Postcolonialism

Journal Of Higher Education And Research Society: A Refereed International
ISSN – 23490209 Volume – 5 / Issue – 1 APRIL 2017
UNDERSTANDINGPOSTCOLONIAL THEORY AND LITERATURE
Dr.Shrikant B. Sawant
Principal,
GogateWalkeCollege,Banda,
J
Sindhudurg
Abstract
The term like ‘post-colonial’and ‘postcolonial’ first appear in the late 1980s H
in many scholarly journal articles. By the mid 1990s, the term has become
firmly established in scholarly writings and now postcolonialism usually
refers to literature of the cultures colonized by British Empire. Postcolonial E
discourse was a result of the work of several writes such as AimeCesaire,
Frantz Fanon, NgugiwaThiango,Edward Said, Ashcroft
GayatriSpivak,HomiBhaba,Aizaz Ahmad. The concept of Post colonialism
et. al.,
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concern with diverse and numerous issues highlighting the struggle that
occurs when one culture is dominated by another. Postcolonial literature
and theory investigate what happens when one culture empowers and
S
deems itself superior to other. Postcolonialism marks the end of colonialism
by giving the indigenous people the necessary authority and political and
cultural freedom to take their place and gain independence by overcoming
O
political and cultural imperialism. Postcolonial situation has given our
writes confidence to write creative literature in English.
Key Words: Colonial, Postcolonial, Orientalism, Mimicry, Hybridity,

Subaltern, Eurocentric.
Understanding Postcolonial Theory and Literature 325

UNDERSTANDINGPOSTCOLONIAL THEORY AND LITERATURE
- Dr.Shrikant B. Sawant
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T
he concept of Post-colonialism (or often postcolonialism) deals with the
effects of colonization on cultures and societies. As originally used by
historians after the second World War the term such as 'post-colonial
state', where 'post-colonial' had a clearly chronological meaning, designating the
post-independence period. However, from the late 1970s the term has been used
H
by literary critics to discuss the various cultural effects of colonization. Although
the study of the controlling power of representation in the colonized societies
had begun in the late 1970s with the text such as Said's Orientalism, and led to the
E
development of what came to be called `Colonialist Discourse Theory' in the
work of critics such as Spivak and Bhabha, the actual term 'post-colonial' was not
employed in these early studies of the power of colonialist discourse to shape the
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form and opinion and policies in the colony and metropolis.
The terms like 'post-colonial' and 'postcolonial first appear in the late 1980s in
many scholarly journal articles and as a subtitle in Bill Aschcroft, Gareth Griffths,
and Helen Tiffin's text The Empire Writes Back : Theory and Practice in Post-
Colonial Literatures (1989) and again in Ian Adam and Helen Tiffin's Past the
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Last Post : Theorizing Post-colonialism and Post-Modernism (1990). By the mid-
1990s, the term had become firmly established in scholarly writing and now
postcolonialism usually refers to literature of the cultures colonized by British
Empire.
‘Postcolonialism or post-colonialism’ (either spelling is acceptable, but

each represents slightly different theoretical assumptions), as Charles E. Bressler
defines, is ‘an approach to literary analysis that concerns itselfparticularly with
literature written in English in formerly colonized countries’(265). It usually

excludes literature that represents either British or American viewpoints, and

concentrates on writings from colonized cultures in Australia, New Zealand,
Africa, South America, and other places and societies that were once dominated
by European cultural, political and philosophical tradition.
Postcolonial literature and theory investigate what happens when two

cultures clash and when one of them with its accompanying ideology
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empowers and deems itself superior to other. Although there is little consensus
regarding the proper content, scope and relevance of postcolonial studies, as a
critical ideology it has acquired various interpretations. Like deconstruction
and other various postmodern approaches to textual analysis, postcolonialism is
a heterogeneous field of study where even its spelling provides several H
alternatives. The critics are not in agreement whether the term should be used
with or without hyphen :i. e. 'Post-colonial' and 'postcolonial' have different
meanings.The hyphenated term 'Post-colonialism' marks a historical period as is
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suggested by phrases like 'after colonialism'. 'after independence', 'after the
end of empire' whereas the term 'postcolonialism' referring to all the
characteristics of a society or culture from the time of the colonization to the
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present.
According to Bill Ashcroft, Griffith & Tiffin, ‘The semantic basis of the term S
'post-colonialism' might seem to suggest a concern only with the national culture
after the departure of the imperial power’ (1) and they refer ‘postcolonial’ to
cover all the cultures affected by the imperial process from the moment of O
colonization to the present day’ (2).
As a historical period, post-colonialism stands for the post –

