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The Glory of Ancient India Stems from her Aryan Blood: French anthropologists ‘construct’ the racial history of India for the world

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2016

JYOTI MOHAN
JYOTI MOHAN*
Affiliation:
Morgan State University, Maryland, United States of America Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

In the last century the French presented their race-neutral policies as evidence of their colour blindness. Yet they were among the foremost proponents of race theory and racial hierarchy, which propelled the colonial machine of the nineteenth century. This article examines the role of French academics in creating a position for India in the racial imagination for the first time in history. It examines the motivations behind such a focus on India and the resulting response from Britain, the colonial ruler. The works of Paul Topinard, Louis Rousselet, Arthur Gobineau, and Gustave le Bon are situated in the colonial and political context of the mid-nineteenth century to demonstrate not only that it was the French, and not the Germans, who placed India on an Aryan pedestal, but that this move was propelled by the dream of an unfulfilled French empire in India.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 5 , September 2016 , pp. 1576 - 1618
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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References

1 Revue Britannique (January–February 1826), Vol. 4, p. 402.

2 Maxwell, A. (1999). Colonial Photography and Exhibitions. Representations of the ‘Native’ and the Making of European Identities, Leicester University Press, London and New York, p. 3 Google Scholar.

3 I use ‘race’ in this article to define a category that was socially constructed to include a group of people who supposedly represented specific physiological and mental characteristics. On the other hand, the modern category of ‘ethnicity’, used to specify a group with common backgrounds such as history, culture, language, and so on, is a more accurate way of categorizing people, even though many ‘ethnicities’ can, and invariably do, overlap.

4 See Conklin, A. (1997). A Mission to Civilize: The Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa, 1895–1930, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, pp. 14–23 Google Scholar.

5 Eighteenth-century ethnologists who contributed a good deal to later conceptualizations of race include the naturalists Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, and Carolus Linnaeus. They were followed in the nineteenth century by Georges Cuvier and Saint Simon.

6 A comprehensive study of early ethnological and anthropological figures and institutions is Staum, M. (2003). Labeling People. French Scholars on Society, Race and Empire, 1815–1848, McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal and Kingston Google Scholar.

7 The most famous of the monogenists were Linnaeus, Buffon, Cuvier, and Quatrefuges. They held that all men originated in a single region based on the biblical or Adamic story of Adam and Eve. The differences between men in their time were thus solely a result of environmental factors. Although the monogenists accepted that different species or races of men were not equal in ability, the fact that there was one single point of origin meant that, at least theoretically, given the right conditions, ‘lower races’ could evolve to the level of ‘superior races’. See Haller, J. (1970). The Species Problem: Nineteenth-century Concepts of Racial Inferiority in the Origin of Man Controversy, American Anthropologist, 72, pp. 1319–1329 Google Scholar. Another interesting feature of the monogenist group was that many of them were naturalists. Greene, J. (1954). Some Early Speculations on the Origin of the Human Species, American Anthropologist, 56, pp. 31–41 Google Scholar.

8 Influential polygenists were Paul Broca and Saint Simon, who pointed out that even in the Bible, there are references to many groups of men, clearly distinguished from other groups by their physiology as much as their intellect. The polygenist notion that different species of men evolved separately meant that race theorists now had a scientific theory to back up their claims that different races were immovable in their capability. Therefore, by association, the racial hierarchy of man could not be voided by education or association of ‘inferior’ races with ‘superior’ races.

9 Among the founder members of the Société Ethnologique was Garcin de Tassy who was also the vice-president of the society in 1843. Historians like Jules Michelet and other Indologists like Eugène Burnouf, Baron Eckstein, Jules Mohl, and several members of the Société Asiatique were also active members of the Société Ethnologique.

