The Ruler’s Gaze

Title: The Ruler’s Gaze – A Study of British Rule Over India From a Saidian Perspective

Author: Arvind Sharma

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2017 (First)

ISBN: 9789352641024

Pages: 426

The term ‘Orientalism’ was first coined in the West’s interactions with the Arab world where it proved to be a way of seeing that imagines, emphasizes, exaggerates and distorts differences of Arab peoples and cultures as compared to that of the West. It often involves treating other cultures as exotic, backward, uncivilized and at times dangerous. Edward Wadie Said (1935-2003) was a professor of literature at Columbia University whose 1978 book on Orientalism surmised about the cultural representations that are the bases of it. According to Said, Orientalism is inextricably tied to the imperialist societies who produced it, which makes much orientalist work inherently political and servile to power. This book is a heroic attempt to translate Said’s theories on Orientalism to British scholarship on India and Hinduism and how it faithfully followed the ups and downs of British political power in India. In a quite convincing way, the book impresses on the readers that the relationship between knowledge and power is central to the way the West depicts the non-West. Arvind Sharma served in the distinguished Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and is the Birks Professor of Comparative Religion in the School of Religious Studies at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He has authored many books and was instrumental in facilitating the adoption of a Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the world’s religions.

The perceptional change among British scholars on the social and literary mores of India underwent a drastic change as British power consolidated in the country. William Jones, a judge of the Supreme Court at Calcutta, established the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784 and set out to translate many Hindu texts himself. After the Battle of Plassey in 1757, the English made a foothold in Bengal, which was by no means secure. Their administrators in this period exhibit a mixture of tolerance and admiration, which is noted and eulogized by William Dalrymple in his magnificent ‘White Mughals’ (reviewed earlier in this blog).The turn of the nineteenth century foresaw the eventual demise of the Mughals for good, leaving the British in sole control of India. They conclusively defeated the Marathas in 1818 in the Third Battle of Panipat. Only the Sikhs remained free, but they were on friendly terms with the Company. The author notes with characteristic precision that a change in British mindset came about in this period. The Charter Act of 1813 allowed the Christian missionaries unfettered privileges to carry out their evangelizing work in India. These missionaries preached their religion from a position of power and authority backed by British arms, unlike in other parts of the world where they won people over by humility and service. Probably, that may be the reason why they failed so miserably in India! English was made the medium of instruction in schools in the year 1835. With the Mutiny in 1857, racism scaled its utmost heights. The imperialist zenith was reached in 1905, and it was in perceptible decline thereafter till its demise in 1947. Quite unlike Jones, later administrators and scholars like James Mill and Thomas Babington Macaulay thought Indian culture to be worthless, sought to replace it with Western thought and convert the inhabitants to Christianity. Sharma reiterates that this contrast in behaviour is consistent with Edward Said’s hypothesis that power and knowledge of an occupying power always go hand in hand. Vincent Smith’s observation that ‘the India which the British left in 1947 differed greatly from the archaic country which their diplomacy and arms had mastered a century and a half before’ is quite shocking to the sensibilities of modern Indians, even though it is just plain truth.

British rule had been an era of impoverishment. The author reiterates this general observation with solid facts and attempts to guess at those factors which led to the decline. In 1750, India produced about 24.5% of the global manufacturing output, which precipitously fell to just 2% in 1953. Sharma pinpoints the monopolization of land revenue as the primary cause of the collapse of village societies. He attacks the British projection of virtue on themselves in prohibiting the practice of Sati. They in fact formalized this heinous ritual in 1813, but abolished it in 1829. The author also presents a new fact about its surge in Bengal. He reckons that in pre-British India, the widows were supported through revenue-free land grants by local rulers. When the English East India Company took up the function of collecting land revenue, it started cancelling all such charity assignments to maximize their own profits. This led to many middle-aged widows committing Sati, long after their husbands were dead. Similarly, the exaggerated number of thugs caught and killed was a way of asserting the moral supremacy of the conquerors. The book then examines the issues of slavery, legal inequality of castes, dowry system, female infanticide, excesses of the caste system and illiteracy and deposits the blame solely on the British door. It analyzes the reports on indigenous education prepared in the provinces of Madras, Bengal and the Punjab. If the quoted figures are borne out by fact, it is evident that there had been a steep decline in literacy standards during British rule. Two factors that is thought to be behind all these maladies were the unsettled conditions in North India during the unraveling of the Mughal Empire and the large scale usurpation of land revenue by the Company for furthering their imperialist agenda. However, grave doubts exist against Sharma’s arguments on literacy. If literacy fell in British India as a result of British policy, it should have remained at a higher level in princely states where Indian kings administered. Such was not the case is clear from history.

The Greeks and the British were the only two European powers that militarily and culturally engaged India for a considerable time. Even though a chronological gap of two thousand years separates them, Sharma finds similarities in the narratives made by the Europeans on India. Alexander couldn’t consolidate his conquest of the gateway of India, but it opened up a steady stream of communication both ways. The book presents some interesting details of what India got in the deal. Astrology is now so much a part of Indian social life that someone discrediting it as superstition still encounters raised eyebrows. Sharma argues that astrology came to India from Greek sources. The earliest extant Sanskrit work on horoscopy in said to be the ‘Yavanajataka’ of Sphujidhwaja, composed around 150-270 CE. The title itself speaks of its origins and a cursory glance at the content of the work, which is freely available in cyberspace, establishes the hypothesis. This is quite something out of the blue! Ancient Greece is hyped to be the cradle of science and rational inquiry, but it is now alluded that it also housed some of the base superstitions as well. The author concludes that the science of phonetics arose in Europe after the discovery of Sanskrit, which devised the most scientific alphabet in the world. However, this debt is not always acknowledged. The book also examines the similarities in the treatment of Hinduism at the hands of Muslim and British scholars who came into contact with India as conquerors. A typical example is the narrative of Al Biruni, which is highly derogatory towards India. At the end of all these arguments, we are forced to conclude that physical power is the most essential factor that commands respect from foreign intelligentsia.

The book is extensively researched. The impressive bibliography and varied references supporting some of the original arguments attest to that. Sharma has made a unique attempt at quantifying the amount of ‘Orientalism’ prevailing in India during the period 1700-1947 and it is displayed as a graph, that is quite unusual yet heartening in a book on history and religion. The graph resembles a Bell curve, but the author warns not to draw too many inferences from its namesake in statistics. This book contains some excellent repartees to usual Western jibes on India, especially its caste system and perceived backwardness in administration and religious rituals. On the other side, the excessive number of verbatim quotes from other authors reduces the ease of reading, as the reader has to frequently re-adjust to the tenor of the authors. Besides, the author rationalizes some of the evils in Indian society when they come under the attack of Western scholars. He even quotes Manu Smriti to argue that it allows lying in court to save a human life, which may include a Sudra’s. Presumably, this refers to testimony against an accused, which don’t put the ancient legal system in a favourable light. The book is adorned with a comprehensive index and a good section of Notes.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star