ABSTRACT
This paper attempts to make a connection between photography and the British
rule in India. It specifically discusses the work of Samuel Bourne who
travelled and photographed the subcontinent extensively from 1863-70. Analysis
reveals that Bourne aided in, what I refer to, as the "imperial imaginary" of
the Raj primarily in his photography of the Himalayan landscapes and ancient
Indian architecture. Having arrived in India right after the sepoy mutiny,
Bourne also faced aesthetic and political dilemmas when confronted with the
vastness and variety of the land. He constructed a vision of India where he
represented it in terms of landscapes, mountains, and monuments and not through
the day to day lives of Indians living under the British rule.
IMPERIAL IMAGINARY: PHOTOGRAPHY AND THE INVENTION OF THE BRITISH RAJ
Shakuntala Rao
Department of Communication
101 Broad Street
State University of New York
Plattsburgh, NY 12901
USA
internet: [log in to unmask]
phones: off: 518-564-4291 (voice mail)/home: 802-864-2768
Paper submitted for review for presentation at the Association for Education in
Journalism and Mass Communication annual conference at Baltimore, MD in August
1998 (Visual Communication Division). The author wishes to thank Deborah
Altamirano, Jin Kim, Donald Maier, Joseph Reinert, and Gary D. Sampson for
comments and suggestions.
IMPERIAL IMAGINARY: PHOTOGRAPHY AND THE INVENTION
OF THE BRITISH RAJ
A number of thinkers have argued that modernity consists of the powerful
privileging of vision and that it represents a distinctive ocularcentric
paradigm, quite different from the organization of vision in previous times.
For instance, Heidegger has spoken of the ocularcentrism of the modern age as
driven by a nihilism that reduces every presence to images and
representations.[1] Derrida likewise views the hegemony of modern vision as an
attempt to establish a metaphysics of presence.[2] And Nietzsche, in turn,
critiqued the progressive endeavor to subjugate reality, to overcome otherness
and difference, and to make everything present to the inspection of an imperial
Gaze as resulting in the necessary production of a seductive illusion. In
response, Nietzche proposed an alternative conception of multiplying
perspectives, in which it is not the violence of light that dominates but an
illuminating vision that flickers between presence and absence, concealment and
disclosure.[3]
The question of a modern vision underscores the fact that concepts of seeing
must be viewed as historically specific -- not only embedded in particular
ocular epistemologies organized by optical and discursive figures, but linked to
specific discourses and forms of social power, and consequently a particular
matrix for organizing the relations between observed and observer, the visible
and the invisible.[4] The invention of photography is a crucial moment in the
development of a modern (and colonial) structure of vision and is both
constitutive of and constituted by a modern ocular paradigm.
This particular paper will attempt to answer the question, how is photography
intrinsically connected to the colonial experience, Empire building and to the
ways of 'seeing' the Empire and its subjects, vis-a-via the camera lens? The
invention of photography in the 1800s interestingly coincided with the spread of
Britain's domination of the East. In the latter half of the nineteenth century
the camera became the ideal tool with which to document and investigate the
Empire, and on a broader level, a device to extend the eyes of the occidental
public to the frontiers of current exploration.[5]
There has been a renewed interest in British colonialism and colonial discourse
analysis especially with the evolution of Postcolonial Studies programs at many
academic institutions. The study of colonial history, from this perspective,
has reinvigorated the study of 'power' and 'knowledge' reproduced by colonial
and national states to provide legitimacy to themselves, in this case, the need
for British presence in India. Most work by contemporary Postcolonial theorists
have been focused in analyzing eighteenth and nineteenth century literature.[6]
Very little emphasis has been placed on photography as a new and evolving medium
of knowledge and representation.
With the British rule in India, it had become imperative for the colonial state
to procure an image of India which would grant stability to the enterprise and
purpose of colonial presence and action, especially after the sepoy mutiny of
1857.
On May 10, 1857 sepoys (Indian soldiers) in Meerut mutinied against their
officers, setting fire to the cantonment before marching on to Delhi and naming
the Moghul king, Bahadur Shah Zafar, the emperor of Hindustan. This mutiny was
not the military insubordination that its name suggests, but a wave of uprisings
in which Indian soldiers, princes, religious leaders, and peasants all played a
role. Sharpe notes, "When the uprising erupted the British were unable to
comprehend, on one hand, the native refusal of foreign rule where there should
be consent, and, on the other, colonial coercion where there should be
benevolent guidance."[7] The British hysteria which followed the mutiny led to
the Queen's Proclamation on November 1, 1858 which transferred the
administrative duties of the East India Company to the British Crown. And so
began a new era of imperial rule in which the monarch of Great Britain became
the sovereign, or Raj, of India. The decade following the sepoy mutiny, British
used the mutiny as a pre-text to developing strategies of counterinsurgency and
a tighter form of state administration. The mutiny also required a
rearticulation of the British presence in India and of a collective rethinking
of the Anglo-Indian relationship. One must ask whether photography, as a
burgeoning medium of representation, aided the 'imperial imagination' and the
establishment of the British Raj?
