The Black Hole of Empire: History of a Global Practice of Power

by Partha Chatterjee

When Siraj, the ruler of Bengal, overran the British settlement of Calcutta in 1756, he allegedly jailed 146 European prisoners overnight in a cramped prison. Of the group, 123 died of suffocation. While this episode was never independently confirmed, the story of “the black hole of Calcutta” was widely circulated and seen by the British public as an atrocity committed by savage colonial subjects.

The Black Hole of Empire follows the ever-changing representations of this historical event and founding myth of the British Empire in India, from the eighteenth century to the present. Partha Chatterjee explores how a supposed tragedy paved the ideological foundations for the “civilizing” force of British imperial rule and territorial control in India.

Chatterjee takes a close look at the justifications of modern empire by liberal thinkers, international lawyers, and conservative traditionalists, and examines the intellectual and political responses of the colonized, including those of Bengali nationalists. The two sides of empire's entwined history are brought together in the story of the Black Hole memorial: set up in Calcutta in 1760, demolished in 1821, restored by Lord Curzon in 1902, and removed in 1940 to a neglected churchyard.

Challenging conventional truisms of imperial history, nationalist scholarship, and liberal visions of globalization, Chatterjee argues that empire is a necessary and continuing part of the history of the modern state.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Theory, Political Science, India, Indian Literature

425 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Partha Chatterjee is a political theorist and historian. He studied at Presidency College in Calcutta, and received his Ph.D. from the University of Rochester. He divides his time between Columbia University and the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, where he was the Director from 1997 to 2007. He is the author of more than twenty books, monographs and edited volumes and is a founding member of the Subaltern Studies Collective. He as awarded the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize for 2009 for outstanding achievements in the field of Asian studies. He is also a poet, playwright, and actor. In the Mira Nair film The Namesake (2007), he played the role of “A Reformed Hindoo.”

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s a few layers of surprise here for me. First, I knew Partha Chatterjee because one of the professors I TAed for, a younger guy, decided it would be a good idea to lead with theory in his 100 level core history course for non-major randos. So he’s throwing Fanon and Said and Benedict Anderson and Partha Chatterjee at these finance and communications students and they’re getting all mixed up. I had one midterm tell me Benedict Anderson tried to make colonized Indians create newspapers but Chatterjee led the resistance against it, etc etc. In general, the impression I got from Chatterjee was that of the kind of thing a white writer would rightly be called racist for arguing: that India was too spiritually pure for western-style modernity and concepts like the nation-state, no matter how many people on the subcontinent willingly died for some variation on that concept. Not as much of an obvious snow job as indecipherable postcolonial theorists like Homi Bhabha but not much good outside of its cul de sac of theory-wrangling.

“The Black Hole of Empire” wasn’t really like that. It does very little theoretical hedging despite advancing relatively modest claims about how Bengali nationalism suffered from European nationalisms. Chatterjee clearly did a lot of archival research in underused Indian sources, especially early modern Indian theorizing about politics and history, that was quite interesting. The other surprise came when I expected this book to be about how the British used the example of the Black Hole of Calcutta — an incident in 1756 where a Bengali king killed a hundred or so British by cramming them in a tiny prison — as colonial propaganda. The Brits were always masters of squeezing pathos out of a few dozen dead Brits — mostly adventurers — while killing thousands or millions, mostly villagers and children. A good cultural history of that kind of propaganda would be well worth reading.

You got a little bit of that in the book — for instance, few people bothered using the Black Hole incident as propaganda until after the Indian mutiny a century later — but more you get stuff about the history of Calcutta and Bengali nationalism. It was interesting — contacts between early Indian nationalists and British liberals, stuff on the development of a secular Bengali theater — but not exactly what I signed up for. I’m not one of those YouTube-style reviewers who whine endlessly about bait-and-switches as though the whole culture owes me a refund, so I can’t complain too much, especially as I learned a fair amount about the stuff that is there. ****

[Sohum · Rating 5 out of 5]

an absolutely masterful history of colonial Bengal and the revolutionary struggle! as well as the mechanisms of empire.

[hafsi · Rating 4 out of 5]

For modern south Asian historians, this book beautifully weaves together a history of Empire in relation to key motifs of modernity, liberty, myth, and of course the act of writing history itself.

Starting off with the event of the "black hole of calcutta", which almost acts as an extended metaphor for Empire. To say this book is concerned with merely this event would be a simplicity and a discredit to the work. A longue duree analysis of Empire and its relation to history, along with philosophy certainly plays a salient part.

Piecing together a history of colonial expansion in India and the emergence of "British India" Chatterjee explores both a smaller and greater history - in the context of British imperialism.

Key principles and philosophers are also explored: such as the infamous Benthamite utilitarianism and the relationship of this to the justification of autocracy within India. Specifically, Chatterjee exposes figures at the forefront of British 'liberty' and democracy. Their contradictory nature implicit in the lack of agency of Indian natives deemed infantile and "irrational" while they advocated for reform within Britain. The idea of differing modernity is addressed, with conflicting ideas of the nationalist vision of this versus the British imposition.

Those who appreciated Edward Said's "orientalism" may enjoy the discourse on distinctions, particularly of India compared to other colonies deemed more advanced. The construction of a binary "other" figure which places western, Victorian civilisation as the apex of progress is explored. These ideas are of course not new, but the way these ideas intertwined to isolate India as a colony is particularly significant and cannot be overlooked.

Aside from the obvious figures of Bentham and Mills, the ideas raised in this book could interest those drawn to anthropology in relation to history. Figures such as Smith (yes, wealth of nations smith) make interesting (attempting to keep this review objective) arguments that may often be overlooked, given the economic focus of his works. Smith's theories are often accredited to the role of the enlightenment and the American war of independence, therefore Chatterjee's relation of his theories and British India and indeed refreshing.

To place this back in focus of history - Chatterjee explores the writing of history, specially focusing on those such as Macaulay, who was fundamental in the image of British greatness and valour within the Empire. The concept of writing "myths" is also explored, the importance of sustaining myths within Empire and of course - the myth of the "black hole" that was used to depose the "oriental despotic" nawabs.

The structure of the book maintains a clear focus on motifs, and for the most part his argument is clear and well founded. I feel the forefront of the argument forms in chapter six - where the majority of the points I favoured resided.

4.5 stars

[abby]

read for hist400