We found a match
Your institution may have rights to this item. Sign in to continue.
- Title
THE MADNESS OF JODH SINGH: PATRIOTISM AND PARANOIA IN THE GHADAR ARCHIVES.
- Authors
CHOPRA, ROHIT
- Abstract
This article centers on the experiences of Jodh Singh, a marginal figure in the history of the Ghadar movement, who exists as the sum of a few documents in official archives and the media record of the Hindu-German conspiracy trial of 1917-18 in which he served as witness. Based on a close reading of these materials, at the center of which is an official account of the insanity of Singh, I undertake an analysis of discourses of patriotism and paranoia in the archive. Making a case for viewing Singh as exemplifying the condition of subalternity, I describe how the juridical-legal-medical framework of the American state that condemns Singh is based on anxieties about madness, foreignness, and sexuality as threatening to the legitimacy of the state. I also argue that Jodh Singh's story offers the basis of a critique of the idea of the Ghadar Party as an exemplar of cosmopolitan values and solidarity, given that Ghadar discourse shares some assumptions with the state apparatus that has judged Singh as defective, guilty, and diseased. In undertaking such a reading, the article illustrates how the story of Jodh Singh troubles the distinction between patriotism and paranoia as it exists in the imagination of the state.
- Subjects
SINGH, Jodh; PATRIOTISM; GHADR movement
- Publication
Socialist Studies, 2018, Vol 13, Issue 2, p81
- ISSN
1717-2616
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.18740/ss27204