Italian
Travel Narratives on India: Translation in the Politics of British Imperialism
Jitamanyu Das
Jitamanyu Das is a doctoral candidate in the
Department of English, Jadavpur University. His area of research is the Early
Modern Italian writings on India. He is a former Fellow of the Centre of
Advanced Study at the Department of English, Jadavpur University. He has
previously worked as a trainer/faculty for the Initial Learning Program with
Tata Consultancy Services. He did his Post Graduation in English Literature
from Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan. His areas of interest include the
Early Modern Period, Italian fiction, Diaspora experience, Indian history and
aesthetics, Japanese culture and literature, Postmodernity and Postmodern
novels.
Abstract
Late Nineteenth
century and early Twentieth century English publications saw a large number of
translations from other European languages, of works belonging to the genre of
“travel writing” and exclusively focusing on the Indian subcontinent. This new
canon in English was a clandestine attempt at historically pointing to the need
of submission of the Indian populace to the British rule in order for the
former to develop culturally. Two things of importance are to be noted here,
the systematic omission of facts and careful substitution in the narrative with
fabricated information suiting the Raj. Similarly, their publication in English
coincided with the rising emotions of Indian Freedom Movement, and was an
effort at nullifying the support that the opposition to British rule was
amassing. At the same time this could very well place the “White man’s burden”
sentiment and justify the need for it in British Imperialism. While dissecting
the politics of this canon formation on India through the gaze of non-English,
of the pre-Raj Mughal era, my paper analyses a few “non-English”
travel-writings written in Italian and seeks to underline the politics of
translation into English and their subsequent publication both in Great Britain
and India.
Keywords: British Imperialism, Italian travel literature,
translation, memoirs, history, Post-colonialism studies, Orientalism.
The premise of the British Imperialism depended on the
intellectual presentations upon the inherent flaws on the subjects of Hindoostan
or India1 and fairly large portion of those works came out in Great
Britain authored by the English to establish the need for “White man’s burden”
to continue with the occupation and rule of India. However, with the increasing
dissent and early signs of uprising among the Indian subjects against the
‘foreign’ rule, a need was felt to educate the populace, both Indian as well as
English about the ‘real’ status of the Indians. This would establish their need
to be civilised through the imposition of a ‘superior’ culture and compel the
British rule of law over the natives.
Prime
instruments in this politics became the personal notes and travelogues of noted
European travellers, which had to be translated from other European languages
into English. The reasons for their choices were simple, to draw on the similar
cultures which Europe shared at large, and therefore the similar viewpoint with
which the Indian culture and its practices were accessed. Also, by choosing
historically established texts the English could claim sanctity of their
experiences and in the removal of the author figure, they could ideally
re-model the narrative according their needs.
The selection
made was interesting as it was both from other colonial powers as well as of
individuals from countries which did not have any other relation with India
apart from trade, thus they could claim a variety of insight. However, it is
interesting to note here is that most of such accounts of European travellers
to India were of people who had close affinity with the rulership of the native
empires, or had substantial understanding of cultural practices of the region.
Admittedly,
there are a lot more of English narratives on India, which have been
influential in determining the choice of the European narratives. But those
accounts, mostly of Englishmen associated directly with the East-India Company,
were not free of bias and thus after Queen Victoria’s inclusion of India within
the crown, needed newer narratives. Detailed accounts of the early English line
of narratives can be found in Roy Moxham’s The Theft of India: The European Conquest of India 1498-1765 (2016) and Jonathan Gil-Harris’ The First Firangis (2015) leading us to understand the
way in which India was portrayed in the West through many of such writings.
These remarkable studies elucidate in simple language the complications of
approaching the Western knowledge production about India, and the complex
manner in which the knowledge was utilised by the colonial machinery.
Incidentally, Moxham’s work focuses on the aspects of “theft of India”, which
also alludes to the usurpation of local knowledge and making it a part of the
Western discourses. Both Moxham and Harris emphasise on the importance of
narratives as well as their centrality in defining India as a physical space
and making inroads into its customs. These narratives come together to explain
the rivalry between the early colonisers ‘exploring’ India and figuring out
their prospects, but also show the way they were co-opted in their use together
well into the 20th century to draw a cultural map of the India and
determine the weaknesses through which it could be exploited.