10 According to Staum, the French physician Cabanis was among the first to use the word ‘anthropology’ in French. See Staum, Labeling People, p. 14. The Société des Observateurs de l'Homme, established in 1799, was the world's first anthropological society. Its members included physicians, chemists, explorers, and linguists, several French ideologues, and influential race theorists, like the polygenist Georges Cuvier and the monogenist Lamarck. At this point, ‘anthropology’ signified primarily the use of biological or physical criteria to study man, as opposed to the cultural and linguistic criteria used by ethnologists. Among the early anthropologists in France were Paul Broca and his followers. See Schiller, F. (1979). Paul Broca: Founder of French Anthropology, Explorer of the Brain, University of California Press, Berkeley Google Scholar.

11 As Staum points out, the physical criteria for classifying men triumphed over cultural criteria by 1850. Staum, Labeling People, p. 8. These physical criteria looked at anthropometric measurements, cranial and nasal indices, and other physiological criteria like height and limb length to compare different races with the ‘norm’ or dominant group of Europeans: ibid, p. 7.

12 Maxwell, Colonial Photography and Exhibitions, pp. 39–40.

13 Staum, Labeling People, p. 7.

14 See Brunschwig, H. (1966). French Colonialism 1871–1914: Myths and Realities. Translated by W.G Brown, Praeger, New York, Washington, London, p. 24 Google Scholar.

15 Maxwell, Colonial Photography and Exhibitions, p. 16.

16 Many recent monographs have examined the construction of race in the colonial enterprise. In the French case, some important works include Lorcin, P. (1999). Imperial Identities: Stereotyping, Prejudice and Race in Colonial Algeria, St Martin's Press, New York Google Scholar.

17 Burnouf, E. Seconde lettre à M. le Rédacteur du Journal Asiatique, sur quelques dénominations géographiques du Drâvida ou pays des Tamouls, Nouveau Journal Asiatique, Vol. 2 (October 1828)Google Scholar.

18 ‘Sur trente mots pris parmi les principaux noms géographiques du pays que les Hindous appelant Drâvida desha, dix-sept se sont trouvés appartenir au dialect tamoul, et neuf au sanscrit; quatre seulement sont d'une origine douteuse.’ Ibid, pp. 275–276.

19 Buchanan, B. (1989 reprint). Journal of Francis Buchanan, Asian Educational Service, New Delhi Google Scholar.

20 Burnouf, Seconde lettre, pp. 256–259. This is the traditional explanation for the mythology of the Sage Agastya and his voyage south of the Vindhyas. Agastya's journey indicated the southward movement of Aryan Brahmins into the peninsula. Even today many South Indian Brahmin families trace their antecedents to Agastya, thus claiming that they descend from the Aryans.

21 Once again, the heavy influence of Sanskrit in the dialects of Tamil, Telegu, Malayalam, and Kannada, which are spoken by the Brahmins of these regions, is pointed to as proof of the Sanskritization and Aryanization of the South. See Srinivas, M. N. (1989). The Cohesive Role of Sanskritization and Other Essays, Delhi, Oxford University Press Google Scholar.

22 ‘C'est que la caste des Shoûdras, ou la dernière de toutes dans la hiérarchie brahmanique, constitue la population primitive de l'extrémité méridionale de la presqu’île; c'est que ce sont eux qui, à proprement parler, sont appelés Tamiler, par opposition aux Brahmanes Drâvida.’ Burnouf, Seconde lettre, pp. 258–259.

23 Ibid, p. 246.

24 Ibid.

25 See, for example, Paul Broca, ‘Sur le volume et la forme du cerveau suivant les individus et suivant les races’, Bulletin de la Société de l'Anthropologie (Jan–Mars 1861), Vol. 2, p. 139, and ‘Sur les proportions relatives du bras, de l'avant-bras et de la clavicule chez les nègres et les Européens’, Bulletin de la Société de l'Anthropologie, (1862), Vol. 3, p. 162.

26 Most scholars agree that Broca himself was not a proponent of racial hierarchies. However, many of his statements indicate that he believed very strongly in the intellectual limitations of race. For instance, in 1866, Broca wrote in a dictionary article on ‘Anthropology’: ‘Never has a people with dark skin, woolly hair, and a prognathous face (jutting jaw, receding forehead) been able to spontaneously elevate itself to civilization . . .’. Broca, P. (1871). Anthropologie, Mémoires d'Anthropologie, 1, Reinhalt, Paris, p. 33 Google Scholar. Cited in Staum, Labeling People, p. 179. Paul Topinard represented the official position of French anthropology in his textbook; see Topinard, P. (1876). L'Anthropologie, Reinwald and Cie, Paris Google Scholar.

