[Reader-list] [Deewan] SARAI posting

[Avinash Kumar]

Dear Kamal,

Sorry for butting in without a legitimate ground. Nevertheless thought, I
would give my two cents.I haven't read too many early detective fictions in
Hindi, so it goes with a caveat.

One of the most famous stories by Gopalram Gahmari, 'Malgodam mein Chori' is
a stark example of the way the 'modern, rational' practices of detection
methodology were sought to be acknowledged. As I remember clearly, even
though it does not talk of finger print, it talks of a 'keen, detailed'
analysis of the crime scene and not merely remains dependent on 'chance',
though, that as you correctly say, remained a principal feature in a lot of
fiction of that period.
What is further interesting in that piece is that, even as the crime has
happened somewhere in Bihar (i forget where, perhaps gaya), the detective
called into investigate is from Calcutta, the signifier for a 'modern city'
and who speaks with an English accent despite being a Bengali. Of course,
how he blends in with the local landscape singing popular Braj poetry while
doing his job, is another matter to investigate.

Second, in another novel of Gahmari, I forget the title right now and the
Shivpujan Sahay classic , 'Dehati Duniya', Jati is very prominent as once
again rightly pointed out by you. Yet, I would see it still as a result of
the very presence of colonial discourse of criminality, which fixated
certain castes, tribes under the labels of criminality. Even, the colour,
physical attributes etc as a criterion, came under the same phenomenon
largely. We are now replete with studies around this theme.

On the other hand, the role of daroga, the local police is so predominant in
these stories (and not only in these two works I am talking of) that the
picture you get is that villages are vacated en masse with the news of
arrival of the local 'daroga'. In this sense, what I would assert is given
the context, whether as a pseudo-detective posing as a city-bred man like
Holmes or as a daroga, the colonial state is omnipresent in these
narratives. What then is worth investigating is how they are renegotiating
these different roles...

Sorry, for this long mail but this, as I said is an instant reaction with a
very limited knowledge of the subject...

thanks,

avinash

On 7 Aug 2006 16:42:33 -0000, Kamal Kumar Mishra <kamal_bhu at rediffmail.com>
wrote:
>
>   Dear ANDREW,
>     Thousands apologies for not answering to your mail for soooo
> long,today when i was clearing my mail account i noticed this blunder i have
> done,i am extremely sorry!!!
>       True as you say the relationship between crime and detective is
> closely related to biometrics and fingerprinting in most of the cases...but
> you might find it surprising that in  Hindi detective ficttions this link is
> mostly absent.
>
> Hindi deteective fictions have a few peculiar characteristics par
> example-1) there might not be a single detective and this function might be
> performed by many people or 2) detective need not use modern or rational
> techniques to solve a mystry, role of chance is often crucial in solving a
> case.
> Thus one hardly finds this clue and puzzle type in hindi detective
> fictions.
>   I have not come across  a single piece translated ,adapted,or original
> where (here i am talking about the  early hindi detective fictons from
> 1900-1940's) a detective solves a case with the help of
> fingerprints.Though, one may find  examples of foot prints, as a clue, but
> not so elaborate either.
>
> THEN what we have are discourse of criminality  mostly based on
> jati(caste)n lakchana (physical attributes n morality) where colonial state
> is often absent in these popular fictions.
> hope you find it interesting enough...with apologies again
> warm regards!!!
> kamal
>
>
> On Mon, 30 Jan 2006 Andrew MacDonald wrote :
> >Hi Kamal..
> >
> >  Nice to see your posting on SARAI and your research..I'm a post-grad
> history student based at Duban, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. I
> just thought, tangentially, since I have just finished reading it myself,
> The book Imprint of the Raj - how fingerprinting was born in Colonial India.
> Maybe you have seen it already, but the relationship between crime and
> detectives is closely related to biometrics and fingerprinting (which was
> only then becoming the kind of embryonic, precocious state project we now
> take for granted). I wonder if their is much in the Hindi literature on this
> topic? It would be quite interesting...
> >  I have worked/am working on aspects of biopower (to sound foucauldian,
> though i have some real problems with his arguments), concerned less with
> literature but more with labour and immigration in colonial South Africa)..
> >
> >  Anway, thought I would put my two cents worth in..
> >
> >  Andrew
> >
> >
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