Ambivalent Appropriations: Narrating Enmity through the Monumental Remains of South Asia

Abstract

How can art objects and architectural remains contribute to an understanding of the dynamics of enmity? And how, in turn, can the study of enmity contribute to sharpening the profile of art history? The paper examines the nexus between enemization and identity construction as it continues to be formed around discussions of monumental remains of past empires in South Asia. The partition of the Indian subcontinent, itself a profoundly ambivalent event, effected a division of the national body along a friend/enemy axis. Narratives of enmity that have proliferated within post-colonial India are replete with accounts of a “Muslim invasion” of the subcontinent whose constructions of militant alterity can be read off the material surfaces of monumental remains of pre-modern times. The article examines the practices of usurpation and iconoclasm that accompanied warfare between Turkic armies and North Indian kingdoms to uncover the dynamic of appropriation and emulation that unfolded as buildings were captured, taken apart, and rebuilt by conquerors, who showed an unexpected predilection for the symbolic language and aesthetics of the enemy infidel. Reading a moment of iconoclasm through a transcultural lens reveals it as a crucible of transformation, which infuses its object with a life that oscillates between continuity and novelty.