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Abject to Object: Colonialism Preserved through the Imagery of Muharram Author(s): Rebecca M. Brown Source: RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, No. 43, Islamic Arts (Spring, 2003), pp. 203-217 Published by: The President and Fellows of Harvard College acting through the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20167599 . Accessed: 12/11/2013 21:02
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Abject to object
Colonialism preserved through the imagery of Muharram

M. BROWN REBECCA

of Muharram, the first in the Islamic the marks calendar, anniversary of the famous seventh at battle for the Karbala, the defining moment century then nascent At the Islamic faith. Karbala, Husain, grandson of the Prophet, died on the battlefield, the split of Islam into two major sects. The precipitating its faith on the Qur'an, majority Sunni sect centered The month with secondary emphasis on the Hadith, or the sayings of the Prophet. The Shi'i sect, while still acknowledging the Qur'an as the word of God, included the family of the Prophet and the Prophet's sayings as a major aspect in Shi'i majority of Shi'i theology. Particularly regions, but also in the Islamic world more broadly, every year the death of Husain and during the month of Muharram in a the earlier death of his brother Hasan are mourned in different historical and cultural contexts, based in part on whether the region is majority Shi'i (Persia, for example) or, in the case of India, minority Muslim and minority Shi'i. This paper focuses on a British colonial representation characteristics of one part of the northern Indian Muharram observances, or julus, which serves as the most public the procession, of the various elements of Muharram in this region (fig. 1 ). The ?mage of the Muharram julus in question was painted for a British patron by an Indian artist in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. This is thus a and from painting, Company stylistic and provenance it belongs to the Patna School. The artist information, was most likely from the Bihar region, as the school is named for Patna, Bihar's major city along the Ganges.1 ten-day-long on different set of ceremonies. These ceremonies take

This image represents a key part of a larger pattern of Muharram representations by and for the British in both text and image. For the British in northern India, the annual Islamic rituals of Muharram served as a primary moment of intersection and interaction between the colonized and the colonizer. The form of those interactions appears in the imagery commissioned for the British and painted by Indian artists, while the procession is also the subject of simultaneously extensive textual description that, from the early nineteenth century through the twentieth century, as primary characterized Muharram processions in colonized examples of spatial and social transgression India. This paper explores the tension between a British with the processions, demonstrated by and detailed and a simultaneous lengthy descriptions, of the julus in colonial discourse, circumscription demonstrated by images of Muharram which omit major elements of the procession. The British, for whom ceremony became increasingly important over the course of their rule of India,2 were even at this early stage fascinated by the visual and cultural spectacle of Muharram?its of the mourning its of Husain, martyrdom community-centered, its inclusion and savvy speechmaking, of Hindus, Sikhs, Sunni Muslims, and Christians. That fascination, ismarked by a however, concurrent rejection of and horror at Muharram?its across its transgressive movements self-flagellations, politically exclusion the city, its disregard for delineated cultural, religious, and ethnic categories. Rather than a colonialism of and colonizer, or a colonialism dichotomous colonized of a controlled to a European or British Self opposed chaotic Islamic or Indian Other, the colonialism
the patrons?those as individual works associated paintings with as well the Company. One finds these as in sets of images bound

fascination

Earlier versions of the Middle Conference. a critical

East Studies My thanks

of this paper were Association to my

at the annual presented and the Cross-Cultural

meeting Poetics

who offered and colleagues suggestions Deborah Pika Samuel Hutton, Ghosh, eye, especially Ruth Feingold, W. John Archer, Frederick Asher, Catherine Chambers, of Maryland. The Asher, and the writing group at St. Mary's College research for this work was undertaken for Overseas with of Minnesota, Mary's power College the Council of Maryland. form during support from the University Research Centers, and St.

work on Victorian India's ceremony details the of ritual for the preservation of British India, but at a development much later (post-1858) in period. See Cohn, "Representing Authority Victorian and Terence Ranger, The Invention India," in Eric Hobsbawm of Tradition 165-210. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp.

in albums. together 2. Bernard Cohn's

1. Taking in the subcontinent,

to the rise of the East India Company this categorization derives its name from

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RES 43 SPRING 2003

Figure 1. Anonymous,

Walter Collection. Julus, ca. 1820. Mica. Raul F.

in paintings of Muharram is instead a produced a colonialism of fascination and horror?hence with and the colonialism negotiating struggling abject. to the growing literature Thus, this paper contributes colonial relations on a variety of axes.3 problematizing

3. The dichotomous has

notion

of the colonial

as

Indian versus

Iargue that as the images demonstrate the repulsion in a struggle and attraction that the British grappled with to represent and to know Muharram, also direct us they to the threat felt by the colonizer from this religious, not a threat caused merely by observance: community the physicality of the events, or a fear generated by the across the city, but a movement of the processions to the very stability of colonialism. In deeper challenge the image of the julus, this threat is defused, with crucial elements of the textual descriptions erased in favor of a movement decorous controlled, through an undefined

British

a project which analysis, long been the subject of deconstructive marks almost all of postcolonial theory. This paper enters the debates a method shared by early (see below), through psychoanalysis in particular Franz Fanon, The Wretched of colonialism, of analyses the Earth, trans. Constance (New York: Grove Press, 1963). Farrington, a variety Homi Bhabha and others, Fanon, have articulated following to break down of concepts which the colonized/colonizer attempt duality. Studies Location of Culture (New York: Routledge, 1994). Bhabha, of postcolonial the outside theory have also analyzed inways of colonized/colonizer that refuse the notion of an relationship

who argues dualism, most recently David Cannadine, saw the colonized in similar terms to British society: How Ornamentalism: the British Saw their Empire (Oxford: Oxford antagonistic the British University Press, 2001).

that

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Brown: Abject to object

205

the differences between the textual and space. Despite visual descriptions of the Muharram procession, these two coexistent constitute representations together and they represent a negotiation of discourse, in the threat of the procession for the British position India. early nineteenth-century The impetus for this paper lay inmy own surprise at colonial the staid, quiet appearance of a particular painting of Muharram from the early nineteenth century, today in the Raul F. housed Walter Collection (fig. 1). Having read a great deal about South Asian Muharram in scholarship and literature, and seeing in India, with their activity and contemporary juluses sound, Idid not expect such a static, controlled, decontextualized image. Indeed, images of Muharram from the early nineteenth century are consistent in processions this quiet distancing It from the ceremonies.4 exhibiting is the sorting out of this anonymous Company painting? hereafter called theWalter Julus?which has led to this paper.5 This painting includes most but not all of the elements of a julus, which forms a central, public element of the ten-day Muharram ceremonies. The most is only the visible of the activities procession in the northern Indian context.6 comprising Muharram In addition to the processions, participants hear sermons, or majlis, on the of the two grandsons of martyrdom which relate the story of the battle at Muhammad, Karbala inwhich Husain and his followers died. include those in the Shi'i community, but Participants also Sunni Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, and others of the region, making the observance of Muharram one which encompasses the entire Indian community in one or as a not another. This should be read way utopie as different groups coming together of all peoples, participate on different levels, some assisting with the construction of the procession,
share

