Research shows that India’s achievements since the beginning of Independence, which catapulted more than 200 million people into India’s middle class, cannot mask the problems the vast majority of Indian people have to deal with in such important domains like health, employment or education. As the education situation in India shows, the colonial inheritance is still very recognizable in the Indian education sector. The research question of this paper therefore concentrates on the influence of education in India’s identity formation since the nineteenth century, investigating the intentions and goals of colonial education and its influence on postcolonial and current education processes.
The conceptual framework of the analysis is built around the imaginary saga Midnight’s Children, which is the starting point for my investigation about the situation of the educational situation of tribal women in the state of Rajasthan/India, which has strongly been influenced by historical events and nowadays by modernization and development processes in a time of neocolonialism, globalization, and trans-nationalism. Salman Rushdie’s postcolonial and postmodern novel draws a picture of the time since around 1915 and explains India’s situation after it gained its Independence from the British colonizers. His writing can be considered as a way of an emancipating process through the de- and reconstruction of India’s latest past by analyzing post-colonial issues such as migration and fragmentation through displacement or educational processes and their influence on identity building. Rushdie’s work of fiction therefore exhibits the concept of responsibility the Spanish philosopher Vicent Martínez Guzmán writes about in his essay “The Philosophical Foundation of Globalization”, in which he argues that “We don’t have excuses, only responsibility.”
In Salman Rushdie’s intensely consciousness-rising novel, the literary figures can be seen as possible ‘voices’, which portray the countless diverse colonial, postcolonial, and nowadays globalized voices of India. The author’s magical realistic writing style thus expresses a genuinely ‘Third World’ consciousness, which provides a liberating response to the codes of imperial history and its heritage of fragmentation and discontinuity. Research illustrates that colonial education was primarily an element of the colonial security politics and a strategic weapon, which had the purpose to support economic exploitation and the exercise of power in a system of violent subjugation and forced integration. The structure of the colonial education thus mainly concentrated on the development of adult- and university education in urban locations, where only an insignificant percentage of India’s population - and here mainly men - harvested the benefits of ‘higher’ education, gained entrance to ‘white collared jobs’, and became as a result alienated from their own people. The reason of this alienation was that from these ‘highly educated’ persons neither creative or innovative thinking nor independent acting was desired and that the complete colonial educational system was arranged around discipline, selection, mental control, psychological indoctrination and cultural assimilation with obedience as the desired result. The primary- und secondary education in the native languages was not at all of high interest for the colonial power and thus it was only for the broad masses in rural areas. This colonial education politics finally led to the immense illiteracy in the countryside, with which India still has to struggle and which can still be observed by looking, for example, at the educational situation in Rajasthan’s countryside. For that reason, Rushdie’s work of fiction is of great value for the academic analysis of educational structures for tribal women in the rural villages of the district Udaipur in Rajasthan because they still live as out-bordered individuals, as ‘outsiders within’ the society with limited access to the public spheres as well as to all levels of education.
Method
Methodology
Theoretical analyses as well as ethnographic research.
Interdisciplinary Research Approach
Review of the literature concerning the fields of adult education, colonial studies, postcolonial theory, globalization and development studies, migration and intercultural studies, feminist studies, literature-, sociology-, and political science.
Ethnographic Research
The ethnographic study includes varying degrees of qualitative descriptions and it is based on years of fieldwork.
Ethnographic Methodology
- Field-work: Micro-ethnographic studies in the local rural areas of the district Udaipur in the state of Rajasthan in India in the time period from 1999 to 2001.
- Set of Investigation Methods: Close first-hand field observation, documentation and description through protocols and research-diary, ethnographic interviews, qualitative non-standardized interviews, informal discussions, conversation at different levels of formality.
- Overt Participant Observation: Taking part in the life of the village people to learn about their social system, community life and culture, local beliefs and perceptions, socio-cultural phenomena, and their ways of living.
Methodological Approach
Cultural difference is never just where one believes to see it, but it is already written into every point of view a person articulates and thus, science can be understood not only as the procurement and analysis of data, but as a process of contextualizing cultural, national, ethnical, or social styles. In consequence, one has to expect that well-known phenomena exist in another culture in a changed allocation, others are missing and unexpected and strange ones emerge. Therefore it is important to understand that the own values and moral standards do not always apply to the other ‘reality’ - on the contrary, they even have a negative impact on it and the Western approach to science and its methods pushes at borders of the negotiability in another cultural context. Furthermore, as a researcher, somebody draws only one of innumerable objectifications of the ‘other’ culture. Viewing the Indian reality in the mirror image of an European perception, it is only ‘one truth’ about the Other, which always implicates the perception of the own culture, shaped by own social experiences, through specifically sensitized perception, or the resistance against certain circumstances. Thus, one should disclaim final judgements and point out the inevitable influence of the subjectivity and the culture-centred attitude. This recognition was the starting point of the search for an adequate and creative methodological approach, which allows a sensitization, respectfulness, and openness by approaching an ‘other’ culture and its people.
