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1

THE OPPRESSIVE RELATIONSHIP IN COLONIAL CONTEXT: AN EXPLORATION OF THE IMPACT OF IMPERIALISM ON SOUTH ASIAN HINDUS

By

Ravi Gokani

Wilfrid Laurier University

THESIS

Submitted to the Department of Psychology

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for

Master of Arts

Wilfrid Laurier University

2012

© Ravi Gokani, 2012 2

Table of Contents

Abstract 4

Acknowledgements 5

Introduction

Personal Context 8

Orienting Definitions 11

Literature Review

Introduction 18

British Raj Redux 19

On the Oppressive Relationship 27

On Colonial/Imperial Oppression 32

On the Imperial Oppression of Hindus 41

Method 51

Findings

Globalization as Imperialism 65

The Impact of Anglo-American Imperialism 68

The Impact of Capitalism 69

The Impact on Epistemology 75

The Impact on Hinduism or dharma 86

The Impact on Gender & Sexuality 93

The Internalization of Inferiority 98

Emergent Findings

Impact on Women 106

Impact on the Caste System 108 3

Discussion 110

Conclusion 136

References 138

Appendices

Letter of Invitation 143

Informed Consent Statement 145

Interview Guide 149 4

Abstract

I conduct an exploratory study in which I seek to determine the perceptions of South

Asian Hindus concerning the impact of Anglo-American imperialism on Hindus and Hindu culture, as well as the relationship between British imperialism and globalization. These research questions are situated within the context of an oppressive relationship, as discussed by theorists such as Paulo Freire and Franz Fanon. Using a qualitative interview-guide approach and a snow­ ball sampling method, I interviewed 10 South Asians, 5 men and 5 women, from Southern

Ontario. I found that my participants perceived a link between British imperialism and globalization, warranting my use of the term Anglo-American imperialism. I also found that my participants perceived the impact of Anglo-American imperialism as largely, though not entirely, negative. Five major themes emerged from interviews. They are (a) The Impact of Capitalism;

(b) The Impact on Epistemology; (c) The Impact on Hinduism or dharma; (d) The Impact on

Sexuality and Gender; and (e) The Internalization of Inferiority or Colonial Mentality. In addition to these five major themes, I also found what I call two "emergent" themes. They are (a)

The Impact on Women and (b) The Impact on Caste. I labelled these two findings as emergent because of my insufficient account of them in my literature review but primarily because limited data did not permit me to treat either of these complex and controversial topics sufficiently. I reflect on how my participant's perspectives on these 5 major and 2 emergent themes match up against literature, pointing out instances of novel contribution. Moreover, I discuss how my findings bear on the literature on the oppressive relationship. To conclude, I discuss the strengths, limitations, and directions for future research, and with a personal comment from me, followed by the "last word" to one of my participants. 5

Acknowledgments

First and foremost, I would like to thank my advisor and friend, Dr. Richard Walsh-

Bowers, for being one of the few people in my life who sought actively not to interfere with my education, and whose pithy gems and helpful suggestions went a long way. Second, I would like to thank my peers and professors in the Community Psychology programme, each one of whom has at some point helped me with my professional, personal, or academic development. If you think that such a statement is hyperbole then simply ask me and I will give you at least one example for each of the following persons: Heidi Newton, Lisa Armstrong, Hany Ibrahim,

Heather Hunter, Brenda Moore, Gina Hickman, Lisa Hickman, Geoff Nelson, Manuel Riemer,

Colleen Loomis, Rob Travers, Pedro Poblete, Sandra Yuan, Kate Klein, Darren Thomas,

Rebecca Pister, Gurveer Shaan Dhillon, Timothy Macleod, Livia Dittmer. Third, I would like to thank the internal committee member, Dr. Terry Mitchell and my external examiner, Dr.

Ashwani Peetush, for their thoughtful comments and helpful suggestions. Fourth, I would like to thank my two mentors, both of whom have continued their support and guidance despite being cities or continents apart: Dr. Gordon Hodson and Dr. Becky Choma. I would like to thank my

"participants," some of whom have become friends, for their time, patience, their trust, their chai. I would like to thank my mom and dad, who, despite contending with the continued pressure of the Hindu community to coerce their children into adopting one of few sacrosanct and woefully Western occupations, continued their support of me in pursuing my programme of choice. I would like to thank my sister, a kindred spirit, who understands the value of rebellion.

And last but certainly not least, I would like to thank my Kitchener family, which includes two beautiful doves, who continually inspire me with peace, the several plants in my office, who remind me of my roots, one giant 160-pound Great Dane by the name of Marcus, who reminds continually that human and non-human animals are one and the same, and Aylah, my beloved 6 partner, who, much to her chagrin, began dating me just before this programme commenced, and has continued to support and challenge me in various ways that I can only consider beneficent and significant. 7

Introduction

A thesis is a curious thing. Like a photograph, it can capture who you are at any given moment. To the extent that your appearance (e.g., your haircut or clothing) does not change suddenly, a photograph is likely to reflect how you look. Similarly, to the extent that one's opinions, knowledge, values, etc., do not change suddenly, a thesis is likely to reflect your perspective on a topic. But this analogy has an obvious weakness. A photo can be snapped in less than a second, while a thesis can and often does take over a year to complete from start to finish.

In that year, so much can change that by the time you get to the end of your journey, you are no longer the same person; the person who began writing the thesis is no longer the one who finishes it. In this sense, I am defending someone else's work.

Not only is the experience of writing and researching personally formative in this sense

(i.e., one grows), but it is also frustrating, because no matter what, one's writing is like a still- life: always dead in time. While you continue living, changing, one might like to think evolving, toward a deeper understanding of what it is you study, your thesis is, in my opinion, often a futile attempt at capturing an image of you as you are on your journey.

At some point in my journey I accepted this fact, and therefore, what you read now is a reflection of who I was almost two years ago, which is when I began this thesis. In my case, I travelled faster than my thesis could capture, which is to say my perspectives on the topic have changed, my knowledge has expanded, and, I would like to think, my appreciation of qualitative research and inquiry has become finer.

At first, my manner of coping was to rewrite my literature review, which I did, this time according to an outline. But then to stick to the outline of the thesis that I had created, I was obliged yet again to ignore much new information that emerged. In other words, out of interest, I continued reading on my topic well after I had defended my proposal and wrote my second 8 literature review. In fact, I continue today to read on this topic. What I know now of Indian history, Britain, America, of qualitative methods, as well as other theoretical literature, such as

Marxism, anarchism, and critical race theory, would have undoubtedly produced a different thesis.

In the interest of time, however, I stuck with the second literature review. Therefore, what you see here is, as already mentioned, a snapshot of me about two years ago, which is when I constructed the outline of this thesis. I am making these introductory comments because I was not entirely satisfied in presenting my thesis as if it were some finished or timeless work. It was my advisor who suggested that I depart from convention, if I pleased and either re-write the thesis to reflect a journey - a moving picture versus a photograph, if you will - or to narrate the thesis to give voice to the student who exists today. I chose the latter, again in the interest of time. Thus, I have included my "voice" throughout this thesis when I felt it necessary to comment on this journey, in which I tried to answer two major research questions. The first is to determine if and how my participants saw a link between British imperialism and globalization, while the second is to determine how my participants saw that British imperialism and globalization impacted the lives of Hindus and Hindu culture.

Personal Context

Here is an account of a personal story intended to illustrate the type of encounters, not infrequent, that motivate me in part to study what I study. This story is followed by the more conventional representation of my social location.

The cowherd and the bull. A short while back, I encountered a man from India. That he was from my parents' native country and one I affectionately consider my homeland naturally enthused me. I struck up a conversation: "Where in India are you from? How long have you been 9 here? Do you like it here? Do you miss home?" But when I asked him about India itself, from the viewpoint of "an NRI," that is, a non-resident Indian, some of his answers shocked me. Very quickly I noticed that Western ideals, much more than Hindu ideals, dictated his conception of life. I got a strong impression that he regarded metropolitan cities with concrete buildings and manufactured landscapes more positively than natural settings with large trees and long fields.

His ideas of making a living were decorated with elements of the corporate west and seemingly ignored many of the lessons of Hindu culture. Ironically, his house displayed many pictures of the Hindu god Krishna who was a cowherd. Krishna s legacy in the form of the Bhagavad Gita paints a picture of the ideal life that clashes with the western ideal to which more and more

Indians seem to be striving. In my opinion, having a picture of Warren Buffet or George Soros would have been more congruent with this man's values. I left that night puzzled by how he seemed unaware of what I perceived to be an apparent contradiction that pervaded his life and perhaps the lives of many Hindus: Idolizing a cowherd, but living like a corporate bull.

Social location. Even before entering this programme, I had begun thinking about how I could combine my cultural identity, as a South Asian Hindu, and my emerging academic identity, as a student of psychology. I had started to merge the two identities during my later years completing my undergrad, when I chose to focus my undergraduate thesis on prejudice, discrimination, and religious fundamentalism, but social psychology proved to be limiting in this regard. My acquaintance with qualitative methods and my reading of an article by community psychologist Geraldine Moane (2003), further spurred me to merge my cultural or personal identity with my academic or professional one.

Concerning my cultural identity, I would identify as South Asian, Hindu, or Indian. I was born into a Hindu family whose roots are in Gujarat, India. The province is notable as the home of three of the four best-known figures in the struggle for independence from British rule, including Mahatma Gandhi and the first Prime Minister of Pakistan, Mohamed Ali Jinnah.

I was myself not born in India, but in Montreal, Canada, where I spent only 4 months. I have spent the rest of my life in South-western Ontario, Canada. I grew up in a small, low- income, multicultural neighbourhood in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

Thus, the major fount of cultural knowledge was not India, itself, but rather my mother, who non-dogmatically practiced and continues to practice a form of Hinduism, which it is not unlike Sufi-practices, versions of Christianity such as the self-identified Christian mysticism of

Gurdjieff, and Sikhism and Buddhism. At a very early age, she was there to answer questions about existence, life, God and gods, angels, good/evil, knowledge/ignorance, fasting, and about the culture from which she derived so much satisfaction even some 10,000 miles away from the land whence it sprung.

Though being "Indian" or "Hindu" was never emphasized in my house, we were always partaking in some ritual, celebration, ceremony, a "sermon" at a temple. It is fair to say that my aversion to school was equal to my adoration for everything spiritual; though I found it difficult to complete my homework or pay attention in class, I would push my 5 or 6 year-old body to its limits by staying up into the early mornings on weekends watching a motion picture adaptation of one of India's epics. The Ramayana. It is from this epic and my mother that I believe I have received both a focus on social justice and an admiration for Hinduism and India.

Given my experiences with Hindu culture, most of which are second-hand, all that I have discussed in this thesis is likely to be viewed differently by a person who was born in India, for example, and whose experience with Hindu culture is predominantly first-hand. However, personal experience with persons born and raised in India, as well as anecdotes, persuade me into believing that Indian-born Hindus, particularly from larger urbanised cities, are paradoxically less likely to be in touch with Indian history and culture.

Orienting Definitions

In this section I define terms that I use throughout this thesis, as well as provide a short note on the conceptualization of impacts that I will be using.

Indian versus Hindu. My mother seldom if ever used the word "Hindu" to describe us or the word "Hinduism" to encompass her beliefs and practices. What may not be known to those who have not grown up in a Hindu household is that both of these terms, "Hindu" and

"Hinduism," are actually inadequate, albeit convenient words, to refer to hundreds if not thousands of religious and spiritual practices, all of which differ markedly from one another. I often joke with my friends that one could be sitting in a room with 10 "Hindus" and yet it would be very difficult to get even half of them to agree on any one thing. That is hyperbole, of course, but the multiplicity and plurality of Hindu culture is in fact staggering, particularly from the standpoint of Western culture.

Consequently, throughout the course of this thesis one enduring difficulty for me was determining which term to use when speaking of myself and the people to whom I belong.

Furthermore, it seemed that there were no indigenous terms, at least not that I could use in

English. Both "Hindu" and "Indian" are given names by foreigners. The term "Hindu" connotes a foreign construal of a people living on the Indian subcontinent (Thapar, 1993), while the term

"Indian" connotes a foreign construal of a national and political identity, inasmuch as India is a nation state, which is a form of political organisation founded in the West. 12

Moreover, both terms have masked and continue to mask the multiplicity and variety of the people living on the Indian subcontinent, which has included several different cultural and religious groups. In addition to the variety of cultural and religious practices that are considered

"Hindu," a group which comprises about 85% of India, the country is also home to the second- largest Muslim population in the world, the largest Baha'i and Zoroastrian populations, and a small minority of Christians and Jews, to name a few. Khan (2007) and Viswanathan (1998) have touched briefly on how the meaning of these categories has shifted. For instance, at a point in time the British Empire divided drinking fountains so that those who were considered

"Hindus" would drink from a "Hindu" fountain, while those considered "Mohammedans" or

Muslim would drink from a "Mohammedan" fountain.

In the course of my research I was able to ask a few of my participants their thoughts on the question of what term I should use. One participant said that she believed that Indianness represented the degradation of Hinduness from a spiritual to a political identity. Thus, for her,

British imperialism facilitated and/or forced the movement from Hinduness to Indianness.

Therefore, it was appropriate for me to use both words according to these definitions. Another participant agreed that the diversity and multiplicity disguised by a single term like "Hinduism."

He commented, "You give me any common ground you think there is between all of the people and all of the, the ways of life you're expressing using this word, and I'll give you an example that defies your definition." He also believed that using the word "Indian" was better, because there existed a concrete geographical boundary on which to base the term. The term "Hinduism," on the other hand, had no objective or agreed upon referential, in his view.

I have to admit to not having solved this personal and methodological dilemma.

However, in not having solved it I might have done well, because I feel that any solution to the problem would be spurious. As I will discuss later in my findings, the dilemma to "name" or

"categorize" me and the people to whom I belong is a dilemma perhaps induced by Western culture. Therefore, any resolution of the dilemma also would be induced by Western culture.

For practical purposes, here are the definitions with which I have chosen to work. The term "India" or "Indian" refers to the land or people inhabiting the nation states of Pakistan,

India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Kashmir, and parts of the nation state Burma. I use the term Indian loosely in order to capture conveniently the various people of the Indian subcontinent who were affected by British colonial rule, and my use of this term came as a result of the suggestion made by the participant quoted above. The term "Hindu" is similarly broad. It refers to any aspect of the indigenous, and thus, pre-Abrahamic, philosophical and religious set of beliefs, practices, rituals, history, medicine, epistemology, economy, lifestyle, and social organization.

Colonialism versus imperialism. Defining colonialism and imperialism was a little bit easier. However, the one issue I had was that at times the meanings of the words "colonialism" and "imperialism" are used interchangeably and confusedly (e.g., Nandy, 2007). Indeed, one might argue that the very name of a mode of academic critique - that of post-colonial studies - seems marred by, or at least indifferent to, this confusion. As a result, without at least some grasp of the geographic region or the ethno-cultural group in question, one might be hard-pressed to fully appreciate the nature of the relationship as colonial or imperial. In other words, these two words represent processes different enough to warrant distinction (Kohn, 2006).

The primary distinction between colonialism and imperialism seems to me to be that of method. There are two methods of note here; the first is settlement. Kohn (2006) and at least one post-colonial writer, Edward Said (1994), recognizes that colonialism depends more heavily 14 upon settlement while imperialism does not. The second difference, also mentioned by Kohn, is that the two differ by the nature of their methods of control as direct and indirect, respectively.

Imperialism is considered to include "indirect mechanisms of control," while colonialism includes more "direct" methods of domination. What bind the two policies of colonialism and imperialism together are the common goals of economic exploitation and political control.

Another point to consider is whether or not it is fair to distinguish colonialism and imperialism as mutually exclusive in this regard, or whether or not both indirect and direct methods are used in both but that the distinction we might perceive is a result of which method is primary. Accordingly, the method of colonialism might be primarily direct (i.e., settlement, violence) and secondarily indirect (i.e., diplomacy, culture), while imperialism is the reverse.

From the above we can deduce that colonialism and imperialism are distinguished primarily by the method used, or perceived to be used, to achieve common goals of political control and economic exploitation. The colonial method consists of the presence of a foreign settlement and perhaps these settlements necessitate, or give the impression of, direct control

(e.g., military force). Conversely, the imperial method does not consist of significant settlement, which may necessitate, or give the impression of, indirect control (e.g., diplomacy). Given that this paper will deal with the experience of India, I think it is important to state that the relation between India and Anglo-America from the early 17th century until today can largely be considered imperial. In contrast, the experience of the Indigenous populations of Canada might fairly be considered colonial, because, for one, the colonists, to whom we now refer as

"Canadian" are still present, outnumber the original peoples, and, willingly or unwillingly, knowingly or unknowingly, like myself, continue to arrive. 15

Context for the definition. The above definition of imperialism is rough, however, excluding some important facets. First, many scholars, including Freire (1970), Moane (1994), and Baker-Miller (1976), either explicitly state or suggest that colonialism and/or imperialism - in short, domination - are psychological phenomena as much as they are sociological ones. In fact, the basis of Nandy's (2007) argument in The Intimate Enemy is that the primary distinguishing factor of imperialism is that it is psychological.1 In other words, the basis of imperialism is psychological, and it is this psychological reality - or "colonial consciousness" - that serves as the foundation for imperialism's sociological characteristics.

Secondly, the definition above is gender neutral, making neither explicit nor implicit reference to the male or female genders or their quintessential attributes in masculinity and femininity. Feminists critique colonialism and imperialism as being gendered, representing, or supported by, the domination or preference of males and masculinity over females and femininity (e.g., Moane, 1994; Shiva, 2002). This important critique, particularly from Nandy's perspective, will be drawn out further in the literature review in Chapter III.

The Notion of "Impact"

The prototypical imperialist's own justification for, imperialism, call it the White Man's

Burden, civilization, salvation, or development, is that two civilizations, two cultures, are put into contact for the better. Typically, I find that discussion around the impact of contact is usually understood in categorical terms, which is to say, civilizations are considered to represent opposites of each other and the influence of one civilization or society on another is conceived of as entirely foreign. One can easily perceive this, for instance, in comments by Cesaire (1972),

1 Nandy uses the term colonialism. who categorically dismisses European civilization as barbarous; and on the other hand stating,

"once again, I systematically defend our old Negro civilizations: they were courteous civilizations" (p. 31).

But Nandy (2007) offers a different perspective, according to which civilizations are not understood as homogenous, unified, and logically consistent, but as heterogeneous, self- contradictory, and logically inconsistent. Civilizations, according to Nandy, possess all of the multiplicity and diversity of human life. What causes the apparent differences among civilizations is the manner in which the inhabitants of that civilization arrange their civilization's inherent diversity in a hierarchical manner, or to use Nandy's terminology, the manner in which cultural priorities are arranged. Accordingly, neither European nor African civilization, if one can even speak of two monolithic civilizations, are categorically barbarous or courteous. Rather, each civilization possesses barbarous and courteous tendencies, and one tendency is made a priority over the other. Perhaps the most recent example of this sort of categorical thinking one finds in the discussions about Islam and the West (see Huntington, 1996). Typically, both are considered to be at odds with one another, presumably because of some inherent and fundamental difference (e.g., Islam is terroristic and US civilization is freedom-loving), or because of a misunderstanding (e.g., Islam is peaceful and so is US civilization). Either way, whether or not such a difference or misunderstanding exists, viewing either civilizations or cultures categorically might preclude recognition of other less dominant tendencies in either culture. In other words, such categorical thinking might simplify the cultures and thus handicap analysis of their contact and the impacts of that contact.

This manner of viewing civilization is well suited, in my opinion, to facilitate an understanding of the contact between America and Britain on the one hand, and India, on the 17 other. I believe this to be true, primarily for the reason that such an analysis accounts for the multiplicity and variety of Indian civilization noted above.

Accordingly, then, I can summarize that the relationship between Britain and India was in nature imperialistic, because the primary methods by which the ends of political control and economic exploitation were achieved (a) through insignificant settlement, and (b) primarily indirect, through cultural and economic control. Direct methods, such as violence, were secondary, though not uncommon and infrequent (e.g., violent suppression of the 1857 mutiny), based on my knowledge. In addition, the imperial relationship between Britain and India, as all imperial relationships, consisted of facets of psychology and sexism or patriarchy. Finally, as

Nandy (2007) noted specifically with India's imperial history in mind, the contact between

British and Indian civilization precipitated the re-arrangement of cultural priorities within the latter; for instance in the domain of gender. 18

Literature Review

Introduction

In this chapter I provide historical context and review theoretical literature to set the foundation for my research questions. The historical review is intended to serve as a backdrop for the first research question, namely, the link between British imperialism and globalization, while the theoretical literature is intended to provide a review for the second and more central research question of my thesis, namely, the impacts of imperialism on Hindus and Hindu culture.

At the time I researched and wrote the bulk of this section I was quite focused on the work of

Paulo Freire. As a result, I envisioned this section to be structured around his sketch of the oppressive relationship (individual and sociological), of which I considered colonial oppression to be but one manifestation, and the oppression of Hindus in turn to be one manifestation of colonial oppression. Thus, this chapter contains three parts. In the first part I discuss the oppressive relationship, relying largely on the works of Paulo Freire (1921 - 1997) and Jean

Baker Miller (1927 — 2006). In the second part, I review literature by three influential post- colonial thinkers, Aime Cesaire, Franz Fanon, and Albert Memmi. In the third section, due to the paucity of research and theorizing on the psychological impacts of imperialism on Hindus, I rely largely on one thinker, Ashis Nandy.

Historical Context

This section contains an attempt to justify my use of the term Anglo-American

Imperialism to refer to the continuity between British imperialism and globalization, which I do, in part, by relying on historical information. This background information I feel is particularly important, because, as mentioned, one of my research questions was to ask my participants about any link between British imperialism and globalization. The brief historical review is intended to 19 provide some context for that question and for my participants' remarks. In many ways, I find history to be indispensable in understanding current issues. For instance, knowledge that it was

British Imperial policy, motivated in part by the free market, that resulted in millions of deaths in the late 19th century (Davis, 2001) adds a certain lucidity to my reading of current news or books

(e.g., Shiva, 2006; Patel 2007) that highlight famine in India.

The British Raj redux. Central to this thesis, and especially one of the research questions, is an assumption concerning the affinity of two relationships. The first relationship is that between Britain and India from about 1600 to 1947, while the second relationship is that between the U.S. and India after Independence (post-1947), and especially from 1991 to the present. The central assumption concerning these two relationships, which are known respectively as British Imperialism and globalization, is that they are not discontinuous, dissimilar, and unrelated, but contiguous, similar, and related. The affinity between these two relationships is one that seems to be more and more popular and widely held - even among psychologists (e.g., Bhatia & Ram, 2001; Sloan, 2005). Although such a point probably requires the length of a book to discuss in full detail, I will try to provide some justification for my assumption.

Consider the following: "The key link," write Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin (2000), in a book about post-colonial studies, "between classical imperialism and contemporary globalization in the twentieth [and twenty-first centuries] has been the role of the United States" (pp. 112-113).

Within the domain of international development studies, Petras and Veltmeyer (2001) similarly claim that, "globalization can be seen as a code word for the ascendancy of U.S. Imperialism" (p.

62). Vilas (2002) offers the perspective of John Kenneth Galbraith during an interview:

"Globalization...is not a serious idea. We, the Americans, invented it as a means for concealing 20 our policy of economic penetration into other nations" (p. 70). William Easterly (2006), formerly under the employ of the World Bank, refers to at least one component of globalization - developmental aid - as "post-modern imperialism," backed today, as in the past, with a sense of

"white imperial benevolence" (p. 278). Furthermore, economic historian Niall Ferguson (2009) referred recently to the "last age of globalization" - i.e., the era of colonial and imperial expansion in consideration here - as "Victorian globalization" (p. 288).

However, apart from remarking upon the affinities between the British and American empires, there are many ways one might show more specifically the continuity between the

British and American empires (e.g., cultural or historical affinities). Because this thesis is not only or even primarily about the continuity between the two empires and their processes, I have chosen to narrow my discussion by reviewing literature relevant to two major trends and their impacts, trends that one can fairly consider as having begun or initiated within India under the

British and continued under the USA. These two trends, though not unrelated or specific to India, are capitalism and industrialization; both originated in Britain, are mutually supportive, and underlying forces of imperialism2

For me to argue that capitalism is one force underlying imperialism is consistent with the above definition (i.e., that it consists of the goal of economic exploitation) and the central thesis of one work by each of J. A. Hobson (1902) and Vladimir Illyich Lenin (1916). In fact, we might easily append the following to our definition above

Imperialism is capitalism in that stage of development in which the dominance of

2Hobsbawm (1969) writes of the relation between industrialism, capitalism, and imperialism, Niall Ferguson (2007) of the relation between capitalism, or financial capitalism, and empire - "Corporate finance was the indispensible foundation of both the Dutch and British empires" (p. 4) - and Hobson (1902) and Lenin (1916) both expanded upon the thesis that Imperialism was the natural expression of capitalism. 21

monopolies and finance capital has established itself; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun; in which the division of all territories of the globe among the great capitalist powers has been completed (Lenin, 1919, p. 111).

Former victims of imperial and colonial regimes, in short, post-colonial writers, albeit in a more personal way, also shed light on the capitalist intentions of imperial powers. Recounting his experience with "colonials," members of colonizer countries who sought to live and settle in a colony, Memmi (1965) stated, "You go to a colony because jobs are guaranteed, wages high, careers more rapid and business more profitable" (p. 4). In fact, trumping all other potential explanations for the purpose of colonization, such as cultural exchange, political control, or influence, Memmi contended that economic advantage is the very essence of colonialism, as the following passage illustrates:

During the French-Tunisian negotiations, a few naive persons were astonished by the relative good will shown by the French government, particularly in the cultural field, then by the prompt acquiescence of the leaders of the colony. The reason is that the intelligent members of the bourgeoisie and colony had understood that the essence of colonization was not the prestige of the flag, nor cultural expansion, nor even governmental supervision and the preservation of a staff of governmental employees. They were pleased that concessions could be made in all areas if the bases (in other words, if the economic advantages) were preserved (p. 6).

Aime Cesaire (1955), the Martinican teacher of and mentor to Franz Fanon, also held that one of the two main motives of colonization was wealth accumulation. So too did Marx (1853), who, in a short letter entitled, On Future Results of British Rule in India, contested that colonialism was a more brute and crude manifestation of European capitalism: "The profound hypocrisy and inherent barbarism of bourgeois civilization lies unveiled before our eyes, turning from its home, where it assumes respectable forms, to the colonies, where it goes naked."3

What is most remarkable and surprising about the common place, or rather, the common

3 Of course, there is some evidence that, at least in England, capitalism did not take such a respectable form, especially for members of the rural poor (Hobsbawm, 1969). 22 manifestation of capitalism in the imperial and global eras, at least to me, is the presence of corporations and international banking. Interestingly, it was as early as December 31,1600, that the first ever corporation, the East India Company, was established in London, "beginning," environmental activist Vandana Shiva says, "a new era of imperialism based on corporate rule"

(Shiva, 2005, p 16). The first eight of 14 voyages granted by royal charter of Queen Elizabeth I, a series that began in 1601, "paid off handsomely, with an average profit of 170 percent"

(Moreland & Chatterjee, 1969, 142). And the imperial apologist, Niall Ferguson (1998), has shown how the modern international banking system began around the latter part of the 18th century, during the height of the East India Company's control of India.

