Presidential Address: "I Have Scinde": Flogging a Dead (White Male Orientalist) Horse

Author(s): Wendy Doniger

Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 58, No. 4 (Nov., 1999), pp. 940-960
Published by: Association for Asian Studies
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 Presidential
Address:
"I Have Scinde":Flogging
a Dead (WhiteMale
Horse
Orientalist)
WENDY DONIGER

LET ME BEGIN WITH A STORY about General Sir Charles James Fox Napier, who was
bornin 1782 and in 1839 was made commanderof Sind (or Scinde,as it was often
spelledat thattime,or Sindh),an area at thewesterntip of theNorthwestquadrant
ofSouthAsia, directlyabove theRann ofKutchand Gujurat;in 1947 it becamepart
ofPakistan.In 1843, Napiermaneuveredto provokea resistancethathe thencrushed
and used as a pretextto conquertheterritoryfortheBritishEmpire.The Britishpress
describedthis militaryoperationat the time as "infamous"(the Whig Morning
Chronicle,cited by Napier 1990, 197), a decade lateras "harshand barbarous"and a
"tragedy,"while the Indian press(the BombayTimes,"withouta shredof evidence")
accusedNapierofperpetrating a massrapeofthewomenofHyderabad(Napier 1990,
xvi). The successfulAnnexationof Sind made Napier's name "a householdword in
England.He received?70,000 as his shareof the spoils" (Mehra 1985, 496-97) and
was knighted.In 1851 he quarrelledwithJamesRamsey,theMarquessofDalhousie
(governorgeneralof India from1847 to 1856), and leftIndia.
In 1844, the followingitemappearedin a Britishpublicationin London,under
the title,"ForeignAffairs":

It is a common ideathatthemostlaconicmilitary everissuedwasthatsent

despatch
by Caesarto theHorse-Guards at Rome,containingthethreememorable words,
'Veni,vidi,vici' '"I came,I saw,I conquered,"),
and,perhaps,untilourownday,no

WendyDonigeris theMirceaEliadeDistinguished ServiceProfessor

oftheHistoryof
Religionsin theDivinitySchool,theDepartment ofSouthAsianLanguages andLiteratures,
andtheCommittee on SocialThought,at theUniversityofChicago.
Thisarticlewasoriginally as thePresidential
presented Addresstothe51stAnnualMeet-
ingoftheAssociation forAsianStudies,Boston,12 March1999.
I am indebtedtoSusanneHoeberRudolphandLloydRudolphforstarting meoffonthe
trackofSirCharlesNapier;to Katherine UlrichforfindingthePunchtextand Blanco,and
so muchmore;to AnandA. Yang fortheMoorcroft and GyanPrakashmaterials;to Laura
SlatkinfortheCantharidesanecdote;to MichaelO'FlahertyfortheHiroshimaconnection;to
RomilaThaparfortheinscriptions; to David ShulmanforthePandyakulodaya; to Ainslee
Embreefortheweavers' thumbs; andto AdityaAdarkar fortheEkalavyaconnection.
TheJournal 58, no.4 (November
ofAsianStudies 1999):940-960.
? 1999 bytheAssociationforAsianStudies,Inc.

940
 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 941

likeinstance
ofbrevityhasbeenfound.ThedespatchofSirCharlesNapier,afterthe
captureofScinde,to LordEllenborough,
bothforbrevity
andtruth,is,however,far
beyondit.Thedespatch consisted
ofoneemphaticword- 'Pecccavi,'
'I haveScinde,'
(sinne).

The joke heredependsupon the translationof the Latin wordpeccavi,which is the

firstpersonsingularof thepast tense,activevoice,of the verbpecco, peccare,
"to sin,"
fromwhich are derivedour Englishwords"impeccable"(someonewho neversins)
and "peccadillo"(a small sin). Thus the double meaningis "I have Scinde" (thatis,
"I have gained possessionof a place called Scinde") and "I have sinned"(that is, "I
have committeda moralerror").
The storycaughton. In a play publishedin 1852, a characternamedSir Peter
Prolixrecites,at a dinnerparty,the followingdoggerel:

Whatexclaim'dthegallantNapier,
Proudlyflourishing
hisrapier,
To thearmyandthenavy,
Whenhe conquered Scinde?-"Peccavi!"
(Daniel1852,51)

And whenNapier died, a yearlater,G. Lloydwroteto the journalNotesand Queries,

"It is also stated,I do notknowon whatauthority, thattheold and lamentedwarrior,
Sir Charles Napier, wrote on the conquest of Scinde, 'Peccavi."'1 The incident
continuedto be cited; a 1990 biographyofSir CharlesactuallyentitledI Have Sind
cites it threetimes(Napier 1990, xv, 160, 197). StephenJayGould cites it: "Sir
CharlesNapier subduedtheIndianprovinceofSind and announcedhis triumph,via
telegram,to his superiorsin London,with the minimalbut fullyadequate quote,
'Peccavi"'(Gould 1991, 269). Accordingto the latest edition of the Encyclopedia
Britannicaonline,"[Napierl is said to have sent a dispatchconsistingof one word,
'Peccavi'(Latin: 'I havesinned'-i.e., 'I haveSindh')."
But all evidence indicates that Sir Charles Napier never dispatchedsuch a
message.The passageabout Caesarand Napier is not fromthe Timesof Londonbut
fromthecomicjournalPunch(1844, 6:209), whoseeditorsevidentlymade it up; the
Britannicaactuallyhedged ("he is said to have sent"),and a 1952 biographycame
rightout withit,referring to Napieras "themanwho,thoughPunchwas responsible,
yetwas supposed to havemade thepun 'Peccavi'-I have Scinde"(Lawrence1952, x).
Salman Rushdieretoldthe storyin Shame,referring to his "looking-glass"Pakistan
as "Peccavistan,"but he calls the storyapocryphal,bilingual,and fictional(Rushdie
1983, 88). The authorsof the Punchitem may have been inspiredby another
apocryphal historicalanecdote,whichwas linkedwiththepeccavistoryas earlyas 1875
and was in circulationforsome time beforethat;it tells us thatsomeonewho had
witnessed the defeat of the Spanish Armada announced it with one word:
"Cantharides,"whichis the Latin and pharmaceuticalnameof the aphrodisiacdrug
knownas "the Spanishfly"(Rowley1875, 166-67). So it is notNapier'stext;but it
is a text,a Britishtext,thathas a historyofits own; it is a kindofnineteenthcentury
urbanlegend,a myth.The factthatNapier neversaid it does notparticularly trouble
me, forI am not a historianbut a mythologist. But theshiftfromthe textofhistory

'Notesand Queriesno. 212, 19 November1853, p. 491. In Notesand Queriesno. 215 (10

December 1853, p. 574), CuthbertBede attributesthe Napier anecdoteto Mr. Punch,and
"A Subscriber"refersto the authorofDemocritus
(thatis, to GeorgeDaniel).
942 WENDY DONIGER

to thehypertext ofjournalismis significant:

theidea ofthesin was initiallya writer's
idea, not a general's.(Rushdie, too, referred
to the one-wordmessageas "guilty"
[Rushdie 1983, 881.) With thisin mind,let us unpackthemytha bit more.
Besidesthe two meaningsI've mentioned("I have conqueredIndia" and "I have
committeda moralerror"),thereis a third,whichwe discoverif we heed the good
adviceofMarshallMcLuhan,who taughtus thatthemediumis the message;forthe
mediumin thiscase is Latin.That thirdmessagesignifiessomethinglike, "Let's say
it in Latin,whichwe Oxbridgetypes,Englishupperclasses,know,and the natives
do not, thoughtheyknow English-which we taughtthem." StephenJayGould,
who takesthe anecdoteas history,remarks:
In an age whenall gentlemen
studiedLatin,and couldscarcely
risein government
service a boostfrom
without theoldboysofsimilarbackgroundinappropriatepublic
schools,Napierneverdoubtedthathis superiors... wouldproperly translate
his
messageandpun:I havesinned.
(Gould1991,269)