Selected Sources Used for the Research
- ADAM, I. and H. TIFFIN (ed.) (1991): Past the Last Post. Theorizing Post-Colonialism and Post-Modernism, New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Tokyo, Singapore, Harvester Wheatsheaf.
- APPIGNANESI, L. and S. MAITLAND (1989): The Rushdie File, London, Fourth Estate.
- ASHCROFT, B. and others (1999): The Post-Colonial Reader, London, Routledge.
- ASTHA SANSTHAN (2001): A Year of Drought. Struggle and Constructive Action. Annual Report 2000-2001, Udaipur/Rajasthan.
- BRENNAN, T. (1989): Salman Rushdie & The Third World. Myth of the Nation, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, London, MacMillan Press.
- BUCH, N. (2000): Women’s Experience in New Panchayats: the Emerging Leadership of Rural Women, Occasional Paper No. 35, New Delhi, Centre for Women’s Development Studies.
- DHAR, T. N. (1999): History-Fiction Interface in Indian English Novel: Mulk Raj Anand, Nayantara Sahgal, Salman Rushdie, Shashi Tharoor, O.V. Vijayan, London, Sangam Books.
- FLETCHER, D. M. (1994): Reading Rushdie. Perspectives on the fiction of Salman Rushdie, Amsterdam, Atlanta, Rodopi.
- FLUDERNIK, M. (1998): Hybridity and Postcolonialism. Twentieth-Century Indian Literature, Tübingen, Stauffenberg Verlag.
- GALTUNG, J. (1996): Peace by Peaceful Means. Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilization, London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi, Sage Publications.
- GEERTZ, C. (1997): Spurenlesen. Der Ethnologe und das Entgleiten der Fakten. München, Beck.
- GOONETILLEKE, D. C. R. A. (1998): Salman Rushdie, London, Macmillan Press LTD.
- GRANT, D. (1999): Salman Rushdie, Plymouth, Northcote House.
- GUNN, G. (2001): “Human Solidarity and the Problem of Otherness”, in MIZRUCHI, S. L.: Religion and Cultural Studies, Princeton, Oxford, Princeton University Press.
- HEWARD, C. and Sh. BUNWAREE (ed.) (1999): Gender, Education & Development. Beyond access to Empowerment, London, Zed Books Ltd.
- HORNUNG, A. and E. RUHE (ed.) (1998): Postcolonialism & Autobiography, Amsterdam, Atlanta, Editions Rodopi.
- ISRAEL, N. (2000): Outlandish. Writing between Exile and Diaspora, Stanford, California, University Press.
- KAUSHAL, R. (2000): Women and Human Rights in India, New Delhi, Kaveri Books.
- LOOMBA, A. (1998): Colonialism/Postcolonialism, London, New York, Routledge.
- MAZUMDAR, V. (1998): An Unfullfilled or a Burred Vision? Jawaharlal Nehru and Indian Women, Occasional Paper No. 30, New Delhi, Centre for Women’s Development Studies.
- MURPHY, J. (2003): Midnight’s Children: An Alternative Peace Education Tool. Class Paper: Introduction to Peace and Culture Studies. 24th October, Castellòn.
- REYES, G. (2001): “Four Main Theories of Development: Modernization, Dependency, World Systems, and Globalization”, Sincronía.
- RUSHDIE, S. (1991): Imaginary Homeland: Essays and Criticism, 1981-1991, London, Granta Books.
- RUSHDIE, S. (1995): Midnight’s Children, London, Random House.
- RUSHDIE, S. and E. WEST (1997): The Vintage Book of Indian Writing 1947-1997, London, Vintage.
- SANTAOLALLA, I. (ed.) (2000): “New“ Exoticisms. Changing Patterns in the Construction of Otherness, Amsterdam, Atlanta, Rodopi.
- SHARMA, K. (1998): Power Vs. Representation. Feminist Dilemmas, Ambivalent State And The Debate On Reservation For Women in India, Occasional Paper No. 28, New Delhi, Centre for Women’s Development Studies.