One can
curiously note the number of books that came out in Europe about India, many of
which were in fact based on the writings of others. Doctor Giulio Ferrario in
his thesis published as Il Costume Antico e Moderno
(1829) starts out with a list.2 The list runs for pages although it
only included the important books published and which were in circulation. The
increase in the number of books in the 18th century and later is
quite clear from the list, and so are their titles sensationalising the topics
about India. One might also alarmingly notice the reductionist approach
becoming more prevalent in the later centuries, as the simple titles with
travel narratives are soon replaced with studies of Indian cultures and
societies. This shift lent a credible proof to the ‘scientific’ determination
of the Indian space as opposed to the personal narratives of the earlier
travelogues, by claiming an inherent objectivity of the titles and their
studies.
It is in fact
the basis of Sanjay Subrahmanyam’s theorising this politics in the use of such
narratives in Europe’s India
(2017) as he moves to acknowledge transition to knowledge production of Europe
based on the local narratives of India in a self-explanatorily titled chapter
“Transition to colonial knowledge” in his book. However, Subrahmanyam largely
restricts himself to the English writings and their institutionalisation within
the politics of imperialism. Establishing the British writings’ direct
influence upon the Crown rule is easier and is significant in the attitude
towards the “native” cultures. It is also of prime importance in relation to
the Indian history vis-à-vis postcolonial criticism. Subrahmanyam’s work is a
seminal study into the process through which India’s colonial history
progressed that saw the culmination of narratives written in different
languages and different periods being put to use to strengthen the British
claim of having “studied” and “known” India. The establishment of an
institutionalised way of translating knowledge on India is highlighted by
Subrahmanyam as he leads the readers to see how “India” was “created” by Europe
as an antithetical image suited for the creation of its own self-identity and
as a way of “self-criticism”, as well as becoming a way to continue the
consumption of Indian resources by claiming legitimacy for it.
The politics of
writing about India depended on earlier knowledge that reached Europe as
translation of Original Indian works or were observations from the narratives
of continental European travelogues about the East. In fact, the reality was
that most of the British works adapted and borrowed largely from the
contemporary writings of other European works on India. Several works in
English on India published as ‘real’ depiction of India were in fact false
narratives as their authors never ventured beyond their own countries and
plagiarised non-English narratives for the sensational view that they wanted to
present to the audience. These narratives were thus screened and adapted to
suit the British imperialist agenda with an immediate translation highlighting
the cultural differences and the implicit need for Western rule over the Indian
subcontinent and its populace.
Through a
re-reading of the differences in translated editions between the original texts
and the adapted/translated editions, one can easily understand the epistemic
shift and the power centre(s) that archived such a strong retelling of
historical cultural exchanges. The awareness towards cultural anthropology and
the need to separate the later addition from the original body of the text is
the first step in approaching these power centres to understand their complex machinations.
If looked at a few specific examples, this use of non-English European
literature for political reasons becomes clear to us. The Said-ian
understanding of the politics of Orientalism can be applied to understand the
basis of such proliferation of English literature on India.
The publication
of India in the Fifteenth Century
(1857) edited by R. H. Major, is telling of the British imperial agenda on
India and remains one of the most striking examples and definitely one that
exposes the British method of utilising knowledge to retain colonial control
completely. Translated and published by the Haklyut society with members noted
for their involvement personally or belonging to family with interest in the
colony of India, it included four narratives on India. One can note that all
four of them are from nations with no apparent ‘colonial’ activity in India at
any point in history: of a Persian, a Russian, a Venetian, and a Genoese, the
last two being from two Early-modern city-states of Italy. Similarly, the
narratives chosen from the 15th century would appear to be
scandalous to the Victorian readers. Not only would it enforce the need to
civilise the “natives”, but also the supremacy of Western education and
culture.
The Venetian
narrative belongs to Nicolò dei Conti (1395-1469). Nicolò
dei Conti had travelled through Indochina for 25 years between 1414 and 1439.
