Travel, Travel Writing and the "Means to Victory" in Modern South Asia
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Travel, Travel Writing and the "Means to Victory" in Modern South Asia The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Majchrowicz, Daniel Joseph. 2015. Travel, Travel Writing and the "Means to Victory" in Modern South Asia. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:17467221 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Travel, Travel Writing and the "Means to Victory" in Modern South Asia A dissertation presented by Daniel Joseph Majchrowicz to The Department of NELC in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of Near Eastern Language and Civilizations Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts May 2015 © 2015 Daniel Joseph Majchrowicz All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisor: Ali Asani Daniel Joseph Majchrowicz Travel, Travel Writing and the "Means to Victory" in Modern South Asia Abstract This dissertation is a history of the idea of travel in South Asia as it found expression in Urdu travel writing of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Though travel has always been integral to social life in South Asia, it was only during this period that it became an end in itself. The imagined virtues of travel hinged on two emergent beliefs: that travel was a requisite for inner growth, and that travel experience was transferable. Consequently, Urdu travel writers endorsed travel not to reach a particular destination but to engender personal development, social advancement and communal wellbeing. Authors conveyed the transformative power of travel to their readers through accounts that traced out their inner journeys through narratives of physical travel, an ideal echoed in an old proverb that re-emerged at this time: “travel is the means to victory.” This study, which draws on extensive archival research from four countries, represents the most comprehensive examination of travel writing in any South Asian language. Through a diachronic analysis of a wealth of new primary sources, it indexes shifting valuations of travel as they relate to conceptualizations of the self, the political and the social. It demonstrates that though the idea of beneficial travel found its first expression in accounts commissioned by a colonial government interested in inculcating modern cosmopolitan aesthetics, it quickly developed a life of its own in the public sphere of print. This dynamic literary space was forged by writers from across the social spectrum who produced a profusion of accounts that drew inspiration from Indic, Islamic and European traditions. In the twentieth century, too, travel writing continued to evolve and expand as it adapted to the shifting dimensions of local nationalisms and successive international conflicts. In independent India and Pakistan, it broke new ground both aesthetically and thematically as it came to terms with the post- iii colonial geography of South Asia. Yet, throughout this history,Urdu travel writing continued to cultivate the idea that the journey was valuable for its own sake. iv Table of Contents Table of Figures ...................................................................................................................................... vi Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................... vii Note on Transliteration ........................................................................................................................ viii Chapter One: Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter Two: The Emergence of Travel Writing in Urdu ...................................................................... 28 Chapter Three: Strategy, legitimacy and Travel Writing in the Princely States .................................... 84 Chapter Four: India’s Armchair Travelers: Education, Advancement and Popular Travel Writing .... 146 Chapter Five: Cross-Border Travel Writing in India and Pakistan ....................................................... 209 Chapter Six: Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 273 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................ 281 v Table of Figures Figure 1: 19th century Urdu and Persian travel accounts ..................................................................... 39 Figure 2: 19th century Urdu travel account monographs by decade .................................................... 39 Figure 3: 19th century Urdu travel account monographs by destination.............................................. 40 Figure 4: 20th century Urdu travel account monographs by decade .................................................... 41 Figure 5: Urdu travel account publication by decade ........................................................................... 44 Figure 7: Title page of Bāg̲h̲-i nau bahār, 1851 ................................................................................... 104 Figure 8: Ghaus Muhammad Khan on tour......................................................................................... 129 Figure 9: India-Pakistan passport cover .............................................................................................. 222 Figure 10: Pakistani visa for visit to Karachi ........................................................................................ 223 Figure 11: Appeal to readers in Safarnāma-yi Pākistān ..................................................................... 244 vi Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been possible without the many sharīkān-i safar who accompanied me throughout the journey. I would like to thank my advisor, Ali Asani, and my dissertation committee, Akbar Hyder, Sunil Sharma, and Karen Thornber for their unstinting support and unflagging guidance from start to finish. I also thank AIPS, the Fulbright program, the Momina Cheema Foundation, and Harvard University for their financial support, without which this research would not have been possible. I also owe a debt of gratitude to the dedicated individuals at libraries and archives in India, Pakistan, the US, and the UK who facilitated my research and directed me to texts I would otherwise never have found. Special thanks are due to Abdullah Khalid and Mazhar ṣāḥib in Rampur, Abdur Rasheed and Sikander Chingezi in Delhi, and Michael Grossman in Cambridge. Outside the archive, I found nourishment and support from the families that welcomed me into their homes and lives: the Chughtais in Lahore, the Mehtas in Delhi, the Pulizalas in Hyderabad and Sara Passmore in London. I am also deeply grateful to the scholars and friends through whose conversation this project matured immensely. I thank Blain Auer in particular for our discussions over endless cups of espress’ and tarte aux fraises, as well as the entire community at UNIL, including Maya Burger, Philippe Bornet, Nicolas Pozza, Fanny Guex, Nadia Cattoni, and Kathrin Holz. And on this side of the Atlantic, I thank Smita Lahiri, Richard Delacy, Arafat Razzaque, Andrew McDowell, Ameem Lutfi, David Boyk, Katherine Merriman, Dinyar Patel, Alexandra Chen, and Mariam Chughtai. I also thank my parents, David Majchrowicz and Cynthia Woodson, and my siblings Christine, Jennifer, Elizabeth and Jacob, for their support and for patiently enduring a graduate student in the family. And last of all, I thank my sharīk-i ḥayāt, Anusha Tomar, for everything. vii Note on Transliteration The transliteration scheme used in this dissertation is based on that provided by the Annual of Urdu Studies, as indicated below. All quotations in original languages, as well as all book titles, are given in transliteration according to this scheme. In order to facilitate readability, proper nouns, including place names and personal names, are not given in transliteration in the body of the text. Citations found in the footnotes and the bibliography are given according to the title page of the work cited. Vowels: a, ā, e, i, ī, o, u, ū, ai, au Consonants: گ ص د ب b d ṣ g ل ض ڈ پ p ḍ ẓ l م ط ذ ت t z ̲ t ̤ m ں/ن ظ ر ٹ ṭ r z ̤ n/ ṉ و ع ڑ ث ṡ ṛ ‘ v ہ غ ز ج j z g̲h̲ h ھ ف ژ چ č ž f h ی ق س ح ḥ s q y َ ک ش خ kh̲ ̲ sh k ‘ viii Chapter One Introduction Mujh ko kisī se kām kyā, merā kahīṉ qiyām nahīṉ Merā safar dar vatan,̤ merā vatan̤ hai dar safar I have no connection to anyone, I have no fixed abode My journey is through my homeland, and my homeland is my journey -Jigar Muradabadi (1890-1961) At the turn of the nineteenth century in South Asia, a major discursive shift began to take place the effects of which continue to be seen and felt today. Travel came to be understood as an end in itself, while the physical journey became overshadowed by a greater, inner journey. This inner journey increasingly came to be theorized as an integral component of one’s personal growth, subjectivity, and social advancement. This novel conception of travel was accompanied by the emergence of travel writing in a number