Broadly, I’m working to understand the context in which Ranganathan (hereafter, R.) lived, because I find it fascinating that Colon Classification – a pure faceted system – arose from someone enmeshed in a deeply hierarchical cultural, political, scientific, and educational milleiu.
India fell under the control of the British East India Company [EIC] in the late 1700s. It was governed in a patchwork of directly-controlled territory and client kingdoms. Instigated by shifting policy and the EIC’s mistreatment of indigenous soldiers, the short-lived 1858 rebellion caused the British government to dissolve the EIC and take control of the colony directly. Through the 1800s, new transportation and information networks transformed India’s economics and communications. Following the rebellion, European enclaves became increasingly segregated and militarized, while the Crown pursued information gathering as a means of social control.
R. was born in 1892, to a Tamil Brahmin family in the Madras Presidency. His father was a landlord, well-educated and respected for his religious services. In a Western context, we would consider R.’s education both secular and religious. Even while flourishing in rationalist spaces, R. remained interested in Hindu philosophy and mysticism throughout his life.
This report concludes with a few tangents into Indian anarchist M.P.T. Acharya (1887-1954); A fascinating poster by Emily Larned displaying material from Wheeler & Chinn; And some reflections on my research process, as it mirrors McCarthy (2019).
The next phase of research will cover scientific and educational developments in England leading up to R.’s arrival in 1924, and the context, broadly, in which he formed the material in Five Laws.
As we engage with a culture and time well outside our own, we must remain ever-vigilant against the temptation for exoticization; and remind ourselves that Hindus are neither monolithic nor India’s sole peoples: Muslims, Sikhs, and other groups contribute to a meaningful, longstanding polyculturalism. Let’s begin our journey with some broad table-setting on Hinduism from Broughton (2024):
Hinnells states that: “Hinduism displays few of the characteristics that are generally expected of a [Western] religion. It is not a system of theology, nor a single moral code, and the concept of God is not central to it”. […] It is not a founded religion… It has nothing even remotely approaching a central organization… no particular ecclesiastical or institutional structure… [Per] Radhakrishnan, a former president of India: ‘Hinduism is more a culture than a creed.’ […] Hindu thought does not distinguish between religious and secular, but constantly seeks unity in confusing plurality. [Significant glossing mine.]
Trautmann (2011) provides more helpful clarification for Westerners: What we typically think of as “caste” is more properly “varna.” The Vedic tradition (the classical system of Hindu knowledge and philosophy) divides people into four varnas, which specify an individual’s dharma [Reductively, one’s duty in life.]. The Rig Veda (c. 1,500-1,000 bce) includes a creation story in which “the primordial being, Purusha (man or spirit), often also called Prajapti, lord of creatures, or Brahma” completed a complex act of self-sacrifice, in which
…parts of his dismembered body became the things of the phenomenal universe (animals, plants, the division of time, and so forth) including human society in its four parts: From his mouth came the brahmin, who is associated with the sacred utterance of the Veda; from his arms, the kshatriya or warrior; from his thighs, the vaishya farmer and tradesman; and from his feet the shudra or servant. (Trautmann, 2011, p. 96)
Parallel to this esoteric system, we have the boots-on-the-ground system of jatis which are more akin to clans in the Western context: Extended family groups typically associated with a particular region and occupation, with complex social norms governing inter-jati marriages and economic relations.
