How should we study South Asia?

Orientalism

Outline of lectureToday’s lecture will cover: • What is orientalism? How does it matter in developing our understanding of South

Asia?• Usually, orientalism is used to understand

how the ‘west’ sees the ‘east’. But can we apply it more broadly?

KabuliwallahKabuliwallah (The fruitseller from Kabul) is

a short story by Rabindranath Tagore written in 1892.

Three ways of reading a story: • Literal• Between the lines • Beyond the lines

Setting of the story• The setting is 19th century Calcutta, when

immigration from Kabul has begun. The migrants from Kabul were associated with two activities: they were ‘usurers’ (money lenders) and they were fruit vendors.

• There was no understanding of them or their social context except for these two roles

Understanding Orientalism

• Aims to make us conscious of how we view ‘others’ or ‘strangers’ and how we are viewed as ‘others’ or ‘strangers’

• Said asks where these views come from: for example, why does the US portray a particular view of the Middle East?

Colonialism/imperialism

• This has to do with what colonialism and imperialism are:

• They are relations of domination in the realm of society, political-economy and ideology

‘White man’s burden’

• These relationships are developing at a time when “modernity” has arrived in Europe whereas the rest of the world is still “traditional”.

• Europe therefore takes on what Rudyard Kipling called the “white man’s burden”

What is going on here?

• Relationship between power and knowledge

• This is central to our understanding a society or any social entity

• Different theorists do it in different ways

Power-Knowledge: different approaches

• Michel Foucault is one of the famous theorists of this relationship

• Edward Said’s approach, which drew from Foucault’s work has come to be known as the post-colonial approach (seen in his book Orientalism)

• In a different way, Karl Marx theorized how capitalism dominates the production of knowledge (Have you read Noam Chomsky?)

• All these authors speak of knowledge and power as a political issue

• But we must also think of how it permeates our own ways of thinking and believing.