Peabody, Tod's Rajasthan (1996)

7/24/2019 Peabody, Tod's Rajasthan (1996)

1/37

Cambridge University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Modern Asian Studies.

http://www.jstor.org

Tod's Rajast'han and the Boundaries of Imperial Rule in Nineteenth-Century IndiaAuthor(s): Norbert Peabody

Source: Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Feb., 1996), pp. 185-220Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/312906Accessed: 29-08-2015 04:34 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of contentin a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

This content downloaded from 163.1.255.60 on Sat, 29 Aug 2015 04:34:32 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cuphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/312906http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/312906http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cuphttp://www.jstor.org/


2/37

Modern

Asian Studies

30,

I

(1996),

pp.

I85-220.

Printed in Great

Britain

Tod's

Rajast'han

and the Boundaries

f

Imperial

Rule

in

Nineteenth-Century

ndia

NORBERT PEABODY

University

f Cambridge

This

essay

concerns the

labile

boundary

between

the

familiar

and the

exotic

in an

early nineteenth-century

Orientalist

text,

entitled

Annals

and

Antiquities f Rajast'han,

y

James

Tod.

Written

by

the first

British

political agent to the western Rajput states, Tod's Rajast'han, articu-

larly

the several

chapters

he devoted to the so-called 'feudal

system'

of

Rajasthan,

remained

implicated

in colonial

policy

toward

western

India for over a

century. By

situating

Tod's

Rajast'han

n

the

specific

circumstances

in

which it was written and then

tracing

the fate of

that text

against

a

historical

background,

this

essay

aims

to

restore

an

open-ended,

historical

sensibility

to studies on Orientalism that

most

critics

of

Orientalist

writing

have

ironically

forfeited

in

their

laudable

efforts to restore

history

to the

indigenous peoples

who have

been

the

objects

of

Orientalist discourse.

Since the

publication

of

Edward

Said's Orientalism

1978),

much

academic

scrutiny

has been directed

at

uncovering

the various

ways

in

which

Orientalist writers have

posited

an

asymmetrically

ranked,

ontological

difference

between the essential natures of

European

and

non-European

civilizations.'

Perhaps

the most ambitious

recent

Acknowledgments

The material presented in this essay is based upon research supported by the North

Atlantic

Treaty

Organization

under

a

grant

awarded

in

I992.

Any

opinions,

findings,

and

conclusions or

recommendations

expressed

in

this

publication

are those of the

author

and do

not

necessarily

reflect the views

of

NATO.

This

essay

has

benefited

enormously

from

critical

readings

of

earlier drafts

by

C. A.

Bayly,

Michael

Herzfeld,

and S.

J.

Tambiah. Some

of the ideas

contained herein were also

developed

in

the

course of

discussions with

Subho

Basu,

Susan

Bayly,

R. S.

Chandavarkar,

Jayasinhji

Jhala,

Gordon

Johnson,

and

Anil

Sethi.

I

wish

to

thank

these

people

for their

help

and

criticism. At

the

same time

I

must also absolve them

from

responsibility

for

any

of the

shortcomings

in

my

argument.

The kind

understanding

and warm

hospitality

of

Greta and

Peter

Hare at

Haylers

Farmhouse,

where

this

essay

was

finally

finished,

is greatly appreciated. Finally, I must acknowledge the steadfast support and encour-

agement

of M.

Brijraj Singh

of Kotah.

For an

important,

but now

often

neglected,

precursor

to

Said's

work,

see Asad

(1973).

oo26-749X/96/$7.50+o.

Io

?

I996

Cambridge University

Press

I85

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


3/37

NORBERT PEABODY

example

has

been Ronald Inden's

Imagining

India

(i990)

in which

he

has built on Said's

arguments

and

proposed

that

European

subjuga-

tion

of India was

facilitated

(if

not

actually

achieved)

by

European-

trained writers who successfully defined Indian society in terms of

various

'essences'

that

kept

India

eternally

ancient and

passive.

Inden

labels this

process

'essentialism',

which

he

defines

as

'the idea that

humans and

human institutions

... are

governed

by

determinate

natures that inhere

in

them

in

the same

way

that

they

inhere

in

the

entities

of the natural

world'

(Inden I990:2).

As

European-trained

scholars have worked these

unchanging

essences

into their

analyses

of

India,

they

have

stripped

from the Indian

people

their

agency.

Moreover, and this is really the crux of Inden's thesis, the persistence

of these

imagined

essences has

justified

European

interventions

in

India

in

order

to act

for,

and

on,

these

peoples.

The most notable of

India's essences is

caste,

for it is

apparently

unique

to

India,

but

Inden also identifies three other

'pillars'

of

Indological

discourse,

including

Hinduism,

village

India,

and

sacred

kingship

(although

each of

these latter

three,

plus

numerous other

derivative

'essences'

that

Inden

uncovers,

such as

Tod's

'Rajput

feudalism',

are

each redu-

cible

in

one

way

or another to

caste).

As Inden makes

abundantly

clear at several

points throughout

his

book,

the Orientalist

enterprise

of

fabricating

essences

has

important

implications

for

understanding

the West

as

well

as India.

In

the

introduction to

Imagining

India,

he makes the

following

manifesto and

challenge:

Euro-American

Selves and Indian Others have not

simply

interacted

as

entities

that

remain

fundamentally

the

same.

They

have

dialectically

consti-

tuted one

another ...

India

has

played

a

part

in

the

making

of

nineteenth-

and

twentieth-century Europe

(and

America)

much

greater

than the

'we' of

scholarship, journalism,

and

officialdom would

normally

wish

to allow

...

India

was

(and

to

some extent

still

is)

the

object

of

thoughts

and acts with

which

this

we has

constituted

itself.

European

discourses

appear

to

separate

their Self from the

Indian

Other-the

essence

of

Western

thought

is

practical

reason,

that of

India

dreamy

imagination,

or the

essence of

Western

society

is

the free

(but

selfish)

individual,

that of

India an

imprisoning

(but

all

providing)

caste

system.

But is this

really

so?

(Inden

I990:3)

Thus

for

Inden,

the

process

of

essentializing

the

Oriental

Other

entailed a

largely

invisible,

parallel process

of

essentializing

the

Euro-

pean

Self.2 An

important

consequence

of

Inden's

understanding

of

2

Whether

'essentializing'

is

an

uniquely

European predilection

is,

of

course,

another

question.

I86



4/37

TOD'S

'RAJAST'HAN'

AND

I9TH

CENTURY INDIA

187

the dual

effects

of Orientalism has been the need to redraw the bound-

aries

of'colonialism' to include

analyses

of

what

previously

had

been

treated as

distinctly

European phenomena.

The

'originary'

European

notion of Self, based on such attributes as rationality and individual

autonomy,

did not

penetrate

India

and transform

it.

