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	Independent Study Reflection
Home Identity Construction Political Economy Orientalism Language Borders Religion Annotated Bibliography	back to orientalism As one amongst masses of students and scholars interested in India through modern history, I have aspired to make my personal thumbprint in my work this past semester. I consider myself descending from a long lineage of irresponsible scholarship that supplemented European hegemony. The colonial knowledge that I refer to in my final paper serves an essential step towards my own academic work. It terrifies me that my work so closely parallels the Orientalists who built knowledge that propped up Colonial rule. Yet recognizing my possible complicity in this cycle has defined my relationship to India. My paper attempts to demonstrate my interaction with the text since that relationship defines my interest in India. My paper revolves around colonial knowledge because it strikes close to home. I constantly reconsider my fascination with India in comparison with Orientalist knowledge that affirmed a division between the ‘West’ and the ‘East.’ I fear my possible complicity because I have found the global south interesting because it is distinct from my reality in the US. As I read about colonial exploration in the name of expanding knowledge, I notice the relevance of this interest today as India becomes competitive in the international market. I have been forced to deal with the real threat of my own complicity in this cycle of knowing and expressing authority as it exists today. India’s booming technology industry has Europeans and Americans fearing the threat of an Asian takeover. The Economist dedicates at least one story to India in every issue, demonstrating its rise in power. India’s growing prosper forces the American business world to acquaint itself with India’s culture and people, just as the British East India Company attempted to learn enough to hold authority. I must wonder whether my work will serve to maintain American and European hegemony in India just as it did years ago at the beginning of Colonial rule. In defining my position in the academic world surrounding India, I have tried to remember where my interest in India began. India grabbed my interest my senior year of high school when I read Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. The colorful writing drew me into a romantic picture of India. I developed an image of the same sort Indian ‘muddle’ that E.M. Forster wrote about in Passage to India. Before I even entered my freshman year at St. Olaf I decided I would see this different, chaotic and wistful world through studying abroad. However, circumstances first led me to Senegal. Instead of the insanely different world I expected to see in a ‘non-Western’ nation, I saw the similarities between Americans and Senegalese. Differences in the cultures arose often, but not in the hierarchical form I expected. I envisioned a Senegalese culture remaining steadfast in its tradition, opposing our corrupt American modernity, but I lived in a world that struggles with modernity just as we do in America. When I returned from Senegal and began to focus my studies on India, I brought this consciousness along in my studies, ensuring that I formed a connection between my reality and Indian reality. Studying colonial knowledge constantly reminds me that I am not so different from those Orientalists. This common thread with the past provides me both with a respect for Orientalist scholars who were sincerely interested in India, as well as building a responsibility in my work. The realities of Senegal and now India have held my interest not because of their romanticized appeal, rather for certain chords that run parallel to American domestic and international issues. Religious divisions arise in both nations as valid excuses for political separatism. After reading and writing about Muslim-Hindu relations from pre-history through Colonial census’ and Partition to the present, I feel drawn into an epic history dividing people and politics. I think that Pakistan and India must unite and conquer their violent history, just as Hindu and Muslim politicians in India should set aside their hostilities towards one another to form a just society working for the good of all people. However, I am simply an American college idealist. This personal identification could keep me from dreaming of how the world might look when I run it, but I am not so easily diverted. I take myself and my idealistic compatriots seriously, because we will lead the world soon. In the sixties American college students made statements and created a new society, an example that inspires me for the American and international youth in my generation. International and India’s news journals describe India currently facing an incredible social economic gulf, a corrupt and religiously antagonistic political sphere, an inequitable caste system that still exists, and yet a booming technology industry rousing hopes for a ‘Shining India’. Subaltern Studies questions the significance of the unlikely peasants in creating the Indian reality, encouraging my inquiry into the similarly unlikely youth’s role in shaping their destiny. I am excited to relate with other students and young people because as a young person, I will likely feel the most comfortable in that arena. If I feel more comfortable, I can more comfortably report what I find and think. In discussions of American racism, fear of offending unnerves people enough to never deal with the problems. Rather than break through the boundaries these discussions merely tiptoe around our nation’s underlying racial distress. I do not want to add this extra component of worrying over honor to the responsibility I already feel for representing India to Americans. I hope that by describing my interaction with people that I connect with, I might feel comfortable relating my interaction with India to Americans when I return. This past semester took on a shape of its own after I read Said as the first author. Each step along the path emerged from an interest from the last reading, which I found an inspiring way to study. I never grew disinterested in my work because it all grew from questions I raised after reading a certain work. In this next semester I expect to clarify the exact path as I work and discuss rather than before I even embark in the study. My past, present, and future academic, social, economic, political, and artistic readings will help guide me in my preparation for conversations as well as understanding those conversations in my final paper. back to top
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Independent Study Reflection

