India and British Rule

The ability to control the language and distribution of discourse in which reports of fact and the official record cannot be overestimated in this regard. In fact, language can be seen as a locus of control all its own. In one important respect, the control that language represented for the British raj survives to this day. The British sought to infuse India with European (and especially) notions of governance and administration, fostering greater bureaucratic continuity with Britain after the departure of the British than might have been anticipated. The survival of English as the only official language of the courts and civil administration of India is the most obvious example of this. If the hegemony of English in official Indian discourse can be interpreted as a mechanism of nation-state efficiency or even unity (perhaps a

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, scientific, and aesthetic discourse. They are material representations of what there is about the Orient to be known and understood--obviously by Europeans and from the European and not "Oriental" view. In a world where European political, economic, and social power dominates, the implication must be that the power of controlling language in its various manifestations is a part of the larger apparatus, or anyway is meant to serve that apparatus. Pandey cites the "appropriation of all this history to the history of the state" (154). The very material existence of the accounts lends authority to them. Thus, how Europeans understand the Orient based on the authority of the written record is how the Orient is meant to be understood by all. This is the conquest by written knowledge as well as a conquest of the mechanisms of knowledge more generally, where knowledge refers to the voice of authority, whether moral or civil. Only when indigenous discourse that corrects the record--or, if one prefers, articulates the record from the indigenous point of view--can the European dominance of knowledge be breached or interrogated. 2. Communalism in the context of the British raj is the name given to a view of the social organization and pr
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Some common words found in the essay are:
European Oriental, British India, English India, According Pandey, Banaras Pandey, League Pandey, Hindus Muslims, Muslim Hindu, India Indian, India European, official record, british rule, indian history, hindus muslims, religious identity, riot narrative, communal riot, communal riot narrative, british raj, colonial construction, colonial construction communalism, society history,
Approximate Word count = 2124
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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