Rather,

that

'originary'

European

identity

was

itself the

product

of

the encounter

between

East and West.

In a

sense,

Inden has

re-ordered

Kipling's

famous

ditty

'Oh,

East is East

and

West is West

and never the twain

shall

meet'

so that it now reads 'East makes West

and

West makes

East

and,

without the

Other,

the

Self is not

complete.3

Inden must

be

commended for

concentrating

our attention on the

dialectical construction of Self and Other, and he has focused a valu-

able

floodlight

onto the

clandestine,

crypto-structuralist

workings

of

the

South Asian avatar of Orientalism.4 His efforts have thus

broadened the boundaries of studies on

Orientalism,

in

particular,

aild colonial

studies,

in

general,

by

bringing

a

greater range

of

social

and intellectual

phenomena

under

analytic

scrutiny.

While main-

taining

that Inden's

study

is useful

starting point

for

any

analysis

of

colonial

representations

of

India,

I

shall

argue

in

this

essay

that he

has

only

taken a

half-step

in

pushing

back the boundaries of

the

practice.

Through

a

closer examination of

one

of

the Orientalist texts

ana-

lyzed

by

Inden,

Tod's

Rajast'han,

whose two volumes were first

pub-

lished

in

I829

and

I832,5

I

hope

to

make

two interrelated

points

that

would lend

both

greater

scope

and

subtlety

to his

basic

thesis.

The

first

point

takes the form of

a

simple

observation,

and it is

this:

Inden's univariate

analysis

that correlates the

difference between

Self

and Other with

the

difference

between

European

and

Indian does

3

In an

important respect,

Inden

proposes

a more measured

reworking

of

Nandy's

(1983)

provocative

thesis that in the

ong-term

he

most

profound

impact

of

the Indian

colonial

experience

was

felt,

ironically,

in

Great

Britain

with

the distorted

develop-

ment of

hyper-masculine,

hyper-rational

English

identities

rather

than

in

South Asia.

That

Inden understands the Orientalist

delineation of

essences

in

terms

of

strict

dichotomies,

or

binary

oppositions,

is

most

baldly

put

forth in

his earlier

article

'Orientalist Constructions

of

India'

which was

something

of a

dry-run

for

Imagining

India.

In

this

article

(Inden

I986:402),

he

states

'Indological

discourse ...

holds

(or

simply

assumes)

that the essence

of Indian

civilization is

just

the

opposite

of the

West's.'

5

Tod's

Rajast'han

as

been

reprinted

in

numerous editions and

formats.

In

order

to enhance recognition of my citations, in addition to the rather rare first edition, I

shall

include

references to two

editions

on

which most

contemporary

reprints

are

based,

the

1914

'Popular

Edition' and

the

I920

'Crooke

Edition'. It

should be

noted,

however,

that the

I920

'Crooke

Edition',

on which

Inden

has

relied,

is the

edition

in

which

the editor's

reshaping

of

the

original

text is

the most extensive.



5/37

NORBERT PEABODY

not cover the full

range

of social

representations

that

are

expressed

in

even

a

single

Orientalist

text,

such as Tod's

Rajast'han.

Tod's char-

acterizations do

not coincide with Inden's neat

two-column entries

of binary oppositions in at least two ways. First, on the Indian side of

the

colonial

divide,

Tod

carefully

articulates

a

number of

distinctions

between different

indigenous

social

and

political

types. Although

Tod's text

is

ostensibly

about

'feudal'

Rajputs,

he also devotes

signi-

ficant

space

to

'predatory'

Marathas

and

'despotic'

Mughals.

Inden's

analysis

provides

us

with little with which to

understand the need

for and

significance

of

these further distinctions.

Secondly,

in

Tod's

writings

those

who are

classified

one

way

in one

context often

are

reclassifieddifferentlyin another. For example, although the Rajputs

are

quintessentially

'feudal'

in

Tod's

scheme,

we

also

find

him

labeling

the

RajputJhala

Zalim

Singh

as

a

'despot'

(a

term,

according

to

Inden,

that Tod

reserved

for

the

Mughals).

Inden

dismisses these

multiple

and

shifting

classifications as

inconsistencies

and

relapses,

apparently

further

evidence

of

the feeble-mindedness of

already

mis-

guided

Orientalists

who cannot even

keep

their own

story

straight.6

But are we to

understand this

'schizophrenia'

as

resulting

from

the

weakness of

intellect of Orientalist

writers or is this evidence that

these writers were also supplementing Inden's logic with another with

which

they

were

attempting

to

cope

with

contradictory

sets

of

pres-

sures

emanating

from several

different

sources?

What

I

shall

propose

in

this

essay

is

that,

in

addition to

Inden's

strict

dichotomizing logic,

Indological

discourse was

shot

through

by

another

mode of

social

categorization

that

was not

premised

on

the

attribution

of

discrete,

oppositional

essences,

that

ontologically

separ-

ated East from

West.

Rather this

discourse was based

on the

idea

that there was a fundamental unity, or single essence, underlying all

humankind.

In

Tod's

case,

this

unifying

essence

was

expressed

through

the

idiom of

Romantic

nationalism

and the

idea that

the

highest

degree

of human

fulfillment is achieved

through

the

complete

manifestation

of one's

transcendent national

identity.

Tod

therefore

saw

nationalism

as the

universal

vehicle for

self-realization,

and he

attributed

distinctive national

identities to

various Indian

peoples.

This

does not

mean,

however,

that

he

assigned

these nations an

equal-

ity

of status

vis-a-vis the

British.

While Tod

accepted

national

identity

as a transcendent reality, he argued that the nation only rarely

6

Inden

thereby

projects many

of

the same

qualities

of'irrationality'

onto

Oriental-

ists

that he

blames

Orientalists for

projecting

onto

'Orientals'.

i88



6/37

TOD'S

'RAJAST'HAN'

AND I9TH CENTURY INDIA

189

became

fully

manifest

at

particular

moments

in

history.

Moreover,

Tod

used

popular contemporary

understandings

of historical

progress

and

regression,

as

espoused

by

Scottish

Enlightenment

figures

as

David Hume and

John

Millar

and,

particularly,

the

English

Whig

historian

Henry

Hallam,

to

rank

nations

differentially against

a

con-

tinuous

gradient

of

advancement

and

perfection.

Because

this

history

was

conceived in terms of

following

a

single

track and

tending

toward

a

single goal,

it

produced

a

relational or

segmentary

mode of

social

classification

in

which

categories overlapped

and could

only

be distin-

guished dependent upon

context.7 Thus

in

this

discourse,

social

rep-

resentations

simultaneously

displayed

affinities and differences

and,

when dissimilarity was emphasized, it tended to be expressed in the

language

of

degree

rather

than kind.

This

observation,

that the social

construction

of difference

may

be

expressed

in

terms

degree,

as

well

as

kind,

through

the use of

histor-

ical

metaphors,

is

hardly

new. Inden

certainly

refers

to this

modality

(e.g.