Photography During And After the Mutiny
Sepoy mutiny served to stir a vigorous new interest in India among the English
as part of the expanding British Empire, most importantly a resurgent desire to
comprehend the topographical appearance of the land, which could well be
satisfied through the use of the camera. Felice Beato, James Robertson and Dr.
Murray were apparently the only photographers to have been immediately attracted
from the outside world to India by the mutiny.[8] These photographers were
primarily interested in the sites of Delhi, Kanpur, Meerut, Roorkie, Lucknow,
and Benares where most of the actual insurgency had taken place. There were
very few photographs taken of the Himalayas, the North West provinces and the
Southern Plains. Undoubtedly the mutiny curtailed any plans for expeditionary
work with the camera, at least until the British had been satisfied that further
colonialist activity on the subcontinent would continue. Melville Clarke and
Phillip Egerton published and exhibited several views of the districts north of
Simla (foothills of the Himalayas) during the 1860s.[9] With the difficulty of
trekking into areas which were only vaguely known, few photographers wanted to
risk going far into the mountains. Clarke and Egerton -- the former an officer
of the British army and the latter a civil servant -- represent the first
efforts to publicize Himalayas in a photographic form. But both these
photographers seem to be limited in their travellings, with Clarke publishing
merely 37 and Egerton 36 plates.
Samuel Bourne
This paper will specifically explore the works of Samuel Bourne (1834-1912).
Bourne first travelled from Nottingham to India in 1863 as a professional
photographer. I am primarily interested in exploring his works for the
following reasons: of all contemporary photographers he photographed India most
extensively during his seven years stay (unlike Clarke and Egerton, Bourne
photographed both the Himalayas and the Plains in his approximately 900
published plates); his photographs were widely circulated in India and England
and published regularly in the British Journal of Photography (BJP), and the
politically charged time when he began taking his photographs and exhibiting
them, i.e., few years after the mutiny. Bourne's position in the history of
photography as an important pioneer of expeditionary work has been recognized in
the past several years where he has been the subject of several exhibitions,
articles, monographs, and BBC television programs. However, most scholarly work
about Bourne has been about his contribution to landscape photography and the
aesthetics which defined and effected his works. Almost nothing has been
written about the political and social implications of his photographs to the
development of colonial attitudes and how it might be connected to his
popularity.
In an attempt to answer the question I posed earlier one needs to engage in a
careful analysis of the images with reference to Bourne's written accounts and
compare them with the geographical context of the Indian environment and the
time when he was taking the photographs. Here I pose an additional series of
questions: How did Bourne see and represent India? What do his photographs tell
us about India and Indians and about Anglo-Indian relationship in the late
nineteenth century? Were his photographs representative of the Victorian
setting from which he himself had emerged? To what extent was he implicated in
the re-imagining and re-invention of India during the years after the sepoy
mutiny? I use the terms 'imaginary' and 'invention' as labels for the English
response to India's disenchantment with British presence and coercion. English
newspapers, journals, and pamphlets of the time had been filled with dramatic
stories about Anglo-Indian conflicts which subsequently required the Raj to
militarily consolidate and expand. Bourne fit into this discourse effectively.
While he did not write as extensively as other colonial travellers such as
Alexander Duff, Katherine Bartrum, Adelaide Case, and R.M. Coopland, he
presented an equally extensive visual image of the subcontinent. Therefore, the
significance of this research, in the postcolonial context, is to understand
what kind of an India was presented by Bourne in his photographs.
Three Dominant Elements: Landscapes, Architecture, and Peoples
While in Nottingham Bourne had developed an interest in the British countryside
which he often captured in his watercolors. The fact that landscapes appealed
to him is evident in the sheer amount of photographs he took of the mountains,
valleys, ranges, and ravines of the Himalayas. Seeking Indian landscape he
undertook three major Himalayan expeditions beginning July 1863 (Sutlej Trek),
March 1864 (Kashmir Trek), and June 1866 (Spiti Trek). Simla, the summer
capital of the British in the foothills of the western Himalayas, was the base
camp for these expeditions.
His first expedition, which lasted about 10 weeks, introduced Bourne to the
wilderness and high elevation of the Himalayas and prepared him for the
prolonged experience of his next two trips, each lasting 6-8 months. In order
to find his way over the miles and miles of trails traversed on his journeys,
Bourne consulted the maps and route-book produced by Lieutenant Thomas
Montgomeire, who for nearly 10 years had been surveying the western Himalayas
with a team of assistants.[10] Bourne kept extensive notes of his daily
experiences while traveling. These he edited as a series of lengthy narratives
and then sent back to England to be published in The British Journal of
Photography.
