***** Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2002 11:10:37 +1100 From: Thiago Oppermann <thiago_oppermann at bigpond.com> Subject: off list: colonial 'feudalism' To: furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Hi there,
In reference to your recent posts to LBO regarding the Indian caste system, it is worth noting that the British were also rather keen to have feudal arrangements develop where there were none.
Such arrangements were particularly important in view of the ideology of 'indirect rule' , according to which the british ostensibly ruled 'through' chiefs and princes. The reality is messier, with 'indirect rule' often being a fraud - cf. Luggard. F.D. (1922) The Dual Mandate in British Tropica Africa vs. Nicolson, I.F. (1969) The Administration of Nigeria, 1900-1960: Men, Methods and Myths Oxford Studies in African Affairs. Oxford: Oxford University Press and Afigbo, A.E. (1972) The Warrant Chiefs: Indirect Rule in South Eastern Nigeria 1891-1929 London: Longman which shows Luggard to have been a propagandist
Luggard's critics pointed out that, at best, the notion of 'indirect rule' through 'pre-existing authority structures' in reality meant the strengthening or outright fabrication of such structures. The results of this are still with us today, observable in the power structure of Nigeria, where the South has effectively been colonised by the North.
This was a widespread pattern.
In Fiji, for instance, the British apparently showed up in villages informing people of their 'traditional customs', which the people often had never heard of, and which usually meant instituting chieftdoms and chiefly land ownership. In some areas, notably in the north, this lead to considerable resistance. cf. Nicholas Thomas (1994) "Colonialism's Culture" Cambridge: Polity; Martha Kaplan "Neither Cargo Nor Cult" on resistance movements.
Another reference of note is pop history "Ornamentalism" by David Cannadine, a historian of Simon Schama calibre, which nevertheless has some very amusing accounts of the British reverence for hierarchy.
It is also worth noting that this pattern of 'traditionalization' has not ceased. Far from it. Here in Australia, land title deals with Aborigines are limited to 'traditional uses', which are reconstructed on the basis of guesses made upon anthropological and archeological research. So no mining by Aborigines on their own land, no agriculture etc... Of course, the fact that really existing traditional Aboriginal culture might have chosen to do these things (as they try to now) counts for nothing, for these determinations of 'tradition' are invariably strictly hierarchical, and the material from which the inferences about the past are made is drawn precisely from a time in which Aboriginal people have not been permitted these choices. Hence, by the impecabble logic of neocolonialism, they never had them and were never entitled to them...
As for India, I like this passage from Guha's Elementary Aspects...
"Just as Murshid Quli Khan had reorganized the fiscal system of Bengal in such a way as to substitute a solvent and relatively vigorous set of landlords for a bankrupt and effete landed aristocracy, so did the British infuse new blood for old in the proprietary body by the Permanent Settlement in the east, ryotwari in the south and some permutations of the two in most other parts of the country. The outcome of all this was to revitalize a quasi-feudal structure by transferring resources from the older and less effective members of the landlord class to the younger and, for the regime politically and financially, more dependable ones. For the peasant this meant not less but in many cases more intensive and systematic exploitation." (Guha Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency, p 7);
Thiago
(sending this offlist as my computer is refusing relay to LBO-talk) ***** -- Yoshie
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