Inmany cases, the various the ceremonies. witnessing inMuharram in South Asia divide groups participating not on religious lines but on class or caste lines, drawing across the city.7 The different community connections Muslims inwhich only Shi'i inaccurate for northern India, participate where Shi'as do not represent a majority population.8 The painting of the procession depicts a series of or ta'ziyehs, replicas of the tombs of Husain and his brother Hasan, surrounded by groups of people, and soldiers, who process with including musicians animals of various sorts, most prominently elephants.9 alternate of Muharram is also The variety of decoration depicted on these tombs indicates that different groups created these replicas for as is normal for this region, with the procession, across neighborhoods different communities competing for the biggest and most lavish ta'ziyeh. Sipars, or the shield-like elements carried on poles, reference the battle at Karbala; more specifically, the shield symbolizes Hussein's shield. The flags, generally bearing the image of two swords, and 'alams, or posts topped by a sculpted hand and carrying the battle standard of Husain, also the historical context of the procession, underscore vision

referringboth to the battle itselfand the family of the

Prophet through the five fingers representing the

7. See Nita Identity: Muslim Benarsi weavers' introduction Political delineated ed., Culture Environment, 1989). 8.

Kumar, Weavers

"Work and in a Hindu

Leisure City,"

in the Formation for an analysis and Sandria

of of the

inMuharram, participation to the same volume, "Introduction: of Ba?aras," which examines Economy through the ceremonies. in Ba?aras: and Power 1800-1980 (Berkeley: Both

Freitag's The History and the multiple identities in Sandria B. Freitag, and Press,

articles

Community, University

Performance, of California

and some merely

a minority. India's Shi'i population is a minority within For a of the mixed in Lucknow's population eighteenth-century see J. R. I.Cole, Roots of North Muharram Indian Shi'ism observances, in Iran & Iraq of California, 1988), p. 117. For a (Berkeley: University discussion see David Pinault, picture of this facet of Indian Muharram, of Karbala: Muslim Devotional Life in India (London: St. Martin's Shi'i since the Press, 2001), p. 14. In Persian culture, majority broader Horse includes primarily Shi'a participants, but century, Muharram like India, other sects and or See religions also observe participate. Peter J. Chelkowski, in Iran (New York: ed., Ta'ziyeh: Ritual and Drama New York University of the central Persian Press, 1979) for discussion observance 9. tombs of Muharram, the Ta'ziyeh passion play. Indian context, refers to the replicas of the ta'ziyeh of Hasan and Husain created for Muharram In the observances. In the sixteenth

4. majlis,

Procession or sermon,

images images.

Indian Paintings Paintings: Albert Museum, 1992). 5. As this image has no official collection inwhich The painting

a controlled, the quiet quality with inMildred See examples Archer, Company of the British Period and (London: Victoria it after the title, I have named resides: The Paul F. Walter Collection.

together, image of hook-swinging, part of the Charak festival, also on mica, comes from the same set (fig. 2). See Pratapaditya Pal and Vidya From Merchants to Emperors: British Artists and India, Dehejia, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), pp. 162-163. 6. Vernon in Performance James Schubel, Religious Islam: Shi'i Devotional in South Asia Rituals Contemporary (Charleston: University of South Carolina Press, 1993). 1757-1930

it currently is on mica, a set of and was likely part of images sold various Indian festivals and ceremonies. An representing

this word refers to the passion context, play performed as well as the theater inwhich that play is he{d. during Muharram While reenactments of the battle do take place in the Indian context, or as the Persian See they are not as elaborate staged Ta'ziyeh. Chelkowski (note 8).

Persian/Iranian

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RES 43 SPRING 2003

five major members of the Prophet's family.10 The in the artist includes all of these elements anonymous Walter Julus. a slow, measured The artist gives the procession pace some to look to the rear of of the by turning participants the column and by refraining from expansive gestures of motion in any of the figures, animal or human. He shows the solemnity of the event in the slow movement of the crowd: the figures inch forward, away from the viewer, some of them pausing to look back at the ta'ziyehs behind. The crowd, which one could see as a in rowdy bunch, given the variety of poses, the variation the direction of the gazes, and the few hands up in the air reads also in a spatially controlled manner. Most notably, the prominent figure to the right of the a with composition flywhisk in his hand is lost in the is overwhelmed crowd around him, and his gesture by the tall ta'ziyeh above him. The participants follow a line from the bottom-right foreground back in diagonal to the space Figures on the left top-left middleground. in their side of the procession repeat one another on that a of enclosure rhythm planted stance, marking the and left side. The rhythm of sipars ta'ziyehs, flags, from this diagonal, moving compositionally the top right to mid-left, completing triangular, diagonal in space indicated by the bottom edge of the recession This ordering overwhelms any variation that procession. occurs within as if the crowd were the crowd depicted, poured into an preexisting mold for easy display. The might be solemnity achieved by this composition as a a meant in ritual, procession mourning expected but the textual descriptions do not match this level of quietude. While most aspects of the Muharram julus appear this image, several do not. Conspicuously absent are two elements which are central in textual descriptions the procession: mourning rituals, or matam, and the in of also echo

weeping. the more

within the term matam encapsulated self (in)famous elements of Muharram: and other sorts of self-inflicted flagellations physical Also

are

like audible cries pain. This aspect of the observances, a connection and weeping, communicates with the as were the of defeated experience Prophet's family they a reliving of at Karbala. The yearly observance becomes in order to remind the events of the seventh century, of those early sacrifices and the present-day Muslims elements of the Shi'i faith.11 foundational These mourning elements are absent in both the content of the Walter portrayal. The question image not only misses Julus and in the manner of its is crucial, for the of manner the physical act of matam so

and itsmajlis, but integral to Muharram's procession also lacks the emotional mentioned engagement by commentators in their early nineteenth-century The column moves of the ceremonies.12 descriptions forward, with each element?elephant, drummer, in its But its overall part. impression, ta'ziyeh?playing the image of the ceremony lacks an emotive connection with the events commemorated. One might seek an in limitations here, arguing that the explanation stylistic northern Indian Patna style of Company painting, out of which this work comes, does not lend itself to overt slowly scenes of emotion.13 While this may be true in terms of facial expression and body language, the level of emotional turmoil indicated by acts of self-flagellation via other means: a dynamic could be communicated details composition, (tearing indicating such mourning of hair, rending of clothes), or similar elements. Indeed, these types of emotional imagery can be found in other for example a ca. 1810 image of a Muharram contexts, or in the Victoria and Albert Museum sermon, majlis, None of includes figures weeping.14 collection, which these elements exist within this image. a second major element ismissing Alongside matam, of from theWalter Julus. In the textual discussions Muharram, including both contemporaneous accounts and the scholarly writings detailing narrative the history

The transgression of city space caused by the procession. absence of these two elements was what drew me to the image in the first place: when one reads accounts of the it becomes surprising to see the image procession, that dominate textual without those key elements descriptions. First, the painting provides no images of mourners who outwardly exhibit matam, the manifestations of can most often verbal take several that forms, suffering and physical mourning, including both verbal cries and
10. elements, 108-109. For more on 'alams and the symbolism of these processional (see note 6), pp. (note 8), p. 78, and Schubel

ibid. Schubel, 12. See for example Hindost?n with Sketches Allen

11.

and Co., 1835), see Mildred 13. For more examples of the Patna School, Ltd. for the Royal Patna Painting (London: David Marlowe, 1948). Society, 14. Victoria

Roberts, of Anglo-Indian vol. 1, p. 178 ff.

