Agency of Labor Resistance in Nineteenth Century India:

Significance of Bulandshahr and F.S. Growse’s Account

A Thesis submitted to

the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati

in partial fulfillment of

the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF SCIENCE IN ARCHITECTURE

in the School of Architecture and Interior Design

of the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning

2018

by

Bhaswar Mallick

B. Arch, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India, 2011.

Committee: Rebecca Williamson, Ph.D. (Chair), and Arati Kanekar, Ph.D.

I

ABSTRACT

Hasty urbanization of non-metropolitan India has followed economic liberalization policies since the

1990s. To attract capital investments, such development has been compliant of globalization. However,

agrarian protests and tribal Maoist insurgencies evidence resistance amidst concerns of internal

colonialization.

For the local building crafts, globalization has brought a ‘technological civilizing’. Facing

technology that competes to replace rather than supplement labor, the resistance of masons and craftsmen

has remained unheard, or marginalized. This is a legacy of colonialism. British historians, while glorifying

ancient Indian architecture, argued to legitimize imperialism by portraying a decline. To deny the vitality

of native architecture under colonialism, it was essential to marginalize the prevailing masons and craftsmen

– a strain that later enabled portrayal of architects as professional experts in the modern world.

Over the last few decades, members of the Subaltern Studies group, which originated in India, have

critiqued post-colonial theory as being a vestige of and hostage to colonialism. Instead, they have

prioritized the task of de-colonialization by reclaiming the history for the subaltern. A similar study in

architecture is however lacking. This thesis thus proposes to initiate this work through an enquiry anchored

on F.S. Growse’s, 1883 book, Bulandshahr: Sketches of an Indian district. The book is appropriate, as it

argued that architecture in India remained a living art, especially identifying the agency of masons and

craftsmen. The colonial government saw the book as advocating for native autonomy. Further prints of

the book were prohibited, and its author subsequently transferred.

This thesis would focus on situating the architectural subaltern in 19th century India, not as timidly

transitioning and transforming, but in dignified confrontation with colonialism. It aims to establish the

continued vitality of non-metropolitan Indian architecture, by legitimizing the role of local masons,

craftsmen and architects – the subalterns of contemporary architecture. It would show British

II

administrators facing similar resistance, and question if a working compromise then established, can be a

guiding light now.

The research, although aligning itself with the Subaltern Studies group, finds their literary

methodology insufficient. However, their way of understanding history as “storying” – or “historying”,

and alternate history as an alternate storying, particularly insightful. As such the research would read

Growse’s book with the intent of: discerning and documenting facts versus observations and propositions.

A commentary of the situation described, steps undertaken and goals idealized, will then help critiquing

Growse’s proposed model for its colonial advocacy as well as its implications for urbanism today.

The situation of architectural labor in 19th century India would be established as a vital instrument

that confronted colonial rule. Removing the stigma associated with supposedly backward building practices

and uncivilized labor would facilitate decolonization of colonial Indian architectural history. This would

help ignite a discourse on labors’ significance in architecture, not just as a mode of production or idealized

form, but as an agency essential for its continued vitality. In doing so it would encourage further critical

history-writing, for the marginalia in India, and for architecture everywhere.

III

IV

PREFACE

My first job as an Architect, back in 2011, came in the form of supervising the building of a

sophisticated office building in a rather backward part of the state of Chhattisgarh, in central India. Seeing

a project from beginning till the end gave me a realization of the problems of practice within a rapidly

developing country. The level of precision in construction essential to achieving the aesthetics of

globalization seemed alien in a land where people were still predominantly living in mud houses with clay

tile roofs. The efforts of a rigorous practice in detailing specific to typology was lost on local labor still

trying to catch up with construction methods oblivious and unsympathetic to the demands of our western-

trained eyes. The project, finally, embodied a certain violence of both a projected ideology on traditional

craft as well as in reciprocation in the form of resistance to formal exactitude.

This thesis is a direct outcome of this experience. My wanderings for an explanation to the situation,

lead to my discovery of F.S. Growse’s 1883 book – Bulandshahr: Sketches of an Indian district. When I

first read the book, I had a feeling of déjà vu. It struck me how these commentaries remained so relevant to

issues in Indian architecture now, and yet the book was barely known or appreciated to the extent it

deserved.

I would like to acknowledge the continuous guidance and encouragement of Professors Rebecca

Williamson and Arati Kanekar. Professor John Hancock helped initially to refine the abstract and structure

the thesis. I am grateful to Professor Adrian Parr for introducing and encouraging me to explore Subaltern

Studies. I am also grateful to Sudipto Ghosh for helping realize, and encourage exploration of the problems

this thesis addresses. I wish to thank Anam Akhter for helping edit the final document.

Finally, I would like to thank my parents for their support and encouragement.

V

ABSTRACT I

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS VI

INTRODUCTION 1

1. Background 9

1.1. Bulandshahr: location and history

1.2. Public Works Department: origin and policies

1.3. F.S. Growse’s life and works

2. Kohane’s thesis: Ferguson and Ruskin 23

3. Growse and labor’s agency in Bulandshahr

3.1. The existing material surroundings and practices 29

3.1.1. Built environment: villages and sanitation

3.1.2. Changes in environment: major infrastructure

3.1.3. Influence of Islamic rule

3.1.4. State of architectural practice

3.1.5. Existing architecture of significance

3.2. Economic and political forces: the agenda for power 39

3.2.1. Critique of pilgrimages and marriage-feasts

3.2.2. Role of government

3.2.3. Remedy of education policies

3.2.4. Grip on architecture

3.3. Relations and conditions of knowledge 47

3.3.1. Native rituals and faculties

3.3.2. Role of government

3.3.3. Education policy and schools

3.3.4. The PWD and traditional skills of architectural labor

3.4. Expectations and aspirations: production of ideals and the future 52

3.4.1. The PWD and opportunities for local crafts

3.4.2. Role of government

3.4.3. European scholastic training

4. CONCLUSION 56

BIBLIOGRAPHY 58

VI

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1-2. The Delhi sketch book. India Office Library. (1853).

3. Bhatia, Ashwani. Growse-1, Digital image, April 26, 2010. brajdiscovery.org.

https://en.brajdiscovery.org

4. Tillotson, G. H. R. The Tradition of Indian Architecture: Continuity, Controversy, and Change

since 1850. New Haven: Yale University Press, (1989): 85.

1

Introduction

The British colonial rule of India marked a decisive shift in the agency of architectural

practitioners in the 19th century. Architectural practice in India, is dominated by traditional craftsmen

and masons, who are formed into guilds. The leader of such guilds, is the Mistri, or the head mason,

who designs and supervises the work. Beyond the large metropolitan urban centers where architects

flourish, these Mistris dominate. Economic development in alliance with globalization is now reaching

into these regions and is in direct conflict with this traditional form of practice. But, any resolution to

this conflict is stunted by the poor documentation of this Mistri lead form of architectural practice. The

Mistri class, undereducated and uncertified as they are, are often assumed to be ritualistic, uninspired,

and incapable of any architectural evolution.

British historians in the 19th century glorified ancient Indian architecture, but legitimized

imperialism by portraying a decline. To deny vitality of native architecture, it was essential to

marginalize the prevailing masons and craftsmen – a strain that later enabled portrayal of architects as

professional experts in the modern world. A gap in continuity of traditional knowledge brought on by

British colonialism is projected, wherein all remains of indigenous architectural knowledge was purged,

translated and transitioned to Western modes of production. The Mistri class is thus cut off, as legitimate

traditionalists, easy to dominate as evidenced by their subservient transformation during the British

occupation. This thesis would instead argue that the Mistris, craftsmen and architectural labor of 19th

century India indeed resisted British reforms, and showcase their changing circumstances that

threatened their very existence.

2

1. Cartoon The New House 1: The plight of building in India and how the local Mistris are to blame.

3

2. Cartoon The New House 2: The plight of building in India and how the local Mistris are to blame.

+

4

Accounts by British civil servants of their oriental experiences while being stationed in 19th

century India are not rare. Among them, Frederic Salmon Growse’s book – Bulandshahr; or Sketches

of an Indian District; Social, Historical and Architectural – is particularly significant. Not only is the

book a rarity as a book on architecture that faced governmental censure, it remains relevant for revealing

a crucial background narrative to the persistent issues in Indian architecture. The book is a memoir of

Growse’s experiences in Bulandshahr, as he attempted to give the Mistri and craftsmen a free reign to

design and execute civic buildings, with minimal British intervention. This unique situation and the

success of this radical mode of practice at once showcases the persistent talent of Indian labor through

British colonialism, and portrays the Mistri class as resisting and upholding Indian architectural values,

in its most dire times. Bulandshahr was transformed from a forgotten small town, entrenched in decline

and ravished by famines, to become the foremost modern town of Northern India. When the book was

first published, the British government of the time was so apprehensive of Growse’s radical critique and

model, that they punished Growse by transferring him out of Bulandshahr district.

The essence of the book may be found in the two quotations that appear on the cover and the first

page. On the cover appears in all capital letters:

OUR WESTERN CIVILIZATION IS PERHAPS NOT ABSOLUTELY THE

GLORIOUS THING WE LIKE TO IMAGINE IT.

– Professor Seely, The Expansion of England, 1883

and on the following page, again in all capital letters:

THE LOCAL SENTMENT IN MAN IS THE STRONGEST PASSION IN HIS

NATURE, IT IS THE PARENT OF MOST OF OUR VIRTUES.

– Lord Beaconsfield, speech at Salthill, 1864

5

The first quotation alludes to the descriptive critiques of the prevalent situation – the typical 19th

century English commentaries on India. Growse, rather calls on the Westerner to humble himself in the

study of India, and hold judgement before comprehension. He warns against associating the ills and

backwardness to label Indians as a weaker race. The scholar should instead observe the social, economic

and political forces at play, that engender such conditions. Growse draws attention to the glorious

remnants of the past, as proof of India’s capacity to excel in any field of choice, and more importantly,

still animates the seemingly miserable life of India’s poor.

The second quotation amplifies the final chapter dealing with architectural problems and

triumphs, not in pompous imperial palaces and cathedrals, but in appropriate civic architecture that

served the local community. The resistance of craftsmen, artisans and masons to British architectural

impositions are evidenced as coming from an inherent local aesthetic and taste. The vitality of Indian

architecture, regularly denied by British historians of that era, finds a radical support in Growse. It raises

the possibility that architecture does not dwell only in building, but is also as a ‘sentiment’ that when

ignored, reveals itself in problems of architectural practices.

Growse identifies this ‘sentiment’, and thus recognizes the problem, which then allows him to

come up with a solution. Interestingly, this way of thinking can only recognize an architectural solution

that has come up, was tested, and then perfected in an inclusive design practice. Thus Growse’s working

solution, is rather Bulandshahr’s solution, where Growse is a catalytic, sensible patron, as the humble

local laborer proves his indispensable agency in architecture.

The book consists of three chapters that were each first published independently. The first and

last chapters were published in the Calcutta Review, and the second chapter in The Asiatic Society of

Bengal Journal. The book starts by introducing the reader to the district of Bulandshahr, its geography,

social conditions, public sanitation issues and other ills in Indian society aggravated by British imperial

rule. The second chapter outlines the history of Bulandshahr, albeit summarily. The third chapter deals

with the culmination of these circumstances manifesting in problems for architectural practices, that

6

Growse encountered first hand as a civil executive. He mercilessly criticizes the imperial “Public Works

Department”, which had had a devastating influence on Indian architecture. This department will be

briefly discussed in a separate section. A fuller account of its atrocities is already extensively

documented.