- TIFFIN, C. and A. LAWSON (ed.) (1994): De-Scribing Empire. Post-colonialism and textuality, London, New York, Routledge.
- TOMLINSON, J. (1991): Cultural Imperialism. A Critical Introduction, London, Pinter Publishers.
References
Own Publications
- SCHRÖTTNER, B. (2007): Creation of the Third Space. Imaginary Boundaries and Symbolic Connections, Lit-Publishing house, Vienna and Munich. (232 pages)
- SCHRÖTTNER, B. (2007): “Midnight’s Children”, In: Journal on Peace and Conflicts, Institute of Peace and Conflicts of the University of Granada, Granada/Spain, Granada/Spain, http://cicode-gcubo.ugr.es/revpaz/resenas/midnight2019s-children-rushdie-salman-1995-london-random-house/, (4 pages)
- SCHRÖTTNER, B. (2007): Weiterbildung im Zeitalter der Globalisierung, Report, Peripherie - The Institute for Practical Gender Research, Graz/Austria. (99 pages)
- SCHRÖTTNER, B. (2005): Indien - Das andere Gesicht westlicher Postmoderne, Yearbook 2005 of the Austrian Federation of University, Linz. (4 pages)
- SCHRÖTTNER, B. (2005): The Creation of the Third Space. Imaginary Boundaries and Symbolic Connections, Doctoral Thesis, Graz. (325 pages)
- SCHRÖTTNER, B. (2004): The Peaceful DeConstruction of Thoughts and ReConstruction of Spaces for Women in India through the Concepts of Empowerment and Participation, Master Thesis, Castellòn. (155 pages)
- SCHRÖTTNER, B. (2004): „Feminism goes ‘Cyber’“, In: LENZ, W. und A. SPRUNG (ed.): Kritische Bildung? Zugänge und Vorgänge, Münster, Lit-Verlag. (20 pages)
- SCHRÖTTNER, B. und A. SPRUNG (2003): Integration von MigrantInnen in der Steiermark: Interkulturelle Öffnung-Weiterbildung-Selbstorganisation, Report, Peripherie - The Institute for Practical Gender Research, Graz. (57 pages)
- SCHRÖTTNER, B. und A. SPRUNG (2003): Integration von MigrantInnen in der Steiermark: Interkulturelle Öffnung-Weiterbildung-Selbstorganisation, Project-Report for the Styrian Government/ Department of Social Services, Graz. (252 pages)
- SCHRÖTTNER, B. (2000): „Leben in Unterdrückung? Frauenbildung in Indien“, In: LENZ, W. (ed.): Brücken ins Morgen. Bildung im Übergang, Innsbruck, Wien, München. (33 pages)
- SCHRÖTTNER, B. (2000): Ein Leben in Unterdrückung? Frauen in Indien zwischen Anpassung und Widerstand, Masterthesis, Graz. (187 pages)
Awards
- KARDINAL-INNITZER-AWARD: Award for scientific work of social and cultural importance, which promotes the connection of knowledge and understanding of the individual and society; received for doctoral thesis in Education, Vienna/Austria, December 2006.
- DR. MARIA SCHAUMAYER AWARD: Award for the support of careers for women in economics and science; received for doctoral thesis in Education, Vienna/Austria, December 2005.
- LEOPOLD KUNSCHAK AWARD: Award for the understanding of democracy and the peaceful leaving together of peoples; received for master thesis in Peace and Development Studies, Vienna/Austria, March 2005.
- DR. ALMA MOTZKO AWARD: Award for scientific work; received for master thesis in Peace and Development Studies from the Austrian Women’s Academic Society, Graz/Austria January 2005.
- HERTA PAMMER AWARD: Award for scientific work about women and development; received for master thesis in Education from the Catholic Women’s Movement of Austria, Vienna/Austria, June 2001.
Scholarships
- SCHOLARSHIP FOR EXTRAORDINARILY TALENTED SCHOLARS: Government of Styria, Department for Science and Research, Graz. Three scholarships: 2001, 2002, and 2003.
- SCHOLARSHIP FOR SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENTS: Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University Graz. Three scholarships: 1999, 2000, and 2005.
- PROMOTION SCHOLARSHIP: Faculty of Humanities, University Graz. One scholarship: 2001.
- SCHOLARSHIP FOR SCIENTIFIC WORK ABROAD (India and Spain): Faculty of Humanities, University Graz. Three scholarships: 1999, 2001, and 2004.
- RESEARCH SCHOLARSHIP (India and Spain): Government of Styria, Department for Science and Research, Graz. Three scholarships: 2001, 2003, and 2004.