Postcolonial films legitimized secular-modern authority precisely through its forged, fraudulent English

Evidence

These two invocations of national unity stand at the beginning of the film, to “set the mood,” as it were. The fight with English, however, plays an integral part in making the heavily moralized story come across to the reader. When Raju is first established as a holy man, two village priests challenge him with a Sanskrit sloka or couplet. Raju is of course clueless in Sanskrit. After an electric pause, he comes back at them in English: “For generations you’ve been fooling these innocent people. It’s about time you put a stop to this!” The priests are bested, for they do not know English. The villagers rejoice. Raju is legitimized. … Of course Raju is himself a fraud as well. He has to be if the story is to remain a transformation story. But the seriousness of the message in English cuts across the mere story-line and indicates a major theme: the new nation will get rid of religious bigotry through the light of Western reason. — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 2055

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the strategic essentialism problem — the fraud of the position is structurally required yet dissent nonetheless legitimizes. — connects to: Human-rights language served to restrain postcolonial popular sovereignty — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 295; Postcolonial literary theory obscures the political and economic materialities determining it — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 43; Postcolonial Orientalism preserved colonialist residues under altered forms of power. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 467
• SEED: Angle: ‘the necessary fake’ — how legitimization in decolonization narratives structurally requires an inauthentic, borrowed authority.

Broader Connections

• Postcolonial literary theory obscures the political and economic materialities determining it #expands (0.78) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 43
• Postcolonial Orientalism preserved colonialist residues under altered forms of power. #corroborates (0.75) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 467
• Human-rights language served to restrain postcolonial popular sovereignty #complicates (0.72) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 295