Growse’s novelty in terms of devising a working solution, against a practice he critiques, would

be rather highlighted in this thesis. It is the insightful problematizing that stays most instructive today,

and justifies a fuller appreciation. Fragmentary reviews of the book have appeared sporadically, and

scholarship on 19th century Indian architecture regularly quote Growse. But a dedicated study focused

on the book alone, especially relating to its commentary of the agency of architectural labor, still eludes

enquiry.

To initiate such an inquiry, this thesis will first discuss the situation and history of Bulandshahr,

up to these events in 1884. The Public Works Department of British India will be introduced by

discussing its origins and evolution of its guiding polices. This department was an antagonizing

government agency, that monopolized patronage and architectural design, serving its role as an effective

arm dedicated to establishing imperial hegemony. Thereon, F.S. Growse will be introduced, with a brief

discussion of his life and works. The other most relevant piece of literature, focused on labor in 19th

century India, is a thesis by Peter Kohane at the University of Pennsylvania. This thesis is thus critically

reviewed to explore contemporary scholarship that deal with architectural labor in 19th century India,

and their forms of practice.

As a lesson from Kohane’s insights, the thesis draws inspiration from the ideas of the Subaltern

Studies group of historians. Methodologically, it attempts to address their concerns by a conscious effort

to foreground the story of the dominated social class – the Subalterns – the Mistris, craftsmen and

laborers in this instance. The Subaltern Studies group, originating in India over the last few decades,

are a group of prominent historians who have critiqued post-colonial theory as being a vestige of, and

hostage to, colonialism. Instead, they have prioritized the task of de-colonialization by reclaiming

7

colonial history for the subaltern – the non-elite or subordinated social groups. This thesis’s

methodology of prioritizing the Indian subjugated class is inspired of readings of Gayatri Chakravorty

Spivak’s understanding of post-colonialism and internal neo-colonialism.1

Gayatri Spivak in “Can the Subaltern Speak?”, identifies the concealment of geo-political

implications in Subjectivisation – transforming the identity of a social class and defining it as a subject.

Spivak argues that by ignoring the question of ideology, the construction of a coherent narrative

becomes counterproductive, for the networks of power, desire and interests are heterogeneous. She calls

into focus the desiring subject, which if homogenized, becomes susceptible to the dominant powers’

slippage to create the effects of desire – power produces positive effects at the level of desire, and also

at the level of knowledge.

Interpreting Marx, Spivak posits that class consciousness is artificial and economic, and that the

economic agency or interest is impersonal because it is systemic and heterogeneous. Class

consciousness does not operate towards the goal to create an undivided subject where desire and interest

coincide, but rather divide and dislocate the subject whose parts are not continuous or coherent with

each other.

She explains this dislocation by using the term ‘representation’, as variously spelled in French.

Representation that is Vertreten means speaking for (like a political leader), whereas representation

spelled as Darstellen, means interpretive depiction (as in arts and philosophy). They are related but

dislocated, showcasing the difference between consciousness and conscience.2

In keeping with this ethos, the thesis will explicate on the role of societal and cultural changes in

the lives of the natives, that transformed the identity of the Mistri class. The mechanics of capitalism,

that directed imperial policy making, and established modes of practice that perpetuate the same still,

1 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Can the Subaltern Speak? Routledge, (1995).

8

will become apparent. Further, it will show how a narrative of architectural labor transforming to

become mindless mules was established, and within it the resistance offered at this critical junction by

the subjugated Mistris.

9

1. Background

1.1 Bulandshahr: location and history

Present-day Bulandshahr is a city in India, about two hours’ drive south-west of New Delhi, just

outside Greater Noida on the road to Aligarh. The district bearing the same name, is bound by the two

mighty rivers of North India – on the west is the Yamuna, while on the east runs the Ganges. It falls

under the administrative division of Meerut, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, and is part of the National

Capital Region. The river Kalindi runs south-easterly through Bulandshahr city. With a three and a half

million residents, the Bulandshahr district is comparable in population to the state of Connecticut in the

United States, or the country of Uruguay. The district has historically been, intensively cultivated, and

together with animal husbandry, agriculture forms the main source of livelihood.

Until as recently as the reign of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in the 17th century, both the

city and the district of Bulandshahr was called ‘Baran’. Growse mentions that even in his time, i.e. in

the 19th century, Baran was the popular name amongst the masses. Aurangzeb renamed Baran as

Bulandshahr, as part of appropriating native traditions and names. The landmark fort of Baran stood on

high grounds, typical of forts, which explains the renaming as Bulandshahr. ‘Buland’ in Urdu means

high, and ‘Shahr’ means city. Bulandshahr literally translates as high-city.

Bulandshahr has a long and eventful history. Being close to Delhi, the predominant seat of power

in the Indian subcontinent, it typically follows the rise and fall of powerful emperors and dynasties. In

the preface to his book on Bulandshahr, Growse mentions the extensive coverage of Bulandshahr’s

history in Raja Lachhman Sinh’s – Historical and Statistical Memoir of Zila Bulandshahr – published

by the Allahabad Government Press in 18743, to account for the limited scope of his own retelling.

3 Lakshman̲a Sim̲ha, Kun̲var. Historical and Statistical Memoir of Zilâ Bulandshahar. Allahabad: North-

Western Provinces' Government Press, (1874).

10

The Indian epic Mahabharata culminates in the legendary battle of Kurukshetra, between King

Dhritarashtra’s sons, the Kauravas, and King Pandu’s sons,4 the Pandavas, for the throne of the Kuru

Kingdom at Hastinapur. The Kauravas were one hundred brothers strong, whereas their cousins, the

Pandavas were merely five brothers strong. Yet, the Pandavas won the battle and the eldest brother

Yudhishthira, ascended the throne at Hastinapur. Parikshit5 succeeded Yudhishthira, and was succeeded

by his son, Janmejaya. Janmejaya founded the oldest town in Bulandshahr district, Ahar. Not far from

Ahar, Janmejaya established the Fort of Baran. Soon, a colony grew up alongside the fort. This fort and

its colony from approximately 3000 BC, is the origin of Bulandshahr city.

In a contrasting traditional origin-story, a town called Banchhati6 was founded by Parmal, a

Pandava chief from Ahar. Growse reported to find this original settlement in the form of a ruinous

mound, which he later transformed into a garden called ‘Moti Bagh’,7 a place that still exists and retains

this name. Growse reports another account wherein, these lands used to be the domain of a prominent

Naga tribe,8 under an Ahi-Baran king. To provide support to this theory, Growse deduced that Baran

comes from Varana, meaning a hill-fort, or enclosure, and that Ahi, meaning snake, substantiated the

claims of the Ahi-Baran king founding the fort of Baran. Further, Growse speculates that these Nagas

may have been simply Buddhists, who were reproached by their Hindu neighbors, for their different

religion – as serpentine. And again, an alternate theory exists. King Parikshit had died of snake bite, and

his son and successor Janmejaya avenged his father by performing a sacrifice to eliminate all serpents.

The Brahmin residents9 who performed the sacrificial ritual were granted the land and villages

4 Dhritarashtra was the elder brother to Pandu, but Pandu became King because Dhritarashtra was blind. However,

King Pandu abdicated after being cursed; he would die if he had sex. Thus Dhritarashtra became King, while

Pandu retired to the forests. Pandu’s two wives later conceived the five sons, the Pandavas, by divine intervention. 5 Son of the third Pandava brother, Arjun.

6 Literally meaning ‘forest-clearing’.

7 Bagh in many north Indian languages, means garden.

8 Naga in many north Indian languages, means snake. 9 Brahmins are the priest and educator class in the Hindu society.

11

surrounding Ahar, and Janmejaya himself later shifted the capital to Baran. The association of snakes

with the original migrants may thus have asserted the prefix Ahi to Baran. Either way, the Fort of Baran

was thus established either by Parmal to protect his new town Banchhati, or by an Ahi-Baran king, or

by Janmejaya and his subjects from Ahar.

At the turn of the era with the birth of Christianity, the Bactrian empire and the Gupta kingdom

dominated the subcontinent. Coins recovered in Bulandshahr with inscriptions in Pali10 and Greek,

evidence the relative importance and prosperity of Baran up to the 9th and 10th century AD. Antiques

dating from 400-800 AD indicate the presence of a significant Buddhist population in the present-day

Moti Bagh area.

Around 800 AD, the Dor Rajputs11 under King Chandraka established Baran as their capital.

Hara-datta12, Chandraka’s descendant in the 11th century, founded the town Hapur13. He was the

reigning king when, in 1017 AD Mahmud of Ghazni invaded India. When Mahmud laid siege to the

fortress of Meerut, Hara-dutta, offering no resistance, fled to Baran. He entrusted his trusted

accomplices to negotiate a settlement with the invader. When Mahmud retracted following his plunder,

the Dors came back to power. But in 1193 AD, with Chandra Sen’s death while defending his fort

against Shahab-ud-din Muhammad Ghori, the Dor dynasty ended in Baran. The gates to the fortress

was opened by two traitors, a Brahman and a Dor, who thereon converted to Islam. In 1286 AD, Malik

Tuzaki became the administrator of Baran. The fort of Baran thus passed into the reigns of Islamic

Sultans, and so ended the Hindu rule in the region.

10 Pali is an ancient language of the 1st millennia BC that is now dead. Some Hindu, and significant Buddhist

texts were originally written in this language. 11 A prominent community of north-western and central India. The forts in present day Rajasthan were mostly

built by Rajput kings.

12 His kingdom extended from Kanauj, in Uttar Pradesh, to Thanesar in the present day state of Haryana.

13 ‘pur’ in many north Indian languages mean town. Hapur, as deduced by Growse, was named after its founder

Hara-datta, literally implying Hara-datta’s town.

12

The fort of Baran continued to remain of strategic military significance. In 1290 AD Alauddin

Khilji made Baran his stronghold before marching on Delhi in 1296 AD to claim the throne by killing

emperor Jalaluddin. Muhammad Tughlaq is the infamous ‘mad king’ in the annals of Indian history,

reigning from 1325 to 1351 AD. When in 1344 AD, a famine devastated Baran, and Tughlaq piled on

the misery by imposing heavy taxes. The distressed Hindu farmers burned their crops, and let loose their

cattle. This further enraged Tughlaq, who massacred the people, plundered the district and ruined the

countryside. The native trader community, called Baran-wallas were thus exiled. After 1351 AD the

district recuperated its prosperity, under the more benign rule of emperor Firoz Shah. Khurja, the

commercial market town, was established by Firoz. In 1356 AD, “The Chronicle of Firoz” was written

by the most prominent literary figure from Baran, the historian Zai-ud-din.14 In 1398 AD, Timur came

to plunder Delhi from Persia. The emperor Mahmud fled, but his regent Iqbal Khan retreated to the fort

of Baran. After Timur went back to Samarkand, Firoz’s grandson plotted unsuccessfully to kill Iqbal.

Iqbal recovered Delhi in 1399 AD, and ruled until 1405 AD.

The use of Baran as a refuge for fleeing emperors and noblemen was repeated several times. The

fort of Baran served as an outpost to regroup, or recuperate strength before a strike on the capital at

Delhi. Baran thus had had a history of being the last resort against attacking foreigners, and was a

familiar springboard for resistance against foreign invaders.