However, the early incorporation in 1600 of the East India Company was not the beginning of imperialism, as such. One might say the time was not ripe. First, parts of India were under foreign Muslim rule for all of the seventeenth century and parts of the eighteenth; these parts included Surat, Gujarat, where the first English factory was established (Wolpert, 1997).

Second, as one might imagine, the English merchants met with opposition from the Dutch and

Portuguese traders, the latter of whom preceded the English by a century. Third, although not a

"unified" country, some patriotic Indians showed from the very start violent antipathy toward foreign conquest (Wolpert, 1997). The fourth and perhaps the most important reason why the

British relationship with India did not resemble an imperial one in these early days was simple: industry.

The advent of industry accelerated the production of goods and reduced its costs, resulting not only in the acceleration of competition among European empires for natural resources, but for markets for those cheap products, that finally led to a sufficient justification for an imperial relationship (Hobsbawm, 1969). In short, economic exploitation could not be 23 practiced fully, if, for instance, the would-be imperial power could not guarantee sufficient extraction of raw materials and a market in which to sell cheap goods. To make matters worse for the colonized, industrializing European nations, often at war with Britain, characteristically closed their markets off to British exports, resulting in "a steady flight from the modern, resistant and competitive markets into the underdeveloped" (Hobsbawm, 1969, p. 146). The Indian subcontinent, unsurprisingly perhaps, absorbed the better portion of British exports in more than one industry, and essentially saved the British economy. The historian Mike Davis (2001) has called India during this time the "greatest captive market in history," and noted that its salvation of the British economy resulted from being "forced to absorb Britain's surplus of increasingly obsolescent and non-competitive industrial exports" (p. 298). Of course, by the 19th century,

British control over India was well established, leaving Indians less able to fight or resist or close their markets as the European countries did. Even if India had sought to keep itself closed, its relatively weak military strength would not save it from the violence that was inevitably the

British answer to a British problem. Hobsbawm (1969) points out that

...any country which did not care to enter into relations with the advanced world (that is largely with Britain) were forced to do so by gunboats and marines: the last 'closed' countries of the world, China and Japan, were thus forced into unrestricted intercourse with the modern economies between 1840 and 1860 (p. 139, emphasis added)

Thus, imperial control, indirect through culture or direct through the infamous gunboats of Britain, was, after all, the perfect manner in which to ensure sustenance of the capitalist economy of an industrial state. One might easily surmise that the dual ends of imperialism mentioned above - political control and economic exploitation - were not independently sought, as alluded to by Memmi. Rather, political control was only as useful as the economic advantage it secured and the economic ruin of Europe, and especially Britain, that it prevented. 24

Unsurprisingly, then, it took more than a century after the British began trading with

India, in 1601, but only years after the advent of the first phase of the Industrial Revolution, around mid- to late-eighteenth century, that the English "sought to establish its raj (rule) over

Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa [3 modern provinces] on as sound and permanent a basis as possible"

- the would-be jewel (Wolpert, 1997, p. 187). That raj lasted officially until 1947 when, under the vanguard of Mahatma Gandhi, India achieved formal independence on western terms (i.e., as a state with centralized power and western institutions). Around the same time, several "global" institutions, including the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development (now the

World Bank) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) were established mostly by the US and

European colonial powers. Ever since, these institutions serve as a means to "development." But just as independence, development is conceived of in Western terms. According to lecturer and social worker Jeremy Seabrook (2003)

The purpose of development appears to be the gradual inclusion of all peoples of the world into a single economic system. Globalization suggests exactly that. Yet there are hundreds of millions who have not fully joined the global market, or have done so only partially, or not at all. They are perceived as 'backward' or 'primitive'. It is the purpose of development to ensure they are coerced into the global market - or 'enjoy all the benefits of industrial society', whether they want them or not" (Seabrook, 2003, p. 44, emphasis added).

Seabrook's (2003) view of development is similar to Hobsbawm's description of Eastern nations being forced into commerce with the West. India was the first of the newly independent countries to obtain a loan from these institutions. This loan was granted in 1950, just two years after the General Agreement on Trades and Tariffs (GATT) was passed "with the long-term goal of steadily whittling down barriers to international trade" (Krishna, 2009, p. 33). Thus, independence was perhaps a mirage from the very start, because only years after India's independence as a political nation was secured, independence was threatened by financial institutions and, as in the case of the IMF loans secured in 1991, the adjustments to policy and government stipulated by the loans.

Through these institutions, the former colonial powers, the most formidable of which was arguably the U.S., were able to pursue the imperial policy of economic penetration toward the extraction of raw materials from the Global South and the opening up of markets therein - a continuation, in other words, of what had ostensibly ended (Seabrook, 2003). U.S. officials were and still are in influential positions in both of these institutions to forward imperial policies for corporate takeover (Petras &Veltemeyer, 2001). Moreover, as Seabrook (2003) notes, "the US holds 16.45 per cent of the votes at the World Bank and 17 per cent of those at the IMF. Since an

85-per-cent majority is required for the most important decisions, the US effectively has the power of veto" (Seabrook, 2003, p. 74). Presently, the U.S. holds 15.75% of the votes in the

World Bank and 16.17% in the IMF; still effectively veto power.

Such is the history and present context in which I write this thesis. It is the same context in which Anna Hazare, a 74-year-old political activist who went on a hunger strike for 12 days in

August 2011 to protest the corruption of the "kaaleangrez the "dark-skinned English." The

Indian "elite" are accused of white-collar crimes such as graft and suppressing protests.

Moreover, they represent what Patrick Bond (2000) has called "elite transition" - a simple transition of elite groups, which in the case of India meant a transition from Englishman to

Anglicized Indians who pursue profit through neo-liberal policies with as much zealotry as their

Anglo-American models. "What is the difference," Hazare (2011) asked rhetorically, "between

British autocracy and today's democracy?"

Hazare's has threatened the government with a "second freedom struggle," a comment 26 that highlights another of the many problems of modern India that, at least partially, find their origin in British Imperialism: the establishment of an elite mentions was created in some areas of

India "from scratch" (Easterly, 2006, p. 278).4 This elite group, in conjunction with the imperial powers, has continued the trend of degradation of traditional Indian life. I briefly discuss here two important problems which have resulted from British and American Imperialism and have been sustained by the "Uncle Toms" of India.

Take as one example, famine, and the manner in which a capitalist economy starves about a third of India's population despite its habiting fertile land. "While 65 million tons of grain rot in government storehouses," Shiva (2005) notes, "trade-liberalization rules ban the government from providing affordable food for its people, thus starving the population" (p. 85), a point that is perhaps most forcefully made by Patel (2007) in his book, Stuffed and Starved. In fact, the relation between capitalism and famine today is quite reminiscent of the early portion of

British rule in India, as this passage from Stanley Wolpert's (1997) book, A New History of

India:

By the end of 1769, when the monsoon rains failed, Bengal was left naked, stripped of its surplus wealth and grain. In the wake of British spoliation, famine struck and in 1770 alone took the lives of an estimated one-third of Bengal's peasantry. The company stored enough grain to feed its servants and soldiers, however, and merchant speculators made fortunes on the hunger and terror of less fortunate people, who bought handfuls of rice for treasures and were eventually driven to cannibalism (p. 188).

The second example is the poverty that is prevalent in India, once regarded to be one of the wealthiest countries in the world, and at one point wealthier than Great Britain. Davis (2001) asserts, "If the history of British rule in India were to be condensed into a single fact, it is this:

"The erection of an indigenous elite or support of an existing one is, in fact, a common colonial and imperial tactic (e.g.. Easterly, 2006). The potentially malefic consequences of this tactic found perhaps the most egregious expression in Rwanda, where the elite erected and supported by Germany and Belgium became the victims of genocide. And "uncle toms," in America and abroad, have figured in at least one speech by Malcolm X, in which he discusses the strategic value of having the elite "house negroes" manage the "field negroes." 27 there was no increase in India's per capita income from 1757 to 1947. Easterly (2006) corroborates this assertion: "Indian income per capita failed to rise from 1820 to 1870, grew at only 0.5 percent per annum from 1870 to 1913, then failed to grow again from 1913 to independence in 1947" (p. 279).

Poverty and famine are socio-economic issues that create the context within which this thesis is written. These and other socio-economic issues, which find their origin in colonial times, lead to socio-cultural issues. Here Shiva (2005) draws out the link between globalization and socio-cultural issues:

The culture of commodification has increased violence against women in so many forms, from the rise of domestic violence to the increase in rape; and from epidemics of female feticide to an increase in the trafficking of women. Globalization, which has its origins as patriarchal project, has thus reinforced patriarchal exclusions. Higher castes have ramped up atrocities against da!its ("untouchables") as a result of globalization conferring on these higher castes new power through integration into the global market place; these higher castes also want to usurp the resources of the poor and marginalized, especially dalits and tribals, for commercial exploitation" (p. 57).

On the Oppressive Relationship

In his work, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire (1970) analyzes the typical relationship between the oppressed and oppressor. Because my focus is on the victims of oppression, I will consider the consequences of this relationship on the oppressed. Concerning the oppressed, Freire mentions several psychological consequences. First and foremost among these is the internalization of the oppressor's social and psychological instruments of domination. According to Freire, members of the oppressed group unconsciously internalize an abstraction of the oppressor, becoming "hosts of their oppressor" (p. 48). In having to "host" an

"image" of the oppressor, the consciousness of the oppressed person becomes bifurcated; the oppressed person becomes "two-faced" and struggle ensues as he or she comes to identify with 28 both the parasitic image of the oppressor and her or his own authentic self. It seems to me that, for Freire, most if not all psychological consequences of the oppressive situation hinge on this type of internalization, which he considers to represent the "existential duality" of the oppressed.

In other words, the struggle for the oppressed is essentially existential, a struggle between being

"wholly" themselves or divided, between acting authentically or in bad faith.

It is important to note, especially given Freire's inclination toward Marxian theories, that he sees the existential duality discussed here as rooted in the concrete, real-world, oppressive situation in which material power is balanced in favour of the oppressors. In other words, not only is there a juxtaposition of the image of the oppressor and the authentic self of the oppressed, but there is a juxtaposition of two forces reflecting the difference in power or class — or from the

Marxian perspective, control over the means of production - between the two parties in the relationship.

In addition to internalizing the image of the oppressor, the oppressed also internalize two other elements emergent from the oppressive situation. The first is the opinion that the oppressor has of the oppressed, which is largely if not entirely negative. Freire believes that the internalization of this negative opinion results in self-deprecation and inferiority. The second element internalized is the oppressor's expectations concerning acceptable behaviour. These expectations can be described as behavioural scripts or, as Freire describes them, prescribed behaviour. Thus, one source of inauthentic behaviour is the internalization of prescribed behaviour.

Freire states that for those embedded within such an existential struggle, too often "to be is to be like and to be like is to be the oppressor" (p. 48). In other words, too often the oppressed person's "model of manhood" [sic] or "model of humanity" is found in the oppressor. More specifically, Freire is referring to the oppressed person's re-enactment of the oppressive behaviour they experience. Interpreted one way, this "imitation" reflects at least in part what

Freire (1970) seems to borrow from Fanon (1963), namely, the concept of horizontal violence.

This concept posits that one of the first natural responses of the oppressed person in a colonial situation is to react violently not to the oppressor but to members of the oppressed group. One's own people, then, become the targets of the fury of the oppressed, who under the weight of oppression is left "chafing" (p. 62).

Freire describes another psychological consequence. Wounded by the negative opinions of themselves as lazy and backward, and trapped in an existential struggle wherein the oppressed are incapable of behaving authentically, the oppressed fear the very freedom they seek. This fear either strengthens their identification with and emotional dependence on the oppressor, or it further entrenches them in "the role of oppressed." In a sense, the struggle between being wholly oneself or divided precludes authenticity in that the oppressed are wont to oscillate between two equally inauthentic alternatives as a result of fearing authenticity or the "autonomy and responsibility" it requires (p. 47).

Written from an early feminist perspective, Jean Baker Miller's (1976) book, Toward a

New Psychology of Women, provides another general analysis of the psychological consequences of the relationship between the oppressor and the oppressed, or, in her terms, the dominant and the subordinate. Many of Miller's insights complement those of Freire. For instance, like Freire

(1970), Miller (1976) holds that subordinates are made to feel inferior by those who are dominant and that this feeling engenders fatalism. After being told, taught, and made to feel they are inferior, "subordinates themselves can come to find it difficult to believe in their own ability" 30

(p. 7). Both authors regard imitation of the dominants/oppressors by the subordinates/oppressed as a likely consequence of an oppressive circumstance.

However, unlike Freire, Miller's (1976) focus seems more relation-centred as opposed to person-centred. Freire's (1970) descriptions of the oppressed-oppressor relationship seem to centre on the individual impact of the oppressive relationship, whereas Miller seems to focus on the relation itself as emergent from the two parties. Her perspective led to a standpoint and a series of feminist writings called "self-in-relation," as expressed in the book, Women's Growth in

Connection: Writings from the Stone Centre (Jordan, Kaplan, Miller, Stiver, & Surrey, 1991).

To elaborate further, Freire writes about how the oppressed person's imitation of the oppressor reflects the oppressed person's "model of manhood." That is, to be a "man" one must imitate "the man" - an individual - where the focal point is on an individual who has power.

Miller (1976) writes not about how subordinates are given a model of man- or woman-hood, but about how they are given a "model for 'normal human relationships,"' a term she uses with obvious irony (p. 8). In other words, to be part of the dominant group one must be engaged in, and be on the dominant side of, a "normal" (i.e., an oppressive) human relationship. "It then becomes 'normal' to treat others destructively and to derogate them, to obscure the truth of what you are doing, by creating false explanations, and to oppose actions toward equality" (p. 8).

Of course, it would be simplistic to consider the two as anything other than inextricably linked. One's "model of manhood" is likely to forge one's "model for normal human relationships." Vice versa, "normal" human relationships are likely to inform one's model of self. I believe this link is exactly Miller's point. It is also an elaboration of what I believe Freire is arguing when he discusses prescription and the existential nature of oppressive struggles. That 31 is, apart from the negative images constructed and offered up to the subordinates regarding themselves, from the very nature of the relationship as dynamic or dialectical for Freire, "it follows that subordinates are described in terms of, and encouraged to develop, personal psychological characteristics that are pleasing to the dominant group. To the same effect, Fanon

(1952) lamented in Black Skin; White Masks, "For not only must the black man be black; he must be black in relation to the white man" (p. 90, emphasis added).

Thus, to some extent, for Freire, imitation occurs at the level of the individual. The individual oppressor is imitated. For Miller and for Fanon, imitation occurs at the level of the relationship. The oppressed is not imitated but accommodated through the mimicking of

"normal" human relationships. Yet all three authors agree that the oppressed person, as an individual or as one of two members engaged in a dialectical struggle, is defined in terms of the oppressor.

Perhaps it is this relational component of oppression that underlies another psychological consequence identified by Miller. To her, the subordinates know less about themselves than they know about the dominants. She writes, "If a large part of your fate depends on accommodating to and pleasing the dominants, you concentrate on them. Indeed, there is little purpose in knowing yourself' (Miller, 1976, pp. 10-11).5 This time around I believe that Freire's analysis deepens

Miller's point about self-knowledge. Specifically, a person who cannot be "wholly" oneself, who cannot behave authentically because he or she is preoccupied with existing for another person, cannot have self-knowledge. Indeed, there might be very little to know.

51 am reminded of my perception of many Indians who seem to know much more about western culture than they know about Indian culture. In fact, to some extent, some take pride in this fact. Ten years ago when I began my journey into Hindu thought by asking my father to bring back Vedic literature from India, my cousins were astonished at the idea that I would want to learn about Indian culture; I perceived their astonishment to signal their belief in the vacuity of ancient Indian thought in relation to Western thought or science To summarize the consequences of the oppressive relationship on the oppressed, they internalize an image of the oppressor; imitate the oppressors at the individual and relational levels; are made to feel, or do feel, inferior to the oppressors; are afflicted with a feeling of fatalism; are considered "inauthentic" from an existential perspective; and know less about themselves than they know of the oppressors. As we will see, many of these phenomena and experiences are described by post-colonial writers.

On Colonial Oppression

In a passionately written book on colonialism, Aime Cesaire (1913 - 2008) construed the colonial situation as one (or possibly the only) expression of a clash between "civilizations Like

Freire and Miller though preceding them in time, Cesaire (1955) saw the oppressive relationship of the colonial situation to be equally dehumanizing to both parties: "First we must study how colonization works to decivilize the colonizer, to brutalize him in the true sense of the word, to degrade him, to awaken him to buried instincts, to covetousness, violence, race hatred, and moral relativism" (p. 13, author's emphasis). On the other hand, what he considers to be unequal is, not surprisingly, the direction of influence between civilizations (e.g., trafficking of ideas, religion, culture, social structures, and, as mentioned above, understanding of the "other"). It is through this perspective on Western culture that Cesaire discusses some negative psychological and social impacts on the colonized. Inherent in his treatment of the colonial situation is a scathing critique of Western civilization and vehement defence of what he called "ante-capitalist and anti- capitalist" civilization. Thus, the system or spirit of capitalism (Weber, 2002) is identified as one of two primary elements of Western civilization to have had a negative social impact on Eastern cultures. For Cesaire, the mode of social organization characteristic of capitalist societies - bourgeoisie and the proletariat - and the fundamental tensions of capitalist social organization 33 were supplanted on top of ante-capitalist, non-Western civilizations, such as the originally

"communal," "fraternal," "cooperative," and "courteous" civilizations of Africa (p. 11).6

The second major element of Western civilization that had a negative social impact on

Eastern societies was Christianity, or what is more fairly described as the evangelical7 spirit of some sects of Christianity. My use of the term evangelical here refers to proselytization and conversion. Cesaire's point is shared by Fanon (1963), who quite passionately exclaimed that,

"The Church in the colonies ... does not call the colonized to the ways of God, but to the ways of the white man, to the ways of the master, the ways of the oppressor (p. 7)." Even Gandhi (1957), who for most of his life exemplified religious tolerance, confessed that at times he disliked

Christianity. Later on he was reputed to have modified this statement in characteristic Gandhian fashion - softly but sharply: "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

The imposition of these two ideologies constitutes, for the most part, what Cesaire considers colonization, which he says equals "thingification" of the colonized individual and society. Though he does not define this neologism, it seems from the standpoint of capital to refer to the commodification of labour, people, resources, and land, while from the standpoint of evangelizing Christianity, thingification might refer to the construction of Eastern people as savage heathens. From both the capitalist and evangelizing-Christian perspectives, thingification is a "dehumanizing" process and mutually reinforcing (p. 12). Thus, politics and empire are infused with divine justification. Unfortunately, Cesaire only briefly links "thingification" to any

6 Although out of the scope of this thesis, it is important to note that capitalist social organization supplanted, at least in theory, traditional Hindu social organization or what is today known in its distorted form as the caste system. 71 recognise that the word "evangelical" has several meanings. I use it here in the sense of a marked zeal for the religious conversion of members of non-Christian faiths and traditions to a particular Christian faith. 34 psychological impacts: "I am talking about millions of men in whom fear has been cunningly instilled, who have been taught to have an inferiority complex, to tremble, kneel, despair, and behave like flunkeys" (p. 22).

Much like his teacher Cesaire, Franz Fanon (1925 - 1961) shared the view that the colonized were taught to have an inferiority complex. Unlike his teacher, however, Fanon (1963)

o seems to have thought that such "teaching," was largely unsuccessful: "[The colonized] are dominated but not domesticated. He is made to feel inferior, but by no means convinced of his inferiority. He patiently waits for the colonist to let his guard down and then jumps on him" (p.

16). Colonization (and presumably imperialism), for Fanon, begins first and foremost with a violent act; and this violent act begets an equal and opposing reaction from the colonized, a reaction necessary for liberation. However, the situation of the colonized is such that they cannot strike back without risking death, and a violent retaliation must be suppressed.9 It is this suppressed violence, "aggressiveness sedimented in [the] muscles," which results in what Fanon calls muscular tension in the colonized (p. 15). "The colonist," Fanon says, "keeps the colonized in a state of rage, which he prevents from boiling over" (p. 17).

It is precisely this militancy or violence which pervades, according to my reading,

Fanon's discussion of the psychological and social consequences of colonialism or imperialism.

Interestingly, he discusses those impacts according to their differential influence on the strata of capitalist society. In other words, the proletariat, or to use Fanon's word, the masses, experiences

8 However, he seems to have changed his position over the course of his career. In Black Skin; White Masks, for instance, he speaks of inferiority as a given, while in The Wretched of the Earth he writes as if inferiority is attempted but not accomplished. Two historical facts might explain this difference. First, he is reputed to have written the former in France and the latter in Algeria. Second, the latter was written during the height of the Algerian Independence struggle, and published, posthumously, only 1 year before official independence in 1962. 9 Violence is suppressed, but the inevitable path to liberation for Fanon is through violence: "[T]he great showdown cannot be postponed indefinitely" (p. 17). colonial rule differently than the "nationalist bourgeoisie." By the time his book, The Wretched of the Earth, was published, that nationalist bourgeoisie in many cases had shown its relative opposition to the colonized and imperialized proletarian masses: "Spoiled children of yesterday's colonialism and today's governing powers, they oversee the looting of the few national resources" (p. 12).

Relatively speaking, Fanon perceives the proletariat as dominated but not domesticated and unconvinced of their inferiority. The proletariat, he claims, are "impervious" to issues stemming from the contestation of colonized and colonizer in the domains of "culture, values, technology, etc," a contestation which is taken up with zeal by the colonized bourgeoisie - an implied weakness. On the other hand, "for a [majority of] colonized people," he states, "the most essential value...is first and foremost the land" (p. 9). But the land is guarded by the colonizer through violence or the threat of it with "the help of his agents of law and order." (p. 6).

Fanon identifies three social-psychological responses to this situation in which the colonized masses are kept in check vis-a-vis violence. One of those psychological consequences is a kind of fatalistic submission, and complements the task of these agents of law and order, in effect, making their task easier. Unlike Freire who also observed fatalism, Fanon makes clear the role of what might be called imposed culture or symbolic violence in order to inculcate in the colonized one such mood (Jenkins, 1992). Furthermore, unlike the other writers I review, Fanon seems to have concentrated more on the emotional impact of colonization on the mass. In conjunction with the aggressiveness mentioned earlier, this emphasis on mood or "affectivity" connotes an intense visceral reaction. For the average colonized subject, whose "affectivity is kept on edge like a running sore flinching from a caustic agent" (Fanon, 1963, p. 19), the colonized world is marked by confusion, fear, and uncertainty. This unbearable weight in combination with muscular tension leads to the second social-psychological response, hysteria, which according to Fanon appears to be a release of a wounded affectivity and muscular tension in the form of muscle spasms.

The third and perhaps most interesting consequence might be termed "mythification."

According to Fanon, in order to deal with internalized aggression, which needs an outlet, some of the colonized resort to "terrifying myths that are so prolific in underdeveloped societies as inhibitions for [their] aggressiveness" (p. 18). All of a sudden, the colonial world, its symbols of violence and oppression, and the actual colonists themselves are of no consequence: "Zombies, believe me, are more terrifying than colonists" (p. 19). Thus, an accidental function of superstition is to diminish the power of the colonists, whose power of violence pales in comparison to supernatural forces beyond anyone's control.

One of Fanon's insights I find to be particularly relevant for the Indian experience. The traditional flexibility, multiplicity, and de-centralized anarchic structure of Hindu spiritual and religious beliefs leave considerable room for Indians to interpret or revise those beliefs, which from a methodological point of view might be considered a form of constructivism. On the other hand, these characteristics leave room for more sinister or misguided members of an oppressive society to revise those beliefs. One particularly pervasive belief is the law of karma, which I use here in the manner commonly known in the Western world, although I am not an expert in the

"history" of Hindu thought and spirituality.10 A popular explanation for the plight of the poor in

India, one which is seemingly adopted by both poor and rich alike, is that their present reality is dictated by karma from past lives. In other words, the poor are poor and the rich are rich because

10 Sharma (2003) has called into question the notion of a history of Hinduism. Therefore, I use the quotation marks to caution that no such history might exist. Instead, Hindus might have a different mode of constructing the past such as the epics. 37 of the accumulation of bad deeds in past lives - your poverty tells us that your soul is beyond salvation. Thus, the essential message of this particular understanding of karma, that the poor and rich deserve their fates because of some supernatural and tacitly immutable law or force, is not unlike the concept of "election" in Protestant sects of Christianity which Weber discussed.

Although this understanding of karma is grossly simplified, its simplification suggests that a relatively complex philosophical belief, somewhere in time, has been transmuted and appointed as guardian of the imperialist status quo in order to foster fatalism among Indians. For instance, poverty understood in modern capitalist terms did not exist prior to the British, and in fact, relatively speaking, there is evidence to suggest that prior to contact, India was "wealthier" than Europe (e.g., Davis, 2001). Did this bastardized version of karma gain currency to inhibit

Indians' inevitable confrontation with a more violent nation draining its natural wealth?

Furthermore, how did karma come to denote material or even monetary wealth as opposed to spiritual?

In contrast to the emotional and physical reactions experienced by the colonized masses,

Fanon seems to perceive the upper strata of the colonized as reacting mentally to the colonial situation. But unlike the militancy and inherent aggressiveness of the mass, which might result in fatalism, members of the upper strata are far more accepting of colonized culture and their newly polished role as "colonized bourgeoisie" or "colonized intellectual

Another major difference between the manner in which the colonized bourgeoisie and the colonized masses experience or react to the colonial or imperial situation is that violence is not the solution to decolonization for the bourgeoisie. "The rotting cadaver of the colonist" is not emblematic of successful decolonization. The colonized bourgeoisie "introduce a new notion, in 38 actual fact a creation of the colonial situation: nonviolence" (Fanon, 1963, p. 23). At best, the threat of violence is used strategically, but violence or mass mobilization never actually occurs.

Fanon seems to indicate that the reason for non-violence and the less harsh, long-term solutions sought by the colonized bourgeoisie stem from their economic interest, sustained by the colonist.

The masses, having nothing to lose, are not provoked to consider an alternative to the violence that seems natural.

Fanon's comments on violence and non-violence are relevant to my thesis. Before

Independence, several Marxist writers from India expressed similar if not identical views about the bourgeoisie, as well as the notion that non-violence was a sign of bourgeoisie cowardice and complicity. M.N. Roy (1929), for instance, stated that "Imperialism recognizes its most dangerous and determined enemy in the working class. Its tactics in the present situation...are to point out to the [colonized] bourgeoisie the dangerousness of the situation, and asks their co­ operation in meeting the common danger" (p. 163). Like Fanon, Roy considered the bourgeoisie of India to be a counter-revolutionary force leaning toward reformist measures, which were usually inadequate to significantly impact the plight of the proletarian mass, as they are today.

