9
Guha (1997) does not identify authenticity as an idiom of colonial power. Instead
he identifies order, improvement, obedience and rightful dissent (resistance) as British
idioms of power with the corresponding Indian idioms of subjugation as danda, dharma,
bhakti and dharmic protest. It seems to me that one could easily add a fifth pairing here:
authenticity—renunciation/asceticism. Without doubt, Mohandas K. Gandhi was the
embodiment of this pairing in the early 20
th
century (see Terchek 1998; Steger 2003).
Resistance
Most instances of resistance are derivative. That is, they are directed toward the
source of power and domination, in the idiom constructed by that source. This is what
Chatterjee (1986) meant in calling nationalist thought a derivative discourse: not only did
the anti-colonial movement confront the British Raj on the insincerity (inauthenticity) of
its liberal values, but the alternative espoused by the movement, nationalism and
nationhood, was derived from the British/European historical experience. Hence
resistance during the anti-colonial struggle remained a “war of position,” never quite
passing the threshold to a “war of movement.”
Anti-colonial resistance in India before the emergence of the nationalist
movement in the late 19
th
century was also derivative. Above we saw how the Orientalist
project was to command and control by “discovering,” cataloguing, and categorizing
indigenous knowledge. Those who had the indigenous knowledge would frequently
withhold that knowledge from the colonial rulers—forcing the rulers to attempt to acquire
the knowledge themselves through learning the vernaculars. This was perceived by the
colonialists as resistance: “It is significant . . . that some of the resistance to the
Convention