An Insurgent Empire of Mediators and Beyond
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Book review forum Dialogues in Human Geography 1–3 ª The Author(s) 2021 Book review forum Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions journals.sagepub.com/home/dhg Priyamvada Gopal, Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance freedom had significant autonomy from British lib- and British Dissent. London: Verso, 2019. eral ideas. ‘Freedom and equality’, Gopal insight- ISBN 9781784784126. fully observes, ‘were not abstractions derived from Enlightenment – itself hardly a homogeneous intellec- tual formation – they were real and present aspirations An insurgent empire of mediators shaped by the condition and experience of subjection and beyond and exploitation’ (p. 29). Thus, against imperial paternalism, the focus on the local political agency Reviewed by: Nuno Domingos and Ricardo of individuals and movements allows for a non- Roque, Universidade de Lisboa, Instituto de Cienciasˆ Eurocentric counter narrative of liberal democracy Sociais, Portugal and freedom. Insurgent actions also created conditions DOI: 10.1177/20438206211005670 for an international dialogue; they opened up political fields and gave shape to critical public spheres in the Priyamvada Gopal’s Insurgent Empire demon- imperial metropole, while allowing for the develop- strates that rebellions in the British colonies – from ment of wider international resistance networks. the Indian Mutiny of 1857 to the post-war Mau-Mau We see many merits in Gopal’s well-written and crisis of 1953 – contributed effectively to the polit- eloquently argued work. A few critical notes, how- ical and intellectual making of freedom, equality, ever, are in order. In the following we raise some and ultimately to decolonization and the end of Brit- questions concerning the book’s privileged focus on ish imperial rule in the twentieth-century. Through what we see as mediations of resistance; and we the mediation of critical discourses voiced in the conclude with brief comments on the contemporary public sphere, local revolts against oppressive colo- significance of the volume. nial regimes could change European self-serving constructs of imperialism; they could act subver- sively upon the fabrication of empire itself. Across The insurgent mediators the British Empire (in India, Egypt, Kenya, and in Gopal’s work is a political and intellectual history of many other places not covered by this book) insur- anti-colonial resistance that places emphasis on the gencies were fundamental for the development of discourses and actions of educated intellectuals and liberal modernity and global democracy. Self- politicians who intervened on behalf of the actual emancipation did not rely on imperial benevolence, ‘resistors’ and protesters – initially a British and as some Eurocentric historiography might claim. It metropolitan group that became growingly transna- was an achievement of a multitude of anti-colonial tional since the 19th century. Gopal’s vivid prose struggles whose victories were not confined to the brings to life an insurgent intelligentsia who – espe- colonial terrains and that shaped liberal democracy cially, though not exclusively, in Europe – chan- in Europe and elsewhere. For Gopal, the very expe- nelled the voices, or expressed solidarity with, the rience of fighting colonialism inspired broader local actions of insurgents. It provides a historical struggles for freedom; and such struggles for portrait of the formation of a public sphere, to 2 Dialogues in Human Geography XX(X) borrow from Ju¨rgen Habermas’s well-known term, We take the point that, in some circumstances, engaged in the critique of imperialism since the the (textual) archives of the anti-colonial mediators 19th-century. Hence, the book is less concerned critics of imperialism can enable us to retrieve the with describing the worlds of the many insurgents voices and agency of resistors. However, this and rebels in the colonies than it is with describing should not replace the actual study of resistance the public interventions of their self-proclaimed practices in their own terms. Under the label of spokespersons. Most of the individuals whose lives anti-colonial resistance are manifold practices and are depicted in this book were active mediators a variety of objectives and idioms that often cannot between protests and revolt in the colonies and bereducedtoathirstfor‘freedom’oratoadua- wider audiences and networks of anti-imperial dis- listic ‘opposition’ to European colonialism. Even sidence and Marxist criticism. The historical rele- the anti-colonial discourse of the critics of empire vance of these anti-colonial public servants, MPs, could fail to consider certain local actions and writers, journalists, intellectuals, authors, and