HIST 310

HIST 310: Modern India: Colonialism, Nationalism, Postcolonialism
Fall/Winter 2008-09


This seminar covers selected themes and moments in the history of the Indian subcontinent from 1857 to the present, to serve as a basis for a wider discussion on the historian’s craft. Beginning in 1857-the first armed revolt against British colonial occupation and a cataclysmic event that left traces on the imagination of race, nation and empire in Britain and India, the course ends with the events of 1947- the moment of Indian independence from colonial occupation, and the partition of land and lives that created three separate nation-states and displaced over ten million people. Themes include the history of the anti-colonial movements, race, gender and class in the national imagination, solidarity and violence in the making of communities, history writing and identity formation, and postcolonial diasporas (particularly religion in the formulation of diasporic identities).

This course is an introduction to key moments, characters and themes in Indian history, and an invitation to think carefully about the writing of history: What are the main tools of the historian- facts, plots, skills of detection, archival traces or ideologies? Is the historian like a detective, unearthing evidence to reveal how things were in the past? Is s/he a storyteller who makes sense of the past in ways that may be influenced by politics and literary strategies, ideologies and identity?

Besides more traditional historical texts, materials include Raja Rao’s Kanthapura (1938)- the first major Indian novel in English, which discusses the coming of Gandhi’s message to a small town in colonial south India and Gautan Malkani’s Londonstani (2006)– a novel about British-Asian youth culture, multiculturalism, assimilation and performed identities. Films include Satyajit Ray’s Home and the World (1984) and Deepa Mehta’s Earth (1998).

Readings
Books for purchase at the Campus Bookstore and on reserve at Stauffer Library
1. Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of Modern India
2. Gayatri Spivak and Ranajit Guha, Selected subaltern studies, 1988
3. Gyan Pandey, Remembering partition, Violence, Nationalism and History in India
4. Harold G. Coward, John R. Hinnells, Raymond Brady Williams, The South Asian Religious Diaspora in Britain, Canada, and the United States
5. Khushwant Singh, Train to Pakistan
6. Gautam Malkani, Londonstani
7. Raja Rao, Kanthapura
8. Gandhi, Hind Swaraj

Readings marked ‘*’ are included in a course pack, available for purchase at P&CC in JDUC.
Assessment:
Quizzes: 25%
These check your ability to read with care and to grasp of the materials assigned, especially your command of the textbook. Grades from five compulsory quizzes will be factored into the final grade. You may be permitted to make up for ONE missed quiz under valid circumstances. In this case, the quiz will be administered during my office hours. It is YOUR responsibility to contact me to request a test to be scheduled. There will be no further rescheduling if you miss a make-up quiz under any circumstances.

Assignments: 25%
These test your ability to think and synthesize ideas and concepts. The short assignments include book and film reviews, a primary document assignment, and short questions provided by the instructor. Again, the best five of six compulsory assignments will be factored into the final grade.

Final Examination: 30%
This will test you on your ability to retain facts and concepts and incorporate them into your own arguments. The possible final exam questions will be handed to you on the last day of class, of which you will attempt three. Each response would be 2—3 pages double spaces. You will return them within a week. The take home format is intended to help you write better, in your own time, and so that you may perform spell-checks and edits so that the final product is something you can be proud of!

Participation: 20%
This is a grade based on your ability
-to ask questions that generate discussion
-to listen to others speak
- to respond suitably and politely
- to express yourself articulately
All this is a good indication of your enthusiasm and preparedness for class.

1. Sept 9: Introduction.

2. Sept. 16:
Background: Mughal India and English India
- Metcalf and Metcalf, A Concise History of India, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. p.1-54.

3. September 23: The Event and History: 1857
Quiz 1. Based on Metcalf and Metcalf, 1-54.

- http://www.filmigeek.net/2006/11/junoon_1979.html
Screening: Shyam Benegal (Dir.), Junoon, 1978.