In between his long, arduous treks through the Himalayas, Bourne often
undertook shorter trips to Indian cities where he photographed architecture.
Often these architectural images were dominated by a single subject, usually a
temple or a ruin. In each town he photographed the primary structure that would
be of interest to his English and Anglo-Indian audiences. These photographs
were sold in great numbers to English tourists and travellers to India (the
commercial success of these photographs encouraged him to establish a studio in
Calcutta and one in Simla with a partner, Charles Shepherd). He travelled to
Delhi, Kanpoor, Agra, Gwalior, Benares, Roorkie, Lucknow, Ooty, and Tanjore
looking for ruins and antiquities.
Ollman, who has provided one of the few exhaustive studies of Samuel Bourne's
photographs, writes, "Though Bourne traveled in India's wilderness as well as in
its largest cities, we see very few photographs of Indians. When they do
appear, they are artfully placed within many images for scale, or to make a
scene more authentic. They are presented as incidental to the real scope of
India; quaint and colorful to be sure, but not nearly as important as the real
estate."[11] Like many Britons who arrived in India after the mutiny, Bourne
had much more disdain for the Indians than the pre-mutiny reformists who had
continued to hold the "civilizing mission" to be the primary goal of the English
presence. While establishing his residence in Simla, Bourne took several
photographs of the coolies and local tribes but these were rare among his
collections. He photographed many more English subjects including soldiers,
Company officers, memsahibs (English women), civil servants, servants to the
Viceroy, and tourists.
Analysis
The Dilemma of the Aesthetics and the Politics
Bourne vacillated between his desire to represent India and the Himalayas and
his political position as a photographer who had arrived in India during the
period after the mutiny. Negative feelings towards the rebellious Indians were
high among his compatriots and he was conscious of his position as a colonial
English travelling in colonized India. Heading for Simla in 1863, Bourne had
taken notes of the places he would return to photograph. About Delhi he writes:
A name sadly famous to every Englishman, you look on its threatening fort
without alarm [Red Fort] and enter the gate -- where so many of our countrymen
perished -- without hindrance or molestation. Of course, Delhi can't fail to
be interesting to the photographers: the Cashmere Gate, the fort, and other
noted places must be taken.[12]
Directly referring to the mutiny, he makes his political position clear and
displays the intellect of a Briton newly awakened to India by the horrifying
events a few years earlier. The question then can be raised: Being embedded
with the notion that India had led to the suffering of so many of his
countrymen, can Bourne find any beauty and aesthetic pleasure in Indian
landscape, architecture, or peoples? Could this lead to an aesthetic and
political dilemma for the photographer? The answer is yes.
Especially significant for our understanding of Bourne's photographic dilemma,
are the passages of the narratives where he discusses his aesthetic and
emotional responses to the Himalayas (particularly during the first two trips)
as a place to find and to photograph scenery -- an extremely different and
proportionately much larger field for landscape than the one which he was
accustomed to at home. He often questioned whether Himalayas scenery offered
real aesthetic appeal when viewed in the fragmented forms of the photographic
images. On the other hand, there was the aesthetic question itself as to
whether the Himalayas were as picturesquely endowed as the Swiss Alps and the
scenic mountain areas of England and Scotland. Bourne came to India with the
idealistic belief that a certain type of scenery was better for the photographic
expression of landscape in general. His attitude towards landscape was
initially shaped by his prior experience at home, where he had grown to relish
the traditional picturesque scenery and comparatively contained scale of the
Lake Districts, and the mountains of Scotland and Wales. Concerning British
landscape he had written, "Its mountain streams and lovely fertile valleys --
its rustic cottages, overhung with thickly foliaged trees -- its cascades and
waterfalls --its lakes, rivers, and verdure -- are especially suited and so
combined as to meet the peculiar requirements of the camera."[13] The passage
reveals his conviction -- at least at the beginning of his sojourn in India --
that it contains such the right balance of topographical ingredients to fit
neatly with the ground glass of the camera and thus enable the photographer to
secure a picturesque scene. Later he calls into question the worthiness of the
Himalayas for photography. He admitted that he had not yet been to Switzerland,
but from what he had read and seen[14], he felt it was:
...far more pleasing and picturesque than any part I have yet seen in the
Himalayas. The mountains here are, no doubt, are greater, higher, and
altogether more vast and impressive; but they are not so naked in their
outline, not so detached, do not contain so much variety, have no such fertile
valleys amongst them, no lakes, no waterfalls, and scarcely any of those
fine-pointed peaks which rise from broader summits and lift their pyramids of
snow to the skies. This striking and rugged character is just what the artist
loves, and which gives such a pleasing charm and variety to all well-chosen and
well-executed views of that popular district. Here the mountains are all
alike, all having the same general features and outlines, presenting in the
aggregate, from their immense extent and size, a scene grand and impressive
doubtless, but wanting in variety. For pictures in oil for a large size this
