Papers by Aryama Ghosh
Journal of Adivasi and Indigenous Studies (JAIS), Vol. XIV, No. 1, February 2024: 56-66, 2024
This essay analyses the evolution of British colonial narratives about Afghanistan, highlighting ... more This essay analyses the evolution of British colonial narratives about Afghanistan, highlighting the transition from depicting Afghan tribes as ‘noble savages’ to categorising them as ‘fanatics’. This study using critical discourse analysis of historical documents to demonstrate how British officials, motivated by Islamophobia and apprehensions regarding Wahhabism, developed a narrative of Afghan ‘fanaticism’ during the mid-19th century. Far from the general conceptualisation of the tribal colonial subject as savage, this article shows that different stereotypes like ‘savage’ (primordial other stereotype) and ‘fanatic’ (medieval other stereotype) collided, contradicted, coexisted with each other and further metamorphosed into one other critical stereotype, making the colonial stereotyping a more nuanced and critical process. This distortion justified extraordinary jurisdictional and corporal punishment, leading to the creation of extra-legal legality for frontier justice in the North-West Provinces. This research examines the convergence of military orientalism, legal orientalism, and colonial knowledge production, illustrating how the dichotomy of ‘savage’ versus ‘civilised’ evolved into a new binary of ‘fanatic’ versus ‘civilised’, thereby perpetuating orientalist tropes and shaping subsequent Western interactions with the region, while making the ‘code of pacification’ a more critical process.
Economic and Political Weekly Engage, 2024
In a particular game where two nations are contesting, the supporters of each team cheer for thei... more In a particular game where two nations are contesting, the supporters of each team cheer for their own country. The gesture is to show one’s loyalty and association with that country. Thus, sports bind a nation through individual emotion. The game constitutes the emotion of the
audience and as well as that of the player. Representing their own nation on the international arena is a dream of all players. This is the ideal dream of a player who at least has a country of their own and has a citizenship of that country by birth. But what if the player does not have a country? Or maybe the player is representing a nation that is not their won, rather which has given asylum. The player may be a refugee of that country. Or if a team (consists of refugees across the globe) which does not have a country and therefore does not have a flag also is taking part in an international event? All these questions have the potentiality to rupture the apparently settled relationship between sports, nation-nationalism, and the state. In this article, we are trying to unpack the nuances of such tendencies that have emerged from the FIFA World Cup and Olympics.
Contemporary Voice of Dalit, 2024
Recruitment of lower and middle castes remained a much-debated topic in Indian electoral politics... more Recruitment of lower and middle castes remained a much-debated topic in Indian electoral politics till now. On the one hand, there was intense political debate between various castes, and on the other, there was judicial and administrative debate about social justice. Even though Ambedkar tried to use it as a method of social justice and state-sponsored social alleviation, because of its connection to identity politics, it quickly became a matter of electoral mobilization. Various parties that were attempting to win over various communities with their call for military recruitment eventually strayed from the real motivation behind that Ambedkarian demand. Lastly, since the turn of the twentieth century, the new political rhetoric of Hindutva has intriguingly transformed this call for military recruitment into a different cause. This article discusses how the demand for the Chamar Regiment and the Ahir Regiment in particular became the focal point of this debate for nearly a century.
Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society , 2024
This article tries to explore the features of British imperial ideology, which sought to interact... more This article tries to explore the features of British imperial ideology, which sought to interact, incorporate and eventually influence the gastronomic sphere of its military machine and further argues that the periodic notions of non-interventionism, reformism, and racism could be found in the military authorities' policy regarding military diet and nutrition. The nutritive aspect of diet primarily influenced the authority to reexamine its policies, more specifically since the middle of the nineteenth century, but, not without hindrance. Colonial existence had been learning about the colonial culinary world at first for practical reasons and soon, with the growth of power, started to breed out an infused version of colonial cuisine to survive. On the other hand, learning from its operational experiences, the colonial military system incorporated local knowledge about food cultures to balance its multicultural native army and imbibed stereotypes into its knowledge system, which eventually influenced their other policies like recruitment. This article further argues that along with colonial reality, global influences, and independent initiatives, negative variables like indigenous rituals acted as predicaments which coexisted within the system. So, far from being a space of difference, the colonial state's keen eye to balance opposite interests, made the colonial military platter a space of hybridity.