4. Sept 30: War, Desire, Violence in 1857
Quiz 2: Based on Metcalf
- Metcalf and Metcalf, 56-108
--
- Gautam Bhadra, "Four Rebels of Eighteen-Fifty-Seven” SSS, 129-177.
-Gyan Pandey, "Encounters and Calamities", SSS, 89-128

5. October 7: Interpreting 1857:

Assignment #1: Remembering partition after 150 years. Find ONE newspaper report EACH from the British and Indian press from 2007 commemorating 150 years of the event. How is 1857 represented and memorialized in the British and Indian media? Are the accounts similar, or significantly different?
Each primary source selection will be published on the HIST 310 blog, so choose well!

Primary Sources
*Harish Trivedi, et al. Literature and Nation. Britain and India, 1800-1900. 225-239

Historical Interpretation
*Barbara English The Kanpur Massacres in India in the Revolt of 1857, Past and Present, No. 142 (Feb., 1994), pp. 169-178.
*Rudrangshu Mukherjee, "Satan Let Loose upon Earth": The Kanpur Massacres in India in the Revolt of 1857, Past and Present, No. 128 (Aug., 1990), pp. 92-116.


6. October 14: Early Nationalism
Quiz #3
-Metcalf and Metcalf, 108-169

Screening: Satyajit Ray, (dir.) Ghare-Baire The Home and the World.

*Indrani Mitra, "I Will Make Bimala One With My Country": Gender and Nationalism in Tagore's The Home and the World, Modern Fiction Studies 41.2 (1995), 243-264. (Online)
*Nicholas Dirks, “The Home and the World: The Invention of Modernity in Colonial India.” in Robert Rosenstone ed. Revisioning History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995. pp. 44-63.


7. October 21: Home/World: Gender and Nation
Assignment #2
Write a 500-600 word (historian’s) review of the Film Ghare Baire. Do not summarize the plot. Is the film able to capture the flavor of the times? What is this time that is being represented? What is the fundamental tension in the film? What is Chatterjee’s central argument in “Colonialism, Nationalism and Colonialized Women”? Does the film help you understand his point, or does it conflict with his thesis?
Edit with care; this your blog entry!

*Sumanta Banerjee “Marginalization of Women’s Popular Culture in Nineteenth Century Bengal” in Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid ed. Recasting Women (Delhi: Kali for Women, 1989)

*Partha Chatterjee, “Colonialism, Nationalism, and Colonialized Women: The Contest in India,” American Ethnologist, Vol. 16, No. 4. (Nov., 1989), pp. 622-633.


8. Oct 28: Gandhian Nationalism
Quiz#4
Metcalf, 169-202.

Screening: Gandhi. (First Half)

9. November 4: Biography and History
Screening: Gandhi (Rest of…)

*David Hardiman “Father of the Nation” in Gandhi in His Time and Ours. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003.

10. November 11: The Making of Gandhi
- Gyanendra Pandey, ‘Peasant Revolt and Indian Nationalism’, SSS, 233-287.
- Shahid Amin, "Gandhi as Mahatma", SSS, 288-350.
Primary sources
* Harish Trivedi, “Gandhian Nationalism”, p. 300-321


11. November 18: And What Gandhi Made up
*Emma Tarlo, “Gandhi and the Recreation of the Indian Dress” from Clothing Matters, Dress and Identity in India, Chicago, 1996. 62-93.

- Gandhi, Hind Swaraj

* Harish Trivedi, Reading Kanthapura, 107-119.

12. November 25: The Historical Novel
-Raja Rao, Kanthapura

Assignment #3 (in lieu of midterm exam!): Dec 2. (3-4 pages)
Select one passage from Hind Swaraj. Analyze it in the light of all the readings completed from Weeks 8-12. Is the document useful in writing Gandhi’s biography? Is it useful for tracing the history of the Indian national movement at a particular time? How was Gandhi’s message received?

