A Postcolonial Imagination? Westerners Searching for Authenticity in India

Abstract

This article looks at contemporary Westerners in the Indian city of Varanasi. The Westerners claim to appreciate authentic India and I argue that this authenticity refers to India's ancient, romanticised past instead of its modern present. I investigate how the Westerners encounter India and Indians and what kinds of subject positions are constructed in those encounters. The article also discusses how the authenticity becomes constructed, especially in regard to the Westerners who are studying Indian classical music in Varanasi. I argue that the Westerners ‘imagine’ India according their own needs and I ask how their understanding of India and Indian people relates to the ‘colonial imagination’.

Keywords:

• Expatriate
• Postcolonial
• India
• Colonial Imagination
• Authenticity

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my gratitude to Anne-Meike Fechter and Katie Walsh, who commented on earlier drafts of this paper. I would also like to thank the anonymous JEMS referee for helpful suggestions for improving the article.

Notes

1. On finding the self through travel see Bruner (1991); Desforges (2000); Elsrud (2001); Harrison (2006); Nash (1996); Noy (2004); Wang (1999).

2. When the Westerners understand ‘West’ to be one, they are referring to certain kind of basic education, certain (individualistic) values and knowledge of certain (popular) culture.

3. The colonial society did not consist of one single expatriate community (Cohn 1987: 426, 450). Merchants, planters, missionaries, military and civil officers usually remained separate from each other as their class backgrounds in Britain were also very different. Nevertheless, the British society in India was characterised by remarkable cohesiveness: all the expatriates shared certain attitudes and pastimes and a sense of common purpose (James 1997: 171).

4. After every interview quotation, there is a pseudonym and the age of the interviewee. The interviews were conducted in the interviewees’ rooms and usually lasted one to two hours. They were conducted in English and, as this is not the mother-tongue of most of the interviewees, I have corrected the more obvious language mistakes in the quotations.

5. Initially, British society in India consisted almost exclusively of men but, when colonial rule became established and especially when the Suez Canal was opened in 1869, women started to arrive. Usually they were wives, sisters and mothers of the British administrators, or young women in search of potential husbands. Many writers have claimed that the presence of women contributed to the seclusion of the British community, as men ceased to have local mistresses and women had to be protected from ‘uncivilised’ local men (see Edwardes 1967: 34; Suleri 1992: 80).

6. Theosophists were interested to learn about India in terms of religion (Alexander 2000; Taylor 1991) but they were a clear minority in comparison to colonialists.

7. There are considerably fewer Western female music students than there are males.

8. In India, it is a common custom to greet a person who is one's superior—e.g. an elder or a teacher—by touching his/her feet; this gesture shows great respect.

9. Lessons in Indian music are available in many Western countries, especially in big cities like London, Paris or New York.

10. In the West, these Indian musicians perform in world-music festivals or small concerts.