Fathah Nawaz Jang. An Indian Passage to Europe: The Travels of Fath Nawaz Jang. Oxford in Asia Historical Reprints Series. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006. xxxii + 188 pp. $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-19-597924-4.

Reviewed by Nicholaus Podsiadlik (Department of English, Indiana University Bloomington)
Published on H-Travel (March, 2007)

Mahdi Hasan in London: Mimicry and the Genteel Conquest

The travelogue of Mahdi Hasan, a nineteenth-century Muslim Indian governmental official, is a welcome addition to the archive of Victorian global encounters and imperialism, although it does not deliver the publisher's promise of "a much-needed counterpoint to European representations of the 'other'" (quoted from back cover) [1]. Mahdi Hasan, a self-described Anglophile and energetic defender of the imperial government, was educated in English institutions from his youth on and evidences little awareness of a specific, distinct Muslim history or identity that might have vied with European narratives of progress. He married an Irish woman, who resided in northern India, studied law, and rose to a high position in the provincial government of Hyderabad. He does not bring us into dialogue with the "subaltern" as such, and he is too determinedly pro-English in his writing and thinking to be cosmopolitan.

Using the services of the quintessentially bourgeois Thomas Cook's agency, Mahdi Hasan traveled in 1888 from Hyderabad to London to discuss mining concessions and a potential railway. His account was written in English and published in England in 1890, and translated later by others for an Indian audience. In Egypt, his stereotypical account of "corrupted" (i.e., colloquial) Arabic, baksheesh-demanding beggars, as well as being hauled up the pyramids by incomprehensible "Bedouins" might have been lifted from any European narrative of the same experience (pp. 22, 28). Mahdi Hasan is relentlessly pro-establishment, and his adulation is often crafted with hyperbole: he regrets, on his presentation before the queen, that he is barely able to see her because his obeisance is so low and his eyes clouded by "tears of joy and love" (p. 101). His circumspection in this case--avoiding having to describe the queen at all, retaining her as an abstract object of reverence--goes far to explain his bloodless, guidebook-style description of everything else. As a high government official on state business, with a career to protect in the scandal-prone and complicated hybrid government of India, Mahdi Hasan could have ill afforded to stray far from the sanctioned script. If he seems too eager to drop the names of aristocrats, and the only aspect of European culture he critiques are poor hotel meals, these descriptive limits may be taken as the scope of his political and personal freedom.

Despite this care to remain diplomatic, Mahdi Hasan does find and insistently press on the social limitations instantiated by the British gentlemen's social club where the fraternal equality supposedly brought by education and Anglicization is denied him. Mahdi Hasan exemplifies Homi Babha's theorization of mimicry, and he writes from the material and biographical perspective of the so-called mimic man.[2] He complicates mimicry's "metonymy of presence," by his historical presence, and his writing gives insight into the contradictions and frustrations of the Anglicized Indian upper class. Though Mahdi Hasan remains silent on the subject of revolution in Paris and in Rome, and has only praise for the new post-occupation British government in Egypt, he recurringly and uncharacteristically complains that the English are socially frigid; he demands an intimacy, a "more complete knowledge," specifically found at the dinner table (pp. 75, 181). Of the three letters written by Mahdi Hasan and appended to his travelogue, one is an assertion of Muslim Indian loyalty to the crown, one addresses the division of Muslim and Hindu Indians, and the third argues that Indians ought to be allowed into British social clubs in India. For Mahdi Hasan, these issues are equally important to the hybrid Government's success. Mahdi Hasan claims Victoria as a mother, England as a father, and the English explicitly as brothers (pp. 101, 181). He counters the racial objection for closer relations by regretting that the English confuse Indians with the natives of the other colonies: "We are no aborigines" (p. 180).

Seen in this light, Mahdi Hasan's London diary is a record of conquest. His log of each day's events from February until June is comprised almost entirely of dinner parties, luncheons, and social clubs. Little real detail is included, only an account of the names of people met with and the status of the private domains to which he has gained admittance. In June, when the summer heat ends the city's social season, his entries become more sporadic and taper off. The bulk of the travelogue, then, is a depiction of London social success that was, paradoxically, forbidden in his home country. Mahdi Hasan attends all the best social clubs, becomes a member of the prestigious Athenaeum Club, and is accepted into the London legal institution, the Middle Temple Inn (wherein the members were required to eat dinner a certain number of times). Mahdi Hasan, a fan of reform, knew the promise of Anglicization was equality, and in London he claims this promise. But he is emphatically not English. When he attends a theatre "in native costume" he writes, "[I] am proud to say I was the lodestar for all the ladies' eyes in the house" (p. 48).

This travelogue would prove useful in a class on Victorian India and to illustrate the concepts in Homi Babha's The Location of Culture (2nd ed., 2004) or Gauri Viswanathan's Masks of Conquest (1998). Excerpts would suffice, especially including the third letter regarding social relations. An instructor would need to provide some historical context separately, as the editor’s introduction is insufficient for this purpose.

Although the text is a valuable resource, the edition itself is not as carefully produced as it could have been. The index is idiosyncratic; some names are omitted, but a number of topics and events are included. Explanatory notes are very sparse. The copyediting particularly could benefit from more care. There are stylistic inconsistencies, and, more seriously, at least one error per page. Although these errors do not often impede understanding, in several places words seem to be missing and lines are repeated so that the meaning of the text is unclear. The goals of the editor and of the Oxford in Asia Historical Reprints series are extremely admirable and timely. Works of translation (or, as in this case, simple recovery) are the most immediate means to address the lack of intercultural dialogue that persists in the humanities, both professionally in our disciplines and in the material we study and teach. Hopefully, Oxford will give this effort the serious attention and professionalism that it deserves.

Notes

[1]. The editor refers to the traveler as "Mahdi Hasan," who writes his full name and title as "Mahdi Hasan Khan, Fathah Nawaz Jang." The editor does not comment on the translation or proper usage of either name or title, or explain why Mahdi Hasan's title is used for the authorial citation. A Victorian newspaper transcribed by Mahdi Hasan glosses "Fathah Nawaz Jang" as meaning "Chief Justice" (p. 141). Those wishing to research Mahdi Hasan further will need to look out for these variations.

[2]. Homi Babha, The Location of Culture. 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 1994), 85-92.

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Citation: Nicholaus Podsiadlik. Review of Jang, Fathah Nawaz, An Indian Passage to Europe: The Travels of Fath Nawaz Jang. H-Travel, H-Net Reviews. March, 2007.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=12914

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