27 Topinard, L'Anthropologie, Chapters 15–17 and passim.

28 Topinard, P. (1899). Science and Faith. Translated by Thomas McCormack. Free Press, Chicago, pp. 304–305 Google Scholar. Gould has argued that such measures of ‘intelligence’ are flawed by their tendency to categorize knowledge into measurable entities. See Gould, S. J. (1981). The Mismeasure of Man, W. W. Norton and Co, New York Google Scholar.

29 The natural corollary to these ideas was the birth of Aryanism which held that the Aryan race was the most developed as well as the theory of eugenics or the selective breeding of ‘developed races’. In the French case, the Aryan theory also contributed to the rise of Gallicism which was an aggressive form of French national pride based on a common racial heritage in the late nineteenth century.

30 Topinard, Science and Faith, p. 206.

31 Ibid, p. 207.

32 Ibid, p. 208.

33 Ibid, p. 208.

34 ‘Le type hindou n'est plus que faiblement représentée aux Indes par les Radjpouts et surtout par les Brahmanes les plus vénérés de Mattra, de Bénarès et de Tanessar dans l'Hindoustan.’ Topinard, L'Anthropologie, p. 481.

35 Topinard, Science and Faith.

36 While the whole notion of the ‘Aryan invasion’ itself has been challenged in recent times, the caste system was sometimes explained as a process by which the Aryan conquerors of North India assimilated the indigenous peoples whom they vanquished. Since the Aryans remained in the North for a substantial period of time, and the Rig Veda, which contains the earliest references to the caste system, was composed in the North, it is probable that the Aryans were unfamiliar with the aborigines when the caste system evolved. Subsequently, they did interact with the aborigines in central, East, and South India and, unable to place them within the existing four castes, created the pariah caste which was the lowest caste. Over centuries of history, the pariah caste came to include the offspring of some inter-caste marriages, as well as newer groups that the Aryans conquered.

37 The basic four divisions were the castes. Each caste was further divided into jatis, primarily representing specific trades and occupations. Over the years the number of jatis proliferated into several hundred. Even though French academics would have been aware of the difference between ‘caste’ and ‘jati’, they continued to write only in terms of ‘caste’. Interestingly, Indians themselves use ‘caste’ and ‘jati’ interchangeably; the strict separation of the two terms occurs only in academia.

38 Ibid, pp. 201–202.

39 Ibid, p. 203.

40 Rousselet, L. (1875). L'Inde des Rajahs. Voyage dans l'Inde centrale et dans les présidences de Bombay et du Bengale, Hachette, Paris Google Scholar.

41 In 1872 he was appointed a lifelong member of the Société d'Anthropologie de Paris, and the title of ‘Voyageur dans l'Inde, archéologue’ was bestowed upon him. He continued to have a distinguished career and in 1878 was appointed the secretary to the section of Anthropological Sciences at the Universal Exposition in Paris. For more information about Rousselet, see Chézaud, P. (2005). Louis Rousselet et l'image de la culture de l'autre, Monfort, G., Saint Pierre de Salerne Google Scholar.

42 Topinard, L'Anthropologie, p. 481. Topinard was using Rousselet's articles from Revue d'Anthropologie, specifically ‘Tableau des races de l'Inde centrale et de l'Inde septentrionale’, Revue d'Anthropologie, Vol. 2, 1873 and Vol. 4, 1875.

43 Ibid.

44 ‘Les Bhils sont en général d'une taille moyenne; quoique manquant des formes élégantes de l'Hindou—Aryen, ils sont beaucoup plus robustes; leur force et leur agilité sont quelquefois surprenantes.’ Rousselet, L. (1873). Tableau des races de l'Inde centrale et de l'Inde septentrionale, Revue d'Anthropologie, Vol. 2, p. 60 Google Scholar.

