978) is regarded as the beginning of post-colonial
studies. In this book the author analyses how European states initiated
colonialism as a result of what they called their own racial superiority.
The religious-ethnic conflicts
between different groups of people play an important role in the early years of
post-colonialism. Eye-witnesses from both sides
of the Indian-Pakistani conflict wrote about their feelings and experience
during genocide, being confronted to blind and irrational violence and hatred.
The Partition is often described as an Indian trauma.
One example for a post-colonial scriptwriter who wrote about this conflict is Saddat Hasan Manto (1912 – 1955). He was forced to leave Bombay and to settle in Lahore, Pakistan. He published a collection of stories and sketches that deal with this dark era of Indian history and its immense social consequences and uncountable tragedies.
One example for a post-colonial scriptwriter who wrote about this conflict is Saddat Hasan Manto (1912 – 1955). He was forced to leave Bombay and to settle in Lahore, Pakistan. He published a collection of stories and sketches that deal with this dark era of Indian history and its immense social consequences and uncountable tragedies.
Furthermore, there are many
different approaches to the topic of intercultural exchange between the British
and the Indian population. Uncountable essays and novels deal with the
ambiguous relationship between these two nations. One particularly interesting
phenomenon is that authors from both sides try to write from different angles
and perspectives and in that way to show empathy with their cultural
counterpart.
The most famous novelist who wrote about these social and cultural exchanges is Salman Rushdie. Rushdie, who won the booker prize among various others, was born in India, but studied in England and started writing books about India and the British in the early eighties. His funny, brave, metaphoric and sometimes even ironical way of writing offers a multi-perspective approach to the post-colonial complex. This can be also seen in his book “Midnight’s Children”.
The most famous novelist who wrote about these social and cultural exchanges is Salman Rushdie. Rushdie, who won the booker prize among various others, was born in India, but studied in England and started writing books about India and the British in the early eighties. His funny, brave, metaphoric and sometimes even ironical way of writing offers a multi-perspective approach to the post-colonial complex. This can be also seen in his book “Midnight’s Children”.
Another famous post-colonial
novel is “Heat and Dust” (published in 1975) by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala that
contains two plot set in different times: One about a British lady starting an
affair with a local Indian prince in the 1920s, the other one set in the 1970s,
featuring young Europeans on a “hippie trail” who claim they have left behind
Western civilization and are trying to some spiritual home among Indian gurus. India
has managed to become an independent state with its own political system and is
still working to find its own identity. The longer the process of decolonization,
the more we get the impression that only a middle course between the acceptance
of British legacies and the creation of a new unique Indian self-confidence
will be the right way to go for India.
Conclusion: post colonialism is a
vivid discussion about what happened with the colonial thinking and at the end
of the colonial era. The term post
colonial literature has taken on many meanings in that four things include 1)
social and cultural change 2) misuse of power and exploitation 3) colonial
abandonment and alienation 4) use of English language literature. It is
interdisciplinary field it examines global impact of colonialism than even
postcolonial writings have been found among much of Indian literature. Many
Indian literary writers wrote on this and in India it is notable movement.
Work cited: (Some links which I referred
during the assignments)
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