Culture and Identity: An Investigation into British and Indian Relations - Essay Example

The shift from Colonialism to Post-Colonialism is a theoretical effort to differentiate between past concepts of imperialism that attempted to cast the colonial impulse as a religious or cultural quest to liberate undeveloped countries from the morass of incivility they apparently exhibited. Beginning with writers such as Franz Fanton and Edward Said, Post-Colonial theorists posit that such impulses represent an ethnocentric view of the world. The focus of this essay examines the colonial efforts of the British in India without subscribing to either Colonial or Post-Colonial theory. By analyzing the major concerns of cultural interpretation through linguistics and the essential motivations for the British efforts, the colonial effort in India is shown to represent a universal impulse of the state that continues to exist in the contemporary world. HISTORY The history of the British in India dates back to the efforts of the English East India Trading Company to establish British economic interests in India in 1612. India operated merely as an economic trade-port until the Battle of Plassey in 1757. Considered a pivotal point in the colonization of South Asia, the battle occurred during the Seven Years War and pitted the English East India Trading Company against their French counterpart. The British victory resulted in the emergence of government authority in India and included an abundance of wealth from the Bengal Empire that flowed into Britain. The infusion of wealth helped British colonial efforts that expanded throughout the area for the next 200 years and established the British as the predominant colonial power of the 19th century. Chamberlain (1974) makes the point that -- although theorists make direct causal connections between the British and their impulses in India -- it's absurd to assume that over the 200 years of colonial expansion the British motivations remained static. Over the 200 year period the British passed from Tudor rule to Victorian, and as such British motivations need to be understood in relation to an ever-changing Empire. ECONOMICS The exact terms of the relationship between the British and the Indians seemed to remain highly ambivalent throughout the period of British occupation. One strand of thought on British control of India was that the Indian people were so uncivilized that if the British ceased occupation than the Indian economy would fall into shambles due to lawlessness; whereas, a strong contingent of Indians believed that British ethnocentrism was such that they merely used India as an economic means for British gain, resulting in a highly distorted economy that oppressed the Indian population. Conversely, it's argued that the British economy was equally distorted by relying too heavily on Indian production. During their occupation of India, the British used a sense of cultural superiority to consistently avoid laws that would positively benefit Indian society. Speaking on the effects of this British ethnocentrism, Henry Verelst, former governor of Bengal, wrote: It appeared that an exemption from duties had thrown the whole trade of the country into the hands of the English. This, however, was the least evil. The country government was destroyed by the violence of their agents; and individual tyranny succeeded to national arrangement. In the general confusion, all, who were disposed to plunder, assumed the authority of our name, usurped the sears of justice, carried on what they called a trade, by violence and oppression. (Chamberlain, p. 20, 1974) While Indians seemed to favor the laws and structure the British government offered, they believed that the British presence in India operated as a means of exploiting their culture for profit. While a large amount of Colonial literature attempted to paint the British efforts as liberating, it's notable that from the onset British interests in India were directly related and expanded on economic means. A similar comparison can be made to Western efforts to bring a 'civilizing impulse' to Afghanistan and Iraq. One can theorize that similar these similar justifications of liberating the Middle East on moral grounds are merely ploys for profit. While society has supposedly entered a Post-Colonial, Post-Modern state, similar universal impulses continue to motivate the state - namely, economics. The question of British cultural superiority seems to be one of economics, as many theorists discuss whether Indian society would have industrially progressed without British intervention and cultural influence. Pre-British Indian society relied heavily on a caste system where upward mobility and capitalistic impulses were marginalized, so much so that it's wondered whether eighteenth century India even desired a Western-style economy. Well-endowed Indians often refused to support capital ventures, instead preferring to find profits in land speculation. On a philosophical level, it's been posited that the Indian religious system viewed Western progress as useless because, "Indian existence is looked on as a passing phase, prepatory to the life or lives to come." (Kulshrestha, p. 10, 2007) In light of this one must ask whether to value the religious constructs of the Indian people or the economic constructs of Western society. Perhaps British rule was the logical next step in the societal expansion of India and the established religious doctrine served to benefit the privileged elite; in this instance, British colonialism isn't viewed as an ethnocentric means of plunder, but rather as inevitable progress for India. Karl Marx understood the destruction of Indian culture that was occurring. He wrote that it was "sickeningto witness those myriads of industrious, patriarchal and inoffensive social organizations disorganized and dissolved into their units, thrown into a sea of woes'. (Avineri, p. 105, 1969) But he believed, seemingly contradictorily, that Indian society had drawn itself into a cultural shell that needed to be broken by the British to enable Indian progress. Marx' views on the subject draw into direct speculation the question of cultural relativism in India and whether the British position in Asia can be justified along economic lines. It's worth noting that Marx was a German philosopher who spent a considerable amount of his life in Britain and this line of thought seems to exhibit a touch of cultural relativism. Marx assumes that society