The performativity of nonviolent protest in South Asia (1918 - 1948) [Elektronische Ressource] / Sruti Bala

Sutri Bala

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Theatre

Informations

• Publié par: johannes_gutenberg-universitat_mainz
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 12
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 8 Mo

Extrait

The Performativity of Nonviolent Protest
in South Asia (1918–1948)



Sruti Bala












Die vorliegende Arbeit wurde vom Fachbereich 05
(Philosophie und Philologie) der Johannes Gutenberg-
Universität Mainz im Jahr 2007 als Dissertation zur
Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines Doktors der
Philosophie (Dr. phil.) angenommen.


The Performativity of Nonviolent Protest
in South Asia (1918–1948)

1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................. 4
2 THEORISING NONVIOLENCE .................................................................... 10
2.1 Principled and pragmatic nonviolence..........................................................12
2.2 Misconceptions and boundary areas.............................................................18
2.2.1 "Nonviolent action is inaction": the boundary to action................................ 20
2.2.2 "Nonviolence is the absence of violence": the boundary to violence............. 25
2.2.3 "Nonviolence rarely works": the boundary to the opponent in conflict ......... 30
2.2.4 "Nonviolence is spiritual": the boundary to the body.................................... 40
3 THEORISING PERFORMATIVITY IN THE STUDY OF
NONVIOLENCE............................................................................................. 46
3.1 Four shades of the performative ...................................................................49
3.1.1 To test – to achieve ...................................................................................... 52
3.1.2 To speak – to do........................................................................................... 54
3.1.3 To play – to display ..................................................................................... 56
3.1.4 To become – to take on form........................................................................ 60
3.2 Re-articulating the performative in nonviolent action.................................63
3.2.1 Performing refusal: theorising action ........................................................... 64
3.2.2 Paradox of performance: theorising response to violence ............................. 67
3.2.3 The necessity of the opponent: theorising the other in conflict ..................... 69
3.2.4 Intercorporeality: theorising the body in conflict.......................................... 71
4 CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE IN SOUTH ASIA (1918-1948) ............................... 74
4.1 Fasting as a weapon of nonviolence: the case of Gandhi..............................78
4.1.1 Cultural context of the fast........................................................................... 79
4.1.2 Typology of fasts as a political tool.............................................................. 83
4.1.3 Political dramaturgy of the fast .................................................................... 91
4.1.4 Responses to the fast.................................................................................. 104
4.1.5 Significance of the body............................................................................. 112
4.1.6 Gendering nonviolence through the fast ..................................................... 123
4.1.7 Authenticity and authority in nonviolent action.......................................... 129
4.1.8 Theatricality of the fast .............................................................................. 136
2
4.2 Unarmed soldiers in a nonviolent army: The Khudai Khidmatgar
movement .....................................................................................................140
4.2.1 Historical background................................................................................ 142
4.2.2 Review of research..................................................................................... 146
4.2.3 Syncretism of the Khudai Khidmatgar ....................................................... 151
4.2.4 Pashtun socio-political history at the turn of the twentieth century ............. 158
4.2.5 Negotiating the image of the nonviolent Pashtun........................................ 160
4.2.6 The oath of the Khudai Khidmatgar........................................................... 167
4.2.7 Militancy of an unarmed army ................................................................... 172
4.2.8 Mode of fighting........................................................................................ 184
4.2.9 Authenticity and mimicry in nonviolent action........................................... 192
4.2.10 Acts of juxtaposition: the figure of the hyphen........................................... 199
5 CONCLUSIONS: PERFORMATIVE POLITICS........................................ 206
5.1 Gandhi vs. Khan ..........................................................................................207
5.2 Form vs. content ..........................................................................................211
5.2.1 Action – inaction – restraint ....................................................................... 212
5.2.2 Violence – its rejection – its recurrence...................................................... 216
5.2.3 Conflict – consent – opposition.................................................................. 219
5.2.4 Body– soul – intercorporeality ................................................................... 222
GLOSSARY OF TERMS....................................................................................... 226
BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................. 227

3 The Performativity of Nonviolent Protest

1 Introduction
"The only thing that's been a worse flop
than the organisation of nonviolence
1has been the organisation of violence."
This study seeks to address a gap in the study of nonviolent action.
The gap relates to the question of the form, as opposed to the content
of nonviolent politics. Nonviolent protest and resistance have been
the focus of studies in the fields of sociology, political science, anthro-
pology and peace and conflict studies. These studies ask important
questions about the difficulties encountered in nonviolent protest, as
well as investigate its outcomes. They focus on resources, grievances,
strategies, intentions, motivations and consequences of protest ac-
tions or events. Yet they are often sceptical of references to concepts
that are not objective, which address perceptions of protest, its cul-
tural context, its dramaturgy, or its underlying view on conflict and
2human agency.
Nonviolent action is a form of waging conflict, not of seeking its reso-
lution. What does this form of engagement in political conflict consist
of, over and above the absence of or rejection of violence? How can
nonviolence be explored as a form of action, rather than as a political
or ethical stance? What constitutes a nonviolent act, how is it prac-
ticed, performed, enacted and organised? Instead of asking what is
accomplished through nonviolent action, this study asks how to
speak about nonviolence, how to find a mode to address the subject,
in order to understand it differently. Of primary concern is the man-
ner or form of action, and what bearing this has on the content of the
act. I ask these questions as a scholar and student in the field of per-
formance studies, using concepts, modes of analysis and tropes of

1 Joan Baez, "What Would You Do If?" Class of Nonviolence, Lesson 7, ed. Colman
McCarthy (Washington D.C., undated), 8.
2 James Jasper addresses this scepticism in the study of protest in his introduction
to The Art of Moral Protest. Culture, Biography and Creativity in Social Movements
(Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1997), xi.
4Introduction
thinking from this discipline. Particularly through the notion of per-
formativity, performance studies has become increasingly concerned
with understanding and re-articulating human agency, ways of doing,
ways of being and becoming, of acquiring and assuming particular
identities or inhabiting worlds. This study evolved out of a shift in
perspective, by approaching the history of nonviolent protest through
the lens of performance studies. Such a shift allows for concepts
such as performativity to be tested in terms of their applicability and
relevance to contemporary political and philosophical questions. It
also allows for a different perspective on the historiography of non-
violent protest. As Herbert Blau has pointed out, "the writing of his-
3tory occurs through the questions asked about it."
In the first two sections of this study, I will set out the parameters of
the key terms of my dissertation: nonviolence and performativity, by
tracing their genealogies and legacies as terms. I will then locate
these histories as an intersection in the founding of the nonviolent
and offer a reading of the history of nonviolence, especially in its tra-
jectories within movements and events in the twentieth century. The
focus of my analysis wi