Indian Exceptionalism: Colonial Stereotypes and Postcolonial Realities

Rohit and Neembu just one word Sokal.

You social people should trying so hard to be intellectual! and get on with life.

Re: # 42

Once more stop being so considerate ...wheel O time. This young man is trying to get into the knickers of some bright young girl......and you are breaking all his arrows in the quiver.....he wrote this article to test the H2Os here.....stop muddying it so much......

Re: # 40
Now I know you are a real charlatan. If you know anything about Indian History, you would realise that the Anglos looked upon themselves as being british and a cut above the Indians. In fact they were and even today many of them are rather racist in their views. Please read up on your effing history before you start thinking....

When Independence was granted to Indian these guys ran in droves from the country - leaving some parts of it in dire straits. I should know it (and this is first hand stuff here). Once you turn yourself into a quisling then you should stop complaining.

Infact Post Independent India has been very accomodating to these idiots.

If you are an anglo stop whinning and get on with life you little twerp.

#43 got cut up by chowk....

wheel o time you olde coot (LoL)

with one bound you got yourself a lifetimes pass to keep visiting the hallowed portals of la-la-land of the sociologists.


Hamidm2 ya. you sock it to them.

#43 got cut up by chowk....

wheel o time you olde coot

Wheel O time you olde coot!

nb, excuse me, but it is very rude of you to inject some common sense in this uncommon dialogue.

We are learning about Indian Exceptionalism here. In any other country, a community like Anglo Indians would be part of all national discourse.

Re: # 27
so she'll be zipping around town collecting tickets and losing her licence?
neembu, Anglo-Indians are marginalised because they re a tiny, tiny community. The only people that probably even know they exist are Indians who went to Christian schools.

Re: # 38
(# 37)

Neembu

Thanks. You have answered the questions better than I could have and raise very important issues.

Is it a bad thing that Dalits use the same logic to gain political capital and voice? The quick answer: it is not a bad thing only as long as that does not shut out other voices, within or outside the Dalit community. But already there is some evidence that some segments of the highly fractured (by region, language, gender, and religion etc.) community will benefit more than others from this narrative.

I also think that Dalits are subject to the same criticism as any other Indian community.

Re: you other point, about anglo-Indians. Anglo-Indian identity provokes all sorts of anxieties about what defines Indian identity.

Two stereotypes about Anglo-Indians are (a) that they are not really 'true' Indians because of their partly European lineage and (b) during colonial rule their loyalty lay with the British.

But exactly the same points can be made about every Indian community

Every Indian community claims that other Indian groups are 'outsiders' and insists they are the original Indians.

Secondly, during colonial rule many Indian/ South Asian communities defined themselves as loyal to the British: in the carnage after the revolt of 1857 as historian Rajat Kanta Ray points out, the bhadralok Bengali Hindu students in Indian colleges prayed for the victory of the British; Syed Ahmed Khan insisted Muslims were friends of the British; the 'martial races' of Sikhs, Jats, and Gurkhas were considered extremely loyal; Christians and Parsis also
swore allegiance to the British.

Of course everyone of these communities also participated in the anticolonial struggle.

But if one questions Anglo-Indian loyalty to India, one has to question the loyalty of other groups too. This, I think, is one main reason for the silence about them.

Regards
Rohit

Re: # 32

because labor, even intellectual, is unglamorous and tedious.

antihistory,

also, why are anglo indians not absorbed into the national narrative? are they symbols of colonial transgression, unplaceable entities in colonial/colonized/postcolonial structures? is their otherness to mainstream india indicated by paticular policies and are there places in which they enact agency?

Re: # 33

antihistory,

so in appropriating the conceptual language of this dominant voice, the Dalit community replicates/works within the system of dominant narrative and performs the same construction, only in their case, their history/identity is foregrounded.

Is this completely a bad thing? If I understand your thesis correctly, replicating/appropriating the dominant narrative enacts a kind of binary dialogue which is antithetical to development of Indian plurality in its multiplicity of voices, identities, experiences and narratives.

But is there nothing interrogative in a minority's usage of the dominant voice? I'm thinking of Audre Lorde's oft quoted using the master's tools to dismantle the master's house?

Rohit, you prove your utter brilliance everytime you write a couple of words.

From # 35, we learn the following about Indian Exceptionalism:

(1) Hindu Right and (non-Hindu) Indian Left don't consider each other 'true' Indians.

(2) SC/ST are "shut out" by both Hindu Right and (non-Hindu) Left.

(3) SC/ST now call all others not true Indians.

(4) Indian political discourse doesn't recognize Anglo Indians.

(5) 1-4 constitute Indian Exceptionalism.

hamidm sahib, that is simple too. At the very top, there can't be a greater number of intellectuals than one can count on one's fingers. And on chowk, all of us are lucky to have neembu ji and rohit bhai.

Re: # 29 Racism is completely dominating all west. And browns are flooded with bad stuff.They act as buffer between whites and blacks and get squeezed by both. Like maximum des people are killed by black people as des people make money on backs of people by selling them venom of alcohol and black muslims have found that alcohol is problem and desis are spreading that stuff as agents of white to destroy black race. Now here brainwashed desi do not understand he is more near to blacks culturally and colorwise than their master white people. He becomes "peon" of wast as friend and great thinking person on clear lines like Mr.Masadi. I first ponted and supported his line of thinking but they just bann him to silence him very mean ways of elites. Now our caused of pakistani interest can advanced lot in USA if expak becomes friends of black leaders and contributr money to leaders of oppressed people. Instead of that little pakistani fine man when lands in Newyork he calls this misfortunate black group of people dangerous instead of understanding his suffering of 400 years and join elites group. If it goes on desi will have to run back to indo pak as Blacks can not hurt white interests they can attack brown man whio is small arms harmless and physical weak. There is common between blacks are most of muslims but arabs insult them by excluding them they understand and resent. As arabs will by big car and ask date white but not muslim dark woman. It feels very angry to blacks as they made lots of money on black slave trading and they have not forgotten that. Black population is on rise if pakistanis can connect with them culturally they can help lot in future but they will not as they will not mind if muslima will marry jewish boy but never black man. But things change slowly and dark+ brown population is going up and so called dna and tests will level with time as you put saffron in milk in time all looks yellow. Only one should be patient.

Re# 13

Neembu:

Thanks for your mail. Your reading is absolutely correct that some weaker and vulnerable groups are shut out when they face dominant voices. I will clarify what I meant in the paragraph and then provide a couple of examples of this.

Usually in Indian politics, the Left and Right are seen as opposed in their views and ideology. No doubt they have different agendas.

However, each of them has an idea of what a 'true' Indian is or what the essence of Indian culture is. The Left will say that Indians are naturally socialist and not materialistic and there is some natural quality of secularism that all Indians have. The Hindu Right will say that a certain version of upper caste Hinduism is what truly defines Indian culture.

Both have this idea that there is some true quality of Indian identity, although they define that quality differently.

But where is this quality? Where does it lie? One can always show enough counter-examples to prove that it is fictional: an article of faith.

And no matter how many debates take place, this idea of unique Indianness always survives and endures.

This is what I meant by the statement that the illusory center of exceptionalism always survives.

Examples of communities that are shut out by this idea: Dalits and the indigenous communities that are designated STs, for example. The irony though is that Dalits, to make their voice heard, now also have started arguing that they are the only true and 'original' Indians. They are following the same logic.

Another example is would be Anglo-Indians. They have been completely invisible and marginalized in the political conversation in post-independence India, because that conversation cannot recognize them.

Regards
Rohit Chopra