Latinherefunctions as a code whichthe bearersof the messagewill not understand,

a functionthatJamesC. Scott has taughtus to recognizeas the hiddentranscript,
which thosein power can employin ways different fromthe waysdevised by the
disempowered (Scott1991). Thepeccavitextis explicitlyan imitationofanotherLatin
text(veni,vidi,vici),but thatearliertextwas unambiguous,spokenin the speaker's
nativelanguage;unlikeNapier, Caesar did not have to translate("conquered"into
ViCi).2 It is also worthnotingthatevenPunch, whichinventedthestory,glossedit in
English,realizingthatsome of theirreadersmightnot have been educatedin good
schoolsand therefore mightnot knowLatin. But whenPriscillaHayterNapier told
the story(as history,not myth)she remarked,"Possiblythis was when he sent his
celebratedmessage-'Peccavi,'which,in theLatineveryeducatedmanhad thenat his
command,means'I havesinned"'(Napier 1990, 160).
In fact,thepun is not merelybilingualbut trilingualor evenquadrilingual,for
theLatinpeccavicarrieswithinit not onlytheEnglish"sinned"but thepropername
"Sind," a Hindi wordderived,like "Hindi" itself,as well as "Hindu" and "India,"
fromtermsthatthePersiansderivedfromtheSanskrit"Sindhu"("river").Peccavialso
breaksdown into two puns in English,turningon the meaningsnot only of Sind
tHindil /sin[Englishi /Sindhu[Sanskritand Persian) but on the almost invisible
word"have,"whichfunctions bothas a completeverbmeaning"possess,"as one can
possessa thing(like India, to take a case at random),and as an auxiliaryverbin the
perfecttenseindicatingthat the action represented by the main verb(in this case,
"sin") took place in the past, and not in the present.The grammaticalfactin this
case denies the argument-which will become central to the anti-Orientalist
critique-that the subjectof theverbgoesondoingit.
But it is the secondmeaningofpeccavi,the secondhiddentranscript, of "sin" as
a moralerrorcommitted(only)in the past, thatis of centralinterestto me. That a
man of greatpolitical power might have intendedthis subtextis suggestedby a
remarkby PresidentWilliam Jefferson ClintonthatNewsweek (21 September1998,
27) choseto reproduceas an enormousheadline:"I havesinned."(I havesincelearned
fromseveralSouthAsianistcolleaguesthatthey,like me, thoughtat thatmomentof

2The remarkwas quoted firstin Latin by Suetonius,LivesoftheCaesars("The Deified

Julius," 1.37) and soon afterthatin Greek by Plutarchin RomanApophthegms(Moralia,206
E) and LifeofCaesar(731 F). Note the complexityof cross-translation
evenhere.
 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 943

Sir CharlesNapier.) Though Sir Charlesapparentlyneversaid (or wrote)peccavi,he

seemsto have had a sensethathe had sinnedin Sind. When he was postedthere,he
wrote:"We have no rightto seize Sind, yetwe shall do so and a veryadvantageous
piece of rascalityit will be" (Mehra 1985, 497). "Rascality"is a ratherflipway to
referto themurderofmanypeopledefendingtheirownland,butafterwards he wrote,
speakingof his ambition,"I have conqueredScinde but I have not yet conquered
myself'(Napier 1857, 4.38) and, "I striveto curbprideand vanity.Get theebehind
me Satan! But it is not easy to make Satan obey whenone is a conquerer"(2.376).
Napier was also capable of equivocating,as whenhe wroteof the Sind campaign:"I
may be wrong,but I cannotsee it, and my consciencewill not be troubled.I sleep
well whiletryingto do this,and shall sleep soundwhenit is done" (2.275). This last
phrase chillinglyforeshadowswhat Harry Truman said after the bombing of
Hiroshima:"I neverlostanysleepovermydecision"(Liftonand Mitchell1995, 176).

Guilt and Anti-Orientalism

The senseof sin is not usuallya partof the discussionof the storyof Napier in
India,but it mayindicatea momentwhensomeoftheBritishfeltmoralambivalence
about theirconquestofIndia. And thispossibilitymayhelp us to dig our wayout of
the ambivalencewhichwe who studyIndia have inheritedand which threatensto
poison scholarshipabout India in our period, bracketedas it is betweenante/i-
Orientalismbeforeand postcolonialismafter.The question is not whetherNapier
sleptsound,but whetherwe Americansand Europeansengagedin thestudyofIndia
can sleep sound.
Edward W. Said's book, Orientalism, published in 1978, changed our way of
thinkingforever. Until then,we had admiredthe Britishscholarswho had recorded
dialects and folklorethat otherwisewould have been lost to posterity,who had
establishedthe studyof Sanskritin Europe and made availablethroughoutIndia as
well as Europemanyoftheclassicaltextsrecordedin thatlanguage.We feltindebted
to themforour own knowledgeand love of India. But the anti-Orientalist critique
taughtus thatthoseBritishscholars,too, had sinned,thattheyhad been caughtup
in thecolonialenterprise, sustainedit, fueledit, facilitatedit. It taughtus about the
collusionbetweenacademicknowledgeand politicalpower,arguingthatwe, too,are
implicatedin thatsin when we carryon the workof thosedisciplines-that it did
notstop,like a Latinperfecttense,in thepast.
At the heartof thepostcolonialenterprise was the argumentthatscholars,then
and now, affectand often harm the people they study. Twentieth-century
anthropology had called this ideal into questionlong beforeSaid challengedthatof
Orientalism;evenRudyardKipling,in his novelKimwrittenin 1901, had made his
chiefspy,Colonel Creighton,an amateurethnographer. In a passagethatI readas a
satireon anthropology as spying,Creightonsays,"As an ethnologist, thething'svery
interesting to me. . . . The transformation ofa regimentalbadge like yourRed Bull
intoa sortoffetishthattheboyfollowsis veryinteresting" (Kipling 1987, 161; Said
1987, 32). The GreatGame, as Kipling calls it (perhapstranslating theSanskritlila,
the game played by God in creatingthe illusoryworld), is not just spying but
anthropology,anotherformof the discipline once known as Orientalism,more
specificallyIndology,the studyof India, mygame.
What resistancewe mighthavehad to theaccusationthatwe wereimplicatedin
this Great Game was soon weakened,if not entirelydemolished,by our growing
944 WENDY DONIGER