Under the Mughals, major architectural work was rarely undertaken in the district. The first

governor of Baran was a woman, Bano Begam in 1536 AD. Under her successor, Amir Fakir Ali Beg’s

administration, Nek-Bhakt Khan built a mosque in Baran. Baran remained an administrative district

under the Delhi province until the beginning of the 16th century, but then declined rapidly in prominence,

eventually reduced to merely a town under the Kol district. In 1707 AD, the governor of Kol, Sabit

Khan restored the fort of Baran, and appropriated its name as Sabit-garh. A Dargah was built, and in

14 Also known as Barani, after his place of origin.

13

1728 AD the construction of Jama Masjid commenced at the center of the fortified precinct. The Masjid,

or mosque, remained unfinished. Sabit Khan’s tomb was built in the adjoining garden called Kinloch-

ganj, which Growse reported as still existing. By 1780 AD, Baran was abandoned by even the Amil,

junior revenue officer, Hakdad Khan. The Amil established his headquarters in the nearby village of

Rathora, and built a new fort there under the patronage of the popular saint Malamal. The village was

thus renamed Malagarh.

Thus, when the British came to Bulandshahr with the fall of Aligarh in 1803 AD, they found a

half deserted, impoverished village. It was initially administered by the Delhi Resident, but from 1804

AD, Bulandshahr and Khurja were administered as part of the Aligarh district. In 1818 AD, the

administration designation changed to Meerut district, and in 1824 AD, the District of Bulandshahr was

re-established as an independent administrative entity. It was a part of the Meerut division of the North-

West provinces of British East India.

In 1857 AD, Walidad Khan, the grandson of Hakdad Khan, was appointed the Subedar15 of the

region by the last Mughal ruler of Delhi, Bahadur Shah, as part of the first war of Indian independence.

Under Walidad Khan, reminiscent of the many former resistances from Baran, Malagarh became a

stronghold and rallying point for the revolting native population. The whole region was over-run, and

Bulandshahr was freed for some time. Eventually, though, the mutiny was crushed, and the fort of

Malagarh demolished by British mines. In 1858 AD, Bulandshahr’s administration was fully recovered

by the British, and this time made independent of the Delhi’s administrative oversight.

15 Suba means province, and the position of a Subedar refers to the governing administrator of a province.

14

1.2 Public Works Department: origin and policies

The Public Works Department, P.W.D., of British India established the necessary infrastructure

and sustained the domination of the politico-corporate entity of the colony. Alongside the Army, the

P.W.D. was the most consequential instrument of imperial rule in India. The Military Works Board of

the British East India Company administration was its predecessor. Following the mutiny of 1857, the

British government formally took over the administration of the colony and the P.W.D., formed in 1855

came to replace the military board. Military engineers thus came to occupy influential positions, and

influenced the founding principles and core objectives of the department. Civil engineers trained in

England started replacing Army officers on the ground, as the Royal Engineering Corps of the British

army started redeploying to the frontiers of an expanding global British Empire. This explains Growse’s

encounters with the P.W.D. at Bulandshahr in the 1880s, in the primary personages of civil engineers.

The mutiny of 1857 had been initiated by native soldiers, who were forced to remove the shell of

their bullets using their teeth. The bullets were greased with cow fat, whereas Hindu soldiers worshipped

cows to the extent of abhorring killing of cows. As such, the British policy makers reviewed the episode

as being spawned out of ignorance of native values, customs, and aspirations, resulting in the political

disaster. The new government had to manage the many factions in the subcontinent by pacifying and

appeasing, or by using the infamous ‘divide-and-rule’ policy. This required British officers to become

more entrenched into Indian society. They studied their Indian subjects, observed and recorded their

customs and aspirations, and provided this crucial insight to policy makers in the government. The spurt

of scholarship on India, in the latter half of the 19th century thus transitioned from mere amateur Oriental

curiosity to an officially authorized feedback system. The patronage for such scholarship and the

profusion of publications from government presses, evidence the same. But first, the British had to be

stationed more numerously across the length and breadth of this vast land. The P.W.D. had to build

modern public works, in the form of officer barracks, churches, schools, police stations, and

administrative offices, that would form the spine of this more hands-on form of governance.

15

The stress on modernity was aimed at economic efficiency, and a rationalized-for-success

approach to governance. Being the most valuable colony of the Empire, the typical 19th century

obsession with the progressive scientific method was drawn upon to define modernity. While an ideal

modern colonial state was being commissioned, the original military background of the department

ensured a patronizing policy that Peter Scriver explicates in the following:

As a field, it was constituted by the struggle not only to design and construct the

infrastructure and buildings of the colonial state, but to define the criteria and control the

scope of what was required. … the debate over ‘architecture’ and the P.W.D. was an

indicative field effect of the particular combination of dispositions and strategies with

which the military engineers struggled to maintain their authority. Rather than proscribing

their rivals, however, this strategy consisted in attempting to render them redundant by

extending themselves professionally, as the would-be Renaissance-men of Victorian India,

to monopolized competence across the spectrum of the contemporary Arts and Sciences.16

The decades following the mutiny of 1857 mark an unparalleled period of colonial building in

India. The more prestigious monumental projects saw engagement of British architectural and

engineering firms, many of which had offices in Calcutta and later in Delhi. The bulk of the more

mundane but extensive, significantly influential and consequential work was designed within the

P.W.D. Either way, the P.W.D. became the predominant patron for architecture, and the supervising

executive for all public works.

To deal with the sheer quantity of building projects, and given the basic utilitarian vision

prescribed by the militaristic bureaucracy, the department diligently developed a design methodology

16 Scriver, Peter. ‘Institutional Agency’ and architecture in the field of colonial empire building. Proceedings of

the Society of architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand: Architecture, Institutions and Change, 2015 /

Hogben, P., O'Callaghan, J. (ed./s), vol.32: 575-576.

16

of codified space planning as standard patterns commiserate with typology, going along with a similarly

unoriginal standardized method of construction, specifications, detailing and finishes. However, these

methods and patterns, necessitated by the overwhelming scope of the undertaking, remained static over

time, becoming rigid and restrictive. Regard for the locale and site, for the community served,

associative traditional vernacular forms, and available skill set within the local building craftsmen and

laborers, were neither consulted nor ever considered as legitimate issues.

This stagnation and barrenness of P.W.D.’s architecture found no notice within the department,

while the British architectural community in England ignored the whole situation, perceiving the lack

of much opportunity for themselves in India. Scriver links the apathy of the British government, as

following a ‘distinct disinterestedness’. He quotes Lionel Jacob to reinforce this argument as follows:

… if there are cheap and ugly box-like buildings, we have to remember that there is another

aspect to the case. If the British had acted like the Moguls, they would have built great

cathedrals and other monuments to their glory at the cost of the blood and tears of the

conquered people; but they worshipped in the cheap, barn-like churches, they lived in

cheap houses, and worked in cheap offices, and for the benefit of the people they spent

money in other ways…17

Scriver characterizes the frugality of the P.W.D. as a typical imperial bureaucratic characteristic

of disinterested public service. It was necessitated out of political compulsions to retain the colonial

cash flow, rather than any real passion for evolving an appropriate modern colonial Indian

architecture.

Growse’s critique of the P.W.D. escapes or ignores this predicament. Inspired by the

contemporary Arts and Craft movement back in England, led by the likes of William Morris and John

17 Response of Lionel Jacob to a paper read before the RIBA by H.V. Lanchester: “Architecture and Architects

in India,” RIBA Journal 30 (March 1923): 298-308.

17

Ruskin, Growse’s passion for a crafts revival in India perhaps blinded him to the realities of British

policy imperatives. Nonetheless, Growse’s critique and the proposed solution evidence attempts to

independently develop and promote a more inclusive and sustainable policy to his supervisors. This

remained within that feedback policy proposal following the mutiny, and aligned with his duties and

scholarly abilities expected of the elite Indian Civil Service officers.

Growse’s extensive and recurring complaints throughout his Bulandshahr commentary can be

essentialized as follows: The P.W.D. designers and policy makers were disconnected and came off as

ignorant of the peculiarities of the site of their constructs. Given their limited range, this was especially

true, given the immense breadth of vividness, communal differences and complexities borne of a long

history and developed culture that characterized India. The civil engineers dealing with decision

making, keeping books, and supervising the execution of works, all at the same time, were simply

overwhelmed and further burdened by the bureaucratic standardized procedures. Their unfamiliarity

with the locality, land, climate and values were exacerbated by frequent transfers. The short tenure at a

station posting was insufficient and discouraged learning the peculiarities on the job. In effect, Growse

found the designs in poor taste, the quality of building poor, and the economics inefficient. The built

works rarely qualified as architecturally appreciable by European standards, and the pattern format was

never comprehensible for the locals. European architectural forms were instead thrust top-down upon

local native laborers, who were never taken into confidence, heard feedback from, or involved in

decision making. Yet, these public works were funded out of revenues collected from the natives, and

the British officers were paid from the same. Eventually, the crude execution of these civic projects,

evidenced the resistance and disdain of native artisans, craftsmen and masons. For Growse, the local

sentiment was being suppressed, and the violence of the cultural appropriation and ensuing resistance

from the indispensable native architectural labor, found utterance in the architectural work produced.

18

1.3 F.S. Growse’s life and works

Sir Frederic Salmon Growse was born in 1836 at Bildeston, Ipswich. F.S. Growse was a scholar

at Oriel and Queen’s Colleges, Oxford, where he earned an MA. In 1860, he joined the Bengal Civil

Services as an Assistant at Manipur.18 A year later, he was elected as a member to The Asiatic Society

of Bengal.

While in Manipur, Growse’s passion for crafts revival first comes to the fore with his work on

Tar-Kashi: a form of craft based on wire-inlays. Growse initially introduced Gothic patterns to the local

craftsmen, but soon realized that the reproduction of Gothic tracery did a disservice to both the origin

of the style, and the tradition of the craftsmen. Thus, he soon adjusted to providing tutelage as a patron,

encouraging craftsmen to apply their skills to European objects of use.19 The presentation of this work

in the Agra Exhibition of 1867 remained unappreciated for not being applied to European objects of

use. At the Calcutta exhibition of 1884, the same work was appreciated, earning a first class certificate

and gold medal. Growse attributed this contradictory reception to better art appreciation of elites in

Calcutta, compared to those in Agra,20 obscuring the critical distinction that the work at Agra was

critiqued for being not applied on European objects of use. Growse had thereafter not only realized the

folly of using Gothic patterns, but sought designs salvaged from architectural features and ornament in

India to be reproduced on European objects of use.21 In 1888, his work culminated in the publication of

the article, "The Art of 'Tar-Kashi' or Wire- Inlay".22

18 Manipur is a small state in the North Eastern part of present day India.

19 Tarapor, M. “Growse in Bulandshahr”. architectural Review (U.K.) 172, no. 1027 (1982): 44-52. 20 Growse, Frederic Salmon. Bulandshahr: Or, Sketches of an Indian District: Social, Historical and architectural.

(1884): Preface, II.

21 Dutta, Arindam. The Bureaucracy of Beauty: Design in the Age of its Global Reproducibility. (2006): 141.

22 F.S. Growse. “The Art of 'Tar-Kashi' or Wire- Inlay”. Journal of Indian Art and Industry, no. 22, (1888): 51-

56.

