Colonial Dreaming: Textbooks in the Mythology of "Primitive Accumulation"

• Published in: Dialectical anthropology 2005-03, Vol.29 (1), p.1-34
• Main Author: TALWALKER, CLARE
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 19th century; Accumulation; Brahmins; British Empire; British literature; Candies; Capitalism; Capitalization; Colonialism; Curricula; Curriculum; Dreaming; Economic activity; Education; History of education; Ideologies; India; Indian culture; Indian literature; Marxian economics; Missionaries; Modern literature; Modernity; Myth; Mythology; Parents & parenting; School boards; Society; Textbooks
• ISSN: 0304-4092; 1573-0786
• DOI: 10.1007/s10624-005-5186-3

Examines the first series of graded readers produced in the mid-19th century by the colonial government of the Bombay Presidency to show how they exhibited the colonial desire to make India a proud monument of British benevolence. The readers were published in the main spoken languages, including Marathi, Gujarati, Kannada, & Sindhi. Their production, along with other educational activities, allowed the British to assume the role of culture merchant. The historical context surrounding the textbook project is described & the first Marathi textbook series is addressed in the same way one might analyze dreams or myths. Special attention is given to the ideology of early Indian modernism that underpins these texts & their attempt to contain or symbolically resolve social upheavals of the time. It is concluded that the readers produced a modern mythology based on the salvage ethnography of India that fed the eager machine of the administering state that distracted from criticisms of how the colonial economy was transforming the culture & everyday life of India. J. Lindroth