OR

Write a review of Kanthapura. Analyze it in the light of all the readings completed from Weeks 8-12. Is it an accurate historical depiction of Gandhian nationalism? Is it successful in tracing the history of the Indian national movement at a particular time? How was Gandhi’s message received?

Course pack for the Winter Term will be available in October.
Winter break: Start reading Khushwant Singh, Train to Pakistan and Gautam Malkani, Londonstani. You are required to read both, you might want to get a start, and these are both very enjoyable novels!


Part II
Independence and Partition/1947

1. January 6: What are historical sources?
Library assignment including a visit to Stauffer, followed by a discussion on historical sources, different types of sources, how to interpret sources.

Library Activity: How to find primary and secondary sources.

Presentation of assignment: pick a primary source- library work, not used in class) and use it to document either 1857, Indian nationalism in 1905-06, or Gandhi. This could be in the form of a biography, newspaper articles, novel, images/photographs. You will use this in the FINAL EXAM.

2. Jan 13: Politics. History and Memory

Quiz #5:
Metcalf and Metcalf. 203-230. *Asim Roy, ‘High Politics of Partition’ (24 p)

-Gyanendra Pandey, Remembering Partition: Violence, Nationalism and History in India. New York, 2001. 1-91


3. Jan 20: History and Community
- Gyan Pandey, Remembering Partition, 92-206
- BBC Film on partition.

4. Jan 27: Film and Historial Narration

*D Barenscott, “This is our Holocaust”: Deepa Mehta’s Earth and the Question of Partition Trauma, (online)

* “Indian Cinema and the Presentist Use of History: Conceptions of ℌNationhood” in Earth and Lagaan” 
G Lichtner, S Bandyopadhyay - Asian Survey, 2008. 


Screening of Deepa Mehta, Earth

5. Feb. Oral Histories/ Gender and History
*Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin “Speaking for Themselves: Partition History, Women’s Histories” in Borders and Boundaries: Women and India’s Partition. Delhi: Kali for Women, 1998.

*Urvashi Butalia, “Abducted and Widowed Women: Questions of Sexuality and Citizenship During Partition,” in Meenakshi Thapan, ed., Embodiment: Essays on Gender and Identity
(includes discussion on Earth)


6. Feb 10: Literature and Nation:
-Khushwant Singh, Train to Pakistan
- Assignment #4:
Try to identify three main points Gyan Pandey makes about the partition of India. Take note on the methodology and the sources he uses. What is the significance of the title? How does the film Earth complicate your understanding of partition? How does Urvashi Butalia offer a gendered perspective on the violence unleashed during the partition of 1947? Does the novel Train to Pakistan add anything to the historical understanding of this event?

Feb 17: Reading Week

7. Feb 24: Postcolonialism/diaspora
Assignment #4 due today

Screening: Hanif Qureishi, My son the fanatic.

8. March 3 South Asian Diasporas

- Global South Asians (Extracts)
- Karma of Brown Folk (Extracts)

9. March 10: South Asian diasporas in Canada and the USA.
-Primary documents of Bhagat Singh Thind.
-

10. March 17: South Asian Diasporas in Britain
Assignment #5: What accounts for the different histories of South Asian diasporas to the UK and North America? What are the best sources to recount the history of South Asian diasporas?


11. March 24: Presenting Research/Race, Language and Hybridity in Londonstani
Gautam Malkani, Londonstani
NPR talk with Malkani, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5590750)

Malkani’s research blog.

12. March 31:
Presentation of a primary source that you have been working on this semester. You will briefly describe your source, and explain why it is a useful and innovative one to reconstruct one of the themes in subcontinental history that we have surveyed. What does it add to our understanding of a certain event or theme? Are there alternative sources that would supplement yours?
You will listen to your colleagues presentation and give suggestions. This will comprise one part of a three-part take-home final exam. Two additional questions will be handed to you today. The final exam will be due April 7. All the best!