Archaeology of Vagabondage

Archaeology of Vagabondage: South Asia's Colonial Encounter and After. (2014). Archaeology of Vagabondage: South Asia's Colonial Encounter and After.

Description

My research examines the figure of the 'vagabond' as a case study to illustrate how 'modern'
perception of the 'vagabond' has depleted the diversities in its 'pre-modern' counterparts. It
argues that the paranoia towards the 'vagabond' was inherited from the west out of the
colonial contact leading to the birth of the nation-state and its liaison with 'instrumental
rationality' during the high noon of advanced industrial capitalism, while (quasi-religious)
itinerancy, on the contrary, had always been tolerated in 'pre-modern' India. The problems I
am addressing are: What is the line of thread that separates the 'traveler' from the 'vagabond', the 'explorer' from the 'wanderer'? How do we then politically account for the historic 'ruptures' in the vagabond having been tolerated in the ancient 'Indic' thought [cf. Manusmriti, Arthshastra], encouraged in early Buddhist discourse [cf. Samannaphala Sutta], revered as the 'holy Other' in the Middle Ages [cf. Bhakti-Sufi literature], and eventually marginalized in the 'modern'? While considering issues of cultural differences, my thesis points to how the epistemic shifts from the classical to the medieval, from the medieval to the modern radically alter the value system immanent in the figure of the 'vagabond'. The research argues that the cultural baggage that the expression 'vagabond' is generally associated with, is a product of a specific western/utilitarian value system, which is a distinct 'cultural' category of the 'modern' west that had no resonance in 'pre- modern' India, and hence cannot be necessarily universalizable. The project works in a number of registers: historical, archival, cultural, philosophical and representational, involves analysis of literary, filmic texts, also legislative documents, and is genuinely interdisciplinary in nature. As of discourse analysis, the project studies the politics of cultural representations both of and by 'vagabonds'.
Author Keywords: 1943 Bengal Famine, Homelessness, India, Vagabond, Vagrancy, Vagrancy Act

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