As one amongst masses of students and scholars interested in India through modern history, I have aspired to make my personal thumbprint in my work this past semester. I consider myself descending from a long lineage of irresponsible scholarship that supplemented European hegemony. The colonial knowledge that I refer to in my final paper serves an essential step towards my own academic work. It terrifies me that my work so closely parallels the Orientalists who built knowledge that propped up Colonial rule. Yet recognizing my possible complicity in this cycle has defined my relationship to India.
My paper attempts to demonstrate my interaction with the text since that relationship defines my interest in India. My paper revolves around colonial knowledge because it strikes close to home. I constantly reconsider my fascination with India in comparison with Orientalist knowledge that affirmed a division between the ‘West’ and the ‘East.’ I fear my possible complicity because I have found the global south interesting because it is distinct from my reality in the US.

As I read about colonial exploration in the name of expanding knowledge, I notice the relevance of this interest today as India becomes competitive in the international market. I have been forced to deal with the real threat of my own complicity in this cycle of knowing and expressing authority as it exists today. India’s booming technology industry has Europeans and Americans fearing the threat of an Asian takeover. The Economist dedicates at least one story to India in every issue, demonstrating its rise in power. India’s growing prosper forces the American business world to acquaint itself with India’s culture and people, just as the British East India Company attempted to learn enough to hold authority. I must wonder whether my work will serve to maintain American and European hegemony in India just as it did years ago at the beginning of Colonial rule.

In defining my position in the academic world surrounding India, I have tried to remember where my interest in India began. India grabbed my interest my senior year of high school when I read Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. The colorful writing drew me into a romantic picture of India. I developed an image of the same sort Indian ‘muddle’ that E.M. Forster wrote about in Passage to India. Before I even entered my freshman year at St. Olaf I decided I would see this different, chaotic and wistful world through studying abroad. However, circumstances first led me to Senegal.

Instead of the insanely different world I expected to see in a ‘non-Western’ nation, I saw the similarities between Americans and Senegalese. Differences in the cultures arose often, but not in the hierarchical form I expected. I envisioned a Senegalese culture remaining steadfast in its tradition, opposing our corrupt American modernity, but I lived in a world that struggles with modernity just as we do in America. When I returned from Senegal and began to focus my studies on India, I brought this consciousness along in my studies, ensuring that I formed a connection between my reality and Indian reality. Studying colonial knowledge constantly reminds me that I am not so different from those Orientalists. This common thread with the past provides me both with a respect for Orientalist scholars who were sincerely interested in India, as well as building a responsibility in my work.

The realities of Senegal and now India have held my interest not because of their romanticized appeal, rather for certain chords that run parallel to American domestic and international issues. Religious divisions arise in both nations as valid excuses for political separatism. After reading and writing about Muslim-Hindu relations from pre-history through Colonial census’ and Partition to the present, I feel drawn into an epic history dividing people and politics. I think that Pakistan and India must unite and conquer their violent history, just as Hindu and Muslim politicians in India should set aside their hostilities towards one another to form a just society working for the good of all people. However, I am simply an American college idealist.

This personal identification could keep me from dreaming of how the world might look when I run it, but I am not so easily diverted. I take myself and my idealistic compatriots seriously, because we will lead the world soon. In the sixties American college students made statements and created a new society, an example that inspires me for the American and international youth in my generation. International and India’s news journals describe India currently facing an incredible social economic gulf, a corrupt and religiously antagonistic political sphere, an inequitable caste system that still exists, and yet a booming technology industry rousing hopes for a ‘Shining India’. Subaltern Studies questions the significance of the unlikely peasants in creating the Indian reality, encouraging my inquiry into the similarly unlikely youth’s role in shaping their destiny.

I am excited to relate with other students and young people because as a young person, I will likely feel the most comfortable in that arena. If I feel more comfortable, I can more comfortably report what I find and think. In discussions of American racism, fear of offending unnerves people enough to never deal with the problems. Rather than break through the boundaries these discussions merely tiptoe around our nation’s underlying racial distress. I do not want to add this extra component of worrying over honor to the responsibility I already feel for representing India to Americans. I hope that by describing my interaction with people that I connect with, I might feel comfortable relating my interaction with India to Americans when I return.

This past semester took on a shape of its own after I read Said as the first author. Each step along the path emerged from an interest from the last reading, which I found an inspiring way to study. I never grew disinterested in my work because it all grew from questions I raised after reading a certain work. In this next semester I expect to clarify the exact path as I work and discuss rather than before I even embark in the study. My past, present, and future academic, social, economic, political, and artistic readings will help guide me in my preparation for conversations as well as understanding those conversations in my final paper.

home CIS website