Reading Information

Cohn, Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge. Chapter Five: “Cloth, Clothes, and Colonialism in the Nineteenth Century”.

Overview

In the fifth chapter of his book Cohn talks about cloth and clothing as a huge and vital part in the process of colonizing India in the nineteenth century. Cohn finds cloth and clothing very important and relevant for understanding British efforts to constitute colonial authority in India, because clothing was a sign of authority and gave the British the sense of power and control over their colony; according to Cohn clothing was not just something to cover bodies for Indians, it was a big part of their culture, customs and deeply routed traditions: “…the clothes worn –and particularly the use of clothes as prestations in the Mughal’s court – had meaning far beyond any “practical use ”(Cohn,113).

In this chapter we read that Indian headdress, shoes, jewelry – all head meanings to it and were a part of Indian traditions. Cohn also talks about the amount of clothing, or more correctly I should say, the amount of fabrics the Indians wore; their “nakedness”, as Cohn writes, was unusual and striking for the British. The author also quotes James Johnson, a surgeon who travelled to India about that: “…waterman who rows or drags our budjrow (barge) up the Ganges, consists in a small narrow piece of cloth (doty), passed between the thighs, and fastened before and behind to a piece of stout packthread” (Cohn, 130).

Further, the chapter touches the topic of uniform for the people working in National Congress, turbans and shoes in India, how the British misunderstood the meaning of it and tried to change it. Also, Cohn points out that besides authority, power and status, the British were concerned how their clothing could protect them from heat and disease.

Keywords

Turban – a man’s headdress, consisting of a long length of cotton or silk wound around a cap or the head, worn especially by Muslims and Sikhs.

Sikhism – a monotheistic religion founded in Punjab in the 15th century by Guru Nanak.

Authority – the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience.

Mughal – a member of the Muslim dynasty of Mongol origin founded by the successors of Tamerlane, which ruled much of India from the 16th to the 19th century.

Argument

“Clothes are not just coverings and matters of adornment, not can they be understood as only as metaphors of power and authority, nor as symbols; in many contexts, clothes literally are Authority” (Cohn, 114).

Evidence

To support his argument Cohn was referring to many examples, where clothing would be seen as authority. He draws upon the customs and traditions in India: “In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, an Indian would place his Turban at the feet of his conqueror as a sign of complete surrender. This was also used in a metaphoric sense to ask a great favor of someone, indicating a willingness to become his slave” (Cohn, 116).

Another evidence is also reliable and effectively supports the author argument, since it’s an event from the past. Cohen wrote about Sir Thomas Roe, who was the English ambassador, and Jahangir, the Indian Emperor. Due to prior knowledge gained by learning Indian traditions, Roe understood that it would be unwise to accept clothing from the Jahangir and believed it “…would in the eyes of Indians make Roe into a subordinate or companion of the Mughals.” (Cohen,113)

Historiographical Debate

Cohn explicitly mentions the sacred writings about Gurus of a translator and a commentator M.A. Macauliffe and notes by W. H. MacLeod, who talks about turbans and that their appearance was not always a part of the canon of the community.

Contribution to Our Understanding of Colonial Rule

It was an unexpected chapter for me, because I would never assume that just clothing could play such a big role in a colonizing process. Even though the British learned the history and language of India, they still considered themselves separate from Indians: “in their dress and demeanor constantly symbolized their separateness from their Indian superiors, equals, and inferiors” (Cohn, 111). Reading this chapter, it became clear that the British knew, it would be in the best interests of the British to learn the significance of clothing in order to keep their status as colonial ruler and not be undermined by the Indians. It was also interesting to understand whether the Indians were submissive or not in this process. As Cohn writes about Indians: “outwardly they might confirm to the sahib’s expectation, but they could never be trusted. At any time their deep-seated, irrational superstitions could break forth in violence and overturn all the painful efforts of the conquerors to lead them in proper directions” (Cohen, 124). As we keep reading, we see that even with resistance, Indians step by step had to admit the changes in their clothing made by British.

