Agney G K and P.S Pratheep, IJSR, 2018; 2:22

Review Article IJSR (2018) 2:22

International Journal of Social Research (ISSN:2576-5531)

Derailing National Consciousness- How Herbert Hope Risley Crafted the Ideology of Subjugation Through ‘Pseudo Science’

Agney G K1, P.S Pratheep2

1Research Scholar (PhD), University, Kottayam, Kerala, India;2Associate Profes- sor and Head, P G Department of History, Catholicate College, Pathanamthitta, Kerala, India

ABSTRACT

The paper concentrates on how H H Risley crafted the discipline *Correspondence to Author: of and the tools of Craniometry and Anthropometry Agney G K to toe the line of Pseudo Science in an effort to wreck the head- Research Scholar (PhD), Mahatma way of nationalism in India by disturbing the fabric of the colonial Gandhi University, Kottayam, Kera- society. The work also remembers the role played by the colonial la, state apparatus, in general, and Risley, in particular, in cement- ing the notions of correlation between Race and and com- How to cite this article: posing caste as a stagnant category with no hope of upward mo- Agney G K, P.S Pratheep.Derailing bility. The article also credits Risley and the colonial census for National Consciousness- How Her- the establishment of caste as a socio-political and cultural reality bert Hope Risley Crafted the Ideol- in today’s India. ogy of Subjugation Through ‘Pseu- do Science’. International Journal of For Proof SocialOnly Research, 2018; 2:22.

