Muscular Nationalism: Gender, Violence, and Empire in India and Ireland, 1914-2004

1. Under the British Gaze: The Weak Bengali and the Simianized Celt

• 21 1 Under the British Gaze The Weak Bengali and the Simianized Celt Published in 1860, John Brookes’s book Manliness: Hints to Young Men drew a link between national progress and manliness, asserting that manly nations are sure to progress, whereas unmanly nations are bound to be conquered : “Nations never remain stationary—they are always either progressing or retrograding. If they are manly their march towards perfect civilization is . . . certain . . . but if they become unmanly their retrogression is rapid and awful.”1 Brookes’s conflation of manhood and national progress was an integral part of British imperial expansion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Specifically, nations defined by martial prowess, strength, and discipline— traits of hegemonic masculinity—were sure to attain a level of civilization that “unmanly” (read: effeminate) nations hindered by weakness, as well as lack of discipline and martial prowess, could not attain. The linkage between British notions of hegemonic masculinity and imaginings of empire has been a topic of contemporary research.2 Inherent in this relationship is the pejorative judgment of the conquered. In the words of Said, such criticism can be related to a process of feminization in which the Orient (non-Western colonies in South Asia and the Middle East) was constructed as the weak, irrational, nonmartial “Other,” in contrast to a rational strong, martial European “Self.”3 Ronald Inden alludes to the European masculine hero who would conquer and create order out of the feminized chaos that was India.4 Said and Inden both imply that the feminization of the Orient encompassed a disparagement of Arab and Indian men who were conquered because they were effeminate and who were seen as effeminate because they were conquered. Their conquered status constructed them as not muscular, not aggressive, and not skilled in militarism, all values associated with femininity. Further, as is discussed in this chapter, the Irish, a colonized nation, were deemed “unmanly” and also feminized in ways similar to the processes described by Inden and Said. Thus, gender was a politically salient aspect of colonialism. 22 • Under the British Gaze This chapter does not offer a comprehensive tracing of imperialism and normative ideas of manhood and womanhood but rather sketches out a cultural context highlighting British imperial concerns with muscularity, chivalry , martial prowess, rational governance, and self-discipline. These traits of hegemonic masculinity defined the British categorization of Indians and Irish, as well as their location within imperial space. This chapter delineates the impact of imperial masculinity as it emerged and evolved in the mid- to late nineteenth century. For the purposes of this book, the manner in which these ideals of manhood defined and constructed Irish and Bengali men was important for the unfolding of oppositional muscular nationalism in both contexts in the early twentieth century. Green identifies four archetypes of English manliness in empire: the engineer , explorer, missionary, and soldier.5 The engineer tamed unruly nature— rivers, jungles—by utilizing science to build bridges, railroads, and highways; the explorer trekked throughout the mysterious subcontinent mapping terrain ; the missionary heralded the civilizing force of Christianity; and the soldier conquered and maintained control over the “effeminate” colonized man. Although each version of manhood perhaps performed a different function within the imperial project, each figure embodied traits of hegemonic masculinity , strength, self-reliance, independence, and confidence as the colonies were controlled, categorized, and conquered. Gender and Imperialism I begin this exploration of the intersection of hegemonic masculinity and empire with the words of a colonial soldier who gained infamy in Indian nationalism because of his implication in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919: I fired and continued to fire until the crowd dispersed, and I consider this is the least amount of firing which would produce the necessary moral and widespread effect it was my duty to produce if I was to justify my action. If more troops had been at hand the casualties would have been greater in proportion. It was no longer a question of merely dispersing the crowd, but one of producing a sufficient moral effect from a military point of view not only on those who were present, but more especially throughout the Punjab . There could be no question of undue severity.6 Under the British Gaze • 23 The extract is a rationale offered by General Reginald Edward Harry Dyer, defending his order to fire into a crowd of approximately ten thousand unarmed Indian men, women, and...