The Tribal and I

Even though for us, the British Raj was about nothing other than the British imperialist forces imposing themselves on the natives, the East India Company and the subsequent direct British rule government did carry a moral justification, however lame it may seem to us, for their imperial conquest. This moral justification was found within the loaded notion of 'development'. The British carried with them a certain idea of 'change' that they intended to bring about or impose upon the Indian society. Their idea of what changes were needed was based upon a very specific understanding of Indian society and culture, an understanding that is now severely criticised for its generalisations and inaccuracies. In order to aid their understanding they made a very Durkheimian move of creating rigid categories that essentialised several aspects of 'Indianness.'

India, as a geographical location and locality, was fixated; in order to satisfy its understanding of religion, various disparate religions were all grouped into this single label of Hinduism -- the religion of the people of Hind. Hinduism was then placed in opposition to Islam, the religion of the foreign Arab, Persian and Mongol rulers. Even though this categorisation by itself might not seem problematic, and at best an academic issue, what followed from this categorisation became a very significant issue for the colonial subjects. It was these very categories and generalities that the British used to chalk out their plan for bringing about development and change.

Post-colonial scholars such as Edward Said have written a lot about the lack of understanding that was inherent in the Western Imperialist's models of change. Even 'people's writers' such as Karl Marx were susceptible to this Orientalist attitude suggesting a very fixed and westernised model of progress and change.

Common everyday modern morality does not deem every change bought under this dharma of 'development' as inherently evil. Actions such as suppression of local languages and literary materials continue to be condemned from all quarters, while actions such as the banning of Sati continue to receive commendation. But what about acts like commodifying land, which on the one hand did 'modernise' the nation by bringing them into the (pre)capitalist stage of progress but on the other hand deeply disturbed the societal setup creating much of the feudalistic tendencies we are dealing with today. How should we, as post-colonial actors, see this action and several other actions that fall in this gray area: as a social advancement or as a corrupting act undertaken by an imperialist force with no understanding of local customs?

In more modern times we continue to criticise the west for its lack of understanding of eastern cultures and its jingoistic tactics. We continue to condemn it for not truly understanding non-western social norms and using a westernised lens to judge non-western cultures. Let's take, for example, the issue of the veil worn by women in Islam; just as the West with its ideals of liberty and human rights continues to campaign against it on the basis of the veil being oppressive towards women, we continue to try and rationalise it and point out the west's inability to grasp the true spirit behind the act of wearing a veil.

With the emergence of Boasian school of thought and the Post-modernist theories, there has been a trend to push for cultural relativism, a principle which suggests that all beliefs and practices should be judged from within the framework of the culture in which they are present. Put simply, there is a push to 'not judge other'. We, the non-westerners who in a global frame of reference become the subaltern group, are well aware of the virtue of this theory and continue to use in discourses with the West. But even as we raise the banner of relativism against the western world and the imperialist forces, we fail to be cultural relativists in our own rhetoric concerning the subaltern groups within us (especially with tribal cultures such as those prevalent in Balochistan and NWFP).

The meta-narrative about these tribal areas continues to be one of bringing about 'progress' and 'development' (British Raj's catchphrase). We continue to criticise them for their primitive setup, for preferring the Jirga system over the modern legal system, for their strictly hierarchical setup. We, too, like the British lump up all tribal setups into a single category and generalise to a great extent. Like the British our understanding of 'their' culture is not based on a thorough study but more on our 'feeling' towards them and a sense of our own superiority.

So even though we remain critical of imperialist powers for failing to be culturally relative and point out at their lack of understanding of native culture and their God-like attitude of a social architect; we the urbanised and 'civilized' portion of the population are guilty of committing the same mistake while dealing with 'folk cultures.'

When I placed this very issue of cultural relativism in front of a Marxist friend of mine, he almost immediately accused me of harboring 'pot-modernist bourgeoisie' tendencies, he felt that if one becomes a cultural relativist to the fullest one cannot be critical of any aspect of any culture. Even though my friend's statement had a strong bias to it, it did raise a very significant problem, a problem that has been implicit in the examples I have given in my article: how can cultural relativism and activism go together? My friend was right, relativism extended to the maximum results in complete paralysis. A pure relativist can not be a party to any campaign for social or cultural change. But from our experiences under the British Raj and as part of the 'misunderstood' culture we are aware of the merits and importance of cultural relativism. So the question really is how can we strike a perfect balance between the two? How can we be supporters of social change without being social architects? Specifically, in terms of Pakistan, a post-colonial nation state in which the majority of the population adheres to a sense of cultural modality quite distinct from the liberalised world, how can we advocate any change in these alternate cultures while at the same time not falling into the 'oriental' trap of failing to be culturally relative?