recognitionof the ways in which Hindu fundamentalists today have used, and
continueto use, manyoftheclassicalHindu textsthatBritishscholarsvalidated.For
the Britishgave India a mixed blessingwhen theyprivilegedancienttextslike the
Rig Veda and The Laws ofManu and made themavailable to people who otherwise
would not have knownthem,providinga legitimatingpowerthat,like all power,
could turnnastyand did turnverynastyindeedwhenit was used as a weaponagainst
Muslims,women,and liberalHindus. We who had once studiedthe Rig Vedawith
awe in small classesconsistingof a mix ofpassionatelydevotedex-hippiesand cold,
brilliantlinguistscame to reactto theword"Veda" as ifsomeonehad said "fascism"
(more precisely,"right-wingmilitant Hinduism"); the word had changed its
connotations, just as "adult" had come to mean "pornographic" (as in "adult books
and films,adult viewing").
We can no longerthinkwithoutthepostcolonialcritique.The Freudianand post-
FreudianMarxistagendastell us to look forthe subtext,the hiddentranscript, the
censoredtext;the Marxistand to some extentthe Freudianassumptionis thatthis
subtextis less respectable,moreself-serving, but also morehonest,morerealthanthe
surfacetext.In India theBritishsurfacetext-"We are bringingcivilizationto these
savages"-reveals a subtext- "We areusingmilitarypowerto makeEnglandwealthy
by robbingIndia." But thereare morethantwo layersto anyagenda,and we must
not assumethatit's self-interest all thewaydown.The peccavianecdotesuggeststhat
beneaththe subtextof self-interest may lie a noblerself-perception, a place where
guilt is registered.And perhaps,beneaththat,theremay be yet anotherlayer,an
admirationofIndia,a desireto learnfromIndia,perhapsevena genuineifmisguided
desireto give India somethingin return(like Christianity, forinstance,or British
law, or railroads).Americanscholarswho studyIndia also havemanylayers.But the
senseof guilt thatthe excavationof the imperialistsubtexthas generatedhas taken
a terribletollon thestudyofthetextitself.Anti-Orientalism hasled in manyquarters
to a disregardforthephilologyand basic textualworkthatthe Orientalistsdid very
well and thatstill remainsthe basis of soundscholarshipabout India. This need not
be so. The originalanti-Orientalist agendawas monolithicin waysthatsoon came to
be modified,by EdwardSaid himself,amongothers,and byJamesC. Scott.We have
learnedto see not just oppressors and victimsbut oppressors and resisters,subverters,
people who knew,and know,how to wield the weaponsof the weak.
Take, forinstance,the anti-Orientalist argumentthatthe British"invented"or
"imagined"India or Hinduism.I am, as I said, a mythologist, whichis to sayI take
metaphorsliterally,formanymythsaresimplythenarrative embodiment, sometimes
an exaggerated embodiment, ofmetaphors, evencliches(Doniger1998, 3). So I always
imaginedthe BritishimaginingIndia as meaningthat,beforethe Britishgot there,
therewas nothingsouthof the Himalayasbut a black hole,of the Calcuttaor stellar
variety.And then the Britishcame and sat in a circle,holdinghands,eyes tightly
shut,chantinga mantra("Rule Britannia"),until,like AthenafromtheheadofZeus,
like a filecalled forthfroma harddisk, India popped up on the map, on the screen
oftheworld,fullgrown,completewiththewordforHinduismand theLaws ofManu
translatedby Sir William Jonesand the Rig Veda in Max Muller's edition.India,
broughtto you by the people who broughtyou the MassachusettsBay Colonyand
Hong Kong! This conceptalwaysseemed to me profoundly disrespectful of India,
which was quite capable of inventingitselfand went righton inventingitselffor
centuriesbefore,during,and aftertheBritishpresence.3 Granted,theyhad imagined

3AnytalentedIndian sage can imaginethingslike that,as we learnfromthe Yogavasistha

(O'Flaherty1984).
 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 945

themselves,at first,not as citizensof a nationbut as people who lived in thatplace

thatwas different fromotherplaces. And, granted,the anti-Orientalists imagineda
ratherdifferent sortof imaginingby the British,one that conceptualizedIndia for
the.firsttimeas a unitary politicalentity,ratherthana groupofindependent entities,
and Hinduismas a unified religion,and so forth.And,granted,theBritishimagination
did distortand constrainthewaysin whichIndiansrepresented themselvesto others
and, to a lesserextent,to themselves. But Britishideologyneverentirelyreplacedthe
waysin whichIndianshad traditionally regardedthemselves,nor did it erasetheir
knowledgeoftheirown history.The anti-Orientalists themselves havetaughtus how
powerfullanguagecan be, and "imagining"does have the meaningthatI made fun
of just now,a meaningthatdeniesagencyto the Indian imagination.
EdwardSaid, in a long essaythatservedfirstas an introduction to Kim,in 1987,
pointsout thesignificance ofthemomentwhenthe"white-bearded Englishman"who
is the curatorof the museum (a figuremodelled on Kipling's father,Lockwood
Kipling, a famousveterinarian) gives his own glasses to the Tibetan Lama to see
through.(Said does not, however,note the paralleland equally significant giftthat
theTibetangivesto theEnglishman:an antiquebox forpens, thegiftoftexts[Kipling
1987, 601). The metaphorof thegiftofglassescan standnot onlyforthecolonizers'
distortionof the visionof the colonizedbut forthe distortionof our own visionby
any ideology,includingthoseof both Orientalismand anti-Orientalism. Obsessed
with the nineteenth century,thepostcolonialcritiquehas forcedus to look through
monolithic,and henceskewed,spectaclesthatpreventus fromseeinganythingbut
our previousspectacles,theones bequeathedto us by BritishOrientalism.It is time
to stop merelylookingat thoseflawedlensesand to tryto see through them,thatis,
beyondthem and also by means of them,this time correctingforthe Orientalist
astygmatism. It is timeto go back to theOrientalistswithwhatthephilosopherPaul
Ricoeurcalled a "second naivete":an innocencethat has travelledthroughloss of
innocenceto an apparentlyunchangedbut actuallyquite different sortof innocence.
There is much in the colonial scholarshipon India that is worthkeeping; I am
unwillingto throwout the baby with the bath-a judgmentcall thatdependson
how good you thinkthe babyis.
As the irrepressible Lee Siegel put it recently,"Those hegemonic,imperialist,
Euro-centriccolonialistswere such amazing writersand theyknew so much more
aboutIndia thanall ofus. Theycould ridehorses,too."4Those horsesoffer a paradigm
forus to use in our struggleto come to termswiththeblottedcopybookbequeathed
to us by BritishOrientalism.When GyanPrakash'scriticssoughta metaphorforthe
"ambiguityand contradiction"that theysaw in his attitudeto Orientalismthey
accusedhim (as theyaccusedSaid) ofbeingan "inconstantrider"who wantsto "ride
two horses at once," Prakash's two horses being Marxism and poststructuralist
deconstruction (O'Hanlon and Washbrook1992, 167). Prakashrode the equestrian
metaphorrightback at them,with humorand spirit,in his response,"Can the
'Subaltern'Ride?"5He wrote:"The use of the image of the rideris worthpursuing
becauseit illustrateswhat is at issue in the desireformasteryoverambivalence.In
nineteenthcenturyIndia, the Britishused, amongotherthings,the inabilityof the
Western-educated Indian (the Bengali babu)to ride horsesto keep themout of the

4Personalcommunication fromLee Siegel,28 October1996, reLockwoodKipling'sBeast

and Man in India (Doniger 1998, 69).
5The title is a satireon GayatriChakravorty Spivak'sovulararticle,"Can the Subaltern
Speak?"
946 WENDY DONIGER

covenantedcivil service"(Prakash 1992, 169). Here we might also considerthe

complementary Britishtendencyto favorthe Muslims,who rode horsesverywell
indeed,overtheHindus. But we mightalso hearan echo of thehoofbeatsof thetwo
horsesriddenby an Englishmanand an Indian Muslim at the end of E. M. Forster's
A PassageTo India (writtenin 1924); the Englishman,"holdinghim [the Muslim]
affectionately,"
says:
"Whycan'twe be friends
now?. .. It's whatI want.It's whatyouwant."Butthe
horses
didn'twantit-theyswerved apart;theearthdidn'twantit,sendingup rocks
throughwhichriders ..."
mustpasssingle-file
(Forster
1978,312)
The horsesseem to prove-as Kipling said elsewhere-that neverthe twain shall
meet.But Gyan Prakashuses the metaphorof ridingtwo horsesto defendbothSaid
and himselfand to argueforpreciselythesortof balancethatI am arguingforhere;
he concludes,"Let us hang on to two horses,inconstantly."
It seemsamazingto me
thatthisreasonableargumentstill needsto be made; it seemsto me to be flogginga
dead (whitemale Orientalist)horse.