1990:I5),

as

does his

mentor Said

(I978).

However,

these two

modes of

constructing

difference have

typically

been

conflated,

or

rather

reduced to

the

latter,

in

much

writing

about

Orientalism.

And

in

one

important

respect,

there is

sound reason

for

doing

so. Both

modalities entail

attempts

by

Selves to

displace

the

agency

of Others

and thus rationalize various interventionist

agendas.

In

the

seg-

mented,

historical

mode of

ordering

societies,

Self is

always

assumed

to

be

ranged

at the most advanced or

developed

end of

the

continuum,

and

because

of its

privileged

position

is

admirably

situated to

guide

Others

along

their

journey

toward

betterment.

However,

there are

also at

least two related differences between these

modalities.

First,

because the

segmented

mode is not

tied

to the

assumption

of

opposed

essences in which East is ontologically different from West, it permits

a

unified

analytic

framework for

the social construction

of difference

that

is

simultaneously

applicable

to

Oriental and Occidental contexts.

This

facility

is

obviously

important

where

the

boundary

between Self

and

Other is not

solely

mapped against

the coordinates of

East and

West. At

least two

additional

axes

of

social difference

simultaneously

preoccupied

European

writers

in

the

early

nineteenth

century

(as

they

still

do

so

today

in

somewhat

different

guise).

The

first,

whose

analysis

can

only

be

proposed

here,

constructs difference

horizontally

within the several

European

imperial

formations of the time

among

7

Formulation

of

this

point

is

immediately

indebted to Herzfeld

(1987: I52ff.),

but

the

basic

premise

of

segmentation,

as Herzfeld

himself

points

out,

has

a

long history

in

anthropology

extending

at

least

back

to

Evans-Pritchard.



7/37

NORBERT

PEABODY

various orders of

society,

be

they

conceived on

the basis of

religion,

gender,

social class

or, even,

political

party.8

Suffice

it to

say,

Tod's

writings

on

Rajasthan spoke

to several

public

debates

within

England

in the years immediately prior to the Reform Act of I832 including

such

issues

as extension of

the

franchise,

free trade and

monopolies,

and

aristocratic

privilege.

The second

axis,

which

will

be

the

principal

focus of this

essay,

constructs

the boundaries of difference

vertically

between the

European

imperial powers,

particularly

among

the

Brit-

ish,

Russians,

and French.

The second

main

difference between the

two

modes

of

Othering

is

that

because the

segmented

mode

allows for the creation

of

much

more numerous and varied grades of distinctions between groups, by

simply varying

the context or

frame

of

reference,

it

permits

Self

to

construct

a

multiplicity

of Others who

are,

importantly,

divided

among

themselves. These divisions

simultaneously

permit

Self

to

establish

a

much more labile

boundary

with

particular

groups;

some-

times

including

them,

sometimes

excluding

them,

again

by

varying

the

frame

of

reference,

as

per strategic

concerns. This dual

capacity

(to

create a

multiplicity

of

Others and to establish

a

shifting

boundary

between

Self and

Other)

is

crucial

to the classic

strategy

of

divide,

co-opt, and rule that was informed by the imperatives of early nine-

teenth-century

global

politics

involving

both colonial rivalries with

various

indigenous

powers

in

India

and

imperial

rivalries with other

European

powers

who also had

interests

in

India. In

sum,

due to

its

global

scope

(both

in

terms of

application

and factors that it

accommodates),

the

segmented

mode

of

Othering

might

be

profitably

conceived of as

an

imperial

discourse as

opposed

to the more

narrowly

defined

colonial

one

implied by

the term 'Orientalism'.

In adopting this position, it is not my intent to turn my back on

the

insights

of

Inden

and Said.

Rather,

I aim

to show that

Orientalist

discourse,

as

narrowly

defined

by

these

authors,

was

only

strategically

deployed

within

specific

contexts and

that

this

discourse was

supple-

mented

by

other

discourses of

Otherness as well.

Moreover,

the diver-

gent

orientations of

these

multiple

discourses

produced

many

ten-

sions,

ambiguities,

and

contradictions

in

writings

about the Orient.

While

late

twentieth-century

scholars,

like

Inden,

have

dismissed

these

discrepancies,

or

attempted

unproblematically

to

resolve them

8

For

a

superb analysis

of

this sort

with reference

to

James

Mill's

History

of

British

India,

see

Majeed (I992).

See

also

Kuklick

(I984),

for a

somewhat

parallel

discussion

of

the

relationship

between

contemporary

British

politics

and

Evans-Pritchard's

understanding

of

the

Nuer.

I9go



8/37

TOD

S

'RAJAST'HAN'

AND

I9TH

CENTURY

INDIA

(e.g.

Inden

1990:42-43),

I

shall

argue

that such

attempts

bring

a

distorting

systematicity

to the discursive

practices

of these

earlier

writers.

In other

words,

Inden

may

have confused the

'essentializing'

rhetorichat Orientalist writers deployed in their texts with the actual

existence of

stable,

all-regulating

essences

underlying

those self-same

texts.

Or

to

put

it

yet

another

way,

while Inden

valuably

exposes

how

essences

are not facts of

nature

governing

human

behavior,

but

are

attempts

to naturalize

unequal

power

relations that are

socially

constituted,

he nevertheless continues to

reify

them as

literary

artefacts

that

govern

the construction of the

text.

Ironically,

while

Inden has

done

a

great

service

in

alerting

us to the subtle

ways

in

which Orientalist writing, despite the language of scientific natural-

ism,

was not

objective

but,

in

fact,

highly

situated

in

social

relations,

he has not done

likewise

concerning

the

'scientific'

claims

concerning

the

uniformity

and

fixity

of the

ontological

foundations

underlying

these

writings.9

As

I

hope

to demonstrate

in

this

essay,

a

text,

such

as Tod's

Rajast'han,

s inhabited

by

a

multiplicity

of

'essences' which

are

non-congruent, divergent,

or

discrepant

and which

open up

the

text

to

multiple,

often

strategically

deployed, interpretations.

Thus

in

this

limited,

but

important, respect

I

shall

suggest

that

Inden

still

conflates certain key aspects of the ideology of his own cultural milieu

with its

actual

practices.10

This

is to

say,

'classical natural scientific

thinking"'

is less

of a

fixed

set of rules about

how

knowledge

is

actu-

ally

constituted

in

the

West than it

is

an

'officializing strategy'

(Bourdieu

I977:38-40)

that

seeks to

naturalize what are

often

highly

mutable

practices

and

thereby

insulate them

from

too

close

scrutiny

by

giving

them

the

air

of

invariant

fixity.'2

9

In

formulating

this

position,

I am

greatly

indebted to Tambiah

(i990)

and,

especially, Herzfeld (1987).