scenery might yield many fine subjects as general views, but photography cannot
deal with it on an adequate scale.[15]
There are many conflicted imaginations that Bourne is struggling with and this
is most evident in the above passage. He is struggling with two aspects of
visuality: the technological one in which he, recognizing the immense scope of
the Himalayas, questions photography's ability to capture the depth of the
landscape. The other, the ideological one, in which it is the subject itself
(the mountains) which lack an inherent aesthetic quality that it can impress on
the film. Bourne himself constantly struggles, perhaps unconsciously so, with
several contradictions between his written accounts and his photographs. While
he notes, in the above passage, that Himalayas lack "valleys, lakes, fine
pointed peaks, and rugged terrain", his photographs speak otherwise since many
of them display rugged terrain, valleys, and peaks (examples, plates 1, 2, and
3, Appendix B). He compares Himalayas to the Swiss Alps only to convey the
absence of "variety" in the former. The reader is left with an unanswerable
dilemma: is it the visual "scale" that makes Himalayas unpalatable to
photography? Or is it the lack of visual "variety" that leads to Bourne's
aesthetic disappointments? One gets the feeling that Bourne is so astounded by
the depth and vastness of India that it irreversibly collides with his sense of
superiority (Can anything European, even its mountains, be less significant that
the ones in India?). He writes:
Here was I, a solitary lonely wanderer, going Heaven knew where, surrounded by
the gloomy solitude of interminable mountains which seemed, in fact, to stretch
to infinity on every hand. To attempt to grasp or comprehend their extent was
impossible, and the aching mind could only retire into itself, feeling but an
atom in the world so mighty, yet consoling itself with the thought that the
Power which formed these ponderous masses was greater than they, and that in
the marvellous and benevolent operations of that Power, itself, however humble
and insignificant, was not lost sight of.[16]
Wandering through India, carrying a camera for capturing the 'truth,' Bourne
understood, in a lucid moment on a mountain pass while contemplating the
vastness, that his delicate and specific grasp of reality, his analytical
photographic constructs and his enormous sense of rightness were all lost in
that immensity. This is perhaps the reason why his narrative falls into the
parameters of Judeo-Christian religiosity ("the benevolent operations of the
Power" led him "an atom in the world so mighty" to the Himalayas). The fact
that he could not record it, could not capture and subjugate it all to his will,
depressed him. It was not even possible to bring the insight of that fact to
his photographic plate. Instead, he does what Spurr refers to as the
"insubstantialization" of the representation, i.e., "an entire tradition of
Western writing which makes the experience of the non-Western world into an
inner journey, and in so doing renders that world insubstantial, as the backdrop
of baseless fabric against which it played the drama of the writer's self."[17]
According to Spurr, the history of the West as the West arises out of an
orientation that understands the Orient as a space of disorientation. For
Bourne, the Himalayas present an enormous material unity where his subjectivity
-- British, Colonial, Photographer -- is disintegrating and he projects it onto
the outer scene, so that the scene itself becomes the locus of disintegration,
confusion, and absence. For Bourne, because 'he' cannot comprehend the
vastness, spatialness, and wilderness of the Himalayas, he projects this
incomprehension on to the Himalayas (instead of saying, 'I cannot understand
it,' he writes, "It cannot make itself known to me"[18]).
Being acutely aware of his location as a colonial traveller, Bourne cannot
escape the political reality within which he must function (i.e., colonization
of India). So, we get a sense of a fractured aesthetic: on one hand it is
derisive and melancholy, on the other hand, it is wondrous and awestruck. In a
land where "so many of [his] countrymen had perished", Bourne's political will
remained irreconcilable with the beauty of the landscape. The natural world of
the Himalayas leads to a sense of dilemma for Bourne and one that he cannot
really ever resolve.
Making the Unknown Knowable: Photography as Documentation
J.M. Blaut suggests that by the 1870s, the central proposition of a natural,
continuous, and internally generated progress in the European core, was firmly
in place. Its truth was no longer being questioned by mainstream thinkers.
Subsequently, it led to the "colonizer's model of the world" wherein the
wide-ranging theories of cultural differences were reduced to social hierarchies
(i.e., civilized vs savage).[19] For Bourne, photography became a perfect tool
for the cataloging of social differences. In psycho-analytical terms, what
begins as a private experience between the photographer and the subject ends
being the collective experience of the archive. This collective experience of
colonizing and civilizing makes its central tenet the documenting of the
Empire.[20] How does Bourne put his camera to use for this purpose?
One could claim that Bourne's interest in photography alone is an evidence of
his interests in documenting the Raj. However, one gets a feeling that he is
gradually made aware of the significance of his work as a form of cataloging,
both the cultural and the scientific. At the end of his first trip to the
Himalayas, Bourne boasted that the 147 negatives made of the journey represented
"scenery which has never been photographed before, and amongst the boldest and
most striking on the face of the globe."[21] At the same time Bourne wanted to
assert that his intentions of photography were purely aesthetic.
