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From ‘Savages’ to ‘Saviours’: Genealogy of Santal Portrayal in Colonial Modernity

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Abstract

This chapter examines pictures of the Santal community produced during colonial modernity, first by the British and then by the painters of the Bengal School. It suggests that the conventional academic tropes of understanding these pictures—power and emasculation on one side, and empowering nativism on the other—may not give adequate insight. In fact, the Santals, as mediated through colonial art, were given far more agency and strength than generally acknowledged, while Indian painters, rather than hoisting them as symbols of resistance, actually imprisoned them in an Arcadian past and robbed them of the temporal imperatives to act in the present. The visual story of indigenous groups in colonial India is thus a complex one—first of fear, admiration and avoidance, and later, of recognition, disciplining and cultural captivity.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    I use the term ‘tribal’ here in an analytic sense. It has been problematized and defined during the course of the article.

  2. 2.

    The broad genealogy of the discourse can be seen through Fanon (1952), Foucault (1977), Said (1978), Cohn (1996) and Dirks (2001).

  3. 3.

    In negotiating time in relation to social processes I am grateful to Adeel Hussain for his incisive comments and interventions. This analysis has developed on the arguments of White (1973), Kosselleck (2004), Hartog (2015), and specific to colonialism and the subcontinent, of Chakrabarty (2007), Sarkar (1992) and Banerjee (2006).

  4. 4.

    For more on early colonial ideologies and their impact see Thapar (1992) and Metcalf (1995).

  5. 5.

    See also Koerner on Dürer’s concept of ‘diversity’. With regard to cultural encounters in general, Bhabha outlines a distinction between cultural diversity (“recognition of pre-given cultural contents and customs”) and cultural difference (“significatory boundaries of culture”).

  6. 6.

    For instance, see Mallet’s 1683 survey with portraits of monarchs (including the Mughal ruler Jahangir), and Indian manners, religions and customs. Also revealing was Dutch engraver Pieter van der Aa’s travel narratives to Asia, 1725.

  7. 7.

    Two notable examples are the series of etchings by Balthazar Solvyns’ of Calcutta (1796) and Colin Mackenzie’s survey of Mysore peoples and monuments (see Howes 2010).

  8. 8.

    Augustus Cleveland’s epitaph, Plot 1484, South Park Cemetery, Calcutta.

  9. 9.

    An Anglicized form of jungle-terai or the Himalayan foothills.

  10. 10.

    Rycroft is a rich source of information on Sherwill’s life and his representation of the Santals. Ngaire Gardner, the great great granddaughter of Sherwill, has included many unpublished sketches in a recent book on her ancestor.

  11. 11.

    Guha contents Eric Hobsbawn’s idea of the ‘pre-political populations’ or tribal categories that lacked political consciousness.

  12. 12.

    Diku is a Santal term for the outsider or non-Santal.

  13. 13.

    West Bengal State Archives, Judicial Proceedings.

  14. 14.

    Chotrae Desmanjhi, who witnessed the rebellion as a teenager, told the Santal stories of event to missionary Lars Skrefsrud in the 1870s and this was later published as Chotrae Desmanjhi Reak Katha by his missionary press at Benagaria.

  15. 15.

    Santal ideas of time, in particular during the rebellion of 1855, have been informed by Prathama Banerjee’s (2006) incisive work on primitivism and temporality in colonial Bengal.

  16. 16.

    For more on the psychologically gendering effects of colonialism see Nandy (1983), Chatterjee (1993), Sinha (1995) and Sarkar (2001).

  17. 17.

    My hermeneutical reading of the Santal pictures is informed by Ronald Barthes’ argument that one cannot appeal to the biography or the intentionality of the author/painter to interpret meaning in a work of art. In other words, it is the painting that has made the painter, and not vice versa. See Barthes (1977: 142–147).

  18. 18.

    The reference to Gandhi may appear ironic, since the he had personally invited Nandalal to make posters for the Haripura Session of the Congress in 1938. Although this requires further analysis, I suggest that what drew Gandhi to the painter was their somewhat common critiques of modernity. But I also think that this is where their comparison ends – Gandhi’s critique was about empowerment (self, community, nation), while Nandalal seemed to portray quite the reverse. However, it also must be said that the Haripura posters did push Nandalal towards a more forceful depiction of traditional life.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of History of Art, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Anshul Avijit

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  1. Anshul Avijit
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  1. Professor of International Law, Director of the Thematic Initiative in Democratic Citizenship, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, United Kingdom

    Leïla Choukroune

  2. Centre for Social Sciences and Humanities (CSH), New Delhi, India and , St. Edmund's College, University of Cambridge , Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom

    Parul Bhandari

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Avijit, A. (2018). From ‘Savages’ to ‘Saviours’: Genealogy of Santal Portrayal in Colonial Modernity. In: Choukroune, L., Bhandari, P. (eds) Exploring Indian Modernities. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7557-5_16

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