10

Alternatively,

for

those

who

find

the distinction

between

ideology

and

practice

problematic,

the

above mentioned

tension

may

be seen as

a

debate

within

the 'meta-

physics

of

science' as

to how science

itself should

be ordered and

conducted.

As

Tambiah

(1973)

showed so

long ago through

his use of the

key

and

hierarchy

prin-

ciples

of

taxonomic

classification,

Western

scientific

principles

have

been

constructed

on various

foundations

capable

of

producing

diverse

effects. The

point

here

is

that

what

constitutes

acceptable

scientific

practice

is

hotly

contested and

this lack of

accord is an

important

dimension of the

phenomena

that

requires

analysis.

l Inden

(1990:I3)

enumerates

nine

characteristics that

he associates

with 'clas-

sical

natural

scientific

thinking.' They

are

that

it

is

objective,

unified,

bounded,

atomist, complete, self-centred, self-regulating, determinist, and essentialist.

12

Ironically,

Inden

recognizes

that

this

duplicity

has

always

been

a

feature of

the

natural

sciences,

witness

his

references

to

Feyerabend

and

Kuhn

(Inden

1990:2I),

but

does not see it as a

feature

in

the

social

sciences. Could it be

that the social

sciences

have

upheld

scientific

principles

where the

natural

sciences have not?

I9I



9/37

NORBERT PEABODY

Inden's

critical

lapse

in

this

regard

is

symptomatic

of a

larger

prob-

lem with his basic

approach

toward

textual

analysis

that

again

reflects

back

onto

some

of

his

assumptions

about the West.

His

readings

of

various Orientalist texts are largely retrospective historical projec-

tions;

that

is,

they

have been decontextualized

from

the

specific

cir-

cumstances

in

which

they

were written and

against

which

they

were

expected

to be read. Instead each Orientalist text

is

analyzed only

insofar as

it

is an instantiation of the

'metaphysics

of

natural science'

that Inden

sees

as

underlying

all

Indological

discourse.

The

danger

of

relying solely

on

retrospective

analysis

is

that the

resulting history

of

Orientalist

thought

tends to the unilinear

and

teleological.'3

The

past is seen as inexorably culminating in the present and outcome is

conflated with

cause.

As

a

result,

Inden

sees

his

Western, rational,

scientific

thought

as an

unitary,

stable,

and

determinist structure

underlying

(and

thereby

outside

of)

several centuries of

Indological

discourse rather

than as a

manifold,

emergent,

and

potentialist

set of

practices

that

were

part

and

parcel

of that

discourse.'4

This

is

not to

say

that Inden's

retrospective

analysis

is

wrong;

rather that it

ought

to be

interrelated with

a

prospective

view

that

takes into account the

goals

and

intentions

(both

manifest and

latent)

of the

author

and

his

intended contemporary readership. This dual perspective opens up

the

text to

a

greater

range

of

interpretations

and

uses,

and

allows

the

analyst

to

chart

in

a

more

open-ended

way

how

the

chips

of

success

and

failure

fall

among

the several discursive

strategies.

The

pitfall

with

Inden's

approach

is

that,

by

arguing

that there is a

self-manifest

and

governing

'metaphysics

of

natural

science'

underlying

Indolog-

ical

discourse,

he

runs

the

risk

of

essentializing

the Western mind

and

re-admitting

through

the back door the

very

divide between

Self

and Other that he cast out through the front.

Using

Tod's

Rajast'han

s

our

point

of

departure,

let us

then

turn

to the

range

of

early

nineteenth-century

discursive

practices

on which

the social

construction of

difference

was

based.

I

shall

begin

by

briefly

outlining

Inden's

gloss

of

Rajput

feudalism,

as

portrayed by

Tod

in

order

to reveal

more

fully

how Inden's

retrospective reading

has

13

This is an

ironic

accusation

considering

that

one of the

things

that Inden

wants

to

do

for

India is

to

free

it from

such

forms

of

historical reductionism

and to

fashion

a more potentialist, open-ended understandingof Indian history that explores human

activity

in

its own

right.

For

a

parallel

critique

of

Said,

see

al-'Azm

(I981).

14

Thus we

find

that the

construction

of the

Western

Selves and

Indian

Others

was

not

a

dialectical

rocess

after all.

I92



10/37

TOD'S

'RAJAST'HAN'

AND

I

9TH

CENTURY

INDIA

193

reduced

a

series of

multiply

constituted,

social

relationships

that

were

variously

informed

by

several

axes of valuation to a

single

opposition

of

just

two

stable,

bounded

groups

that

were defined

by asymmetric-

ally

ranked,

essentialist

dyads

(whose

negative

valence was

caste).

Following

this,

I

shall

briefly

sketch

something

of

the

early

nine-

teenth-century

historical context

in

which Tod

was

writing

in

order

to

open

up

Tod's text

to

an

alternative,

or

parallel, reading.

Two

areas

that had

a

direct

impact

on how Tod constructed social differ-

ence will

be examined:

i)

the British

East

India

Company's

rivalry

with

indigenous

powers,

especially

the

Marathas,

and

2)

British

para-

noia about

French

and

Russian

designs

on

India. In

light

of

these

circumstances, I shall next present and analyze an alternative dis-

course

underlying

Tod's

notion

of

Rajput

feudalism.

If

this

discourse

had an

essence,

that

essence was nationalism. Tod's discourse on

nationalism

not

only

provided

a

unified framework for the

social

pro-

duction of

difference

that

divided

the British Self from

various

Others,

both

European

and

non-European,

but the conditions of its

applica-

tion also

helped

divide those Others

among

themselves

in

such

a

way

that

simultaneously

provided

a

moral

justification

for

intervention

into their

affairs

while

articulating

a

basis for

distinguishing

between

those

groups

to be

co-opted

into and those to be excluded from the

apparatus

of

empire.

In

conclusion,

I

shall look

at

the fate

of Tod's

Rajast'han

s it

was

appropriated

by

the

Indian

nationalist

movement

during

the

second

half

of the

nineteenth

century,

and

I

shall show

how this

'unauthorized'

usage

of

Tod,

in

turn,

shaped

the

direction

of later

Indological

writing.

In

examining

the role of

indigenous

agency

in

Indology's history,

I

shall

argue

that

Inden too

is a

partial

inheritor

of

Orientalism's

legacy

insofar as he

re-inscribes

Orientalist

assumptions about Indian passivity into his analysis of the history of

colonial

representations.

Inden's

Rajast'han

Inden

presents

Tod's

Rajast'han

s a

counterpoint

(albeit

in

only

lim-

ited

respects)

to

James

Mill's The

History

of

British

India.

According

to

Inden,

these texts

differed

in

two

interrelated

respects.

The first

concerned whether or not

despotism

was the essence of the Hindu

state.

