The Vagabond in the South Asian Imagination : Resilience, Agency and Representation

This book discusses the epistemic foundation of the heuristic construct ‘vagabond’ and the convergence between the politics of itinerancy and that of dissent in the context of South Asia. It describes the fraught relationship between ‘native’ itinerant practices and techniques of governmentality which have furnished different categorizations and taxonomies of mobility. The book demonstrates the historical seismic breaks – from the Orientalist to the post-Orientalist, from the premodern to the modern, and from the colonial to the post-colonial – in the representation of the vagabond in the juridico-political imagination, in historiography and cultural articulation. For instance, the drunk European sailor, the quasi-religious mendicant, and the helpless famine refugee have all been referred to as ‘vagabonds’ in the colonial archive. This book examines the histories and conditions behind these conceptual overlaps, as well as the uncanny associations among categories that uneasily coexist and mirror each other as subsets of a vast range of phenomena, which may loosely be called ‘vagabond(age)’. This volume will be of interest to students and researchers of literature, cultural studies, colonial and post-colonial studies, history, migration studies, sociology, and South Asia studies. This book discusses the epistemic foundation of the heuristic construct ‘vagabond’ and the convergence between the politics of itinerancy and that of dissent in the context of South Asia. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Dedication 6 Table of Contents 8 List of figures and illustrations 10 Acknowledgments 11 Chapter 1: Introduction 14 Notes 32 Part I: The rupture(s) in the non-west 34 Chapter 2: Sacralizing the vagabond: The prehistory 36 Notes 42 Chapter 3: Colonial Bengal and the case of mimicry 44 Notes 49 Chapter 4: Insurgent vagabond: The postcolonial turn 51 Notes 57 Part II: Imag(in)ing the vagabond: Virulent mobility in post-colonial times 60 Chapter 5: Demographics and territoriality 62 Notes 67 Chapter 6: Picturing the vagrant: Resurrecting from the abyss of proscription 71 Notes 80 Chapter 7: Itinerancy as a critique of development 83 Notes 89 Part III: Literarizing the vagabond: Towards a radical theory of wandering 92 Chapter 8: The politics of orientalism and pitfalls of scripto-centricism 94 Notes 104 Chapter 9: The chimeral face of history: Buddhist subversion reconsidered 107 Notes 120 Chapter 10: Postcolonial literature: The return of the repressed 122 Notes 137 Chapter 11: Epilogue 139 References 149 Dictionary entries 151 Print 151 Online 151 Documents and reportages 149 Print/manuscripts 149 Online 150 Books and articles 151 Print 151 In Bangla 151 In English 152 In other languages 163 Online 163 Film and videography 164 Index 165 Buddhist,subversion;,colonial,Bengal;,demographic,control;,developmentalism;,insurgent,vagabond;,itinerancy;,juridico-political,imagination;,Orientalism;,orientalist,investments;,postcolonial,literature;,radical,theory;,religio-political,dissidence;,scripto-centricism;,South,Asian,imagination;,territoriality;,virulent,mobility;,wandering,mentality Buddhist subversion,colonial Bengal,demographic control,developmentalism,insurgent vagabond,itinerancy,juridico-political imagination,Orientalism,orientalist investments,postcolonial literature,radical theory,religio-political dissidence,scripto-centricism,South Asian imagination,territoriality,virulent mobility,wandering mentality "This book discusses the epistemic foundation of the heuristic construct 'vagabond' and the convergence between the politics of itinerancy and that of dissent in the context of South Asia. It describes the fraught relationship between 'native' itinerant practices and techniques of governmentality which have furnished different categorizations and taxonomies of mobility. The volume demonstrates the historical seismic breaks-from the Orientalist to the post-Orientalist, from the pre-modern to the modern, and from the colonial to the post-colonial-in the representation of the vagabond in the juridico-political imagination, in historiography and cultural articulation. For instance, the drunk European sailor, the quasi-religious mendicant and the helpless famine refugee have all been referred to as 'vagabonds' in the colonial archive. This book examines the histories and conditions behind these conceptual overlaps, as well as the uncanny associations among categories that uneasily co-exist and mirror each other as sub-sets of a vast range of phenomenon, which may loosely be called 'vagabond(age)'. This volume will be of interest to students and researchers of literature, cultural studies, colonial and post-colonial studies, history, migration studies, sociology, and South Asia studies"-- Provided by publisher