19

This episode inculcated a lesson to Growse: European design sensibilities, or patterns and styles

are not a pre-requisite, but the work of Indian traditional craftsmen will not be appreciated if they do

not profit Europe. The skills of local craftsmen cannot be distinguished from their design sensibilities,

as the failure of Gothic patterns proved. Rather, design and craft go hand in hand, and fail in separation.

These lessons would later translate to instruct Growse’s appreciation of local building crafts and provide

for his model of architectural practice in India under foreign influence.

The 1867 article, “On the translation of Indian alphabets in the Roman character”, was Growse’s

first of many publications in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. His literary scholarship,

especially relating to the etymology of Indian language names and translations of significant Indian

literature, would thus become his signature contribution. In 1876, Growse published “The prologue to

the Ramayana of Tulsidas: a specimen translation”. And then, in 1880, the first volume of the first

English language translation of the famous Indian epic, the Ramayana by Tulsidas was published from

the Allahabad government Press.23 This remained Growse’s crowning glory. Being frequently

republished and critically acclaimed, this work cemented Growse’s fame as an Oriental scholar.24

In 1871, Growse was transferred to Mathura, an old city in the present day state of Uttar Pradesh,

as the Joint Magistrate. After a year, he was promoted to the post of Collector and District Magistrate.

It is here that Growse first became interested in the study of architecture. Evidencing his new found

interest, Growse oversaw the design and construction of a small Catholic church in Mathura, and

contributed up to a third of the costs. It is distinguished for being a rare example of the Hindu temple’s

Shikara form being employed in a Church. The building of the church infuriated the evangelicals, and

even before it was completed, Growse was transferred to Bulandshahr.

23 Tulsidas (1532-1623) was a celebrated poet of Varanasi in Oudh, the central province of north India. His most

famous work is the Ramcharitmanas, a translation in Hindi from the Hindu epic Ramayana in Sanskrit. Hindi was

and remains the popular language of the masses in northern India. 24 Asiatic Society of Bengal. "Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal." (1894): 119-120.

20

3. Frederic Salmon Growse

4. Sacred Heart Church, Mathura.

21

Intrigued by the discoveries of Indian antiquity, Growse often wrote of the findings, most

distinctly a particular essay on origins of town and village names and meanings therein. His essays from

this time, published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal and the Indian Antiquary, were later

published as a book, “Mathura: A District Memoir”, in 1874. Illustrated beautifully, showing men of

distinction and buildings of prominence, it was intended as a guide for British officers then, and later.

The same year, Growse founded the Mathura Museum. Recognizing this period of sustained

scholarship, in 1879, Growse was made a fellow of the Calcutta University, and nominated for the

‘Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire’, C.I.E.

Growse came to Bulandshahr in 1878, as the District Magistrate. The Indian Civil Services was

already a distinguished for its scholarship representing the cream of British officers in India. So, the

continued recognition of Growse’s scholarship, while appropriate of the officers’ reputation, painted a

further rosy picture of continued success and promotions for the Englishman. And yet, the transfer to

non-descript Bulandshahr from his entrenched work in Mathura, already showcased the contempt

brewing in the government for Growse’s critique and advocacy of native talent. The publications on

Bulandshahr, where he problematizes and theorizes a successful practice, a working compromise

between western imperialism and rural Indian building crafts, thus provoked a censure and another

transfer in 1884. This time Growse was transferred to another remote post, at Fatehpur.

Finally, in 1891, citing poor health, Growse ended his career with the Civil Services, and retired

to Haslemere, in Surrey. There, on the 19th of May, 1893, Growse passed away in peace at the age 56

years, and was cremated.25 On his passing away, in an obituary published by the Asiatic Society of

Calcutta, Mr. G.A. Grierson wrote:

25 East & India Association (London, England) and England) Oriental Institute (Woking. The imperial and Asiatic

Quarterly Review and Oriental and Colonial Record. (1893)

22

In losing him, the world of Oriental literature has lost a fellow-labor, whose work, in its

own peculiar sphere, was conscientious and thorough, and at the same time frequently

graced by an eminently artistic style.26

26 Asiatic Society of Bengal. "Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal." (1894): 119-120.

23

2. Kohane’s thesis: Fergusson and Ruskin

Peter Maxwell Kohane’s 1993 dissertation – Architecture, labor and the human body: Fergusson,

Cockerell and Ruskin – is the most relevant work exploring labor and architecture in 19th century India

through the concepts of human body popular in England and continental Europe. The following review

of this instructive work would explicate the process of cataloging of architectural styles in India, and

present the thesis as a prime example of Eurocentric postcolonial historicizing. In retrospect it shows

how this conceals colonial exploitation by dislocating and dividing collective labor identity. It would

draw attention to how the intellectual’s ideology and circumstances dictate history-writing, which

provides a methodological context to reading and understanding Growse.

The main argument of Kohane’s thesis is that, “the formal qualities of 19th century buildings

cannot be divorced from contemporary insights into the nature of the human body, its form and its

capacity.”27 To support this argument, he discusses the works of Cockerell, Ruskin and Fergusson.

Cockerell was a practicing architect and theorist in London. He denied the human figure full

status as a microcosm of the divine beauty, but still recognized it for a type of formal harmony and

beauty that must inform design. architecture would thus be imbibed with a creaturely quality in built

form, to elicit empathetic response from the observer. Ruskin was an art critic and prominent social

thinker. He put forth the whole human body as the ideal tool, for its ability to perform a range of tasks.

He argued for design work which assumes precise control over manual labor to optimize its value.

Beauty would be achieved by ‘the expression of human labor in built form’.28 Fergusson was a

celebrated architectural historian and critic, fascinated with the developments in human physiological

27 Kohane, Peter Maxwell. "Architecture, Labor and the Human Body: Fergusson, Cockerell and Ruskin.

“ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1993. 1

28 Ruskin, John. The Two Paths: Being Lectures on Art and its Application to Decoration and Manufacture. New

York: Wiley, 1888.

24

studies. Drawing an analogy from internal organs with defined functions that liked together in an

organic whole, he wanted human faculties to be distinctly categorized and isolated out, to in-turn be

distinguished for different kinds of work.

Kohane identifies Fergusson interpreting Indian architecture along three principle categories:

a) Picturesque: Fergusson states often that India is the land of the picturesque. He describes the

architectural works as being framed in the landscape.

b) Sublime: to articulate his attraction to what he finds as disorienting and repellant space and

ritual. It is here that he describes bodily sensations along orientalist tropes, and

c) The detached mode of a scientific observer: Kohane identifies in Fergusson’s writings a push

for enlightenment’s experimental and empirical tradition. The ‘real’ substance of the phenomena being

stripped off of a subjective interpolation. His incisive descriptions are located as being free of cultural

conventions, replacing the subjective aesthetic experience with the aim of determining the relationship

between Indian ethnology and architectural style. Fergusson empirically analyzes and arranges what

was otherwise strange and incomprehensible, and therefore of little value to the West.

It is important to note that while Fergusson never explicitly structures his writings as above, by

invoking the context of Orientalist traditions it is actually Kohane who situates Fergusson as the

quintessential English scholar of the19th century in whom nothing of native Indian architecture can be

learnt of. This is the double that Spivak29 critiques, and is an accurate example of Eurocentrism in post-

colonial reading of 19th century architectural writings.

According to Kohane, Fergusson defined Indian architecture in relationship to its society,

understood in terms of a civilization vastly inferior to the West. Through Fergusson’s scrutiny of the

Indian people, their religion and social rituals, the physiognomic traits, Kohane identifies the dislocation

of this racist inferior perception as being carried over to Fergusson’s appreciation of Indian architecture.

29 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Can the Subaltern Speak? Routledge, 1995.

25

Kohane meticulously identifies Fergusson’s distaste of Indian religious rituals, called as ‘absurd and

childish spectacles;’ secular rituals being signs of a backward civilization. Hereon, Kohane comments

on the Orientalists objective of mastering the East by knowing – contrasting the decline in stasis of the

East, against the progress of the West.

Kohane reconstructs the Orientalist strain in Fergusson, but ignores any fresh original

interpretation of the rituals Fergusson described. In doing so he misses the opportunity to bring forth

the historical account of how these rituals were a part of Indian civic life then, which could potentially

develop a commentary on socio-politics in Indian rituals now.

Going forward, Kohane identifies Fergusson’s obsession with linking a decline in Indian

agriculture to a decline in Indian architecture. Agriculture and architecture have been historically linked

in architectural theory, for they both relate to the particulars of the land, climate, techniques and tools,

and materials availability in a situation, to serve the needs of a particular population with cultural

implications. It must be granted that Fergusson’s direct interpretation of a decline in crop output as

being indicative of a similar decline in architecture is a forced argument, that Kohane explains. But

Kohane misses again the rare opportunity to bring forth the 19th century Indian society’s analogy of

architecture and agriculture hidden in Fergusson’s rhetoric.

Kohane identifies that the formulation of ‘True style’ categories in India by Fergusson, furthered

the established European practice of progressive detailing in a building design but fails to link that to

Fergusson’s implicit restructuring in this way, of a society divided in worker classes with defined

functions, i.e., – division of labor. Division of labor in society was not something alien to India, as

Kohane’s reading would suggest. The millennia-old caste system had its origins in a societal

understanding of division of labor. It is a negotiated and contested division whose power dynamics have

been and still are alive in Indian society. It is interesting how that dynamics of division of labor changed

with the advent of the British, indicative of that movement of subjective reconversion, every time there

26

is a social change30. This is the movement Kohane fails to identify, explicate and address, as is typical

of postcolonial history-writing.

The dominant power for Kohane is the British historian Fergusson, who critiques, and by that

produces, a set of laws aided by contemporary norms of reading architectural significance, to

marginalize Indians. This power structure – that ancient Indian architecture is glorious, but presently in

decline – is identified, written and executed by the dominant power: Fergusson, the historian. As

critiqued by Spivak31, the plurality of agents at play are missed at both ends. Some of these agents

missed may be summarized, as recent Subaltern Studies scholars have, as:

1. Dominant indigenous groups at all India level: The Elites.

2. Dominant indigenous groups at the regional and local level32, and

3. The demographic difference of the whole Indian population minus those who are elites. These

are the Subalterns, who vary for their ‘identity in difference’.

Again, Fergusson is a singular elite in this problematic otherwise. He is commissioned by a

prospective audience that are the elites of British society, economically and in administration. Fergusson

is compelled and ideologically structured thus, even before he sets foot in India.

The Indian self is defined as it interacts within, although against, these dominant and negotiated

set of rules. In doing so, it brings into play its knowledge of the past, i.e. the Indian’s shared history,

amongst themselves, and with the colonial regime. This historied knowledge exists in the form of the

spoken and written word: norms and customs of speech and language, myths and legends and in

30 Deleuze, Gilles and Seán Hand. Foldings, or the Inside of Thought (Subjectivation). Foucault. Minneapolis:

University of Minnesota Press, 1988: 78.

31 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Can the Subaltern Speak? Routledge, 1995. 32 Derrida’s ‘antre’, or the ‘in between buffer group’

27

religious beliefs, that constitute the collective moral laws. The other form of knowledge being in the

visualized cultural products and civic artifacts: in art, craft and architecture, the established norms of

the built environment. And then again, the British have a similar and overlapping spoken and visualized

knowledge, providing it with a historical sense of identity.

Perhaps Kohane’s is at odds with such an understanding of knowledge, for he invokes only the

contemporary British Orientalist tradition of picturesque, sublime, and a growing taste for scientific

empirical observation. By drawing attention to Fergusson’s analysis through etymology, and obsession

with agricultural decline as explicative of architecture’s similar decline in India, Kohane once again

adheres to the Eurocentric understanding of knowledge – of true styles and progressive detailing

evidencing social division of working classes with defined function.