And finally, we have the castes proper, which “number in the thousands and [are] generally limited in their extent to a single region of India.” (Trautmann, 2011) Caste provides yet another layer of social and economic behavioral norms, which often entrap lower-caste individuals in disadvantageous circumstances. While caste-based discrimination was officially outlawed with “the constitutions adopted by India in 1949 and by Pakistan in 1953,” it still remains a relevant social grouping. Repairative legal frameworks (similar to Affirmative Action in the U.S.) exist for “scheduled castes;” And in India’s democracy, castes often function as political interest groups whose influence politicians and governments must be cognizant of. (Britannica, 2024; Trautmann, 2011)
R. was born in 1892, to a Tamil Brahmin family in present-day Sirkazhi / Siyali, Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, then located in the Madras Presidency. His father “was a landlord holding a medium-sized property of wet land, growing paddy… a learned and culture man, used to giving Ramayana Pravachanam [A recitation and exegetic talk on the Ramayana.]1 to small audiences.” (Krishnamurthy, c2014)
From the outset, R.’s education involved the aforementioned “plurality”: It was initiated with an Asksharabyasam held “on Vijayadasami day in October 1897” (Krishnamurthy, c2014) [Asksharabyasam is a ceremony where a child writes their first letter and time; Vijayadasami is an auspicious day marking the end of a religious festival.] During primary school, alongside reading and writing, he also “learnt about the life teachings of Nayanars (Shaivaite Bhaktas) and Alwars (Vaishnavaite Bhaktas.)” from his Sanskrit teacher. (Krishnamurthy, c2014) [Nayanars and Alwars are groups of (lacking a more accurate term) Tamil Hindu Saints; Bhakta indicates a follower, i.e. the former are devotees of Shiva, the later of Vishnu.]
Though his higher education proceeded into the rationalist world of mathematics and his library work was honed with empiricism, he “remained staunchly religious and traditionalist right from childhood to the end of his life.” He was a “multidimensional individual with seemingly contradictory traits,” a “culturally orthodox Hindu” and a “rigorous scientist”: (Satija & Gupta, 2024)
Ranganathan followed the practices of his religion and found inspiration in the rich philosophical and literary traditions that had grown up around it, even if his practice grew more unconventional and, apparently, less heartfelt as he grew older. Arguably more important to him than religion as such was the concept of mysticism… [which] led him to dabble in occultism at certain points in his life and to accord mysticism as a central place in the disciplinary structure of main classes in the Colon classification. (Bianchini & Dousa, 2024; ref. Broughton, 2024)
In a 1948 UNESCO and IFLA-sponsored educational program held in England, R. “traced the roots of philosophy of librarianship back to the Vedas and considered his Five Laws (1931) as simple corollaries of this principle.” (Broughton, 2024) As my research evolves into praxis, this intermingling of the esoteric and practical (and a deeper engagement with R.’s interpretation of “intuition” and Ekavakyata [A Vedic concept of universal interconnectedness]) will become increasingly salient.2
But of course, these cultural aspects only provide the internal layers of hierarchy: There is also India’s colonial structure to contend with. let’s rewind a bit to gain firmer footing in our time and place.
The British East India Company [EIC] took control of large swathes of the subcontinent gradually, culminating in a series of legal and martial events in the back half of the 18th century which historians typically use as the start of the “Company Raj.” [Raj: Rule. The compound title Maharaja was typically used for client kings.] Even with continual territorial expansion, India remained a patchwork of EIC control and client kingdoms (Mysore, Haidarabad, Bhutan, etc.) with varying political and economic relationships. EIC postings were initially open only to single men, any many a second or third son during the Georgian era sought their fortune in the Colony – a serious gamble, considering the staggering British mortality rates from tropical diseases. (“It has been estimated that between 1707 and 1775, no fewer than fifty-seven per cent of Company eployees died of sickness in Bengal; in the worst decade, from 1747 to 1757, the toll stood at sevety-four per cent.” (Moorehouse, 1883, p. 35))
As British commercial interests, infrastructure, and governmental apparatus became more entrenched in the 19th century, the political and social dynamics shifted. The European sphere was no longer a homosocial space: EIC officers now relocated their families to enclaves, where upper-class social patterns were adapted for the Indian milleiu. Expanding British territory required an expanded military to secure it; But the EIC policy of enlisting indigenous soldiers (Sepoys) peaked just as the Colonial government implemented policies that destabilized the British relationship with both India’s client kingdoms and its general population. Thus the stage was set for…
The EIC’s penultimate executive, Governor General James Ramsey Marquis of Dalhousie (serving 1848-1856, hereafter Dalhousie) pursued intertwined strategies of infrastructural development, territorial expansion, and “unification of sovereignty.” (Metcalf & Metcalf, 2006, p.94) We’ll consider his more-successful infrastructural efforts a little later; but his “sovereignty” efforts proved disastrous.