Karatoya, North Bengal University, 2020
Bengal, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with appropriate reprographic rig... more Bengal, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with appropriate reprographic rights organization. The Department of History, University of North Bengal does not take the responsibility of the fact stated or opinions held and expressed by the individual authors.
FVCINA DI MARTE COLLANA DELLA SOCIETÀ ITALIANA DI STORIA MILITARE, 2023
Bengal served as the ‘bridgehead’ for the British colonial expansion
and for that since the begin... more Bengal served as the ‘bridgehead’ for the British colonial expansion
and for that since the beginning, the province experienced all the approaches of the nascent colonial state to control the native society through coercion and conciliation. By this benefit of being the earliest stretch of land to be colonised, Bengal experienced the colonial policing apparatus from the start to the end of colonial rule. The capital of the British Colonial state was transformed from Calcutta to Delhi in 1911; up to that period, Bengal was the centre of Colonial control. In this long period, the policing activities started with the provision security to the tiny enclave of Fort William, and within a few decades, when the East India Company became the landlord after the grant of the Dewani right in 1765, the volume of work increased. Collection of revenue and subduing refractory subjects became the new job. Apart from maintaining day-to-day law and order or occasional job of pacifying insurgents, police started to other interestingly subsidiary jobs like keeping the city clean or saving local subjects from pariah dogs. Keeping in mind this multi-tasking apparatus of the Bengal colonial police, this article intends to argue that the colonial intention, if not ability, for a panopticonic system made the early policing system grab more than it can ingest, leading to occasional failures. Nevertheless, the system worked as a sphere of limited state-society interaction despite of failures. This article further argues that with the growth of colonial technologies of social order and their prompt and well-thought adaptations, the colonial police in Bengal outgrown into a ruthlessly efficient system of control by the end of the First World War. In this journey of growing efficiency, the police system gradually militarised its particular sections, sharpened its apparatus of intelligence gathering, and even reformed its day-to-day control over minute things. The changing nature of the colonial state was met with new kinds of challenges like communal riots, revolutionary activities, and the police system adapted to these challenges. This article argues that this continuous adaptation became successful due to the indigenous subalterns serving in the police forces.
Taking into account the context of Birsa Munda, an Adivasi freedom fighter, given special honour ... more Taking into account the context of Birsa Munda, an Adivasi freedom fighter, given special honour by the Indian nation of late, this essay relooks into his life and political legacy. Locally, in Khunti district, a fondly remembered leader for his sacrifice to protect the Adivasis from British colonial excesses, Birsa figured in the freedom fighters' list of the country only at the time of independence, pressured by the powerful Dalit-Adivasi agenda. Historical writings on him since then have showed Birsa as a freedom fighter of secondary importance, at times not even a freedom fighter proper. Writings and commentaries have also nurtured ideas incongruent to his being a leader of the Adivasi masses. The essay surveys historical and other writing on Birsa and points out the creeping misunderstandings on his persona, which are a mismatch to the honour he has received by the nation. For a judicious estimation of Birsa as a national hero, the essay pleads a scholarship that moves beyond the paradigm of treating Adivasis as backward primitives and reads an active Adivasi psyche under their various anti-colonial protests.
Northeast Researches, Vol. XIV, 2023
Most military historians believe that French were the forerunners of colonial wars of pacificatio... more Most military historians believe that French were the forerunners of colonial wars of pacification from a manual-centric perspective. This article differs from that line of argument and argues that even the British had their model of tribal pacification in a broader sense. Before making any decisions, British political authorities usually studied their predecessors' archival records. Despite not having any manual till the second half of 19 century, the British had a model. The bureaucratic information remained gathered in archives and paved way for constructing concepts and theories for the successors. By comparing the pacification policy of Rajmahal hills with later military pacifications in Northeast, this article concludes that despite local or tactical particularities, there were similarities in objective and strategy of tribal pacifications. Developments of policies were sometimes teleological and sometimes chaotic, but as the imperial goal was same in both cases, an overarching model of Indian tribal pacification developed.