Whereas Mill

claimed that it

was, Tod,

according

to Inden

(I990:174-5),

held

despotism

to

be a

Muslim

characteristic that

had



11/37

taken root

in

the

Gangetic

plain

under

the

Mughals.'5

The

essence

of Tod's Hindu

state, instead,

was a form of feudalism that he

saw

as

surviving

in

the remoteness of western

India

in

what

is

now

Rajas-

than. The second difference concerned who in these two political

formations held the

reigns

of

power.

In Mill's

despotism,

it was

the

Brahmans

because

Hindu laws were

supposedly

of divine

origin

and

only

the

priests

were

thereby

qualified

to

interpret

them.

Both

judicial

and

legislative authority

thus

lay

with

priests,

and

the

king

was

but

an

instrument of

Brahmanical

power.

Tod,

on

the other

hand,

placed:

'legislative

authority'

in

his

ideal

Rajput

state

in

the

hands

of

the

prince

and

not,

as the

despoticists

did,

in

the

hands of Brahmans. He described

the

prince,

with the aid of his civic

council,

. . . as

promulgating

'all

the

legislative

enactments

in which

the

general

rights

and

wants of the

commun-

ity

were involved'.

(Inden

1990:173-4

glossing

Tod)

Although

free from

a

'conspiring' priestly

caste,

Tod

saw the feudal

Rajput

state as

inherently

unstable. Feudal ties

'produced

mutual

sympathy

or

loyalty' among

Rajputs,

but

these

links were

perpetually

threatened with

dissolution

by

inherent

Rajput

combativeness. As a

result,

the

Rajput

state

persisted

in

a

perennially

weakened condition

that

prohibited

them from

ever

successfully

uniting

against

the

Mugh-

als, Marathas, or British.

Rajput

truculence was itself rooted in the

agnatic,

or

'patriarchal',

structure of

their

clan

system

whose

exist-

ence

rested

on

a

myth

of

divine

origin.

'The

Rajput

prince

... shared

his

sovereignty

and

divinity

with

other

Rajput

rulers and

nobles

by

virtue of their

common

descent from

the

Sun

or Moon'. This

mythic

charter

fostered

'a

system

of "feuds"

in

which warriors

of the two

"races" descended

from

these

deities,

and

the

dynasties

within

these,

were

perennially

related as rivals'

(Inden

[1990:I73]

glossing

Tod)

so, in the final analysis, 'Tod's prince was the instrument of a tran-

scendent

structure

of clan

rivalries'

(Inden

1990:175).

Inden then

ends

his discussion

of Tod with

the

following

conclusion:

Indological

discourse

vacillated before

the

Sepoy

or

Indian

Mutiny

of

1857,

between

depicting

the

Hindu

state as a

despotism

whose

essence was

the

abuse of

power

(Mill)

and as

something

of

a

feudalism

whose

essence

was

a

tie of

vassalage

and

vendetta

(Tod,

Wilson).

From the very

moment

f

its

15

IndentherebydismissesTod's musingson despotismas beingsuperfluouso

understanding

is

conception

of the Indian

(i.e.

Hindu)

state.

However,

as

we

shall

see

below,

although

Tod

did conceive

of

despotism

as

an

ideal

type

in the

Weberian

sense,

it

did not

constitutethe

essence

of a

specific

group.

Tod

clearly

held

that

Rajputs

were

equallycapable

of

despotism

as were the

British.

I94

NORBERT PEABODY



12/37

TOD'S

'RAJAST'HAN'

AND

I

9TH

CENTURY INDIA

195

formation,

however,

Indological

discourse,

whichever

these

positions

its

makers

have

taken,

has

agreed

on one

thing:

Hindu

kingship

is

the

instru-

ment of

the

transcendent

post-tribal

or

ancient

society

typical

of

India,

that

of her

castes, tribes,

and

clans.

They

differed

primarily

over whether

that

caste

system

was a form of disorder or inferior

order,

but not over its

position

as

the true ruler of India.

(Inden

1990:176,

emphasis

added)

In

other

words,

although

Tod

may

have

explicitly

argued

that

Rajput

feudalism was

the essence of the

Indian

state,

Inden contends

that

he

latently

rooted this form of

feudalism

in a

deeper

essence:

caste.

And

it

is on

this basis

that

Inden

apparently

feels

justified

in

labeling

Tod's

Rajput

feudalism as

'Oriental

feudalism'.'6

By

arguing

that

caste was at

the heart

of

Tod's

conception

of

the

Rajput polity,

Inden

suggests that Tod not only made the Rajputs ancient but also ontolo-

gically

distinct

from

Europeans.

While

Inden's

reading

of

Tod

may

be

plausible,

let me

suggest

here that

it

is

only

partial.

For the

contemporary

student of

India,

one of the

refreshing

aspects

of

Tod's

Rajast'han

is how little

space

is

devoted to the

topic

of

caste.'7

Although

perhaps

not the

most reliable

of

indicators,

Inden

himself was

able to

gloss

Tod's

argument

using

the

word

only

once

before

reaching

his

remarkable

conclusion

that

Tod

held caste

to be 'the

true

ruler of India'.

In

his

nearly

600o

pages

of

text,

Tod

singled

out

many

categories

for

analytic

scrutiny,

including

geography,

state

formation,

mythology,

customs,

festivals,

agriculture,

and

land

revenue

(to

name a

few);

caste

is

not

among

them. Even

Tod's

discussion of

'religious hierarchy',

a

place

where

one

might

think

he would

tackle the

issue of

caste,

turns out to

be

an

examination

of the

'unnatural'

amount

of

land

controlled

by

the

'church'."8

The

centrality

placed

by

Inden on

caste

in

his

analysis

of

Tod

may

be,

in

fact,

another of

his

retrospective

projections.

For

one,

the link between the kinship system within particular castes, such as

the

clan

system

of

the

Rajputs,

and

the

caste

system

writ

large

was

only

made

later

toward the

end of

the

nineteenth

century

with

the

study

of

asymmetrical

(particularly

hypergamous) systems

of

mar-

riage

alliance.

The

plausibility

of

Inden's

argument

thus

may

rest on

the

fact that

his

point

of

reference

(and

that

of his

readership)

is

the

mid-to-late

twentieth

century,

when

caste

indeed

became

the

16

Inden,

thereby,

uses

metonymic

juxtaposition

to

equate

Rajput

feudalism

with

the quintessential category of political Otherness, (Oriental) 'despotism'.

17

See also

Bayly

(forthcoming).

18

Tod's

discussion

is

largely

informed

by

Hallam's

(1819,

II:198-374)

critique

of

the

power

of

the

church in

feudal

Europe

which was

itself a

thinly

veiled criticism

of

ecclesiastical

privilege

in

early nineteenth-century England.



13/37

NORBERT

PEABODY

dominant

trope

for

interpreting

Indian

society.