When writing on Indian architecture, these sets of knowledge, of both the various forms of

Indians and British, negotiate a terrain of established and negotiated building norms to produce

architecture of the present – the production of knowledge now. This present production of knowledge

is influenced by a variety of forces that are outside powers,33 such as colonialism, economic theories

and political science theories. These forces working within rules and acting with a knowledge of the

past, work in a stratum: the way history is written, the places Fergusson could visit, the time Fergusson

could spend, and so on. In doing so, gaps and holes appear, that present opportunities34.

When the knowledge of the past works on a practical stratum, influenced by outside forces, within

a set of laws defined by power relations, gaps and hopes of un-fulfillment appear. This is where our

aspirations of the future, our dreams and goals reside in the present – still in the situation but new. The

33 Deleuze, Gilles and Seán Hand. Foldings, or the Inside of Thought (Subjectivation). Foucault. Minneapolis:

University of Minnesota Press, 1988: 78. 34 Ibid

28

past and the future interact in praxis to become the present35. For Foucault, as interpreted by Deleuze,

this is thinking.

In Fergusson’s writings, the classification of Indian architectural timelines, styles, and practices

with a specific new division of labor are embodiments of this thinking. Right or wrong, they are the

negotiated solution of the British historian, and the British audience. Kohane’s critique of Fergusson is

likewise so – a negotiated production of knowledge to produce a way of subjectivisation.

To talk of labor, Spivak quotes Althusser’s understanding that

“the reproduction of labor power is not only a reproduction of its skills, but also at the

same time, a reproduction of its submission to the ruling ideology for the workers, and

the reproduction of the ability to manipulate the ruling ideology correctly for the agents

of exploitation and repression; so that they too will provide for the domination of the

ruling class, in and by words.”36

To recognize the agency of the British government’s policies that are manifest in Fergusson’s

writing, is the task of the critique. But Kohane’s work evidence the escape of ideological production

that Spivak brings forth as a problem in post-structural Eurocentric theory. Instead of identifying the

institutionalizing mechanisms of subject production through continuous critique, by portraying

Fergusson as also a subject within, as a representative Vertreten37, Kohane’s dissertation conceals the

operative colonial dictum and capitalist exploitation to render Fergusson as only embodied in his written

work alone, in representation as Darstellen.

35 Ibid

36 Althusser, Louis. Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation). Lenin and

Philosophy, and Other Essays. London: New Left Books, 1971: 85-126

37 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Can the Subaltern Speak? Routledge, (1995). Herein Spivak distinguished the

dislocation by defining the change as change in the way of representation, as Vertreten, or as Darstellen.

29

3. Growse and labor’s agency in Bulandshahr

3.1. The existing material surroundings and practices

3.1.1. Built environment: villages and sanitation

The village, or small district center of Bulandshahr was a flat depression with trenches all around

for garbage disposal. Growse reports that the huts for housing were built of mud, their floor being

interestingly sunk 2 to 3 feet below the ground level. He captures this feature, and thereon links this

anomaly to problems of drainage, sanitation and ultimately lifestyle and public health.

The fact that these lands were regularly flooded during monsoons every year, would explain how

the ground level would keep rising due to siltation. As such, it is typical for the ground level to become

higher that the floor level of huts, not due to foolish ignorance of the natives, but as a natural progression.

Village huts across the country typically feature a 2-3 feet high plinth, for protection against floods and

pests. But poor people, who cannot afford an extra shed for cattle as Growse himself admits, can barely

be expected to rebuild their houses every few years. The district was ravaged by regular droughts38, and

famines,39 and building remained an expensive proposition.

And still for Growse, decorations indicted by carved wooden eaves and brackets, in plaster niches

and plaster molds of doorways, evidence a sophisticated array of architectural vocabulary. Growse, the

orientalist, admits finding these appropriate and picturesque. The architecture was appropriate and

belonged to the place and people it was of and for.

38 There 1823-24 drought caused crop failure. Drought in 1858-60 caused the 1860 famine. Nevill, H R. District

Gazetteers of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh Vol. V. Allahabad: Printed by Supdt., Govt. Press United

Provinces, (1903): 49-51 39 There were famines in 1783, 1837 and 1860. Ibid.

30

Growse’s critique of lack of ventilation and cleanliness, should be understood as the difference

in ideals they represent. Industrialization and the bleak housing condition of factory towns, back in

England, had brought forth these critical ideals in the 19th century architectural vocabulary – and so,

Growse’s parameters to critique foreign situations within these narrow scopes defy his allusion to a

projected ideology.

The neoclassical barren architecture of PWD, having the stamp of the ruling elite, was idolized

in the rich native’s larger house with courtyards. But, the fact remained that the hot continental climate

of Bulandshahr, suited outdoor living, which is typical of Indian villages. Moreover, in the hot, dry

climate of North India, unlike the humid conditions back in England, lack of ventilation in residential

communities are desirable. The hot summer blasts, called ‘loo’, and cold draughts from the Himalayas

during winters, require housing to be closely packed and protected from violent gusts of wind, and

courtyards provide a microclimatic haven, where all rooms would open into.

3.1.2. Changes in environment: major infrastructure

The advent of the British empire had caused major infrastructure projects to be undertaken, for

the benefit of economic exploitation: the railways to carry raw materials to ports and finished goods

from them, and postal services for easy communication between the administrators, executive and the

military, and to advance agricultural produce that would provide increased raw materials for the

factories in Britain and feed its soldiers across the empire. Dams and embankments were built. The

British civil services, and engineers designed and supervised these works, providing gainful

employment for their countrymen back home, at the expense of profits derived of India. And yet, the

projection of such undertaking as being British development building the Indian nation, created the

space for subject creation of Indian architectural labor as second rate mules – in Growse’s words,

“capable of appreciating action in others”.

31

This changing environment, and landscape also saw imperial institutions, such as the town halls,

and schools, being built by the PWD, all across the country. With the exception of Bulandshahr, under

Growse’s administration, these works employed Indians as mere labor, without consideration of their

design suggestions, or valuing their traditional skills.

3.1.3. Influence of Islamic rule

According to Growse, the Islamic influence, essentially the introduction of the arch, became

naturalized in its fusion with the older indigenous style. The architecture at Ahmedabad, and at Jaunpur,

are evoked by Growse to showcase the conflict of an old style with new ways, which ultimately resulted

in a picturesque hybrid, that Growse admires. Paralleling the evolution of this hybrid with British

colonialism, Growse posits the development of such architecture to the agency of Hindu craftsmen.

Beyond the typical ambitions of the Mohammedan court to “embellish its capital and display its

devotion”, the hard fact remained that execution ultimately required the employment of Hindu

craftsmen. By stressing on the difference between the Mohammedan patrons and the Hindu craftsmen

due to their different religions and sympathies therein, Growse sets up the easy translation of that past

situation to mirror that in the present – English patrons and Indian craftsmen, of different religions and

sympathies.

The hybrids of that marriage in Mughal architecture, according to Growse, was interesting, but

was criticized for the “intrinsic incongruity in component parts”. This was supposedly seen as a defect,

toned down and caused the style to lose its charm – doomed to an early decay with no reproduction

leading to decline.

For one, the story of decay in Mughal architecture is unsupported by any evidence from Growse,

and reads more as a British colonial commentary, consistent with their 19th century narrative of decline

in Indian architecture. And second, that by portraying this decline, and identifying the ignorant dismissal

32

in “incongruity of component parts” typical of hybrid architecture, Growse is creating the space for his

model of architectural practice in colonial India. As an administrator, he realizes that Hindu craftsmen

will be employed for imperial projects in India, and their adherence to traditional techniques will

produce works that will feature incongruities, especially in the evolutionary early phase. As if in

anticipation of a critique based on incongruity thus, Growse elaborates the failure of the Mughals as a

warning against cynicism, and in favor of his practicable solution.

But more importantly, the agency of labor in the continuity of traditional indigenous architecture

of India is thus elaborated, not just during colonial times, but even through naturalization of Saracenic

architecture – in its fusion with native sensibilities through the inexplicable requirement of employing

native craftsmen.

This assimilation and development of architecture, is not the capitulation of one style against

another, and the resistance of labor is rather indicative of an evolving creative response to rearranged

circumstances. A key facet of capitalism lay in denying any enlightenment of the workers in their class

interests. Instead, worker struggle is merely “located in the desire to blow up power, at any point of its

application”, with “no other aim but the immediate one of overthrowing the existing government”.

Under the existing circumstances described by Growse, the resistance of labor does seem to provide

creative solutions instead. The resistance of labor, or the struggle to maintain their craft and skills is

perhaps unique to traditional forms of labor – involved in the production of arts, craft and architecture.

The difference from Marx’s conclusions may simply be a reflection that Marx’s labor subject is the

factory laborer of the industrial age, who, as expounded by Arendth is born in the realm of “mere labor”.

It is thus important to realize that the labor Growse talks about is that original breed, whose

transformation to “mere labor” delinked of its desire from ideology through subjectivisation, was still

undergoing. Growse’s narrative goes beyond and contradicts that complete transformation and

subjectivisation of labor located in the 18th and 19th centuries, to instead argue that a resistance was

33

necessarily formed, which perhaps later day worker’s struggles in the 20th and 21st centuries continue

to evidence.

The example of rebuilt old Hindu pilgrim cities of Mathura and Brindaban, along the Yamuna,

further evidence the constructive role such labor resistances had played. As observed by Growse, the

recreated temples had a similar space planning and proportions, which may be understood for their scale

and massing matching earlier specimens. Interestingly, the introduction of the arch and vaulted ceiling,

reduced the heavy masonry structure required to keep the temple erect. As the Gothic had done for the

Romanesque, interior space opened up, and arched arcades replaced the mass of load bearing masonry

walls. The allusion to decorative spandrels of these new arched intercolumniation may be assigned to

the need for ornament – in celebration of these new archetypal element’s incorporation in traditional

built forms.

Further examples of Hindu temples featuring Islamic architectural temples such as domes,

cupolas and arches, and similar trabeated paneling featuring moldings and surface carvings, elaborate

this assimilation. Similarly, Hindu structures constructed in Mathura were constructed for occupation

by Mohammedans. By showcasing the irrelevance of religious affiliations as architectural elements of

Islamic origin became incorporated into the Indian architecture, through the middle ages, Growse makes

two observations: first, that the evolution of architecture by assimilation of foreign influence, makes

way for naturalization over time, even though the initial hybrids may display incongruity and lack of

integrity in application of component parts, composition and proportions, when compared to their

original predecessors. Herein, he alludes to the ultimate goals and ideals for European architecture in

the Indian subcontinent, that he finds practicable and supported by history.

The other point he makes is to highlight the existing proof that the resistance of the Indian labor

to foreign ideologies and practices, need not be understood as obstructive nuisance, but rather, as his

narration of the historical evolution of Indian architecture showed, was to be tolerated and guided – for

34

through it is the path of naturalization of European ideals in India; by way of assimilation of construction

techniques and acceptance of archetypal component parts in compositions.

3.1.4. State of architectural practice

Growse’s observations of the native trader community’s engagement with building is an apt

description of architectural practice in non-metropolitan India of the 19th century, which remains true

in the 21st century. Gordon Sanderson in 1911, described the basic premises through an example of a

work in Delhi.