Routledge India eBooks, Nov 14, 2022
Contemporary Voice of Dalit, 2022
The main theme of this paper is to revisit the question of caste and the politics of/on tradition... more The main theme of this paper is to revisit the question of caste and the politics of/on traditions. We have explored the questions of mythology; how 'we', the lower caste people associate and (re)interpret the mythical characters as a process of social upward mobility. So, is it the invention of tradition or is it the inversion of tradition or both? Interestingly, we could be able to locate a distinct regional pattern in this case. Thus, we argue that in the Northern part of India, specifically in Uttar Pradesh, though it is the process called the invention of tradition, it can be framed as a little tradition under the grand Hindu tradition. On the other hand, in the Southern part of the country specifically in Tamil Nadu, it is rather the process called the inversion of tradition which is much more radically grounded in sub-national ethos. Based on these premises, this article further argues that Uttar Pradesh's caste politics is based on the invention of a tradition model which can incorporate the lower castes' little traditions within the larger ambit of the Hindu grand narratives. Thus, new Hindutva politics has easily appropriated them within their polemic. On the contrary, in the South, due to the inversion of the tradition model embedded in a pre-existing political tradition and sub-national ethos, Hindutva failed to get a proper hold in recent times.
Studies in Indian Politics, 2022
The colonial masters classified Indian subjects according to animalistic iconographies of rebel t... more The colonial masters classified Indian subjects according to animalistic iconographies of rebel tiger or docile elephant. Even prior to the colonial imaginings, orientalist gaze associated elephant with the Indian geographical imagery. After decolonization, due to circumstantial necessities India, one of the biggest elephant suppliers to Europe, started to gift elephants to war-stricken zoos not as merchandize but as envoys of peace and goodwill. This subverted the long tradition of environmental domination. This article argues that Nehru's elephant gift diplomacy utilized the long-standing orientalist iconography to practise India's soft power. Apart from that he successfully incorporated a colonial icon and rebranded it as nation's diplomatic emblem.
Journal of People's History and Culture, 2020
Pacification' of a colonized territory is usually seen through the perspective of coercion and po... more Pacification' of a colonized territory is usually seen through the perspective of coercion and police as the tool of that process but this article argues that even the issue of security, a matter of coercive social control can be a space of conciliatory state-society relationship. The 18 th and 19 th century Bengali natives similarly developed a space of state-society conversation centering on the issue of security. This article argues that the Bengali educated elites addressed the issue of security through petition, newspaper articles and satirical literature but as the space of political expression was limited by colonial nature, the target of these political attacks were native policemen who were socially and culturally backward compared to the educated natives. As these native policemen were racially and socially stereotyped as inefficient in both official and native narratives, they remained as voiceless mimics.
Journal of Adivasi and Indigenous Studies, 2021
Far from being a new type of conflict, modern counterinsurgency seems to be a continuation of old... more Far from being a new type of conflict, modern counterinsurgency seems to be a continuation of older colonial pacification campaigns. The timeless permanence of a dominating perception regarding the nonwestern societies seems to dictate modern western policy making and this long term continuity could be analyzed through the rubric of 'military orientalism', a postcolonial model of critique extricating the western bias regarding the exotic difference of the 'Oriental' warfare. This article tries to delve into this theoretical paradigm by taking in account the earliest pacification campaign in colonial India; the pacification of the Paharias. This article argues that the earliest officials like Brook, Browne, Cleveland formulated policies which had superficial dissimilarities but intrinsically similar to the modern counterinsurgency issues and models and this singularity derives from the permanence of otherization, according to which the conqueror conceptualize the conquered while keeping in mind a preconceived conviction that the conquered is eternally different by culture. The Paharia tribes were seen from the same 'orientalist' lenses. In case of unconventional warfare (small scale conflict to maintain law and order) where the colonial conquerors engaged in a protracted battle soon get influenced by those preconceived notions like the Paharias were wild, pre-political, looting-based society and developed them into permanent stereotypes. So, this article argues that the Paharias became the 'other' against whom the colonial 'self' could have legitimized itself as civil and even justified anything un-civil as collateral damage. This article further argues that the east-west cultural stereotyping during conflict originally continues from the first stage of colonial unconventional warfare.