In the first place I make no pretensions to scientific travels -- my object was
purely pictorial; and though much that was interesting to the botanist and
geologist came under my observation, I shall do no more than sometimes refer to
the fact without going into any description pertaining to the domains of these
sciences, with which I am very imperfectly acquainted.[22]Despite this rather
sweeping disclaimer at the beginning of his third trek, Bourne was unable to
keep himself from making several detailed references to and taking photographs
of the geographical features and topography of the western Himalayas. Most of
his commentary was enriched by a fellow Briton who was disclosed as "Dr. G. R.
Playfair, of Agra, brother of the celebrated Dr. Lyon Playfair, of Edinburgh,
M.P."[23] Playfair had heard of Bourne's trek and had decided to join him
during Bourne's final Himalayan expedition. One has good reason to believe that
the exchange between the two actually influenced Bourne's choice of subjects.
Playfair's interest in fossils and rock formation, i.e., modern geology,
effected Bourne enough that he took several photos of varied glaciers and rock
formations (eg., plate 4, Appendix B) and was able to comment thoughtfully on
their geological significance. Soon one starts to get a feeling that Bourne's
interest in not merely the pictorial and aesthetic, as he himself claims, but
also as someone who wants to document the natural environment as a modern
scientist of his time would.
His zeal for documenting his explorations is most evident when he takes on the
arduous task of finding the source of River Ganges. When Bourne finally reached
Gangotri on his third trek he was surprised to find only "a rude temple and one
or two covered sheds or outhouses" to mark the spot so sacred to the Hindu
faith. Since this was not the actual source of the river, he was curious to
know why, after coming so far, the faithful did not go a bit further "to the
fountain head." He inquired of a few pilgrims who were there at the time of his
visit: "They at once replied that this was not necessary -- that the water was
equally pure and effacious here, and being three or four miles of the source (to
which there was no road) it was all the same." He continued:
But if they were satisfied without going to the source, I was not; the water
was not pure enough for me. I must take it from the very beginning of their
sacred river, and washing my hands in innocency of leaving the very spring of
its existence unexplored.[24]
A considerable amount of perseverance was necessary to go the extra distance;
short as it was, the trek included the fording of an especially "deep and rapid"
section of the waters, which was soon accomplished.
However, we reached our destination at last, and I felt a degree of satisfied
curiosity, and that I ought to consider myself a privileged mortal in being to
gaze on this the first visible issue of the mighty and holy Ganges from the
vast ice beds which cradle its birth.[25] (see plate 5, Appendix B)
The triumph of discovery was thus acknowledged by Bourne, its significance
particularly residing in the fact that very few individuals have gone to such
lengths to see the place, let alone photograph it. Here his efforts at
documenting reaches the very height of exploration writing when he views a
sacred site for the Hindus as a place of discovery (rather than sacred). The
desire for documentation has required Bourne to go much beyond the usual realm
of a pictorial photographer. He could have scarcely understood the meaning the
Ganges has in the cosmic scheme of the Hindu and that they would not have
comprehended Gangotri in the same way, neither as a geological formation, nor as
a feature of the environment to be visualized as a landscape.
More than the Himalayas Bourne's interest in documentation of the Empire is
made obvious by his large collection of photographs of Indian architecture.[26]
Bourne took several shorter trips to different parts of India in between his
treks to the Himalayas (see Appendix A). Much of Bourne's approach to the
photography of Indian architecture is marked, according to Sampson, by the
notion of "singularity," the term defined as the "intellectual and emotional
pleasure associated with the discovery and consequent documentation of
unfamiliar, unusually formed, or otherwise exotic phenomena."[27] His Indian
architectural photographs are often unaccompanied by long essays unlike his
photographs from his trips to the Himalayas. Looking at his various collection,
one gets a feeling that his photographs, generally, can be categorized in the
following ways: (a) ancient architecture of India and (b) modern architecture of
the British. There are no photographs of architecture that was contemporary
and, what he perceived, as Indian. In fact, if one looks at his collection in
its entirety, one gets no sense of the life for an Indian during the Raj.