Unlike most other previous travellers, Conti ventured inland and wrote about
custom and traditions of the people in details. In fact, noted Italian
Orientalist Professor Guiseppe Tucci comments about the narrative of Conti and
says in his book India and Italy (1974) that “Nicolò’s
memoirs were as of then the best description of India and its people in
existence.” The narrative of Conti was pretty descriptive as it explained in
ample details nature and people of an alien country since he had narrated his
entire travel to Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459) who has published it as part of
his De varietate Fortunae (1447)
probably attempting to draw the attention of Italians towards the wonders of
India and the East. Thus, Conti had emphasised upon the traditions and
practices of the people and compared them with that of Italy. Conti had
travelled through Malabar and into the Deccan plateau, to the Coromandel coast
and to Chennai, then going to the Ganges delta and moving upstream using the
river, and returning to Malabar after having been to Gujarat. His extensive
travel though India made him realise the difference among the people and the
various customs in existence in all these places.
The depiction of
spiritual practices as well as the funeral customs is a testament to the fact. But
apart from these, in following the tradition of Marco Polo, Conti depicted in
detail the flora and fauna and their rich diversity. It is almost no surprise
that Conti’s mention of the Eastern Christian church and the presence of
Nestorians all over India finds no mention in the English translation published
by the Haklyut society. Conti’s work also alluded to the trade relation between
Venice and Calicut with circulation of Venetian ducats being quite regular, a
detail that also was omitted to deny cultural (and trade) relations existing
between India and other European nations.
It would not be
in vain to mention here that Conti’s work was immediately translated from Latin
to Portuguese under the orders of the King of Portugal himself, who had
realised its cartographical and cultural value in the Portugal’s ambition for a
colonial presence in India. Clearly, there is a
difference in the prioritisation at the way in which such a text was read in
Italy and in Portugal, while in Italy it did little more than to fancy a lot of
minds in the aspiration to know more of the world of India, for Portugal it
became a guide to the colonial mission. Within the colonising West thus
remained a visible, but often comfortably forgotten, cultural filter. The view
that Nicolò
dei Conti had of India, would in fact enrage a lot of colonisers since it does
not fit with their popular belief of the “White man’s burden” and portraying
the native as the savage as he stated in his work describing the Indians as–
“They live very civilly and without cruelty of any kind, do not lead the
inhuman life of barbarous peoples, and are gentle, benign and
merciful”, possibly hinting at the other civilisations pretending to be civil
in the cover of temporal and religious jurisprudence while being otherwise in
reality. It was this detailed
narrative that was translated into English to represent an objective view by
carefully omitting the personal references of Conti as much as possible.
The English
rendering of the Genoese traveller Hieronimo di Santo Stefano, on the other
hand, focuses a lot on cultural differences, and the influence of religion on
it. Being very limited in content as the accounts were included in a letter
sent from Tripoli on 1st September 1499, the narrative centred
around the strange aspects of Indian culture. However, the narrative is equally
interesting to note as it contains description of the places of trade and the
products of the particular places which were sold or had commercial value to
the Europeans. The letter also had a significant insight into the differences
between the various communities across the places he had visited. But, one of
the prime reasons for its inclusion in the anthology could have been the almost
blasphemous remarks on the marriage customs and the absence of civil laws in
India. His views about India were primarily that of a trader, but at the same
time was that of an astonished traveller. The translation of his narrative
largely reduced the aspect of a surprised traveller and depended on the extremity
of the portrayal of Indian practices in their differences to the European
Christian norms. Both Conti and Stefano had also depended heavily on portraying
the benevolence of the Christian God in their survival through the journey through
the miseries of the Orient, a narrative structure that imitated the Jesuit
narratives closely to show the journey as a test of faith.
Consider the
English publication of the travels of Pietro Della Valle (1553-1652) in 1845, which
took place for a publisher based out of Brighton whereas Della Valle had
travelled to India in 1623 and had stayed until November 1624. The original
Italian publication of Della Valle’s travels to India had taken place more than
one hundred eighty years before the English translation, in 1663. The communiques
to Mario Schipano established his position as an explorer and ethnographer with
portions of his travels to India translated in English by 1665. But it was his
description of India, seemingly problematic in nature, as opposed to the idea
of the ‘normative’ in terms of the Western culture which was pounced upon and
required English rendering. Commentaries on religion as well as social
differences are central themes in Della Valle’s letters which Schipano
narrativised. Della Valle’s experiences in the Middle East occupy most of the
printed works attributed to him, however, the year-long travel in Surat, Goa,
and South of India gain prominence in their English translation for the
apparent “authenticity” of the words of a man of letters and science like Della
Valle.