The dharamsala of Chunna Mall, in the Mohalla Nil ka Katra, has just been completed.

It was built under the supervision of Nuru, mistri, who did not receive any regular pay

but charged commission, dusturi, on all the materials purchased for the building. His

commission, according to the owner, amounted to about Rs. 20 or 25 per month. In return,

he spent a few hours’ daily at the building, gave instructions to the masons for the next

day’s work, and paid them. Such mistris at Delhi usually have several works going on at

once. They make rough plans showing the arrangements of the rooms, and, for important

buildings, sometimes prepare a front elevation. … they never prepare any sections

showing inner details of roof beams and ballis. Details of decoration are very seldom

made except for teaching novices. It will be seen from this how much is left to the mason,

on 8 to 10 annas per day.40

40 Sanderson, Gordon. Types of Modern Indian Buildings at Delhi, Agra, Allahabad, Lucknow, Ajmer, Bhopal, Bikanir, Gwalior, Jaipur, Jodhpur and Udaipur, with Notes on the Craftsmen Employed on their Design and Execution. Afghanistan: (1913): 7.

35

About drawings in such a practice, Metcalf quotes Kipling as41,

… are seldom to scale, perspectives are unknown, and the details are not carefully made

out, for, as the mistry superintends the work himself, he does not think it necessary to

elaborate on paper parts which will be better understood when they come to be worked in

situ. Yet, empirical as the practice usually is, it must not be supposed that things are left

to chance-hap. The eye, and the memory seems to have grown independent of the

elaborate system of detail drawings common in Europe, and though such drawings are

looked upon by the native workman with more respect than they are always entailed to,

he sees no need to emulate them.42

Even though Growse identifies the qualifications for engaging the mason to be based on habit, or

custom, and repute, he denies involvement of any artistic considerations. The repute of the concerned

mason in the neighborhood is a reflection of his artistic acumen, and what is described as habit, is

established societal understanding of how works of art exist. For a foreign officer such as Growse, who

admits that traditional taste was inexplicable and innate amongst the natives, this appreciation and

confidence in traditional art and taste thus comes off as being borne of mere habit.

The patron chooses the site, decides the program, and supplies the materials in part, or in whole.

Beyond this, the mason is left to his own devices and given the confidence of design and execution.

Freed of creative constraints imposed by the patron, the mason proceeds to produce his work for the

ultimate evaluation in built form. His reputation depended on the appraisal of his finished work, and

reflected upon how he interpreted the requirements of the patron, on the specific site, within constraints

of time and resources made available.

41 Metcalf, Thomas R. An Imperial Vision: Indian Architecture and Britain's Raj. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1989): 163-164. 42 J.L. Kipling. Indian Architecture of Today, JIA, no. 3. (1884): 4.

36

Growse finds this system most efficient, for it ensures economy in material and labor, and ease

of business as in other mercantile transactions. After the mason delivers his work, the patron assumes

control of its possession and regains his agency to modify the construct as and how he deems fit, thereon.

Growse idealizes this native way of architectural practice, for the minimal involvement required of the

patron, confidence and freedom of creativity of the mason involved – sensitivity and appropriate artistic

quality guaranteed by adherence to traditional ways.

In contrast, the heterogeneity of the Indian subject comes forth in the way of the rich native

gentleman conducted his business of building. For Growse, the landed gentry’s affluent but monotonous

lifestyle ensured that building for him was rarely born out of any real requirement, but was often an

amusing sport. This degradation of the landed gentry’s enterprise ensures that the built works of this

singular class of natives, who could match the imperial elites in affluence and influence, is relegated

instead as wasteful exercises in vanity; aimed at matching the British, rather than strategically planned

as an efficient economic endeavor assuring maximized profits. If the efficiency and economy of the

traders was critiqued for the patron’s reluctance to engage, as a mark of lack of artistic taste, the opposite

indulgence of the landed gentry was marked as extravagance, unbecoming a man of taste. Either way,

Growse does not recognize the pursuit of artistic excellence, and its proper appreciation in the native

population. While this ensures that Indians cannot be trusted as responsible patrons of art and

architecture, the space was created for the British to claim sole patronage of the art, for the responsible

guidance, and continuity of traditional skills and values.

Consequently, even as the landed gentry retains a native architect to carry out his wishful building

activity, this architect is restricted to the imitation of plain, boorish and utilitarian PWD’s examples. He

is warned against influence of customary Indian architecture. Growse identifies this fascination with the

PWD’s architecture, as a show of allegiance to the ruling administration. Emulating the line, the ruling

elites’ dictate is a definite act in the process of subjectivisation, declaring one’s loyalty to the rulers.

Moreover, even if unacknowledged by Growse, the PWD architecture promoted European archetypal

37

elements, such as the bell turret atop the school at Bulandshahr. These were novelties for the native

population, and in attempts to seem aligned with the powerful, the emulation of PWD architecture still

followed the natural process of fusion and hybrids that had proved in the successes of Saracenic

architecture, just a generation or two back.

3.1.5. Existing architecture of significance

Bulandshahr’s structures of architectural significance consisted of a Mughal era tomb erected at

Kasna, during Shah Jahan’s rein; and a stone pavilion at Shikarpur of a later date. The existence of these

local examples of Mughal architecture evidence the familiarity of labor, in hereditary occupations, with

Mughal ways of building and design. This, as mentioned before, had imbibed the indigenous style of

the Indians, especially in these mature phases that the monuments originate in.

During the British raj, the previous magistrates had commissioned schools, dispensaries and post

offices – one for each municipality in the district. Growse uses the term “regulation pattern” for these

structures, in reference to the PWDs method of typical drawings suited to typology, irrespective of site

and surroundings. Moreover, as in the example of the new church, the design was provided by the

British engineer, with poor faculties of architectural design. The execution was then left to native labor,

whose workmanship lacked the accuracy in mechanical finish, befitting European industrial-age design

sensibilities.

This is the typical scenario of practice that produced unsatisfactory architectural works.

According to Growse, Englishmen lacked artistic originality that was compensated by their perfection

of mechanical finishes. On the other hand, the local Indian labor inherited the artistic traditions of India

in their craft, but lacked experience with modern mechanical finishing appliances, and postindustrial

sensibilities of exactitude in finishes. While colonialism denied local laborers the exercise of their

design expertise, their unfamiliarity with European architectural styles meant a mismatch with the

design languages that they were forced to execute. This mismatch and forced reallocation of skill

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deployment and principles of practice were, for Growse, the root cause of poor workmanship in colonial

architecture.

The preservation and restoration of historically significant works of architecture, undertaken by

the British, although noble in intent, relied on careful imitation of historical styles. This did not engage

either the research, or the design faculties of the natives that could have meant meaningful design

exercises and critical architectural development of Indian architecture even during the British Raj.

Growse reiterates his conclusion thus, that Englishmen are better off at space planning and

rigorous supervision, while Indians should stick to designing of facades and detailed component parts

– utilizing their traditional craft skills and forms. In any case, Indian labor did not demand extra pay for

detailed ornamental work, and better project management of Europeans would ensure efficiency and

economy in practice, without compromising on quality and evolution of a critical architectural synthesis.

39

3.2. Economic and political forces: the agenda for power

3.2.1. Critique of pilgrimages and marriage-feasts

Growse established public health as a crisis facing Bulandshahr, and by extension all of India,

through an elaboration of the existing material surroundings. In the process of subjectivation, this crisis

is then identified in other aspects of public life – in rituals and festivities, in cultural production and

spiritual practices. Spivak identifies this as “marked by a functional change in sign systems”. Growse’s

commentary on pilgrimages and marriage-feasts, may be understood thus.

But, how is the critique of pilgrimages and marriage-feasts related to rearrangement of power

equations? How does this help capitalism to thrive?

To do so, let us look at the economics at play. A regular Indian family rigorously saves money

for special occasions – marriages and pilgrimages. To marry off one’s daughter, or son is often the final

act of significant responsibility for parents. From thereon, responsibilities to their children get reduced,

and parents transition from care-givers to being cared for. It is typical then, that released of societal

compulsions of familial responsibilities, and in anticipation of the coming judgement after death, the

parents turn towards a more spiritual life – the age of Sanyasa. As is true in many religions originating

out of India, people slowly rid themselves of worldly attachments and desires. Spending lavishly on

marriages, a celebration culminating in, and showcasing material achievements in their lives, and

donating the family saving to the next generation, is thus important. Pilgrimages undertaken at

significant costs, and hardships, are the final acts of this detachment – transcending into the next

incarnation.

Such a reading of life’s needs and rituals is at odds with a market economy, focused on

consumerism and organized banking. Growse complains that money hoarding for such purposes was

wasteful. He posits the extravagance on such special occasions as, squandering and unprofitable. As

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such, he shows not only his lack of understanding and compassion for Indian culture and ideals, but also

his mindset fixed on exchange value. In doing so, he bares his own subjugation to the forces of

capitalism, acting consciously or otherwise, in reframing the power relations, as is wont of an agent of

capitalism.

There are two aspects that arise out of this revelation. One, that the way power is restructured

during subjectivisation can be seen in action, and two, how the ideology of imperialism relates the forces

of capitalism.

Deleuze explains the transmission of external forces of power, by giving the curious example of

a dice throw. Reforming power relations by discreet and heterogeneous agents understandably elicits

questioning the homogeneity in results. The throw of the dice, every time, similarly enacted by discreet,

heterogeneous agents – the individual throwing the dice – sure seems to provide unique, unpredictable

results every time. But one must realize that there is still a limited range and fixed nature, inherent in

such results. The dice has only six sides, and each side has a fixed value. So, however times the dice is

thrown, over however long a span of time, the results stay comparatively similar: within a predictable

range, and of a predictable nature. It remains after all a game of dice, ruled by a fixed set of rules with

established power relations between features, and arrived at by chance.

By parallel, Growse’s lens of evaluating the rituals of Indian culture, are fixated on value for

money, profitability, and an obsession with physical health. While saving money is appreciated in the

capitalist system, it is required to be publicly available for investment. Growse thus parrots the typical

focus on “distribution with judicious economy on the whole area of domestic requirements”. Growse is

arguing for increased consumerism, that would serve the British monopolized manufacturing. When

Growse admits defeat in the efforts to that end, one catches a glimpse of the resistance of the Indian

people and culture – the resistance, not only to continue traditions and a way of life, but also to preserve

knowledge of the past deposited in such rituals – values that are refreshed and reimagined in the people’s

memory, every time they get enacted.

41

As a prime example of dislocation to rearrange power relations, Growse finds these symptomatic

of a deeper evil. He finds these celebrations marking phases of life, as reliefs and escapes from an

otherwise unattractive, uncomfortable daily life. Once the dislocation is established, he argues for

money to be spent on material wealth in their houses, that would make daily life more colorful. As an

adjunct, he translates “material wealth” to “elements of culture”, albeit in British terms, and repositions

the happiness thus, as being a prerequisite to a healthier life.

