World art and the legacies of colonial violence
Empires and Exhibitions -- Imperial Altercations -- Modernist Apprehensions
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Empires and Exhibitions -- Imperial Altercations -- Modernist Apprehensions
World Affairs Online
Contribution of Santal, South Asian people in the freedom struggle against British rule in India; covers the period, 1845-1856; study based on pictorial representations
In: Contemporary South Asia, Volume 31, Issue 2, p. 343-344
ISSN: 1469-364X
The article assesses the ways in which a historic Adivasi figure, Birsa Munda, entered into the national imaginary in India before Independence. The pivotal role of early anthropologists, notably Sarat Chandra Roy, and the formation of 'Indian' anthropology (as a field of intellectual and cultural politics) are emphasised. The analysis focuses on the ways in which the posthumous presence of Birsa Munda becomes significant in two phases, following his untimely death in Ranchi prison in 1900. First, the period immediately after the suppression of the Birsaite ulgulan (insurgency) of 1898-1900 is addressed in terms of the convergence of administrative and anthropological priorities. The second phase (1912 to mid-1930s) raises the question of how the nationalisation of anthropology and culture in India was premised in part on the 'integration' of Munda pasts. I argue that in the wake of the Government of India Act (1935) and in advance of the annual assembly of the Indian National Congress (1940) opportunities arose for Birsa Munda to become a vehicle of what Radhakamal Mukerjee had earlier termed 'intermediation', i.e., the synthesis of national and sub-national, or tribal, entities. The visual aspects of integration and the cultural politics of intermediation are debated with specific reference to time and evolution, and in advance of conclusions concerning real and metaphorical archives. ; The article assesses the ways in which a historic Adivasi figure, Birsa Munda, entered into the national imaginary in India before Independence. The pivotal role of early anthropologists, notably Sarat Chandra Roy, and the formation of 'Indian' anthropology (as a field of intellectual and cultural politics) are emphasised. The analysis focuses on the ways in which the posthumous presence of Birsa Munda becomes significant in two phases, following his untimely death in Ranchi prison in 1900. First, the period immediately after the suppression of the Birsaite ulgulan (insurgency) of 1898-1900 is addressed in terms of the convergence of administrative and anthropological priorities. The second phase (1912 to mid-1930s) raises the question of how the nationalisation of anthropology and culture in India was premised in part on the 'integration' of Munda pasts. I argue that in the wake of the Government of India Act (1935) and in advance of the annual assembly of the Indian National Congress (1940) opportunities arose for Birsa Munda to become a vehicle of what Radhakamal Mukerjee had earlier termed 'intermediation', i.e., the synthesis of national and sub-national, or tribal, entities. The visual aspects of integration and the cultural politics of intermediation are debated with specific reference to time and evolution, and in advance of conclusions concerning real and metaphorical archives.
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In: The journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Volume 13, Issue 2, p. 478-479
ISSN: 1467-9655
In: Routledge contemporary South Asia series 43
In: Routledge contemporary South Asia series