Plates 6 and 7 (Appendix B) are good examples of singular panoramic way in which
the photographer wanted to capture the antiquities of Indian architecture.[28]
Plate 8, however, needs a brief analysis. This photograph, like the city
itself (Benares), appears to be more cluttered and one of the rare times when
Indians, animals, and architecture are captured together by Bourne. About
Benares, one of the holiest cities for Hindu pilgrimage, located on the banks of
Ganges, the photographer writes:
The streets are so narrow and so crowded that it is difficult to get along
them; and as you wind through these narrow defiles, turning sharp angles,
entering dark and obscure passages, threading your way through dark and
interminable bazaars, you are lost and confused in the intricate labyrinth. At
length, however, your guide leads you to the foot of the flight of steps, which
lands you on the platform of the great Mohammedan mosque by which Benares is
known, and which forms so conspicuous an object from the river.[29]
Benares had attracted its fair share of British visitors and artists prior to
Bourne's arrival. One of the major features for these, as it was for the
photographer, was the visual extravaganza of those who came to bathe on the
ghats and to conduct the last rites for the dead. The Hindu custom of burning
bodies, which Bourne witnesses and writes about, seemed to be rather an unsavory
business. We are able to see the burning ghat from a safe distance (on the
right hand corner) in plate 8. In accordance with his usual avoidance of
portraying the native environment with any real intimacy, Bourne's interest in
the burnings was limited to the following passage:
Five or six savage-looking men were heaping wood on the blazing piles, but I
could discern through the flames the roasting skull and feet of one of the
bodies. One of them was that of a young woman, whose husband stood by
evidently regarding the horrid spectacle with the highest satisfaction. On
every hand you are reminded of the religious zeal of this deluded people.
Their gods -- hideous, shapeless monsters -- are daubed on every wall, and
adorn hundreds of little dirty so-called temples.[30]
Bourne's constant efforts at cataloging does not extend to the human element of
the ghats, especially the grisly details of a cremation. His sensibilities are
so horrified by the burning process that he feels that it is not worth
recording. His interest in the architectural spectacle excludes an analysis of
mundane day to day existence during the Raj. In this section I wanted to show
that Bourne selected elements of India and Indian life which he deemed to be
worth knowing for his English audiences, that his process and method of
documentation had a certain intentionality and political order. I will return
to this point in the conclusion.
That Bourne's photographs had value as documenting Indian environment was
recognized by the photographer's contemporaries. On the occasion of a meeting
of the Bengal Photographic Society, May 25, 1869, the following discussion
ensued about Bourne's Himalayan prints:
He [the President] dwelt, on the fact that great as the value of these works of
art, they had besides additional value as serving to depict some exceedingly
important geological phenomena. They were taken rather for artistic effect
than for scientific purposes, but they show that if such pictures are executed
with care and intelligence, they are likely to render no little assistance to
the accurate delineation of geological phenomena. He was quite sure that the
geological problems which have yet to be solved for this country would, to a
great extent, be elucidated by pictures of this kind.[31]
Besides geology, the other major scientific category in the documentation of
India to which Bourne was perceived to have contributed was in the area of
archeology. From the minutes of the Bengal Photographic Society during 1869-71,
there are many references to Bourne's photographs of Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, and
Moghul structures. Without doubt Bourne had assisted to a large extent in the
fostering of activity in this area, which in the beginning of the decade, had
still been in its early stages of development. Now not only was the government
finally responding to the entreaties of Furgusson and others by starting to
amass large numbers of prints by a variety of amateur and professional
photographers, but photo-illustrated books and folio with descriptive texts were
being published in India and England.[32] Thus, Bourne played a critical role
in the efforts to make the British public not only read about India, but also to
'see' India.
The Indispensable Coolies
In this section, I briefly want to discuss Bourne's photography of Indians. As
I have mentioned earlier, Bourne's colonial derision for the natives led to a
general lack of interest in them and their lives. At the same time, he depended
on Indians for the success of his many trips. The word coolie here is being
used to refer to the large numbers of Indian servants, porters, and guides that
Bourne's entourage was often comprised of. For example, during his expeditions
to the Himalayas, sometimes he would have up to 40 coolies travelling with him.
However, "hale and robust" Bourne thought of himself, he could never have
undertaken his Himalayan expedition without the aid of his retinue of personal
servants and porters. For the two longer trips especially, he required an
enormous amount of supplies, and so had to arrange for "hire" of a large number
of coolies to bear the loads. About them he writes, "Quite a little army in
themselves, in addition to these was my staff of servants and six dandy
bearers."[33] When tired of walking, and "when the road might be practicable,"
he would then be carried along in a jampan (a hand-pulled conveyance used by the
British in the narrow roads of the hill stations). He often looked upon his
reluctant hired help as little better than pack animals, recounting on his
Kashmir journey that he had to change them "at every stage, which necessitated
my sending on a servant a day or two in advance to have them readiness." At
one village he noted how "the poor unfortunate wretched had been crammed
together in a sort of loft, and the ladder removed to prevent their escape,
which they otherwise would have made good, as they by no means like being
puckeroed to carry loads." No sooner had they taken up their loads and
proceeded for a few miles on the trail, the coolies fled one by one. Their
attempt at mutiny was futile, for, having equipped himself "with a stout stick,"
the irate photographer discovered them hiding in the next village, and "dragging
them forth, I made them feel quality of my stick."[34]
Besides using Indians as coolies, several of Bourne's servants appear in his
photographs, primarily to provide a human element to the depth and size of the
scenery. For example, in plate 9 we see an Indian, in shade, nurtured between
the path and the trees. In plate 10 we see one of Bourne's servants, again,
providing a scale to the plant life which is the focus of this photograph.
