The Colonial State and Constructions of Indian Identity: An Example on the Northeast

Frontier in the 1880s Author(s): Peter Robb Source: Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 31, No. 2
(May, 1997), pp. 245-283 Published by: Cambridge University Press

The Colonial State and

Constructions of Indian Identity: An Example on the
Northeast Frontier in the i88os1 PETER ROBB School of Oriental and
Modern Asian Studies 31, 2 (I997), pp. 245-283. Printed in Great Britain

African Studies, London

I
This is an essay about the establishment and expanding roles of the colonial state in India, and their
probable correlation with develop- ments of Indian identity. As I have argued elsewhere, identities are
always multiple, contingent and continuously constructed, so that traditions, also continually
reinvented, are shared and reiterated practices and beliefs which reflect the collective memories of
previous constructions.2 There is no analytical contradiction therefore between
(In the later stage of writing this essay, I benefited from discussions with Michael Anderson, Oliver Mendelsohn,
Emma Tarlo and Denis Vidal. I have also been helped by lively questioning, led by Bhaskar Chakrabarty, at the
meeting to which the paper was first presented, in the Department of History, University of Calcutta in March I994.
I am using the term 'colonial state' here in a neutral way, to mean the state during the colonial period. It is a
separate question how far its character- istics were colonial in the sense of being produced by or for colonial rule,
as opposed to partaking in more general trends also to be found in non-colonized countries. Except briefly at one
point, that question will not be considered here-the assump- tion will be about equally that characteristics were
devised particularly for foreign rule in India and that they were borrowed from outside-but this does not mean that
I wish to add to the rather tiresome tendency of applying the term 'colonial' in an analytical sense, without
discussing the issues involved.
2 See Peter Robb, 'Muslim identity and separatism in India: the significance of M. A. Ansari', Bulletin of the School
of Oriental and African Studies 54, I (i99I), and (ed.) Society and Ideology. Essays in South Asian history (Delhi
I993), especially pp. 2- 21, 144-52 and I66-76. For an important (if hardly 'subaltern') discussion of the construction
and hence radical modernity of Indian national identity, and its location in a specific holistic form of anticolonialism, see Sudipta Kaviraj, 'The imaginary institution of India', in Partha Chatterjee and Gyanendra Pandey
(eds), Subaltern Studies VII (Delhi I993). Kaviraj regards as vital, in the construction of nationalism, enumeration
and a particularist narrative, among other things; and of course enu- meration rested largely upon state activities,
while (as he notes) the colonial British histories 'wrote of an India that was externally defined, a territory
contingently unified by political expansion'. However (though what is meant may be acceptable) neither I nor, I
think, those involved at the time would agree, when he goes on to suggest that 'To define the boundaries of British
India was a simple operation'-on the contrary, it was difficult, expensive, specific in character and method, and
dependent on keenly-contested policy-decisions. Almost from the first (say, 1799- 1808 in Mysore), it involved, as
I will show on another occasion, a new definition of place, involving precise geographical location, ranking and
grouping, history, politics, economy and culture. Kaviraj also remarks (p. 14), as 'no small irony', that 'interestingly, it was European writers writing on India as part of a counter-Enlightenment movement who constructed this
India and presented it to Indians looking for iden- tity'-and I would add that such writers and their 'scientific'
evidence (in fact pro- duced under Enlightenment influence as well) also depended crucially on the some- what
mysterious patronage of the East India Company and the British raj. Hence, though to be sure we need distinct
histories of 'the discourses of the colonized', as Kaviraj says (p. 37), yet there is also room, so runs my argument,
for fuller under- standing of the reasons and means whereby the colonial state contributed to modern Indian
identity.]

long-term civilizational continuities and emerging forms of 'con- structed' identity. This paper is about
a particular form of identity that is currently associated with concepts of public space and rights, and
with the nation-state, or at least political and territorial units. For convenience I refer to it as 'modern
Indian identity' because it has been defined and been growing in significance in the modern era; but no
inference should be drawn that I consider it to be the only form in India.
Secondly, this essay, in proposing to examine the character of one possible contribution to this identity,
that made by the colonial state, naturally does so on the premise that the contribution is important, and
hitherto neglected in the literature; but by the same token, being centred only on a single factor, the
discussion does not pretend to 'explain' Indian identity as a whole. Many other elements-pre- existing
and competing identities, social and economic as well as political forces, and especially indigenous

