Orientalism, Liberalism and Colonial Governmentality

Deconstructing the Imperialized Historiography of Modern South Asia

Sanjeev Kumar HM

• Publisher: Bloomsbury India
• Year: 2025
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9789356405332
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Colonialism & Post-Colonialism
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book explores the formation of contemporary South Asia as a geopolitical metaphor, psycho-cultural concept, and historical trope. It traces the region's colonial past, focusing on the evolution of its semantic and semiotic meanings, particularly through the lens of Michel Foucault's methods of genealogy and archaeology. The book examines how Orientalism and liberalism, key elements of colonial power and epistemology, shaped the conception of modern South Asia. It argues that these discourses were not isolated but intertwined, shaped by Edmund Burke's ideas on imperial rectitude, the utilitarian reform agenda focused on "improvement," and Victorian notions of morality and civility.

Through this analysis, the book shows how the British, using the coercive power of colonialism, produced knowledge about India, blending post-Enlightenment values with perceptions of the colonized periphery. This mix of metropolitan ideals and colonial narratives shaped the understanding of South Asia in ways that were deeply ideological and epistemic. Ultimately, the book asserts that the conception of modern South Asia was formed through a complex interplay of colonial knowledge, which sought to frame the region within a distorted, imperial worldview. By mapping this intersection of power, knowledge, and culture, the book provides a critical genealogy of the modern South Asian identity.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Dedication Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Making sense of colonial ontology
• 1 Colonial psychology and the genealogies of the modern idea of South Asia
• 2 The age of reason, European exceptionalism and the making of the phenomenon of the Indian difference
• 3 Orientalism and the romanticized fossilization of an antiquarian idea of South Asia
• 4 The departure of orientalist philological utopia and the arrival of imperial liberalism: The transformation of South Asia from a pluralistic polity to a divided anthropological geography
• Conclusion: The fractured anthropographies and the postcolonial predicament in South Asia
• Notes
• References
• Index
• About the author
• Imprint