This is not to

contend

that

early

Orientalists

did not exercise

themselves

over

caste,

but

whether Inden's

specific

hierarchy

of

essences,

in which

caste

lay

at the root, was already generally and firmly established within all

Indological

discourse 'from

the

very

moment

of its

formation'

is

open

to

question.

Indeed,

it

may

be worth

considering

whether

Inden's

assertion that

caste is

the

essence

behind two

centuries

of

Indology

would better

be

reformulated as

a

historical

question

that asks

how

over the

course of

this same

period

caste

emerged,

from

a

range

of

competing

metaphors,

to

become dominant.

This

question

becomes more

vexing

if

one asks

why

Tod

deployed

the analogy of feudalism in the first place, considering all the other

terms

of

Otherness

that

were available to

him

including

'Oriental

despotism'.

If

all

Indological

discourse

is

simply

about

establishing

an

unambiguous boundary

between

European

Selves and Indian

Others,

as

Inden

argues,

then

one wonders

why

Tod

placed

this

separation

at

risk

by

using

a

trope

that

would

naturally

invite

close

comparison

(as

opposed

to

contrast)

with

Europe?

That

Tod's atti-

tudes had

this

unsettling

effect

among

certain of his

contemporaries

(particularly

Ochterlony)

is borne

out

by

the fact

that,

as

Bishop

Heber wrote in I824 (I828, 1:42-3), his Company career ended in

premature

retirement amidst

accusations

of

favoring

native

princes

and

Rajput

partisanship

(see

also Sen

[I944]).19

Furthermore,

con-

temporary

reviews

of

Tod's

Rajast'han

expressed nearly

universal

skepticism

about

the

feudalism

analogy

on

the

grounds

that

European

and

Rajput

feudalism were

fundamentally

different,

thus

implying

that

they

understood Tod to be

arguing

that

they

were

fundamentally

the

same.20

So

if

Tod did

make

an

ontological

distinction

between

European and Rajput variants of feudalism on the grounds of caste,

it

was

not

readily

apparent

to

his

contemporary

readership

on

whom

it

was

supposedly

having

this

inebriating

effect.

Indeed,

the

one

reviewer

who did

comment

on

the

type

of

dichotomy

proposed

by

Inden did

so

precisely

in

the context

of

pointing

out

how

contradict-

ory

Tod's

own

evidence and

conclusions on

the

matter were.

The

reviewer

notes

that

in

some

places

Tod

rooted

Rajput

combativeness

19

Tod

did

not

complete

his

Rajast'han

until

after

returning

to

England

(though

significant

portions

of it

were

written as

early

as

I820-21

while

he

was still

in

India).

Nevertheless, many of the attitudes that he expressed in the text already informed

his

activities

and

policies

when

he was

Political

Agent

(1818-22)

as

will

become

apparent

below.

0

See,

for

example, Anonymous

(1829);

Anonymous (1830);

and

Anonymous

(1839).

I96



14/37

TOD'S

'RAJAST'HAN5

AND

I9TH

CENTURY

INDIA

and

political disunity

in Hindu

myth

and

religion

but

he

elsewhere

claimed

that

this

martial

spirit

owed its

origins

to non-Indian

and

non-Hindu sources. To

support

the second

position,

the

reviewer

(Anonymous 1832:8-9) cites the following passage from Tod

(I829:69; I914, 1:57; 1920:81-2):

The

religion

of

the martial

Rajpoot,

and the rites of

Har,

the

god

of

battle,

are little

analogous

to those of the

meek

Hindus,

the followers of the

pastoral

divinity,

the

worshippers

of kine and

feeders on

fruits,

herbs and water.

The

Rajpoot delights

in

blood: his

offerings

to the

god

of

battle are

sanguinary,

blood and

wine;

the

cup

(cupra)

of libation is the human

skull

...

Is

this

Hinduism

acquired

on the

burning

plains

of India? Is

it

not rather

a

perfect

picture

of the

manners of the

Scandinavian heroes? The

Rajpoot

...

wor-

ships his horse, his sword, and the sun, and attends more to the martial

song

of

the

bard,

than the

litany

of the Brahman. In the martial

mythology

and warlike

poetry

of the

Scandinavians,

a

wide field exists

for

assimilation,

and

comparison

of the

poetical

remains of the Asi of the

East and West

would alone

suffice to

suggest

a

common

origin.21

In

this

context it

may

be

indicative that

Tod situated his

discussion

of

Rajput

feudalism,

not within

extant

debates about

the Indian

state,

but within

debates about the

nature of

various

European

states. Tod's

decision to

place

his discussion

of

Rajput

feudalism in

this context

reflects,

I

feel,

his

inclination to

see at least some

aspects

of

India

and

Europe

within a

unified

analytic

field

rather than a

dichotomous

one. And as

such,

Tod

was not

constituting

a

knowledge

whose use

was

simply

restricted to

governing

the

East;

it was

also

intended to

be of value

in

understanding

(and

dominating)

the

West.

Therefore,

Inden's

framing

of his

discussion of

Tod

solely

with

reference to Mill's

History

of

British

India is

somewhat

misleading.

Tod's

explicit

source

of

inspiration

and focus

of

contention was

Henry

Hallam's View

of

the

State of Europe during the Middle Ages.22 Although Mill's History first

appeared

in

I81I7,

Tod himself

never

expressly engaged

with it.23 He

21

See also

Tod

(1827:303-9; 1830).

22

Hallam's Middle

Ages

was first

published

in

i818

(in

two

volumes)

and

was

reprinted

in

several

editions both in

England

and abroad

by

several

different

pub-

lishers

in

the

years

immediately

thereafter.

From

Tod's

incomplete

citations

of

Hallam,

it

appears

that he

consulted

the

second edition

(in

three

volumes)

which

was

published

in

1819.

I,

therefore,

shall

quote

from

this edition.

23

Mill and

Hallam,

of

course,

were

both

leading

members of

the

Society

for the

Diffusion of Useful Knowledge and it is likely they knew each other's work. Their

membership

in

this

organization

is

perhaps

further

evidence of

the

way

in

which

Indian

and

European

historiography

were still

explicitly

seen as

resting

on

the same

epistemological

foundations

rather

than

separate

ones

(C.

A.

Bayly:

personal

communication).

See

also

Majeed (1992).

I97



15/37

NORBERT

PEABODY

preferred,

instead,

to address

historians

of

Europe including

Gibbon,

Hume, Millar,

and

Montesquieu.24

It

was the

English

Whig

historian

Hallam, however,

who

exercised

Tod most for he had argued that feudalism was a phenomenon that

was

unique

to

England,

France,

and

parts

of

Germany

and had

no

counterpart

elsewhere

in

the

world,

including

India

and

the rest

of

Europe.

