An Ideology of Indianness: The Construction of Colonial/Communal Stereotypes in the Poems of Henry Derozio

Abstract

The first among the modern poets in colonial India to forge Îa language of nationhoodÌ for the benefit of Indians was Henry Derozio (1809Ò31), a figure who played a significant role in some of the earliest attempts at the creation and definition of a modern Indian identity. DerozioÌs work, notwithstanding his marginality in the context of contemporary Indian society, led to a forceful centrifugal dissemination of ideas of the imagined Indian nation radiating from him in the early nineteenth century. His vision of that nation, however, was flawed, like a presentiment, with the same troubling overtones of communitarian divisiveness inherent in the present-day understanding of our past, principally in its pride in the past glories of Hindu heritage, and prejudice against the aggressive character of Muslim invaders in India. Yet, to label Derozio anti-Muslim would dishonour the legacy of the man and deny the peculiar character of the colonial situation. Clearly there exist fundamental differences between our perceptions of communalism and the nineteenth-century understanding of the character of the nation. This article, therefore, while carefully keeping in mind the differences between then and now, traces the underlying pattern of imbibed and inherent stereotyping of communities as it is reflected in the poetry of Henry Derozio, whose verse sometimes reveals many commonplace nineteenth-century English-educated attitudes towards Indian history and Muslim character.