Emma

Scenes Society

and Characteristics (London: William

of H.

Archer, India

Hasan

see Pinault

Asura: Ceremony of Mourning and Albert Museum, for an anonymous 1810. about and Husain, artist, Murshidabad, by no. 1. Published in Archer IS 11-1887, but not reproduced (see note 4), p. 83.

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Brown: Abject to object

207

of this observance, the transgression or violation of the the space city plays a central role. The procession by Walter Julus, however, altogether neglects the context of a city or town. The procession is isolated, with no or context. Visually, this architectural background the viewer on the foreground and the can more easily see the procession taking place. One silhouette of the ta'ziyehs, the variety of people, and the The shapes of the flags against a plain background. one of absence context, however, becomes charged with political and historical implications, particularly when to the textual descriptions of the processions. compared as the In this case, the context could be extrapolated isolation focuses location where the painting was made, specifically Patna, or the region around that Bihari city. The P?tna

cross boundaries within Many religious processions cities and disrupt the order of urban space in the process, such as the Catholic and Protestant conflicts northern Ireland, which often erupt around similar

in

transgression. processional We see this transgressive element of the julus in a wide variety of textual sources. Perhaps the most famous instance of the textual illustration of Muharram appears in the fictional account given in E.M. Forster's A Passage to India. Forster modelled after Patna. Mohurram was approaching, and as usual the Chandrapore Mohammedans were building paper towers of a size too large to pass under the branches of a certain pepul tree. One knew what happened next; the tower stuck, a Mohammedan climbed up the pepul and cut the branch off, the Hindus protested, there was a religious riot, and Heaven knew what, with perhaps the troops sent for. There had been deputations and conciliation committees under the auspices of Turton, and all the normal work of Chandrapore had been hung up. Should the procession take another route, or should the towers be shorter? The Mohammedans offered the former, the Hindus insisted on the latter.The Collector had favored the Hindus, until he suspected that they had artificially bent the tree nearer the ground. They said it sagged naturally. Measurements, plans, an official visit to the spot. But Ronny had not disliked his day, for itproved that the British were necessary to India; there would certainly have been bloodshed without them.17 after theWalter Julus was painted, Forster here deploys his famous sense of humor in exposing one of the truths about the colonial presence in India: the British produced a frame of reference in which for keeping the peace, and they were necessary as a result the tensions created by Muharram are highlighted in the text. Muharram's processions it?"one knew what happened reputation precedes its capacity for disruption next"?and is emphasized in here order to enhance the effect of the peacemaking British colonizer. Forster makes it clear that this is a common story, and that Ronny's "day" can be Written considered Muharram emblematic?a caused among model Indian communities, for the strife that or more a century his fictional Chandrapore

School of Company painting is linked stylisticallywith

the Murshidabad School, named for the nineteenth seat Nawab the of century (governor) of Bengal, and for the region.15 While thus the center of patronage to Murshidabad theWalter Julus differs paintings, in both style and content from contemporary images of set in Lucknow, a city in Uttar Pradesh to the Muharram west, and the seat of the Nawabs of Oudh (Awadh), a traces to its Persia. For Shi'i dynasty that ancestry example, images from Lucknow usually include some similar as the cityscape in part, by its is defined, architecture, imambaras. the absence of Thus, despite complete grand town or even landscape setting in theWalter Julus, the types of juluses that the artist and patron would draw from are those which took place in northeastern colonial in either Patna or Murshidabad. India, specifically in this The textual history of Muharram processions one is northern India of and of colonial conflict region movement tension generated by the procession's through the streets of a city. Most treatments of the Indian in text?whether Muharram fictional, travel procession or historical?focus related, journalistic, governmental, on the confrontations among various groups within the of the city, generally instigated by the movement are streets. cities the Indian procession through into in mohallas (called organized neighborhoods Islamic communities) centered on a temple or mosque. traverses these spaces, As the procession it passes a sacred areas, through community transgression which triggers protest from the inhabitants of the This is, of course, not unique to India. neighborhood.16

historical

time,

from the mundane is central to most

world aspects

lines) community about the colonial

15. Toby Office Library

Falk and Mildred (London: as well, Sotheby

in the India Indian Miniatures Archer, Parke Bernet, 1981), p. 215. the idea of crossing boundaries (of

discourse surrounding for its nineteenth-century See Schubel study of Muharram participants. of the liminality engendered (note 6) for a discussion by Muharram rituals for the participants. 17. E. M. 1984 to India Forster, A Passage [1924]), pp. 102-103. (New York: Harcourt Brace

to paradise, across of Muharram, this paper is the ceremonies rather than a

16.While
transgression

it is likely that the participants felt this element of

and indeed

and Co.,

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RES 43 SPRING 2003

properly, for the British policing communities. It is clear account

those

Indian

already context of theWalter Julus the early nineteenth-century and examine contemporary texts, we find early versions of the need for keeping the peace and the conflict that Emma Roberts, who Muharram processions engendered. traveled to India with her sister and brother-in-law in the 1820s, visited Patna and the entire northeastern region of India and wrote about it in her serialized memoir, as Scenes and Characteristics of later published In her chapter on P?tna, she spends a great Hindost?n. the Islamic cemetery, primarily deal of time describing each year. due to its role in the Muharram processions In Patna, as in most northern Indian juluses, the of the ta'ziyehs ends at the cemetery, where procession the tomb replicas are deposited.18 Roberts's description of this event includes many of the same elements as Forster's fictional account: But this cemetery displays a stirring and magnificent spectacle during the annual imposing ceremonies of the Mohurrum. [. . .]The riches of the city enable it to celebrate the obsequies of the young martyrs, Hossein and Houssein, in a very splendid manner; and this noble square is selected for the final depository of the tazees, or tombs,
which are carried about in commemoration of the funeral

that by the time Forster wrote this fictional the story itself was of a Muharram procession, we look back to in colonial lore. If established

utmost vigilance on the part of the magistracy to prevent the recurrence of bloodshed in the fierce collision of contending parties at Patna during the festival; the Moosulman population of that place being more turbulent
and arrogant, and, as it has been already remarked, more

bigoted than those of any other city belonging to the Company's territories. Even the mild Hindoos are not very
governable upon these occasions.19

of the Muharram procession highlighted involve the reenactment of the battle at the end of the procession which requires, as Roberts says, "the utmost vigilance on the part of the magistracy" in order a to prevent bloodshed. Forster's description of century here Muharram telling of the toward the events, with both moving "inevitable" conflict and the necessary presence of the British as peacekeepers. Roberts's narrative also highlights later mirrors the narrative arc of Roberts's