For a
significant amount of time, it was the only noted historical record of the
period about the mentioned regions. In fact, Della Valle’s image as an
ethnographer had been formulated to give credibility to his travel narrative,
and distance it from the genre of travel to that of study of the Indian space
and people. Pietro Della Valle’s position as a nobility in Italy contributed
largely to the acceptance of his narrative. Della Valle’s views on India are
interesting to note as they undergo a clear shift where the first few sections
highlight the fantasy of exploring an unknown space, but the later sections
displaying a hostility towards the same unknown space. The conflicts engulfing
India due to the colonial ventures and the desire to control trade and the
shipping lanes are also narrated to an extent. Pietro Della Valle’s narrative
marks the shift within the early Italian travel narratives about India where it
is conscious to a large extent about the needs pertaining to the colonial
missions, especially those of Portuguese and Dutch, and the subversive ways in
which India was narrated in reports and fiction to represent it as culturally
being extreme opposite to the developing commonalities of the South European
culture.
In both the
cases the translated narratives were primarily meant for the consumption of the
British readers in the 19th and 20th century. In order to
sensationalise the narrative and leave a lasting impression, there were
addition of notes and more importantly certain careful omissions. These changes
within the text would not have been evident to the readers unaware of the
original narratives and there would be no pressing need to justify such changes
as well. However, these changes would enable a complete epistemic shift to
support the British colonial project and its claim of civilising the natives of
India.
However, the
most damning narrative prepared in a similar fashion was that of Niccolao
Manucci (1638-1717). Manucci’s entire memoirs were published in five-parts by
1731. The first two parts of Manucci’s travel narratives were published by François Catrou
under his name in French, to whom Manucci had sent
them initially for publishing in Europe. Catrou made significant changes to
Manucci’s version. This became almost like a separate text, and was widely
canonised and used for historical analysis of Shah Jahan’s rule and till
Aurangazeb’s accession to the throne in the Mughal empire to a large extent.
Most of the translations of Manucci in other languages were dependant on this
particular version. But this version was itself incomplete. In 1907, however,
William Irvine, an Orientalist and a “revered” expert on India, a member of the
Royal Asiatic society, and a retired Civil Servant in Bengal for the British
Crown brought out a translated version Storia do Mogor (1907) where he reduced the original five
volumes to four. He also made contribution to the narrative in the form of
changes and adding notes to alter the voice of the narrative. These extensive
notes and illustrations added to the original of Manucci defined the narrative
in a particular way with Manucci’s perspective made critical of the Indian
culture and society.
Similarly,
notwithstanding Manucci’s own limitations as well as his cunning treacheries
throughout his life, he is made to be an objective observer – a detailed scribe
of his contemporary Indian society and its moral follies compared to the West. This
change of narrative voice was achieved in the systematic approach that was made
with the English version of William Irvine as opposed to the voice of the
personal memoir that was in the original Manucci’s writing.
Margaret L.
Irvine, his daughter, came out with an abridged edition named A Pepys of Mogul India (1913)
where she further reduced the entire narrative into a single volume of only the
important section or the “cream of Manucci’s work” (H. B., 1914).3 While
William Irvine’s translation omitted the issues Manucci pointed out with the
presence of other Europeans in India and his strong aversion of the Jesuits
following his fallout with François
Catrou over the publication of his manuscripts, Margaret Irvine’s abridged
edition completely gets rid of all suggestions of criticism of the West, and to
a large extent the praises by Manucci of India. Therefore, the narrative is
completely turned into objective and factual, to imitate history rather than
remaining a memoir of an Italian in India.
Manucci’s
representation of India is contrasted with the writing of Francois Bernier by
Gil Harris as he explains the difference in approach towards the experience by
the two different travellers. Bernier’s attempt is seen as a narrative which
essentially fits the British/French imperial agenda. Manucci on the other hand
remains descriptive, and often repetitive, of the experiences he had. The
flexibility of his narrative comes with the use of “Storia” as his title, which
stands for both history and fiction in Italian. He also uses this position to
include stories and records he heard from others or Mughal court documents
which he has the privilege of accessing.