processes-would have to be brought into consideration before any attempt could be made at a thorough
analysis. Thirdly, though the essay discusses actions of the colonial state, it does not imply that the state
was an independent actor; rather it assumes that the state was ever interrogating and having to
accommodate Indian conditions and priorities. On the other hand, because the essay concentrates on
one set of possible colonial influences, it is more concerned to describe than to account for the colonial
state's changing character. Fully to elucidate the changes would lead the discussion well beyond the
hints to be offered here of social and economic anxieties, and ideas of the proper roles of governance;
one would include assessments of the importance, among other things, of Indian criticisms and
demands. The very fact that there were political calculations involved (in India as well as Britain),
implies that the views and interests at least of the potential Indian collaborators were being taken into
consideration. I intend to offer a more rounded analysis on another occasion.
Modern Indian identity is validated in no small measure by the struggle against colonial rule, and by a
cataloguing of its evils and the damage it inflicted. This is analogous to the definition of repub- lican
Ireland with reference to hundreds of years of 'English imperial- ism' and Irish heroes of resistance. The
preferred assumption is that whatever colonialism touched it must have distorted and debased. And, as
in Ireland so for India, it is bound to be painful whenever scholarly revisions reveal a more patchy and
ambiguous history of colonialism, and a less mythologized version of nationalism. More- over,
nowadays, history matters all the more in India because any challenge it presents is reinforced by
influences and new values from the West's commodities, images and lifestyle. The reaction, as ever,
may be atavistic. Therefore perhaps it is foolhardy to make what otherwise would seem to be the
obvious point that colonial rule played an important part in building a modern Indian identity. On the
other hand a dispassionate reassessment of 'Indianness' is needed, and should include discussion of the
state before as well as after indepen- dence. No one would suggest that indigenous, cultural and
religious inheritances do not play a powerful and obvious part in defining India, but equally it should
not be assumed that by themselves alone they explain all of what now exists, or that India was ever a
closed system. A national identity is created out of myths of place and his- tory, from rationalizations
and shared experiences-social, economic, military and political. To all of these in India the colonial past
con- tributed alongside alternative traditions and initiatives; and colonial- ism was important, not just
as a stimulus, foil and opponent for Indians, but in its constructions of the state.3
A broader theoretical issue might be raised about the importance of awareness of the 'Other', of rivalry
and conflict, and indeed of outside influence, in the reconstitution of identities. Sometimes, in the
Indian case, this external role is readily admitted, for example in the importance attributed, in accounts
of nationalism, to the English language, modern communications, Western education, and Euro- pean
political ideas and institutions.4 But, because they assume that Indians must have defined themselves,
many analysts are unwilling to dwell upon these aspects or to trace their significance down to the
present day. The heroes of the nationalist struggle are the 'fighters and rejecters'. One consequence is
that the common cause of'Indians' tends to be taken for granted, instead of being seen as a development
to be studied. Another is that the importance of the state may be underestimated. This too is
unfortunate, because arguably the most significant political process between the eighteenth century and
at least the ig6os was not imperialism and decolonization but the growth and evolution of the state.
Two questions for this paper, then, are how far the goal of Indian nationalists was unwittingly assisted
by colonial rule, and how far the colonial rulers were already con- structing the nation in parallel with
the efforts of Indians? I will be concerned with the theories and practice of administration rather than
such obvious contributions as communications, economic change and education, or more general
questions of race, religion and caste-forms of identity which of course were affected by Western
influence, but which are too large to be considered here.
At least three elements of colonial administration seem likely to have helped create an Indian identity.
The first is the establishment of fixed borders, the second the assertion of undivided jurisdiction or
sovereignty within those borders, and the third the assumption of state responsibility for the well-being
of the people in a kind of contract between ruler and ruled. Colonial observers, as is well known,

tended to regard Indian civilization as disunited politically and cul- turally. But they also
proclaimed India as a single sphere, for their own purposes, one with 'natural' frontiers and
peoples of shared cul- ture.5 The British idea of the frontier was possibly influenced by their
being, like the Japanese, an island nation. Certainly in developing their paramountcy in India,
they took readily to the notion of India as a territory bounded by physical and cultural
features. In the later nineteenth century the idea of a 'scientific' frontier was added to this, but