poli- viewpoints. Therefore, without discounting the ticians is measured by their personal strength and inherent worth of this work, we think it is important commitment as well as by their ability to inscribe to remind the value of counterbalancing Gopal’s colonial struggles into public spheres that became approach with studies that consider oral histories progressively international. Within these networks, and ethnographies of resistance that understand the their main repertoires of resistance included news- actions of resistors outside unidirectional fields of paper articles, pamphlets, public interventions, peti- opposition to the European, and beyond an one- tions, memorials, speeches, addresses, resolutions, dimensional struggle for ‘liberation’ or ‘freedom’. letters, placards, leaflets, meetings, lobbies, special Some protests and revolts could have significant conferences, debates, marches, poster parades and anti-colonial and anti-imperial effects, and/or they demonstrations. Thus we see this book as dealing could be read as anti-colonial ‘texts’ by the med- mainly with the written and public mediations that iators, as Gopal reveals. However, one should bear allowed for anti-colonial resistance actions to in mind also that for many resistors their own become amplified within the framework of broader actions could express a wider plurality of interests political processes in the public sphere, in Britain and meanings that the colonial/anti-colonial bipo- and also in Europe. Gopal’s work suggests a British critical public larity could not capture. sphere became a crucial medium though which It is also worth pointing out that the focus of anti-colonial movements channelled their protests Insurgent Empire is on a specific kind of local and proposals to national governments and even to resistance – broad-scale violent revolts and upris- wider international audiences. The democratic ings – and on their impact upon public understand- regimes that kept colonial Empires were thus con- ings of colonialism and empire, at home. Yet, as fronted with critical repertoires that denounced their James C. Scott observed, other everyday forms of own contradictions. British parliamentary democ- resistance often occur under subtle and hidden racy, for instance, in the form of the ‘British forms – ‘hidden transcripts’ that the educated med- Empire’, was denounced as the main vehicle for the iators would tend not to take as ‘texts’ to be read development of ‘colonial fascism’. Indisputably, and to which they often failed to give voice. Hence such anti-colonial demands somehow changed polit- we believe the interventions of the mediators and ical fields where criticism and debate was relatively critical discourses perceptively studied by Gopal liberal and uncensored. Yet, perhaps the same situ- should not be conflated with the actions of resistors ation could hardly have similar consequences in and protesters and with their complex webs of national-imperial dictatorial regimes (such as the intentionality. The focus on the critics of empire Portuguese empire, a dictatorship between the at home, in other terms, should not replace the 1930s until 1970s), where the national public sphere study of the local repertoires of resistance in their was politically controlled and censored. own right. Book review forum 3 Contemporary debates anti-colonial militancy of the past can provide inspiration to common political struggles that not It is among the merits of Insurgent Empire to draw on conceptions of cultural reductionism. If the empirically debunk the vacuous idea that criticizing anti-colonial movements were crucial do ‘civilize empire and providing dissident historical accounts the civilizer’, modern political movements inspired of imperialism is ‘anachronistic’, as some conserva- by this past must continue struggling for common tive nationalist historians claim today. Gopal’s work rights. demonstrates that resistances to injustice, oppres- Insurgent Empire sets the path for comparative sion and inequality in colonial contexts offered glo- exercises of anti-colonial intellectual and political bal platforms for claims to citizenship. In Europe, traditions in other imperial settings, beyond the pro- these fights led to the rise of a growingly significant vincial history of the British Empire. Yet, we anti-colonial critical consciousness that ultimately believe a broader consideration of the history of contributed to the collapse of British imperial rule. anti-colonial resistance/s will benefit from widening Thus by meticulously exposing the vivacity of anti- the analytical focus beyond the liberal ‘public colonial thought, this book is also an important sphere’ and the literary archives of anti-colonial dis- demonstration that ‘imperialism’, even at home, sident mediators. For, beyond the