The elements

and the deep emotion and turbulence of the procession over non emotion which into the reenactment, spills in the ceremonies. Muslim population participating as a In a later chapter devoted entirely to Muharram elaborates on the early While focused on the observances. nineteenth-century at ceremonies Muharram Lucknow, Roberts takes grand some care to indicate when her narrative centers on that it ismore generally about Muharram city and when cultural event, Roberts in northern India. She distinguishes the observances of the Indian subcontinent from elaborate ceremonies those of the Persian and Arabian regions, emphasizing in the is observed the pomp with which Muharram subcontinent: Imbibing a love of shew from long domestication with a people passionately attached to pageantry and spectacle, they have departed from the plainness and simplicity of the worship of their ancestors, and in the decorations of the tazees, and the processions which accompany them to the place of sepulture, display their reverential regard for Ali and his sons in a manner which would be esteemed in Persia and Arabia, scandalous if thus accompanied where the grief of the Sheah ismore quietly and soberly
manifested . . .20

honours paid by the followers of AM to his slaughtered sons. The whole population of Patna, Moslem, Christian, and
Hindoo, assemble to witness the procession. [. . .] The

square ringswith shouts of "Hossein! Houssein!" accompanied by deep groans and beatings on the breast, while amid the discharge of musketry, the last sad scene is enacted by groups personating the combatants of that fatal the venerated battle inwhich Hossein perished. Whenever martyr is beaten to the ground, the lamentations are redoubled, many being only withheld by force from inflicting desperate wounds upon themselves. Woe to any of the followers of Omar who should dare to intrude upon the mourners; the battle is then renewed in earnest. Whole companies of sepoys have been known to engage in deadly combat with each other, and numerous lives are lost in the revival of the old dispute respecting the claims of the sons of Ali, in opposition to those of Omar, who represents himself as the adopted heir of the prophet. It requires the whole

18. some

Ratna's procession

accounts Gopal,

Surendra

Hunter, p. 61.

(Calcutta: Naya A Statistical

was extensive in the nineteenth century, by See 14,000 ta'ziyehs. approximately incorporating Patna in the 19th Century Profile) (A Socio-Cultural 1982), p. 22. See also SirWilliam Wilson Prokash, Account of Bengal (London: Tr?bner & Co., 1875),

her description with a specific Roberts continues about Lucknow's observances, discussion including in of the Hindus several pages detailing the participation the patronage of ta'ziyehs, and the the procession, in general. She concludes this section on mourning it is not always so that Hindu-Muslim amity by noting friendly:
19. 20. Roberts Ibid., vol. (see note 2, p. 12), vol. 179. 1, pp. 178-181.

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[. . .]when, as it sometimes happens, the holidays of the Hindoo and the Mussulman fall together, it requires no small exertion on the part of the authorities to prevent a hostile collision. At Allahabad, on the celebration of the Mohurrum, some of the leading persons repaired to the judge to request that the Hindoos, who were about to perform some of their idolatrous worship, should not be permitted to blow their trumpets, and beat their drums, and bring their heathenish devices in contact with the sad and holy solemnity, the manifestations of their grief for the death of the Imaums. They represented, in the most lively manner, the obligation which Christians were under to support the worshippers of the true God against the infidel, and were not satisfied with the assurance that they should not be molested by the intermixture of the processions, which should be strictly confined to opposite sides of the city. The Hindoos were equally tenacious in upholding their rights, and itbecame necessary to draw out the troops for the prevention of bloodshed.21 cause is Again, the tension that the processions central to Roberts's narrative of the ten-day ceremony. She turns for several pages to the majlis, or sermon, element of Muharram, and then spends the last pages of her chapter on the final day of the Muharram ceremonies most the elaborate of the She describes and processions. the participants: Devout Mussulmans walk, on these occasions, with their heads and their feet bare, beating their breasts, and tearing their hair, and throwing ashes over their persons with all the vehemence of the most frantic grief; but many content themselves with a less inconvenient display of sorrow, leaving to hired mourners the task of inciting and inflaming
the multitude by their lamentations and bewailments.22

of cross-religious Finally, these discussions on the interaction generally lead to an exposition for bloodshed and conflict that the potential processions of Muharram engender, making necessary a British festivals. presence. peacekeeping In addition to these three narrative elements, Roberts us an mourners of the in idea both themselves, gives their level of energy and also in their specific actions and appearance. She includes the tearing of hair, the of breasts, and the dusting of the body in ashes beating as specific actions mourners take, and adds that hired mourners not able perform these rituals for those not willing or to do so themselves. In the context of more

that takes place during Muharram, private mourning Roberts describes the physical beating of these hired mourners as extremely vigorous: After some well-wrought passage, describing the sufferings of the unhappy princes, the reader pauses, and immediately the mourners on the ground commence beating their breasts and shouting "Hossein! Houssein!" giving themselves such dreadful blows that it seems incredible that human nature should sustain them, until at length they sink exhausted on the ground amid the piercing cries and
lamentations of the spectators.23

as well as the Thus, the physicality of the mourning, emotional with the commemoration of engagement these martyrs, takes a central role alongside the narrative arc of the various communal conflicts Muharram induces. These textual descriptions?both the conflict not present in the and the physical mourning?are seen in the representation of Muharram's procession Walter Julus painted the same decade as Roberts's visit to India. On the other hand, the image gives the viewer all of the rich details of the ta'ziyeh, something not usually in detail in the verbal descriptions. While described the height of the tomb replicas and the basic form are the variety of architectural forms used in their described, stacked pavilions, the variety of 'alams and sipars, and

This is followed by another discussion of the conflicts that arise during the end of the procession, echoing her narrative about Patna in her earlier chapter. Roberts's narrative of Muharram, both within the context of Patna and more broadly in the chapter to the observances, proceeds through three notes Roberts with stages. First, surprise that while commemorates Muharram the deaths of two martyrs, and thus it should be somber and quiet, it is in fact an devoted show, one that energetic, inflammatory, and spectacular a festival. Indeed, she might be taken for celebratory calls it a festival on several occasions in her text. of Sunnis, Hindus, and Second, the participation in the ceremonies Christians is elaborately in detailed her writing, again with some surprise at the capacity of Islamic mourning rituals to become broader Indian
21. 22. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 188-189. 194-195.

23. of the mourning is Ibid., vol. 2, p. 191. Roberts's description not unique. On the reverse of a and India majlis ?mage in the Oriental a Office to the image Library Collections, companion long paragraph includes this description "A Machine of the mourners: is and gilt, supposed to represent their very superbly painted is a priest Tomb?Before which of their reading the circumstances in general has a most enthusiastic Death which effect upon the the front constructed audience violence, prostrating their lives 938, who weep, groan and beat their breasts of Hussein with the greatest loudly calling upon themselves before in the defence the names the Tomb Hossein, the sacrifice on

of the cause Collection,

and offering of of these two Saints." Add Or text on reverse.