45 Topinard, L'Anthropologie, p. 481.

46 Ibid.

47 ‘Les Brahmanes des rives du Ganga, dit M. Rousselet, ont le front haut, développé, la face ovale, le yeux parfaitement horizontaux, le nez saillant, busqué et légèrement épais à l'extrémité, mais encadré par des narines délicates. Ils sont blancs, mais plus ou moins bronzés par le soleil de ces climates. Leur système pileux noir paraît abundant.’ Topinard, L'Anthropologie, p. 481.

48 ‘On en trouve dans l'Inde, notamment chez les Kattees, qui ont quelquefois les ≪cheveux clairs et yeux bleus≫ (Prichard et L. Rousselet) . . . Les Bisahuris de Rampoor, non loin des sources du Gange, ont souvent ≪le teint très-blanc [very fair], quoique brûlé par le soleil, les yeux bleus, les cheveux et la barbe bouclés et de couleur clair ou meme rouge≫ (Frasier).’ Ibid, pp. 477–478.

49 Ibid, p. 529.

50 Ibid, p. 536. Interestingly, Topinard points out that the tribes of central and South India as well as the tribes of Australia spoke the Dravidian group of languages, thus providing further anthropological proof of the ‘inferiority’ of the Dravidians. See Ballantyne, T. (2002). Orientalism and Race: Aryanism in the British Empire, Palgrave MacMillan, New York CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 Ibid.

52 Hankins, F. H. (1926). The Racial Basis of Civilizations, A. Knopf, New York and London Google Scholar.

53 Gobineau, A. (translation, 1967). The Inequality of Human Races. Translated by Adrian Collins. H. Fertig, New York, p. 91.Google Scholar

54 Ibid. Gobineau divided races into those dominated by the ‘male’ principle of material desire (purusha), headed by the Chinese civilization; and those dominated by the female principle (prakriti) of ‘intellectual current’ and headed by Hindus (pp. 86–87) who chose to focus their entire energy on philosophical and theological ideas to the detriment of material progress (pp. 91–92).

55 Ibid, p. 209.

56 Gobineau, A. (second edition, 1884). Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines, Librairie Firmin-Didot, Paris, Vol. 1, p. 397 Google Scholar.

57 Ibid, p. 446. Also see Halbfass, W. (1988). India and Europe. An Essay in Understanding, State University of New York Press, Albany, New York, p. 139 Google Scholar.

58 Ibid, pp. 447 and 449. Ironically, these areas (in modern-day Pakistan) were peopled in the nineteenth century by Muslims who elsewhere, in Algeria, for example, were classified as ‘savages’.

59 Gobineau's pronouncement was typical of the simplification of Indian religion. In reality the gods of the pantheon were of different colours, which may have represented their affiliation to the natural elements or to other aspects of their personalities. For example, while Indra, the god of lightning was fair, Agni, the god of fire, was described as being of a reddish hue. The god, Vishnu, who is touted as being representative of the original ‘Aryan’ race, is dark blue and is described as being handsome but exceedingly dark in the most human of his avatars—that of Rama and of Krishna. This aspect of his colour is often overlooked by those who, like Gobineau, looked for references to race in the Hindu pantheon, and pointed to the existence of the dark Shiva, who represented the expansion of Aryan religion to include elements of the indigenous, tribal beliefs.

60 See Gobineau, Essai, p. 396.

61 Ibid, pp. 447–448.

62 Halbfass, India and Europe, p. 139.

63 From 1890 onwards the Revue d'Ethnographie and Revue d'Anthropologie merged to form the popular anthropological journal, L'Anthropologie, of which Paul Topinard was a prominent founder member and contributor. The journal published a fairly constant amount of news in the form of book reviews, scholarly opinions, and articles concerning developments in Indian anthropology, including the efforts of French and British anthropologists. See Table 1.

64 Poliakov, L. (translation, 1971). The Aryan Myth: A History of Racist and Nationalist Ideas in Europe. Translated by E. Howard. Basic Books, New York, p. 233 Google Scholar.