Vedic Horses
The horsesthatappearas metaphorsin thesediscussionsof the Britishin India
aretheshadowsofveryrealhorsesthatwereused bytheBritishand theirpredecessors
throughout Indian history.A paintingfromthe KishangarhSchool of Rajasthan,c.
1740 (see Figure 1, p. 947), perhapspaintedby the rulerof Kishangarh,represents
the stallionAcambha;the horse'sindependenceand minimalharness,and the scale
and pigmentwithwhichhe is depicted-he is much,muchlargerthanthe humans
who surroundhim, and he is opaque while theyare transparent-allof this makes
him appearto be almostsupernatural. Indeed, the humansat his head are offering
him smokingincense,as ifhe werea god. But he has a veryreal history.
Most of thepeopleswho enteredIndia enteredon horsebackand thencontinued
to importhorsesinto India: the people formerly known as Indo-Europeans(who
broughttheirhorseswiththem),6thepeoplewhobecametheMoghuls(whoimported
ArabianhorsesfromCentralAsia and Persia,overlandand by sea) and the British
(who importedthoroughbreds and huntersfromEngland at first,and thenWalers
fromAustralia).
In the Rig Veda,composedin NorthwestIndia in about 1,000 B.C.E., the horse
represented the"Aryas,"as theycalled themselves, againsttheindigenousinhabitants
ofIndia,thedasyusor "slaves,"whoareassociatedwiththeserpentVritra,a mythology
in which(as in the icon of St. George,on horseback,killing the dragon)the horse
thatconquersthe snakerepresents us againstthem(O'Flaherty1986). The political
symbolismof the Vedic horsesacrificeis blatant:the consecratedwhitestallionwas
"set free"to wanderfora yearbeforehe was broughtback homeand killed. During
thatyear,he was guardedby an armythat"followed"him and claimedfortheking
anyland on whichhe grazed.The king'sarmytherefore drovethe horseonwardand
guided him into the lands thatthe king intendedto takeover.Thus the ritualthat
presenteditselfas a casualequinestrollovertheking'slandswas in factan orchestrated

6Thelong-heldassumptionthatthe AryansinvadedIndia has been qualifiedand reeval-

uated in different
waysby Thomas R. Trautmann(1997) and Klaus K. Klostermaier(1994),
takingintoaccountcontemporaryIndian scholarship.
 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 947

Figure 1. The Horse Acambha,KishangarhSchool,Rajasthan,c. 1740,

Watercoloron Paper,PhiladelphiaMuseumof Art:CollectionofDr.
Alvin D. Bellak. Reproducedin Stella Kramrisch,PaintedDelight:Indian
Paintings (Philadelphia:Philadelphia
fromPhiladelphiaCollections
Museum of Art,1986), #74,p. 81. (244-1984-18)

Anschlussof the lands on a king'sborder.No wondertheSanskrittextsinsistthata

king had to be verypowerfulindeed beforehe could undertakea horse sacrifice
(O'Flaherty1986; 1990).
Horses movearoundin searchof new grazingland, whichtheyneed constantly.
Unlike cows,horsespull up the rootsof thegrassor eat it rightdown to theground
so thatit doesn'tgrowback,thusquicklydestroying grazingland,whichmayrequire
someyearsto recover.The horseis constantly in searchofLebensraum,eminentdomain.
And the ancientIndian horse-owners mimickedthis behavior,as theyrespondedto
the need to providegrazingfortheirhorsesonce theyhad capturedthemand kept
themfromtheirnaturalfreegrazinghabits.LikeearlyAmericancowboys,theseIndian
cowboys(an oxymoronin Hollywood)rodeoverotherpeoples' land and took it over
fortheirown herds,in thespiritof"Don't fenceme in" (a conceptexpressedin Vedic
textsby the wordamhas-fromwhichcomesour "anxiety")and "Give me thewide
open spaces" (the wordprithu,"broadand wide," thenameofthe firstking,theman
whose job it was to extendthe boundariesof his territory) (O'Flaherty1976, 321-
48). It is notmerely,as is oftenargued,thatthehorsemadepossibleconquestin war,
throughthe chariot;the horsecame to symbolizeconquestin war,throughits own
naturalimperialism.
But it is not easyfora stallionto findgood grazingland in SouthAsia, forhe is
notwell adaptedto conditionsin mostofthearea.He is uncomfortable in thehumid
948 WENDY DONIGER

heat of the Indianplains,and duringthe monsoonrainshis hoovessoftenin thewet

soil and pieces breakoff,resultingin painful,recurringsores.The Deccan Plateau
and CentralIndia providesuitablegrazingland, but this becomesparchedbetween
May and September(Leshnik1978, 57). ThoughtheIndiansoil apparently hasenough
limeand calciumto supportcattle,it is notgood soil forhorses;contemporarybreeders
now add calcium,manganese,iron,and salt to the horses'diet. AfterIndependence,
Indian breedersfoundsome places suitableforbreeding(thoughI heardHindu and
Parsi stud ownerscomplainthatPakistangot the best grazingland). Today, in the
Punjab, Maharashtra,and Karnataka there is some horse-breeding, and Poona,
Bombay, and Calcutta are breeding centersfor thoroughbredhorses. But the
difficultiesin breedinglargehorsesare perennial.Kathiawarhorsesaregood forlong
distancesin the desertbut are slightlybuilt, not big or fastor strongenoughfor
cavalry;the same is largelytrueof Arabianhorses.And ifno new stockis imported,
the size of importedhorsesin India diminishesdramaticallyin just a fewyears.As
one breedertold me, wistfully,"If we had pasturageall yearround,our horseswould
be an inch taller."7Here we may recall the ideal represented by the horsein the
Kishangarhpainting,so muchtallerthanany real horse.
MarcoPolo, in thethirteenth century,notedthesorrystateofhorsesin Malabar:

No horsesbeingbredin thiscountry, thekingandhisthreeroyalbrothers expend

largesumsofmoneyannually in thepurchase ofthem.. . . [I)t is myopinionthat
theclimateoftheprovince is unfavourableto theraceofhorses, andthatfrom hence
in breeding
arisesthedifficulty orpreservingthem.. . . A mare,although ofa large
size,and coveredbya handsome horse,producesonlya smallill-madecolt,with
distortedlegs,andunfitto be trainedforriding.
(Polo 1908,356-57; 1938,174)

It is not strictlytrue that therewere "no horses... bred" in Marco Polo's time.
Horseswerebredsuccessfully in NorthIndia long beforetheTurkishinvasionsin the
tenthcenturyC.E., and theycontinuedto be bred underthe Moghuls. The British
establisheda stud in Bengal, bred some horsesin the Punjab in Saranpur,and
encouragedbreedingin NorthIndia; at firsttheytriedto establisha Bengal studby
importing"good thorough-bred Englishstallionstogetherwitha supplyofbig, bony,
halfbred Englishhuntingmaresto serveas a breeding-stock," and a small"committee
forthe improvement of the breedof horsesin India" was establishedin 1801 (Alder
1985, 50-51). But horsescontinuedto be importedin large numbersforseveral
reasons.
We have noted the difficulties presentedby the land and climate of India.
Compoundingthisis theallegation,bypeoplewhomayor maynothaveknownwhat
theyweretalkingabout,and who mayor maynothavewantedto slandertheHindus,
that Indian kings and theirservantssimplydid not know how to care forhorses
properly.Marco Polo said that"For foodtheygive themfleshdressedwith riceand
otherpreparedmeats,the countrynot producingany grainbesidesrice"; moreover,
"in consequence,as it is supposed,of theirnot havingpersonsproperlyqualifiedto
takecareofthemor to administertherequisitemedicinesperhapsnotthreehundred
ofthese[fivethousand]remainalive,and thusthenecessity is occasionedforreplacing
themannually"(Polo 1908, 357). Or, in anotherversionof the text,onlya hundred
remainout of two thousand;"theyall die because,theysay,theyhave no groomsto

