A Clash of Cultural Identity: Allegory as Present in "The Calcutta Chromosome"

December 14^th, 2015

In 1997, Amitav Ghosh’s novel The Calcutta Chromosome was the recipient of the Arthur C. Clarke Award – Britain’s most prestigious accolade for outstanding science fiction. Only, unlike most science fiction, the novel discusses neither the dangers of human ambition nor the possibilities of humanity’s future. Instead, it sets itself firmly in human history - in the sweltering, mosquito-infested burbs of Calcutta, India. The fiction of Ghosh’s work is not in any imagined future, but in an imagined past. Through the history of malaria, he is able to carefully craft an allegory of India’s colonial history. In the novel, the British Empire is represented by its scientists, most notably Ronald Ross, who travel to India in pursuit of research. The actions of these real people are put in contrast with those of the character Mangala, who represents both the people and culture of India. Through this allegory, Ghosh rewrites the accepted history of Malaria research and makes a broader statement about British Colonialism as a whole. In doing so, he is able to effectively challenge the story the West tells about itself.

For Ghosh to make this broader statement, however, both the true nature of the British Empire and the British conception of Colonial India must be properly defined. Through the allegory of malaria research, Ghosh is ultimately able to achieve the former. In the novel, this allegory is facilitated through Ronald Ross. Despite being born in India, Ross was distinctly British, and would have likely viewed India and its peoples in a negative light. According to Benita Perry, both he and Britain as a whole would have seen in the country “vestiges of a primordial, dark, and instinctual past which their own society had left behind in its evolution to civilization” (Parry 31). In the British imagination, Indian culture and beliefs threatened to “invade and seduce the white world” (31). This pervasive belief that the conquered are lesser, perverse, and somehow dangerous was the justification behind nearly all British colonization. It was then supposedly the moral obligation of Britain to force western culture on the people of Asia, under the pretense that they knew Indians better than they knew themselves. As a result of this conception, British scientists in India would have been portrayed as working towards the common good - despite research that would now be considered unethical. Through his depiction of Ronald Ross’ malaria research, Ghosh is able to rewrite accepted history and portray Britain in a more realistic, if negative, light. Britain’s false-altruism is revealed by Ghosh through Ross’ motivations for researching malaria. In the novel, Murugan explains: “Here’s this guy, a real huntin’, fishin’, shootin’ colonial type ... he looks in the mirror and asks himself: “What’s hot in medicine right now? What’s happening on the outer edge of the paradigm? What’s going to bag me a Nobel?” And what does the mirror tell him? You got it: malaria— that’s where it’s at this season” (Ghosh 53). In this, Ghosh crafts a narrative that suggests Ross practically falls into medicine. He pursues malaria research not out of a desire to help impoverished people, but to receive fame and recognition. His egotism is no better demonstrated than in the poem which opens the novel, in which Ross essentially suggests that he was chosen by god to conquer death, asking, “O death where is thy sting? / Thy victory O grave?” (41). To Ross, malaria is merely a trend to be exploited for personal gain. Ghosh’s allegory is seen in how Ross’ selfish and egotistical attitude directly parallels British opinion towards the colonization of India. As previously discussed, popular opinion held that the Indian people were little more than savages; it follows that Britain would therefore not be interested in the country’s cultural value, but merely concerned with how they might be exploited to advance the economic interests of the empire. Ultimately, through both Ross’ supposed motivations and the history of malaria itself, Ghosh is able to convey to the reader the British government’s self-obsessed, xenophobic attitudes.