Prints and Drawings

Muharram,

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RES 43 SPRING 2003

the image shows some of these details. What is certain, however, is that neither the text nor the image represents the "true" Muharram narrative of the early nineteenth procession in similar ways: what is century. Indeed, both operate in detail and what is left out are negotiated, described decisions made by patron, editor, historically contingent I resist the writer, and artist along the way. Therefore idea that Roberts's text is the "reality" of Muharram and theWalter Julus is thus somehow processions a Both the text and the image representation. merely emblematic for Muharram: these narratives across themselves the nineteenth repeat century. Thus, even in the 1820s, an emblematic of description Muharram and emerged, based on British observance in a variety of of the juluses and majlises description northern Indian communities, including Patna, and Lucknow. Murshidabad, Allahabad, as it continued This description carried much weight, to be used into the early twentieth century and shaped even in post-independence Muharram observances India. For example, Nita Kumar, in an essay examining in present-day Varanasi, the weaver community relates a one similar contemporary Muharram conflict, that, like Forster's fictional account above, occurs with some frequency.
. . . Many of the tazia processions pass through crowded

the way elements

the procession is organized?none are usually described, whereas

of these

Walter

Julus, where a calm, slow procession proceeds through a space absent of any context. We also see this emblematic transgressive Muharram in descriptions of nineteenth-century Muharram in Bombay, as explored observances in James Masselos's work.25 One of the major threats to the peaceful was the increased presence conduct of these ceremonies of Persian Shi'i These in nineteenth-century Bombay. incorporated fresh elements into the ceremony, (in including a horse procession honor of Husain's mount) that involved shouting abuses at those who did not participate with the Shi'i group. As immigrants newcomers clashed with the mid-century custom of in procession, the British banned in order to alleviate the tension. After the mid-nineteenth century, the British further separated the variant forms of Muharram in order to "preserve the these changes

became

carrying ta'ziyehs horse processions

peace constructed peace"?a through colonial discourse as well. The meant both the of this division policing of in the streets as well British officers physical presence as legislative intervention. Laws banned certain practices as and certain "safer" customs perceived dangerous, to the detriment of those perceived as continued?often more as such the horse procession. threatening, Masselos points out that the British curtailed Muharram because of their desire to keep control over most particularly because of the aspect the population, of transgression of space involved in the processions. He makes clear that the movement through the city did not merely carve out sacred space. Rather, the process both invaded and controlled space not normally given to the in group question. This could mean crossing boundaries two neighboring or between Islamic mohallas, alternatively, crossing traditionally British areas on the of the procession. way to the final destination in terms of a Thus, rather than interpret Muharram of the sacred alone, Masselos acknowledges core of these and highlights the politico-religious and as a result explains the British processions intervention as one centered on order: creation The issue was not merely of maintaining peace between conflicting groups or of preventing sporadic limited incidents of lawlessness or violence. Italso related to the British concern over maintaining their domination given their numbers and the size of the population over which
they ruled. . . .Mohurrum raised the spectre not of a

localities in the center of the city where lanes are only a few yards wide. Common threats to the sacredness of the occasion arise from possible collision between relatively
oversized tazias or absolutely oversized 'alam, and low

tree branches or telephone wires. A collision portends Hindu-Muslim conflict: the locality, the surrounding houses and porches, and the public spaces being Hindu, the "victimized" processionists Muslim, and the offending tree probably the sacred pipal.24 stems from her own interviews Kumar's description of the processions with police and recent observations inVaranasi; it is a contemporary recounting of the Its similarity to of Muharram. procession problematic the oversized Forster's fictional account?from ta'ziyeh to the pipal tree itself?points to a continued pattern both of governmental policing and, more to the point, of held of Muharram that stretch from perceptions widely India. Again, we see a pattern pre- to post-independent that seems emerge: an emblematic image of Muharram seen to in that the utterly opposed nineteenth-century

25. 24. Kumar (see note 159.

James Masselos,

"Change

and Custom

in the Format of the Centuries,"

7), p.

the Nineteenth Bombay Mohurrum During South Asia ns 5, no. 2 (December 1982),

and Twentieth pp. 47-67.

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Brown: Abject to object

211

planned or concerted
contagious upsurge.26

revolt but of a spontaneous, over a

The Walter

Julus gives

Thus, anchored population larger than that of the colonizer the concerns of the British in Bombay; and, as a result, the policing of Muharram took on a heightened to stop the transgressive acts, for they threatened the very fabric of to produce control and order that the British attempted in colonized India, by making that very numerical importance. The colonizers needed advantage clearly apparent. The textual examples above?Forster, Roberts, Kumar, and Masselos?all the transgression and highlight a violence of Muharram's for procession, potential transgression policed by the British to maintain or establish order. Roberts and Forster, with Kumar in the context of contemporary India, illuminate the need for in order to support the Muharram's transgression a force. of Masselos fleshes out this presence policing to order. discussion The threat the threat by articulating is greater even than a planned posed by Muharram it is spontaneous and strikes the very unpredictable?it against principle of that constitutes British rule. colonial ordering If this disruption of order is crucial for the textual it is not to be found in the of Muharram descriptions Walter Julus. Instead, we find only a compositionally revolt, precisely because is expected to focus isolated scene. The viewer on in the from well isolation the procession only documented conflicts and tensions which arise in a space outside a relation to it.The julus thus occupies static, its varying populations and neighborhoods, so central to elements the evacuating transgressive textual descriptions of the Muharram procession. is this image marked by these two absences: Why absence of spatial, ethnic, and religious transgression within the city, and absence of matam, or outward rituals? These are major parts of the mourning city and one could argue ceremony?indeed, Muharram for the British viewer?and that they define yet they are as a than read these absences missing here. Rather of separation of two distinct discourses?that transgression and matam, as seen in the textual versus that of isolated, sanitized descriptions, parading, as seen in the image?I read these two seemingly as together of Muharram disparate descriptions a a colonial of the ceremonies, producing description discourse of transgression, isolation, and erasure all at the same time.
26. Ibid., p. 54.

the maintenance

of domination

the composition, and the lack of or or active of violent any gestures mourning displays to the stability and calm of matam further contributes the scene. The painting creates an image of Muharram in control, and occurring happily within bounds, overseen by the (British) viewer. The event of Muharram to behold from a is transformed into a spectacle distance. to the Itbears little if any resemblance near-riot that of the textual descriptions threatening conflict above suggest. Rather than highlighting the various performances

seemingly opposed absence of external to simplify and order

us insight into how these two descriptions work together. The architectural or urban context helps

of

and rather than communicating the conflicts mourning, caused by the height of the ta'ziyehs or the self this image presents a Muharram flagellations, neatly for consumption. What we see in theWalter packaged Julus is not the opposite of the transgressive, matam seen in texts, but perhaps a visual filled ceremony policing of the procession?an image of the conclusion to Ronny's day: a controlled, and ordered delimited, Muharram fit for viewing by the British public. Here, the within image of the julus makes Muharram manageable to its colonial discourse, threat colonialism renegotiating too threatening to those elements by eliminating an in image. acknowledge Is this the end of the story, then? Does the julus image serve as a neat resolution for the explosion of discourse the issues of policing crowds, surrounding legislating sort of and describing bloodshed?a processions, plot closure for the colonial discourse surrounding Muharram? Here, the textual descriptions might be read as the conflict and tension between the protagonist and the antagonist, followed by the resolution and In this plot-driven denouement of the julus painting. one reads both of these model, images (textual and visual) as delineating between British and Indians on the page, a separation and concretizing Indian. The painting puts the isolated from any cityscape or viewed by a British controlling eye.27 is ordered and controlled through now is chaos under transgressive