Reading Information

Cohen, Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge. Chapter Three: “Laws and the Colonial State in India”

Overview

In chapter three of his book, Cohn talks about the British colonizing India and figuring out how to rule over that territory in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It starts with the description and details about the East India Company in India, its importance and functions. It became the center of rule in India and acquired many of the attributes of a state. The East India Company could wage war, make peace, raise taxes, and administer justice to its employees and to some Indians. Further, Cohn talks about Warren Hastings, who was appointed in 1772 as a governor-general and was instructed by the Court of Directors to place the government of Bengal territories “on a stable footing” (Cohn, 60). He played a big role in the development of understanding the Indians in order to penetrate into their culture and rule over them. The rest of the chapter proves that and talks about their (the British) ways of finding a solution for a challenge they faced by taking over India: the differences between India and the previous nations that they had invaded before and a problem of ruling a country that had a long and eventful history.

Cohn also tells us about Sir William Jones and H.T. Colebrooke, who were scholars and cooperated with the British (worked for East India Company) in order to find the authentic Hindu law, translate it into Persian from Sanskrit and then into English, so that the British judges could read it and make their rulings based on that. This way they thought they kept the Indian culture and spirit in English law. It tells and shows us how deep the process of colonizing was in the past and that there is much more to that than just an invaded territory.

Keywords

Despot, to govern despotically – to rule “as a master over a slave”.

East India Company – existed in 1600–1858; it was originally a private company granted a trade monopoly with the East Indies by Queen Elizabeth I. and later got control over much of modern India between 1757 and 1858.

Hindu Law – the code of laws applied to Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs in British India.

Argument

“The people of India, unlike the Indians and slaves of the New World had an ancient civilization and forms of local self-governance that were stable and deeply entrenched” (Cohn, 58). Cohn talks about this challenge for the British and how they could over-rule the old Indian government, he also says that Hastings’s goal was to help British identify what was specifically “Indian” and wanted to come up with a system of rules, which would be a good fit for Indian culture.

Evidence

As evidence Cohn’s quoted Sir William Jones directly from his letter to Edmund Burke: “British law could not become the law of India because that would be counter to the very nature of an established legal system”, “a system of liberty, forced upon a people invincibly attached to opposite habits, would in truth be a system of tyranny” (Cohn, 68).

Another evidence. This is a reliable source of evidence, since it was taken from a letter and it proves the idea that the British needed to better understand Indian culture and society in order to implement their laws. Cohn also references Robert Orme’s description of the process of the administration of justice in India from his work “General Idea of the Government and People of Indostan”.

Historiographical Debate

“I am not sure if and how the author is situating him/herself in a wider scholarly debate.”

Contribution to Our Understanding of Colonial Rule

In his chapter three, Cohn is focusing on law and the colonial state. It contributed to my understanding of how the law should be and was implemented in the colonized India. By reading about the instrumentalities of Rule in colonial India, the despotic model, the classical model of the Indian state and the ideas of Hasting’s, I learnt about these concepts in more depth.

This chapter also helps to understand what is meant by an epistemological space, why it was important to “conquer” it and how the British decided to do it. While describing the difference between India and other lands that the British have conquest, Cohn states about this: “the people of India, unlike the Indians and slaves of the New World had an ancient civilization and forms of local self-governance that were stable and deeply entrenched”(Cohn 58). To me, this chapter showed that the British put a lot of weight on translation, because they believed that this is the way to explore and understand the real Indian culture in order to implement their laws.

Reading Information

Cohn, Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge.  Chapter 1, Introduction.

Overview

In chapter one of the book Colonialism and its Forms of Knowledge, its author Bernard Cohn introduces to us the book, the power, which the colonizers wanted and had over their colonies, how they implemented their power and finally how and through what ways, methods, techniques or, as Cohn refers to, investigative modalities historians and researchers learnt about that and are transferring that knowledge to us in this secondary source – the book.