The bourgeoisie, who included Jawaharlal Nehru, was lacked the capacity for revolution

(Roy, 1923). Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi (1907-1966) wrote a rather detailed and scathing critique of Nehru's book, The Discovery of India, which Nehru had written while in jail and published a year before formal Independence. Kosambi asserted that a class analysis was completely absent from Nehru's book. Even Gandhi, who one might say was protected by a veneer of religiosity, did not enjoy impunity from his contemporary activists (e.g., Saklatvala,

1930, Singh, 1931). The third and final post-colonial writer in question here, Albert Memmi (1920 -), spoke of "portraits." Memmi (1965) immediately acknowledges the similarity between capitalist and colonial society (like both Fanon and Cesaire) by remarking upon the fact that a "mythical" portrait of the colonized is "proposed" by the colonizer, just as one such portrait of the proletariat is proposed by the bourgeoisie. In both cases the portraits are not speculative, but "definitive" yet never complete, for the very portrait of the colonized or the proletariat is painted in such a way as to belie the existence of another, "complimentary" portrait, that of the colonizer or bourgeoisie. In other words, the image that is proposed or constructed of the colonized11 is intended to justify colonization - a literary and cultural analogy to the relationship in which one must be "black in relation to the white man" (Fanon, p. 90). For instance: "Whenever the colonizer states, in his language, that the colonized is a weakling, he suggests thereby that this deficiency requires protection" (Memmi, 1965, p. 82, emphasis added). And of course that protection is offered by the colonizer.

Moreover, the colonized person has innumerable sets of opposites, and thus incompatible traits, a phenomenon which he sees as a function of the economic needs of the colonizer. In other words, the colonizer paints the portrait of the colonized in whatever colours he or she must in order to justify economic exploitation, and these colours might change according to these needs.

Apart from this psychological impact, Memmi commented largely on sociological impacts on the colonized. Like Fanon and some Indians with Marxist leanings, such as M.N. Roy and Bhagat Singh, Memmi also commented on the place of violence in colonized culture.

Though he made little mention of the interaction between violence and class like Fanon and Roy,

11 Lazy, backward, stupid, dirty, emotional, or according to Baker-Miller, submissive, passive, docile, dependent, lacking initiative, unable to act, to decide, to think, (p. 7). 40

Memmi does write about the impact of the colonizer culture on the delegitimization of violence in colonized societies. "The lack of implements of war appears proportional to the size of the colonialist forces (p. 138)," which I interpret to mean the colonizing culture conditions the colonized to accept non-violence and inaction.

According to Ashis Nandy's model of colonialism, the cultural priorities in the colonized culture change upon contact. It is possible to interpret what Memmi wrote about the delegitimization of violence in colonial society as a re-arrangement of one cultural facet: violence. So, in addition to conditioning there is also an attempt at the sociological level to re­ arrange, intentionally or not, the function of violence as important to unimportant. We might also interpret non-violent movements in India and the U.S. as a function of this type of colonial re­ arrangement. In other words, non-violence gained currency not because it is morally superior in the eyes of the colonized; rather, it did so because in the eyes of the colonizer non-violence prevents or at least delays any violent revolution of which they would be the primary victims.

Moreover, if we were to consider the impact of class, and in particular what Fanon and Roy have written of class, then the colonized bourgeoisie may be one channel of re-arranging cultural priorities. Baker-Miller mentions this power to change what is and is not acceptable on the part of the dominants, which, in this case is the place, function, and morality of violence.

Another of the sociological impacts is what Memmi has called the "calcification" of colonized society. In other words, he contends that pre-colonial societies have ways of dealing with change, as part of natural growth and development. A society might change or adapt to naturally occurring circumstances - perhaps vis-a-vis violence — because it has the natural tendency to do so; similarly, members of that very society and their interactions might change, according to which social structures, institutions, attitudes, etc, would themselves change. A 41 negative impact of colonization is that it kills this living quality, stunting the society's growth and development. Regarding this point Memmi states:

Colonized society is a diseased society in which internal dynamics no longer succeed in creating new structures. Its century hardened face has become nothing more than a mask under which it slowly smothers and dies. Such a society cannot dissolve the conflicts of generations, for it is unable to be transformed (p. 99)

On the Imperial Oppression of Hindus

On my reading, considerably fewer authors devote themselves to the impact of imperialism on India and even fewer who write about the psychological impact of imperialism.

The only book concerning the psychological impacts of British colonialism on India of which I am aware is Ashis Nandy's (1983) The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under

Colonialism. Relying on his theory of colonialism mentioned above, Nandy discusses the re­ arrangement of "cultural priorities" in the domains of gender and age in the Hindu context.

According to Nandy, each of these domains was used as a "homologue" for politics; in other words, the way in which British culture privileged certain gender-identities and age-groups at the time served as legitimate models for politics and colonialism and, in general, for "political inequality and injustice" (p. 52). The ideologies of gender and adulthood are the two socio- psychological impacts of British imperialism on Hindus, according to Nandy.

The ideology of gender. For Nandy, two major changes in the domain of gender occurred as a result of imperialism. The first concerns the re-definition of the male and female genders. Many of the qualities that we typically ascribe to the male gender in the Anglo-

American, if you will, were associated with the female gender in pre-Imperial India. For instance, "aggression, achievement, control, competition and power," all of which are today 42 regarded as quintessentially masculine, traditionally were "associated with femininity in India"

(P- 9).

While the first change in the domain of gender concerns the re-definition of the male and female genders, the second change concerns the exclusion of the "third" gender or androgyny.

Thus, Nandy analyzes the re-construction of psychological androgyny as pathology, particularly in men. Traditionally, androgyny, or what some consider the "third sex," was viewed positively by Hindus. In contrast, in English and U.S. societies androgyny was not viewed positively, least of all in men. Still to this day, male-to-female transpersons experience greater discrimination in

U.S. society than female-to-male transpersons, which shows how U.S. culture presents male androgyny as pathology (Serano, 2007). Historically, this Anglo-American cultural attitude clashed with the pre-Imperial view of androgyny in Hindu society. And because disproportionate cultural influence is definitive of imperialism, the Anglo-American attitude toward androgyny became pre-eminent. The result, Nandy writes, was a change in how Hindus viewed and reacted to psychological androgyny, again, particularly in men.

Consequently, Hindu civilization's pre-imperial comfort with androgynous men was challenged, if not, abolished, particularly in the political realm. Androgyny in men, or

"femininity-in-masculinity," Nandy (1983) writes, "was the final negation of a man's political identity, a pathology more dangerous than femininity itself' (p. 8). The negation of androgyny in men resulted in several outcomes, including a legitimization for colonial exploitation in the eyes of the colonizer and colonized. In Nandy's (1983) words, the homology between gender and politics is evident:

[T]he denial of psychological bisexuality in men in large areas of Western culture, beautifully legitimized Europe's post-medieval models of dominance, exploitation and cruelty as natural and valid. Colonialism, too, was congruent with the existing Western sexual stereotypes and the philosophy of life which they represented. It produced a cultural consensus in which political and socio-economic dominance symbolized the dominance of men and masculinity over women and femininity (p. 4)

This statement augments [or "complements"] feminist critiques of colonialism and imperialism as inherently patriarchal and sexist (e.g., Moane, 1994). For not only is it undesirable to be female, but it is undesirable to be "feminine," even if, or rather in the Indian case, especially if, one is male-bodied. Moreover, if pre-Imperial femininity was different from post-Imperial femininity in terms of the typical traits associated with that gender, then not only is femininity a mark of inferiority, but it was constructed to be so. In other words, all of the traits that are considered units of social capital such as "aggression, achievement" etc., were dissociated from the female sex and gender and affixed to the male sex and gender. Femininity in

India, in this light, becomes the dark closet in which we keep what others should not see - sensitivity, passivity, nurturance, etc. - lest one forfeit social and political legitimacy.

Another outcome of the negation of androgyny in men is the manner in which resistance to imperialism was conceived. That is, the actions of many famous Indian "freedom fighters" since the advent of British imperialism served to validate the imperial system by conceiving of resistance as "masculine," or rather, by conceiving of it according to the English construction of masculinity. Again, "aggression, achievement, control, competition and power," and by extension violence, came to typify resistance. The major problem with this construction of resistance is that defeat — either real or prospective - lends second-order validation to the imperial system, which is, and was in India's case, predicated on a pathological masculinity and violence. In other words, if resistance is conceived in tune with the imperial system, then the 44 colonized come to interpret "[imperial domination as] a product of one's own emasculation and defeat in legitimate power politics" (Nandy, 1983, p. 10).

As a result, in explaining why many independence movements before Gandhi failed one factor might be this very process whereby legitimacy was given to the colonial system by defining resistance and nationalism in terms of that very colonial system. According to Nandy,

Gandhi was successful partly because he re-asserted androgyny in men, which he "borrowed intact from the great and little traditions of saintliness in India, and also probably from the doctrine of power through divine bi-unity," present in some sects of Hinduism (Nandy, 1983, p. 12). In other words, Gandhi defined Hindu resistance to imperialism using a Hindu frame of 10 • reference. According to these ancient traditions, masculinity and femininity, or in the Sanskrit, purusatva and naaritva, are "equal" and constitute a dichotomy. However, the ability to transcend this dichotomy is considered to be a mark of divinity, presumably in both men and women. In other words, androgyny, which in the Sanskrit is kaapurusatva, is superior to both purusatva (masculinity) and naaritva (femininity).

The reason, then, for Gandhi's success, and the truly subversive nature of androgyny in men, is that his was an authentically conceived movement. As such, his movement ceased to offer second-order validation to the principles of the colonizing culture (i.e., pathological masculinity and violence) by avoiding the role of a "counterplayer" within the colonial ideology.

Nandy (1983) explains:

12 Of course, I do not mean to deny the influence of Tolstoy or Thoureau on Gandhi, but to assert the existence of non-violence in Hindu, or rather Dharmic, teachings and history, which includes, to name the larger belief systems, Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, and Sikhism; as well as the existence of androgyny in men. Gandhi refused to play the role of the oppressed Indian. 45

When such [an imperial] cultural consensus [in which 'might is right'] grows, the main threat to the colonizers is bound to become the latent fear that the colonized will reject the consensus and, instead of trying to redeem their 'masculinity' by becoming the counterplayers of the rulers according to the established rules, will discover an alternative frame of reference within which the oppressed do not seem weak, degraded and distorted men trying to break the monopoly of the rulers on a fixed quantity of machismo. If this happens, the colonizers begin to live with the fear that the subjects might begin to see the rulers as morally and culturally inferior, and feed this information back to the rulers, (p. 11)

From a Nandian perspective it is possible to critique the positions of Fanon, Memmi, and

Indians such as M.N. Roy on violence. All condoned violence to some extent, while Fanon and

Roy implicitly called into question the moral value of non-violence. What is problematic about their position is that their condoning violence to some extent provides second-order legitimacy to the colonial system they abhorred. Because violence was one of the main handmaidens of imperialism, one could argue that a revolutionary movement would have to be non-violent; otherwise any such movement would lose credibility by teaching members to become

"counterplayers," and any loss in a violent struggle would further legitimize, even consolidate imperial violence.

The final outcome of the negation of androgyny in men that I will mention here concerns the reinterpretation of the epic tales {Ramayana and Mahabharata) and the reconstruction of the divine figures therein. If the first two outcomes reflect an attempt at changing Hindu attitudes toward gender, then the final outcome reflects one method through which those changes were achieved, namely, culture. The re-telling of both epics reflects Edward Said's (1994) thesis in

Culture and Imperialism, according to which struggles between oppressors and the oppressed occur within culture. In other words, culture — which Said defines as including "stories" or narratives - is "a sort of theater where various political and ideological causes engage one another...[causes which were] reflected, contested, and even for a time decided in narrative" (p. xxxi).

In Hindu culture the Ramayana dates back 2500 years according to Western calculations, but most Hindus I know consider it to be an account of events having taken place 10,000 years ago. More important than a date, however, is the manner in which Hindu culture and particularly the two main antagonists and one sole protagonist, all male, are represented. The two main heroes, especially Rama and to a lesser extent Laskhmana, are considered divine incarnations.

For all his equanimity, selflessness, poise, and piety, Rama is also widely regarded as the ideal man. The qualities associated with Rama and which make him exemplary - qualities on which I elaborate below - are, in short, those one might expect of a highly moral but certainly not unflawed human being. In contrast, the main antagonist, Ravana, is considered materialistic, covetous, sensuous, selfish, in short, a rakshasa, which is a Sanskrit word associated with the

"demonic."

As Nandy (1983) notes, "the raksasas represented a demonic version of masculinity"... but "[w]hat was recessive in fetters in traditional Indian masculinity was now made salient" (p.

21); in other words, British imperial culture served as a catalyst for a topsy-turvy retelling of the epic and exemplified the new-found exaltation of British masculinity among Indian men.

Accordingly, the exemplars of traditional Indian masculinity, Rama and Lakshmana, instead of being perceived as sacred, godlike figures who represented "a mix of the good and the bad, the courageous and the cowardly, the male and the female," were now "weak-kneed, passive- aggressive, feminine villains...effeminate, ineffective pseudo-ascetics, who were austere not by choice but because they were weak" (Nandy, 1983, p. 19-20). Ravana and his "commitments to secular, possessive this-worldliness and his consumer's lust for life" are thus exalted and his 47 defeat in the epic by Rama and Lakshmana is considered tragic. The intersection between gender on the one hand, and industry and economy on the other, comes to light here when Nandy sets in opposition Rama and Laksmana's ascetic tendencies against Ravana's material tendencies.

Consumption and this-worldliness become associated with masculinity. Inasmuch as masculinity is the most important criterion in determining one's suitability for politics (i.e., self-governance), consumption and this-worldliness by inference are also important criteria in determining one's suitability for politics. Consequently, asceticism, of high value to Hindus, or what one might consider to be sustainability in the modern industrial vernacular, is discredited.

The ideology of adulthood. The imperialist reinterpretation of the other epic, the

Mahabharata, brings us to the domain of age. Another "reformer" of Hinduism sought to redefine the character traits of the epic's deity and main hero: the deity Vishnu, who comes to

Earth in times of moral decay, as Krishna. This retelling of the Mahabharata and redefinition of

Krishna, according to Nandy, repositioned a narrowly defined "adulthood" as representing the pinnacle in individual development. Any qualities associated with either childhood and old age according to the imperial culture at the time were regarded as representing underdeveloped and/or degenerate states in human development. Consequently, individuals too young or too old were unfit for politics or governance and would presumably require an overlord.

As with gender, the point Nandy tries to make is that there exists a homology between politics and the social world, on the one hand, and age on the other. The common schema between the two is what Nandy refers to as the theory of progress - the notion, prevalent in modern European society that as time passes, civilization undergoes a process of gradual advancement. According to Nandy (1987), traces of the theory of progress are visible in the way in which European civilization, exemplified by such prominent British figures as James Mill, Cecil Rhodes, and Rudyard Kipling, conceived of age as well as, according to my interpretation, race. The spectrum of age was divided into two categories, child and adult. Similarly, the spectrum of race or civilization was also divided into two categories. The one in which India and other "savage" societies fell was considered "backward," while European civilization was considered "advanced." Thus, the relationship between the newly constructed adult and child preceded and justified the relationship between backward and advanced societies, despite the fact that the former was in many cases older and one of the progenitors of important elements of world culture (e.g., mathematics).

It is within this context that Nandy feels that images of an androgynous Christ begin to become less prominent. Likewise, deviating from Hindu tradition, "[Chatteiji's] Krsna was not the soft, childlike, self-contradictory, sometimes immoral being - a god who could blend with the everyday life of his humble devotees and who was only occasionally a successful, activist, productive and chastising god operating in the company of the great" (p. 23). Moreover,

Chatterji "did not adore" nor did he wish to preserve the depiction of "Krsna as a child-god or as a playful — sometimes sexually playful - adolescent who was simultaneously an androgynous, philosophically sensitive, practical idealist" (p. 23). Rather, in line with the imperial culture and with the Judeo-Christian god as a model, Chatterji sought to make Krsna "a respectable, righteous, didactic, 'hard' god," who safeguarded "the glories of Hinduism as a proper religion and [preserved] it as an internally consistent moral and cultured system" (p. 23-24). In effect,

Chatterji sought to save himself and others from shame, it would seem, by turning Krsna into "a normal, non-pagan male god who would not humiliate his devotees in front of the progressive

Westerners." (p. 24). 49

Just as a narrowly defined masculinity became the necessary attribute for a political leader, so too did a narrowly defined adulthood. Just as the multiple varieties of sexuality were excluded from politics, so too were the multiple varieties of age, most especially childhood. It would seem that a relational dynamic with existential undertones from which one must endeavour to be free, is present in Nandy's writing. In other words, like Freire's oppressor, the

English proposed, quite literally, a model of Indian manhood and adulthood that eventually convinced generations of Indian men to ignore the lessons of their own culture in favour of a pathological masculinity and a serious, non-playful, "productive" adulthood. Deviations from normative adult behaviour so conceived are branded "childish," to paraphrase Nandy.

Arguably, the portrait of the Indian man proposed by the English was more insidious than that described by Freire or Memmi. In the case of India, such a portrait was constructed "with the help of existing cultural imagery and myth" (p. 21). All one needed to do to find cultural sanction for hypermasculinity or for the ideology of adulthood was to re-tell a story using existing heroes.

Attempts to provide cultural justification for otherwise foreign ideologies occurred in at least one other way. The varanaashrama or caste system includes a "martial" caste, the kshatriiya, who are those responsible for several political functions, including warfare. Contact with imperial Britain's ideology of gender - of manliness - served as a catalyst to transform the kshatriiya from "second" in the caste hierarchy to representing the essence of Indianness. "To beat the colonizers at their own game and to regain self-esteem as Indians and as Hindus,"

Nandy (1983) writes, "many sensitive minds in India...sought a hyper-masculinity or hyper- kshatriiyahood that would make sense to their fellow-countrymen...and to the colonizers" (p.

52). I attempted two things with this literature review. First, I provided a historical review in which I attempted to justify my use of the term Anglo-American. Second, having reviewed writers in the fields of critical pedagogy, feminism, post-colonialism, and post-colonialism of

India, I attempted to draw out some of the contours of the oppressive relationship, as well as the ways in which such a relationship impacts the oppressed in psychological and cultural ways.

These two sections of my literature are intended to provide the backdrop against which I ask my two research questions. 51

Method

The two research questions I attempted to answer were (1) how do South Asian Hindus perceive British imperialism and globalization to be similar, and (2) how do South Asian Hindus perceive the psychological and social impacts of imperialism on them and other Hindus. In this chapter I outline components of the research, including but not limited to the design, research paradigm, as well as the method I used to answer those research questions. I also discuss the participants and provide short participant biographies.

Critical Research Paradigm

It may already be evident from the general assumptions above that my belief in distinguishing and capturing negative impacts of imperialism resonates with the critical theory research paradigm (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994). Initially, I was not inclined to select an overarching paradigm, because I assumed there was a small chance that I would identify with both the epistemological and ontological stances of any one paradigm, which is ironically what happened.

According to the critical theory paradigm, one's ontological viewpoint - or rather, one's beliefs about the nature of reality and whether or not that reality is given to apprehension by humans - is described as "historical realism." Historical realism posits that what people experience as "real" is a function of two things: history and context. In other words, what we experience as real follows from a "congeries of social, political, cultural, economic, ethnic, and gender factors" that, having been relatively malleable the further we go back in time, is today

"crystallized (reified) vis-a-vis time into a series of structures that are now (inappropriately) taken as 'real,' that is, natural and immutable" (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994, p. 110). 52

According to the same paradigm, one's epistemological viewpoint - or rather, the relationship of the "knower" and the "known" - is described by Denzin and Lincoln (1994) as

"transactional and subjectivist" (p. 110). In other words, unlike the epistemological stance of the positivist paradigm according to which the researcher engages in value-free, detached inquiry, and is assumed not to yield influence on that which is known, the critical theory paradigm does not include a divide between the knower and known. Rather, the knower - in this case, I and my participants - engage in value-mediated inquiry; our values inevitably influence what we discover about, in this case, the impact of imperialism on ourselves.

General Assumptions. The first assumption I have is that the impact of imperialism on

South Asian Hindus, as diverse a group as they are, is largely negative. The second assumption is that these negative impacts are possible to distinguish and capture from participants' responses and by participants themselves. Of course, some people may be more adept at articulating their experiences and making logical connections between the imperial past and present experiences, while others may not be aware of such connections at all. There also might be a contingent of

Indians who do not see anything wrong with imperialism or globalization. A third major assumption I have is that any negative element can be reduced or reversed. I believe that people can be made aware of their sense of inferiority or their biases toward Euro-American culture and thereby effect change in their perception and understanding of the world around them. This third assumption is consonant with Freirean pedagogy and liberation psychology (e.g., Baro, 1994)

Research Design

Given my epistemological and ontological assumptions, I chose a qualitative method.

Originally, I combined two methods. The first was the interview method, while the second was a focus group, with which I intended to engage Indo-Canadian communities on a collective level 53 in discussion founded upon the preliminary findings from the interviews. Having the two methods would have worked well together. The interview would have allowed my participants to discuss the subject matter in confidence, but the focus group would have allowed my participants to engage each other in collective discussion. Furthermore, having two methods would have brought my study closer to the "ideal" of triangulation (Patton, 2002, p. 247).

Unfortunately, however, time made it difficult for me to employ the second method.

South Asian community organizations that offered to host or help with the focus group found it difficult to gather sufficient members for a discussion within the timeline of a Master's thesis. I intend and hope to further pursue a focus group outside the confines of a thesis. Thus, the interview is the sole method I use to answer my research questions.

Apart from epistemological and ontological grounds to select a qualitative method, however, there are two other reasons I use a qualitative method. First, I felt that a quantitative method would limit the depth of each person's perspective and experience, which I feel to be particularly important for answering the research questions. Second, quantitative methods, such as surveys, are more likely to be culturally awkward than a conversation, especially among members from an oral culture.

Interview Method I used the interview-guide approach as outlined by Patton (2002) to interview all of my participants. The initial guide was informed by literature review and my own personal experience as a South Asian Hindu (see Appendix A). My approach to interviewing was informed by

Dilley's (2002) four tips from journalism for academic inquiry. These four tips are: (1) familiarising oneself with background information; (2) analysing past interviews to learn how to conduct successful interviews; (3) creating and revising interview protocols or guides; and (4) practising self-reflexive interviewing. In one instance, a participant took my invitation and provided feedback on the interview guide, which I incorporated and which helped inform my approach to the subsequent interviews. Each interview occurred at a venue chosen by the participant, which meant at times that I would travel to their homes or places of work. All participants agreed to having the interview recorded using a digital recorder.

Admittedly, the interviews turned out to be less structured than defined by Patton (2002) as "the general interview guide approach" (p. 342). During the interviews, which were more like dialogues or conversations, it became clear to me that each participant responded uniquely to me, the questions, and to being part of an interview. Some participants had much to say right away, while others were slower. Some wished to speak about one or two topics, while others touched on many topics. Some spoke only about British imperialism, while others effortlessly moved from British imperialism to globalization and back again (sometimes without my having noticed until much later in the analysis). There were those who did the bulk of the talking, while there were others with whom I had a dialogical style of interviewing. As a result of these singularities, not all of the participants were asked all the questions nor were they asked the questions in the same order. In other words, time and my choice to adapt to my perception of each participant's preferences prevented me from asking all of the questions. In the end, it is apparent, to me at least, that I chose to make the interactions between me and the participants as natural as possible.

During data collection, I found the researcher's role to be unnatural. I found that if I considered myself to be a researcher or even an M.A. student, that I would on some level be offending myself, the participant, and our shared culture. More often than not, the participants were my hosts and I their guest; I treated the interaction as best I could as just that. Accordingly, I often spent more time at their homes or in discussion with them than the length of my recorded interviews, and at times, I deviated from what I thought was the norm.

On one occasion I drove north of Toronto to meet somebody for an interview, but as the evening progressed it became clear to me that this prospective participant was more than thrilled to have a visitor, but perhaps less thrilled to have a researcher. By no means did this participant's attitude and excitement force me out of interviewing; in fact, the participant seemed to struggle between acting naturally, which meant talking about colonialism and imperialism but also other things and in a less formal way, and sitting down with me for 60-90 minutes for an interview as was the agreement. In the end, I chose to let the conversation unfold; I took with me a full stomach, plenty of lessons, book titles, a friend, and much more, but not an interview.

On another occasion, the mother of one of my participants, whom I have affectionately called "aunty" for years, decided to sit in on the interview. This interview was actually my first and I was a little wearier of breaking from precedent, so I and my participant, who I introduce as

Anita below, asked her mother if she might observe quietly - a compromise, we felt. I regret doing so because after the interview was over and the recorder had stopped, I realized that her mother had plenty of things of say about the topic. But more importantly, I felt that I had somehow chosen to allow the researcher's role and the academic culture in which it is defined determine my interactions with members of my own community. The irony of my research training "imperialising" my interactions with members of my own community is not lost on me.

A second opportunity approached when I met Chit. His roommate Sat decided he was to join our conversation. I have to admit to being a little less conscious about my choice to include him than I might betray here. But this time around I chose to break more clearly from precedent 56 and my participant's strong and positive regard for Hindu culture (over and above Western academic culture) certainly helped me do so. In other words, they did not seem to be aware, nor did they seem to care, that I had defined my approach as a one-on-one interview. It seemed to me that to them, of utmost importance was that it was more natural and in line with our culture that both of them sit with me. Thus, on this particular occasion I interviewed two people at once, Sat and Chit. The experience was natural and I have included them both as participants.

Participants

Selection. I restricted my sampling to South Asian Hindus living in southern Ontario.

The inclusion criteria are: (a) identification as a Hindu, cultural or religious13; (b) identification by others or by me as a person knowledgeable about the British Imperial relationship with India.

In order to identify these "knowledgeable" persons, I used a snow-ball sampling method, according to which one relies upon members in one's social network, who then in turn rely upon their social networks, and so on, until a sufficient number of participants have been recruited

(Mertens, 2009). Thus, I consulted initially my own network, which included colleagues, faculty at Wilfrid Laurier, and family members, and asked them as well for suggestions on whom to interview. Of the 10 participants, four of them, all women, were from my own personal network.

Once someone was suggested to me as a participant I either directly or indirectly forwarded an electronic or hard-copy letter, which contained information regarding the study.

The information contained within the letter was pertinent to the purpose of the research; the nature of the research design and their participation; a brief description of the topic areas of the interview; the possible ethical issues of participation; and the nature of confidentiality and

13 One of the participants from my personal network made a suggestion to include a distinction between cultural and religious Hindus. This participant felt that some members of the South Asian Diaspora would identity with being culturally but not religiously Hindu. I included this distinction in the inclusion criteria, as a result. 57 anonymity and the possibility of disclosure of information through binding of my thesis and/or publication. Moreover, at the beginning of an interview, I gave participants a written consent form, informing them further about issues of confidentiality, anonymity, risks, benefits, ethics, and the voluntary nature of their participation.