British presence, The Indian procession this imagery: what was

control and able to be known. I suggest, however, that this is not the end of the story. The Walter Julus cannot merely serve as a closing
27. in detail nineteenth America The absence in the context of British in these images is presence a facet discussed and Orientalizing imagery, of French imaging of northern Africa in the Imaginary Orient/' 187-191. Art in

characteristic

of colonial

"The century. See Linda Nochlin, 71, no. 5 (May 1983), pp. 118-131,

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212 RES 43 SPRING 2003

element for the disruption of the Muharram procession, an ordering moment after the chaotic transgression of the city and interruption of the colonially imposed return to order order. This reading would the highlight prevalent In this reading, in the verbal narratives. a across an is incursion temporary transgression and Iargue

ritual exist alongside theWalter Julus image of physical its total lack of matam with imagery? Clearly, not all Indian festival or ceremonial is treated the subject matter same in this genre of painting. must not be a simple It horror at the physical elements of this ritual, for there is no problem with metal hooks piercing the shoulders of in the Charak festival. Moreover, this cannot participants an versus must be Indian It British simply dichotomy. more in which Islamic Indian the prove complex, is treated with different concerns than subject matter Hindu Indian subject matter. The threat here is not Muharram itself or the stems from a different transgression of spaces. The threat a see colonial problematic. We discursive dualism Other. by a third term: the position of the Islamic Certainly this is not the only "third" term in but it is a prime example of the ways colonial discourse, threatened inwhich this discourse India's various negotiated One populations.30 the complexity of sees in both the julus

legitimate border. However, with that the threat to British hegemony Masselos, is stronger than mere Muharram represented by to In examine this deeper threat to order transgression. I turn to the art historical context of British hegemony, established images were produced before the late in India of the century, despite traditions eighteenth in both Hindu and of public ceremony representation Islamic courts.28 While many subject matters show from the late-Mughal era into the colonial continuity Muharram emerges as a new subject within period, Company painting. Thus, the imaging of Muharram out of colonial patronage, with theWalter develops a Julus representative example. The effort to represent is intimately linked with colonial discourse Muharram and and its effects, namely the consolidation in the subcontinent. British of preservation hegemony at the same Examining other images commissioned an image from the even more specifically, time?or same set as the Walter Julus?we find subject matters seem to focus on physically which graphic ritual. Hook for example, part of the Hindu Charak festival, swinging, involves men placing hooks in their backs and swinging on a rope from a pole (fig. 2).29 Why and how can this these images. No Muharram

the of Muharram imagery and the textual descriptions same goal played out: the discourse works in both cases to defuse the threat of a third term. Hindu ritual can be in its strangeness, separated entirely as fully "Othered" and thus from different British ceremony, utterly can be of representations depicted hook-swinging without threat. But Islamic ritual cannot fill that same position, as it is too close to British practice: not the idea of the British as different enough. Furthermore, to in heirs rule the subcontinent was already Mughal current in the last quarter of the eighteenth century; this the othering of Islamic culture in India complicated a to British discourse of sameness between and led Christian Islamic cultures.31 Thus, Iargue that the regarding the British proliferation of textual description serves the same control and the policing of Muharram from purpose as the extracting of dynamic elements and the julus these elements position serve to for Muharram

in paintings for Indian represented in these rarely figures patrons during this period and earlier, Muharram uncover even inworks works, by Islamic rulers. Efforts to patronized of Muharram century representations examples prior to the nineteenth 28. While festivals in any context have proved fruitless. Furthermore, (Indian or otherwise) Persian of the nineteenth century, Ta'ziyeh representations during refers not to the tomb (in Persia, the word ta'ziyeh performances are the only replicas but to the passion plays staged during Muharram) in this search. In British of other Muharram imagery found examples include the processions, of Muharram India, representations majlis, or lamps scenes of individuals with flags, ta'ziyehs, and various list for their imambaras. My thanks to the H-ISLAMART decorating to my queries on this subject, particularly responses Oleg Grabar, and Ulrich Marzolph. Andras Riedlmayer, Jonathan Bloom, is not an isolated one. Two 29. This image of hook-swinging Murshidabad and Albert the spectators nos. 11:1887 Murshidabad Archer, University School Museum images, ca. 1800, at the Victoria hook-swinging in an active way, one with this ceremony depict at the figure swinging from the rope (IS pointing 11 and 37, Archer (see note 4), pp. 72, 83). A similar inMildred and W. G. is reproduced (ca. 1800) 1770-1880 for the British, (Oxford: Oxford plate 3, fig. 5.

are well

imagery. Together, negotiate a non-threatening within colonial discourse. The discourse colonial

of Muharram therefore exists between a itmarks both the As boundary categories. and the point at of and colonizer colonized separation
30. In the postcolonial by Homi in both but this context Bhabha the idea of a "third space" has to discuss the diasporic the formerly colonized Idiscuss here. See Bhabha," (London: in Identity: Lawrence

been

articulated

in order

cultures world, Bhabha,

and throughout the m?tropole is certainly from what distinct Space: Interview with ed. Difference, pp. 207-221.

'The Third Culture,

Homi

painting Indian Painting Press, 1955),

Community, and Wishart, 31. Empire

J. Rutherford and

See C

1990), A. Bayly,

Indian Society

(Cambridge:

Cambridge

University

of the British the Making Press, 1988), p. 13.

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Brown: Abject to object

213

Figure 2. Anonymous,

Hook-swinging,

ca. 1820. Mica. Raul F. Walter Collection.

which they join together. The text and image of the Indian ceremony separates the British from the Indian by a in the text and a neatly both chaotic Other creating in this the Other packaged imagery. Yet simultaneously ties the two sides together. This representation discourse is never outside that discourse but instead of Muharram to create it. Imagings of Muharram, textual helps as a site for exist and visual, do this because they "in chaos and between" order, riot and representation cannot and British. These Indian calm, representations be reduced to the actions of the British domesticating this Indian ceremony. And they are not two parts of a unified plot line. Much of the work done by these involves more than the last move of representations or denouement. domestication as Rather than simply discuss these representations one of a subject (the British colonizer/protagonist) an object (the Indian colonized/antagonist) domesticating

in the plot, through the resolution of a crisis moment the two must be acknowledged. the interstices between and The analysis must shift from the domestication an an toward of Islamic Indian ceremony objectification as of the colonial relations of power understanding space in taking place in the realm of the abject?that Indian between chaos and order, subject and object, colonial and British?that within discourse, space marked by the Muharram procession. inwhich For psychoanalysis, field the term first is that which borders and the abject gained currency, between a subject and its other. marks the boundaries the boundary but also The abject both establishes the and the object (that is, both subject produces constitution of the the boundary between through most powerful elements One of the and subject object). the reading of which can enhance of the abject?one in the deep the discourse of Muharram processions?lies

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RES 43 SPRING 2003

interconnections of attraction and repulsion, fascination and horror situated at its core. The most well-known of the abject stems from its characterization as physical excretions from the body manifestation blood) that emanate from vomit, menstrual are and reviled by the self but at the same time mark the individual as a subject, and therefore elicit fascination with revulsion simultaneously.32 By marking a space of "not me" outside of the self (excrement, the subject, the connections between through these excretions, self and the abject solidify around seeing this "not For me" and the concurrent revulsion/fascination. the

existence

as contingent.

