Indian Traffic: Identities/Question/Colonial/Postcolonial

Using that most famous identity trafficker Sir Richard Burton as a starting point Parama Roy is concerned with examining colonial mimicry (which has been much discussed by figures such as Frantz Fanon and Homi Bhabha)first as it functioned in colonial India but also as it continues to function in postcolonial Indian life, especially in regards to issues of national identity. Following a chronological trajectory beginning with Burton the second essay discusses the cult of Kali worshipping assassins known as the thugs who plied their own talents at mimicry to lure unsuspecting travelers to their death. The thugs identity altering talent challenged in most interesting ways British assumptions about Indian identity and knowability. Along with a history of the thug sect and the detectives who had to penetrate the secret order is a discussion of John Master's novel and the Merchant Ivory film version of that novel, The Deceivers. The third chapter deals with the Anglo-Indian Kipling, both the Strickland stories and the novel Kim. Roy is careful to explain that Kipling felt the Anglo-Indian(which Kipling himself was) to be quite distinct from the Englishman, and therefore in a unique position to understand India in ways the Englishman could not. Into her examinination of Kim whose identity is an always shifting discourse between traditionally "English" and traditionally "Indian" roles(which are never seen to be fixed in any of the characters only affirmed and reaffirmed in a continual exchange), she inserts a discussion of the nature of nationalism. Like the mimic man or mimic woman a nation must continually define itself against what it is not and it does this at borderlands both literal(India that which is not England)and other borderlands as well(man/woman, Muslim/Hindu) in an ongoing "derivative discourse" . This essay opens the way to the final three which all deal with female figures and how careful their roles have to be staged in order for them to play a part in Indias national polity. The first is the story of a western womans religious discipleship to an Indian guru and how her willing display of subjugation was used by him to display his own masculinity and thereby offer Indian men an example of what qualites were needed to become a self-governing nation. The second is the story of a 16 year old Indian poetess who on a visit to England is refashioned from brilliant protege writing brilliant Tennyson flavored verse into an "authentic" Indian poet by English Orientalists. The essay traces her development from poet who champions the traditional devotionary role of women to her own lived role as well known figure alongside Gandhi. Roy shows what an infectious speaker she was but also what a troubling presence she was in her silk robes and jewelry next to the ascetic Gandhi. The last essay deals with the way a film actress came to represent Mother India by playing the role in a movie that made her not just a star but a national figure represen