COMMENTARY Economic & Political Weekly EPW JULY 20, 2024 vol lIX no 29 23 Bilal Ahmad Tantray (bt852@snu.edu.in) is a doctoral candidate at the Shiv Nadar University, Greater Noida. Scheming, Feminine, and Non-martial ‘Other’ The Continuity of Orientalist Tropes from the British Raj to Postcolonial Pakistan Bilal Ahmad Tantray The discursive construction of the other in colonial, undivided India and postcolonial Pakistan shows how the dominant groups racialised dominated groups to justify exploitation and violence against them. The colonial construction of the “effeminate” Bengali man was inherited and furthered by West Pakistani leadership and military as they maintained an unequal and exploitative political relationship with East Pakistan. The violence that was unleashed in the 1971 civil war on the people of East Pakistan was, thus, a result of continuity of processes of otherisation in postcolonial Pakistan that had their roots in colonial Orientalism. T he ideology of British colonialism in India was based on the belief that British rule confers to Indian civilisation, order, education, and mo- rality to rescue it from its natural state of illiteracy, poverty, superstition, and strife. Lord Cornwallis had once pro- claimed, “every native of Hindustan, I verily believe is corrupt” (Roy 2017a). This attribution of moral bankruptcy to a whole people, along with the accusa- tions of Oriental despotism, allowed the British to set the stage not only for ruling over the native people, by replacing the said Oriental despots, but also imple- menting changes in public life to correct their corrupt nature. The British con- structed a vision of India’s past where superstition, despotism, and the lack of order ran amok. They fabricated a vision of the future where these things could become the fate of the subcontinent once again were the British not to alter the social, political, economic, and admini- strative life permanently. The end of foreign rule in India was accompanied by a partition of British India along religious lines. Pakistan, a new nation state demanded and desig- nated for the Muslims of the subcontinent, lay uncomfortably on both longitudinal ends of the landmass that was postcolo- nial India. The relationship between the two wings of this Muslim nation was quite contentious before the two parted ways in 1971. Throughout the brief period between 1947 and 1971, when East and West Pakistan constituted a united politi- cal entity, cultural, linguistic, and political differences proved to be irreconcilable. Colonial stereotypes regarding Bengalis were repurposed by West Pakistani poli- ticians and army to delegitimise the po- litical aspirations and demands of the people of East Pakistan and later to legitimise committing large-scale violence against them. Coloniser’s Idea of an Indian It was the belief of moral superiority of the British that gave them concessions in the field of perpetrating violence. This excep- tionalism is visible in Rudyard Kipling’s expression when he says that “the men who run ahead of the cars of Decency and Propriety, and make the jungle ways straight, cannot be judged in the same manner as the stay-at-home folk” (Roy 2017a). Thus, colonialists saw themselves and wanted others to see them as a spe- cial breed who had the responsibility to do away with evils, which marred native life, and that burden made them excep- tional. They were not to be judged for the violence they perpetrated because they were doing it for the sake of better- ment. However, the discrepancy of this logic was glaring. The same propensity to violence that made “Oriental despots” incapable of ruling and worthy of being replaced made the colonisers special res- cuers of native lands and people. In British imagination, the despotism of the native rulers was complemented by the weakness of the population they ruled over. Since Indian men were seen as weak, both mentally and physically, it was only right for the British to protect India. The manly Britisher provided, in his occupa- tion and oppression, stability and protec- tion to the effeminate Hindu. The effem- inate nature of Indians or Hindus was attributed by many colonialists, to the oppressive hot climate and the staple diet of rice. British historian Robert Orme was one of many to make such claims. James Mill was another such figure who claimed that at the very core of Hindu being was effeminacy and dishonesty. His explana- tion of colonialism was that the deceitful and perfidious Hindus were overcome by the manliness and the courage of the Britishers. Thomas Babington Macaulay trod the same line when he said that The dark, slender, and timid Hindoo (sic) shrank from a conflict with the strong muscle and resolute spirit of the fair race, which dwelt beyond the passes. (Macauley 1967: 392) George MacMunn, the author of The Martial Races of India (1933), blamed