Relationship with participants. I asked each participant at the end of the interview how they experienced the interview and if there was anything I could have done differently to help foster their comfort. All of the participants expressed satisfaction with the interview. Some were quite enthusiastic about having the opportunity to think and talk about issues of importance to them, issues that have no public or few private outlets. Such enthusiastic responses I found to be validating. All of the participants were comfortable with the way I approached the interview. In the consent form I stated minimal risks to participation in this study. Some of the questions I intended to ask could cause participants to reflect on experiences that caused unpleasant emotions.

Participant biographies. As mentioned, I interviewed 10 people - 5 women and 5 men - from Southern Ontario, primarily from the Region of Waterloo and the Greater Toronto Area between February and May of 2011.1 did not use a questionnaire to obtain demographic information, but instead asked relevant questions during the interview. From the discussion I learned that the age ranged between 26 and 51; two interviewees were born in Canada, 2 in

Kenya, 3 in India, 1 in England, 1 in Sri Lanka, and 1 in Malaysia. All participants spoke at least two languages. Education ranged from high-school (1 participant) to a Ph.D. Though I did not ask the question, between arranging for an interview and the interview itself, I learned that two of my male participants preferred men as sexual partners. To my knowledge, all 5 women and the other 3 men preferred their biological "opposites" as sexual partners. 58

Below is a series of short biographies of the people 1 interviewed and their pseudonyms.

All of the information listed below is specific to the time at which I interviewed them. Where a particular reason for giving them their pseudonym exists, I have provided an explanation.

Anita was born and raised in Canada. At the time of the interview she was 29 years old and had completed a Master's degree in Social Work. She said that she considered herself to be relatively knowledgeable about matters of Indian and Hindu history and culture. She speaks

English and Hindi. She has been my friend for quite some time and undoubtedly has contributed to who I am in some shape or form.

Radha was born in England and has lived in Canada for most of her life. She is 33 years old and speaks Gujarati, Hindi, and English. She considers herself to be relatively knowledgeable, but with greater emphasis on the ritual aspect of Hinduism. She works in health services and completed a post-graduate diploma.

Sarasvati's story is a bit more complicated. At the time of her conception her parents were living in East Africa, like many Gujaratis, including members of my own family. But around the time she was expected to be born, her family went to India to ensure that she was born on Indian soil - a family tradition. She spent most of her life in Kenya up into her teens, after which she moved to Canada. She and I previously knew each other from our undergraduate days, when we were both students at Brock University. We are also both members of the Lohana

"clan." She speaks English, French, Gujarati, Hindi, and Swahili. She considers herself to be a history "buff' and as having an above average knowledge of Hindu culture. In fact, she is rather intimately involved with a Hindu group. She is 27 years old and has a Master's in Infectious

Diseases. 59

I met Savitri for the first time when I went to her house to have a conversation for this thesis. She has Master's in Political Science and considers herself to be relatively knowledgeable about Hindu culture. She speaks Gujarati, English, and Swahili. There is a reason I have given her this pseudonym. She is the one to have told me about Swami Vivekananda's re-telling of the story of Savitri and Satyavan, a popular and ancient tale originally from the Mahabharata.

Incidentally, like me and Sarasvati, she is also from the Lohana clan.

Laskhmi is 37 years old and was born in India. She left there when she was 16, and subsequently moved to the United States for post-secondary education at the age of 18. She has lived in Canada for 8 years and in North America for over 20. She speaks English and Bengali.

Her highest level of education is at the doctoral; she achieved a PhD in Physics.

Ananda was born in Sri Lanka and has lived in Canada for 24 years. He is 27 years old and has completed post-secondary education. He identified himself as a gay man.

Brahma was born in Malaysia. He also identified himself as a gay man, or perhaps more appropriately, a man who prefers other men as sexual and romantic partners. Brahma works in the GTA with South Asian gay men.

Sat was born in Orissa, India in 1975. He earned a Teacher's Certificate, which is the equivalent of post-secondary education to qualify to teach elementary school. He spent some years with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sang, or RSS. When he was 26, he left to go live in an ashrama, a traditional Hindu school, where he met Chit.

Chit is 26 years old and was born in Canada. At the age of 19 he left Canada for Nepal, living there for about a year, and then going to India to live in an ashram for 5 years. He currently resides in Southern, Ontario with Sat, where they both run classes in Sanskrit and other 60 subjects related to Hindu thought. His highest level of formal education is high school. He is proficient in reading and writing Sanskrit. His and his roommate Sat's pseudonyms stem from the one understanding of the nature of "God" in Hinduism, according to which the three qualities of "God" are sat, chit, ananda, or Truth, consciousness, and bliss. I felt these names to be appropriate given their acquaintance with the traditional Hindu life and spiritual traditions.

Data Analysis

I chose to code my data from the original audio sources, a method that is less prominent in the social sciences but certainly not unknown. I did so for several reasons. First, coding from audio prevented me from having to transcribe or pay for transcription, which, in the case that the transcribers were not me, could ensure the further laborious process of having to check the transcript with the audio file for consistency (e.g., Wainwright & Russell, 2010). Second, some social scientists advocate for the coding of audio over the coding of text. Ashmore and Reed

(2000), for instance, have argued that coding from transcripts prevents the researcher from attending to the nuances of a person's speech, such inflection or tone. Moreover, introducing a transcript is a mediate step, separating the researcher and the content for analysis by what can be consider an "obtrusive" and thus not naturalistic step. These observations on the part of social scientists are consonant with my views on interpreting audio versus text. I recall Ananda K.

Coomaraswamy's (2004) defence of the tradition of oral teaching and learning in Hindu culture, when he wrote that "to have heard is far more important than to have read" (p. 93). By coding from audio, I was able to tune into the participants' mood and get a sense of how they were feeling, all of which I felt helped me to code with greater sensitivity to the context in which they made remarks to my questions. 61

Before coding I listened to each interview at least twice from beginning to end. Some interviews I listened to more than twice. As I listened I began to think about potential codes for what my participants were saying, making notes when necessary. Also I began to see a larger picture emerge from what all of my participants were saying and wrote these impressions down.

The research questions, which were based on my reading of the literature and my personal experience, served as the foundation of my initial coding structure. I developed codes for each of the two research questions. Thus, for the first research question I created the code,

"British Imperialism and Globalization," while for the second research question I created the code, "Impact of Anglo-American Imperialism." Then, I modified this initial coding structure to correspond with the notes I made as I interviewed and listened to the audio recording. For example, I did not anticipate the focus on capitalism. Therefore, about half way through the interviews, I made a note to create a code for capitalism under the code for the second and main research question.

My coding procedure entailed adding labels to "meaning units," a word, a clause, sentence, paragraph, dialogue or trialogue (Walsh-Bowers, 2002). I then placed these "meaning units" within the existing coding structure, creating new codes and modifying that structure when necessary. I coded using NVivo, which allows the researcher to code from an audio file in exactly the same manner as one would code a text file. The first step of coding was to upload the audio file into NVivo. The second step, consisted of listening to each audio file and sectioning off meaning units that were relevant to the coding structure or my research questions. By

"sectioning off," I refer to a function in NVivo that allows the researcher to select a portion of an audio file, like highlighting a portion of a text. Once a portion of the text is selected (or

"highlighted") the researcher is able to move that selected portion (i.e., the meaning unit) and 62 place it in an existing code or create a new one. In addition to coding in this manner, I also wrote annotations describing the content of the audio selection. For example, if the researcher selects a portion of the audio file that is 20 seconds in length, say from the 30 minute mark to the 30 minute and 20 second mark, NVivo automatically creates a parallel cell, in which the research might make annotations pertinent to only those 20 seconds. Annotating allows the researcher to determine where in the text something was said or discussed without having to listen to the entire audio file. A skill to coding in this manner, as Gibson, Callery, Campbell, Hall, & Richards

(2005) have pointed out, is to ensure that the annotations are descriptive but not exhaustive, so that the researcher does not forego listening to the audio in favour of an annotation. After coding,

I did personally transcribe sections of the interviews that I wanted to present in the text of my thesis.

However, coding was also a bit of a struggle for me. I did not fully know why until after I listened to my interview with Sat and Chit and had a conversation with my advisor. I realised that the way that I, and perhaps many other Hindus, approach a scenario, in this case, "data," is markedly different from how we are taught to approach data in the social sciences. More specifically, coding entails categorizing or compartmentalizing my participants' experiences into self-contained and apparently (and falsely) neat categories. But I found on more than one occasion that the meaning unit I was trying to categorize did not fit neatly into one category. In other words, some of my findings would, in my opinion, fit nicely within more than one category, under, for instance, "The Impact on Gender" and the "Impact on Spirituality."

The original solution devised by my advisor and me was to stay true to my observation and thus present some of the findings more than once, under, in some cases, several categories. I began this way, but quickly realized the sense of redundancy that might emerge from writing the findings sections in this manner. Therefore, I settled upon a happy medium: the first time a finding is mentioned, I elaborate, and in doing so, include excerpts from my conversations with my participants. All subsequent instances in which that finding is considered relevant (i.e., under subsequent categories or themes), I make mention of it, attempting to draw attention to the fact that the finding is placed, but not elaborated upon, under more than one category or theme.

Communication of Findings

I intend to share my findings with my participants, either by offering them a written summary of the thesis or the thesis itself. Moreover, I intend to publish and present the findings in both academic and non-academic settings. 64

Findings

I noticed during interviews that many of the perspectives of my participants were novel or unique from that of other participants. In other words, I perceived a variety and multiplicity of responses early on that later became even more salient when I began to write this section.

Participants were also quite different, in age, education, occupation, personality (from what I could gather), and interests. Thus, each participant, or in some cases two or three, felt inclined to discuss their area of focus or expertise. For instance, Sat and Chit, who both live a more traditional Hindu life, spent a considerable amount of time talking about the impact of imperialism on Hindu civilization. On the other hand, Ananda and Brahma were quite knowledgeable about sexuality and gender in Hindu culture, and the impact they felt imperialism had on those two aspects of life constituted significant portions of their conversations with me.

I had two research questions. The first was to determine if South Asian Hindus perceived there to be a relationship between British Imperialism and globalization. The second question was to determine how South Asian Hindus perceived the impacts of imperialism. The findings are structured according to these two research questions. When appropriate, I present themes and sub-themes under the research question. The following is a table of my findings.

Research Question Finding Theme Subsidiary Theme

Link between British Globalization as None Imperialism and Imperialism Globalization

Hindu versus Capitalist Values The Impact of Krishna Consciousness Capitalism Hindu versus Capitalist Self The Concept and Function of Work 65

Naming as an The Impact on Epistemological Crutch Epistemology "Evidence-based" Impacts of Anglo- Ramayana American Imperialism Hinduism Altered but The Impact on Vibrant Hinduism or dharma Attitudes toward Hinduism Spiritualism versus Main Secularism Hinduism as the Community Gender, sexuality, and spiritual progress The Impact on Gender "Anally retentive gender and Sexuality expression" Homophobia in the Temples Colonial Mentality The Internalization of Shade-ism or Skin- Inferiority based Racism Complicated Progress The Impact on Women Emergent Imperialism and Matriarchy The Impact on Caste None

Globalization as Imperialism

A little over half of all participants (6 of 10) perceived there to be continuity between globalization and British imperialism. One participant, Sarasvati, was rather emphatic, answering my question about a link between globalization and British Imperialism with, "Huge, for sure." At another instance, Sarasvati made the following point:

More than [physical] invasion it's the spread of ideas that happened because of that.. .1 think that's what sparked globalization, right. Now you have at all corners of the world some form of seed.. .globalization, I think, started because of that, and once the ideas were there... connecting the world was easier, so globalization today was completely, entirely, because of colonization. If there hadn't of been this big, sort of emphasis, on conquering the world.. .1 think people's cultural way of life would've been preserved. 66

Interestingly, she likened the British Imperialism to the process of inception in the blockbuster

Hollywood motion picture, Inception. In the movie, the main characters use technology that allows them to enter in clandestine fashion the dreams of others while they themselves are dreaming. Inception occurs when an idea is placed in the mind of the victim, usually by some sort of suggestion in the dream. In theory, upon waking the victim, now with a novel but foreign idea in view, acts upon that foreign idea. Resistance, it is assumed, is diminished because the origin of the idea is believed to be safe, having come from one's own mind, and not from another who might, and at least in the movie, did not have the dreaming victim's best interests in mind.

Sarasvati compared the British Imperial period to this process of inception, whereby certain ideas were suggested or planted as "some form of seed." Globalization was possible only because the ideas were there long enough to be considered non-threatening and non-foreign - colonial inception, if you will.

One of Brahma's statements resonates with Sarasvati's views: "[Globalization consists of] the same transference of information, and knowledge and lifestyle, right? People are basically becoming very homogeneous in terms of practices." But even physical products, "whatever it is,"

Chit was sure to remark, carry with them culture.

Whether you take it on a corporate level or a religious level, the fact is you are injecting a culture there. Because everything that's taken from here and taken to another culture, whether it's a physical thing or a business, or whatever it is, whatever you export, is not just the thing you're exporting, it's the whole culture.

One participant, Ananda, seemed to unconsciously or at least seamlessly slide between globalization and imperialism during our talk. When I remarked that "It sounds to me like you seamlessly went from [imperialism] into globalization - did you? - he responded with the following: 67

"They're all like linked together; it's hard to separate them. Colonization happened because the British people wanted more resources, more land, more people, to use, to grow their economy, to grow their empire.. .that's sort of like the global market right now too, where these companies are trying to take over small villages, small companies, and basically eat them, and then spit them out and then leave"

Brahma considered industrialization as a connecting element between globalization and imperialism, a European phenomenon incited by the Industrial Revolution, which expresses itself in today's international arena. Similarly, Sarasvati felt that at the time of independence, India, as a country, had a choice of two paths to take. In the following passage she explains:

...politically at that time [of Independence].. .there were two choices for Prime Minister, one was Nehru and the other is Patel...both of them were fairly accomplished but I just feel at the time that Patel represented the Indian, like the real Indian core.. .of the ground of the soil, and I think he had a better understanding of Indian-Hindu culture I kind of feel that this push for Industrialization that Nehru sort of championed, I think that that was the sort of.. .start of the India we see today

Finally, Sat, whom I interviewed with Chit, had the following to say about the connection between British Imperialism and globalization. His comments also illustrate sensitivity to the ongoing relationship between the West and, in his case, India, as oppressive.

SAT: Growing up in a Hindu traditional family and as a Hindu, um.. .1 really sometimes can't believe that people can plan, and design, um...schemes, right.. .and impose on people for their own benefit. For their own gain, for their own material benefit they can use people; they can do so much exploitation and giving them big words, right, like globalization. Because I don't see globalization [or] even colonization has ended. It is not ended; it is still continuing in the form of business, in the form of language.

So I see, I have a big problem with that understanding that how some people can do that, and they can name it globalization also at the same. That very globalization word has to be questioned, and I would apeal to the intelligensia of the whole world to really think about that word - what they mean with that, and what are they trying to do with that, using that word.

And people are fine following their own culture, own traditions, living their own lives. They are all fine. This is a kind of imposition right, on people and trying to snap their relationship to their roots - unroot [sic] them. So I have definitely problem in 68

understading that. When these ideas were introduced to me I couldn't believe people could do this.

RAVI: Which ideas?

SAT: This globalization kind of ideas. In the name globalization, they are running their business, they are destroying cultures, they are judging.. .1 mean, based on their judgment of other people they are conducting their business, or whatever they want to do everywhere in the world. Somehow, that's questionable.

RAVI: How does it make you feel now, knowing that people can spend their own lives to develop "schemes" to exploit other people? You said it's hard for you to understand and I'm sympathetic to that; it's difficult for me to understand. But how does it make you feel?

SAT: Definitively it's hurting because being sensitive people we see everybody should be given that.. .everybody has a right to live their life according to their own...um.. .with their own freedom, in fact. Everybody should be given their freedom to follow what they want to follow; the way they want to live. They have their own profound things backing them up, right? No need to pull them out of their root and give them a new thing, saying "modernization," "globalization," all of this. So definitely, I feel very hurt. And what hurts me more than that is, there is a kind of "non-thinking" in the whole thing, meaning, even people are not thinking about that, nobody is talking about that, nobody is trying to...

RAVI: In India, people are not talking about it.

SAT: People have started but very.. .it's like me talking to you, you know, very few people talking in corners, which voices don't reach anywhere, so there are people talking but very few. So I think that people in the whole world, they have to objectively think about it.

The Impact of Anglo-American Imperialism

Regarding the second research question, as a rule, participants perceived both globalization and British imperialism as negative and detrimental to psychological and social life of South Asian Hindus and India. There was one exception on which I will comment below. The first theme I choose to present concerns the impact of capitalism, or what may also be considered neo-liberalism, free market capitalism, or wealth accumulation. 69

The impact of capitalism. Interestingly, there was not a single question about capitalism or even the economy. Yet capitalism, business, and the economy emerged as one of the most prominent themes, and I have placed it first to reflect what I consider to be a very important and surprising thrust of the findings. Participants expressed their perceptions of capitalist ideology as foreign and inimical to Hindu civilization, impacting everything from values to the manner in which one defines one's self. Unlike most of the subsequent themes, the impact of capitalism was perceived by my participants to be so extant and ubiquitous, that it cut through a wide range of domains. The selected quotes below illustrate perceptions of the negative impact of Capitalism on the individual and social lives, as well as the perception that capitalist ideology and Hinduism are irreconcilable. "So right now it's a battle between Capitalism and true Hinduism," one participant claimed.

Hindu versus capitalist values. A number of participants noted the change in values from the traditional Hindu lifestyle to a modern capitalist one. All of those who commented on the change in values did so in a manner critical of Capitalist values:

SARASVATI: Before colonization, they were very tradition based, very society based, and I think it's changed to become very individual-based. You've changed from villages who look after each other to people leaving their villages and going to make money so they can become richer and more prosperous and improve their status in society. And the thing is I think everyone sees that as OK now and I think that sort of mentality is endorsed in everything because that's the way the West works and now we're completely - let ourselves become completely - consumed and influenced by that.

ANITA: I think another influence — and I think it's more imposed — is that sort of western mentality. So like I feel like, you know in Indian and even here, when we try to think about our own Indian culture. It's more traditional it's very spiritual. There's a lot of connection to family, sort of a generational thing. And I sort of feel like with that sort of British, British western influence, that's come on, it's changed values, in terms of more focused on a family unit but more of an individual like you are - "be selfish" you know "Do something that's good for you." 70

ASHIS: Why are we undermining our own values?...We have so much undervalued our core values, to the extent that everything looks like a dollar sign now. So this discussion in the eyes of an Indian would be worthless - "What's the dollar - how much money did you make while doing this conversation. How much money are you going to make if you do your sociology course. How much will it pay you?"

This focus on money, Sarasvati noted, was novel:

Money has never been something that the ordinary Indian cared about, right? It was always dharma, it was always duty, it was always do your best in the world. But I think Nehru, brought about this idea that you could be wealthy, you could be right, Industrialize your country, you know, Capitalism, right.. .you can see how that has affected the country, just in the way people live. Their lifestyle is insane just like us, like my cousin doesn't get home from midnight from work...and their priorities are constantly about work, and make money and be successful."

Moreover, Sat felt that the focus on money was lamentable and stemmed, in part, from the importance of creating markets:

SAT: This orientation toward money, business, in that everything else is compromised; everything else goes in that, that shouldn't happen.

RAVI: Could you elaborate?

SAT: I have seen growing up in India the attack on culture is just to create markets for themselves. Like you want to sell your jeans, so you capture the whole media of the country and the whole media presents models with jeans, and then you create a market in the country to sell it

A response by Ashis, with whom I spoke at great length regarding the impact of Capitalism, suggests that social comparison - "or keeping up with the Mehtas" if you will - is another reason for the focus on money: "[In India] If you're making a lot of money, then yeah people will like you, but if you try to be a human being, people just push you around." The same participant said the following

Hindu values suggest that there is more to it [life?] than wealth. Capitalism says once you have all the money in the world it's like there's nothing after that. Capitalism doesn't define anything after that. I don't know if there is -1 haven't studied it so I cannot 71

comment on that. But from the way I say, Capitalism doesn't have an answer to this. If America has got all the power in the world, all the money in the world, what next?

Sarasvati similarly stated:

I think people would say you're crazy if you don't want to do something like that. If you don't want to become better or do better or something like that. But back in the day it was never - like even when I think of my parent's generation - it was never that much of a huge priority to be successful. And again definition of successful keeps changing.

Ashis gave an example of how capitalist values have even affected those members of Hindu society who were, at almost every time of which I am aware, sacrosanct from the perspective of economy: the saddhus and sanyassis, or the "priests," which is the word he uses.

We went to this temple. So there's this priest. And we really love this priest. I have so much respect for him.. .amazing guy, such an intellectual. And he worshipped - he does a lot of meditation. My perception of this guy was like, you know, "This guy was such a nice soul." I'm thinking if this guy has come all the way from India for his job the dedication with which he's doing to his job is commendable. I really appreciate and love him for that. And in some ways he's closer to the spirit than me, because he's following it on a daily basis and he's got a clear path ahead of him. He's not running only after money, he's running after some other goals as well.. .And as we are driving back my dad was like, "So how much money does this priest make" [laughs sardonically].. .He [his father] is looking at everything as a dollar sign.

Finally, Sat commented on how the predominance of the value of competition, underlying capitalism, had to diminish if "peace" were ever to be achieved.

SAT: I see that any relative peace anybody wants, then basically competition has to go. The whole vaidika [i.e., Hindu] culture was competition-less. Zero competition society. Now peace can only come without that competition. And business means competition. Business and competition go together.

Krishna consciousness. Another two participants, Sat and Chit, both of whom may themselves be described as saddhus expressed disbelief and disappointment at the misappropriation of one of the most popular and widely read of Hindu philosophical texts, the

Bhagavad Gita. Specifically, they mentioned that the Gita was now being used to service the 72 capitalist endeavours of Indians by providing guidance (spiritual?) in business management. This use of the Gita might help to explain some of my perceptions in the section entitled "The

Cowherd and the Bull." Because of the deeply philosophical and complex meaning of the text to me, during the interview, I could not contain my shock:

RAVI: Bhagavad Gita for business management!? How!?

SAT: Yeah!!

CHIT: That's the thing, right, there's no inquiry in "What is it?"

In other words, the Gita and other aspects of Hindu philosophical and spiritual beliefs are appropriated without sufficient inquiry into the deeper meaning of those beliefs, texts, etc. When

I asked Ashis about the impact of commoditizing spirituality and judging priests by the amount of money they make, he responded with a comparison that is likely to invoke simultaneously a sarcastic laugh and sadness:

RAVI: What does that do to spirituality in India?

ASHIS: Then you don't see value - that's why the priests are not getting paid now, right? When you have marriage, you're like "Well it's just a marriage right? I don't care what mantras you're speaking. I don't care whether you're following the right procedure or not. I just want the cheapest priest to come here." .. .the DJ will make 10 times more than the priest - that's what Capitalism is like.

Hindu versus Capitalist self. One of the most interesting findings in my opinion concerns the different ways in which the Western Capitalist and traditional Hindu civilizations conceive of the self. Though only one participant made a comment regarding this change, it is significant in my opinion to include. Sarasvati notes that

"[In Hinduism] The overarching principle is that you're [essential immaterial self is] infinite and this [material world] is just an expression of that infinity. There's no difference in your essence. Whereas Capitalism is like "No, you are special; and you are different; and you need to sort of keep those differences alive - through products, through 73

experiences, through differentiating yourself from X, Y, Z. So I think there's big differences in the way you think."

Another participant's comment support this point

BRAHMA: Consumerism is on the uptake. People want to buy more, be more, be middle-class.

The concept and function of work. Another impact of "imperial capitalism," if you will,

was on the notion and function of work or vocation. For instance, Ashis discussed what he

believed to be a stigmatization of manual labour for subsistence, such as farming. According to him, so powerful are the stigma and the lure of living in a Western world that Indians would exchange a relatively comfortable lifestyle in India in exchange for a laborious one in Canada, the UK, or the US:

They know that when they come here (to Canada) they will have to work as labourers; over there (in India) they are kings...when you're in India, you will have a graduation and then you don't want to do anything else other than sitting in an office and signing papers. If you don't get a government job... .they can wash washrooms, or they can drive a truck, 24 hours a day (in Canada). But they won't do the same thing in India. They won't till their own land.

RAVI: Why? Physical labour is looked down upon?

ASHIS: Yeah.

He went on further to point out that Indians were inclined to like a job, not because of what the

job itself entailed, but because of receiving external validation from the Anglo-American world.

A job that was traditionally stigmatized is now quite respectable, because it has been "polished."

When you polish it again. You give it a polished look, meaning a modern look, for example being a porter. At the airport.. .I'm sure.. .they're working as porters now at the airport.. .If you ask the same guy, "Do you want to be a pulley," if you ask them do you want to be that: "No way, man..." 74

Another participant, Savitri, offered a similar perspective concerning the type of jobs that are

acceptable. This participant's comment's highlight the internalization of the racist hierarchy of imperialism, according to which the lighter the skin, the better the person is assumed to be.

Indians have always done business, they're in trade or professionals, you know. There was very very little interest in politics.. .so the question is "why?" And then you come to Canada and bloody everyone wants to be a politician. Why here and not there. And that's exactly what I mean, your mind being colonized. To these people, it's more important to be a politician in a white man's country, than it is to be in a black man's country. They come here [Canada] and everybody from grandma to grand kids wants to be a member of parliament. White society is better to be a part of

Furthermore, the motivation to determine a vocation for the community or for the intrinsic value

of the task has changed; now, people act for their own self-centred reasons. Again, Ashis

illustrates this change with a powerful tale of a man living in rural India.

His wife was really sick and they used to live in a village. He was taking his wife on a bullock cart or some other cart.. .So he's taking her to the hospital. But his village was not connected to the city because of a hill which came in between...And so he had to go around the hill and it took like two hours to get to the hospital. OK. His wife died.. .on the way, before he could take her to the hospital. He made a commitment that day, that he's going to carve a road [inaudible]. Every day for 35 years he used to pick a chisel and a hammer and go there and chisel at the mountain. For 35 years that's all he did. People would say he's crazy. I don't know, the numbers might be wrong, could be 31, 32, some whatever. That's what the story is. And so he ended up carving a hundred feet -1 don't remember what are the numbers - but he did cut that mountain to make a road single- handedly. And he was a no-one, even till then he was a no-one. All of a sudden the Chief Minister found out that there is this guy who did this. And he named him and now he's a padmishri - he got the padmishri, like the highest civilian award. He didn't do it because he wanted the padmishri - Capitalism would teach you that if that's what you're going to get we're going to do it. But he did it, because that's what his vision was. That's not because of what we're going to make out of it, but because he wanted to serve humanity.. ."Whatever happened to my wife, I don't want other people to face that" - Capitalism will not teach you that. 75

The story to which he is referring is true. Dasharath Manjhi (1934 -2007) from the state of Bihar is the man. The length of the tunnel is 360 feet, which he carved working day and night for 22 years between 1960 and 1982. SarasvatVs comment further supports Ashis's

[Traditionally Indian culture teaches you that] you work to fulfill a certain purpose. I have a duty, whatever my profession is, I'm going to work and whatever I get out of it, is bonus...the core of it [the work] is my duty. When you have that attitude.. .people are not selfishly striving for certain things. It's a very harmonious sort of relationship and balance that comes about.