Muharram's

of instability caused by threat as abject. Thus, any reading of the julus image above as an indication of separation between Indian and British is not sufficient, as reading this discourse through the The shows. becomes instead a marker image abject julus rituals on the part of of fascination with the Muharram the British. Its absences mourning, (self-flagellations, other visual expressions of matam) mark the horror of are suppressed in their absence?they in the procession its ordered boundaries this image quite rigidly with and itsmovement away from the viewer, out of threatening in terms of its The limits range. placed on the procession boundaries?what Idescribed above as the artist a into "pouring" pre-given mold?point toward this rigid controlling of some threatening facet of not illustrated directly, but indicated the procession: the procession through its absence. An understanding

contradictory from the problematic

Muharram's seemingly in image and text stem representations

Julia Kristeva, the corpse philosopher psychoanalytic most "If dung signifies the represents striking abjection: Iam not the other side of the border, the place where and which permits me to be, the corpse, the most is a border that has encroached sickening of wastes, upon everything."33 The abject ismore than merely the that divides self and other: the abject exists membrane as part of both. Excrement, the corpse, and menstrual blood are all a part of the self while simultaneously a exterior. reviled becoming jettisoned, I turn to the abject here because it offers an the constitutive that acknowledges interpretive space link between the self and the rejected outside. Unlike a two "pure" elements inwhich simple transgression, cross paths and thereby cause tension (as in the case of and its procession of Muharram the verbal descriptions an and describes the above), already established abject interior and the between constitutive interrelationship the exterior.34 Thus revulsion and fascination do not oppose one another so much as constitute parts of the same reaction to that which crosses the ultimate border. is abjected (excrement, In crossing that border, that which it establishes the for example) performs two functions: self as self and threatens the self by pointing out the it rests: the abject. That is, shaky ground upon which from "me" and establishes the abject emanates because "not me,"
32.

of the discourse of Muharram of the allows us to answer some abjection through logic from the previous analysis. of the remaining questions

Why did the British feel threatened by the self

flagellations procession? and the movement Muharram might of the Muharram be a threat in terms of its

boundaries of the city, transgressive qualities?crossing with disruptive disturbing peaceful neighborhoods this pulls the reading back into the ta'ziyehs?but dichotomous British versus Indian mode of the first, plot this reading based on driven analysis. Furthermore, between legitimates the differentiation transgression that the transgressors were British and Indian, suggesting the bounds temporarily and that merely overstepping of course, be restored after that brief order would, moment. Transgression is never a long-term situation. context for the abject helps A broader psychoanalytic to move us out of the orbit of these dichotomous the facets of the threat which relationships by exploring constitute the pairs in the first place. of subject The abject is not merely an explanation over "not me" of excrement, and against the formation menstrual blood, or the corpse. For Kristeva, this constitution formation works within a broader frame of the of what she terms the symbolic and semiotic realms,35 which produce the site of subject
35. semiotic within being, The term semiotic semiotics. here is used in a manner different from its

it also forces

the self to acknowledge

its

in Powers 33. 34.

The abject here is articulated through Julia Kristeva's exegesis of Horror (New York: Columbia Press, 1982). University Ibid., p. 3. For Kristeva this works with on a very profound in place and whom level: "I experience stead of what will

only abjection be 'me/ Not at all another

if an Other

has settled

I identify and incorporate, but an Other who precedes and possesses me, and through such is causes me to be." Ibid., p. 10. The object or other, here, possession seen as inherent in a subject which has yet to be formed. Thus, or the pr?existence in the sense of Muharram separation, complete The discourse these ?mages and texts is impossible. that it exists before surrounding Muharram Muharram. constitutes does not postdate Muharram itself?it

use within

Kristeva

to sign systems, the representative the Mother, and thus the source of those

the relationship of the acknowledges that these systems are housed but claims of society sign systems. for the pre-oedipal Thus Kristeva avoids

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Brown: Abject to object

215

In this context, the symbolic realm, or the realm masculine of the Father's Law, stands in linguistic, to the feminine realm semiotic, pre-speech, counterpoint formation. of the Mother's Authority.36 This counterpoint of course inwhich a child comes relies on the oedipal scenario,

once

is revealed as heterogeneous, its the symbolic in its falters the of face border: the stability permeable In of context the the colonial discourse under abject.

to subjecthood through firstchallenging the Father for

his (a necessarily masculine child) mother's affection and then separating from the Mother when the Father into the says "no." By passing from the semiotic a in Inother words, is this formed. way symbolic subject only by entering individual take shape. That Law takes the form of prohibitive juridical law: the Father sets limits (says for "no") for the subject, creating rules and boundaries subject formation. this deeper psychoanalytic framework as a Deploying to understand the colonial encounter, one metaphor sees a symbolic realm of the colonizer the producing Law through which prohibitions and restrictions are established. The Authority of the past, semiotic realm, the realm of the Father's Law can an

discussion here, the abject, bordering and constituting the two realms, disrupts the solidity of the colonizer's (within the symbolic) and as a result, abjection position as a membrane it threatens because bordering/liminal could easily break down the fabric of the Law?the very structures upon which the colonizer exists as colonizer. Using the abject helps to explain the reasons why one sees a proliferation of discourse in the nineteenth of the Muharram's century surrounding policing spatial transgressions within the city, and yet a dearth of imagery of this transgression?marked by a lack of matam and a lack of even the depiction of conflict or bloodshed?in the British-sponsored of representations as Indian ceremony. The transgression noted itself, above, does not ultimately threaten the Law of on the contrary, it underscores the need for colonialism; in India. Ronny's passage the British presence in Forster's novel above

here inhabited by the colonized (those denied

because subjecthood they are unable to pass fully into the symbolic and realm), must be acknowledged controlled by this Law. This scenario depends on the as two realms?semiotic and symbolic?existing spaces. But Kristeva and other philosophers homogeneous in the border between that fact these two realms argue as in the them is semiotic exposes heterogeneous?there in finds this for (Kristeva symbolic poetic language, in the semiotic instance) and symbolic (some argue that the the latter is constituted former).37 The borderland by between these two, the moments when they intersect or when the semiotic introjects into the symbolic?those moments the Law of the question all-encompassing as a result the control and colonizer, upsetting juridical not the of the only threatening logical sensibility symbolic
the dominant

