Thinking Activity

Thinking Activity: Future of Postcolonial studies: 

I am Nidhi Dave a student of Department of English Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University. This blog is response of my Thinking Activity given by professor, Dr. Dilip Barad sir. Here i am discuss about some questions answers related to postcolonial studies. 

Postcolonialism: 

According to the dictionary…

Postcolonialism is the critical academic study of the cultural legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the human consequences of the control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands. More specifically, it is a critical theory analysis of the history, culture, literature, and discourse of (usually European) imperial power.

CONCLUSION: GLOBALISATION AND THE FUTURE OF POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES:

Conclusion: Globalisation and the Future of Postcolonial studies this article is taken from Ania Loomba’s Colonialism/Postcolonialism. This article is about the impact of postcolonialism in the 21st century.Article's beginning from the talking about the most terrible events of 11 September 2001, the so called global war on terror, and the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, it is harder than ever to see our world as simply postcolonial.

Globalisation, they argue, cannot be analysed using concepts like margins and centres socentral to postcolonial studies. Today's Economies, politics, cultures and identities are all better described in terms of transnational networks, regional and international flows and the dissolution of geographic and cultural borders, invoked paradigms to suggest which a are radical familiar breakto postcolonial critics but which are now with the narratives of colonisation and anti-colonialism.

Michal Hardt & Antonio Negri :'Empire':

Significantly, the book that has most famously made thiscasehas done so by describing our contemporary global formation in imperial terms.Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's Empire argues that the contemporary global order has produced a new form of sovereignty which should be called 'Empire' but which is best understood in contrast to European empires:

In contrast to imperialism, Empire establishes no territorial center of power and does not rely on fixed boundaries or barriers. It is a decentered and deterritorializing apparatus of rule that progressivelyincorporates the entire global realm within its open, expanding frontiers. Empire manages hybrid identities, flexible hierarchies, and plural exchanges through modulating networks of command. The distinct national colors of the imperial map of the world have merged and blended in the imperial global rainbow.

                       (Hardt and Negri 2000: xiii-xiii)

We see that the Empire argues, whereas the old imperial world was marked by competition between different European powers. Hardt and Negri suggest that the new Empire is better compared to the Roman Empire rather than to European colonialism, since imperial Rome also loosely incorporated its subject states rather than controlling them directly. Here we can also see the argument that global mobility of capital, industry, workers, goods and consumers dissolves earlier hierarchies and inequities, democratizes nations and the relations between nations, and creates new opportunities which percolate down in some form or another to every section of society. 

One of the other important critics Arjun Appadurai also claims about this globalization. In his work "Modernity at Large", catalogs of 'multiple locations' and new hybridities, new forms of communication, new foods, new clothes and new patterns of consumption are offered as evidence for both the newness and the benefits of globalization. 

Here Klaus Schwab observes that, "Globalization 4.0 has only just begun, but we are already vastly under - prepared for it".

Globalization has both positive and negative effects. Critics of globalization do not deny the fact of the transformative powers of the phenomenon, or the many ways in which it indeed marks a departure from the old world order. There is no doubt that globalization has made information and technology more widely available, and has brought economic prosperity to certain new sections of the world. Everybody is only consumers in the Market. Here P. Sainath (Palagummi Sainath) observes, far from fostering ideological openness, has resulted in its own fundamentalism. 

Market fundamentalism destroys more human lives than any other simply because it cuts across all national, cultural, geographic, religious and other boundaries. It's as much at home in Moscow as in Mumbai or Minnesota. A South Africa - whose advances in the early 1990s thrilled the world - moved swiftly from apartheid to neo-liberalism. It sits as easily in Hindu, Islamic or Christian societies. And it contributes angry, despairing recruits to the armies of all religious fundamentalism. Based on the premise that the market is the solution to all the problems of the human race, it has its own Gospel : The Gospel of St. Growth, of St. Choice......  P. Sainath

If the earlier period of colonial globalization simultaneously integrated the world into a single economic system, and divided it more sharply into the haves and the have nots. So the new empire both facilitates global connections and creates new opportunities, and entrenches disparities and new divisions. 

Here is another report from 'The New York Times' (Friday October 17, 2003) speaking of huge demonstration in La Paz which defied military barricades to protest a plan to export natural gas to the United States: 

Globalization is just another name for submission and domination' NICANOR APAZA, 46, an unemployed miner, said at a demonstration this week in which Indian women… carried banners denouncing the International Monetary Fund and demanding the president's resignation. ``We've had to live with that here for 500 years, and now we want to be our own masters.'

Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel laureate and once Chief Economist at the world Bank, also uses the phrase 'market fundamentalism' in his critique of globalization as it has been imposed upon the world by institutions like the World Bank and the IMF (International Monetary Fund) :

The international financial institutions have pushed a particular ideology - market fundamentalism - that is both bad economics and bad politics; it is based on promises concerning how markets work that do not hold even for developed countries, much less for developing countries. The IMF has pushed these economics policies without a broader vision of society or the role of economics within society. And it has pushed these policies in ways that have undermined emerging democracies. More generally, globalization itself has been governed in ways that are undemocratic and have been disadvantageous to developing countries, especially the poor within those countries. Joseph E. Stiglitz

Example of Films: 

The Reluctant Fundamental:

The Reluctant Fundamentalist". The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a 2012 political thriller drama film directed by Mira Nair. It is based on the 2007 novel of the same name (The Reluctant Fundamentalist) by Mohsin Hamid. The film is a post-9/11 story about the impact of the terrorist attacks on one Pakistani man and his treatment by Americans in reaction to them. Mohsin Hamid's novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2007, engages with the complex issues of Islam and the West, fundamentalism and America's War on Terror. As a “counterhistory” to post-9/11 Islamophobia, the novel contests common notions of terror as an unreasonable ideology of retribution and redemption by exposing the trajectories of imperialism. Analyzing The Reluctant Fundamentalist from the political perspective of a 9/11 novel, we can rethinking on the Clash of Civilizations theory and to elucidate the linkages between new American imperialism, fundamentalism, globalization and terrorism.