In this introduction Cohn is talking about Europe, Britain and India in particular, in eighteenth century and onward including investigative modalities in the post-colonial world. He is discussing the importance of all the information that can be gathered from all the documentation, which was helpful in the past – to govern the colonized nation and which we use now to learn about the past. Various customs, traditions, written laws, art, documents and data on health, demographics, trade, finance, agriculture, education – all are a part of investigative modalities contributing to the knowledge of, in this case, Britain and it’s colony India. Thus, these modalities were described and analyzed by Cohn, who was implying that raw data is not enough, it needs to be transformed into usable and readable information such as published reports, histories, statistical returns and encyclopedias.

This reading relates to the topic of colonialism and imperialism, because, first of all, Cohn talks about Britain, who colonized India. Second of all, it’s all about power that the British wanted to have over Indians and the way to have that was to acquire the knowledge of all their areas of life through investigative modalities.

Keywords

Investigative modality – is information gathered through various procedures, which later is transformed into usable forms such as published reports, statistical returns, histories, legal codes, and encyclopedias.

Power (in our case) – is the capacity of ruling over somebody or something (a territory).

Colony – a conquered country or a part of a country/territory that was taken control over involuntarily (by invasion) by a country/empire located far away (very often but not always), and which is being possessed solely by that country/empire and according to its laws;

Argument

“From the eighteenth century onward, Europeans states increasingly made their power visible not only through ritual performance and dramatic display, but through the gradual extension of “officializing” procedures that established and extended their capacity in many areas” (Cohn, 3). Britain was eager to have power and they did it through various ways to make sure they are the ones to be in power, to rule, to govern.

Evidence

Cohn is using documentary and demonstrative evidence from “Beyond the Fringe: The Nation State, Colonialism, and the Technologies of Power” by Bernard S. Cohn and Nicholas B. Dirks in Journal of Historical Sociology (June 1988), which are written documents, facts and events in the past that prove the extensions of British power: “they defined and classified space by making separations between public and private spheres; by recording transactions such as the sale of property; by counting and classifying their populations, replacing religious institutions as the registrar of births, marriages, and deaths; and by standardizing languages and scripts” (Cohn, 3).

I assume that this evidence is reliable and supports the argument, since Cohn did his research together with B. Dirks well and thoroughly for a Journal of Historical Sociology prior to the book we are discussing.

Historiographical Debate

One of the instances with other authors mentioned by Cohn are the historical writings of Alexander Dow, Robert Orme, Charles Grant, Mark Wilks, James Mill and James Tod, when talking about the Historiographic Modality. He doesn’t specify the writings, but says: “they can be seen to have begun the formation of a legitimizing discourse about Britain’s civilizing mission in India”(Cohn, 6). In other words, these are the authors who start forming and wording the base and understanding of the nature of Indian colonization.

Contribution to Our Understanding of Colonial Rule

All I used to know and think about colonialism, imperialism, colonies, power and other important words and concepts mentioned by Cohn was short and limited definitions and ideas of it. After reading just the introduction, I feel like I already got much deeper knowledge as to what happened, why it happened, how various are the events that happened, how it did or could effect the development of a given territory or just an area of life of a colonized country and finally, how and through which methods we learn this information.

I’ve never heard a term “investigative modality” before and it was a real revelation to me to know that everything is much deeper for historians in their research of the past. This concept also introduces the options for primary sources: museological, historiographic, surveillance, enumerative, observational / travel and survey modalities. Cohn describes each of the modality and as a reader, throughout the book I think which one of them actually is a primary source for learning about a specific colony, people, area of life, etc.

Thank you for using Blogs@Baruch!

This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start publishing.

You are using a new WordPress theme that places widgets such as “Recent Posts,” “Recent Comments” and “Archives” in the footer, leaving you maximum space for publishing in this central area. If you prefer to have widgets on the right side of this page, these can be added by going to “Widgets” under the “Appearance” tab in your Dashboard. You can also choose from more than 100 other themes from the “Themes” menu in the Dashboard.