It's amazing the lengths colonial powers went to in order to justify oppressing civilizations which predated anything in the West by a good thousand years. By referring to India and points further east dismissively as the Orient or the Mysterious East, they turned vast sophisticated kingdoms into something dark and dangerous, in desperate need of the enlightenment only they could provide. As is often the case with ignorant people, what they couldn't understand confused and scared them. Faced with something beyond their comprehension they did what any normal person would do. Instead of trying to learn more about it, they did their best to either subjugated it or belittle it.
While it was bad enough they would misinterpret and sensationalize another culture's beliefs Victorian era Englishmen came up with all sorts of pseudo sciences to prove the superiority of, what they called, the Caucasian race over those with darker skins. One of the most popular in the mid 1800s was the science of phrenology — the study of the bumps on people's heads and how they related to the brains within and the person's character as a whole. Of course, the Caucasian's head was an example of a superior brain and moral standards, and as a person's skin colour darkened, well, you get the picture.
In his novel The Thing About Thugs, first published by Harper Collins India in 2010 and now being released in North America by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on July 24 2012, Tabish Khair turns this world on its head by showing it through the eyes of those "inferior" races. British literature of the times, from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Wilkie Collin's The Moonstone and on through the works of Rudyard Kipling emphasized and reinforced the Victorian world view. Khair not only points out the how ridiculous the philosophy of the day was, but he does so in a manner which takes the works in question to task for perpetuating the fallacy.
Amir Ali is from a small village in rural India. Orphaned at a young age he goes to live with his uncle, a small land owner, and his family. At one time his family's holdings had been far greater, but another landowner has contrived to steal through various means the majority of their acres. While the methods used are illegal there is nothing Ali's uncle is able to do as the other man's wealth and willingness to employ violence ensure nobody with the authority to do anything about it will gainsay his activities. When Ali's uncle is murdered he hatches a plot that will not only ensure those in the wrong are brought to justice, but will see him taken to England where he hopes to start a new life. He learns that a British gentlemen is looking to interview members of the cult of Kali known as Thugees to help him prove his theory that in spite of a skull shape indicating a predisposition for violence a lessor being can turn over a new leaf by exposure to the redeeming qualities of civilized Christian society.
Article comments