really it amounted to the same thing, with the addition of strategic and defensive
considerations in deciding just where the definite line should be. The British supposed that
states ended neatly, and prefer- ably at some easily-recognizable feature.6 Within these
boundaries were constituted national peoples; in this case termed, as a single category, the
'natives of India' or less frequently the 'Indians'.7
Though the existence of some influence and the main outlines of the change introduced by the
colonial state are obvious enough, there has been no concerted effort, so far as I am aware, to
describe the process involved. One way of considering it is in terms of expansions of
sovereignty, from the first outlining of territory and subjects to the reconstruction of state and
society. In considering any jurisdiction, one may talk of internal as well as external borders,
and both broad and narrow frontiers. The narrow external frontier was the one the colonial
rulers sought to draw on the map. The broad external border was one in which there were
various layers or zones of contestation and influence rather than a definite line of demarcation
between one jurisdiction and another. Though the modern era is said to be charac- terized by
firm boundaries-learnt not only from unitary or island kingdoms, but from military conflicts, and
systems of law and tax- ation-yet it still contains many ambiguous edges, and none more so than the
land frontiers of India. In the northwest the patterns are well-known, with forward or defensive policies
reaching out across an indeterminate space from Quetta or the Khyber pass towards Iran and Russian
Central Asia. In the northeast similar gradations led through 'tribes' such as the Nagas, towards Burma8
and the Chinese or the French. There were layers of uncertainty here not only because of British
policy-disagreements, but from political volatilities in regions where there were few proto-states to be
conquered, and little sense of fixed property.
Within India indeterminate zones of authority still persisted, and even were encouraged by the colonial
rulers, for all their claims to absolute sovereignty. The narrow frontier implied a single rule of law
within a given territory. The British allowed a panoply of exceptions to this rule, excluding many
aspects of life, classes of people and territories (non-regulation and frontier provinces, princely states,
and so on). These exceptions constituted the broad internal frontier of British rule, not only a physical
line but a demarcation of the various realms of transitional sovereignty. Of course no state is wholly
with- out its internal barriers or limitations, beyond which general proced- ures or rules are tempered or
inoperative. But in modern states the exceptions are much less numerous in practice-partly for
technolog- ical and bureaucratic reasons-than in earlier autocracies and des- potisms. Even in
democratic states today, the theoretical and consti- tutional limits on state power are relatively few and
expressed in terms of countervailing principles, for example in bills of rights or conventional respect
for freedom of thought and expression. By con- trast, many of the colonial exceptions existed alongside
doctrines of complete state sovereignty and were derived from special and prag- matic considerations:
they were caused by the exigencies of Hindu laws of inheritance, the danger of interfering in religion,
the unrelia- bility of local agents, the special problems of 'tribal' zones, and so on. In nineteenth-century
India, there were ideological curbs on inter- ference with particular areas, such as laissez faire;
moreover, it was objections to 'unnecessary' restrictions or interference which added warmth to most of
the private disagreements in the colonial secretariats.
But even these ideologies and objections were frequently overruled by appeals to 'Indian
conditions'. There was at best only a weak and declining constitutional principle to limit the
state's role and responsibilities-nothing like what would now be called a doctrine of 'subsidiarity'
--and thus the tendency was for exceptions to be reduced, as administrative capacity permitted,
as confidence grew in 'scientific' government, as professional fiefdoms were carved out, as new
supporters had to be wooed and old interests appeased, and as new protests and problems
appeared in the economic, social and political transition. Thus the narrow internal frontier
advanced, implying the spread of definite, measured and recorded categories, and their
subjection to a single, centralized rule or sovereignty. In the modern era, characteristically,
differences and fragmentations of law and authority were greatly reduced by the hegemony of
central- ized national systems of language, culture, taxation and government. Arguably the
process of unification was concentrated into a far shorter period outside than it had been within
Western Europe. But in all cases the resultant tendency was for forms and institutions to be
consolidated into a single state system.

A further phase concerned the development, through the state, of doctrines of national interest
and state responsibility. Here too colo- nial rule made some important beginnings, especially in
creating an expectation of progress. In his article, 'Dominance without hege- mony', Ranajit
Guha notes that 'Improvement was a political strat- egy to persuade the indigenous elite to
"attach" themselves to a colo- nial regime'.9 This is true, but does not go far enough. First, many
different elites were appealed to-the intelligentsia through rhetoric, education and jobs; the
supposed landed aristocracy through flattery, advice and protection; a proprietary peasantry
through legal privil- eges and the alleged benefits of trade; and so on. Elites were targeted
because of the past as well as the future, because of theories about society (about hierarchy,
tradition and legitimacy) and about pro- gress (through agency or filtration), theories which
applied generally, but in India with particular force and cogency. Second, and more important,
the point of British 'improvement' was really its claims to generality and equity. It was, therefore,
an aspect of the modern creation of India: the construction of a state in terms of its relationship
with civil society that (in the definition of Hooker) 'doth more content
[