7Personalcommunication
fromDr. FaroukhWadia at theWadi Stud,Pune,January1996.
 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 949

come to themin sicknessand knowhow to give a remedy;nordo theyknowhow to

care forthem,but theydie frombad care and keeping"(Polo 1938, 174). Kipling
expressesin Kimhis scornfor"native"horsemanagement:"Theywerecampedon a
piece of waste ground beside the railway,and, being natives,had not, of course,
unloadedthe two trucksin whichMahbub's animalsstoodamonga consignment of
country-breds bought by the Bombay tram-company" (Kipling 1987, 185). Note
here,too, the reference to country-breds,an acknowledgedif inferior breed.
In additionto thedifficulties ofbreeding,and possiblemistakesin feeding,there
is a thirdreasonforthe failureof horsesto thrivein India. Marco Polo suggeststhat
it is no accidentthattherewereno "properlyqualified"people to look afterhorsesin
India: "The merchantswho bringthesehorsesto sell do not allow to go there,nor
do theybringthere,grooms,because he wishesthe horsesof thesekings to die in
numberssoon,on purposethattheymaybe able to sell theirhorsesas theywill; from
whichtheymakeverygreatwealtheach year"(Polo 1938, 174). SouthIndianseven
todayspeakoftheArab trickofkeepingnotgroomsbut farriers out ofIndia, so that
the poor horseswere simplyriddenuntil theirhoovesworedown and theydied, a
kind of "plannedmilitaryobsolescence[which]added to the popularnotionof the
horseas an ephemeral,semi-divinecreature(and made forsteadybusinessat theArab
end)" (Inglis 1985). And thispracticehad importantrepercussions upon the history
and mythology of the horsein India.
Aftereach initialconquest,therulersconstantly replenishedtheirherdsofhorses
with new stallions and mares importedfromoutside India, and this constant
importingof new bloodlines made Indian horses extremelyexpensive.Ancient
Sanskritand Tamil sources(such as the Arthasastra and Sangamtexts)observethat
horseshad to be imported,probablyfromParthia.Ninth-and tenth-century Sanskrit
inscriptions tell us the northern route(Biihler1892). This routeis also describedin
Kipling's Kim, set in NorthwestIndia: throughKabul, Peshawar,Pindi, Kangra,
Ambala, Delhi, and Gwalior. Kipling's Russian spies crossover wherethe Aryans
and, later,theTurksenteredIndia, a fewhundredmilesfromthespot in Sind where
Napier had foughta halfcenturyearlier.
But fromtheearliestrecordedperiodin Indian historytherewas also a Southern
route,by sea fromArabia as well as overlandfromCentralAsia. South Indians,
particularly in the vicinityof Madurai,still tell storiesabout the PandyanKings'
energeticimportationof horses(Inglis 1985), and thereis much moreinformation
about the lust for horses among later dynastiessuch as the Nayakas and the
Vijayanagarakings.Thereis ample testimonyfromboth foreignand Indian sources
thatSouth Indians importedas manyas 14,000 horsesa yearvalued at 2,200,000
dinarsof "red gold" (Pusalker1957, 523), and the sixteenth-century South Indian
kingof Vijayanagaris reputedto have imported13,000 horsesannuallyforhis own
personaluse and forhis officers (Nagaswamy1984). Duringthissameperiod,10,000
Arabic and Persianhorseswere importedinto Malabar everyyear(Mookerji 1912,
195).8 In Marco Polo's time,a horsecost 500 saggi of gold, or 100 marksof silver
(Polo 1908, 357; 1938, 174). When the Europeansarrivedin India in the Moghul
period, horseswere veryexpensiveanimals,the best ones costingup to $10,000
(Digby 1971). Heavy lossesat sea are theprimaryreasonfortheirhighcost(Leshnik
1978, 56); since horsescannot throwup, sea-sicknessis almost alwaysfatal,and
"shippingsuchfragileand valuablecargoin a pitchingEast Indiamanon a six-month
journeyhalfwayroundthe world"was a costlyand riskyventure.Britishhorsesalso

8Portugesetraderslike Payez,Nunez, and Diaz wroteextensively

about the horsetrade.
950 WENDY DONIGER

became morescarce,and even moreexpensive,whenso manyof themwereused in

the NapoleonicWars (Alder 1985, 50-51).
Since horseswereso expensive,no native,villagetraditionofhorsesdevelopedin
India as it did amongthe nativesofIrelandor Egypt,wherefarmers or nomadskept
horses.Stall feeding,essentialduring the dry months,is out of the question for
subsistencefarmers, and, in any case, the horseis rarelyused as a workanimal in
India. It does not pull the plough,it seldomcarriesa pack, and exceptin Sind and
thePunjab,it is notriddenmucheither.The onlycommonuse forthehorsein India
was, formerly, formilitarypurposes,and, nowadays,forpulling carriages(Leshnik
1978, 57). ThroughoutIndianhistory, horseshavebelongedonlyto peoplewhowere
not merely economically "other" than the Hindu villagers-aristocrats-but
politicallyand religiously"other."Though thesepeople were oftenof low (or no)
social statusin the castesystem,theyhad to have had superiorpoliticalor economic
powers to be able to affordthe cost of maintaininghorsesin India. The horse
represented this power; the tax-collector,
or the punitivemilitaryexpedition,rode
into thevillageon horseback.

Muslim Horses

Since the beginningof the invasionsofIndia by theTurks,who wereto become

the Moghuls,Muslimshaveplayedthe role of good-and-evilforeigners in the horse
mythologiesof India. Hindus as well as Muslimsworshipat the shrinesof Muslim
"horsesaints"(Crooke1896, 2.206). A traceofmystery, perhapsalso ofresentment,
but also ofglamor,hedgesone ofthebest-known SouthIndianstoriesaboutMuslim/
Arab horses,a storyoftenretold,in Tamil, Telugu, and otherDravidianlanguages.9
This versionis froma SouthIndian textcomposedin Sanskritin the earlysixteenth
century:
Vatavur hadspenton theworship ofShivathemoneygivenhimbythekingtobuy
horses.Shivaappearedto Vatavurand said,"I will bringexcellent horses;go to
Madurai."Dayspassedand no horsesarrived. The kingemprisoned Vatavur,who
prayed toShiva.ThenShiva,transforminga wholepackofjackalsintohorses,himself
puton thecostume ofa horse-dealer.
Havingtakentheform ofa supreme
horseman,
he himselfchosea horsethatwassplitting opentheearthwithhishoofin orderto
adorntheform ofhim[i.e.,ofShiva]withthesnakes[thatlivedunderground], and
theduston Shiva'sfacewasblownawaybythehissingofthesnakesthatheworein
his hair.The kinghad thehorsesbrought to his palace.He spentthewholeday
throwing to thehorsesfoodsuchas chickpeas[canakaj.Thenthesunset.Thehorses
wentbackto theirjackalhood, gobbledup all thehorsesoftheking,andwentto
theforests,likelions,theirmouthssmearedwithblood.The groomsreported the
variousevildeedsofthehorses.
(Mandalakavi, Pandyakulodaya
7.1-48)

Many Hindu mythsdepictShiva as the ultimateother,an Untouchable(O'Flaherty

1976, 272-320). It is thusnotreallysurprisingto findhimdepictedhereas a Muslim,
or at least no moresurprisingthanit is to findthe god Dharma,the incarnationof

9Thiswell-knownstoryis told in severalversionsof Manikkavacakar's

biography,in the
Tiruvatavurar
Purana(a fifteenth-century
hagiography)and theTiruvilaiyatal
Puranam;seealso
Pope 1900, xx-xxvii,and Yocum 1982, 51-52, 62.
 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 951

Hindu religiouslaw, incarnateas a dog (an animal that caste Hindus regardas an
uncleanscavenger)at the end of the greatSanskritepic, the Mahabharata(17.2.26,
17.3.7-23). The statementthatthesehorseseat otherhorsesrevealsthis as a myth
told by people who do not know horses,forsuch people generallyfearthe horse's
mouth,withits big teeth.This is a dangerousmisconception, for,as everyhorseman
and horsewomanknows,thoughhorsescan indeed bite, it is the otherend of the
horsethatposes the realdanger-the back hooves-and horsesare in anycase strict
vegetarians.The devouringequinemouthis a projectionontothehorseoftheviolence
thatwe inflictupon himin taminghim,throughthe use of the bit, in the mouth.
A different sortofIndianhorse-story, fromNorthIndia,tellsus thatseventy-two
riders,includingone woman,came fromthe sea and landed in Kutch, not farfrom
Napier's Sind; these people, called Jakhs, saved the local villagers from the
depredationsof a demon; the horseswerethensent to Delhi, and on the way they
fertilizedthe local mares(Jain1985, 24); or,accordingto anothervariant,the riders
themselvesblessedchildlesswomen,includingthe Queen, with children(Williams
1958, 83). In someversions,theriderskill nota demonbut a human,a tyrantnamed
Punvro(or Punvaro),who had cut offthe handsof the architectwho had built the
city of Patan (or Padhargadh)so that he mightnot constructanythinglike it for
anotherprince(Williams 1958, 83; Kramrisch1964, 55). Even today,villagersin
Kutch make statuesof the seventy-two horsesand offersweetrice to the horsemen
and ask themforboons(Narayan1999).
Most versionsof this mythemphasizethe skin-colorof the invaders;theyare
"white-skinned foreignerssaid to havecome in the thirteenth
centuryfromAnatolia
and Syria"(Kramrisch1964, 55), or "white-skinned, horse-riding foreigners
from
Central Asia," or Greeks,Romans, Scythians,or White Huns, "tall and of fair
complexion,blue or grey-eyed"(Williams 1958, 84-86). According to Stella
Kramrisch,theystandfortheTurks:

Harkingbackto other,untoldmemories fromInnerAsianhorse-herding

cultures,
horsemen
theseapocalyptic transmute
thefeargenerated
byMusliminvasionsinto
Indiaintoa liberating
legendin whichtheevilpowerdoesnotcomefromoutside
butis local,embodiedin thetyrant
Punvaro.
(Kramrisch
1964,55)

Kramrischsees theseinvadersas liberatingMuslims;but C.R. Williams sees themas

people liberatedfromMuslims,as "Zoroastrians fromthe northern partsofIran,who,
duringthe whole of thisperiod,wereemigratingto India in searchof the religious
tolerationwhichIslamic persecutorsdenied themin theirown country"(Williams
1958, 88).
Let us table forthe momentthe questionof whetherthe invadersare liberating
Muslims or liberatedanti-Muslims,and ask, Who is Punvro?Onto an apparently
historicalrulerthismythmayhave graftedthe mythof the tyrantwho cuts offthe
hands of artists,calling upon not "untold memories"of Inner Asia but another,
historicallyspecific,mythabout the British,who treatedthe weaversin Bengal so
cruelly(thereis abundanttestimony about this[Mukherjee1974, 300-31) thatthey
werewidelybelieved,apparently on no evidence,to havecut offtheweavers'thumbs,
or, on the basis of one piece of dubious evidence,to have so persecutedthe winders
ofsilk thattheycut offtheirown thumbsin protest(Bolts 1772, 194).10 The legend

'0The thumb-cutting
storyis foundin contemporary
Britishaccountsfromthe 1770s,
952 WENDY DONIGER

lives on today in a contemporary storyabout an artisanfromKutch who made a

diabolicallycleverbox witha gun insideit, whichfiredwhenanyoneopenedthebox;
he gave it to Dalhousie (the same GovernorGeneralDalhousie with whom Napier
quarrelled),who gave it in turnto his adjutant(thatis to say,his subaltern)to open;
the adjutantwas killed, and Dalhousie had the craftman'shands cut off(Narayan
1999). The mythof the weavers'thumbsmay also have grownout of the famous
Mahabharatastoryof Ekalavya,a dark-skinned, low-casteboy whoseskill at archery
rivalledthatofthenobleheroes;to maintaintheirsupremacyas archers,theirteacher
demandedthatEkalavyacut offhis rightthumb(Mahabharata1.123).
The mythof Punvro,in Kramrisch'sgloss, turnsthishistoryon its head,as the
Muslims save the good citizens of Kutch fromthe British,an inversionof the
sentimentwidelyexpresedin Chennai(Madras)today,thattheBritish,especiallythe
earlyEast India Company,liberatedHindus in SouthIndia fromMuslimcontroland
playednotmerelya neutralbuta positiverolein establishingan even-handed attitude
In discussingthisargument,JoanneWaghorne,
to all religionsin its new territory.
like Gyan Prakash,invokedtheequestrianmetaphor,beginningwiththetitleofher
article: "Chariotsof the God/s: Riding the Line betweenHindu and Christian"
(Waghorne1999). But we mustalso bewareofthatversionofthemyth(the "British
savingHindus fromMuslims"version),forthe same argumentwas made by Napier,
in the continuation of thepassagejustifyinghis soundsleep: "My consciencewill be
light,forI see no wrongin so regulatinga set oftyrants who arethemselves invaders,
and havein sixtyyearsnearlydestroyedthecountry.The people hatethem"(Napier
1857, 2.275).
Thus, different versionsof theequestrianmythcast different actorsas the native
villainand theinvadingheroes.This Kutchtraditionmayormaynotknowtheancient
Vedic mythofthehegemonichorsetramplingthenative/demonic serpent(O'Flaherty
1992); we haveheretheanthropomorphic, formofthemytheme,
and quasi-historical,
horsementramplingnatives.But theVedic bias is maintained:theinvadinghorsemen
are the heroes.The Vedic horsemenare replacedby Muslimsor Anatolians,even by
Untouchablesand Tribal peoples in somevariants(Crooke1896, 2.206; Sontheimer
1984), while the Dasyus, or Vedic Others,are replacedby a demon,a Patan tyrant
or,by implication,theBritish.This plasticitykeptthemythalive in widelyvarying
contexts(Doniger1990, 79-108) whichexpress,in verydifferent ways,theconnection
betweenhorsesand aliens or foreigners. The confusionof thevillainsand the heroes
in the storyof Punvarois no accident;the mythis rifewithobfuscation, as well as a
kind of invertedsubversion,subversionfrom the top down: it speaks of the
assimilationof the valuesof the conquerorsby thosewho are conquered,expressing,
as it were,thesnake-eyeview ofhorses,but in a positivelight.Certainlyit is a myth
about,and probablyby,invadersthatmanipulatesthenativesymbolismofhorsesand
snakesin sucha wayas to make the invadersthe heroes,the nativesthevillains,in a
myththatthentookrootwithinthefolkloreofthenatives.It's all done withmirrors,
whichis to say,withmyths.
whentherewas fiercerivalrybetweenvariousfactionsoftheEast India Company'sservantsin
Bengaland theirsupporters incident,reportedbyWilhelmBolts,
in London.The silk-winders'
a highlydisreputableand probablyunreliablewitness,writingagainsthis rivalsin theCom-
pany,foundits way into Edmund Burke'sattackson WarrenHastingsand theninto Indian
writingsin English in the late nineteenthcentury.The weaverswere caught betweenthe
rapacityof the Indian agentswho servedas middlemenand theyoungEnglishmenforwhom
theyworked.But no contemporary Hindu orMuslim,seemto havementioned
Bengaliwriters,
theweavers'alleged mutilation,perhapsbecausetheyattachedlittleimportanceto whathap-
pened to weavers,who werelow-casteMuslimsand Hindus.
 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 953

Now thatEdwardSaid has pulled the scalesfromourpostcolonialeyes,we must

take accountof thepeople who constructed thismyth,who perpetuatedit, recorded
it, translatedit, selectedit. The popularlegendsconcerningtheseeventswere"first
collectedon thespotand writtendownbyMajor(laterSirAlexander)Burnesin 1826;
copied with minorvariationsby Mrs. Postans(1839) and later writersand finally
embodiedin the 'standard'accountof Kutch (otherwisea generallyreliablesource)
in Volume V of the Gazetteer oftheBombay Presidencyin 1880" (Williams 1958, 83).
It shouldby now be clear,and will soon becomeclearer,whythe Britishmighthave
wantedto preservethismyth.But we are still hardpressedto explaintheacceptance
and perdurancein Hindu India of otherformsof thisequine mythology, suchas the
mythof the jackal horses,whichhas been subjectto farless Britishmediationand
still expressesa surprisingly positiveattitudeto the equestrianconquerorsof India.