this dynamic clearly: "But demonstrates . . ." not had his disliked What threatens Ronny day. British legitimacy and presence is the paired horror/ fascination of Muharram. This procession represents a inwhich moment the colonizer recognizes both the distance and also ("not me") from the Indian colonized the potential for breakdown of that barrier?the interconnection and constitutive that the dependence abject represents. Muharram might just be unknowable in the context of the symbolic and unexplainable realm of the colonizer, and thus the very act of matam threatens that symbolic fabric and the base upon which rests. Hence, colonialism in representations of the Muharram processions, works British-commissioned represent a spatially controlled, mafarn-free Muharram. I In closing, like to introduce another would image of the Muharram procession from a different moment in the late eighteenth colonial discourse: century. Through this image, one can trace an emergence of this abject threat and the construction to address that of Muharram threat. Earlier, the pre-nineteenth-century East India in India had a very different flavor presence Company than that of the second decade of the nineteenth century. An image by an amateur British painter in the 1780s allows this distinction to become clear. A set of paintings of festivals, marriages, and other events in the Victoria and Albert Museum is purported to amateur
38.

but also the fabric of the symbolic

itself. For,

phallus of Lacanian psychoanalysis by refiguring Lacan's the Mother. As Ian Craib suggests, imagery in this way and re-centering Kristeva's semiotic differs from the Lacanian imagery, as the semiotic "is the poetic basis of our existence in the world, and the ordering of in the 'chora/ as Kristeva calls it, is prior to the the experience . . . or feminine of identity, let alone a masculine acquisition identity we have to move out of it [Kristeva's semiotic] to some degree to make civilized life possible." A Critical Introduction Craib, Psychoanalysis: Polity Press, 2001), p. 174. (Cambridge: 36. Kristeva's articulation on the Mother's places emphasis other psychoanalytic theorists read the semiotic Authority where without (see note 31), Irigaray, for example, is still constituted by the symbolic, Father. The Sex Which is Not One 37. Luce this. Kristeva p. 71. argues that Kristeva's semiotic realm of the Press,

consist of copies of paintings initiallydone by the British

artist George Farington (1752-1788).38 Within

phallogocentric (Ithaca, Cornell

language University

1985).

Archer

(see note 4), p. 78.

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216

RES 43 SPRING 2003

image (fig. 3) processional inmany ways to theWalter Julus which, that discussed above, has certain key differences over time of these images demonstrate the movement from the late eighteenth century (and the beginning of while similar in of its colonial presence the Company's consolidation to the northern India and particularly Murshidabad) the Company's century, when position early nineteenth in eastern India had been relatively stable for several
decades.39

this set there

is a Muharram

painters who copied Farington's works at the turn of the in the following two nineteenth century acknowledged decades the market for depictions of festivals which were more controlled, ordered images for the British viewer becomes, in India and demonstrate in the m?tropole. These two works that trajectory; the laterWalter Julus for Muharram processional imagery, an

this julus, like theWalter Julus Compositionally, moves in a discussed above, away from the viewer a In recession barren landscape. fairly through diagonal a is this eighteenth-century landscape painting, however, a a a to tent the and horizon left, line, hazy given, with tree marking the left-hand border of the image. Unlike a higher the Walter Julus, Farington's julus evidences the center foreground amount of motion and energy?in a group of men gesticulate back, and to the far left of in sword fighting. Overall, rigid in its form; one does sense that the laterWalter their heads thrown the column two men engage ismuch this composition less not get the poured-into-a-mold with

pattern repeated throughout the iconographical from the India nineteenth century as seen in examples Office and Records and elsewhere.40 Library ismuch more What these images show us, however, than simply a distancing or othering between Indian and British. For, with the absence of the procession's bloodshed and its threat to order, these images demonstrate the resultant domestication of the tension a an and between symbolic abject space, bringing the into the realm of object safely and solidly, a defusing any threat so that all that remains is mild and others observed fascination with this procession (from a distance) by the British colonizer. These images as the demonstrate the trajectory of colonial discourse abject Company nineteenth abject position. initial surprise, then, at finding a Muharram image devoid of both matam and an urban processional finds spaces impossible, setting, making transgressing in a close analysis of the threat to its explanation My The British these discourses demonstrate. of Muharram's of the negotiation abject space in text and image runs much deeper than a procession mere objectification into a of the Indian observances on museum and walls for display particular shape ready in albums of festival images. More pointedly, the a here demonstrates Muharram imagery discussed to the colonizer the threat which, position of dynamic when represented by that colonizer, must not only be but de-abjectified, leading to the controlled, objectified colonialism century julus and orderly image of the mid-nineteenth the tales of triumphant and necessary British control of a transgressive annual ceremony.
Siva Lai's virtual copy of the 1820s image is in the Chester follow this pattern include the other collection; images which at the Victoria and Albert Museum Ram's julus in a landscape The one Archer (see note 4), pp. 85-86. (IS 74-1954). image of the an work on mica, the which anonymous cityscape, incorporates julus the controlled still evidences image, with feeling of the anonymous 40. Beatty Sewak Archer no. 28. in the foreground: V&A IS 35-1961, seated bystanders in Robert Skelton and Mark Published (see note 4), pp. 194-195. Art Gallery, 1979), (London: Whitechapel Francis, eds., Arts of Bengal no. 98. relaxed

Julus projects. The detail in the of ta'ziyehs and flags also heightens Farington's julus this qualitative the movement of the column. Despite stands viewer still the separate from the change, not it here only from a distance but viewing procession, also from the top of a small rise, as indicated both by the and also by the dark earth in the foreground. perspective This copy of a late-eighteenth century British amateur a view of the Muharram offers different painting from the viewer and still separated procession?one but one which therefore in some ways domesticated, and dynamism of the the movement also acknowledges more detailed image to the julus. The shift from this an moves one more in inverted trajectory static later, about Muharram, which vis-?-vis the verbal discourse in the late shifts from a lack of discussion altogether to such as full-blown century descriptions eighteenth the threat of Roberts's above. This shift happens while increases and while a solid, ordered, Muharram for the colonizer within symbolic space is established a of transgression and discourse India, necessitating and an of Muharram in the written descriptions control in controlled of closed-down, procession imagery the of The descendants Company images. painted
39. evidence stylistic Farington's original of the provenance have been oil paintings lost, but textual of these images, as well as the clear between region, them indicate and other that it is likely

in the early grew in the subcontinent and discursive the century, defusing of this the colonizing threat helped to consolidate presence

differences and compositional of this period and Company paintings that these are indeed copies.

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Brown: Abject to object

217

Figure 3. Anonymous (afterGeorge Farington), Muharram, ca. 1795-1805 V&A Picture Library, IS 11-1887, no. 12.

(original 1780s), Victoria and Albert Museum,

courtesy

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