When I asked if she felt the harmony was at the individual or social level, Sarasvati said "Both."

The impact on Hindu epistemology. The second major theme that I would like to discuss I have called, "Impact on Epistemology." Originally, I had considered a difference

between two mentalities - in the colloquial sense of the word - one Western and the other Hindu.

But later in the analysis I realized that the difference I perceived, the theme that emerged, was a

difference in how two cultures answer two epistemic questions. Specifically, what I believe I see

is an essential difference in the way that Anglo-American and Hindu civilization answer two key

epistemic question: "How do we know?" and "How do we know what we know is real?"

Naming as an epistemological crutch. At a point in the dialogue between me and two

participants, Sat and Chit, I presented my view about a difference I had perceived between the

Hindu and Western epistemology, or what we referred to in the interview as Hindu and Western

mentalities. The difference is that the latter tend, according to our perception, to rely on naming,

classification, and categorization as intermediary steps to understanding, while the former do

not. I had long struggled with this difference, at times making jokes, as I did in the interview,

that one path to success in the Western world, and particularly in Western academia, was to

name, classify, categorize, or create a neologism for a phenomenon. The following dialogue

contains the essence of our discussion on this topic. I was surprised and felt validated that both of 76 the participants agreed with my view and apparently did so emphatically. Here is the rather lengthy discussion:

RAVI: I find that there's this propensity to name things in Western civilization and that naming is an end-in-itself. You could make a good career in academia, for instance, by creating names for things that already -

[They both laugh]

CHIT: We feel that's mostly what everyone does anyway.

RAVI: ...[Naming] seems to me to be integral to understanding the world when you have a certain mentality. So, naming is a means to understanding when you are in a certain frame of mind. If you want to call it rational, you can call it rational; if you want to call it Western scientific, I don't know. In my life I've been a little uncomfortable, up until now, getting a little more comfortable, unfortunately maybe, naming things, because [I] feel like naming in-itself will contaminate [my] understanding. But on the Western side, naming is a vehicle to understanding. So can you talk about the difference between, and I'm going to be abstract here so if you could be abstract, the difference between Hindu mentality and Western or colonial mentality.

CHIT: That's interesting. And again, everything rests on this understanding that all of this is relative. No matter what name you give it it's never going to be perfect. It's never going to be ideal. Your naming is always going to fall short in some way. The way I have seen it, is this naming, this need to name, comes out of a kind of insecurity —

RAVI: So you see it?

CHIT: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel to a great extent what has changed the way we look at our culture is because of the naming that has been done to things. And I'm sure with this study of social sciences that you've undergone, you would've seen that there's this need to always try and dump things in categories [which is ironically enough exactly what I have done with his response and our discussion here].

RAVI: Of course. It's encouraged.

CHIT: Oh yeah. And although with I guess what I feel is some difficulty you can get the institution or person to change their framework, but it requires a bit of an overhaul. The quick fix always is just to put it in something — you've already identified what possibilities there are, what names things could have, and you want to.. .put it in there as quickly as possible. Because the thing is, something unnamed is something un- understood and something un-understood is scary. 77

RAVI: According to [inaudible]

CHIT: Yeah. Yeah. I'm being Western philosopher. We feel that there's - we've talked about this before actually - this naming comes from a kind of insecurity. Not being able to name things, not being able to categorise, classify things, is a source of insecurity. And so people name.

I would disagree on one point. I don't think that naming ultimately is to understand, but to fit something already in what you've already understood. Right? Because you're not understanding anything new by giving something an already existing name, all you're doing is you are imposing your understanding on that thing.

RAVI: I agree.

CHIT: So if honestly you want to understand something, you would look at it for what it is, and give it a new name if it needs it or not give it any name, right? The very fact that you are imposing an already existing name on something new, means that your objective is not to understand it, but to check it off, to say that you have understood it.

RAVI: Right, right. "Make sense." Right?

CHIT: Yeah, "Make sense of it" "Figure it out." Not understand it for what it is. And definitely I would agree that the opposite tendency is there in our culture. And primarily that's, again, because we understand that "stuff' is like that. You're not going to be able to fit anything into a little package or box no matter how hard you try, and so there's not a big effort to do all that.

I'll give you an example which I found very interesting, although I don't know if you can relate to it because it has to do with Sanskrit grammar.

[We laugh]

CHIT: But I think it's a good example of the difference here. So in Western linguistics, in Western linguistic models -1 studied Latin when I was in school. Certain languages have what's called cases, which means instead of using prepositions and word order, the words themselves change - German is a language that does that... So if I say, I'll give you Sanskrit, if I say, Ramahaanumkhadati. Ramaha means Rama; anum means food; khadati means eats. In English if I say Rama eats food, I know that it is Rama eating the food because Rama comes first, food comes last. In Sanskrit you can change it around because it is not the order of the words. The word is Rama; it's the Ramaha that tells you it's the subject.

So in Western language models we call these cases by names. So there's nominative, accusative, dative, ablative, genitive - based on a certain function, ok, what generally that case is used for...but even in Latin grammar, for example, those names are not accurate, 78

in the sense that, yes most of the time, it's used for that, but sometimes it's used for something completely unrelated - yet, they, name. OK. That tendency to name is there.

And so when I started learning Sanskrit in the ashram I was a little disturbed, being from this background, at first to realize that they don't name their cases; they call them first case, second case, third case, fourth case, fifth case, sixth case, seventh case. Just numbers. Because the numbers are accurate; this first case will always look like this [Sat and I breakout laughing], right? But what first case is used for, then they'll go and list, "OK, first case you can use for this, this, this, this, this, this; second case you can use for this, this, this, this, this."

At first, I was so uncomfortable, because the "name" - the number - has nothing to do with what it's actually used for. But then I realized that, in fact, that's a more objective way of approaching it, because you're not trying to encapsulate it into a name, right? You're not trying to define it just using a word. You are open to all the possibilities. For practical purposes you say number 1, OK, that's not really telling you anything about it. When you use a name you've already decided what it is. In naming something you're going to use a name which is relevant to your idea, right, the word you're using is not something completely unrelated, right? So by using a name, if I'm going to tell you about something, and I give it a name, already I've told you so much. You already have your own ideas about what that thing is. So this was my discovery with Sanskrit grammar.

If you look at even other traditions like Ayurveda [Hindu healing tradition], they're very hesitant to box things up, to define things, to give any sort of absolute - "This is the law" and all that kind of thing - there's so much variability is there [sic]. Again, the whole thing is, that's the way "stuff' is.

At this point in the dialogue Chit took the discussion, without my prompting him to, into the domain of British imperialism and the social impact of the tendency to name, classify, and categorise. Specifically, Chit spoke about how the British impacted the construction of what is today called the caste system, including certain groups of Hindu society known today as the

Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Concerning the impact of the tendency to classify, Chit goes on

CHIT: The naming has definitely been a problem with colonization, even the caste system, the scheduled castes and all that, that whole naming, was done by British.

RAVI: Are you referring to "Brahman, Ksatriya"? 79

CHIT: Well not even just that. See if you look at it traditionally. You are born into a family, that family has a tradition, and that tradition doesn't mean just what you're doing in that society. It encompasses everything, it encompasses your daily routine - it's tradition, right? You're born into that; you're doing that; you're in your community where everyone is doing that...So there have definitely been communities and social functions have been there in those communities. Now, this naming is what the British did. So if there was some word that they heard applied to that community or whatever it was, they list[ed] it. The scheduled castes, the list of castes, and you belong to this caste, right, the identification of a person with a caste — all of this was British invention.

At this point I make mention of my own experience with some Hindu philosophical texts and my understanding of the caste system, which is call varanaashram[va-ra-naa-shium] in

Sanskrit. My readings and teachings from my mother informed me of the existence of four castes, each with a specific function in society and each of which was supposed to be based on nature. In other words, a person's function in society should follow from her/his/her nature, prakrutii, in Sanskrit, or what might be considered aptitude, capacity, or talent in the Western world. The four castes were to indicate these functions.

I will elaborate more on this construction of the caste system below, but I mention it here, because the next portion of the dialogue presumes knowledge of this construction. Notice two things. First, the Hindu system makes mention of only four castes - in "hierarchical" order,

Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Shudra. Second, although the caste system seems to have degenerated long before the British arrive, the traditional understanding of the caste system is based on nature not birth. To continue:

RAVI: I don't know if it's in the Bhagavad Gita but it's somewhere where they talk about aptitude and conduct. So that's a very pure philosophical understanding...Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaishya -

CHIT: - [T]hat is the Indian way of looking at it where it's very not-defined.

RAVI: Murky.

CHIT: It's very vague. That there are qualities to people - 80

RAVI: - "Blacksmith" is the colonized way of looking at it.

CHIT: Exactly. Blacksmith. And, you are from this family, therefore, blacksmith. Doesn't matter what you do afterward; doesn't matter, you can't change anything afterward. You have a paper that says blacksmith. That system of trying to fix things like that started with the British.

What we are talking about here is how the original system was classified more simply with only four castes and how the new system - the colonial system — was classified more specifically. The example I give - "blacksmith" - is one that is much more specific in defining a person's function than any of the traditional castes.

Chit also alludes to the fluidity that existed in the original caste system, which probably began decreasing prior to the British. My own personal experience provides an example that supports Chit's opinion. Growing up I was told of my own family history, according to which we were Kshatriya, members of a caste second in the "hierarchy" and responsible for "governance" and "protection" from invaders. However, somewhere in recent history, members of my family began taking up business and trade, which was likely a function of their location - much of

Gujarat is on the coast and as such many regions were centres of trade. By function then we became Vaishya, according to the ancient Hindu system, which is third in the "hierarchy." Below we discuss how this relatively fluid system was further "concretized" or reified by the British as a function of naming and classification.

RAVI: Do you feel that the naming has become concretized?

CHIT: That's what has happened, right? Even the conflict that exists in India because of

this caste divisions [sic] is because of this making things concrete.

All that I presented above occurred later in my conversation with Chit and Sat. I had not realized at the time, however, that there were prior comments, one by Chit and the other by 81

Brahma during my conversation with him, which centred on the need to name and classify and the consequences of this need on Hindus. Let us begin with Chit.

Somewhere at the beginning of our dialogue when speaking about religion, Chit began to comment on the impact of imperialism on "Hinduism." More specifically, he commented on the impact of the inherent taxonomy of Abrahamic religion on the way Hindus began to see their own spiritual practices. Interestingly, the theme of naming, categorizing, and classifying emerged here almost an hour before we actually spoke about it intentionally. Moreover, below

Chit and Sat comment on this tendency vis-a-vis religion, while above we all discussed this tendency's impact vis-a-vis science or culture.

CHIT: In this [Abrahamic] religion-dominated society where we have this tendency of wanting to group and categorize and fit things into that framework. If you look at the people who existed before the advent of religion - and I'm talking Abrahamic religion here right - it's just traditions; it's just people and their traditions.

[Thus] I like to stress upon people [to] sort of leave everything that [they've] ever thought about India. And this is, I think, one of the biggest effects of this whole colonization is that, we have been taught to think, taught to see [our] culture in a certain way, taught to see this India in a certain entity, with a Hindu "religion." And because we start with that framework and we start trying to categorize everything. OK. "If Hinduism is a religion, then it should have a scripture; what's our scripture?"

SAT: OK. Bhagavad Gita

CHIT: It had nothing to do with it.

RAVI: That's a colonial impact?

SAT: Yes.

CHIT: For sure. I'll show you the book. You can borrow it if you want. He's got transcripts and journals of early colonials that had come to India and just couldn't understand what it was they were seeing. One of reasons was that religious people, so starting with the Mughal s and later the Christians, if you look at their theology, they are taught that there's no one in the world without religion; they are taught to anticipate that 82

everywhere they go in the world, they should see people who are practicing a deteriorated form of their own religion. And so that conditions what they see when they go there.

But long story short, because of this whole thing, we tend to try and "fit" what we have, or when people ask us questions, "Oh, what does your religion say about creation?" So then we already assume that we are going to go to our text here and somewhere it should say something about creation. So then as soon as we seen Purushasukta, as soon as we see Taitriyaupanishad, there's a five-elements model, we assume automatically that, "Oh, this is the creation story".. .whereas if you look at the traditional commentaries that's there. What people have written about these texts before the advent of these two, I guess you could say colonization periods14, it has nothing to do with creation at all. The meaning of those things has nothing - there's no intention to teach any kind of world view or history or anything like that; it has a completely different purpose.

About two weeks before my conversation with Chit and Sat, I had met Brahma, who works with gay South Asian men. When I was coding my interview with Brahma I noticed that he had also spoken about the impact of naming and categorization on Hindus, although he did not identify it so explicitly. More specifically, he spoke about how the disproportionate influence of American culture and the tendency among North American gay men to give themselves sometimes one, two, three, or more labels in order to classify themselves bore down negatively upon South Asian Hindu men.

BRAHMA: In most cultures in South East Asia, people did not subscribe to a same- sexual label, as North American gay men, did. Gay men basically subscribe to "top," "bottom," "passive," "aggressive." Right? It's a very subscribed role in sexual behaviour and sexual practice. And over the last six years, in many cultures across say in India.. .all the men start identifying as "top" and "bottom," which they didn't do before.

RAVI: And how did they identify before?

BRAHMA: Just as "I like men."

RAVI: What do you think the consequence of this [change] is?

BRAHMA: It basically means in order to fit in what's happening on a global level, if you want to meet people online, you have to check a box somewhere, right? You can't just

14 The two periods mentioned here are the Arab-Persian-Mughal (i.e., Muslim) invasion and the British. 83

check the box saying, "I like men." Because no such thing exists. So you subscribe to fit in. And in fitting in you lose a part of your whole identity of who you are. Because you cannot be a whole person. You become a part of who you are. And this other part of you basically very much not acknowledged. Because if you ask the majority of men in other cultures, in terms of S & M practices, most of them basically play both roles, passive and aggressive roles, in relationships. But because of a form that is created from a Western ideology or demographics, this form subscribes to how men interact.

RAVI: [A]nd that's true for India?

BRAHMA: Yeah, because when I speak to staff who work in agencies, they say, "Now all the guys say "I'm" this and "I'm" this, and that language never existed before.

As mentioned, I experienced some difficulty in categorizing - i.e., coding - so that each finding or theme fits neatly in one category and not another. The findings just presented are examples of ones that might fit under other themes. For instance, the example of Chit gave of

Sanskrit grammar could have been coded as an example of the difference between languages.

But Sanskrit is intimately linked with Hindu spirituality. Thus, I could have interpreted the impact of the tendency to name as religious or spiritual. Even if I look at the linguistic component, the example Chit gave to illustrate his point - Ramahaanumkhadati - was an example of a religious figure.

The impact on the way Hindus view their own spiritual practices (e.g., in determining the

Bhagavad Gita as "central text"15) could have been coded under religion or spirituality. Chit made reference to the "medicinal" tradition in India, Ayurveda, and the tendency to avoid naming among practitioners, which could have been coded under another category or theme

(e.g., health). Again, his discussion on the impact of naming and classification on the caste system could easily have been considered another impact on the religious, spiritual, or cultural

15 For the better part of my life I referred to the BhagavadGita as "our Bible" in order to communicate with non- Hindus. I have since stopped doing so. 84 system of Hinduism, because the caste system, despite what it has become and how it is portrayed, is a part of Hindu spiritual practice.

Alternatively, I could have coded those passages under the theme of the impact of imperialism on social organization (e.g., how capitalist social organization was imposed upon this caste system). Thus, in the dialogue above we covered language, culture, religion/spirituality, social organization, and "medicine" as points of comparison between the

Anglo-American and Hindu worldviews. In addition, Brahma offered his perspectives on the impact that this tendency to name had on gay Hindu men; I could have coded that passage under

"Sexuality," discussed below. I think the breadth of the impact of this "tendency to name," as

Chit would say, is sufficient justification for presenting this tendency as a theme in itself. But I have written this and the preceding paragraph to illustrate how insufficient or terribly restrictive it would have been to code each passage under only one theme; or, on the other hand, how my own perspectives influence the way in which I code or categorize what I observe. Had I not raised the question of naming and categorization explicitly with Chit, perhaps I would not have made it a theme, and thus, I would have coded the passages under this theme differently (e.g., under "Religion and Spirituality" or "Sexuality).

"Evidence-based" Ramayana. The final sub-theme I would like to present under this parent theme concerns the impact that Western positivism has had on the Hindus might answer the question, "How do we know what we know?" More specifically, at one point in my conversation with Sat and Chit we discussed the notion of having "evidence" to substantiate or validate an age-old epic as "true" or "real." This impact was discussed in relation to a recent debate concerning the place of the Ramasetu, a bridge connecting the South-Western portion of the Indian subcontinent and Sri Lanka. In the epic Ramayana, Rama and Lakshmana, along with 85

Hanuman and his army were said to have constructed the bridge or another one like it in exactly the same place in order for them to reach modern-day Sri Lanka to defeat Ravana and rescue

Sita, Rama's wife and Ravana's captive. For some time, the bridge was assumed to have been myth by most; questions about its existence were irrelevant. But starting in the early 2000s, a series of events brought to light the existence of a bridge that resembled the Ramasetu.

Since the "discovery" of the bridge, debates have centred on the question of whether or not the bridge was admissible evidence to substantiate the existence of Rama and/or the

Ramayana. A Hindu group, of which Sat used to be a member, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sang

(RSS), campaigned in favour of the bridge as objective evidence of the Ramayana. Sat and Chit both felt that RSS's emphasis was misguided, because it fell in line with the criteria of Western science. I think that the emphasis on physical evidence as a validation of the epics touches on the broader theme of epistemology. Here is the trialogue from our interview:

CHIT: Even this RSS, as much as they have done good things, really I question their basis for - take this Ramasetu - the bridge. You know that whole issue, right? RAVI: I don't know the issue

CHIT: Oh!...In the 90s a NASA satellite revealed that there was something connecting - till then nobody knew anything. Now the thing is, till then, nobody knew that anything was there. Ramayana was Ramayana. Ramayana was not any different, and people who saw Ramayana as real, saw it as real, it was no question, they didn't need that physical evidence. Right? But what happened once it got discovered and once there were political attempts to have it removed -

RAVI: By whom?

CHIT: By the Congress party.. .Congress party came up with a whole bunch of reasons from researchers of why it is a defence issue, why it's a -

SAT: - Trade barrier

CHIT: - Transportation issue - 86

RAVI: Well it wasn't a barrier until they discovered it via satellite [I say with a hint or annoyance and incredulity] -

[Saf laughs]

CHIT: Yeah... [T]here was a movement to stop them and now they're trying to get it declared as a UNESCO world heritage site. In that, RSS had a strong thing to play. But their whole thing, their whole approach was that we need to keep it as evidence of Ramayana.

RAVI: So that's a Western understanding.

SAT: [motions in affirmation]

CHIT: Till now, no one cared [about evidence]. We still don't care.

The Impact on "Hinduism" or Dharma. A few participants discussed the impact of imperialism on Hindu "religion" and spirituality in relatively diverse ways. I have already mentioned a handful of findings related to religion and spirituality: Sat and Chit's views about the Ramsetu easily could fit under the present sub-theme; Ashis' statements concerning the impact of capitalism on how his father viewed "priests" also would fit. To give another example,

Sarasvati commented on how important the notion of "duty" - an intrinsic reward - for external deeds took precedence historically, but that today, extrinsic rewards, such as money, and the idea of success characterize the lives of Indians. What follows is a set of perspectives expressed by the participants concerning the place and expression of Hinduism in the lives of Hindus.

Hinduism altered but vibrant. Four participants spoke about the notion of Hinduism having changed in response to imperialism. I have already mentioned or noted at several points in this thesis the various attempts by colonists and Indians at altering - sometimes Semiticizing -

Hinduism. Here is what Sarasvati had to say concerning whether or not Hinduism indeed had changed:

SARASVATI: The whole thing with colonization is because [Hinduism is] such an ancient tradition, I don't think that colonization has affected its definition by root; it's just 87

affected the way people express it, like being Hindu. So I don't think that colonization affects what Hinduism is, I think it affects how people express that or choose to express that; how people choose to live those ideals.

What I know about Sarasvati based on my discussion with her tells me that she might define

Hinduism in more abstract philosophical terms. As a result, when she states that Hinduism has not changed, I feel that she is less likely to mean in concrete terms, such as the destruction of statues and temples, the elimination of stories and artefacts, etc. Instead, I think she means that the core of the teaching of one branch of Hindu religion with which she is familiar has not changed in essence. Moreover, one might argue that those "ideals," like some of the ideals of

Christianity (e.g., judge not lest ye be judged), are not likely to be "eliminated," given their universal presence and, I would argue, their appeal.

Interestingly, perhaps Sarasvati's social location, or more specifically, her heterosexual orientation, held sway over her perception. Both Ananda and Brahma felt that Hinduism had changed as a result of Imperialism, particularly in terms of attitudes toward sexual and gender diversity. Below is a passage in which Ananda discusses these views, alluding to a presentation by an academic on the very topic of colonization and sexual orientation in India:

ANANDA: Prior to colonization [Hinduism and Hindu society] was more liberal. Because of Victorian modesty they stripped away all of that. Colonization also eradicated a lot -1 mean he showed us temples. There are different carvings of males and females in different various forms, and there was a lot of homosexual imagery, and a lot of sculptures that were present in temples that were slowly eradicated and taken away.

He further elaborates on how he felt Imperialism consolidated the place of heterosexuality as the

"default" sexual orientation in Hindu society:

ANANDA: Heterosexuality is the norm, and that was sort of brought over from a very British point of view. I mean prior to that there were two-spirited people living in Canada.. .same with devadasis which were temple dancers.. .same thing with Eunuchs 88

and trans people who were in India revered as having both [female and male qualities] - being pure and being clean and being chaste. And they were temple dancers and temple servers, and so they were placed in a very high place. And then colonization sort of stripped them of all of that and put them in the outskirts. So that in itself - so those ideologies sort of passed on here, so that's why we face a lot of the homophobia [in the Hindu community]

There is more to say about the topic of sexuality and religion, but I will elaborate further in the section called "The Impact on Sexuality. For now I would like to turn my attention to another sub-theme, which emerged in my conversation with Anita.

Attitudes toward Hinduism. Anita mentioned that imperialism had the inverse effect that one might assume, which is to say that instead of diminishing her desire to learn more about her culture and religion, knowledge of her imperial history ignited her desire to learn more. I have coded this sub-theme as "Attitudes toward Hinduism," and what is most interesting is the level of complexity in those attitudes, which I believe to be evident in the following dialogue:

ANITA: [Imperialism] shaped my attitude toward religion for me. As I've been growing up it's making me want to draw myself more to my religion. To learn more about where I came from...For me [Imperialism] has done the reverse effect. It makes me want to learn more about mine.. .1 feel like it's a huge part of my identity now and until I don't learn more about it, I feel like I don't know my whole self, or you know where I come from, my ancestors, my grandparents.. .Hinduism is such an amazing religion. I feel like it's a very neutral religion. And it teaches so many wonderful things. And I know there's like a lot of deities and all these things to think about with that... [T]he older I'm getting ... I find it's getting more important for me as I'm getting older. It gives me a sense of peace and it's like this mystery of like knowing things that my ancestors knew, and making me feel, even though I don't live in India, more connected to my family and my culture.

RAVI: There was a sentence there where you mentioned the many deities; you said "I know there are a lot of deities, but..." Would you mind if I were to pick that sentence out? Would you mind analyzing that sentence yourself? Why would you word it that way?

ANITA: 'Cuz I feel like Hinduism really stands out as a religion because we have so many goddesses and gods - RAVI: Polytheistic.

ANITA: Yeah and it's hard to -1 don't know - and it makes me laugh a little bit because there's a god for this and god for that. But I just - it's cool to kind of know about all these different ones but I know that some worship [sic] one over the other.

Spiritualism versus secularism. I think it would be fair to say that to be Hindu, for many, is to be what in the west is called spiritual. For many of the participants in my study, this understanding of Hindu identity seemed to hold sway, and they often lamented the negative impact of imperialism on their ability to live out this spiritual expression of Hinduism. In fact, in the above passages in which Anita discussed her attitude toward Hinduism, one might interpret some of the sentences as illustrating this spiritual approach. She spoke about not knowing her

"whole self' without Hinduism and about viewing Hinduism as a mode through which she could feel "connected to my family and my culture." Of course, I feel the same. Hinduism and modern western life are incompatible, or rather, the Hindu way of life and the modern industrial way of life are incompatible. For anyone, like myself, a genuine expression of Hinduism is seriously hindered by, just to name a few examples, the work day/week, living in an industrial environment as opposed to a natural one, and requiring money to do anything. For instance, over the past 10 years I have struggled with meditation. My main struggle is when to "fit" it in. The irony, of course, is that meditation is not to be "fit" in, as a meeting, dinner with friends, or the writing of this document. But modern life forces one to either abandon meditation altogether or to try to make the best of the situation by "scheduling" time during which to meditate.

Brahma carried further the notion of having to re-arrange one's life and schedule to

"connect" by explaining how spiritual fulfillment for Hindus often depends on visits to India, which require scheduling, money, and taking time off of work, provided one is gainfully employed. If not, then I am not sure how they would do it. 90

BRAHMA: You live half across the world.. .and you know you spend two weeks, you know, twice a year, once a year, and you do everything that's important to you on a soul level. So that is the impact of [imperialism] for many people of South Asian culture who go back to connect all the time, right, with their roots. Because you don't find the connection here.

RAVI: Connection with?

BRAHMA: To yourself, to your roots, to your soul.

SavitrVs comments elaborate on Brahma's views by pointing to the fact that India has been changing, environmentally, economically, socially, in ways that might pose problems for

Hindus. She makes these comments on the backdrop of her interpretation of past Hindu society.

Interestingly, her comments here and this particular topic were inspired by her husband, who briefly interpreted our interview to make a point that Hindu society at its best was peaceful and centered around spiritual progress and "enlightened" beings. What was most impressive to me was that her husband is of English and not Hindu decent. Here is that dialogue:

SAVITRI: People were just happy to be. They were so connected to nature; they were so connected to who they were.

RAVI: And now?

SAVITRI: And now everything is hierarchical. You know, centralized government. I think that's what the colonials had given us. Central government. Kind of a hierarchy that you can't get "here" unless you go through "here" and that goes with everything. It's not just with how you rule your people and how you rule your country. I mean, look at our educational system, look at everything - driver's license - everything has become a test, if you do not pass this test at this level you cannot go at this level, irrespective of how enlightened you could be, how spiritual you could be. How you could contribute, without going through this. The whole notion of spiritual education, I think, existed in India before.

RAVI: And do you feel that that notion has diminished now?

SAVITRI: A lot. A lot.

RAVI: Spiritual development? 91

SAVITRI: Yeah. Where you do you find spiritual development? It's certainly not in the [public school] curriculum. Not even in the temples.