BritishHorses and Kipling's Kim

The mythof the liberatinginvaderridinghis stallioncontinuedto cast its ole

whitemagicovertheBritish.SirCharlesNapierwas crazyabouta half-Arabian horse
named Blanco, "perfectly white,"whom he rode, talked to, and talked about, for
sixteenyears.Blancodied in theBay ofBiscaywhilebeing,perversely, exportedfrom
Portugalto England (Napier 1857, 1.164-66, 186, 346, 351, 385; Napier 1990,
58); sparingno expense,Napierhad triedto shiptheold horsehomelikea pensioned-
offIndian Civil Servant,to spendhis finaldaysout at grass-good pasturageat last.
The whitestallionwas immortalized by Kipling in his novelKim.Napier'scode,
in the anecdote,was a messagesentabout a war; the firstchapterofKimintroduces
a messageabout a war,coded not in Latin but in horses,validating"the pedigreeof
the whitestallion."Again, it is a triplecode, whosefirsttwo levelsare easyenough
to crack.Ostensibly,on thefirstlevel,it meansthattheMuslimhorse-trader Mahbub
Ali, who is in the serviceof Creighton,is able to vouchfora valuablehorsethatthe
Colonel may buy. The coded messageon the secondlevel is thata provocationhas
occurredthatwill justifya Britishattack,an achievement much like Napier's.
is morecomplex.The idea of a pedigreeimplies
The thirdlevel of signification
thatyou knowthehorsewhenyou knowits fatherand mother(or dam and sire);the
breedingofhorses,of "bloodstock,"ofthoroughbreds, was at theheartofa theoryof
the breedingofhumans,a theoryofrace.Kim is evensaid to have "whiteblood,"an
oxymoron. I need notpointout the significance of the colorofthe stallionin a book
by Kipling (who coinedthephrase,"the whiteman's burden").But we mightrecall
that the Vedic stallionof the ancientHindus, the symbolof expansionistpolitical
power,was also white,in contrastwiththe Dasyus or Dasas, the serpentinenatives,
who were said to come from"dark wombs" (Rig Veda 2.20.7). Britishracistideas,
supportedbya complexpseudoscientific ideology,rodepiggybackon (or,as onewould
say nowadays,appropriated)alreadyexistingHindu ideas about darkand lightskin
conceivedwithoutthe supportof a racisttheorylike thatof the British;one might
say that the Indians "imagined" color prejudiceforthemselvesbeforethe British
imaginedit againstthem.The whitestallionalso implicitlyrepresents Kim's Irish
father,in the metaphorthat Creightonand Mahbub Ali apply to Kim, behindhis
back:Kim is a coltwhomustbe gentledintoBritishharnessto playthegame(Kipling
1987, 161). On theotherhand,to Kim's faceMahbub Ali uses thevariousbreedsof
horsesas a paradigmfor multiculturalism beforeits time; in responseto Kim's
954 WENDY DONIGER

questionabout his own identity(he felthe was a Sahib among Sahibs,but "among
the folkofHind ... What am I? Mussalman,Hindu,Jain,or Buddhist?"),Mahbub
Ali answers:"This matterof creedsis like horseflesh. ... the Faiths are like the
horses.Each has meritin its own country"(Kipling 1987, 191).
In recorded British history,too, horse-breeding,spying, and Orientalism
combinedin the characterof William Moorcroft, a famousequine veterinarian. In
1819, theBritishsenthim to NorthwestIndia, as faras Tibet and Afghanistan, on a
quixoticsearchfor"suitablecavalrymounts"(Yang 1998, 116). Moorcroft had seen
maresfromKutchthathe thoughtmightbe suitableforthearmy(Alder1985, 105),
and he was grantedofficialpermission"to proceedtowardstheNorthWesternparts
of Asia, forthe purpose of thereprocuringby commercialintercourse, horsesto
improvethebreedwithintheBritishProvinceor formilitaryuse" (Alder1985, 209).
But he "collectedinformation not onlyon militarysuppliesbut also on poiiticaland
economicconditionsobtainingat the peripheriesof the Empire"(Yang 1998, 116),
and shortlybeforehis mysteriousfinal disappearance,in 1824, he was briefly
imprisonedin the Hindu Kush on suspicionof being a spy (Alder 1985, 341).
Moorcroft had delusionsofOrientalism;he tolda friendthathe wouldhavedisguised
himself"as a Fakeer"ratherthangive up his plan (Alder 1985, 209), and afterhe
was lost, presumeddead, in August of 1825, legends circulatedabout "a certain
Englishmannamed Moorcroftwho introducedhimselfinto Lha-Ssa, under the
pretenceof being a Cashmerian,"or who spoke fluentPersian "and dressedand
behavedas a Muslim" (Alder 1985, 209, 357-58). The finalpiece of Orientalismin
hislifewasposthumous:from1834 to 1841 hispaperswereeditedbyHoraceHayman
Wilson,secretary oftheAsiaticSocietyofBengal and theBoden Professor ofSanskrit
at Oxford(Alder 1985, 367). Accordingto his biographer, Moorcroftwas thrilledby
the storieshe heard"fromthe north-western horse-traders-swarthy, beardedmen
like Kipling'sMahbubAli" (Alder1985, 107). But KiplingcreatedMahbubAli fifty
yearsafterthe publicationof Moorcroft'spapers,and aspects of the charactersof
Creighton,Mahbub Ali, and Kim himselfmayhave been inspiredby Moorcroft.
In his surprisinglyappreciativeessay on Kim, Edward Said wrestleswith his
conflictedfeelingsabout Kipling. On the one hand,Said demonstrates how deeply
embedded,indeedcoded,in Kimis theracistand imperialistviewforwhichKipling
became notorious.But, on the other hand, Said speaks of Kim as "profoundly
embarrassing" (Said 1987, 45)-for Said, and forus, foranyreaderscaughtbetween
theirwarm responseto the artistryof the book and theirrevulsionat the racist
terminology and ideology.Said speaksofKipling as "a greatartistblindedin a sense
by his own insightsabout India," who sets out to advancean obfuscatingvisionof
imperialIndia, but "not onlydoes he not trulysucceedin this obfuscation, but his
veryattemptto use the novel forthis purposereaffirms the qualityof his aesthetic
integrity."SalmanRushdie,too,has writtenofhis ambivalencetowardthegood-and-
evil Kipling (Rushdie 1991) and, I think,modelledthe heroof Midnight's Children
on Kim: a boy withEnglishblood who appearsto be bothHindu and Muslim. But
Rushdie reversesthe point about race: the English blood doesn'tmatterat all, nor
the Hindu blood; the boy is a Muslim becausehe is raisedas a Muslim.
The ambivalencethatSaid and RushdieexpressedtowardsKipling was matched
by that of the poet W. H. Auden, who began the finalsectionof his poem on the
deathof thepoet William ButlerYeats (1940) withtheseverses:

Timethatis intolerant
ofthebraveandinnocent,
 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 955

Andindifferentin a week
to a beautiful
physique,
Worships languageandforgives
Everyone bywhomit lives;
Pardonscowardice, conceit,
Laysitshonours at theirfeet.
Timethatwiththisstrange excuse
PardonsKiplingandhisviews,
AndwillpardonPaulClaudel,
Pardonshimforwriting well.

Audeneventuallydecidednotto pardonKiplingand hisviews;he excisedtheseverses

fromsubsequenteditions,but notbeforethousandsofreadersin theEnglish-speaking
worldhad memorizedthelines,whichareverypowerfulin preciselythewaythat,as
George Orwell pointed out, Kipling's own verse is powerful.Orwell argued that
Kipling is a "good bad poet," who wrotethe kind of poetrythatyou would like to
forgetbut thatyouremember, almostagainstyourwill,moreeasily,and longer,than
good poetry(Orwell 1954, 135). Rushdie,too,concludeshis essayby saying,"There
will alwaysbe plentyin Kipling thatI finddifficult but thereis also enough
toforgive;
truthin thesestoriesto make themimpossibleto ignore"(Rushdie 1991, 80; italics
added). Nowadays,theFrencharereviving(ifnotnecessarily pardoning)Paul Claudel,
while Anglophonesread, and remember,Kipling. And Edward Said used his first
officialpresidentialcolumn in the Modern Language Association'snewsletterto
denounce-bad writing(Smith1999).
Kim is a novelwrittenabout, and out of,the Britishlove of India. In part,of
course,thatlovewas like thelove ofanotherEnglishman,Shakespeare'sHenryV, for
France,as he explainsto his Frenchbride:"I love Franceso well, thatI will notpart
witha villageof it; I will have it all mine" (Shakespeare,
HenryV, 5.2.182-83). But
thatis nottheonlykindoflove thereis, evenin theheartsofotherdead whitemales
who "loved"thecivilizationsofpeoplewithdarkerskins.The Britishalso lovedIndia
forthe rightreasons,reasonswhichjump offeverypage of Kim-the beautyof the
land, the richnessand intensityof humaninteractions-andwhichcan still be our
rightreasons:becausethe studyofIndia stretchesour understanding ofwhatit is to
be humanand enrichesour lives with the productsof its imagination,so different
fromour own.

