The
colonialism and its discourses have been discussed actively by the historians
and other social scientists. Some took the orthodox view of seeing the history
of colonialism from the view point of Europe as the Cambridge school did and the
historians of the colonised tried not to see the discursive and non-discursive
discourses of colonisers or they do not take Europe at the centre of their
history. Foucault, through his concept of “governmentality” tried to show the political
rationalities of power which provided the transformation acceptance from the
subjects. Colonialism’s attitude towards
the colonised in the form of its exclusionary practices like exclusion of the
colonized from humanity (racism), or their exclusion from the institutions of
political sovereignty (false liberalism) has been the great part of recent
discussions of colonialism. So, on one hand, criticisms tried to show how
colonial textuality works at the level of images and narratives to produce distorted
representations of colonized and exposed the devices through which colonized
have been denied autonomy, voice and agency and on the other hand the
hollowness of false liberal democratic
political principles of the colonizers were demonstrated. Colonizer’s image of establishing more humane
and rational institution which runs by the rule of law was criticized by
showing the false representation of the facts.
Colonialism
as a practice works to include or exclude people and the political
rationalities that allow colonial power to this is the main area of concern for
Scott. A colonial political rationality characterises those ways in which
colonial power is organized as an activity to produce effects of rule and the
more important areas are targets of the colonial power and field of its
operations which formed the historically heterogeneous rationalities through
which the political sovereignty of colonial rule were constructed and
operated. Also, with the rise of colonialism the old form of social system were
transformed into modern and people obliged to these modern practices. So how
the notion of ‘break’ from the past was configured and what it is understood to
consist in. So the reorganization of the terrain in which new choices became possible and these political rationalities created this reorganization.
Partha
Chatterjee distinguishes between colonial and modern form of power while
historicizing colonialism and finds colonialism as “little more than an episode
in modern in Europe’s history”. Chatterjee’s argument is more directed towards
the revisionist or new Cambridge school. He founds two parts in the revisionist
account of history:-
- Periodizing distinction between earlier and later part of the colonial rule in which the phase of the transition is roughly 1780-1830,
- The assignment of agency in the establishment of empire.
In
the revisionist views, there is no notion of break from the past but they found
organic, internal relationship and they also find Indian as an active subject
of their own history. Chatterjee finds it an attempt of making all the features
of colonialism as an innate property of an indigenous history. So, the
distinction between the earlier and modern part is useful to understand the
structure and projects of colonial power. For Chatterjee, colonialism works on
the principle of distinctiveness i.e., rule of colonial difference and race is
the defining signifier of this rule of difference. However, Scott finds that it
is not race but religion that constituted the discursive frame within which the
difference of non-European was conceived and represented.
Talal
Asad says that modern power is not distinctive for its relation to capitalism
and social and institutional differentiation rather it is distinctive for its
point of application and its point of application now not rely over the
question of sovereignty. Enlightenment gave way to the people to leave the
practice of sovereignty and prejudice and see the idea of reason as the sole
foundation for their activities to emancipate themselves from the moral slavery
and eradication of benighted ignorance. But, it could not be done by alteration
of false notions and attack on the causes of these false notions with
systematic replacement of rational and new ideas can only uproot these practices
and it can produce governing effects on conduct. Modern power seeks to arrange
or rearrange the conditions in an improving direction.
Colonialism
cannot be seen as the reiteration of single political rationality whose effects
can be assessed in terms of freedom, reason and force and “in such a refigured
narratives the colonial modernity would have to be reappeared as a
discontinuity in the organization of colonial rule characterized by the
emergence of a distinctive political rationality- that is colonial
governmentality in which power comes to be directed at the destruction and
reconstruction of colonial space in bodies as governing effects on colonial
conduct”. The Srilankan narrative told by colonialist and nationalist
historians alike is in threefold event. The first episode is transition from
the medieval to modern (1796-1802), the second episode from the beginning of
Crown’s colony status and building of the apparatuses of colonial state.
Through Colebrooke-Cameron Reforms in Sri Lanka, colonialist established modern
form of institutions, rational ideas in the social life of the Sri Lanka
populace, reforms in judiciary, legislative and development of capitalist
agriculture etc. these progressive ideas transformed the mercantilism to
governmentality and the targets of the reforms and field of operation were so
devised that acceptance among the masses increased and a break from the old and
traditional superstitious practices became possible.
These
reforms reorganized the conduct and habits of subjects themselves. The colonial
power came to intervene at the level of what stokes calls “society itself”. The
new form of political rationality depended upon the “public opinion” and the
press in the vernaculars and press in general were opened to get the opinions
of the public and also know the interests of the masses so as to have the field
of operations targeted and it provided a huge benefit to both the colonizers
and the colonized. Press promoted good government and participation became the
rational and legal kind of exercising influence. Colebrooke gave the idea of
the state’s responsibility for commercial strength and he opposed the
mercantilist monopolies of government as it was injurious to capitalism. He
objected the system of rajkariya, which was hindering the development of free
market in labour. Abolition of rajkariya stopped the process of distinction
on the basis of race and caste. A self regulating
The
construction of colonial space to accommodate subject and contain resistance
changed the art of governing. The earlier aims of the government were directed
towards social wealth but “colonial governmentality” transferred the direction
towards the conditions of social life to have less extractive effect and more
governing effects. However, David Scott does not take into consideration
various laws which affected the freedom of press and liberty of the people.
Also, he is more concerned about colonial government’s existence and he does
not pay attention to the movements resisting the colonial government.
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