progresses along an established path that is exhibited by Westernized nations, but doesn't account for the cultural concerns of the Indian people. While he does reference the tragic loss of Indian culture, his justification for it doesn't account the possible benefits of Indian society maintaining its own culture. It's ultimately a question of whether economic industry can be equated with social progress. One could argue that the 'archaic' Indian culture that shunned the capitalist influence was more effective for the Indian people on a psychological and spiritual level. If India advanced to a more industrious economic position it would entail sacrificing the spiritual stability they had attained over their existence. CULTURAL INTERPRETATION Beginning with the English East India Trading Company, the British approached Indian culture by attempting to classify it through Western scientific methods. By classifying and categorizing India it was originally believed that the continent could be understood, and later that it could be controlled. Problems arose when attempting to translate elements of Indian culture to British culture. Seventeenth century Britain was a culture of great pomp and circumstance, whereas Indian society functioned through more direct means. This often caused foreign dignitaries to interpret their interaction with Indian Princes as debased. To the British, clothing and jewels were seen as a way to buy influence and power within the Indian administration, but they failed to understand the cultural relevance Indian culture attached to certain objects. The Indians viewed clothing and jewels as ways to endow rulers with authority and this authority could then by transmitted to others rulers when seen fit. Conversely, the British view of authority was something that was attributed to a word - king, for instance. Further confusions arose when attempting to determine the substance of contracts and messages between the two societies. For the British, a contract or command operated a functional purpose, yet the Indians concept of such an occurrence was endowed with more significant meaning. Cohn (1996) writes that the contract actually came to represent: a sharing in the authority and substance of the originator, through the act of creating the document. Therefore, the drawing up of the document carried a significance that included the forms of address, the type of paper, the preliminary phases of invocation, the elaboration of the terminologyall were meaningful. (p 19) This represents fundamental differences in culture. The British attempts at Western style classification demonstrate a fundamental mistake in their interpretation of that culture. Only an ethnocentric understanding, motivated by economic means, would attempt to equate the two cultures directly. The only fair interpretation necessarily involves a fundamental grasp of the Indian existence, so rather than conform to Indian society the British seemingly made it conform to them. In the nineteenth century, the British began a large-scale classification of Indian languages. Consider the difficulty the British faced in directly translating cultural experience; it can be argued that these dictionaries and books of grammar, rather than 'defining' Indian culture, redefined it to fit preconceived British structural conventions. These classification systems were used in handbooks to help British travels better 'understand' the Indian culture, but contemporary research into Indian linguistic patters reveals that the long term results of British occupation demonstrate that identification with Westernized modes of speech equates to Westernized cultural practices. In Speech Acts in an Indigenised Variety: Sociocultural Values and Language Variation, Kamal Sridhar analyzes a group of a group of Indian students from a variety of socio-cultural backgrounds and discovered a direct correlation between the variety of English they speak and their socio-cultural background. In one instance, the use of the politeness marker 'please, was tested in a group of 164 students with direct statistical analysis showing a direct correlation between the speaker's involvement in British cultural practices and their use of them term. Further research correlates the speaker's use of the Westernized variety of English with their economic worth in the marketplace. The results of this study demonstrate that even a century after British linguistic co-optation of Indian culture, there is a fundamental shift in understanding between the cultures as evidenced by linguistic elements. Sridhar concludes, "socio-cultural factors such as degree of Westernization and stratification within the non-native society function as variables differentiating one variety of non-native English from another." (p. 37) Ultimately, while the British have in great part adopted Indian terminology, their interpretation carries with it a loss of Indian cultural identity. CONCLUSION In conclusion, it's evident that British colonial efforts in India failed to account for all aspects of Indian culture. This may be due in part to the British motivation in India being primarily economic, so that understanding and conforming to Indian culture would have resulted in decreased economic potential. Even from the beginning of their occupation the British impulse was closely tied to the English East India Trading Company, yet they articulated their purpose in India on the grounds that they were brining a superior culture to India. While there is mixed support for this reasoning, it's clear that this perspective carried with it a great deal of ethnocentrism that is still being demonstrated by Westernized countries, currently in the Middle East. Furthermore their attempts at cultural integration demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of India heritage and a prolonged effort by the British, both intentional and unintentional, to co-opt Indian language and culture for economic means. References Avineri, Shlomo. Karl Marx on Colonialism & Modernization. New York: Avalon Press, 1969. Chamberlain, M.E. Britain and India: The Interaction of Two Peoples. University of Rochester, 1974. Cheshire, Jenny (Ed.) English Around the World: Sociolinguistic Perspectives. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Cohn, Bernard. Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1996. Kulshrestha, Mahendra. Culture India ; Philosophy, Religion, Arts, Literature, Society. London: Oxford University Press, 2007. Read More