During my conservation with Sarasvati a distinction emerged, which I previously mentioned, between "Hinduness" and "Indianness" - two words that are intended to designate different identities. She saw the movement from the former to the latter as a movement from the spiritual to the secular and political. The "progression" or "degradation" from one to the other meant, to Sarasvati, a limited understanding of Hinduism among most Hindus, which in turn might further contribute to the move from Hinduness to Indianness, in a sort of vicious cycle.

SARASVATI: When I look at like the last 50 to 100 years in India, I think there has been a move - people have lost the meaning of the actual culture, in terms of the religious sense; it's developed into a sort of ritualism. And I think people don't really care that much anymore because they're chasing other ideals.

RAVI: What do you think the impact is, in your opinion? Let's begin with the psychological level of that ritualism. And the Indianness versus Hinduness.

SARASVATI: See, you know, it's interesting, the more I study the Vedas and study all these different things. It's so beautiful that all the rituals and all the symbolisms and everything that Hindu culture has, it's for a very specific reason. And it's - the more you read the more you realize there's a perfect logic behind everything. What's happened is because we've lost that meaning or we've lost that big-picture sort of logic; we do these things that appear to be really stupid and meaningless - just pure ritualistic. Like who cares if you light a lamp everyday - you don't know what this means; it's just another silly tradition that you or your parents uphold. But if you know the meaning behind it; it makes a lot of sense, more than that it facilitates you to keep alive that way of life or that meaning in the culture you're investing in. Right now people are investing in these rituals, but they have no reason why they're doing it so they're not really investing in the culture anymore. So I feel it's dying in a way.

RAVI: So.. .the Hinduness is dying?

SARASVATI: Yeah, the Hinduness is dying.

Thus, SarasvatV s perspectives on the importance of knowing the meaning behind the rites, rituals, and philosophy of Hinduism in a way provides an explanation for the lack of 92 spiritual education about which Savitri spoke. To use the cycle metaphor again, a lack of spiritual education would in turn contribute to a lack of a deep understanding of Hinduism.

Hinduism as the community. Two of the participants live a traditional life, more or less.

Many of their comments on religion are presented in the previous two themes, but I would like to present another perspective on the "location" of Hinduism or spirituality. We have read that

Brahma perceived it residing in India. We have heard Brahma and Savitri speak about nature and connection. We have heard Anita speak about ancestry and Hinduism as a bridge to connecting with ancestry. Finally, we have read about Ananda, and the importance of statues in containing aspects of Hinduism. For me, the "location" of Hinduism - where it exists - is with my mother and grandmother. In other words, they are the two people who most often carry out the rituals, ceremonies, tell stories, and, as a rule, are more devoted to their spiritual practices than my father or anyone else in my immediate social circle.

Sat and Chit on the other hand, provided an interesting perspective that might distinguish further the Anglo-American world from the Indian one, this time in terms of religion. Chit, speaking for both himself and Sat, challenged the idea that Hinduism is located in the texts - a taken-for-granted assumption in the West, it would seem. Instead, they held that Hinduism, or the traditional indigenous life of India, resided in the lives of people, the life of a community.

Consider this passage in which Chit begins by talking about his feelings on the diminishing number of people who live as Hindus:

CHIT: That is our sort of pain in this whole thing, is that, with a decrease in the number of people who are living that life, who are having a value for that culture...See the thing is, being an Indian, growing up in Indian society, you can do whatever you want, but when the day comes when you have questions, when the day comes when you no longer feel like you're finding what you're looking for, you know that "something" is there. You've heard of some sanyasis [ascetics having renounced the material world] who are 93

sitting there with nothing who are happy. You've heard of "something" to be known, "something" to be understood. This [knowledge of 'something'] is very much a part of you growing up. And of course, the more that [way of life (e.g., as lived by the sanyasis)] disappears the less [knowledge of them and their way of life is] going to be a part of people's lives.. .With the number of people who are aware of that [that way of life, that 'something'], who are living that [way of life, that 'something'] reducing definitely. Because Veda exists in its manifest form in the universe, it exists in people only, right? A book sitting by itself has no value at all.

The impact on gender and sexuality. Under the present theme, which I have called the

"Impact on Sexuality and Gender," I include the various perspectives and feelings of my participants not yet revealed and which relate to sexual identity and orientation; gender expression; and the experiences of South Asians whose sexual practices are more diverse than encompassed by the present-day heterosexual norm. As already mentioned, two of my participants identified as gay men; much of the content for this theme came from those two participants.

It is important for me to note that some of the findings that could be categorised under this theme have already been presented. For instance, Brahma's perspectives on the tendency to append labels to oneself so as to categorise one's sexual behaviour and thus identity, was place by me under the theme "Impact on Epistemology," because it provided a concrete and important example of what emerged from my discussion with Chit and Sat concerning naming and categorization.

Gender, sexuality, and spiritual progress. In my conversations with Brahma and

Ananda, the topic of gender and its relation to spirituality came up. Both made mention of the fact that the gender divides between male and female were less strict in Hindu civilization prior to colonization. Men and women had more fluid gender expression. In the following dialogue we 94 discuss this fluidity with particular focus on the androgynous depictions of many if not all Hindu gods.

RAVI: I just want to pick up on the gender expression of different deities. Can you talk a little bit more about how many [Hindu] deities as they're depicted in patriarchic, hetero- normative, Hindu culture are still androgynous?

BRAHMA: They are androgynous because if you find all the male gods are very feminine looking. Right? All the female gods are very, you know, voluptuous, you know, sort of, almond eyes, smiling -1 mean the only difference between the male god and the female god if you look at any of the Hindu deities, is one wears a sari and one wears a dhoti

RAVI: [Laughing] Yeah.

BRAHMA: That's the only difference. The clothing and the outside.

It was at this point that Brahma began speaking about the spiritual significance of gender, specifically, that there is no significance of gender, at least not of male and female genders.

BRAHMA: But also I've spent time in India with a lot of gurus and yogis.. .their response to every question I've had is that, [in an exhausted tone] "Why do you people, make, such a, big deal, about, the LGBTQ, in the West?"

RAVI: Really!? The Hindu yogis back home will say that? -

BRAHMA: [continues] "It really, doesn't, matter; it really, doesn't, matter; your soul has no gender; you are here to experience."

Brahma qualified this statement by saying that, of course, it is in many ways necessary to give attention to gender and sexuality because of the oppression and marginalisation that many, if not all, members of the LGBTQ face internationally. Notwithstanding a moral imperative to attend to matters of social justice, Brahma further discussed the insignificance of gender and sexuality for spiritual enlightenment.

BRAHMA: They [the gurus] all said when your soul or your body becomes enlightened you no longer identify as male or female.. .when you go to a higher and this is why transgender in South Asian culture is a very high, esteemed position, because basically 95

you're a convergence of male and female energies.. .so if you look at one of the gods, Adeshwari, who is a combination of male and female, Shiva and Shakti, what is that about?

And also in Hindu mythology, you know, Vishnu took the form of a female goddess to seduce Shiva, and Ayupen is born. So I mean gods change sex all the time. Why do humans have such a problem? Right?

Ananda also mentioned Ayupen and the esteemed position of trans people. In this short passage he reveals his views about the possible impact of British culture on the manner in which trans people are regarded.

ANANDA: Heterosexuality is the norm and that was sort of brought over from [the] British point of view. I mean prior to [colonization] there were two-spirited people living in Canada.. .same with devadasis, which were temple dancers.. .same thing with Eunuchs and trans people who were in India, revered as having both [masculine and feminine qualities and consequently] being pure and being clean and being chaste. They were temple dancers and temple servers, and so they were placed in a very high place. And then colonization sort of stripped them of all of that and put them in the outskirts. So that in itself - so those ideologies sort of passed on here,

When I asked Brahma, who works with queer South Asian men, how the people with whom he works react to the insignificance of gender for spiritual progress, he had the following to say.

RAVI: According to your experience and knowledge, how do feel they react and what do you think the consequence would be for them to find out that according to Hinduism, the soul has no gender?

BRAHMA: The people that I speak to find it kind of liberating [that the soul has no gender]. "Wow I can just be whatever I want. I don't just have to subscribe to a box." There's some who feel, "Well, I don't know, you know, I'm not sure, I kind of like my gender. I pay a lot of homage to it and I want to sort of have this gender."

"Anally retentive gender expressionBrahma also spoke about the place of gender in the modern globalizing world, demonstrating that in the present day, particularly in corporate culture, the conventional gender binary is still in force. 96

BRAHMA: [I]f you work in a really uptight corporate office, you really have to subscribe to the dress code. You can't really go in with long hair, with tattoos, with any kind of jewellery you want to wear, with certain shoes. You know, a casual outfit, you can't. You have to subscribe to the anally retentive gender expression.

RAVI: You identified "anally retentive gender expression" with corporations, with corporate culture. Could you elaborate on that? Why did you identify corporations as "anally retentive" in terms of gender expression?

BRAHMA: Because in order to sort of command respect, privilege, you have to dress a certain way.

RAVI: In a heteronormative way?

BRAHMA: In a heteronormative way. And that even happens in countries across the world, not just North America. It's everywhere pretty much, right? [I know a banker] in Toronto, and he's South Asian and he's one of the chief financial analysts from the bank and he says that every Saturday and Sunday he will wear his dhoti [a traditional Indian outfit for men] on the subway. He says, "I don't care. I'm going to temple. I'm wearing my dhoti." And I said, "Would you wear it to work?" He said, "No, if I wear it to work I'll get too many questions explaining what does it mean [IA] and clients may not respect me the same way - would not take me serious when I give them financial investment scenarios, right, because they'll be too busy looking at what I'm wearing and wondering if I'm competent enough to do the work."

RAVI: I wonder what that means, because the major component of globalization is economic globalization and the major economic force is the corporations. So what does that mean when corporations pick up and go to India and they take this "anally retentive gender expression," hetero normative culture. You also identified it as Euro-centric. SO if you wore a dhoti to work ..somebody's not going to take you seriously.

BRAHMA: You're not going to be taken seriously ... to be taken seriously you have to dress a certain way...

Homophobia in the temples. In contrast to the tolerance and openness of certain aspects of Hinduism is the homophobia that many queer South Asians face. To Ananda, as mentioned, the naturalization of heterosexuality was a product of colonization, either through ideology or the destruction of cultural artefacts. 97

SIVA: Prior to colonization [sexuality and gender] was more liberal. Because of Victorian modesty they stripped away all of that. Colonization also eradicated a lot [of artefacts] -1 mean [an academic presentation I attended] showed us temples; there [were] different carvings of males and females in different various forms, and there was a lot of homosexual imagery, and a lot of sculptures that were present in temples that were slowly eradicated and taken away.

In the following dialogue, Brahma outlines the struggle that ensues for many queer south Asians as a result of homophobia in the temples, ironically despite the level of tolerance in the ancient texts, by the yogis with whom he has spoken, and as evidenced by the destroyed artefacts that

Ananda mentions.

BRAHMA: In the LGBT community there is a real disconnect [with spiritual belief systems]. So if you're Christian you would go [to the MCC church], but for many other LGBT people from racialized communities, there isn't really a place to go [where] you're embraced for your sexuality and be spiritual or religious.

RAVI: So if you're Hindu for instance?

BRAHMA: There isn't - you can't really go to a temple and say "I'm gay, and I pray." You would have the whole issue of homophobia. But interestingly for anybody who reads the Hindu text, it's very LGBT friendly or very queer-friendly, right?

All the gods have a very gender-queer personality in Hinduism. People are not comfortable, but as a queer man I see these things.

Krishna, for example, Krishna takes on the form of a transgender. So basically he becomes a woman for 41 days, right? I mean you don't find this in other scriptures.

You talk about Adeshwari, which is the only intersex god in Hinduism, which is a combination of Shiva and Parvati

So there's many many analogies, basically, in Hinduism that talk about how god doesn't have a sex, god doesn't have a gender. We give it the gender that we like. If I'm a straight man, I will create in my mind a god that is straight, and powerful, and masculine, and whatever. Right? So this is the beauty of Hinduism.

And I tell this to a lot of younger gay [Hindu] men .. .for many of them they can't really have this sort of dialogue at home, because it's frowned upon, right? And also in a sense that many of the priests are not really educated in terms of sexual behaviour and orientation. 98

Internalisation of inferiority. Four of my participants commented on what in the past has been referred to as the internalization of inferiority or colonial mentality (e.g., David &

Okazaki, 2006). There are two points that I would like to emphasize here based on the participants' perspectives. The first is that inferiority can be experienced about anything related to one's native culture not merely race, skin-colour, language, or food preferences. The second

point is that the nature of shame, based on what two of my participants stated and to which at least two others allude, is often unconscious.

Colonial mentality. Anita illustrates the relatively common experience of unconscious shame among people from the former colonies with a very personal story from her youth, in the following passage.

ANITA: I remember in Grade 9 in high school, my mom was taking my brother and I on a trip to India and we were going to see family after 8 years. I was like so ecstatic to go on the trip. But it was still that, you know, growing up and just finishing middle school where I was still always the "other" kid. I was so ashamed to tell people that I was going to India, because then they would know where I was from. And you wouldn't believe, I told people, "No, no, no, my family lives in London" Because I had one guy come up to me and say "Oh, I heard you're leaving class for like four weeks; you're going to India." I [had] this panic-stricken look on my face, and I could feel my heart going to the floor, and I was like, "No, no, no, I'm not, I'm not going to India; my family lives in London." I don't know why I picked London of all places. I'm thinking in my mind it's one of those neutral places, you know, people that look like me live there, but it's not so far off, that I'm weird or I'm from India, Indian, and all the stereotypes that go along with it, the curry, the smell - all those negative images of Indians. That was like sophisticated - it's London, it's a safe way. So I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, I'm going to London." And he's like, "No, but the teacher said you're going to India." And I'm like, "No she's wrong!" I'm fighting with this guy and I convinced him that no my vacation and my family is in London. Now I look back and I'm like "Oh, my god," why did I do that?

I know many who have done something similar. I myself at times have revealed that my

parents were from India, and upon doing so, would deal with an onslaught of fear of the

judgments that I was expecting to come my way. Brahma comments on how this sense of 99 cultural inferiority is prevalent in India today. In the following passage he talks about the tendency to emphasize foreign residence in matrimonial ads.

BRAHMA: [In the ads, people emphasize] higher education — "My son, daughter lives in the U.K., U.S." whatever, right? And then that's a high social standing. What does that equate to? - Living in a foreign country is better for you versus living in India or Asia. It somehow makes you better, it makes you more valuable. Where does that thinking come from? Meanwhile, many of the new immigrants who come to countries like Canada are not really having the most wonderful time, right, because they have to face with the lack of getting any jobs that cater to their qualifications; they deal with racism.

Shade-ism or skin-based racism, A handful of my participants commented on how skin- based racism was a consequence of imperialism and how it also was internalized. Anita, for instance, commented on how beauty is socially and culturally defined with the white person as the ideal. In the following passage she also ties in various qualities associated with "white" skin, such as sophistication and intelligence. I believe she is conscious of having made these associations, but I think it is all the more telling, because it illustrates that skin colour is not just about skin colour; it is a signifier for internal qualities or a symbol for a psychological and behavioural benchmark that each South Asian must meet.

ANITA: So it's like this level of sophistication - you have to attain this level, and I feel that that's played out a lot into Indian culture. When we start to define things like beauty or what's beautiful or what's intelligent, it's, you know, "He or she can speak English," "Their skin is so white."

Interestingly, but perhaps not surprising, white skin or lighter skin as a sign of beauty marks the experience of South Asian men who like to have sex with other men. Brahma shares his thoughts on this preference among members of the South Asian gay community in the following short dialogue:

BRAHMA: For a lot of gay men in their website.. .they prefer somebody who is white, right? So what is that about? White comes out basically saying white is beautiful or white 100

is better. But again that comes from a very strong colonial mentality...lightness of skin, it's a huge issue.. ."fair, wheatish complexion."

RAVI: If I were to look at the equivalent of a FAB magazine [a popular LGBTQ magazine in the Greater Toronto Area] in Mumbai, [India], what would you see?

BRAHMA: There is the same mentality of looking for lighter skin, whiter boy... .God forbid you're dark and hairy!

[We laugh in unison]

Lakshmi had personal experience with this prejudice, having dealt with negative attitudes because her skin was darker than that of her friends. She was kind enough to share with me a relatively sensitive story about her experience, a disclosure that, she assured me, followed from her having "dealt" with the issue on a personal level a while ago.

LAKSHMI: [W]e all have to be fair and tall, you know, right, that's essentially our way of dealing with, I think, colour and race, right.

RAVI: So lighter is better?

LAKSHMI: Lighter is always better. Taller is better. I've seen, personally you know, students, and when I was a kid in India, my friends, the fair ones were always somehow better. I've had comments to me you know, "Oh, she's cute, it doesn't matter that she's dark." [She laughs] So, you know, it's there. And I think that is our way of expressing -1 mean it has to be related to, whatever, however many, hundreds of years of having white masters must have had some impact on how we view ourselves; there's a self-hatred.

RAVI: How does that impact a young girl's psyche or self-confidence?

LAKSHMI: Like I said, all of my friends wanted to be fair and tall - so did 1.1 felt terrible, because my parents have a really close friend-circle in India where they all went to university together. So they were friends forever. And then their kids — meaning us - we became quite good friends, because again, you know, parents always together, so we saw each other. And all of them - it was so funny we were all [brother-sister sibling pairs] - but you know, two of them were really beautiful and tall and really fair-skinned, in fact, all of them were much fairer than I was. And I spent my whole life feeling ugly, essentially, when I was a kid. And it was absolutely only because of the skin colour. One of them had these beautiful light eyes - [stopping in mid sentence, says] - see even I say that, "beautiful light eyes" - 101

RAVI: - "Beautiful," right, I was going to say that.

LAKSHMI: To me, back then, it was absolutely something that made me feel -1 was very shy, I never spoke a word when I was young.

RAVI: How do you think that would've impacted you if that would not have been the case? Not to say that if you were taller and lighter, but take that whole distinction off the table. Do you ever think about how that would be different if [white skin] wasn't a criterion against which you were held?

LASKHMI: I would spend a lot less time being worried about how I look and feeling awful, you know, usually ugly and invisible. So whenever we were in groups, I felt invisible, because I felt like, look at all these beautiful, fair-skinned, friends of mine? Who would want to look at me?

Despite the level of emotion I sensed in her tone and LakshmV s conveyance of feeling

"terrible," "ugly," and "invisible," that she stated that in the end her struggle with internalised racism helped her develop personal strength. But her experience of "shade-ism," as it has been called, might be all too common. During our conversation I thought about how this pervasive shade-ism might be experienced by a woman as opposed to a man, so I asked her.

RAVI: As a woman, all the things that women have to contend with as a result of everything being slanted in favour of masculinity and men, do you feel that [shade-ism] was, and that it still is, one extra burden for a woman to deal with, in terms of body image in India, for instance?

LAKSHMI: Yeah. Of course. Yeah. For sure. Unfortunately it's the reality, right?

At this point Lakshmi brought up that, all too often, internalized inferiority begins in youth.

LAKSHMI: Especially when you're young and you don't have the defences and the abilities to critically analyse why people treat you the way you do or how you should look at yourself. You know, these things really matter. When it's really important, nobody is really there to tell you, you know, that this is what matters and that is not important. 102

Anita, too, shared this perspective on the importance of education and guidance for children who grow up in a post-colonial world.

ANITA: I've been through that experience growing up as a child, where I felt I was ashamed of who I am and not happy with where I came from, but through my education I've been able to [see and say] "So that's what happened to me" That light-bulb goes off - "That's internalized racism; that's what happened to me."

Lakshmi shared with me an account of education in colonial and post-colonial India by referring to her father's and then her own experience with the education system and the extent to which their education fostered an association between "being British" and "being cultured." In this long dialogue between us, she elaborates on these points after having a tangential discussion with me. Here I bring us back to the discussion about her father:

RAVI: If you could speak a little bit more about your father. You made it sound as if he was explicitly taught to be British.

LAKSHMI: Yeah.

RAVI: Is that how he describes it?

LAKSHMI: That's how he describes it...We're not talking about long-term indoctrination. But I believe that even after the British left that sort of anglicized attitude of trying to become more civilized and British, it did remain in India for a while.

RAVI: Do you think that it affected your father post-Independence.?

LAKSHMI: Probably. I mean it doesn't change overnight, right? Even today, there's a lot of people in India who are westernized, because that's somehow more cultured...I think that my father - he's a complicated man. As I said, I think he's aware of the history of what happened in India. So he's aware that these are things that he was probably conditioned into thinking. And I don't think he really believes that being westernized is more cultured. But I know that in reality he does sort of act that way still...it's unconscious. It's just - conditioning is very strong, I think.

RAVI: Yeah, even if it's for a short time, you still feel like it's -

LAKSHMI: Yeah. And it wasn't necessarily short, it was when he was actually in the British school that was not too long, but this sort of attitude of being British [is] being 103 better somehow, it remained, and I think it sort of stuck around. For example, even when I went to school. I went to - in Calcutta -1 went to this very well-known school called La Martiniere.. .It was started by this Catholic Frenchman. I don't know why he was in India [laughs]. But he started it. It's well known now not because of that, but because it's a very good school.. .even then when I went to school, it was still run as a Catholic school. So, I mean, completely religious.

RAVI: So what did that mean for you?

LAKSHMI: So it meant, you know, going to school in the morning, and there's prayers and hymns, all Catholic, although nobody in the school was actually Catholic, we were all Indians [laughs] - Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, everything; there were Christians, too, of course. But what I remember mostly is that it wasn't about being Catholic or not Catholic, but about being Western or not Western.

So I think even that long after Independence, this is in the 80s, even in the 80s it still remained that there were these English-medium private schools.

RAVI: So you went to school in the 80s., to a Catholic school where it was majority Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, and still they were singing these hymns?

LAKSHMI: Oh yeah.

RAVI: Would you learn anything about Hinduism there?

LAKSHMI: No. It was - because it was still a private school, so technically they're allowed to educate you in whatever manner they want. Now, they didn't try to convert us. They sort of assumed [laughs] that we would all somehow be fine singing hymns [laughs]. It was very strange. It was sort of like a ritual that didn't really mean anything as far as [religion]...You gotta sing the song in the morning and that's just what you do...So I never gave it a second thought when I was in school. It was only later when I look back, I thought, "Boy that was kind of weird" [laughs]

RAVI: So elaborate on that. What are your reflections on that?

LAKSHMI: Did I feel somehow more Christian? Absolutely not. So I don't feel like that was the impact. Do I feel like I became more Westernized by going to that school? Yes, for sure.

RAVI: How?

LAKSHMI: Well as I said everything was taught in English, for one thing. So that's one major thing. And because it was one of the better schools, it was not — I mean, English was not somehow about barely speaking it; it was very much about doing well. And I was 104

of course, all my life, all of us who were in academics, we tend to be overachievers in school.

Anita, who grew up in Canada, reiterates a similar point, using the word "socialization" to describe what seems to be the same or similar act of indoctrination to which Lakshmi refers, albeit in a different place and location.

ANITA: I think it's because of socialization, right? These are things that we've been surrounded with our whole lives. We begin to believe these things are true. And it's on such a subconscious level, unless you've had the education or you speak to someone and you're able to analyze these pieces. And now I think I've been privileged enough to have the education where I am now able to put an analysis. And I'm able to see and I'm catching myself and I'm like, "Wow, where did I come up with that?" you know? "Where did I equate being highly educated with speaking English without an accent?" .. .Is that true? How many examples truly in my life have I come across where I've seen someone that was truly highly educated that didn't have an accent? Not true. 105

Emergent Findings

In this section I discuss two findings, the impact on women and the impact on the caste system. These are findings or themes that emerged in my conversations, but that had little backing in the literature I reviewed, and particularly the latter, of which I read little and which I did not anticipate at all. One reason I may have expected these themes less than, for example, colonial mentality, was because of what I perceived to be a sex bias in the literature; in other words, there are more men who seem to write on this topic of colonization than women. Perhaps the same is true of caste, which might explain the little attention paid to it. To be clear, I am not saying that little has been written on women in India and the caste system, quite the contrary it seems to me now, but what I am saying is that little has been reviewed by me (and perhaps written by others) on the impact of imperialism on women and the caste system. Moreover, it is also possible that my own social location is precisely that which precluded my cognisance of these two questions or caused a bias in my literature search in the first place. I am a man and based on what I have been told neither a member of what might be considered one of the lower castes, nor a dalit.

What sets these two findings apart from the others, first and foremost, is that they represent contentious and sensitive issues that I have come to learn are currently in many ways at the centre of Indian society. In addition, my approaching either the question of the impact on woman or the question of the caste system, would, based on my social location, further contribute to the contentiousness of each topic: I am a man writing about women and a member of the "higher" caste writing about a system from which I presumably benefited. For this reason

(i.e., the contentiousness of the issue and my social location), I feel that presentation of these themes calls for a caveat. 106

First, I want to make it clear that I include them because I think they deserve mention, despite the fact that they were discussed less by my participants than other topics. In other words, my data do not permit me to duly treat either of these topics. But in including them it is important in my opinion to be cognisant of the fact that I have neither reviewed literature nor spent sufficient time providing historical context for these issues. As a result, the presentation of these findings is likely to be less critical and somewhat "raw." The danger of including them in raw form is that I run the risk of presenting them in a form that might be misunderstood or that may reproduce a colonial, sexist, caste-ist viewpoint on a topic.

The impact on women. Of the 10 participants, 5 were women, and of those, 4 commented on the impact that imperialism had on women. In addition, one man, Brahma, had something to say about the impact of imperialism on women.

Complicated progress. All four women felt that some progress had been made in the fair treatment of women in India as a result of imperialism. One participant, Radha, betrayed a linear belief in the process of liberation. To her, women were always oppressed, and colonization helped to liberate women. Savitri, on the other hand, believed it was the Laws of Manu, an oft- mentioned treatise on conduct in civil society that precipitated a downfall in the treatment of women in Hindu society, which, to her, had been "liberal" during the time of the Mahabharata and Ramayana, which preceded the Laws by millennia, according to Hindu belief. Imperialism brought about another liberal period for women. Thus, her believe in the struggle of women betrays a more cyclical pattern.

But another participant, Lakshmi, brought about some points that showed the complexity of the struggle for fair treatment. In the following passage she discusses how and why women 107 were influential in the struggle for independence from the very Empire that is credited with advancing women's fair treatment, while also commenting on how this role may have led to a

backtrack in the overall struggle of women in India.

LAKSHMI: Well I know for example, women actually played a major role in the whole freedom fighting movement. So in that sense, certainly, it was directly related to colonialism in that, I think, women had to play a much stronger role.. .because there was this whole movement happening. Actually, the first war of independence technically was 1857 and then independence happened in 1947. That's a hundred years of essentially sort of like a war.. .a situation where there is conflict, and you can't have conflict in a society without the women being involved as well. So I think the direct impact was that because of having this whole colonization happening and having to struggle against it.. .it took away from actually focusing on the gender issues that were there anyway, you know, apart from colonialism. Every culture has gender issues.