While he does successfully provide a context for the world in which the novel takes place, Ghosh is only able to make a statement about the exploitive nature of British Colonialism by reshaping accepted colonial history itself. He extends his allegory to incorporate the research methods of British scientists and is thus able to indirectly condemn the injustices carried out upon the Indian people. In the novel, Ross conducts numerous unethical experiments where patients are put at serious risk. He even looks for an Indian native “fool enough” (74) to drink a mixture of mosquito dust, all in hopes that said patient would contract malaria. When he begs his colleague not to mention these unethical practices, his reasons that his patient is “a government servant,” and to “give a government servant fever would be a crime!” (74). Clearly, Ross knows his experiments are unethical, but he takes no responsibility for the health of his patients; his only concerns stem from the fact that he might receive retribution for his crimes. Beyond being extremely selfish, these words indirectly convey that while mistreatment of government servants is frowned upon in Colonial India, it would be perfectly legal to inflict any other native Indian with fever. Ross and his unethical research methods effectively serve as an allegory for the exploitative nature of British Colonialism. Through Ross and other scientists like him, Ghosh is able to expose the willingness of the British government to exploit the Indian people, purely on the basis of their race. This exploitation is further demonstrated through the actions of another British researcher, Cunningham. Conversing with a colleague, he explains the origin of his research assistant, Mangala. He says, “I found her where I find all my bearers and assistants: at the new railway station… That’s the place to go if you need a willing worker: always said so—it’s full of people looking for a job and a roof over their heads” (146). In this, Cunningham essentially demonstrates a willingness to appropriate cheap, foreign labour to suit his needs. He hires Mangala not out of any sympathy for her apparent poverty, but merely to exploit her economic condition. The dismissive language Cunningham uses when referring to his assistants reflects wider British opinion in regards to Indians, as previously discussed. His actions serve as an allegory for Europe and its tendency to exploit both foreign labour and indigenous knowledge for personal gain. By reshaping this conventional understanding of colonial history, Ghosh exposes the British exploitation of Indian culture. His allegory indirectly condemns the injustices carried out upon them - as a result, Ghosh is able to challenge the traditional story told by western academics.

In rewriting the accepted history of malaria, Ghosh firmly establishes that the British Colonial culture is one of egotism and oppression. He does so for a specific purpose – to stress the value of Indian culture in opposition to this overbearing Western influence. In the book Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge Bernard S. Cohn suggests that colonialism itself was but a “cultural project of control. Colonial knowledge enabled conquest and was produced by it” (Cohn 1). By this, he means to say that British Colonialism was a process of defining the Western cultural identity in contrast to that of Indian culture; that this cultural opposition enabled conquest, and ultimately “created new categories and oppositions between colonizers and colonized, European and Asian, modern and traditional, west and east” (1). Throughout the novel, Ghosh clearly demonstrates the numerous attempts of the British to reinforce this dichotomy, and thereby devalue Indian culture. This is accomplished primarily by ignoring it altogether. This is represented in Ghosh’s allegory through the character of Mangala. She represents the Indian people in the sense that for almost the entirety of the novel she is misunderstood – an enigma. The book itself is structured as a thriller, with the Western audience and characters both trying desperately to understand her mystery, and by extension the mystery of the Indian people. However, Mangala does not wish to be understood. Referring to Mangala, Murugan says: “The way she sees it, we can’t ever know her, or her motives, or anything else about her: the experiment won’t work unless the reasons for it are utterly inscrutable to us, as unknowable as a disease” (Ghosh 253). The audience can never truly understand Mangala’s research into malaria because to do so would devalue it. As Mangala represents the Indian people, it is Ghosh’s statement that their culture not only exists outside the Western conception, but thrives there. By rewriting malaria’s history, he creates a counter-narrative which asserts the value of rejecting western thought. This is revealed primarily in the discovery of the Calcutta Chromosome. As Murugan says, “only a person like Mangala, someone who’s completely out of the loop, scientifically speaking, would be able to find [the Calcutta Chromosome] ... It’s exactly the kind of entity that would be hardest for a conventional scientist to accept” (250). In her research, Mangala is ignorant to all Western notions of fame, recognition, and proper scientific protocol – and in this, she is rewarded. Her cultural beliefs are reflected in her achievement, as the Calcutta Chromosome allows her to realize the Hindu concept of the transmigration of souls. As Mangala’s actions are meant to reflect those of India as a whole, Ghosh effectively makes the statement that - much like the British - it is necessary for Indians to distinguish themselves from foreign influences.

Ultimately, the novel’s characters serve as an allegorical microcosm of British-Indian relations as a whole. Through their actions, Ghosh reworks the commonly understood history of malaria, and as a result, he is able to stress both the injustices of colonialism and the value of traditional Indian thought. The former is shown through Ronald Ross’s investigations into malaria; his egotism and exploitation of Indian natives conveys that the British Empire was interested in colonization not for any egalitarian reason, but for personal gain. Mangala’s relationship with malaria is effectively a response to British attempts to force Western thinking and values on the Asian world. At its most basic level, the novel is structured around the devaluing of Western culture and the condemnation of British colonialism. Amitav Ghosh’s allegory is in many respects a message to Indian people – a call to commemorate Indian culture and steadfastly defend it in the face of an increasingly Westernized world.

Works Cited

Cohn, Bernard S. Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1996. Print.

Ghosh, Amitav. The Calcutta Chromosome: A Novel of Fevers, Delirium, and Discovery. London: Picador, 1996. Print.

Parry, Benita. Delusions and Discoveries: India in the British Imagination, 1880-1930. Verso, 1998. Print.