The Colonizer

The colonizer is enamoured. He is in love with the world, with its vibrant cultures and beautiful nature - but he cannot truly appreciate it. The colonizer hurts everything he loves because possession, subjugation, and hierarchy are the only ways in which he may conceive of the world. The colonizer loves the dances of the people and so he chains women in his palace. The colonizer loves the ferocity of the tiger and so he mounts its head on the wall. The colonizer loves the world and so he must mutilate it to make it his. Once mutilated, it is no longer the same world he loved before, and so the colonizer is always starving and hunting.

 

The colonizer is proud. He thinks himself the center of the world and the greatest thing in it, and everything around him is valued (truly valued, not simply lusted after) in accordance with how similar they are to him. The colonizer sees himself in the despotic tyrant, and so he speaks cordially with him. But his skin is too dark, his religion too savage, his hair too textured, and for those reasons, the tyrant is worth nothing. Worse even, are the poor, kind, and queer folk of the world. They are so unlike him that the colonizer sees them as worse than nothing - they cannot even be allowed to exist in his new world.

 

The colonizer is insecure. He conflates fear and love, and, in absence of any love himself, must make others fear him. The colonizer himself is afraid of the world, of its power to strip away all that he holds dear, and of the lonely existence that is his foreign presence. The colonizer must exercise his power, must kill and maim and brutalize, to alleviate this insecurity. Even with the deaths of thousands and at the helm of an armada, the colonizer sits lonely and afraid. He constantly seeks to justify his actions and his beliefs, often through appeals to religion and rationality.

 

The colonizer is foreign. He does not exist of the world and sees it with hungry, unfamiliar eyes. He fears what he does not know and seeks to destroy it, and he loves what he can acknowledge and seeks to subjugate it. He does not understand the culture of people and hungers for that knowledge. He does not understand the gods, but they are mightier than him and so they must be smashed upon the rocks and dissected after. At all times the colonizer is aware and insecure of his strangeness, though he would not call it that. At all times the colonizer seeks the world around him, which he views as somehow separate from himself.

The Tiger Hunt, by Robert Cleminson

wagh ani durkade shikari - "the tiger and the hunter from the sea"

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In Jangli, the colonizer is monolithic, an amalgamation of the British, French, Portuguese, and Dutch. It does not matter what his name is, or where he is from. He is simply the "admiral" or the "governor" from somewhere far away, who comes here to hunt and satiate his endless hunger for culture, beauty, and a home. The colonizer has no name and no home. If asked his name, the colonizer might say he is a soldier or explorer. The most honest among them may say that he is a scholar, not because he is any less violent, but because that is what he sees himself to be.

 

Clive Meeting Mir Jafar After the Battle of Plassey, by Francis Hayman

lal shipai rajatsa desh gheto - "a red soldier takes the king's country"

 

The colonizer may be bargained with, only insofar as it serves his purposes and perspective. He seeks anything of the world, which he will then mutilate in accordance with his nature. If he takes fancy to a person, place, object, or community, he will kill, bribe, and steal his way to it. Once acquired, the colonizer often seeks to turn it like himself and impose his image on what he has taken.

In Lokhandi, the colonizers are called many names - bhukela (pl. bhukele), phirangi, pandhra*, and durkade. When speaking with one directly you address him as saheb, sir, or mister - or he might hurt you otherwise.

*note for Marathi speakers, this is पांढरा (paandhraa), meaning white, not पंधरा (pandhraa), meaning fifteen.

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The most hateful of the colonizers have no heart. If you kill one and slice him open there is a vile, splotchy organ, but nothing resembling a normal, human heart. To regulate his body this form of colonizer drinks the blood of others, leeching off a (usually) human source to survive. These types of colonizers - the blood drinkers - have pasty white skin and a sickly appearance. Their eyes are bloodshot and they do not sleep. Such creatures are rumored to be wildly and obsessively lustful, especially towards locals.

 

Contrary to popular belief, these blood drinkers have reflections in mirrors, can break into homes, and do not fear garlic. In fact, they tend to form a liking for tamasic foods, especially garlic, onions, chewing tobacco, and alcohol. These colonizers still respect and idolize their god, though they do not practice ritual or pray in any way. True believers of their faith grow uneasy around them, though very few would openly criticize or oppose one.

 

In Lokhandi, such an affliction is termed raktachi bhuk, and the ones afflicted are called raktpita (pl. raktpite) and khanara (pl. khanare). In the language of the colonizers, they are simply called people-eaters. A khanara is always addressed mahasaheb (or "sir" by the colonizers).

Love and Pain, by Edvard Munch

khanari rakt pitat ahe - "an 'eater' drinking blood"

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In some places, like Gayadari and Sonebandar, the colonizers have established enough of a foothold to begin settlement (a hill station). They build factories, where laborers toil away to build ships, weave cloth, and process sugarcane, all under close supervision and frequent abuse. Towns have been built, usually constructed at the top of a hill and walled, to house the colonizers and their families. These towns are not self sufficient, and rely on the produce and services of villagefolk. As such, the town is always built on a hill near a village.

 

North View of the Hill of Sravan - Bellagoola, by John Newman

ek gayadaritse tekdi gav - "one hill station in Gayadari"

 

Homes in these hill stations are made with little embellishment or creativity. When style is introduced, it tends to be a pared down imagination of local architecture, though at times larger and richer families will build homes with spires and arches.

The people who live in the hill stations are usually soldiers, merchants, explorers, proselytizers, and their families. In the hill stations, an image of a colonizer's homeland is first seen. Local chefs cook meals in custom with the food of the colonizer's home and all servants must speak the colonizer's language. While the enterprising soldiers and sailors that first arrive come seeking the world and living without a clear sense of home, the settlers that come after bring home with them and impose it upon the people.

 

In time, these hill stations become bastions of colonial ideals and values, eventually becoming full towns with governors, neighborhoods (separating local and foreign of course), markets, and factories.

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ha vasahatatsa marg ahe - "this is the method of colonization"