UNIT 2 ASSIGNMENT
HISTORY AND THE IDEA OF INDIA
Orientalism is a concept which is firstly used by Europeans and Europe is the country that which
understands itself as civilised and superior. The concept of orientalism in india is different from
American orientalism and Europeans looked up on China which is the first non western culture
to look up to the orientalist knowledge which is produced by power and it also considered that
orient is an integral part of European material, culture and civilisation like anyone who
researched and wrote about the orient to be an anthropologist or etc . And the point of
orientalism is to produce the knowledge of past to meet the present requirements, and I feel that
orientalism is more important as a sign of European power over orients like India. The
orientalsim is continuing from pre-colonial period to post colonial period and it followed as
pre-colonial orientalism and postcolonial orientalism that which is like knowledge of language
and the pre- colonial orientalism did not die out even after the post colonial orientalism came and
here William Jones's idea of Orientalism is developed side by side. And according to Edward
Said orientalism which is derived from a particular closeness that which is experienced by
Britain and France and the orients like until early 19th century had really meant only India and
bible lands. And Edward said made us to be conscious by this orientalism topic by focusing on
the modes of knowledge production and interest in knowledge production as Edward said did
his work with such literary power and authority and he focused on the perception that how it
began to change between 67s and73s during the period were arabs fight and Israelis fight take
place and this made to the fascination towards the perception that which defines the nature of
orientalism. And the piece of reading is also about who gets to represent whom and the authority
and how the representation changes over the period. The orientalism is a style of thought is an
ontological and epistemological distinction that which made between Orient and Occident. And
In reading, Edward said and william jones raised the question, Did understanding of india and
indian history change after orientalism? So the answer is probably Yes, Because in pre-colonial
orientalism the language is not understood properly and they were not given much importance
but after postcolonial orientalism they gave importance to languages and they started using
translators instead of he himself working and understanding the meanings and reducing
misinterpretation and it is not like as pre colonial orientalism. So it clearly saying that India and
Indian history changes even after orientalism. And the older travellers one who came to india
with Alexander they did not know much about the vernacular languages, but the mohammedans
who came later they got a proper hindustani language which was much more closer to sanskrit.
And Willian jones compared that Devanagari script as similar to the european script and he said
that he only speaks elite languages but not other. And to prove that all languages derived from
one language he explained the biblical story that is about the tower of Babel, In this story god
doesn't want to built the tower and the tower was to built very big so if they are building the
tower they all have to speak one language so at that time god separated all and scatter them in
different languages then they can’t built the tower because they can't communicate to each other
( Genesis 11:19). Some people like james mill, they said that there is no history for Indians and
the people are without history. And they described India as a land of hindus and by this the
geographical extent also described, it is showing that how stereotypically the country is shown
based one thing, they are describing the other too and the Indian land is also named as
Punyabhumi. And Edward Said says that he is the person one who formalised orientalism for
producing knowledge. william jones points out that India has a unified Identity, because when he
looked at india in one particular part of population that they were are Hindus.
Europeans thought about indians as they are wisest people of all nations in moral wisdom they
were eminent people. William jones in reading he said that indian people, hindus as commercial
people. And in the reading it also mentioned that Hindus are considered the invention of gods.
william jones reading (pg 36) he mentioned that Hindus are said to have boasted of inventions,
all of those are admirable, those are methods of instruction Apologues, The decimal scale, game
of chess, works on grammar, logic, rhetoric, music etc. And hindus were supposedly very proud
of their language, epic, literature and puranas mythology etc. And william jones also mentioned
in the reading that Indian gods and goddesses were similar to greek gods and goddesses. And the
people of ethiopians and hindustani were also characterised by the similar race. India also have
the connection with various number of nation, either all came together to form india or india all
the other nations have the same ancestors for example A book on astronomy and sanskrit bearing
the title”Yavana Jatica”. Greek and Indian both are originated same from the same race, even
astronomy,sanskrit title of yavana jatica all this are borrowed from Greek, which also had similar
older indian scriptures like sayinfa and they also originated from the same root. And Edward said
says that orientalism is opposite of occident, and the negative stereotypes by europeans and
european colonial rule. All that above was shown comparison of Indian with some other, it is
kind of domination that showed by others on the indian writings, culture, science, philosophy etc.
Major differences between the ideology of orientalism and utilitarianism
The majority of the people must be benefit by the notion of utilitarianism and it also said that
utility should be maximise one’s pain it also like reducing sufferings and it also holds moral
actions. Orientalism : Orientalism is the concept which shows the depiction of westernization on
Asian countries based on stereotypes. And this term is coined by Europeans and it also like
western dominating and having authority on orient. In India orientalism is like stagnant in the
society for example: caste system in India which is still existing( in class discussion) And when
we try to see the difference between orientalism and utilitarianism we can that in orientalism that
languages and some cultures ruling the country for example if we take sanskrit which is shown
as superior and when we see the utilitarianism we can see that there is no much usage of arabic
and sanskrit languages in academics and we can use and learn another language like english and
in orientalism the orientalist read arabic and sanskrit languages to write the history but whereas
in utilitarianism the utilitarians they didn't read arabic and sanskrit languages but they tried to
explore the importance of english. And the main and simple difference we can make about
orientalism and utilitarianism is that the orientalists tried to researched about past because to
meet the requirements in future but in utilitarianism the utilitarianists didn’t studied or cared
much about past they only thought of future.
Contemporary relevance of orientalism, Orientalism is used in movies( For example: Indiana
jones, slumdog millionaire), songs( coldplay hymn), books( tintin), and in some other stories,
and cartoons etc orientalism is used in these days and in so many indian films orientalsim is
portrayed people, country, customs, beliefs and cultural elements.
In current days the definition of orientalism is still used in the aspect of academics like the
writings which are produced after researching on orients.