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Http://escipub.com/international-journal-of-social-research/ 1 Agney G K and P.S Pratheep, IJSR, 2018; 2:22 Contextualizing ‘People of India’ times (context) before burrowing into the paxamonica –People of India. H H Risley was A book; the purpose it holds, the nomenclature the gallant poster boy of ‘Pseudo Science’, on it bears, the language it speaks, the source and which was built the tall structure of racial scientific methods it employs and the audience difference between the ‘aborigines’ and the it targets; are a product of the age in which the whites and on which rested the racial pre- book is conceived. Before delving into a book, it eminence of the colonizer. Risley conducted an is apropos to understand the context in which extensive study on; scientific , the races the book was envisioned. As noted by Marc and tribes of India; in the most empirical Bloch in his monumental volume, ‘French Rural manner by amalgamating the techniques and History’; where he engaged antecedently tools of anthropometry, anthropology and unheard practice of ‘retrospective history craniometry, in a pursuit to distinguish and narration’, speaks extensively of the how to situate them in the ‘ladder of civilisation’. comprehend the context of a volume. Bloch resolves that a ‘historical phenomenon ought to Crippling Nationalism… be explained in terms of its own time rather ‘People of India’, was conceived in the than of earlier periods’. Discerning the backdrop of an intensifying second phase of ideological tinge or latent scheme of the author Industrial revolution, competition and is as weighty as discerning the context. intermittent battles for consolidating colonies in Mortimer J Adler and Charles Van Doren in Asia and Africa by European nations, in the their book titled ‘How to read a book’ convey intellectual milieu of orientalism and also in an with the reader the significance to read the age where Indomania has given way to author before reading his work. The weight of Indophobia. The initial response of the British to these words proliferates when read against the the challenges put forward by the encounter assessment of E H Carr on the discretion of the with the unknown was to figure out their historian in selecting and interpreting his everyday life, in order to grasp how they were sources. The author becomes ‘extremely to be ruled upon and how plunder of the colony selective’ (a phrase used by Romila Thapar should be organized. The aforementioned when speaking about Public memory, but finds process was accompanied by sensitivity to the as weighty to the discretion of the author also) Indian way of life and sympathy to Indian in preference of his sources to bake what he culture. As William Dalrymple notes in his thinks history is. The book is a commonplace distinguished volume, ‘The Last Mughal’, the where the author meets the reader and shares officials of who inhabited what he thinks ought to be articulated. The the 18th century Delhi were deeply attracted to author, in the act of composing history, only the city. He mentions an anecdote of Lady welcomes those sources which aid his purpose. Maria Nugent, the spouse of the British Thus nor the author neither his context can be Commander in Chief, who seems bewildered divorced from his book. by the acceptance of the Indian ways of life, by This paper is dispositioned to chronicle the her country men stationed at Delhi. After the “scientific For techniques” employed Proof in the initial encounters Only the focus deviated from identification of racial types in India, through appreciating the unknown to placing the applying anthropometric parameters, by unfamiliar in garb of the familiar and arrange Herbert Hope Risley (H H Risley) in his volume them in the ladder of civilisation, thus initiating a ‘People of India’, in an endeavour to hinder the impression of familiarity as well as imposing innate progression of National Consciousness. inferiority into the Indian minds, especially the As mentioned in the above paragraph, it is educated ones. Though postmodern historians important to understand the author and his like Dalrymple himself assign the motivation for Http://escipub.com/international-journal-of-social-research/ 2 Agney G K and P.S Pratheep, IJSR, 2018; 2:22 the change in the attitude of the British towards hierarchy, and ethnicity and by race and blood India and her people to the arrogance resulting ties. from the stature of undisputed military Hunter and Risley, both ethnographers by supremacy of Britain and the ‘ascendancy of taste, wrote their scientific study on the Indian Evangelical Christianity’, it should be viewed races in the backdrop of the revolt of 1857. The critically, especially the role of military empire which had only faced localised, supremacy in the birth of animosity of such high unorganised and spontaneous responses to its order. The paramountcy of Evangelical undemocratic and non-representative tyrannical Christianity cannot be discounted and should rule now faced a more organised and be considered as one of the prima facia structured resistance, though the degree of reasons for the apathy and antagonism, the organisation and strength of the structure are British held towards India. The ladder of still debatable. The political changes that civilisation was envisaged with the British, an occurred post 1857 was miniscule when Industrialised nation, at the top and the compared to what occurred in the realm of communities that practiced lesser modes of Epistemology. The revolt led to significant production below that. It was also put that the othering of the Indians from all arenas of Indians, not all of them, belonging to the upper administration and defence services. Only strata of the caste system were fallen brethren. some races were qualified, based on their racial Risley was adept at making readjustments and qualities, to occupy the aforementioned offices. placing the upper in the higher reaches An attempt was also initiated to instil in the of the civilizational ladder, which was based on minds of the subject population as to how the supremacy of racial attributes arrived uncivilised savages they were and which lowest through ‘scientific enquires’, and vindicated rung of the ladder, of civilisation, they occupied, such operations with ‘pseudo-science’. The when compared to the mighty whites. Risley lesser castes and tribes were put in still a lower writing in 1908 was endowed with vast volumes category, in a ladder which resembled Darwin’s of data, especially caste census that ladder of evolution. This led to a distinction commenced in 1872, collected by the Empire between the Pure Aryan stock and the for chronicling every region. Risley attempted to aboriginals, who were not seen as the part of a view these data through the lens of the theory common racial stock, began to be emphasized of , thus fusing the discussion of upon. caste into theories of biologically determined The discipline of Anthropology was called in for races. A peculiar change in the enumeration of further assistance to prove the polygenesis of castes brought about by the census of 1901 the Aryans and the Aborigines. With the urges mention here. Though the caste census establishment of Anthropological Society of spelled out castes and religious categories London under James Hunt, the Constructs of along with tribes and race, the distinction Social Darwinism and white man’s burden between these categories remained obscure, till began to gain more ground. The liberal 1901. A separate category of tribes was justification For of the purpose of theProof empire, “an assimilated in theOnly census along with that of empire which was governed by purpose of race and caste, since 1901. The enumerators power, commerce, culture, religious influence, made no attempts to define the categories such progress, pride, jealousy, compassion, as caste, tribe and race, but still found it curiosity, adventure and resistance”, was to prudent to compartmentalise the population on endorse the government as a legitimate political its basis. Insensitivity to the cultural realities representative by invoking facets of well was at its height and a ‘porous, dynamic and decorated and ‘proper’ history, civilizational mobile’ category like caste was left undefined,

