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Abstract
Colonial rule, based on economic exploitation, was justified on the grounds that the colonizer brought civilization and modernity to the colonized peoples. This rule was secured through both coercive and non-coercive strategies of control. This paper examines the strategies deployed by the British in India from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century using Athusser's theory of 'ideological' and 'repressive' state apparatuses. This paper argues that the English based educational system created a colonial subject that was absorbed within the ideological discourse of the British. Anglo Indian law which reinterpreted traditional Indian law in terms of British legal philosophy reconstituted Indian subjectivity and altered traditional relationships to serve British interests. However, these 'ideological' apparatuses were contradictory and incomplete and subjects resist their subject positions. During moments when such resistance posed a threat to the colonial state, the British readily deployed the 'repressive' apparatuses at their disposal. This paper uses the example of a strike by steelworkers in 1920 as an instance when the coercive power of the state was used to suppress genuine worker discontent. The use of force was legitimized through a discursive strategy of restoring 'law and order.'
Introduction
Modern colonialism was grounded in economic exploitation: a central reason for establishing colonial rule was that the colonies would supply raw materials to and provide captive markets for the metropolitan center. This economic calculus was masked by an ideology that sought to legitimize this rule. In the early years, the British justified their rule based on the right of conquest; however, by the early nineteenth century the official discourse spoke of the civilizing mission of British rule that had brought a new political and moral order to India based on Western norms (Dasgupta, 2003, 30). Indians were seen as incapable of understanding what was in their best interests, colonial rule was necessary for the good of India, and the British flag came to signify progress for and care of the `natives'. Governor General Warren Hastings observed in 1813 that Indians were weak in body and timid in spirit; Indian civilization was full of vice, crime, superstition, injustice, and anarchy. It was only under British protection that Indians could be brought into a `progressive state of happiness' (in Bearce, 1961: 40-41).
In order...