It has

been

very

common to seek the

origin

of

feuds,25

or at least

analogies

to

them,

in

the

history

of

various

countries:

but

though

it

is of

great

import-

ance

to

trace the

similarity

of customs

in

different

parts

of the

world,

we

should

guard against

seeming analogies,

which vanish

away

when

they

are

closely

observed. It is

easy

to find

partial

resemblances to

the

feudal

system

... Such a resemblance

may

be found in the Zemindars of Hindust'han and

the

Timariots

of

Turkey.

The

clans

of

the

Highlanders

and the Irish

followed

the

chieftain into the

field: but their

tie

was that

of

imagined

kindred

and

birth,

not the

spontaneous

compact

of

vassalage.

(Hallam

1819,

I:200;

quoted by

Tod

I829:I32;

I914,

I:109;

1920:156-7)

A

large

portion

of

Tod's

analysis,

on

the

contrary,

contested this

distinction and

attempted

to establish

several

important underlying

commonalties

between the

Rajputs

and the

English

(albeit

on

firmly

prejudicial,

Eurocentric

terms) that,

in

turn, distinguished

the

Rajputs

from

other

Indian

(and

European)

groups.

Thus,

Tod

argued

that

the

tribes of

early

Europe

and 'the

Rajpoot

tribes' had a

common

Scythic

origin

in

Central

Asia

and,

in

the

more recent

past,

the

Rajputs

of western

India had a

feudal

system

similar

to that which

had

existed in

parts

of

Europe.26

The

argument

about

feudalism is

significant

because,

although

Tod's

mentor,

Hallam,

did not

see

feudalism

as

representing

a

condi-

tion

of

political

perfection,

he

did feel

that the

feudal

system

was

the

chrysalis out of which emerged many of Europe's most cherished

ideas

about

itself,

including

the

creation of a

civil

society

that

secured,

among

other

things,

basic

civil

liberties and

private

property.

Hallam

(1819,

I:320-I)

wrote:

24

By

the same

token,

Tod

did not

engage

with

Edmund

Burke's earlier

Indian

application

of

the

feudalism

metaphor.

25

When Hallam

and Tod

used the

term

'feud,'

they

used

it in

two

different

senses;

the

first,

meaning

a

'feudal

benefice' or

'fief',

and

the

second,

meaning

a

'contention'

or

'quarrel'.

The first sense

is

implied

in

this

quotation.

26

Bayly (I989:154-5) has suggested Tod's archaizing, 'neo-Gothic'

writing style

was

part

of

a

deliberate

attempt

to establish

the

connexion

between

Rajasthan

and

Europe

aesthetically

as

well

as

metaphorically.

Concerning

Tod's

translations of the

poet

Chand,

another

commentator

noted that

he

adopted

a

specifically

'Ossianic

rhythm'

(Anonymous

I839: v).

I98



16/37

TOD

S

'RAJAST'HAN'

AND

I

TH

CENTURY

INDIA

I99

If

we

look

at the feudal

polity

as

a

scheme

of

civil

freedom,

it

bears

a

noble

countenance. To the feudal law

it is

owing,

that

the

very

names of

right

and

privilege

were

not

swept

away,

as

in

Asia,

by

the

desolating

hand

of

power.

The

tyranny which,

on

every

favourable

moment,

was

breaking through

all

barriers,

would have

rioted without

controul,

if,

when the

people

were

poor

and

disunited,

the

nobility

had

not been

brave

and free. So far as the

sphere

of

feudality

extended,

it

diffused the

spirit

of

liberty,

and

the

notions

of

private right.

Tod,

no

doubt,

asymmetrically

distinguished

between

Rajput

feud-

alism,

which

was

patriarchal

and

therefore

rooted

in

status,

and

English

feudalism,

which was

monarchical and therefore

based

on

contract,27

as Inden

rightly

observes,

but this is the same

order of

distinction that Hallam drew within Europe among the German,

French,

and

English

variants

of feudalism. Here

Hallam

was keen to

show how

English

feudalism

represented

the most

perfect

example

of

this

institution,

for it

enabled the

establishment

of a

'free

and

just

constitution' that

instituted

a

formal

equality

(i.e.

unity)

among

all

citizens under the

law,

whereas the French

and German

manifesta-

tions

were

lacking

by

comparison

in

one

way

or

another.28

Hallam's

castigation

of

the

French

and German

models is

instructive for it

plays

on the

very

themes of

political unity

and

disunity

that

Inden

uncovers as

the

essence of

Tod's

Orientalist

thought.

Paradoxically,

Hallam

argued

that

the

inherent

disunity

in

French and

German

societies

produced,

respectively,

despotism

and

extreme

political

frag-

mentation. In

France

during

the

Middle

Ages,

Hallam

argued

that

the

aristocracy's

refusal

to

relinquish

various formal

privileges

and

immunities

divided

them

from

the

gentry

and

freemen.

This internal

division

then

enabled

the

monarchy

to achieve

a

commanding

and

unassailable

position

in

France

leading

to

French

despotism

starting

with the reign of Louis XI, which in turn, resulted in the absolutism

of

Louis

XIV,

the

Jacobin

Revolution,

and

ultimately

Napoleon.29

In

medieval

Germany,

it

was the

failure

of the

nobility

to

adopt

primogeniture

that

led

political

authority

to

become

fragmented

and

the

state to

remain

weak

(Hallam

1819,

II:ii6ff).

Significantly,

Hallam

(1819,

11:135)

saw

the

fragmentation

of

the

German

nobility

as the

ultimate cause

for

Germany's

capitulation

to

'the

unprincipled

27

Tod

articulated this

distinction

most

succinctly

in

his

'Letter to T.

Hyde

Villi-

ers, Esq.' (Tod 1832b).

28

This

point

is

most

forcefully

made

in

Hallam's

Constitutional

istory

of

England

from

the

Accession

f

Henry

VII

to

the

Death

of

George

II

(Burrow

1981:31-2).

See

also

Hallam

(1819,

1:357).

29

See also

Burrow

(198I:31-3).



17/37

NORBERT PEABODY

rapacity

of our own

age'

(i.e.

Napoleon).

In

sum,

Tod's

distinctions

were not

unique

to

the

colonial

situation,

but also could be fit

into

a

broader

set of distinctions

that the British

were

making

within

Europe

as well.

In

any

case,

the

term

feudalism,

as

applied

to

the

English, Rajput,

French

and German

cases,

whatever

their internal

differences,

was

intended as

a

category

of

political

inclusion

whenread

against

other

less desirable forms

of

government.

Hallam thus

contrasted

the

feud-

alisms

of

England,

France,

and

Germany

with the more

primitive,

non-feudal

governments

that existed

in

Scandinavia,

Eastern

Europe,

the

Mediterranean,

Turkey

and India.

Likewise,

Tod

favourably

con-

trasted

the

Rajput feudal polity

with two other

types, Mughal 'despot-

ism' and

Maratha

'predation'.

