Discursive paradigm of resistance

The British Raj in India faced continuous resistance by different strata of society –  rajas of different states, peasants, religious leaders, army personnel, and ordinary people of India. In my previous articles on these pages I have been writing accounts of various resistance movements in India that challenged the British hegemonic structure by using force as a tool of resistance.

Those associated with these movements sincerely believed that force was the only means through which freedom could be reclaimed. With meagre resources, poor training, and outdated weapons these passionate freedom fighters engaged the mighty British empire of India for a long period. Hundreds and thousands of people laid their lives in violent clashes with British forces. A large number of freedom lovers, after the 1857 war of independence, were arrested, tried, and hanged to death.

There were certain other groups of people in India who were also concerned about the British occupation of India but adopted an alternative approach that did not require coercion or force but relied on discursive resistance. To have a deeper understanding of the discursive paradigm of resistance we need to refer to Gramsci, who theorised the concept of hegemony in his seminal book, ‘Prison Notebook’. He referred to two approaches to hegemony, which relied on political and civil society respectively.

The political society depends on coercion and makes use of army, police, and/or judiciary for hegemony. The central tool of this approach is ‘force’ – which could be used relentlessly to hegemonise others.

The competing alternative approach, however, is to attain hegemony through civil society, without making use of force or coercion. In this approach, instead of using guns and swords, hegemony is attained through education, literature, language, and culture, by making use of social institutions, eg schools, and media, etc. In this paradigm ‘discourse’ takes centre stage as discourse is the common tool used by various social institutions, family, schools, religion, judiciary, and media.

Gramsci believes that hegemony, which takes discursive paradigm through civil society, is more effective than the coercive approach which uses political society for hegemony. Gramsci talks about the “spontaneous consent” that is achieved by powerful groups through the discursive approach where the marginalised groups start believing that their language, literature, culture, architecture are inferior compared with those of powerful groups.

With this realisation, marginalised groups believe that powerful groups, because of their positional superiority, have every right to conquer them. This is exactly what imperialist powers aim for. The coercive approach may control the bodies of the marginalised people and make them do what powerful groups want them to do but it cannot control their minds.

It is the discursive approach that controls minds and makes others think and feel the way powerful groups want them to think and feel. This is the ultimate stage of hegemony – where marginalised or colonised groups internalise the identity structured by the colonisers or powerful groups.

Imperialist powers use a two-pronged approach to establish their superiority. They glorify their way of living and stigmatise the way of living of ‘others’ or marginalised groups. In British India the Indian language, culture, religion/s and way of living were looked down on and the English language, culture, education, and Christianity were presented as the best possible alternative. Indian citizens were made to believe that their language, their literature, their education, and their way of living were inferior to those of the rulers. This message of inherent inferiority of the ‘other’ was communicated through the discursive approach in such a subtle manner that it was willingly internalised by marginalised groups.

Let us now return to our initial discussion of resistance. Like hegemony, the counter-hegemony process also has two major approaches to challenge the hegemonic structures: the coercive approach and the discursive approach. As I mentioned earlier, in British India both of these approaches were used by the freedom lovers. My previous articles on these pages covered the resistance movements that made use of force. I will now turn to the discursive mode used by some resistance movements in British India. These movements used subtle ways to influence the minds and played an important role in the decolonisation process in India.

Foucault theorises the nexus between power, discourse, and social reality by explaining how power and discourse go together and empower one another. Power constructs, legitimises, and popularises a certain discourse that leads to a certain social reality which justifies all the actions of power. Foucault, however, suggests that there are always some points of resistance available. He offers a useful concept of ‘reversal of discourse’. This is relevant to some of the discursive resistance movements initiated by some national leasers in India against the British Raj.

In the coming articles I will focus on discursive resistance movements in British India. These movements used non-violent means – like print media, literature, and education. These subtle means were used to counter the hegemony of the British Raj by reconstructing the narrative popularised by the Raj.

The counter-narrative was constructed around nationalism and preservation of social, religious, and cultural practices. Also a conscious effort was made to inculcate among the citizens of India a sense of pride in their own civilisation, culture, religion, language, and rituals. This realisation was the first step towards the decolonisation of minds.

The writer is an educationist.

Email: shahidksiddiqui@gmail.com