Ghayal Once again:

The conflict of who witnessed Murder of RTI activist against multi-business owner Bansal. In the movie we can see the effect of globalization. It is a 2016 Indian action drama film written and directed by Sunny Deol. It is a direct sequel to the 1990 film Ghayal. It is directed, written and headlined by Sunny Deol who again plays Ajay Mehra. Four teenagers accidentally record a murder involving a famous personality and fall into trouble as a result. Ajay, a journalist, decides to help them in their quest to defeat the murderers. 

Madaari:

Again this is a very interesting film to see in the context of globalization. It is a 2016 Indian social thriller film directed by Nishikant Kamat. It is produced by Shailesh R Singh, Madan Paliwal, Sutapa Sikdar, and Shailja Kejriwal and co-produced by Nishant Pitti from Easemytrip.The conflict between common man (father whose child died in bridge crash) and nexus between construction company and politicians.

Sonali Cable:

This is a film about privatization. Sonali, who runs an Internet providing agency in Mumbai, gives her all to save her business when a large corporation, Shining Broadband, tries to maintain its monopoly in the city. A conflict between a girl who runs local tv/internet cable service vs giant company 'Shining' which started providing broadband.

 CONCLUSION: THE FUTURE OF POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES. 

This article begins with the claim of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “‘no longer have a post-colonial perspective. I think postcolonial is the day before yester-day’ (Spivak 2013: 2).

Now it is time when postcolonial studies are very interested in ecology. Dipesh Chakrabarty finds that all his ‘readings in theories of globalization, Marxist analysis of capital, subaltern studies, and postcolonial criticism over the last twenty-five years’ have not prepared him for the task of analyzing the ‘planetary crisis of climate change’ (2009: 199).

Vandana Shiva has exposed the connection between colonialism and the destruction of environmental diversity. She argues that the growth of capitalism, and now of trans-national corporations, exacerbated the dynamic begun under colonialism which has destroyed sustain-

able local cultures; these cultures were also more women-friendly, partly because women’s work was so crucially tied to producing food and fodder. Other feminist environmentalists are more sceptical of such an assessment of pre-colonial cultures, which, they point out, were also stratified and patriarchal; however, they agree that questions of ecology and human culture are intricately linked. Especially in the so-called third world, they state, one cannot talk about saving the environment while ignoring the needs of human lives and communities (Shiva 1988; Agarwal 1999).

So now it is time to think about ecology. It is about displacement. Humans become greedy and they constantly harm ecology. So in post colonial studies there is one concern about displacement and here is something about this term. So what is displacement ? 

“It is about losing a river. Losing access to clean, safe, drinking water…losing land that is watered richly…losing the grass that your herds grazed on. Losing your cattle. Losing the milk that came from your cattle…losing honey and herbs…losing the right to protest when somebody in a uniform shows up to set fire to your home. What else was left to lose?”

Examples:

Kerala restricts Pepsi:

In another very important example of environmentalism and postcolonial studies we can see the accident of Kerala restricts Pepsi from over using ground water. Kerala to restrict use of groundwater by Pepsico; traders may stop sale of Pepsi, Coke. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan welcomed the move of traders and said the government would extend support to the initiative to check the threat to exploitation of water, pollution and lifestyle diseases. With Kerala in the grip of a severe drought, the government today said it will further restrict the use of groundwater by soft drink major Pepsico at Palakkad even as traders have planned to stop the sale of Pepsi and Coca Cola in the state.

Sherni:

This movie discusses how one tiger is stuck between that place where industrial development was grown up. The story goes like this tiger became the talk of town and politicians use this for upcoming elections. One forest officer called Vidhya tries to save a tiger and send them to a zoo and one professor helped her and at the climax of the movie we found that at the middle there is a mill. Tiger is not able to cross it and that’s why she is stuck.  

Chakravyuh:

Chakravyuh (transl. Wheel formation more idiomatically puzzle) is a 2012 Indian Hindi-language political action thriller film directed by Prakash Jha starring Arjun Rampal in the lead role with Abhay Deol, Esha Gupta, Manoj Bajpayee and Anjali Patil in supporting roles. Chakravyuh aims to be a social commentary on the issue of Naxalites. The first theatrical trailer of Chakravyuh was released at midnight on 16–17 August 2012. The film was released on Durga Puja.Chakravyuh released in 1100 cinemas in India. Despite being well-praised, the movie failed to attract an audience.

Dhruv Bhatt's Tatvamasi:

The novel remains totally aloof from the agitation in the villages and around Narmada Dam by school activities.

Dhruv Bhatt belongs to Baht those writers who may not be considered as the historians,the interpreter of contemporary culture and the prophets of their people.such writers do not concern themselves with social themes.

Narmada Bachao Aandolan: 

When the Sardar Sarovar Dam was built on Narmada river, some environmentalists carried the Narmada Bacho Aandolan. If we look at contemporary literature written in that time, there is even no reference of this event in Dhruv Bhatt's work "Tatvamasi". The novel remains completely aloof from the agitation in the village and around Narmada Dam by social activists. 

This is the understanding of both articles.

Thank you 

 

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