secondWorld War decolonizing phase. Although the colonial country
achieved political freedom, the colonial values do not disappear with the
independence of a country. Meenakshi Mukherjee rightly observes,
'Post-colonialism is not merely a chronological label referring to the period
after the demise of empires. It is ideologically an emancipatory concept
particularly for the students of literature outside the Western world, because it

makes us interrogate many concepts of the study of literature that we were made
to take for granted, enabling us not only to read our own texts in our own
terms, but also to re-interpret some of the old canonical texts from Europe
from the perspective of our specific historical and geographical location (3-4).
However. 'postcolonialism’ is defined, as 'it concerns itself with diverse

and numerous issues highlighting the struggle that occurs when one culture is
dominated by another. In its interaction with conquering culture, the colonized
or indigenous culture is forced to go underground or to be obliterated'. Only
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after the colonization the colonized people have had time to think and then to
write about
HomiBhabha'swords,
their oppression and loss of cultural identity. In
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a range of contemporary critical theories suggest that it is from those who have
suffered the sentence of history — subjugation, domination, diaspora, E

displacement—that we learn our most enduring lessons for living and thinking
there is even a growing conviction that the affective experience of social
marginality__ transforms our critical strategies (172).

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It seems that Postcolonial theory emerged from the colonized peoples'
frustrations, their direct and personal cultural clashes .with the conquering
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culture, and their fears, hopes and dreams about their future and their own
identities. How the colonized respond to changes in the language, curricular
matters in education, race differences, and a host of other discourses, including
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the act of writing become the context and the theories of postcolonialism. The
project of postcolonialism is not only applicable to the students of literature
alone, indeed, it seeks to emancipate the oppressed, the deprived and the
downtrodden all over the world.
'Postcolonialism' in the words of G. Rai,
is an enterprise which seeks emancipation from all types of subjugation
defined in terms of gender, race and class. Postcolonialism thus does not

introduce a new world which is free from ills of colonialism; it rather suggest
both continuity and change (2).
Thus, the term 'Post-colonialism' marks the end of colonialism by giving

the indigenous people the necessary authority and political and cultural
freedom to take their place and gain independence by overcoming political and
cultural imperialism.
Colonial / Postcolonial Discourse J

Theories of colonial discourses have been hugely influential in the
development of Postcolonialism. Postcolonial discourse was the result of
the work of several writers such as AimeCesaire, Frantz Fanon,
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NgugiwaThiango, Edward Said, Ashcroft et. al. GayatriSpivak,
HomiBhabha, AizazAhmad. In general their work explores the ways of
representations, and modes of perception that are used as fundamental
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weapons of colonial power to keep colonized people subservient to colonial
rule. R
Frantz Fanon
Frantz Fanon is an important figure in the field of postcoloniality and

central to any discussion in anti-colonial resistance. He was influenced by
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contemporary philosophers and poets such as Jean-Paul Sartre and
AimeCesaire. Fanon wrote two hooks-Black Skin and White Masks (1961) and The
Wretched of the Earth (1963) that deal angrily with mechanics of colonialism and
its effect on those it ensnared.
Fanon'sBlack Skin, White Masks examined the main psychological effect

of colonialism and The Wretched of the Earth is a broader study of how anti-
colonial sentiment might address the task of decolonization. Fanon's
writing covers a range of areas and has been influential in a number of fields,
such as psychiatry, philosophy, politics and cultural studies.

