Film on Holi & Occidentalism

[soumitra at ix.netcom.com]

You wrote: 
>
>The subaltern treatment of Holi may be of interest to  Mr. 
Rajagopalan.  In
>his book, "Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India"
>Ranajit Guha who, as his name indicates is not as pale as
>double-roti-overly-bleached white bread <g>, looks at the Holi 
festival as
>a time of role reversal in which societal norms are turned on end.
>("Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India" -pg. 
33.)

This was the most weak part of the famous book .This comment was a 
direct folloup of the CArnival theory of the west. Ranajit Guha's 
experience of Holi was in Bengal where "Dol" has got many differences 
with the North Indian Hooli. Now some fundamental questions about 
Holi's role-reversal. Is there really a role-reversal in North Indian 
Hindu culture? Are the lower caste people allowed to apply abirs and 
gulals on the faces of the upper-castes. |Are the females allowed to go 
out and apply abirs and gulals to others or strangers . To quite an 
extent the society was not so strigent about pre-puberty or teenager 
girls , but for girls attaining the age of marriage and for married 
women ,are they allowed to play holi as they wish? Some might say all 
these strictures came as a reaction to the Muslim Invasion. Though 
partly it could be true what about any licence to the sub-alterns to 
attain the equalness with the upper-castes? 
Parallelism is an integral part of colonial-vstiges . Though the 
principal consideration of RAnajit Guha is just that , it is obvious 
here at least he were frantically looking for something to extrapolate 
the Carnival theory and replace the German context with an Indian 
parallel.


>
>And, Re:
>The Conference on Philosophy and the reference to "Western" as 
synonymous
>with "American"--
>
>Perhaps the tendency for non-westerners to essentialize occidental 
culture
>as "American" is a bit of reverse orientalism. . .  reified 
Occidentalism?
>
>Best,
>Yvette Rosser
>
>P.S.  It **SNOWED** it Austin, Texas this morning . . . nows that's a 
role
>reversal!
>
>
>
>