Today, there are many in India who would think it ideal to have a society of women who are kept in seclusion and ignorance. The colonial archive is violent, it is racist, and to encounter it today is deeply disturbing. But for India, the colonial period also forms a relatively small part of its millennia-long history as a society built on the violence of caste. In many ways, the colonial archive also (inadvertently perhaps) disrupts its hegemonic logic.

The archive both reveals and hides, despite itself. I want to know if these girls were photographed specifically for the Illustrated Missionary News, or if this photograph was already in circulation, and reappropriated for this card. Did the girls see this photograph of themselves, were they given a copy? Two young girls, who were presumably kept in ‘seclusion’ and ‘ignorance’ had their image circulated around the world.

The Treacherous Colonial Archive

This image was most likely made to be circulated as a Carte de Visite. I tried to learn more about the “Illustrated Missionary News”, and although I could see that the magazine had a long time print run – beginning sometime in the last quarter of the 19th century and being in circulation till well into the mid-20th century – there was little I could unearth about its operations or the people involved with it. Expectedly, every foray into available online archives of the magazine was also an exercise in the experience of shock and amazement at the extent of brazen racism, missionary zeal and imperial violence that I was confronted with.

This card is more than a century old now. I see it, and I understand that within the context of its making, its language was the norm in most of the Western world.

Hindoo Ladies, who with few exceptions, are kept in seclusion and ignorance.

But despite the openly racist tone of this caption, I cannot reject its underlying truth. It is true, that until well into the 20th century, most Hindu women were kept in seclusion and ignorance. But to be Hindu is to be part of a caste society. I do not know what the caste location of these two ladies (young girls really) was, and the impact that had on their lives. They are draped in beautiful fabrics (is the lady in green wearing a Jamdani sari?), and wear jewellery that appears at a cursory glance to be from Southern India (I am not a historian of jewellery by any means, however). Were they then from the upper strata of Hindu caste society? If so, then this statement, Hindoo Ladies, who with few exceptions, are kept in seclusion and ignorance becomes even more true. Upper-caste women were (and in many ways still continue to be) considered as the literal bearers of caste ‘purity’…with few exceptions, are kept in seclusion and ignorance.