Newspaper Columns by Aryama Ghosh
The Diplomat, 2024
India's recent move to loosen its pollution control to relive 'White' category industries, amidst... more India's recent move to loosen its pollution control to relive 'White' category industries, amidst terrible pollution in Delhi points out its long-standing dilemma
Book Chapters by Aryama Ghosh
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Papers by Aryama Ghosh
audience and as well as that of the player. Representing their own nation on the international arena is a dream of all players. This is the ideal dream of a player who at least has a country of their own and has a citizenship of that country by birth. But what if the player does not have a country? Or maybe the player is representing a nation that is not their won, rather which has given asylum. The player may be a refugee of that country. Or if a team (consists of refugees across the globe) which does not have a country and therefore does not have a flag also is taking part in an international event? All these questions have the potentiality to rupture the apparently settled relationship between sports, nation-nationalism, and the state. In this article, we are trying to unpack the nuances of such tendencies that have emerged from the FIFA World Cup and Olympics.
and for that since the beginning, the province experienced all the approaches of the nascent colonial state to control the native society through coercion and conciliation. By this benefit of being the earliest stretch of land to be colonised, Bengal experienced the colonial policing apparatus from the start to the end of colonial rule. The capital of the British Colonial state was transformed from Calcutta to Delhi in 1911; up to that period, Bengal was the centre of Colonial control. In this long period, the policing activities started with the provision security to the tiny enclave of Fort William, and within a few decades, when the East India Company became the landlord after the grant of the Dewani right in 1765, the volume of work increased. Collection of revenue and subduing refractory subjects became the new job. Apart from maintaining day-to-day law and order or occasional job of pacifying insurgents, police started to other interestingly subsidiary jobs like keeping the city clean or saving local subjects from pariah dogs. Keeping in mind this multi-tasking apparatus of the Bengal colonial police, this article intends to argue that the colonial intention, if not ability, for a panopticonic system made the early policing system grab more than it can ingest, leading to occasional failures. Nevertheless, the system worked as a sphere of limited state-society interaction despite of failures. This article further argues that with the growth of colonial technologies of social order and their prompt and well-thought adaptations, the colonial police in Bengal outgrown into a ruthlessly efficient system of control by the end of the First World War. In this journey of growing efficiency, the police system gradually militarised its particular sections, sharpened its apparatus of intelligence gathering, and even reformed its day-to-day control over minute things. The changing nature of the colonial state was met with new kinds of challenges like communal riots, revolutionary activities, and the police system adapted to these challenges. This article argues that this continuous adaptation became successful due to the indigenous subalterns serving in the police forces.
Newspaper Columns by Aryama Ghosh
Book Chapters by Aryama Ghosh
audience and as well as that of the player. Representing their own nation on the international arena is a dream of all players. This is the ideal dream of a player who at least has a country of their own and has a citizenship of that country by birth. But what if the player does not have a country? Or maybe the player is representing a nation that is not their won, rather which has given asylum. The player may be a refugee of that country. Or if a team (consists of refugees across the globe) which does not have a country and therefore does not have a flag also is taking part in an international event? All these questions have the potentiality to rupture the apparently settled relationship between sports, nation-nationalism, and the state. In this article, we are trying to unpack the nuances of such tendencies that have emerged from the FIFA World Cup and Olympics.
and for that since the beginning, the province experienced all the approaches of the nascent colonial state to control the native society through coercion and conciliation. By this benefit of being the earliest stretch of land to be colonised, Bengal experienced the colonial policing apparatus from the start to the end of colonial rule. The capital of the British Colonial state was transformed from Calcutta to Delhi in 1911; up to that period, Bengal was the centre of Colonial control. In this long period, the policing activities started with the provision security to the tiny enclave of Fort William, and within a few decades, when the East India Company became the landlord after the grant of the Dewani right in 1765, the volume of work increased. Collection of revenue and subduing refractory subjects became the new job. Apart from maintaining day-to-day law and order or occasional job of pacifying insurgents, police started to other interestingly subsidiary jobs like keeping the city clean or saving local subjects from pariah dogs. Keeping in mind this multi-tasking apparatus of the Bengal colonial police, this article intends to argue that the colonial intention, if not ability, for a panopticonic system made the early policing system grab more than it can ingest, leading to occasional failures. Nevertheless, the system worked as a sphere of limited state-society interaction despite of failures. This article further argues that with the growth of colonial technologies of social order and their prompt and well-thought adaptations, the colonial police in Bengal outgrown into a ruthlessly efficient system of control by the end of the First World War. In this journey of growing efficiency, the police system gradually militarised its particular sections, sharpened its apparatus of intelligence gathering, and even reformed its day-to-day control over minute things. The changing nature of the colonial state was met with new kinds of challenges like communal riots, revolutionary activities, and the police system adapted to these challenges. This article argues that this continuous adaptation became successful due to the indigenous subalterns serving in the police forces.