Edward Said
If the origin of postcolonial aesthetics lies in Frantz Fanon's The

Wretched of the Earth (1961), its theory is found in Edward Said's Orientalism
(1978). Postcolonial theory is an area that has developed largely as a result of
Said's work. Along with Said, HomiBhabha and GayatriSpivak form what
Robert Young has called the 'Holy Trinity' of postcolonial theorists.
Said defines Orientalism as ‘Western style for dominating, restructuring

having authority over orient’ (3). The term 'Orientalism' which refers to the
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historical and ideological process whereby false images of and the myths
about the Eastern or the ‘orient’ world have been constructed in various
Westerndiscourses, including that of imaginative literature. Orientalism which
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is based on the cultural superiority of the West over the East paved the way
for imperialism.
Edward Said looked about the divisive relationship of the colonizer and the
colonized. AniaLoomba rightly says, ‘Said argues that the representation of the
orient in European literary texts, travelogues and other writings contributed
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to the creation of a dichotomy between Europe and its 'others'‘(44). Said's
project is to show how knowledge about the non-Europeanswas a part of the
process of dominating them. Western attitude towards Orientalists is based on
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ignorance of the Eastern culture and literature.
The colonizers imposed their culture, and literature on the colonized O

people through various means. Said tries to show thatWestwas wrong to treat
the East as inferior both culturally and intellectually. Said argues that Western
views of the Orient are not based on what is observed to exist in Oriental lands
but often results from the West's dream, fantasies and assumptions about what
this radically different place contains.
The West has misrepresented 'the Orient' as mystic place of exoticism, moral
laxity, sexual degeneracy and so forth. Orientalism constructs binary division.

The Orient is frequently described in a series of negative terms. R. K. Kaul

simplifies what Said calls the dogmas of Orientalism in the following words:
(i) It was assumed that the West is rational, developed, humane, superior, the
Orient is aberrant, underdeveloped and inferior, (ii) The Orientalist was guided
by the classical texts in his attitude to the orient rather than modern oriental
realities; (iii) The orient was considered to be unchanging and uniform, (iv)
Finally since orient is incapable of defining itself, an objective assessment of the
East must be made by the Western Orientalist. (62)

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Leela Gandhi admits ‘Orientalism is the first book in which Said
relentlessly unmasks the ideological disguises of imperialism’(67). ‘Said’s
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‘Orientalism can be said to inaugurate a new kind of study of colonialism’
(Loomba 44). He wants to do away the binary opposition between the West
and the East so that one can not claim the superiority over the other. Said's
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Culture and Imperialism (1993) continues and extends the work began in
Orientalism by documenting the imperial complicities of some major works
of the Western literary canon.
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HomiBhabha
Bhabha has popularised the term 'ambivalence', 'mimicry' and

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'hybridity'. The term `ambivalence' first was developed in psychoanalysis to
describe a continual fluctuation between wanting one thing and wanting its
opposite. Adapted into colonial discourse theory by HomiBhabha, it describes
the complex mix of attraction and repulsion that characterizes the
relationship between colonizer and colonized.
'Mimicry' is an important term in the postcolonial theory, because it has

come to describe the ambivalent relationship between colonizer and
colonized. When colonial discourse encourages the colonized subject to
`mimic' the colonizer, by the adopting the colonizers' cultural habits,
assumptions, institutions and values, the result is never a simple

reproduction of these traits. Rather, it results in a 'blurred copy' of the

colonizer that can be quite threatening.
Bhabha describes ‘Mimicry as one of the most effective strategies of

colonial power and knowledge’ (35). British wanted to create a class of
Indians who should adopt English opinion, morals. These figures were just
like Fanon's French educated colonials depicted in Black Skin, White Masks.
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They are 'mimic men'. They learn to act English but do not look English nor
are they accepted as such. As Bhabha puts it, ‘to be Anglicized is emphatically
not to be English’ (87). Mimic men are not slavish. They also have power to
menace the colonizers. The use of English language on the part of the
colonized is a threat to orientalist structure of knowledge in which H
oppositional distinction is made. The mimic men in relation to the colonizers,
‘almost the same but not quite’ (89) is what Bhabha thinks as a source of anti—
colonial resistance. 'Mimicry' gives rise to postcolonial analysis by subverting the
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colonial master's authority and hegemony. It is a weapon of anti-colonial civility,
an ambivalent mixture of deference and disobedience. LeelaGandhi rightly
says, ‘mimicry inaugurates the process of anti-colonialself-differentiation through
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the logic of inappropriate appropriation’ (150).
The term 'hybridity' has been most recently associated with the work of S
Homi K. Bhabha, whose analysis of colonizer / colonized relations stresses the
interdependence and mutual construction of their subjectivities. 'Hybridization'
is a kind of negotiation, both political and cultural, between the colonizer and O
the colonized. Like Bhabha, Edward Said also underlined the importance of
'cultural hybridity' and it has come to stay and no amount of effort can
completely separate the West from the East. `Hybridity' being an integral part
of postcolonial discourse bridges the gap between West and the East.
GayatriSpivak
Spivak's most significant contribution to feminism and subaltern studies