It is

only by

dropping

this

further

comparison,

as Inden

has

done,

that Tod's

initial

distinction between

the

English

and

Rajput

variants of feudalism

which had

been

con-

ceived

in

terms of

a

difference of

degree

could be reconstituted in

terms

of

a

difference of kind.

While Tod

may

have

strategically

nar-

rowed his frame of reference in

particular

ontexts

for

example,

when

discussing

the

potential

threat that

the

Rajputs

posed

to the

British),

Inden has narrowed

Tod's

frame of reference

categorically.

As

a

result,

Inden has impoverished much of the polysemic, or what Herzfeld

(I982;

I987:95-150)

has

called

'disemic',

richness

of

Tod's text.30 But

before

exploring

this matter

more

fully,

let

us turn to

the historical

context

that

shaped

Tod's

thought helping

to

explain

why

disemia

was

an

important

facet

in

early

nineteenth

century

British

writing

about

India.3'

30

Herzfeld has

coined

the

term 'disemia' to

express

the

'semiotic

phenomenon

in

which

individuals are

able to

negotiate

social, national,

ethnic,

or

political

boundaries

through a potentially inexhaustible range of co-domains.'

(I982:205;

see also 1987:

95-150).

In

this

circumstance,

it is

not the

sign

but rather

the

way

the

sign

is read

against

a

set of different

contexts that

gives

it varied

meanings.

In

other

words,

the

sign

is

a

'shifter'

whose

interpretation

'depends

on

the

relationship

between the

context of

the utterance and the

context of the action'

(Herzfeld

1987:

2o8n

5).

Take,

for

example,

the theme of

Rajput political

atomism

in

Tod's work. This trait is

seen as

a

cultural

deficiency

(political

disunity)

when

placed

in

relation to

British

constitutionality

(i.e.

political unity).

However,

the

same

sign

is

read as

'patriotism'

and 'love

of

country'-the

highest

of

European

virtues-when it was

directed

against

the

Marathas

or,

potentially,

the

Russians

(see

also

Herzfeld

1987:123-7).

Because

Orientalist

discourse often

clothes the

sign

in

the rhetoric of

naturalism,

essentialism,

and fixity, we are substantially blinded to the shifting meanings and relative values

that

are

associated with them.

This blindness does not

mean that such

multiple

meanings

do

not exist.

31

In

coining

the

term

disemia,

Herzfeld was

primarily

concerned

with

the

phe-

nomenon as it

existed

in

the

colonial and

para-colonial

context

of

Greece. In

doing

200



18/37

TOD

S

'RAJAST'HAN'

AND

I

TH CENTURY

INDIA

201

Anxieties of

Empire

in

Early Nineteenth-Century

India

Although

Inden has

read

Tod's

discussion of

Rajput

feudalism

as

a

cipher for interpreting the Hindu political order writ large, and

although

Tod's text

may

have indeed

become such

a

cipher

in

the

hands of later colonial commentators such

as

Lyall

(1882)

and

Crooke

(in

his

introduction to

Tod

[1920]),

Tod himself

did not write

his

Rajast'han olely

with this

goal

in

mind.

The

Rajputs

may

have

been

exemplary

Hindus to

Tod,

but

they

certainly

did not

represent

all

Hindus.

Instead,

they

were

just

one of a

number

of Indian

groups

with whom the British

were

engaged

at

that

time,

and Tod's

Rajas-

t'hanwas part of a larger effort that specifically aimed to distinguish

among

different

groups

on the

ground.32

The most notable of the

non-Rajput

groups

that

concerned Tod

were

the

Marathas,

who had

been the

main

indigenous

rivals

of the

British

in

India

during

his

Company

career

(I798-1822)

and

had dominated

Rajasthan

in

the

eighteenth

and

early

nineteenth

centuries before the

British

finally

expelled

them

during

the Third

Anglo-Maratha

War

(1816-18).

Tod, himself,

knew the

Marathas

firsthand,

having

served

the Brit-

ish Resident

at

the

court/camp

of Daulat

Rao Sindhia from

I805

until his appointment as Political Agent to the Western Rajput States

in

I8I8.33

Significantly,

he

spent

much of

the

years

81

7-18

enlisting

Rajput military

and

logistical

support

for the British

against

the

Marathas. Several

other

independent

indigenous

powers,

in

addition

to the

Marathas,

preoccupied

the

British at the

beginning

of

the

so,

he

skillfully

charts

how its

manifestation

among

the

colonized

was

informed

by

unequal

power

relations

between Greece

and 'the Great

Powers' of Western

Europe.

I am

extending

the

potential

usage

of Herzfeld's

concept

in

two

ways.

First,

geo-

graphically, by applying it to India and, second, and more importantly, by

showing

how it also

illuminates

much about the

slippery

play

of social

representations

among

the

colonizers.

y

explicitly

examining

the

constraints

informing

the

British

production

of social

representations

about

India,

I

hope

to

put

our

understanding

of

colonial

'power'

on

a

somewhat

different

footing

than

has heretofore been

fashionable.

32

That Tod's text

was

interpreted

in

this

light

at

the time

is revealed

in

the

review

of his book in

The

Edinburgh

Review.The

anonymous

reviewer

praises

Tod's work

as

an

important

contribution to the

ongoing

effort of

revealing

India's

diversity.

Significantly,

this

diversity

is

not seen

as

a

hallmark

of Indian

Otherness but

is

explicitly

likened

to

Europe:

'The

bulk of

Europeans

conceive of the

people

of

India

as

a

homogeneous

mass,

yet

its

various nations are

as much disunited

by

physical

circumstances, and as broadly discriminated by language, complexion, habits and

character,

as are the

inhabitants

of the

different

countries of

Europe,

not

excluding

even the

Turks.'

(Anonymous

1830:86).

These

sentiments are

repeated by

Anonym-

ous

(I832a:73).

33

For

a

more

complete

biography

of

Tod,

see

Anonymous (1839).



19/37

NORBERT PEABODY

nineteenth

century,

including

the Sikh

kingdom

of

Ranjit

Singh,

the

Amirs

of

Sind,

the

Afghans,

and the Gurkhas.34

The

Rajput

states,

which

were,

as Tod reminded

King George

IV in the dedication

of

his book, 'the most remote tributaries to Your Majesty's extensive

empire',

remained

exposed

to the

disruptive

threat of

these,

as

yet,

independent polities

to

the north-west.35

In

fact,

during

the

I82os

and

30s

the

north-west frontier remained

the

quarter

from which the

British most

expected

trouble. This fear was

only

deepened

by

the

fact that within British India the

British relied

heavily

on

indigenous

groups

to do their

bidding.36

Tod,

for

example,

candidly

admitted:

'We

are

few:

to use

an

Oriental

metaphor,

our

agents

must "use

the

eyes

and

ears of

Documents

Peabody, Tod's Rajasthan (1996)