IMPRINT OF THE RAJ. HOW FINGEPRINTING WAS BORN IN COLONIAL INDIA BY CHANDAK SENGOOPTA (LONDON: MACMILLAN, 2003) XV+234PP / HB ISBN 0-333-98916-3
REVIEWED BY JAMES WILLIAMS, CAMBRIDGE BOOK REVIEWS AMONG historians of science, of criminology and of culture � and especially those who work across these fields � the late nineteenth century has been one of the fastest growing areas of interest in the past few decades. The reasons for this are manifold: in the period loosely called the �fin de siecle� (a term which can mean only the 1890s, but frequently refers to the last quarter of the nineteenth century) a number of cultural, scientific and political factors coalesced to create an unprecedented drive among men of learning to map, measure, categorise and ultimately shape the genetic destiny of the human being. In the process they helped define the very worst and best elements of the human quest for knowledge, and right up to the present we have been living with the consequences, both glorious and obscene, of the discoveries. This was an age of frenetic scientific endeavour which gave its descendants reliable contraception and intelligence testing, and also eugenics and the foundations of Nazi racial theory. One of the period�s better leaps forward, however, was in the field of identification. In the year 1800, although the anatomy and biological characteristics of the generic �Man� were well known, any individual man was beyond the classification, or capture, of science. An individual could change his identity at will, by merely changing his name, and learning the birthday and birthplace of the person he wished to become. By the year 1900, the same individual (if he were alive) could have been identified beyond any doubt � by his fingerprints. It is the story of fingerprinting � its difficult birth during a period of politically-charged scientific advance, its development in British India � which preoccupies Chandak Sengoopta in his superb popular history, �Imprint of the Raj�. It has long been known that fingerprinting was the discovery of many individuals. Less frequently has it been acknowledged that it was the product of two countries. During the Raj in India (strictly, 1858-1945), contrary to the popular imagination of the West, new advances and ideas were as likely to travel from the Empire back to Britain as they were from Britain to her Empire. As Sengoopta argues, the Indian Empire in particular was an �Empire of Knowledge�, because the constant acquisition of knowledge was one of the surest ways that the British could hope to keep hold of the unwieldy, far-away dominions. For decades every schoolchild was taught that Britain gave India the telegraph and the railways, but they were not taught what the Indian encounter gave back to Britain � curry, comparative philology, and fingerprinting, all of which have significantly outlasted the telegraph, and may well outlast the railways. India was an apt laboratory for the development of fingerprinting, partly because of the element of discovery inherent in the colonial endeavour, and partly due to the ignorant prejudices of its British rulers. First, to the period British eye, most Indian people looked virtually the same. Secondly, there was a widespread conviction that the Indian races were congenitally untrustworthy, untruthful and mendacious, and that it was quite likely they would break their word, or that they were not who they claimed to be. Finally, and crucially, most Indians were unable to give the conventional proof of both identity and their word � a signature � because they were illiterate. Understandably therefore, thee was a great desire among the police and civil servants of the Raj for some kind of system which could prove the identity of their Indian subjects beyond doubt. As early as the late 1880s, one such system was introduced by the famous Parisian police clerk and �anthropometrist�, Alphonse Bertillon . Bertillon developed a system which, by taking a number of specific measurements of the human body with callipers, constructed a portrait in words (�portrait parle�) which could be kept on record and used to identify attempted recidivists. This practice, known as Bertillonage, was popular and much-applauded among British men of science, yet never found widespread acceptance in legal practice across the Channel. British legislators were keen to point out the scope for error in the Bertillon system, and refused, unless it could be made foolproof, to enforce such treatment upon citizens of a country where the love of individual liberty supposedly ran deeper than in France. As early as 1858, immediately after the great rebellion when British distrust of �natives� was especially high, a young civil servant named William James Herschel had, on a whim, demanded that an Indian businessman affix his palm-print in ink to the bottom of a government contract. This was the start of a personal fascination with finger-printing on Hershel�s part which he pursued over many years, although he was unable on his own to make his discovery widely accepted in the subcontinent. Herschel did, however, advance is theories in a letter to the eminent scientist (and inventor of the term �eugenics�) Francis Galton. Many years later, through Galton�s persistent advocacy (he published a book on fingerprints in 1892), and through the agency of another Indian Civil Servant, sir Edward Henry, both Bertillonage and fingerprinting were given an extensive test run in the Indian colonies long before either was fully exploited back in Britain. The rest, so to speak, is history. It is indeed history � of the most fascinating sort. As Sengoopta says, �the story cries out to be told�, and he tells it with good humour, subtlety and intelligence. In a study concerned with both science and jurisprudence, he demonstrates a scientific eye for evidence and a scrupulously judicious caution. �Imprint of the Raj� is both a return and a departure for Dr. Sengoopta, who is an Indian national himself, and whose previous writings have focused more on the history of medicine and psychiatry in a European context (his doctoral research was on biomedical aspects of the work of the Viennese philosopher Otto Weinger). With an honesty that is both personal and scholarly evident on every page, �Imprint of the Raj� is characterised by that sense of justice which inhabits the very best postcolonial histories: the justice of the scales rather than the sword. ______________________________________________________________________ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca ########################################################################## # Send submissions for Goanet to [EMAIL PROTECTED] # # PLEASE remember to stay on-topic (related to Goa), and avoid top-posts # # More details on Goanet at http://joingoanet.shorturl.com/ # # Please keep your discussion/tone polite, to reflect respect to others # ##########################################################################