The other significance that comes forth is the relation to this relocation for capitalism, to

imperialism. It is relevant to enquire why Growse, the imperial officer, argues for capitalism? Herein,

it must be remembered that the British arrived in India as traders, and thereon, economic profitability

remained their prime motive to stay and administer India. The revolt of 1857 enabled a shift in political

leadership from the East India Company to the British crown. This shift in political power resonated

with a more entrenched desire to subjugate daily cultural life, through a more subtle but elaborate

subjectivisation of private and public life. Marriage and pilgrimages are both private affairs related to

familial life and individual spirituality. The engagement of administrators in such personal matters,

showcase the political desire in action. More significantly, it shows the extent of imperial interference

the people of India faced, and more often than not succeeded to resist – as is evident in Growse’s

defeated frustration. Nor, should one divorce this political thrust with the economic imperatives

involved. The change in political power was in the interest of protection, and furtherance of economic

exploitation. By affirming the political clout, stability was assured, and space was made for capitalism

to restructure even rituals and customs, which were otherwise difficult to affect, by determining their

profitability, and ascertaining them an exchange value.

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3.2.2. Role of government

The artificiality of British imperialism laying down its roots in the latter half of the 19th century,

is witnessed in Growse’s observations on new laws and systems of administration being introduced. In

a free society, morals developed by individuals coalesce too form societal norms, and when sufficient

members of a community agree on such norms for a sufficient amount of time, such norms become

laws. Whereas, Growse observes that the new laws and systems were out of sync with what people

want. As such, the rule of law was being implemented and developed from outside, thus evidencing the

role of external forces at play.

Such laws that are not framed by the society that it is administered on, become merely instruments

of subjectivisation. economic and political motives of the imperial government evolve such laws in

accordance with the power structure most suited to holding power and relocating relationships in

society. The only feedback such legislation requires or acknowledges are: the parameters of economic

profit for the rulers, and political ease guaranteeing stability for its furtherance.

Growse, the British magistrate, can thus be understood for having this agency to comment upon

these new laws and systems. While Growse is critical of not accommodating the needs of the people,

his remedies indicate his ignorance of native desires. He does not spell out specific projects and needs

of Bulandshahrs’ people, but rather the political ideals that can be utilized to manipulate native desires.

Growse delegitimizes the entrepreneurship of Indians by saying that they can only “admire action

in others”. His advocacy for material improvements and strong stimulus from the government for any

reform, or rather reallocation of values in society, stems not only to provide insight into native needs,

but also to identify those needs that would strengthen British political clout, also serving British interests

and profits. Material improvements that would not serve British interests and manufacturing, would

thus not find their way into administrative decision making, and Indian capabilities to become self-

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reliant would remain subjugated. As is expected of external powers, the dislocation herein is that of

reliance to material improvement and reform, being transferred from the agency of the native general

populace to the British legislature; for which Growse is but an informant.

3.2.3. Remedy of education policies

Power producing positive effects at the level of knowledge, can be best exemplified by the role

of inspectors in schools described by Growse. The control over curriculum and education policies of

schools provided by the British, evidence two distinct acts of power rearrangement. Firstly, the medium

of language being English, made the students suitable for employment in government services. This

made the British schools more attractive and popular. Secondly, using the popularity of the British

schooling system thus, the ruling class could control the formation, accumulation and interpretation of

knowledge.

The role of inspectors is particularly interesting, for Growse reports that government inspection

invariably raised the quality of education in those schools. It is apt to herein inquire into what Growse

means by quality of education. For, he himself is critical of the graduates of the schooling system put

in place. As such, it would seem that the popularity of schools is Growse’s parameter of quality of

education, in this instance. But, since he himself informs that the popularity of schools run by the British

administrators, is primarily due to the prospect of government jobs they promise, it indicates that the

mere involvement of authority in British schools was all there was, to the education policies. The

schooling system implemented by the imperial government thus transformed the parameters of quality

education, from the knowledge imparted to the agency in charge evidencing, schooling as a method of

Subjectivation, in play.

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The other impact of British involvement in schools was the hegemony it enjoyed thus in

interpreting past accumulated knowledge and forming new knowledge. As Growse’s writing shows, the

erosion of traditional craft and building skills, arts and philosophy, suffered an immediate impact.

Finally, Growse’s critique of schools and education policies remain focused on the products of

such a schooling – how they are employed, how much can they earn, and what is the economic impact

on the lives of natives who subscribe to this education. As such, the capitalist framework of monetary

exchange value, can be evidenced in Growse’s appraisal of education that the native population was

coerced into accepting. This is exactly what Spivak posits as power producing positive effects at the

level of knowledge to further the cause of an ideology.

3.2.4. Grip on architecture

The tombs and palaces of medieval India were built by masons and craftsmen of the land.

Bulandshahr is near Delhi and Agra, the traditional seats of power in India and sites for many Mughal

works of significance. The district, as corroborated by Growse, still retained these laborers who had

built magnificent monuments. Their occupations were hereditary. One generation would learn the skills

and tricks of the trade, from the ones before. Although Growse observes that such generational transfer

of critical traditional knowledge, was under threat from the organized and modern, British schooling

system, he insists that major infrastructure projects still required English engineers and soldiers. Large

imperial projects like the railways, roads, bridges over major rivers, and barracks for the soldiers, cannot

be trusted with native Indian workers.

Instead, Growse assigns ordinary district civic works, as best suited for the practice of local talent.

Whereas on one hand this is a blatant display of mistrust in expertise based on race, the lack of any

effort to develop local engineer and supervisor familiar with modern building technique, evidence of a

subtler process of subjectivisation the hypocrisy being to acknowledge local labor being skillful enough

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to produce large scale infrastructure for the Mughals, but unsuitable to do the same for the British, even

within a few generations, inside their own country. But how does this impact the labor of India?

To be sure, it denigrates the status of labor to second rate workers, even within their own field of

expertise. Denying large scale projects would also deny more handsome remunerations, by

monopolizing the higher pay for British citizens. Any large-scale project engineer, supervisor, or

manager of native origin would thus have been either thrown out of work or be forced to scale down

operations to a much smaller scale. The other effect was that the building crafts would become a less

lucrative occupation, driving new talent away, and old professionals to become cynical. What Growse

cribs about being a failure in the British education system alone, is thus also a result of imperial policies

towards awarding large scale infrastructure projects to British engineers and the military exclusively.

Growse reports of situations where local native philanthropist’s proposals for investment in

infrastructure projects were rejected by the British government for lack of trust. Instead, projects were

formulated and planned, and their execution was supervised solely by British officers. The PWD’s

workings is exemplified in the words of Havel, the official architect, as

… The official architect sits in his office at Simla, Calcutta, or Bombay, surrounded by

pattern-books of styles – Renaissance, Gothic, Indo-Saracenic, and the like – and,

having calculated precisely the dimensions and arrangement of a building suited to

departmental requirements, offers for approval a choice of “styles” which please him or

his supervisors, for clothing the structure with architectural garments in varying degrees

of smartness, according to the purpose for which it is intended, at so much per square

foot.

When the preliminaries are settled, a set of paper patterns is prepared and contractors

are invited to undertake to get these patterns worked out to proper scale and in the

regulation materials. The, at last, the Indian craftsman is called in to assist in the

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operations, under the supervision of the contractor and the subordinate Public Works

officials, who check any tendency the craftsman may show to use his imagination or his

intelligence in anything beyond the departmental paper patterns.43

This shows the shift in relationship prompted by the British government. By becoming

sanctioning authorities, the imperial government broke the free agency of clients; instead becoming the

sole provider of work for native labor, and architects, at least in the realm of infrastructure and civic

projects. Moreover, the insistence on British engineer’s supervision, and bureaucratic involvement,

even at the cost of efficiency and budget overruns, reinforce the political motive to capture power, at

play.

As such, Growse’s advocacy to limit the role of government and involve local labor and

supervisors is appreciable, and being counter-intuitive to British political interests, explains their wrath.

But, even though the general lack of dedication and understanding of local conditions plagued the

British engineer, Growse brings into play the economic advantage local labor’s involvement would

bring, to make his argument. This is further proof of what even the author understood as the imperial

government’s core concern, beyond, yet in spite, the lure of holding executive power at each and every

level of society.

43 Havell, E. B. Indian Architecture: Its Psychology, Structure, and History from the First Muhammadan Invasion to the Present Day. 2nd ed. Vol. item 09055. London: John Murray. (1927): 222.

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3.3. Relations and conditions of knowledge

3.3.1. Native rituals and faculties

Ever since the Sepoy mutiny in 1857, the shift in administration from the East India company to

the British government prompted a change in the way imperial executive functioned. There was a

conscious effort to learn more of the native society and culture by living and observing more intrusively.

Growse, advocating for less governance, stays true to the governmental policies as showcased in his

critique of marriage feasts and pilgrimages. Social festivities and traditional rituals are borne of past

knowledge codified in religious and cultural norms. Their periodic re-enactment is a way of refreshing

that past knowledge in speech and visuals in the present, inspiring the same for the future. By engaging

in this act of knowledge production, by writing an interpretation, Growse is being the ideological agent

involved in appropriation of this past knowledge for the British. In essence, these ideologically

comparative interpretations of Indian cultural and religious activities, typical of 19th century British

intellectuals stationed in, or travelling through India, is emblematic of creating the disruption and space

for power to manifest itself in the realm of native knowledge.

In a similar vein, the appreciation of Indian philosophy may be ascribed to the speech component

of Indian knowledge, essentially being appropriated for European consumption. Writing about arts,

philosophy, religion and rituals, transformed otherwise non-textual knowledge to become objectified –

enabling the production of a subject therein.

However, Growse’s hesitance and discomfort in this artificial transformation, corrupted by an

imperial, capitalist agenda, can be glimpsed at as he observes the “faculty of observation, and instinctive

propriety of taste”, in the native population. These are the visual aspects of knowledge, whose

appropriation through mere writing was problematic. As such, by ascribing them to being ‘instinctive’,

these forms of knowledge were rather delegitimized to the marginalia. Craft and architecture, especially

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of the subalterns, were thus marginalized and not appropriated for the elite. In a way, this helped retain

their vitality in isolation and neglect – marginalization limiting their ideological corruption.

3.3.2. Role of government

The appropriation of knowledge production appears as Growse postulates the role of government

for the local natives. A British magistrate spelling out what the occupied natives want, in writing, is

appropriation of the desires of the native populace. It is a direct evidence of subject-production, by the

author’s production of knowledge. Growse spells that the people want strict maintenance of law and

order, and material gains are what they will appreciate. As for social reforms, Growse opinionates that

continuous deep stimulus is what is required, and that the natives devoid of enterprise, can only

appreciate action in others. Thus spelling out the desires of the natives, Growse positions himself as the

self-appointed representative, Vertreten, of the natives.

The other point of contestation in the production of knowledge is the creation of desire for

government jobs, at the expense of hereditary traditional occupations. The PWD’s own rules specified

that to secure the job of an architectural designer, one must graduate from, and be certified by the

Engineering College at Roorkee.44 Yet, this College did not have an Oriental department. Kipling

remarked that, “not a single native draughtsman turned out from this school has been taught the

architecture of the country”.45

On one hand, this restricted the accumulation of past knowledge by dis-incentivizing its utility

and scope of practice for reproduction in the present. On the other hand, this produces that

aforementioned scope for appropriation of past knowledge by foreign powers and ideologies, to suit

their own ends. As such, the relationship between self and the truth is intervened by the imperial

44 Metcalf, Thomas R. An Imperial Vision: Indian Architecture and Britain's Raj. Berkeley: University of California Press. (1989): 164. 45 J.L. Kipling. Indian Architecture of Today, JIA, no. 3. (1884): 2.

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government, the displacement allowing the government to reframe that relation to interpret the self.

This is the process of subjectivisation by appropriating knowledge of the people.