RAVI: Of course.

LAKSHMI: Now, when there is a huge movement like the Independence movement, you're not going to focus on other social issues, right, like "Is education good," or "Are women being treated fairly." Those become secondary. So I think because of that women's gender issues in India are probably behind where they should

Notice that Lakshmi identifies imperialism, or at least the resulting struggle for independence, as stalling the fair treatment of women. In this sense, her views contrast with the others because her

beliefs about the impact go in the opposite direction: imperialism did not make things better, but rather interfered with the development or natural response to a social issue that is universal.

She discusses a further complexity. Although women in India have more opportunities now than in the past, and globalization facilitates those opportunities, many women become double-burdened, that is to say, they work inside and outside the home in many Hindu families.

Imperialism and matriarchy. Brahma brought up the point that matriarchy existed and continues to exist in many part of India. Imperialism, he felt, wears down the strength of matriarchy. He notes the transition in the following passage, commenting on a type of mate 108 selection that is depicted in the epic Mahabharata, in which the woman chooses the man for marriage, yielding a disproportionate amount of control over marriage proceedings.

RAVI: So you see matriarchy as sort of shifted from left to right vis-a-vis colonialism?

BRAHMA: Yup, exactly. And the easiest province to look at is basically Kerala; Kerala had a very strong matriarchical system. Women actually chose their husbands; they didn't marry them.

RAVI: Chose them?

BRAHMA: They chose them.

RAVI: "This is who I want"

BRAHMA: "This is who I want" - and they didn't even get married to them; they basically just lived together. ..all property went to the women.

Impact on caste system. I have already mentioned the caste system but only in relation to another finding, the impact of the need to used categories to understand the world in the

Impact on Epistemology. It surprised me when 3 of my participants commented on what they felt to be the corruption of the caste system. To Sarasvati, the caste system was corrupted before the

British came, degenerating into a "monster." But to her and Brahma, the general principles

behind the caste system are sound.

That general principle is that one's function in society should stem from aptitude, not birth. Here are passages from my conversations with Brahma and Sarasvati on this topic.

SARASVATI: [W]ay back in the day, it was not based on birth...it used to be a democratic process, but over time it was corrupted...and become a way to exploit others, whereas initially it wasn't, initially it was more "this is my role in life and this is your role in life"...it's become a vertical system but it was a horizontal system...a [person of what is now considered a lower caste] was considered no less or no more than [members of "higher" castes]...and everything was considered to be a service for society, but then it became "I'm higher than you you're lower than me." 109

Apart from more efficiently utilizing the aptitude of individuals in society, this type of organization, called varanaashrama, also brought about a more communal society, according to

Sarasvati. The caste system worked, she said, "Because everyone was doing their duty based on what was needed in society." Brahma also commented on the original intent of the caste system.

BRAHMA: The caste system came about basically by [perceiving that] [e]verybody in society has a role to play - and we do this in our hierarchy in North America, in every educated, civilized culture. If you want to be a professor of university you must have a PhD. You don't walk in with a bachelor's degree and say "I wanna be a professor in university." We have a hierarchy because we need certain credentials and skills to do a certain job. In the caste system, everybody has knowledge and skills and wisdom. But if your knowledge and skills and wisdom are x, y, z, then you do manual work. If your knowledge, skills and experience is more of literature, academic, you become a high priest. If you're much more built to do warrior and you're born in a family that builds swords, sort of does fighting, trains archers, you become the warrior class. That's what the caste system really was about.

To Brahma, the primary way in which the caste system was degenerated by imperial influence is by infusing or constructing the caste system along skin-based lines. More light-skinned Indians were hired to work for the British than the darker skinned Indians, a belief on his part that implies certain fluidity. If you were a member of the lower caste but had light skin, you could be

"upwardly mobile." 110

Discussion

This thesis is as much a chronicle of a qualitative study as it is a chronicle of changes affected in me by writing it, interacting with my colleagues and participants, and playing the role of researcher. I hope that I and my participants have done a good enough job to communicate that struggles originating in British Imperial times are still being lived through in the present context of globalization. Some of these struggles are occurring at the sociological level, while others are experienced at the individual level. In the case of this thesis, many of those individual- level struggles are psychological and emotional and lived through in the Canadian context.

As far as I can tell, in the most general sense, the significance of this study was in its novelty: Few have studied the impacts of colonialism and imperialism using a qualitative method and nobody of whom I am aware has studied the impacts on South Asian Hindus, particularly within the context of psychology. The lack of research in this area, especially in Canada, of course is inversely related to the population of South Asian Hindus, some well adjusted, some not, in the multicultural milieu of Canadian society.

I attempted to answer two main research questions. The first of these two questions was to determine if and how my participants saw a relationship between British colonialism and modern globalization, while the second question was to determine the impact of those two forms of oppression. Below I summarize what my participants have said and how what they said relates to the literature I reviewed. In addition, I bring in other sources when possible and attempt to ascertain the value or originality of the findings. Ill

The Link between British Imperialism and US Globalization

Overwhelmingly, my participants felt that the answer to the above question is yes, which is consistent with what might be considered the more critical literature in various fields of academic inquiry (e.g., Petras & Veltmeyer, 2001). What this study adds to that literature is twofold. First, as far as I can tell, the question of the relationship between the two has never been asked more pointedly to South Asian Hindus, at least in a Canadian setting. In other words, these are not academics who devote their lives to the study of imperialism, history, or culture, but

"regular" people, often markedly different from one another in age, birth place, province of origin, profession, education, and lifestyle. Granted, I intentionally selected those who would want to speak about the subject, which means there is certainly a bias in my findings as a result of selection: Those who had nothing to say would not have been selected, while those who had something to say about imperialism were selected, primarily because they would have formed an opinion about the subject in the first place. But nonetheless, their opinions are consistent with the critical literature, as I have said, as well as my personal opinion and interpretation of the historical facts, as outlined above.

The second contribution to the question of the relationship between British Imperialism and globalization is what one of my participants said. Sarasvati used the central concept in the

Hollywood motion picture Inception to represent the relationship between imperialism and globalization, which as far as I know, is unique. To her, the British Raj served to plant the seeds of various "colonial" ideas into the social and psychological fabric of Hindu society. Ideas about industrialization, for instance, saturated India by the time Independence was achieved, a saturation that contributed to the force of industrialization and globalization in India afterward.

As in the motion picture, once an idea is planted in the mind of the targeted person during a shared dream sequence in which agents are charged with carrying out the task, the target awakes to think that the idea is her or his, thereby circumventing any conscious defences against the idea, as foreign or inimical, for instance. Henceforth, the idea grows like a cancer, to use the words of the motion picture, often consuming the target individual. If India's Independence was its awakening, then I believe that Sarasvati's analogy applies: India awoke to think that many of the institutions in her world, as well as the ideas about where she had been, come from, and where she should go, were either perceived as originally Indian, not foreign, or, as in the case of industrialization, a matter of universal human progress. Put in other words, western ideas become increasingly naturalized and invisible as a result of this process of colonial inception. Resistance to these ideas and their implications then are stultified in the era of globalization.

In terms of the literature that I reviewed, India, and presumably most if not all post- colonial nations, finds itself in a position similar to that of oppressed persons in Freire's (1970)

Pedagogy of the Oppressed. That is, they are unable to see the sources of their oppression not just in real terms (e.g., material poverty), but also in terms of the ideas and assumptions that undergird, for example, material poverty, such as private poverty and bank reserve notes.

Liberation, then, rests on a process of conscientizacao, according to the Freireian framework. For

India, this process would entail becoming aware of the connection between its real world problems and the ideas and assumptions that support those problems - ideas and assumptions that, according to Sarasvati's analogy, were implanted in the nation's mind through a process of colonial inception, while, to play with the analogy a little, India was sleeping. 113

The Impacts of Imperialism on South Asian Hindus

As expected of an exploratory study, participants commented on a range of topics. The

major themes were: (1) the impact of capitalism; (2) the impact on epistemology; (3) the impact

on Hinduism or dharma; (4) the impact on sexuality and gender; (5) and colonial mentality,

while the emergent themes were (6) the impact on women and (7) the impact on the caste system. Below I have commented on each of the themes, including the sub-themes within them.

As in my response to the first question, I comment on the relationship between what my

participants said and the literature I reviewed, bringing in new literature when necessary and

making attempts to ascertain originality when possible.

All of the changes or "impacts" discussed by my participants can be viewed in at least two ways. First, they can be viewed categorically - Hindu values were "this" and now they are

"that." Second, the changes can be viewed from a Nandian perspective, according to which the cultural priorities in Hindu culture were rearranged and are currently being rearranged.

According to Nandy, by and large, these "impacts" reflect a process in which elements of Hindu culture (e.g., artha or wealth accumulation) that were relatively recessive are becoming prominent through imperialism. I favour this latter perspective for the reasons already

mentioned, specifically, that they allow for a better understanding of "impact" and account for

the multiplicity and variety of Hindu culture.

The impact of capitalism. Many of my participants had reservations with the differing

consequences of a capitalist economy on Hindus and Hindu culture. Four main sub-themes

emerged. These were (a) the impact on values, (b) the impact on religion, (c) the impact on the

notion of the self, and (d) the impact on the concept and function of work. 114

The overwhelming mention of capitalism and its ill effects on Hindus and Hindu

civilization supports the vast array of literature, some portions mentioned in this thesis and some

not, that points to the connection between capitalism and imperial and colonial expansion (e.g.,

Lenin, 1916). Indeed, in some sense, the order in which this thesis is presented is misleading.

My initial interviews with participants convinced me to rewrite my literature review in order to

amplify the connection between capitalism and imperialism, which prior to the interviews was

present but figured lightly.

Several participants all but lamented the import carried by money and capital in the

present era, in which tradition, family, history, were under threat of usurpation by the new value

placed on monetary success, which meant the diminishing of the significance of other forms of

success (e.g., familial success). These perspectives are reminiscent of Cesaire (1955) who

defended what he perceived to be pre-capitalist and thus pre-colonial Africa as embodying what

are presumably by many in the West, not to mention community psychologists, considered sound

values: courtesy, cooperation, fraternity, and community.

It is interesting to see how the experience of my participants and many of the quotes

selected from their conversations with me relate to what Fromm referred to as one of the

"characterological changes" resulting from capitalism, illustrating the "social character of

contemporary man [sic]" (Fromm, 1955, p. 103). That characterological change is an increasing

tendency on the part of the individual in contemporary capitalist society to view all things,

oneself included, in abstract and quantifiable terms. This process he referred to as

abstractification. 115

This tendency marks a shift away from what Fromm calls "use value" toward what he calls "exchange value." Use value refers to the value given to, for example, an object, based on its concrete value in terms of its function and meaning to the individual, or intrinsic properties. In contrast, exchange value refers to the value given to, using the same example, an object, but based on its abstract value in dollar terms (i.e., its value in exchange for money). A rose, to use

Fromm's example, isn't just a rose, but a flower with a certain price. The process of abstractification leads to a situation in which "even the most beautiful flower, provided it is a wild one, costing nothing, is not experienced in its beauty, compared to that of a rose, because it has no exchange value" (p. 107, emphasis added).

The process of abstractification seems to me to relate particularly to the first, second, and fourth sub-themes: The impact on values, the impact on the notion of the self, and the impact on the concept and function of work, respectively. Certainly, my participants spoke of the increasing focus of money as novel and negative, one noting that "money has never been something that the ordinary Indian cared about," and another lamenting the undermining of

Hindu values in the face of abstractification.

Indeed, Ashis's father's view of priestly functions as having a particular value based on the amount of money a Hindu "priest" might make officiating those functions (e.g., a wedding ceremony) is in line with and supports this shift toward abstractifying the world. A Hindu

"priest's" value, in other words, is not determined primarily by the value that the ceremonies he officiates has for a couple getting married but by his exchange value in the market, which rests on how much money he makes. 116

Perhaps it is because Hindu culture is so deeply religious that instead of abandoning religiosity altogether, or relegating it to secondary or tertiary status based on its relatively low exchange value, Hindus have decided to imbue religious texts and functions with a higher exchange value by believing in their ability to increase monetary success. Abstractification still applies here, because increasingly the value of a religious function or text rests not on its spiritual significance, its function for an individual or community, but on its monetary value. For some, that value rests not on its "direct" exchange value but on its "indirect" exchange value.

The second sub-theme, called "Krishna consciousness" is an illustration of this process.

Increasingly, it seems that Hindus are bringing together the sacred and profane, by, for instance, using lessons from the Bhagavad Gita and presumably other texts to increase business management skills. Recently, the head of one of India's most profitable companies, the BK Birla

Group, as well as other industrialists, used an ancient ceremony called a yajna, in order to increase business prospects; the yajna was performed by Hindu "priests," of course, and in honour of Lakshmi, not my participant, but the Hindu goddess of wealth and prosperity.16

Their interest in wealth and possession reflects a shift in the way that Hindus are coming to define themselves. As Sarasvati pointed out, Hinduism's notion of the self is largely spiritual and communal. People relate to the world and to others through their function in society and the belief that all selves were "infinite" and that the material world was "finite," and thus of secondary concern. But increasingly Hindus are coming to define themselves in terms of what they own, what they wear, and the size of their business or bank account. It is conceivable that these attempts are really an attempt to increase the individual Hindu's perceived exchange value:

"How much are you worth?"

16 http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-10-30/kolkata/303385Q9 1 praver-b-k-birla-industrialist 117

"What is it that you do" is another question that is frequently asked in contemporary

Hindu culture. In so many Indian circles in Canada and India, and presumably the U.S., the question contains a subtext: Your actions are only worth as much as the income they generate, as

Ashis pointed out during our conversation. It is perhaps why so many Hindus the world over seem to know more about the capitalists such as the Ambanis and Lakshmi Mittal than they do about Dashratha Manjhi. Dashratha's actions had a high "use" value. For him, it was important to ensure that nobody else would lose a loved one because of the long trek to the hospital. But the action, having not been sanctioned by the powers of capital, had considerably less exchange value.

When Fromm published his book in 1955 abstractification was, as he had described, a change in the character of the "contemporary man [sic]." Even though aspects of industrialization and capitalism were present in India while Fromm was writing, they were arguably not as salient as they are today. Based on my interpretation of my participants' perspectives, abstractification is one of the primary "characterological" changes in Hindus.

Looked at another way, imperialism has resulted in the importation of this characterological change along with all other elements of Western culture (e.g., technology).

The impact on epistemology. During my conversation with two of my participants, Sat and Chit, the three of us talked about some key differences between individuals from Hindu and

Western culture, particularly in the way members from each culture understand or come to know the world and others. I called this theme "The Impact on Epistemology," highlighting differences but also changes affected by imperialism in the way that Hindus understand themselves and their world. Two sub-themes emerged: (1) the reliance on names and categories in Western 118 civilization in order to understand and (2) the emergence of the notion of "evidence" in order validate religious beliefs.

I am not aware of any literature that might relate to either sub-themes. In other words, none of the authors 1 reviewed here or anyone else of which I am currently aware has noted the difference in epistemological approach between Western and Hindu cultures. This finding might be novel, but it requires further research in order to determine its novelty. Further research might also help determine its potential for helping to understand the cognitive changes ensuing from imperialist culture, and furthermore, the practical consequences stemming from cognitive change.

The impact on religion or "dharmaAbout half of my participants commented on the impact of imperialism on religion or what is more properly called dharma. All of the changes mentioned were perceived to be negative. There were four sub-themes: (a) Hinduism altered but still vibrant; (b) attitudes toward Hinduism; (c) a spiritual versus secular society; and (d)

Hinduism or dharma is the community.

The first theme reflected the perspectives of Sarasvati, Brahma, and Ananda, all of whom perceived a change in Hinduism. Although I see little connection between what my participants said and the bulk of my literature review, there is obviously some connection between Nandy's discussion about the changes reflected in some of the epics. I will discuss this point in more detail under the next theme. But certainly, the main connection in this section is the alteration of vestigial elements of Hindu civilization. For Nandy, the alteration was done to epics, while for Brahma and particularly Ananda, the alteration was done to temples and statues, 119 which reflected a pre-colonial and perhaps pre-Islamic comfort with forms of sexuality that

"deviate" from the heternormativity in the present era.

There is an interesting connection between Anita's perspective, reflecting the second sub- theme, and Baker-Miller's (1976) belief that subordinates lack self-knowledge. For Anita, being a member of a subordinate group, in this case being Hindu, motivated her to understand her religion and culture. Anita's perspective seems to reflect a half-conscious awareness of the fact that, although she is increasingly motivated to understand her culture and religion in the face of judgment, she would nevertheless have to do so in the context of an urban Canadian society, which presented several challenges, marking the third theme in which the spiritual and secular are opposed, often in tension.

Like Anita perhaps, Brahma found it difficult to "live half way across the world" and take a month out of year every now and then to connect "to yourself, to your roots, to your soul." All three of my participants in this section reflected on this fundamental tension of which a handful of authors, not reviewed in this thesis, have written (e.g., Viswanathan, 1998; Roy, 2009)

Sarasvati's comments illustrated this tension by comparing Hinduness to Indianness, considering the latter a deviation of the former. The movement from Hinduness to Indianness marked a politicization of Indian identity that she thought reflected the death of Hinduness, by which she meant, among other things I presume, a loss of interest and knowledge of the rituals and basics of traditional Hindu life. In an essay entitled What has India contributed?, Ananda K.

Coomaraswamy (1985) considers this movement, already underway at the time he wrote the essay in 1915, unfortunate. To Coomaraswamy, any movement away from Hinduness or

Hinduism, toward an increasingly political, secular, or "cosmopolitan veneer," would strip India and Hindu culture of what it could offer the world. Coomaraswamy, of course, is referring to what he considers a highly developed spirituality.

Notwithstanding that some have touched upon the dangers of thinking in dichotomous terms (e.g., Viswanathan, 1998; Nandy, 1990), that is, in terms of a "secularism" versus a

"spirituality," my participants have hit upon a fundamental tension in the lives of Hindus. This tension is perhaps more salient in Hindus living in India as opposed to the Diaspora. I make this conjecture based on the number of studies and news articles documenting this tension in Canada and the U.S. versus the number I have seen documenting the tension in India. Nevertheless, exploration of this tension in Canada is an interesting direction of future research. For instance, it would be interesting to explore more deeply how South Asians living in Canada cope with and understand this tension in their lives.

The final sub-theme was called "Hinduism or dharma is the community," a result of my conversation with Sat and Chit. Although writers I reviewed, such as Cesaire (1955), have commented on the fact that pre-capital and thus pre-colonial societies were communal, none of them has touched upon the notion that Hinduism does not exist in text, rituals, scriptures, but rather in the community. Again, this finding may be novel, but would require further research and might be a direction for future research.

The impact on sexuality or gender. Two of my participants, Brahma and Ananda, spoke with me at length about the imperialist impact on sexuality and gender. The three sub- themes were (a) the significance of gender or sexuality for spiritual progress; (b) "anally retentive gender expression" through corporate culture; and (c) you can't just say "I'm gay and I pray" in a temple. The overall impact was deemed negative by the two participants. 121

There is an obvious link between the first theme and Nandy's reflections on gender. The fluidity of gender as well as the pre-colonial comfort with androgyny noted by Brahma reflects

Nandy's thesis concerning the ideology of gender. However, Nandy does not comment on two points that my participants have.

First, Nandy does not discuss or mention the pre-imperial comfort with sexuality. He comments only on gender, and particularly androgyny in men, but not, as Brahma and Ananda have pointed out, a pre-imperial comfort with diverse forms of sexuality, including the existence of an intersex god. In fact, by psychologizing androgyny, or "femininity in men," and thereby making the issues of androgyny purely psychic, one might argue that Nandy evades the topic altogether.

Second, Nandy does not touch on how sexuality and gender might intersect, particularly among gay men. It is telling, in other words, that of the five men interviewed, the only two to comment on gender identified themselves as having a sexual interest in men as opposed to women. This fact suggests that there are differences among men in terms not only of their knowledge of Hindu culture's pre-imperial comfort with androgyny, but also of how they might resist imperial culture (i.e., through androgyny or sexuality).

However, the main thrust of this sub-theme was the significance of gender for spiritual progress. In other words, in his work with gay men from the South Asian Hindu community,

Brahma found it somewhat liberating that gender did not bear on spiritual progress. Nandy

(2007) at the very least has suggested an awareness of this fact by stating that Gandhi's androgyny was inspired by older Hindu traditions. 122

Concerning the second sub-theme, there is again another obvious link with Nandy's work. Nandy wrote that the stigmatization of androgyny, particularly in men, for instance through the re-telling of the epics, led to their exclusion in the political domain. Androgyny is a misfit for rulers, in other words. The gender binary that Nandy believes to be a function of imperialism is in full effect, according to Brahma, in the corporate world. To the extent that one believes that states are less influential than corporations today, the exclusion of the third-gender or androgyny in the corporate sector illustrates the same pattern in which power is for the masculine, and not, to give an example, the androgynous man.

The third sub-theme highlighted the homophobia that Hindus with sexually diverse practices face in the temples. None of the literature I reviewed touches upon this fact. Moreover,

I am not aware of much literature on the topic. Nevertheless, this issue is serious, and determining the extent to which imperialism has impacted homophobia within the broad realm of

Hinduism is an interesting direction of future research.

The internalization of inferiority. The internalization of inferiority, or colonial mentality as it is sometimes called, is perhaps the most common finding with the most support in the psychological literature. In other words, the overall theme and the two sub-themes - (1) colonial mentality and (2) shade-ism - are consistent with the literature I reviewed (e.g., Fanon,

1952; 1963; Cesaire, 1955).

Concerning the sub-themes, the first might be considered more traditional colonial mentality, which consists of a belief in the inferiority of anything symbolizing Hindu culture and the superiority of anything symbolizing Western culture. Two of my participants considered the images of the West and India to be those symbols. Once associated with an individual (e.g., in identifying nationality), the symbol of "India," as a place from which, for example, Anita came, and where she might visit family, engenders feelings of inferiority and general anxiety. As a result, Anita denied that she was visiting India. Rather, she was compelled to lie and say she was visiting London, a city that symbolizes the West perhaps better than any other for Indians.

Fanon (1952) and Cesaire (1955) both contended that members of post-colonial nations were made to feel or even taught to feel inferior. The primary difference between them, as already mentioned, is that Fanon, particularly toward the end of his life and notably during the struggle for independence in Algeria, seemed to indicate a belief in the ability of the individual to contend against the colonial initiatives, through education and culture, which sought to inculcate a sense of inferiority. Interestingly, Anita, who was so ashamed of admitting she was from India when she was a child, remarked in her late-twenties, "Now I look back and I'm like

'Oh, my god, why did I do that?"' In other words, she as well as Lakshmi indicated a belief in the ability to unlearn feeling inferior, a significant connection to Fanon's observations.

Moreover, Anita's story illustrates a struggle against the "image" of Freire (1970) or

"portrait" of Memmi (1965) reflecting the Hindu or Indian as presumably backward, uncivilized, or unsophisticated. Noteworthy is the fact that the portraits, as well as the symbols, are socially constructed by the oppressor group, not divorced from political considerations (Said, 1978).

Anita and other Hindus do not have, or might struggle to find as readily, images of India or symbols of Hindu civilization that are defined "objectively" (i.e., not in an Orientalized fashion).

Such is the "challenge of a positive self-image in a colonial context" (Diaz & Serrano-Garcia,

2003, p. 103). 124

Although some of the literature I reviewed indirectly touched upon skin colour - for instance the very title of Fanon's (1952) book, Black skin; white masks - in large part, the impact of shade-ism is absent. Moreover, I have not discovered literature that I have not included in my review that touches upon this tension of the colour of one's skin in colonial society. That is not imply that such literature does not exist, but it might suggest yet another direction of future research.

However, one might say that skin colour is as symbolic of culture as, for example, the popular image of India. In this sense, the two sub-themes are related, inasmuch as they both consist of aspects of an image or a symbol that engender beliefs of inferiority, particularly when

Western and Hindu civilization are compared. At least one person, Roediger (1994), has commented on the symbolism of skin colour in his work on the ideology of whiteness. He remarks that being white, for instance, in a third world country, symbolizes wealth. Though he does not fully explain further, he does suggest that the reason it symbolizes wealth is because historically, Europeans have accumulated a vast amount of the world's wealth, and because the image of the "white man" is inextricably linked with material wealth.

The impact on women. Four women and one man commented on the impact of imperialism on women. The two sub-themes are (a) complicated progress and (b) imperialism and matriarchy. In this theme, the impact was not perceived to be entirely negative. All four women noted an advance in the status of women in India. However, as the title of the first theme suggests, the notion of progress is complicated.

Moane (1994) considers colonialism and patriarchy as two overlapping and mutually supportive modes of domination. Interestingly, however, liberation from colonialism, in the case 125 of India, also supported patriarchy, by setting back the issue of women's rights, as Lakshmi pointed out. Lakshmi also noted that in the modern context, the progress of women's treatment is further complicated by the fact that women are often double-burdened, carrying a disproportionate amount of the domestic duties while also employed. At least two other critical feminists from India have noted that the notion of progress is not simply observed. Notably, Oza

(2006)17 signals agreement with Sarkar's (1993) somewhat older observations that in neo-liberal

India, women are not necessarily liberated from patriarchy, "but rather "subject to new forms of patriarchal oppression" (p. 30). Likewise, Shiva's (2002) observations have led her to conclude that physical and sexual violence against women has increased as a result of globalization.

The second sub-theme highlights two things. First, it highlights that the status of women varied across different regions in India. Whereas many of the female participants, all of whom were from Northern or Western parts of India, noted the increase in the status of women,

Brahma, who associates with the South, noted that imperialism has threatened the long tradition of matriarchy. None of the literature I reviewed or of which I am aware touches on this fact. But the finding itself has the potential to enrich discussions about the status of women and the impact of imperialism on India. At the very least, Brahma's comments do not contradict the perspectives of the three women, while also supporting Shiva's (2002) perspective noted above.

The impact on caste. Three of my participants commented on the caste system and its value, in principle, to organize society. The general principle underlying the caste system, according to my participants, was aptitude. In other words, the caste system is designed as a mode of organizing society so that all common needs are efficiently met, by having one's

17 See Oza (2006) for a very interesting and well-argued explication the notion of the "modern liberated Indian woman" and its relationship to neo-liberalism, consumerism, and the media. 126 function in society stem from one's aptitude. At least one writer, Coomaraswamy (1985) commented on the capacity of the caste system to organize society: "In a just and healthy society, function should depend upon capacity."

Despite the perceived value of the caste system in organizing society, I must mention the obvious, that the caste system has been rightfully regarded as a source of oppression. The point my participants make is not that the caste system has not been or is not currently a source of oppression. But rather that the caste system, as Sarasvati pointed out, had deviated from its original form to become a corrupt system of oppression, focused almost solely on birth as the determinant of caste. Peetush (2003) has outlined at least two ancient sources that support this notion. First, the Vajrasucika Upanisad, Peetush points out, argues that members of a caste are determined by conduct. Second, the central concept of one major "school" of Hindu thought,

Advaita Vedanta, posits that all living beings are connected. This connectedness, Mahatma

Gandhi argued, militates against that element of the caste system which might now be regarded its major flaw: The inheritance of privilege or superiority. In other words, the very spirit of

Advaita Vedanta leaves little if any room for the notion that one human being is superior to another, especially by birth, and thus, regardless of one's function or caste in society, all humans are valued as equals.