65 A highly vocal participant in the debate on assimilation at the Colonial Congress of 1889, Le Bon was among a minority of those who vigorously resisted assimilation. Since Le Bon believed that races could improve themselves by contact with ‘superior’ races, he argued that assimilation would undermine the empire. I discuss the French debate on assimilation in more detail in the conclusion.

66 For a detailed examination of Le Bon's position on this issue, see Lewis, M. D. (January 1962). One Hundred Million Frenchmen: the ‘Assimilation’ Theory in French Colonial Policy, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 4.2 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 Le Bon, G. (1900). Les civilizations de l'Inde, Ernest Flammarion, Paris, p. 77 Google Scholar.

68 Ibid, p. 78.

69 Ibid, p. 87.

70 Nye, R. A. (1969). ‘An Intellectual Portrait of Gustave Le Bon: A Study of the Development and Impact of a Social Scientist in his Historical Setting’, PhD thesis, University of Wisconsin, pp. 135–136.

71 Le Bon, Les civilizations de l'Inde, p. 178. His pronouncements about the different races will be familiar to scholars of the British theory of martial races. For an excellent monograph on the actual result of the racial categorization of Indians, see Sinha, M. (1995). Colonial Masculinity: The ‘Manly Englishman’ and the’ Effeminate Bengali’ in the Late Nineteenth Century, Manchester University Press, Manchester Google Scholar.

72 Ibid, p. 179.

73 Ibid, p. 608.

74 ‘En règle générale, l'Hindou est faible, timide, rusé, insinuant et dissimulé au plus haut degree. Ses manières sont adulatrices et importunes; il est entièrement dépourvu d'idées de patriotisme. Des siècles de tyrannie l'ont habitué à l'idée qu'il doit avoir un maître, et pourvu que ce maître respecte les lois de ses caste et ses croyances religieuses, l'Hindou est résigné d'avance à subir toutes ses volontés, et se trouve heureux si on lui laisse à peu près la poignée de riz dont il a besoin pour vivre. Les Hindous forment une population douce, patiente, absolument résignée à son sort. Leurs défauts les plus frappants, pour un Européen. . .sont l'indolence, l'absence de prévoyance et l'absence plus grande encore d’énergie.’ Ibid, p. 186.

75 See, for instance, the contradictory explanations of the ‘Aryan village’ in India in Phear, J. (1880). The Aryan Village in India and Ceylon, Macmillan and Co., London Google Scholar.

76 This was a common aspect of early ethnographic images. The ‘staging’ of images meant that the indigenous peoples were presented as if in their ‘natural environment’ thus defining their material possessions, clothing, and other accoutrements as intrinsic to their level of culture and development. See Strain, E. (1996). Exotic Bodies, Distant Landscapes: Touristic Viewing and Popularized Anthropology in the Nineteenth Century, Wide Angle, 18.2, pp. 70–100 Google Scholar; Ryan, J. (1998). Picturing Empire: Photography and the Visualization of the British Empire, University of Chicago Press, Chicago Google Scholar; Edwards, E. (1994). Anthropology and Photography, 1860–1920, Yale University Press, New Hampshire Google Scholar; Landau, P. (2002). Empires of the Visual: Photography and Colonial Administration in Africa, in Landau, Paul and Kaspin, Deborah (eds), Images and Empires: Visuality in Colonial and Postcolonial Africa, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles Google Scholar; and Pinney, C. and Peterson, N. (eds) (2003). Photography's Other Histories, Duke University Press, Durham, North Carolina Google Scholar.

77 Maxwell, A. (2008). Picture Imperfect. Photography and Eugenics, 1870–1940, Sussex Academic Press, Brighton and Portland, p. 21 Google Scholar.

78 For example, Délibes’ ‘Lakmé’ and Roussel's ‘Padmavati’.

79 Le Bon, Les civilizations de l'Inde, p. 676.

80 Ibid, p. 284.

81 ‘Elles sont capables de rudiments de civilisation, mais de rudiments seulement’: Le Bon, G. (1913). Lois psychologiques de l'evolution des peuples, Librairie Félix Alcan, Paris, 11th edition, p. 25 Google Scholar.