3.3.3. Education policy and schools

The schooling system put in place by the British and its popularity ensured by alluring

government jobs, enabled establishing institutions of knowledge firmly in the hands of the ruling elites.

By controlling the transfer of knowledge, the production of knowledge in the present was also affected.

Traditional skills were kept beyond the realms of such schooling, pushing that visual realm of

knowledge to the margins. But the, knowledge of the past stayed imbibed in the architecture of the past,

in art and craft, and continued to inspire the subaltern labor. This is the genesis of the resistance to

foreign ideological architectural design, which Growse made execution of built works, unsatisfactory.

Growse’s complaints of under skilled supervisors and yeomen, may thus be referring to this mismatch

and rather willful ignorance of this ‘other’ knowledge, especially in the visual realm.

The medium of instruction being English, is another unique phenomenon in conjunction, that

created a new sense of self. Vernacular languages of the natives were kept outside this new wave of

knowledge production, leading to their de-legitimization due to non-conformity with the ruling class.

Growse opinionates that vernacular languages should be the medium of instruction in schools, for they

continued to remain the popular language of communication, especially in the countryside. The

marginalization of entire languages by de-recognition of the ruling class had direct consequences to

validation of knowledge of the past, accumulated and stored in such languages. Instead, as seen

throughout the 19th century, Indian canonical texts in vernacular languages were continually translated

into English – for without such translation, that knowledge would supposedly be lost. That Indian

scholars trained in the English language, participated in, and promoted such translations evidence the

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subjectivisation this manifested. For, with every translation, interpretation created the scope for external

power and ideology to reconstitute relations of the truth and the colonized self.

3.3.4. The PWD and traditional skills of architectural labor

A direct outcome of the marginalization of traditional knowledge in building skills, crafts and art

was that, the Public Works Department was created to design and implement civic architecture across

India. architectural practice was monopolized by authorship of the PWD, and native architects stayed

restricted to niche native clientele, and in the princely states and cities. The native trader and mercantile

communities and conservative elites remained the client base for native architects, and within that too,

their adherence was ascribed to conservative familial customs, or female influence. This allusion to

family and women, for sticking to native traditions, hint at the gendering of architectural production –

positioning British architecture as masculine and legitimate, for being aloof of family values – dictated

solely by efficient space planning and economy in material consumption.

The building arts are an important vessel of collective knowledge in any society. The

appropriation of agency in authorship of this mode of knowledge, and the forced marginalization of

vernacular authors evidence the rearrangement afoot in society. The relation of architecture as a

repository of truth, that selves can relate to across time, make them invaluable to accumulation and

perpetuity of societal values and wisdom. By disrupting the continuity of such production through

government interference, the imperial regime sought to appropriate this knowledge for reinterpretation

in its own terms, for its own gains.

Fortunately, architecture even in such dire circumstances remains a public enterprise – built of

the people, and by the people. Although the native architects up the top were forced to obscurity or

restricted to emulation of PWD’s architecture, building required the slew of bricklayers, stone masons,

carpenters and craftsmen for dressing. The skills these labor possessed, were transferred over

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generations as hereditary occupations. The imposition of foreign ideas of construction herein met its

resistance, for these skills are also values forged through centuries of perfection and accumulated

wisdom about local materials, climate, soil and not the least native taste – to the extent that they seem

instinctive.

The efforts of British bureaucracy, engineers, and supervisors failed to dislocate this form of

knowledge, because the process of subjectivisation also requires an alternative to be put in place, not

afresh, but rearranged. The governmental agents involved, themselves were neither skilled artisans and

craftsmen. Unlike in the case of Mughals, the dislocation from a Mistri led architectural practice, to a

top-down expert Architect led practice, had already happened in Europe since the industrial age’s

rearrangement of social relations and class formations for capitalism. The best that thus followed was

marginalization of such skills and faculty, to niche elitist emporiums and exhibition pavilions, through

the label of oriental artefacts and curiosity – removing their agency as ‘concrete evidences’ of societal

knowledge. The whole genesis of Growse’s book, its problematic and model solution, may herein be

understood as an explanation for this process.

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3.4. Expectations and aspirations: production of ideals and the future

3.4.1. The PWD and opportunities for local crafts

The expectations and ideals of the natives in Bulandshahr must be understood in their

heterogeneity, for that evidence the new relations developed through subjectivisation.

The poor man’s hut continued to remain frugal, for lack of means. Although Growse brings up

the village huts of the poor to critique native housing, his actions as a magistrate betray any efforts to

encourage their development. The PWD instead focused on civic architecture and infrastructure –

investing in instruments that would ease governance, and increase economic profitability. Whereas, the

rich man’s dwelling shows an interesting conflict between knowledge of the past, and the situation in

the present. A rich man had means to redevelop or extend his dwelling, and thus express his aspirations

of the future. That he preferred to copy the works of the PWD, instead of using his agency as patron to

further local architecture, as in the past, evidence his desire to be like the British. This desire to imitate

the imperial colonizers in PWD’s vulgarities, and abandon the indigenous style is not founded in

admiration for better architecture. It has to do with bearing allegiance to the ruling elite, for want of

proximity to people in power. When Growse observes that, Indian lifestyle should be aligned to

Europeans for political emancipation, this subject making seed of desire can be witnessed being laid in

place.

For the marginalized laborer and traditional craftsman, salvation was laid in emporiums for local

industry, and district shows of art and manufacturing. Indian building crafts of the past “through

judicious patronage of the British government”, to use Growse’s words, would thus thrive, but under

the watchful supervision of the colonizer. By creating a sense of tribal and primitive exoticism to

architectural practices bearing allegiance to the past, the desire for the future was limited for the Mistri

and craftsmen to niche entertainment venues for the elites. Building craft and architecture of the past

was segregated from daily application and appreciation of the local by the locals. Objectification and

53

detachment of the human faculty from cultural craft and architectural artefact production were decisive

tools to that end.

3.4.2. Role of government

Growse, in expounding on the role of British government in India, provided an insight into what

the British aspirations in India were, and what the British considered Indian aspirations to be. Within

the valley that separate these two, one might glimpse what the aspirations of Indians were, without the

bias of the British lenses.

For the British administration in India, the priority was first and foremost to hold onto the colonial

territory. As Growse sarcastically mentions their competitors in Germany and France, for transcendental

thinking and writing paper constitutions, the 19th century race among European nations to establish and

profit of overseas imperial pursuits, can be evidenced. To this effect is the sustained effort at legislation

back in England for the Indian colonies. Growse admires such efforts as distant intellectual discourses.

In his sarcasm relegating such exercises to be merely ‘theory’, the disconnect between British

aspirations and the Indian dreams and situations lay bare.

Grose therefore attempts to bridge this gap by articulating the expectations of the Indian people

from their British masters. For Growse, the supply of material benefits in the form of infrastructure

improvements should be the chief concern. And yet, these infrastructure projects that Growse promotes

and sets as ideals for India’s development were necessarily also profitable for British trade in India. To

the British magistrate, the prosperity of India lay in furthering its position as an easy to administer,

profitable colony for the British.

The infrastructure development projects of the British, and improvements devised to grow

productivity of agriculture rarely meant a better life for the native Indians. And yet, irrigation and civic

projects were improvements, if the ownership and profits were equitably distributed, and native

54

enterprise encouraged. As such, while Growse touted the material improvements as British blessings

for Indians, their appreciation by the Indians hinged on the critical dream of the British leaving, gaining

Independence and establishing local self-governance.

The British contribution in terms of undertaking major infrastructure projects required huge

investments, devised of the exploitation of Indian resources. Yet, the efficient British administration of

the colony, required to maintain its political clout in a foreign land, was admired by the natives. In

conjunction with the lucrative secure job that was guaranteed, this admiration translated into the Indian

desire for government jobs.

And yet, the enthusiasm amongst Indian labor to preserve traditional skills and knowledge of

craft, evidence the continued aspirations and belief in retaining and furthering the accumulated native

knowledge of the past. In the same vein, the British failure to satisfactorily execute civic architecture

projects, show the resistance of Indian labor that further evidence this reverence for the past, fueling

dreams of an independent Indian future.

For administrators such as Growse, to acknowledge this societal aspiration, inspires Growse’s

entire book, and shapes his argument for compromise with traditional skills, albeit under British

supervision and exclusive patronage to ensure control. For Growse, as someone who could sense the

thinking that shaped such overwhelming societal aspirations, controlling its course, so that the British

could stay relevant, was more opportune than risking the emergence of resistance in the dreams of the

governed subjects.

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3.4.3. European scholastic training

In the complaints of the Indian laborers’ lack of European scholastic training, while

acknowledging their inexplicable-to-Growse’s intuition for oriental taste, the process of subjectivisation

in the realm of reinterpreting aspirations of the subject, is witnessed in action. For the British, European

scholastic training was a beneficial homogenizer for administrative services, while Indian labor was

alluring for being cheap and more efficient. As such, the establishment of British sponsored and

controlled schools, made popular by government policies, enabled a cautious process for Indian civil

services to form: comprised of low maintenance native employees under British control – both

politically and intellectually. The aspirations of the natives thus shifted to government jobs after an

English medium schooling, in perfect harmony and alignment with British aspirations.

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4. Conclusion

The dominant power here is the British colonial enterprise, who critiques and by that produces a

set of laws and systems, aided by contemporary norms of reading architectural significance, to

marginalize Indians. In this power structure, written and executed by the dominant power, Growse is

part of this problematic himself, for he takes upon the agency of the native laborers, not to liberate

Indians, but to maximize imperial profitability by showing exploitability of the agency of the labor. The

Indian labor is defined as it interacts within although against, these dominant and negotiated set of rules.

In doing so, it brings into play its knowledge of the past, i.e. the Indian’s shared history, amongst

themselves, and with the colonial regime. This historied knowledge exists in the form of the spoken and

written word, and in the visualized cultural products and civic artefacts: in art, craft and architecture,

the established norms of the built environment. And then again, the British have a similar and

overlapping spoken and visualized knowledge, providing it with a historical sense of identity.

When writing on Indian architecture, these sets of knowledge (of both the various forms of

Indians and British) negotiate a terrain of established and negotiated building norms to produce

architecture of the present – the production of knowledge now. This present production of knowledge

is influenced by a variety of forces, such as colonialism, economic theories and political science

theories. These forces working within rules and acting with a knowledge of the past, work in a stratum:

the situation in Bulandshahr, the problems Growse faces in execution, profitability in administration,

and so on. In Growse’s writings, his critique, and proposed model of architectural practice are

embodiments of this thinking.

As a model of practice, Growse’s proposal identifies the inescapable agency of architectural labor

as a repository of knowledge, skills, and building traditions. This remains instructive and relevant for

Indian architecture today. But, Growse’s aims, or desires for such a practice, evidenced through the

unpacking of his thinking thus, is essentially exploitative, and unsustainable in the long run. As such,

to escape neo-colonialism, whereas Growse’s model stays suitable, the parallel constraints of

57

knowledge production, relation of engineers, supervisors and labor with local architects, and equitable

distribution of the profits for a rejuvenated Indian labor subject, remains problematic. The history of

caste system in India, and the legacy of colonialism thus, would only be resolved when the operative

colonial dictum and capitalist exploitation is reframed for a new labor subject. This would require craft

and skills as not only embodied in niche decorative exotic arts, to be essentially released of

representation as symbolic; Growse’s legacy being to recognize the labor in architectural production,

albeit with dignity of labor, as the manifest representative for this new agency, proper.

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