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Abstract
Examining a classic formulation of the relationship between colonialism and postcolonial nationalisms in postcolonial theory, as well as its recent critiques, this article puts forward a thesis that contemporary colonialisms and imperialisms may be best diagnosed through the lens of identifying forms of sovereignty rather than relying on the geopolitical framework of West/non-West recognisable in the conceptual vocabulary of postcolonial theory. Focusing on the disputed issue of Indian sovereignty over Kashmir, this essay asks the following questions: What forms of occupation by postcolonial nation-states remain concealed by ways in which extant postcolonial approaches assume geopolitical divisions? Why is it necessary to rethink the parameters of imperialism and colonialism for a contemporary era?
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the special issue editors for their patience with this article and the referees for their insightful and constructive comments.
Notes
1. See Anderson, Indian Ideology, which explicitly mentions the imperial acquisition of Kashmir, but does not reckon with postcolonial theory. Partha Chatterjee, Sudipta Kaviraj and Nivedita Menon address Anderson’s Orientalism and lack of Marxist scholarship in Indian Ideology: Three Responses. However, they do not address Anderson’s charge of Indian imperialism in relation to Kashmir. More recently, in 2016, Nivedita Menon has called Kashmir’s occupation by India illegal (The Times of India, March 9, 2016). See also Ali et al. Kashmir: The Case for Freedom; Kak, Until My Freedom Has Come; Mathur, “Life and Death in the Borderlands”; Junaid, “Death and Life Under Occupation.”
2. Anand, “China and India,” 68.
3. Ibid., 79.
4. Chatterjee, “Why I Support the Boycott,” 6.
5. Dar, “Dear Prof. Chatterjee,” 6.
6. Ibid.
7. Chatterjee, “On Kashmir, Tripura and Other Such Places,” 2.
8. Ibid.
9. Brighter Kashmir, “JKCCS Releases Human Right Review,” 4; see Mirza Waheed’s essay, “Is this the World’s First Mass Blinding,” in The Guardian (November 8, 2016) for the technique of blinding of Kashmiris by Indian security forces.
10. Chatterjee, “In Kashmir.”
11. See note 1; scholarly critiques of Indian nationalism are too exhaustive to mention in the context of Hindutva politics. But they can generally be grouped into gendered, deconstructivist, caste-based, tribal and Marxist perspectives.
12. Rai, Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects.
13. Visweswaran, Everyday Occupations, 5–6.
14. Ibid., 7.
15. Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World.
16. Ibid., 21.
17. Ibid., 10.
18. Ibid., 11.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid., 36.
21. Ibid., 38.
22. Ibid., 42.
23. Ibid., 48.
24. Ibid., 100.
25. Khan, Great Partition; Jalal, “Exploding Communalism,” 103.
26. See Ernst and Pati, India’s Princely States; Bangash, Princely Affair.
27. Mathur, “Life and Death in the Borderlands,” 35–6.
28. Chibber, Postcolonial Theory and the Spectre of Capital; see Varma and Sinha, “Marxism and Postcolonial Theory” for an outline of the debates between Marxist and postcolonial scholarship.
29. Chibber, Postcolonial Theory and the Spectre of Capital, 263.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid.
32. Frank, Development of Underdevelopment.
33. Ghosh, “Critique of Subaltern Studies,” 2.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid.; see also Chandra, Rethinking Subaltern Resistance for another set of essays addressing contemporary concerns regarding subalternity.
36. Ghosh, “Critique of Subaltern Studies,” 3.
37. Ibid.
38. Fanon, Wretched of the Earth.
39. Brown, Walled States, Waning Sovereignty, 22.
40. Hussain, Jurisprudence of Emergency, 13.
41. Foucault, “Governmentality,” 102.
42. Ibid.
43. Mbembe, “Necropolitics,” 23.
44. Ibid., 24.
45. Said, Orientalism.
46. Said, Culture and Imperialism, 8.
47. Ibid.
48. Mudimbe, Invention of Africa, 2.
49. Ibid., 3.
50. Hussain, Jurisprudence of Emergency, 7.
51. Ibid., 25.
52. Ibid., 32.
53. Ibid.
54. Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World.
55. Hussain, Jurisprudence of Emergency, 31.
56. Mbembe, On the Postcolony.
57. Ibid., 5.
58. Ibid.
59. Ibid.
60. Ibid., 14, emphasis is original.
61. Ibid., 25.
62. Ibid.
63. Ibid.
64. Ibid.
65. Hussain, The Jurisprudence of Emergency, 25.
66. Lamb, Incomplete Partition; Lamb, Birth of a Tragedy; Bose, Kashmir: Roots of Conflict; Rai Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects; Dar, “Negotiations on Kashmir”; Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict; Noorani, Kashmir Dispute; Snedden, Understanding Kashmir and Kashmiris.
67. Rai, Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects.
68. Ibid., 27.
69. Bose, Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, 31.
70. Snedden, Understanding Kashmir and Kashmiris.
71. Lamb, Incomplete Partition, 142.
72. Ibid., 145.
73. Bose, Kashmir: Roots of Conflict, 36.
74. Lamb, Incomplete Partition, 157; Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict, 55–6.
75. Lamb, Incomplete Partition, 157.
76. Schofield, Kashmir in Conflict, 56.
77. Noorani, Kashmir Dispute, 13.
78. Ibid.
79. Dar, “Negotiations on Kashmir,” 3.
80. Ibid., 8.
81. Mathur, “Life and Death in the Borderlands,” 35.
82. Junaid, “Death and Life Under Occupation,” 160.
83. Ibid., 161.
84. Ibid.
85. Ibid., 165.
86. Ibid., 165–6.
87. Ibid., 166.
88. Ibid.