Http://escipub.com/international-journal-of-social-research/ 3 Agney G K and P.S Pratheep, IJSR, 2018; 2:22 while ill convincingly defining tribe as a group nose above the level of eye sockets’. that is yet to become a caste, thus by putting Administering the aforesaid techniques and caste as a linear trajectory that a race should contemporary theories on race, Risley broke achieve in the path of its journey towards down the Indian population to seven mutually civilisation. This was a major break down from exclusive and non-pervious racial types- the the earlier notions on caste and tribes. The Indo- Aryans, the , the Dravidians, earlier colonial historians and sociologists the Turko-Iranians, The Monglo-Dravidians, the considered Tribe as a political organisation and Scytho-Dravidians and the Aryo-Dravidians. caste as a social grouping based on The Dravidians and Mongoloids were projected occupation. Risley and the caste enumerators, as the original inhabitants of the country, who both deriving inspiration from each other, had settled in North Eastern and Southern reaches, us believe that Tribe is the primitive commune respectively. The mixed races were or amorphous form of caste. It can also be pronounced as a product of the admixture of comprehended that the latent schemes of races due to the successive incursion of Risley was to make good these ‘empirical’ data ‘foreign’ races into the subcontinent. Risley, “forged” by the enumerators. identified the low ranking races with the tribes Delving into the physical types, as identified by and, the agricultural communities in North India Risley through his extensive research with either the mixed races or of Aryan origin. employing anthropometry, anthropology and As the mandate of this paper is confined to the craniometry and putting them in the perspective effectiveness of these techniques used by of how the ‘pseudo-science’ of classification of Risley in categorizing the population and thus race and how the knowledge thus created was by stemming nationalism, the author would like employed in subjugating the native population to fall short on the classification and sub further. Risley in the onset of his chapter grouping of the population by the colonial disregard the attempts to classify the population ethnographer. as different races based on the customs and As Ronald Inden cautions us, Risley was ceremonies as measuring rods, as these inimical to equating these racial types with any cultural facets are prey to be plagiarised by the language families, though his races are named lower castes, a process which later came to be after them. Risley, as mentioned in the coined Sanskritisation by M N Srinivas. As preceding arguments, lauds the efficacy of culture and ceremonies fail to classify the using physical types to determine races, with population as races, Risley tries to identify respect to the Indian condition, due to the physical characters as the measuring rods to precluding of intermixing of races, beyond identify and differentiate races. He finds recognition, by an ‘efficient’ caste system, justification for taking up physical which placed taboo on inter caste marriages characteristics in the caste system that existed and thus gave birth to endogamous groupings. in India, which precluded intermixing of races. He equates caste with race and proposed that Risley employs the scheme approved by Sir the exclusivity that was created allowed the William FlowerFor of the British Museum Proof and Prof. ethnographer to Only work retrospectively to the Topinard in measuring the indigenous probable origins of caste and of racial stokes. population. He uses a wide array of Thus Risley takes away the formation of characteristics to arrive at a method; three different racial types and castes from the among them is provided much prominence- figment of Brahmanical order and provide it with ‘Cephalic Index or the size of the head, Nasal an aura of a well-established ‘scientific’ fact. Index or size of the nose and Orbito Nasal Exercise like this, though should be analysed Index or the relative projection of the root of the with in the bigger picture of the scheme of