is her postcolonial exposition of the status of the Indian woman. She asks
whether the Indian subaltern woman has a voice, or even a voice

consciousness? Can the subaltern speak? Will she be heard? And Spivak comes
to conclusion that 'the subaltern cannot speak' (Gandhi 3). Spivak has
praised Said's 'Orientalism' because she is interested in the current concept of
‘marginality’. Said's work has foregrounded marginality and created the
ground for the marginal. ‘The study of a colonial discourse, directly released by
work such as Said's, has blossomed into a garden where the marginal can
speak for. It is an important part of the discipline now’(65).
Women are twice colonized by colonialist realities and J

representations, and by patriarchal ones. Kirsten Hoist Peterson and Anna
Rutherford have used the phrase 'a double colonization' to refer to the ways in
which women have simultaneously experienced the operation of colonialism H
and patriarchy. They argue that‘colonialism celebrates male-oriented mythssuch
as 'mateship. The mounties, explorers, freedom fighters, bushrangers,
missionaries’ (9), while women are subject to representation in colonial
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discourses in ways which collude with patriarchal values. Much postcolonial
feminist criticism has attended to representations of women created by 'double
colonisation' and questioned the extent to which both postcolonial and feminist
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discourses offer the means to challenge there representations.
Postcolonial critics must remain sensitive to issues of gender difference in S

their work. Postcolonialism is significantly going to challenge male-
dominance.Otherwise,post-colonialism will, like colonialism, be a male-centred
and ultimately patriarchal discourse in which women's voices are marginalized O
and silenced.
In discussing the silence of subaltern as female, Spivak explains that she

was not using the term literally to suggest that such women never already
talked. It is not so much that subaltern women did not speak, but rather that
others did not know how to listen, how to enter into a transaction between
speaker and listener. The subaltern cannot speak because their words cannot be
properly interpreted. It is, therefore, the silence of the female as subaltern is a
result of a failure of interpretation and not a failure of articulation.

Post Colonial Theory: A Critique
‘Colonization’ is generally taken mostly as a political process

‘Colonialism' is very much a part of the power-dynamics operating in any
human situation. The dictionaries, even Today, define 'colonialism' as a
'practice' by which a powerful country controls less powerful countries and
uses their resources in order to further its own interests, wealth and power; but
the word 'colonialism', in the last decade or so, has assumed several other
senses, representing new notions that aredormant in the power-structure. It is J
not just political power alone that constitutes power and is used for domination
and exploitation. There are several avatars of colonialism called neocolonialism
—economic colonialism, cultural colonialism, linguistic colonialism, etc. ; such H
expressions are widely used in current literature. Exploitation and power-
politics are innate human tendencies and to represent the different
manifestations of the power dynamics.
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Language and literature have always been used by colonizers as a
powerful tool in the process of colonisation, be it political or cultural. It is very
obvious that whatever knowledge, wisdom, science, technology, literary
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criticism and modernization that is projected as universal is actually Eurocentric,
which again is essentially based on white, Eurocentric norms and practices. The
critical questioning and rejection of this notion of universalism marks the
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beginning of 'post colonial' criticism.
Frantz Fanon in his book The Wretched of the Earth pointed out the need for
reclaiming one's own past. Edward Said's Orientalism enlarged the scope of the
postcolonial approach by exposing the Eurocentric universalism which
establishes Western superiority over the Eastidentified as the 'Other'. Said's work
was followed by a number of interesting studies: GayatriSpivak' sInOther Worlds
(1987), The Empires Writes Back (1989) by Bill Ashcroft and others, Nation and Narration
(1990) by HomiBhaba, Culture and Imperialism(1993) by Edward Said and such other
works accelerated the study of colonialism and its impact on other cultures,
raising a number of vital issues.