Sometimes he would photograph them from a great distance, for example, looking
down, several thousands of feet, on a glacier or a valley to give the viewer a
sense of depth (plate 11). Very rarely are the Indians the locus of
photographic attention.
However, in what must be one of his last photographs to be taken in India, he
documented eleven villagers of the Nilgiri hill tribe known as the Todas (plate
12). This is the only photograph in Bourne's entire collection which not only
captures the tribe people but also their dwellings. The crude forms of the two
huts are constructed of natural materials -- wood, mud, and grass -- and appear
almost a part of the hillside on which they have been located. Unlike his other
photographs, where the scenic is stressed at the expense of the descriptive, the
Toda mund (village) group picture informs the viewer about a part of indigenous
South India through its relatively ethnographic handling.[35] This is an
exceptional image from Bourne where he essentially leaves the viewer with an
unmediated, physically tangible impression of the Todas, about their buildings
and dress.
Conclusion
Samuel Bourne's photography of India was a landmark for visualization of the
expanding British empire. His arrival to the subcontinent very shortly after
the mutiny and his intentions to photograph and document all elements of India,
including the British presence, points to a deep involvement of the photographer
in the making of the colonial rule.[36] It is not very clear why Bourne,
originally, selected to come to India for his photographic journeys. One could
speculate that India had begun to enthrall the imagination of the English
audiences and it would be fitting that a photographer would want to capture it
in his camera. Bourne had been intrigued by the increasing significance of
photography not only in advancing one's immediate visual comprehension (i.e.,
portraits) but also of geography on a world-wide scale.[37] Having arrived in
India, Bourne embarked on a pictorial visualization which was overwhelmed by his
political and cultural location. While he was, at best, ambivalent about the
landscape and architecture he was capturing, the people were aesthetically and
ethnographically uninteresting. The scope of the Empire coincided well with
Bourne's vision: the land was far more important than its people. However far
Bourne penetrated into the unfamiliar world of the indigenous habitat and space,
whatever glimpse he offered his readers in the British Journal of Photography,
the photographer kept his viewer at a careful remove from the unseemly side of
the diverse life of the peoples of India. In doing so, he 'constructed' a kind
of safe India that could be studied, even scrutinized for its finer forms,
scientific and artistic, while the realities of poverty, colonial oppression,
and famine, could be kept at bay. In many ways, he invented an imaginary India,
filled with landscapes, mountains, and monuments, pictorially subsuming with a
fascinating past, but inherently subservient to the aesthetic and political
spirit (and reign) of the English.
[1] Martin Heidegger (1977). The Question Concerning Technology and Other
Essays. William Lovitt (trans.). New York: Harper and Row.
[2] Jacques Derrida (1982). "Sending on Representation," Social Research, 49.
[3] Friedrich Nietzsche (1956). The Genealogy of Morals. New York: Doubleday.
[4] See Jonathan Crary (1991), Techniques of the Observer: On vision and
modernity in nineteenth century, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
[5] See Suren Lalvani (1996), Photography, Vision, and the Reproduction of
Modern Bodies, Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
[6] See Alison Blunt (1994), Travel, Gender, and Imperialism, New York:
Guilford; Nupur Chaudhuri and Margaret Strobel (1992), Western Women and
Imperialism, Indiana University Press; Padmini Mongia (1996), Contemporary
Postcolonial Theory, London: Arnold; Mary Louise Pratt (1992), Imperial Eyes:
Travel Writing and Transculturation, New York: Routledge; Jyotsna Singh
(1996), Colonial Narratives/Cultural Dialogues, New York: Routledge; Mrinalini
Sinha (1995), Colonial Masculinity: The 'Manly Englishman' and the 'Effeminate
Bengali' in the late nineteenth Century, Manchester University Press; Sara
Suleri (1991), The Rhetoric of English India, University of Chicago Press.
[7] Jenny Sharpe (1993), p. 7, Allegories of Empire, Minneapolis, MN:
University of Minnesota Press.
[8] See Gary David Sampson (1991), "Samuel Bourne and 19th-Century British
Landscape Photography in India," Dissertation submitted at the University of
California-Santa Barbara.
[9] See M. Clarke's (1862) From Simla through Ladac and Cashmere. Calcutta:
Photographic Society of Bengal and P. Egerton's (1864) Journal of a Tour
Through Spiti, to the Frontier of Chinese Thibet. London: Cundall, Downes and
Co.
[10]
[11] Arthur Ollman (1983), Samuel Bourne: Images of India, Carmel, CA: Friends
of Photography.
[12] BJP I, p. 270
[13] BJP I, p. 268
[14] In the same passage he mentions having seen "some of M. Bisson's and Mr.