The
“translation” of Manucci appears to omit such instances to carefully bring it
to the same status as that of Bernier encapsulating a historical account. The
notes of W. Irvine are usefully employed to provide the text authenticity in
historical terms. This text plays the role of being a discursive aid to the
reductionist representation of India done in Britain in the first decades of
the 20th century. One can ponder about the timing of the publication
as it coincides with the Indian call for “Home-rule”, and attempts to draw a
negative portrayal of the Indian socio-cultural setup historically from the
safety of the perspective offered by an Italian traveller not involved in the
colonial establishment and removed historically. This double advantage is
something that separates the Italian travel narratives on India from other
European non-fiction about India, as Italy (or any of its city-states) did not
possess colonial ambition or the requisite institution supported by military
administration. The British colonial project of “Orientalism” caught on to
these benefits and utilised many of the existing narratives, some already
well-known in Europe, to strengthen their views on India.
The publication
of the Manucci took place serially as part of a series propagated at Indian
“educated” audience about the history of the previous era before the arrival of
the British to make them aware of the cultural developments and social changes
at hand. With no way of comparing the available texts to the original MSS only
available in Venice, Paris, and Berlin, and divided across Italian, Persian,
French, and Portuguese, the readers would be severely handicapped to believing
the printed words in an apparent display of logocentrism in the Modern world.
The English translations,
of Conti, Santo Stefano, Della Valle, and most importantly that of Manucci, all
appear to play their roles in the same politics of forming a tradition of
supporting the British imperialism through the depiction of India in absolutely
Orientalist terms and making its re-presentation as the crux of the post-Industrial
Western view of India.4 Hence, we can perceive how the Italian
travel narratives on India were utilised in their English rendering as vehicles
of the politics of Orientalism and contributing to its epistemic body. A
particular re-analysis of the politics of translation and publication of
non-English European books in English exposes the British control over the
entire process of knowledge generation and its use in the defining of India and
the canonisation of its history articulated exclusively through a Western mode.
The seemingly innocuous knowledge produced over the course of almost four
centuries was altered through translation to fit into the narrative of
“Orientalism” within the project supporting the British colonisation of India.
Personal narratives were transformed into ethnographic studies with the
addition of notes and illustrations, as well as carefully omitting large parts
of authorial experiences as well as beliefs from the texts. The relationship of
Power and Knowledge appearing by the way of such translations to reach to a
common identity of India, a view so critical that it offered very less chances
of redemption without the intervention of the British masters which they were
glad to offer in exchange for their continuing presence.
Endnotes
1 The Identification of the geo-political space as
“Hindoostan”, “Indostan”, or “India”, is one example of knowledge production in
English writing about the Orient as means of establishing authority over India
through a semiotic process. It identifies the entire space with a name giving
it an identity as a whole, while seemingly ignoring the regional identities as
well as the local names.
2 The
list is titled “Catalogo de’ principali autori e viaggiatori che hanno scritto
di cose appartenenti all’ Indostan” (A catalogue of important authors and
travellers who have written about India and its objects) and runs for 13 pages
and contains over 200 titles. This underlines the massive interest towards
India in contemporary Europe in general and Italy in particular.
3
The April 1914 review of A Pepys of Mogul India by a Mr. H. B. in The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great
Britain and Ireland makes for an interesting read as it
gives us the reasons for the abridged edition as well as the notable omissions
and the ‘intellectual’ “English” view about it. This aids in our understanding
of the political motive which had affected the translation works of Manucci in
the first place.
4
Noted Italian Orientalist Professor Giuseppe Tucci
presents short introductions to the narratives of the Italian travellers to
India in his book India and Italy
(1974). They offer an impartial alternative to the English translations in
showing the stark contrast in which the translation into English were made.
Professor Tucci’s formulation about prior historical connection between India
and Italy must be made here, as he thought that a relationship of mutual
respect existed between the cultures and was one major reason why Italy had no
colonial venture for India.
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