82 Ibid, p. 26 and passim, Chapter 3, ‘Hiérarchie psychologique des races’.

83 The British attitude towards the Aryan question in India is well summed up in Leopold, J. (1974). British Application of the Aryan Theory of Race to India, English Historical Review 89.3 Google Scholar. As Leopold points out, the British, while agreeing that the Aryans had once created a great civilization in India, argued that races in contemporary India were too mixed to talk about any pure ‘Aryan’ blood existing. Instead, the dilution of Aryan blood in the Indian subcontinent meant that the modern Indian could never reach that state of Aryan greatness again. Other detailed studies on the Aryan issue in India and elsewhere include: Ballantyne, T. (2007). Orientalism and Race, Palgrave MacMillan, Basingstoke and New York Google Scholar; and Trautmann, T. (1997). Aryans and British India, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles Google Scholar. Trautmann also pursues the issue as it was taken up by Indian nationalists, as proof of the greatness of Indian civilization and the capacity of India to progress. Hindu nationalists, in particular, used the Aryan theory to argue that Indians were well capable of ruling themselves without British domination.

84 Le Bon, Lois psychologiques, pp. 4, 173–177.

85 Despite Le Bon's allowance that, anthropologically speaking, ‘pure’ races no longer existed, he managed to obscure the line between his definition of historical and anthropological races, to assign to ‘superior’ ‘historical’ races the same physiological features as ‘superior’ anthropological races. In terms of its application in the Indian context, Le Bon's work is clearly a call for the superiority of aspects of Indian civilization because of its Aryan element.

86 For more work on the British construction of ‘martial races’ of India, see Barua, P. (1995). Inventing Race. The British and India's Martial Races, The Historian 58.1 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, as well as Ballantyne, Orientalism and Race, and Trautmann, Aryans and British India.

87 The Indus Valley civilization, which effectively put an end to the claim that the Aryans were the first highly developed people in India, was not discovered until the early twentieth century. Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, the two great cities of the Indus Valley civilization, were only unearthed in 1925, and along with them the discovery of an advanced technological and cultural society which had existed several hundred years before the Aryans’ advent in India. This was the biggest blow to the theory that only the Aryans possessed the inherent capability to be an advanced civilization, since the Harappan peoples were clearly not Aryan. Interestingly enough, for all their efforts to rank among the foremost Indologists, the French did not study the Indus Valley civilization much, leaving both the historical and archaeological finds to the British.

88 Poliakov, The Aryan Myth.

89 Leopold, British Applications of the Aryan Theory of Race.

90 Farrar, F. (1870). Families of Speech, Longman's, Green and Co., London Google Scholar; Laing, S. (1862). Lecture on the Indo-European Languages and Races, G.C Hay and Co., Calcutta Google Scholar; and Laing, S. (1863). India and China, England's Mission in the East, London Google Scholar.

91 Maine, H. (1871). Village Communities in the East and West, John Murray, London, p. 12 and passimGoogle Scholar.

92 Trautmann, Aryans and British India.

93 Trautmann, T. (2006). Languages and Nations. The Dravidian Proof in Colonial Madras University of California Press, Berkeley Google Scholar.

94 Poliakov, The Aryan Myth, p. 257.

95 Gustave le Bon is best known for his works on mob or crowd psychology, in addition to which he held an academic position as a psychologist. See Le Bon, Lois psychologiques. Yet, as Robert Nye's work on Le Bon shows, his later works on psychology were drawn primarily from his research in India and North Africa. See Nye, ‘An Intellectual Portrait of Gustave LeBon’.

96 Poliakov, The Aryan Myth, p. 285.

97 Ibid.

98 For instance, from 1863–1872, the number of articles on India was at its lowest—just 16 during the nineteenth century. Correspondingly the number of articles dealing with French interests in the Far East and Islamic world increased to 103! See Journal Asiatique. http://Gallica.bnf.fr, [accessed 25 November 2014].