Http://escipub.com/international-journal-of-social-research/ 4 Agney G K and P.S Pratheep, IJSR, 2018; 2:22 colonial masters in subjugating the colonized, subjugation strategy was further provided intellectually, but also should be seen as the substance and purpose by the Evangelical curiosity of an inquisitive mind which was part Church and its desire to convert the population. of the scientific consciousness of a generation. The discourse of barbarianisms and savagery The bigger picture of the need for such a well was dusted and put to use by the colonial thought out and executed scientific research on government in repressing the nationals, for the compartmentalization of the native population, ‘sake’ of maintaining law and order and needs to be understood in the light of the social providing good governance, a burden of the manifestations a research of such magnitude divine providence. was to offer. Risley may have believed that Denouement caste which was embedded in the Indian social The dominant dogmatic motif in the ‘People of reality could be used as an effective apparatus India’ and tomes of this disposition was the to stem the growth of national consciousness, stress on the inferiority and inequality of the and thus perpetuate British rule. In this scheme colonized population. As Rousseau puts it in his the British officers were aided by their native magnum opus, ‘Discourse on the Origin and collaborators or the comprador bourgeoisie- the Basis of Inequality Among Men’, Natural upper caste Hindus, with their coarse inequality is the product of the nature and interpretations of the textbooks, on religion and involves the difference between one man’s jurisprudence, like Manusmriti which was body to another. He was not anxious about interpreted to provide corroborative evidence to natural inequality like he was with Moral the conclusions Risley arrived at. These inequality, concerning disparity of wealth; interpretations misled the entire population to power and rank. Risley proved the anxiety of a believe in the rigidity of caste system with no visionary of such high order, well placed by scope of further advancement. Risley equated using the vantage point of Moral superiority to each caste with a racial type and equated each instill belief of natural inequality and to attach race with a quality- intelligence, labour, exclusive and unchangeable traits to specific belligerence, trustworthiness- being some of races. was used to create a them. The caste census and the gradation of binary between the civilised and the barbarians. castes, as high and low, led to instances where The other was no longer seen as different from each caste became overtly conscious and the self, but as a ‘noble savage’ or a ‘fallen concerned of their caste rankings and led to a brethren’, unable to keep pace with the white period of rigorous research, about their man. The white man was fashioned as ancestral origin, and petitioning the government burdened with the weighty divine mandate to to provide them upward mobility in the ‘official uplift these fallen brothers, a notion to which the records’ thus by making caste a reality in the Evangelical missionaries added more ‘life and Indian society. The coming forward of caste as colour’. An abrogated version of ‘The four fold the main agenda retarded the pace of the theory of development,’ propounded by the development of national consciousness and Scottish thinker Adam smith and later perfected imposed theFor tyranny for a longer periodProof than it by John Miller, wasOnly put to use to exemplify that was to stay. the congenital faculties of each race is related Anthropological knowledge thus came to be to a specific stage of mode of production they effectively used as a subjugation strategy. As have achieved. Thus the supreme race, the Nicholas B Dirks observes in in his work whites, which developed a commercial society, ‘Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the making of was seen as racially superior to the ones which Modern India’, the colonial state transformed still lived in a hunting-gathering subsistence itself into an “ethnographic state”. This economy, the tribes, or in a feudal mode of

Http://escipub.com/international-journal-of-social-research/ 5 Agney G K and P.S Pratheep, IJSR, 2018; 2:22 production or agricultural societies, native 7. Dirks, Nicholas. (2001) Caste of Mind-Colonialism Indians. and the Making of Modern India, Princeton University Press. The compartmentalization of the entire 8. Constable, Philip. (2001) The Marginalisation of a population to races and attaching qualities was Dalit Martial Race in Late Nineteenth and Early the hallmark of the colonial governance in India. Twentieth Century Western India. The Journal of The aforementioned attribute of the rule led to Asian Studies. Vol 60, No.2 May 2001. 9. Pati, Bismoy. (2010) Religion and Social the conception of specific tribes as ‘criminal’ Subversion: Re-examining Colonial Orissa, EPW, because of the perceived, like using forest Vol.14, No. 25. June 2010. without permission of the colonial officialdom, 10. Guha, Sumit. (1998) Lower Strate, Older Races deplorable pursuits conducted by their and Aboriginal People- Racial Anthropology and predecessor. Pseudo-science established a Mythical History, The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol.57, No.2. May 1998. gimmick of unalterable qualities, which are 11. Singh,Radhika (2000) Settle, Mobilize, Verify: acquired by birth, and not subject to revision. Identification Practices in Colonial India, Studies The same quality of constancy was later added in History. Vol.16, Issue 2. to various castes giving birth to nomenclature like martial races. This permanence of traits of such an inferior population was advertised as the requirement for the guidance of a superior race, till the races were civilised. This unparalleled emphasize on immutable and rigid attributes led to what Bernard Cohn has termed as’ Surveillance Modality’ and archiving of records, like finger prints, pertaining to criminal tribes, which, as Radhika Singh has pointed out was used as an apparatus to subjugate the other. Thus the precious Jewel in the British Crown was precluded to en masse and prosper under a national flag for long by employing notions of caste and race. Reference 1. Todorov, Tzevatan. (1999) The Conquest of America-The question of the other, University of Oklahoma Press. 2. Inden, Ronald. (1986) Orientalist Constriction of India, Modern Asian Studies Vol.20. 3. Bayly, Susan. (1999) Caste, Society and Politics in India- from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age, Cambridge University Press. 4. Trautman, Thomas. (1997) Aryans and British India, University of California Press. 5. Bates, For Crispin. (1995) Race, CasteProof and Tribe in Only Central India: The Early Origin of Indian Anthropometry, Edinburgh Papers in South Asian Studies Number 3. 6. Risley, H H. (1999) , Asian Educational Services.

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