Revisiting the Oppressive Relationship

Having attempted to make connections between aspects of my literature review and my findings, largely by comparing how my participants' perspectives relate to what the authors I reviewed had written, I would now like to revisit the central focus of my literature review, 127 namely, the oppressive relationship. In other words, how do my findings bear on the oppressive relationship, as discussed in my literature review, with particular attention to Hindus?

Specifically, I would like to focus my discussion on two of the major tensions apparent in my literature review. The first tension is existential and psychological in nature, consisting of the oppressed person's choice between imitation and authenticity. Freire's (1970) formulation of this tension is perhaps most illustrative: With regard to the oppressed, he states, too often to be is to be like, and to be like is to be like the oppressor. The second tension consists of the oppressed person's reaction to these and other aspects of the oppressive situation, namely, the choice between resistance and fatalism. I see the two tensions as not unrelated. If one chooses to resist, for instance, it is likely that they will strive toward authenticity and away from imitation.

Imitation and authenticity. Overall, my findings suggest that the major change that is occurring, in line with the Freireian formulation of imitation, is a change in the "consciousness" of Hindus. In other words, Hindus are coming to perceive the world in the way that their oppressors have and continue to do so. My findings illustrate how this perception bears on how

Hindus come to understand their culture, work, spirituality, values, sexual identity, sense of self, and, in general, the world, or as my participant Chit would say, "stuff."

The first place we can see this skewed perception is in this very thesis. Every aspect of this thesis is saturated with Anglo-American culture. Everything from the language in which it was conceived to the medium in which it is and will be presented, including perhaps every aspect in between, is done in a manner that is sanctioned by Anglo-American culture. Because I am the person who has done this work, I must, therefore, first look to myself before I look to my findings for a deeper understanding of this tension. 128

In other words, from its very inception in my mind as a "problem" to be addressed through an academic lens, all of which occurred in the English language I might add, this thesis

was tainted with imitative expression. I did not even conceive of addressing this question authentically (e.g., in my own language or in a manner consonant with Hindu culture).

Moreover, the very notion that one person, as opposed to a community for instance, might

"address" such a "question" is inextricably linked with Western culture.

However, even if I had desired to be more authentic in my approach or known at the time

that what I was doing was "inauthentic," it is important to note that I would not have been able to

do anything serious about it. I am, after all, in graduate school at an English-language institution

in Ontario. Therefore, out of necessity, I had to imitate. Moreover, any chance at behaving

authentically occurred within the confines of Anglo-American culture, and particularly the

academic institution. For instance, when I chose to let my interactions with my participants

deviate from the norm of a one-on-one interview, I chose to behave authentically, inasmuch as

cultural values shared by myself and my participants came to dictate our interaction. However,

notwithstanding the authenticity of such behaviour, the tape recorder was still on; I was still

taking notes, speaking English, and among other things, construing the situation as a graduate

student with a thesis to write.

What this scenario illustrates is that imitation, in many ways, is not a choice in an

imperial situation, but a given, or, at the psychological level, a compulsion. In other words, either

one is in a position in which one is already imitating (i.e., imitation is a given), or, one is

psychological oriented to do so (i.e., imitation is a compulsion) because of the weight of imperial

culture. It is within this situation that living out capitalist values over Hindu values; conceiving of the self as consumer as opposed to spirit; conceiving of spirit as something that gives forth money; work as jobs and not "tilling the land;" understanding as naming; religion as text, immigrating to a Western country, and so forth, become "givens" or compulsions and not choices. These are all instances in which a South Asian Hindu's choice between cultural alternatives is faint, because Anglo-American imperialism has resulted in us perceiving no alternative to the status quo.

In some respect I began this document by providing a story in which I spoke of a man from India, who, it seemed to me at the time, chose to live as a corporate bull despite idolizing a cowherd. I realize now that despite the man's ostensible zealotry for "success," the photo of the cowherd might represent the central piece of authenticity in his life. In other words, I question whether or not he chose to live and think like a corporate bull, or whether or not he was aware that there might even be a choice. In the same way that I find myself born in Canada, speaking

English, and going to graduate school, he might have found himself living as a corporate bull. In some sense, neither of us is living authentically as far as our culture is considered, and one way of answering why is to see us both as having been "thrown," in the Heideggerian sense, into an imperial situation, in which imitation is a given or a compulsion.

Resistance and fatalism. Perhaps the real choice is not between imitation and authenticity, but resistance and fatalism. Even in an oppressive situation, one still has a choice to resist or to fatalistically accept all that is given, as illustrated most poignantly by Freire (1970) and Fanon (1963) 130

My findings suggest that many South Asian Hindus, including many of my participants, choose to resist. Anita and Lakshmi both illustrated that through education they resisted feeling inferior. Anita also told us that awareness of imperial culture motivated her to learn more about her own culture, resisting the negative connotation of, for instance, polytheism. Ashis, despite working in finance, resisted the assumptions of his very profession by critiquing his father's tendency to place a monetary value on religious function. Anita, Sarasvati, and Brahma all attempt to spiritualize their iives, despite living and working in urban Canadian settings. Sat and

Chit, perhaps better than any of us, resist in a myriad of ways, including but not limited to living in ashrams for periods of time, rejecting cultural injunctions about living life in a certain way, and reading of, teaching, and learning Hindu culture through Sanskrit.

One might rightly ask, however, whether these often tiny liberties taken by some of my participants, myself, and other South Asian Hindus really constitutes resistance. In other words, have we not accepted, fatalistically, our position within Western Imperial culture, and instead choose to atone for our failure to truly resist by committing these tiny acts of resistance? Does our conception of resistance occur in the shadow of an overwhelming fatalism?

To Fanon (1963), true resistance was violent, and so his answer, I believe, would be no.

To Fanon, we are simply avoiding the fact that real resistance requires, as he would say, "the rotting cadaver of the colonist" (p. 23). Moreover, we are all very privileged members of the

Hindu community. In other words, most if not all of us are the equivalent of the colonist bourgeoisie, and therefore, having something to lose, whether it is a job or a lifestyle, we are naturally inclined to find alternatives to violent revolution. 131

To Nandy, true resistance is in principle a matter of rejecting the imperial situation, most specifically by refusing to be the "counter-player" in such a situation. Thus, it would appear that to designate ourselves as oppressed by the imperial situation is the first wrong move, for it reifies the oppressive relationship. Instead, we ought to seek out an alternative frame of reference, such as Gandhi did, in which we are no longer oppressed, and perhaps no longer "Hindus." In this regard, I have failed for the reasons mentioned above.

However, from a Freirian perspective, I believe that we are engaging in resistance, or at least, the first step of it. Freire's (1970) notion of praxis rests on the assumption that the world and all oppressive situations are transformable. The process of praxis requires members of an oppressed group to engage in reflection and action in a reciprocal pattern. Therefore, what we have done vis-a-vis this thesis, and what several of my participants and South Asian Hindus do, is reflect on their concrete situation. What is missing from this thesis, then, is the other half of the Freireian equation, namely, action toward transforming an oppressive situation. It is only then that we will complete the cycle between reflection and action and engage in praxis.

Why My Study is Appropriate for Community Psychology

By the time I had finished my thesis and this manuscript was printed, I had presented on my topic of choice twice, once at a community psychology conference in Ottawa, Canada, and another time at the 2011 Biennial Conference of the Society for Community Research & Action in Chicago, IL, USA. Though the ostensible reactions to my topic were quite favourable on both occasions, it was clear to me that I was the black sheep among the "CPers." I was, to the best of my knowledge, the only person undertaking the study of imperialism or colonization, a fact which in itself might beg the question for which my supervisor asked me to prepare an answer, a question which I have asked myself several times since the beginning of my M.A; that question is simply, "Is my topic fit for community psychology - if so, then why?"

I still cannot pinpoint why this question irks me. Perhaps it is because the question itself

assumes that another academic discipline might be better suited to the study of imperialism. The

logical consequence of such reasoning is that some disciplines are more appropriate for people

with post-colonial histories, and since psychology, even the less dominant and mainstream

variety of community psychology, is privileged among the social sciences and humanities, such a

conclusion serves only to invalidate the topic, and it affirms, albeit in a modified way, the many critiques of psychology as maintaining the status quo (e.g., Prilleltensky, 1989). But

nevertheless, the answer I would give is (obviously) "yes." The reasons are simple and plenty. I

want to stress, however, that my intention is not to present a full and developed argument

illustrating why I answer in the positive, but simply to present a few reasons, albeit in short form.

First, community psychology, despite having had a less than radical inception (Walsh-

Bowers, 2002), has in recent years been posited by prominent community psychologists as a

field in which work should be predicated on the value of social justice (e.g., Prilleltensky, 1989).

Others have identified diversity as a value underpinning community psychology (Nelson &

Prilleltensky, 2007). Both of these values in order to be fully practiced, in synergy as is

suggested by Nelson & Prilleltensky (2007), necessitate a study of colonialism and imperialism,

in my opinion. As one community psychologist has argued (Moane, 1994) and others have

shown (Diaz & Serrano-Garcia, 2003), colonialism and imperialism bear down on its victims in

ways that can only be considered important for liberation and well-being, two stated aims of

community psychology by two of the more critical community psychologists (Nelson &

Prilleltensky, 2007). 133

Second, a deeper understanding of colonialism and imperialism has the ability, I believe, to enhance the established areas of research and practice in community psychology. A general example is research and practice conducted on and sometimes with members of ethnocuitural minority groups. Awareness of a person's cultural history might help understand, for instance, their levels of poverty or substance abuse.

Certainly, the trend, it would seem, is to recognize both culture and colonialism as important and novel directions of research and practice in the field of psychology and community psychology. This trend is suggested by a handful of publications in the last six years

(e.g., Hook, 2005; David & Okazaki, 2006; Okazaki, David, & Abelmann, 2008; Krai, Ramirez

Garcia, Aber, Masood, Dutta, & Todd, 2011). In one of the more recent papers, community psychologists from Canada and the U.S. argue for a greater emphasis on cultural diversity in community psychology research, theory, and practice, in order to move beyond merely contextual understandings of culture (e.g., ecological levels) (Krai et al., 2011).

Future research. Future research might consider how action might be taken, or how I or someone else might engage members of the South Asian Hindu community in praxis. Indeed, the

"action" component might follow from this very thesis. Using the findings, I could engage my participants as well as others to determine some course of action, preferably direct action, that could, in true Freirian fashion, give us more on which to reflect.

However, there are other loose ends that I feel could be addressed in future research. The two most glaring are the impact on women and the impact on caste. Each question needs to be addressed but requires, in my opinion, more space than I was able to afford them, due primarily to the lack of data but also because the sensitive nature of those issues require sufficient 134 contextualization. I would be interested to look at how imperialism altered and is altering the status of women and our understanding of their status. I would also be interested in conducting a more focused study on how caste was and is being impacted by imperialism.

Second, future research might look to other areas of the world, particularly in rural setting where South Asian Hindus are living less modern lives. For instance, how do farmers in India understand imperialism as it affects them? How do they understand the nature of the oppressive relationship? This line of research might also attempt to address whether there are differences among South Asian Hindus living in different urban cities around the world. For instance, how do South Asian Hindus living in Canada differ from those living in Kenya, the U.K., the U.S., or

South Africa?

Limitations of research. The fact that I drew my sample from Southern Ontario could be viewed as a major limitation. In other words, my findings cannot be considered generalizable.

Despite a balance between sexes, and the presence of two gay men, my sample represents some members of the Canadian population only. There is no reason to believe that their perspectives represent those of the South Asian Hindu diasporas in the U.K or U.S., or Hindus in India or Sri

Lanka. Moreover, most if not all of my participants seemed to come from middle-class backgrounds and higher castes. To the extent that class and caste make a difference in the way that colonialism or imperialism are experienced, and I strongly believe they do, my findings are limited to the middle class, upper caste Hindu.

Strengths of research. A strength of this research is its relative novelty and potential to help address a gap in the literature on the impact of imperialism on South Asian Hindus.

Although some community psychologists have worked to understand the impact of colonialism and imperialism on its victims, no work has been done with South Asian Hindus. In fact, across several disciplines there exists very little on the impact of imperialism on South Asian Hindus.

On the contrary, there exists literature on the Irish experience (Moane, 1994), the Puerto Rican experience (Diaz & Serrano-Garcia, 2003), and most recently, Filipino-Americans (Okazaki &

David, 2006), all within community psychology. Moreover, this research is consonant with the growing consensus in community psychology on the significance of culture, already mentioned, and in psychology of the potential for post-colonial analysis to serve as a critical lens in psychology. Another strength is the balance between male and female perspectives, as well as the perspectives of members of the South Asian Hindu gay community. 136

Conclusion

With this thesis I sought to "bridge" the personal and the political by attempting to determine how South Asian Hindus living in Canada, such as myself, perceived the impacts of

Anglo-American imperialism. I also sought to determine how they perceived the link between

British imperialism and globalization. Using an interview-guide approach I was able to determine that participants did perceive there to be a link between the two. Concerning the second research question, my participants perceived that the impacts of imperialism on Hindus and Hindu culture are largely, thought not entirely, negative. Through our conversations, my participants and I were able to pinpoint what in academia are considered novel findings, such as the difference in epistemological stance between those growing up in Western versus Hindu culture, or the way in which the Hollywood motion picture Inception and the concepts therein might serve to better understand the continuity, particularly at the psychological level, between

British Imperialism and globalization.

I did my best as a novice qualitative researcher to allow my participants to speak without imposing on them my own perspectives. Incidentally, however, many of them communicated to me some of my own opinions. In fact, on occasion, their perspectives would remind me of an opinion I held but forgot.

Despite the fact that my participants' perspectives resonate with my own concerning the impact of imperialism on South Asian Hindus and Hindu culture, I want to make it clear that my own personal stance on the issues discussed are perhaps more complex than I can communicate in a thesis. But to sum up my views, I adopt and paraphrase a viewpoint reputedly expressed by

Gandhi: It is OK, preferable even, to have the winds of all cultures pass through one's home, but 137 not blow it away; it is OK, preferable even, to have those winds blow upon us, but not to carry us away.

And yet it seems to me that many of us do feel as if we are being carried away. If I were to offer a "take home" message, then, it would be that the impacts or changes of which I wrote in my thesis, are occurring, not in the past, but in the present. Right now, the relationship between the Anglo-American and Hindu culture is largely defined by oppression and hegemony, and in a sense it is that very hegemony that blinds many of us - though not all - to the fact that imperialism is currently practised. As one of my participants said concerning his feelings about the current situation:

SAT: Definitively it's hurting because being sensitive people we see everybody should be given that.. .everybody has a right to live their life according to their own.. ,um...with their own freedom, in fact. Everybody should be given their freedom to follow what they want to follow; the way they want to live. They have their own profound things backing them up, right? No need to pull them out of their root and give them a new thing, saying "modernization," "globalization," all of this. So definitely, I feel very hurt. And what hurts me more than that is, there is a kind of "non-thinking" in the whole thing, meaning, even people are not thinking about that, nobody is talking about that, nobody is trying to...

RAVI: In India, people are not talking about it?

SAT: People have started but very.. .it's like me talking to you, you know, very few people talking in corners, which voices don't reach anywhere, so there are people talking but very few. So I think that people in the whole world, they have to objectively think about it. This orientation toward money, business, in that everything else is compromised; everything else goes in that, that shouldn't happen. 138

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APPENDIX A

Wilfrid Laurier University

LETTER OF INVITATION

Hello,

My name is Ravi Gokani and I am a second-year Master of Arts student in the Community Psychology programme at Wilfrid Laurier University. You have received this letter because you have identified yourself, have been identified by someone you know, or have been identified by me as an appropriate or good candidate for my research project, which is entitled "The colonial footprint: On the impact of Anglo-American Imperialism on the behavior and mentalite of Indo-Canadians." This research project aims to understand the impact of Anglo- American Imperialism, which I have defined to include the British colonization of India and the current globalization of India, on the behavior and mentality of Indo-Canadians, such you, or me.

The purpose of my research is two-fold. First, I wish to contribute to critical dialogue around the issue of the impact of Anglo-American Imperialism in the Indo-Canadian and academic communities. Second, I wish to contribute to the small body of research that does exist in psychology pertaining to the impact of colonization.

Should you agree to participate, you will be invited to select a mutually beneficial time and a place of your choice to be interviewed for 60-90 minutes by me in a one-on-one interview. If you permit me, for the sake of data collection and analysis, I would like to record our interview using a digital audio recording device. You will be presented with a consent form that will outline in detail all of the above and ask for your consent. There will be about 10-20 participants in this study.

It is important for you to know that your participation in this study is completely voluntary and you may withdraw at anytime without penalty. You may also agree to participate but decline the use of audio-recorder without penalty. The questions that would be asked of you, as well as the short survey asking you for demographic information, have been approved by the Wilfrid Laurier University Research Ethics Board (REB # 2655). If you have any questions 144 regarding the project you may contact me, Ravi Gokani at [email protected] or (519) 884-0710, extension 3718, my supervisor, Richard Walsh-Bowers at [email protected] or (519) 884-0710, or the chair of the University Research Ethics Board, Dr. Robert Basso at rbasso(5)wlu.ca or (519) 884-0710, extension 5225.1 will be available to speak about the study until December 31, 2011.

At the end of this study, you will be given a written report of the details of this study and its findings via email, if you choose.

Sincerely,

Ravi Gokani Master of Arts Candidate Department of Psychology Wilfrid Laurier University Waterloo, ON, CANADA N2L 3C5 Phone: 519-884-0710 ext. 3718 Email: [email protected] 145

APPENDIX B Wilfrid Laurier University

INFORMED CONSENT STATEMENT

The colonial footprint: On the impact of Anglo-American Imperialism on Indo-Canadian behavior and mentalite. Principal investigator: Ravi Gokani, Department of Psychology Thesis advisor: Professor, Dr. Richard Walsh-Bowers, Department of Psychology You are invited to participate in my research study because you have identified yourself, have been identified by someone you know, or have been identified by me as an appropriate or good candidate. This study will consist of 10 to 20 participants, all of whom will be recruited through self-identification, or identification by someone else or me as an appropriate or good candidate. The purpose of this study is to understand the impact of colonization and globalization on the behavior and mentalite of Indo-Canadians, and to contribute to critical dialogue within Indo-Canadian and South Asian communities regarding the potential impacts. This research is being conducted by Ravi Gokani, a Master of Arts student in the Department of Psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University, under the supervision of Dr. Richard Walsh- Bowers, a Professor in the Community Psychology programme.

INFORMATION You, a participant, will be asked to meet with me, the researcher, Ravi Gokani, at a time that is mutually beneficial and a place that is selected by you. I ask you to read this form, as it provides important information about this study and asks for your consent. If, after having read this form, you agree to participant, I ask you to sign this consent form. If you sign the consent form, then I will ask you if I may record our interview with a digital audio recorder. If you decline, I will take notes instead, and you and I will begin a semi-structured interview. The interview will be one-on-one and take approximately 60-90 minutes. In addition to the interview, 1 will also ask you for basic demographic information, such as age range and gender. During the interview, I will ask you questions pertaining to your experience as an Indo-Canadian, and in particular any observations and opinions you may have about how British colonization or the current globalization of India have/is impacted your behavior or mentality. RISKS There are only minimal risks for you participating in this study. Some of the questions may cause you to reflect on experiences that caused negative emotions. These feelings are normal and should be temporary. 146

If negative feelings persist, there are counseling services that you can access, such as the KW Counseling Centre, (email: [email protected]: phone: (519) 884-0000). You can also refuse to answer any question and withdraw from the study at any time without penalty.

BENEFITS By participating in this study we hope that you will gain a better understanding of the impact of colonization and globalization on your behavior and mentalite and that of the Indo-Canadian community at large. We hope to facilitate an environment in which you will be able to engage in critical thinking about these issues and feel comfortable answering questions. You will also be contributing to the scientific community by increasing awareness about the impact of colonization and globatization on Indo- Canadians. Finally, you will be assisting the researcher, Ravi Gokani, by offering your perspectives (i.e., "data") for my Master of Arts thesis. CONFIDENTIALITY Since there are not more than 20 people who will participate in this study and some of them will belong to a common organization/association/group (e.g., two participants interviewed individually but both belong to the same organization and know each other) your anonymity cannot be guaranteed; however, all reasonable measures will be taken to ensure that your personal information is kept confidential. Your name will never be used to identify data; instead, ID codes (e.g. RTJ09SA01) and made up names (e.g. "Aarti" and "Ashis") will be used. If you consent, the interviews will be audio recorded and transcribed by Ravi Gokani. If you choose not to participate or do not want your audio information to be used, we will not write down any observations of you and none of your materials will be used in the analysis. All personal contact information will be kept in a password protected file separate from the research data and will be accessible only by Ravi Gokani and Dr. Walsh-Bowers. At all times during the study and analysis, hard-copy data and consent forms will be stored in a locked filing cabinet in Dr. Walsh- Bowers's locked lab and electronic data will be stored on a password-protected high security Wilfrid Laurier University access drive. After the analysis is completed, the original recordings will be retained on the high security access drive for seven years. The same procedure will be used for copies of the paper survey containing demographic information and any of the notes I make during the interview. After the seven years, Dr. Walsh-Bowers will destroy the original recordings and the paper surveys by December 1, 2018. The study's NVivo file will be retained indefinitely for future analyses. Finally, we may use direct quotes from you and the other participants in reports, publications, and presentations, with your consent. All personal identifying information will be removed from the quotes and we will ensure that the quotes cannot be linked to you as an individual. COMPENSATION There is no monetary compensation for your participation. CONTACT If you have questions at any time about the study or the procedures, (or you experience adverse effects as a result of participating in this study,) you may contact the researcher, Ravi Gokani at [email protected], or (519) 884-0710, extension 3718. You may also contact Dr. Richard Walsh-Bowers by phone at (519) 884-0710 ext. 3630 or through email at [email protected]. This project has been reviewed and approved by the University Research Ethics Board (REB #2655). If you feel you have not been treated according to the descriptions in this form, or your rights as a participant in research have been violated during the course of this project, you may contact Dr. Robert Basso, Chair, University Research Ethics Board, Wilfrid Laurier University, (519) 884-0710, extension 5225 or [email protected] 147

PARTICIPATION Participation in this study consists of you and I engaging in one, semi-structured interview. Your participation in this study is voluntary; you may decline to participate without penalty and without loss of benefits to which you are otherwise entitled If you decide to participate, you may withdraw at any time from the study without loss or penalty. If you withdraw from the study before data collection is completed your data will be destroyed. Data cannot be withdrawn or destroyed after data has been transcribed because they are stored without identifiers. You have the right to omit any question(s)/procedure(s) you choose. FEEDBACK AND PUBLICATION The findings of this study will be included in Ravi Gokani's Master of Arts thesis. They will also be presented at scientific and professional conferences and may be published in scientific journals. The results of this study may be presented at various Indo-Canadian associations/organizations/groups in Southern Ontario. We will also email you a report of the findings by August 31st, 2011. Use of Quotes Sometimes researchers like to use quotations of research participants to emphasize certain points in presentations and published papers. We would like to ask for your permission to use quotations from your data. Your name will not be linked to the quotes and we will remove any potentially identifying information before quotations will be used.

[ ] I give blanket permission for my quotations to be used (e.g., in publications, presentations)

[ ] You can quote me, but I want to review how the quote is used (e.g., in a publication or presentation) before it is published; you may contact me via email to do so, and I understand that confidentiality cannot be guaranteed while the information is in transit.

[ ] I do not want to be quoted A udio-Recording

[ ] I consent to have my interview audio taped [ ] I do not wish to have my interview audio taped

CONSENT

I have read and understand the above information. I have received a copy of this form. I agree to participate in this study. Participant's name (please print) Signature Date Investigator's signature Date In order to send you the results of the study in August 2011, we ask that you provide your email address below. You are not required to provide this email address. 148

Primary email: Secondary email: I have read and understand the above information. I have received a copy of this form. I agree to participate in this study. Participant's signature Date Investigator's signature Date 149

APPENDIX C

Wilfrid Laurier University

INTERVIEW GUIDE

The colonial footprint: On the impact of Anglo-American Imperialism on Indo-Canadian behavior and mentalite.

Introductory Comment

Do you mind if we record this interview?

If yes, them

I will begin recording now.

If no, then:

That's no problem.

Introductory Questions

1. What is your age and education?

2. Where were you born? a. If not in Canada, when did you come to Canada?

3. What languages do you speak? 150

4, How knowledgeable would you consider yourself to be with regard to Indian history, religion, culture?

RQl: How do South Asian Hindu describe the impact of British colonialism on their behavior and mentalite?

Personal

1. How do you think the British colonization of India impacted you?

a. Prod #1 How has it affected your thoughts?

b. Prod #2 How has it affected your values?

c. Prod #3 How has it affected your beliefs?

d. Prod # 4 How has it affected your attitudes toward your culture?

e. Prod #5 How has it affected your attitudes toward your language?

f. Prod #6 How has it affected your attitudes toward your religion?

g. Prod #7 How has it affected your behavior?

h. Prod # 8 What are the consequences of such an impact?

i. Prod # 9 How do you feel it has affected your ability to live-out Indian culture or "be" Indian?

Social 151

2. How do you think British colonization has impacted Hindus or the Hindu community at large?

a. Prod #1 How has it affected India socially?

b. Prod #2 How has it affected India culturally?

c. Prod #3 How has it affected India linguistically?

d. Prod #4 How has it affected India politically?

3. Tell me about an instance in which you compared Hindu culture with British or American culture.

a. Prod #1 How did you feel?

b. Prod #2 What did you do?

c. Prod #3 How did that comparison impact you?

RQ 2: How do South Asian Hindus perceive the impact of globalization on their behavior and mentalite?

Personal 152

1. How do you think the globalization of India has impacted you?

a. Prod #1 How has it affected your thoughts?

b. Prod #2 How has it affected your values?

c. Prod #3 How has it affected your beliefs?

d. Prod # 4 How has it affected your attitudes toward your culture?

e. Prod #5 How has it affected your attitudes toward your language?

f. Prod #6 How has it affected your attitudes toward your religion?

g. Prod #7 How has it affected your behavior?

h. Prod # 8 What are the consequences of such an impact?

i. Prod # 9 How do you feel it has affected your ability to live-out Indian culture or "be" Indian?

2. How do you think globalization has impacted Hindus or the Hindu community at large?

a. Prod #1 How has it affected India socially? b. Prod #2 How has it affected India culturally?

c. Prod #3 How has it affected India linguistically?

d. Prod #4 How has it affected India politically?

Concluding Questions

1. How did you experience this interview?

2. Is there something you think I could do differently in terms of the relationship (between you and I) or in terms of the content?

Concluding Comment

I will stop the recording now. Now that the recording has ceased, you are welcome to ask questions off the record.