England's photographs." Undoubtedly Bourne is referring to Auguste-Rosalie
Bisson's views of Mount Blanc in 1862 published in BJP from 1859-62.
[15] BJP II, p. 560
[16] BJP III, p. 23
[17] David Spurr(1993), The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Discourse in
Journalism, Travel Writing, and Imperial Administration, Durham, NC: Duke
University Press.
[18] BJP II, p. 676
[19] J. M. Blaut (1993), The Colonizer's model of the world: Geographical
diffusionism and eurocentric history, New York: Guilford Press.
[20] See Anne McClintock (1995), Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality
in the colonial contest, New York: Routledge.
[21] BJP I, p. 70
[22] BJP III, p. 570
[23] BJP III, p. 571
[24] BJP III, p. 39-126
[25] BJP III, p. 122
[26] He was largely influenced by James Furgusson and Alexander Cunnigham in
this effort. Bourne was aware of Furgusson's publications such as On the Study
of Indian Architecture (1867; London: John Murray) and History of Indian and
East Indian Architecture (1867; London: John Murray). Bourne had also met
Cunnigham, who had founded the Archaeological Survey of India in 1861.
[27] Sampson, p. 280
[28] I am limiting my analysis here only to his photographs of Indian
architecture. The analysis of his photographs of British architecture
including churches, schools, military cantonments, British enclaves, and hill
stations requires a book-length manuscript of its own.
[29] The mosque he refers to was built during the Moghul period (early 17th
century) by Aurangzeb; BJP I, p. 269
[30] Ibid
[31] "Quarterly Meeting," Journal of the Bengal Photographic Society, n.s.
1(Sept 1869), p. 9-10
[32] Some of the more successful books were Henry Hardy Cole's Illustrations of
Ancient Buildings in Kashmir (1869; London: William Allen and Co.), Charles
Shepherd and Cole's The Architecture of Ancient Delhi, especially the buildings
around Kutb Minar (1872; London: Arundale Society for Promoting the Knowledge
of Art), and Colin Murray's Photographs of Architecture and Scenery in Gujerat
and Rajputana (1873; London: Marion and Co.).
[33] BJP II, p. 474
[34] BJP II, p. 499
[35] Bourne had previously made one attempt to capture the life of Indians in
India during his stay. It is the series entitled, "Rustic scenes and Village
Life in Bengal." Photographed during 1868, these are 10 plates which show
tropical villages not far from Calcutta. Though these photographs have very
few architectural reminders of colonial rule, they do not include photographs
of Indians. It appears that the simple bucolic life of the rural peasant,
excluding the peasant himself, in art history is transposed to the exotic
locale of the Bengal village.
[36] An analysis of his series of photographs about the British presence in
India has not been included in this paper because of the need for brevity, it
clearly requires added attention from scholars.
[37] See Bourne's article titled, "On some requisites necessary for the
production of a good photograph," Nottingham Athenaeum Society Magazine (Aug
1860, p. 5-34)
APPENDIX A
Samuel Bourne: A Chronology
1834 Born Oct. 30, Muckleston, Staffordshire border; education: Market Drayton
Grammar
School.
1851 Sees his first photographic image, a daguerreotype of his uncle.
1859 Exhibits his own photographs of the Nottingham countryside at the
Nottingham Photo Society, Jan 7-15.
1862 Oct 15, embarks for India on a steamer Queen of the South.
1863 Lands in India at Madras; arrives in Calcutta on Jan 22. Mid-Feb leaves
for Simla and arrives there on March 1. Second week of April begins
photographing Simla and the surrounding vicinity. On July 29 leaves on his
Sutlej river trek and returns Oct 12
1864 Leaves for the first part of the Kashmir trek on March 17 and returns to
Lucknow on Dec 24; Takes gold and silver medal during the Bengal Photo Society
Exhibition
1865 Photographs "North-West Scinde Valley" including Lahore, Peshwar, and
Sealkot. During Winter 65-66, he takes photograph of all mutiny related sites
and other cities of upper-India including Agra, Benares, Bharatpur, Kanpur,
Delhi, Fatehpur Sikri, Lucknow, Gwalior, Mathura, Mussorie and Simla
1866 June leaves to reach the sources of Ganges and Jamuna rivers; Is
accompanied by
Dr. George Rankin Playfair; Returns to Simla in Dec.
1867 Leaves for England to wed Mary Tolley in June
1868 In Jan photographs Bengal
1869 Visit Darjeeling in Spring; In June arrives in Madras and makes
photographic expeditions to South Indian temples, Ootacamund, and the
surrounding Nilgiri hills
1870 Sails, with family, from Bombay Nov 27 to return to England
1871 Joins his brother-in-law as a partner in a cotton doubling business
1912 Having given up photography all together for the rest of his life, Bourne
spent more and more time on tennis, watercolor painting, and his booming
business. April 24 dies of a heart attack.
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