The GiftHorse

The symbolof the horsebecame embeddedin the folktraditionsof India and

thenstayedthereevenafterits referent, the horse,had vanishedfromthescene,even
afterthe foreignershad foldedtheirtentsand gone away. To this day, horsesare
worshippedall overIndia by people who do not have horsesand seldomeven see a
horse,in places wherethe horsehas neverbeen trulya part of the land. In Orissa,
terracottahorsesare givento variousgods and goddessesto protectthe donorfrom
inauspiciousomens,to cure illness,or to guard the village (Huyler 1985, 162). In
West Bengal,clay horsesare offeredto all the villagegods, male or female,fierceor
benign,thoughparticularly to DharmaThakur,thesungod. At Kenduliin Birbhum,
clay horsesare offeredon the graveof a Tantricsaint named Kangal Kshepa, and
Bengali parentsofferhorseswhen a child firstcrawlssteadilyon its handsand feet
956 WENDY DONIGER

like a horse(Bhattacarya 1978, 48-49). In Tamil Nadu, as manyas fivehundredlarge

clayhorsesmaybe preparedin one sanctuary, mostofthemstandingbetween15 and
25 feettall (includinga large base), and involvingthe use of severaltons of stone,
brick,and eitherclay,plaster,or cement(Inglis 1980, 298, 302, 304). They are a
permanentpartof the templeand may be renovatedat ten-to twenty-year intervals;
the construction of a massivefigureusuallytakes betweenthreeto six months.In
Balikondala,votivehorses,or thakuranis, areprovidedas vehiclesforthegods to ride
at nightto protectthe fieldsand visitthe infirm;and thereare terracottahorsesin
the Shaivitetempleon the edge of thevillage (Huyler 1985, 105; 1981, 200). New
horsesare constantlyset up, "while the old and brokenones are leftto decay and
returnto the earthof whichtheyweremade" (Kramrisch1964, 57). The horsesare
said to be riddenby spiritriderswho patroltheborders ofthevillages,a rolethatmay
echo boththe roleoftheVedic horsein pushingback thebordersoftheking'srealm
and the horse'sassociationwith aliens on the bordersof Hindu society.But the
villagersdo not expressany explicitawarenessof the associationof the horseswith
foreigners; theythinkof the horsesas theirown.
A Marxistmightview the survivalof the mythology of the aristocratichorseas
an impositionof the lies of the rulersupon thepeople,an exploitationof themasses
by saddlingthemwitha mythologythatneverwas theirsnorwill everbe fortheir
benefit, a foreignmythology thatproducesa falseconsciousness, distortingthenative
conceptualsystem,compoundingthefelonyoftheinvasionitself.A Freudian,on the
otherhand,mightsee in the nativeacceptanceof thisforeignmythology theprocess
ofprojectionor identification bywhichone overcomesa feelingofangerorresentment
or impotencetowardanotherpersonbyassimilatingthatpersonintooneself,becoming
theother.Thoughthereis muchto be said fortheseinterpretations, I would wantto
augmentthembypointingout thatmythsaboutoppressiveforeigners and theirhorses
sometimesbecame a positivefactorin the lives of those whom theyconqueredor
dominated;and that the horsecult did not supplantbut rathersupplementedthe
continuingworshipofother,morenativeanimals-such as snakes.
The corpusofHindu mythsthatdepicttheTurksand Arabsbringinghorsesinto
India seemsto haveassimilatedthe historicalexperienceofthe importation ofhorses
notonlyto thelingeringvestiges-the culturalhoofprints, as it were-of Vedic horse
myths,but also to themorewidespeadthemeof"magicalhorsesbroughtfromheaven
or theunderworld." The mythis, like thehorse,a giftfromthesea,or fromthesky-
froman otherworld. And like all greatsymbols,the horseis oftensusceptibleto
inversionas well as subversion:the horseof the conquerorsbecomesthe horseof the
conquered.This mythology lendsthe horse,overand above its naturalallure,all the
glamorand pathosof the interiorroomas watchedby thechildoutside,pressingher
nose against the windowpane.This is an othernessnot loathed but admired,not
despisedbutcoveted;it is an otherness thathas beenassimilatedintothenativesystem
of values. The villagerswho recognizethat the horse belongs to those who have
politicalpowermaybe worshippingthehorsein orderto gain someofthatpowerfor
themselves.But thisis not all thatis happening.
Severalparallelpowerrelationships are expressedthroughthe symbolismof the
horsein contrastwiththeserpent,on theone hand,and therider,on theother.Rider
is to horseas horseis to snake:power,and domination,travelsdown the line. First
comesthepowerstructure betweenhumansand horses;thenbetweenpeopleofpower
and people withoutsuch power; betweenforeigners and natives;and, specifically,
betweenBritishand Muslims,on the one hand, and Muslims and Hindus, on the
other.But who is represented bythehorse,who bytheserpent,and who is therider?-
 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 957

Though the village terracottahorsemay expressan implicitwish forthe powerof

thosewho have horses,its worshippersseem to seek the powerof the horseitself:
fertilityas well as politicalpower.
For the horseis, afterall, a contradictorysymbolof humanpoliticalpower.It is
an animalthatinvadesotherhorses'territory but whosefirstinstinctis alwaysnotto
attackbut to runaway.Horsesare preyratherthanpredators,as is evidencedby the
factthattheyhavetheireyestowardthe back of theirheads,thebetterto flee,rather
thanin thefront,like thecatsand otherhunters.Like thevillagerswhoworshiphim,
the horsehas been oppressedand robbedof his freedomby humanbeingswho made
up storiesabout horses.The fragility of the horseis well representedby the fragile,
ephemeralmediumin whichvillagersusuallyrepresent him: clay.The horseis thus
both victim and victimizer,a ready-madenatural/cultural symbol of political
inversion.The mostbasic powerbeyondmanpower,horsepower is whatwe still use
as a touchstone, a basisformeasuringothersortsofmechanicalpower.But horsesare
not machines;people who workwithhorsesknowthatyou are neverin control,that
you neverentirelytamea horse,who remainsat somelevelalwayswild. And, finally,
the horseis a potentnaturalsymbolof thingsotherthanpower:fertility, as we have
seen,but also beauty,whichpeople continueto careabout evenwhenit is clearlynot
in theirbest intereststo do so. Horses are numinous;theycaptivatethe eye, they
inspiredesire,theyhave magic. Their allure infectseven people who know, on a
rationallevel,thathorsesaren'tgood forthem.And thisallureis whatIndianartistans
tryto capturein theirreligiousimages;it is whatmakesthemtreathorseslike gods.
The Hindu villagers'abilityto appreciatethebeautyand powerofa creaturethat
was the instrument of greatpolitical injuryto them might inspireus to tryonce
again to appreciatethe tarnishedbut preciousgift bequeathed to us by British
Orientalists.Sometimeswe cannothelp lookinga gifthorsein the mouthpiece,or
even in the ideology,but we can still accept the gift. Flawed as they are, the
Orientalistsare our ancestors,and, as Hamlet wiselycautioned,"Use each man after
his own deserts,and who shall 'scape whipping?"(Hamlet2.2.545). We know that
most of the BritishOrientalistssharedKipling's views,but theyare not all alike;
some are betterthanothers.Can we pardonthemforwritingwell?
The Auden poem (1966, 143) ends witha versethathe did not excise:
In thedeserts
oftheheart
Letthehealingfountainstart,
In theprisonofhisdays,
Teachthefreemanhowto praise.

Emprisonedas we are,as Said taughtus to realizethatwe are,in thetwistedideologies

ofthefoundersofour discipline,we muststillfindwaysnotonlyto praisewhatthey
praised,but to praisethem,too.

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