Although a number of postcolonial theorist and critics such as Frantz

Fanon, Homi K. Bhabha, and GayatriChakravortySpivak contributed to
postcolonialism's ever-growing body of theory and its practical methodology, an
inherent tension exists at the centre of postcolonial theory, for those who practice
this theory and provide and develop its discourse are themselves a heterogenous
group of critics.
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No theory, either political or literary, can be totally objective.
Postcolonialism can neither be rejected nor accepted fully.
MakarandParajapestates,
The best way to begin interrogating postcolonialism is not by pretending that
we am the masters of our own academic destinies but by admitting, how

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colonized we still are. What is more, we cannot continue to blame only the West
for our sorry state of subjection; we must blame ourselves. (43)
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Post-colonial situation has given our writers confidence to write creative
literature in English and it would he good for them to gain confidence to write
literary criticism in our way- then only 'post-colonial' redeem the colonial.
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Paranjape further adds that, ‘we need to strengthen ourselves, our institutions,
journals and publication industries. We need not merely attempt to duplicate or
copy metropolitan system, but develop our needs’(46 ).
Postcolonial studies are preoccupied with the issues of hybridity,

creaolisation, in-betweenness, diasporas and liminality with the mobility. Arun
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P. Mukherjee is of the view that -
Indian literatures. I believe, are too multifarious and too heterogenous to
be containable in the net of a single theory. Anyway, the questions Indian
readers must ask Indian literary te xts particularly in the con te xt of
str uggle against fundamentalism, casteism and patriarchy cannot he
answered within the framing grid provided by postcolonial theory where readers

are instructed solely how to decode the subtle ironies and parodies directed against
the departed colonizer. I think I need another theory. (20)
To sum up the postcolonial theory deals with cultural contradictions,

ambiguities and perhaps, ambivalences. It repudiates anti-colonial nationalist
theory and implies a movement beyond a specific point in history (i. e.
colonialism). Hence, postcolonial theory is transnational in dimension,
multicultural in approach and a movement beyond the binary opposition of the
power relations between the 'colonizer / colonized', and 'centre / periphery'. J
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Work Cited-
Ashcroft, Bill; Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin.The Empire
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Writes Back : Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures.London:
Routledge, 1989.print
Bhabha, Homi. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge,1994.
print
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Bressler, Charles E. Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory
and Practice. New Jersey: Prentice Hall,1999.print
Gandhi, Leela. Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction.Delhi:

S
OUP, 1999.print
Kaul, R. K. ‘Edward Said’s Orientalism and Abbe Dubois ‘

O
Contesting Postcolonialism.Ed. Jasbir Jain &Veena Singh.
Jaipur: Rawat Publications, 2000.print
Loomba, Ania. Colonialism / Postcolonialism London:
Routledge,1998.print
Mukherjee Arun P. ‘Post-colonialism: Some Uneasy
Conjunctures’.‘Interrogating Post-colonialism: Theory, Text

and Context Ed. by Harish Trivedi and Meenakshi
Mukherjee.Shimla :IIAS,1996.print
Mukherjee, Meenakshi ‘Interrogating Post-colonialism’
Interrogating Post-colonialism:Theory, Text and Context. Ed.
by Harish Trivedi and Meenakshi Mukherjee. Shimla:
IIAS, 1996.print
Paranjape, Makarand. ‘Coping with Post-colonialism’

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Interrogating Post-colonialism: Theory, Text and context. Ed.
Harish Trivedi, Meenakshi Mukherjee. Shimla: IIAS, 1996.

H
print
Peterson, Kirsten Holst and Anna Rutherford.A Double

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Colonization: Colonial and Post-colonial Women’s Writing.
Dangroo,1986.print
S
Rai, G. ‘Postcolonialism: Its Meaning and Significance’The
SPIEL Journal of English Studies, Volume No. 1 2 July
2005:1-22 print
Said, Edward.Orientalism. London: Penguin, 1995. print O

SpivakGayatri. ‘Can the Subaltern Speak’Marxism and the
Interpretation of Literature.Ed. By C. Nelson and L.
Grossberg. Basingstoke: Macmillan Education,1988.
print

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Journal Of Higher Education And Research Society: A Refereed International

ISSN – 23490209 Volume – 5 / Issue – 1 APRIL 2017

UNDERSTANDINGPOSTCOLONIAL THEORY AND LITERATURE

Key Words: Colonial, Postcolonial, Orientalism, Mimicry, Hybridity,

Understanding Postcolonial Theory and Literature 325

ISSN – 23490209 Volume – 5 / Issue – 1 APRIL 2017

UNDERSTANDINGPOSTCOLONIAL THEORY AND LITERATURE