As early as 1834, the EIC had formally articulated a “lapse” policy, whereby client kingdoms could be seized and governed directly when a ruler had no natural heir (as opposed to the traditional practice of a ruler recognizing an adopted heir). This had been used only a few times for unusual circumstances in small kingdoms; but at the outset of his Governorship, Dalhousie began aggressively employing it to seize large, economically important kingdoms.
This shift to direct seizure coupled with everyday Indians’ continued frustration with their political disenfranchisement was the powderkeg; A spate of poorly-implemented and religiously-insensitive policies effecting the Sepoys lit the fuse. The 1858 rebellion was localized mainly in the Northern territories,3 but the violence was severe, often indiscriminate, and psychologically scarring. Atrocities were freely committed on both sides of the line.4
British Parliament formally dissolved the EIC, and took control of India’s administration directly. Following their brutal pacification of the rebellion, the Crown took a different tack on political control. The lapse policy was rescinded: Princes were once again permitted to rule as British clients, meaning “about one-third of the people of India were, until the end of the Raj, to remain under the ‘indirect rule’ of some 500 princes.” (Metcalf & Metcalf, 2006) (Note the increasingly complex maps from this period.)
British Parliament created a complex system of committees, boards (etc.), with “supreme authority” vested in the Viceroy, the title assumed by Governor General Canning following Queen Victoria’s “Princes, Chiefs, and People of India’” proclamation in November 1858. (Metcalf & Metcalf, 2006, p. 104) The occasion of Queen Victoria’s 1876 elevation to Empress of India “was intended to create a new bond between Britain and her chief imperial possession…” and the manner of its formal pronouncement (a blend of European and Mughal court aesthetics) was “intended above all to recognize and solidify bonds with princes, rural magnates, and urban notables.” (Metcalf & Metcalf, 2006, p. 115)
But along with the diffusing and stratification of political control, the 1858 uprising also intensified racial tensions. Thereafter, the British employed the common colonial technique of favoring racial/ethnic minorities in political and martial appointments to prevent indigenous cohesion, and increasingly segregated and militarized their own social spaces. Dovetailing with current medical and urban design thinking (e.g., miasma theory), the contrast between wealthy, spacious European enclaves and the densely-packed city centers further stoked the colonist’s sense of racial superiority and paranoia. Often, newly-established rail lines acted as de facto boundaries, the “civil lines” (Metcalf & Metcalf, 2006, p. 109) between European and indigenous spaces; And within European spaces, dovetailed architectural and social practices further compartmentalized inter-racial interactions, spatially and temporally.
In fact, in the 19th century, rail and telegraph lines were sprouting all over the colony. Rather than “importing modernity” from Britain, India’s value to the British meant technological innovations were deployed simultaneously in the two territories, with India sometimes used as a proving ground. The introduction of railways (funded by private British companies with guaranteed loans from the EIC and later the Crown) simultaneously expedited the colony’s extractive economy and military relocation for expansion; While on the communication front,
The telegraph linking the chief centres of India was completed during Dalhousie’s term. Comprising some 4,500 miles of line, it made possible rapid transmission of information on politics, security, trade, and industry, as well as the personal messages of evermore individuals. The cable linking Britain and India… was laid in 1865, a year before the link between Britain and the U.S.” (Metcalf & Metcalf, 2006, p. 99)
The governmental “penny post” was established in 1854, allowing mail to be sent “any distance within the country, at the same low cost,” and proved “indispensable to the communications and fundraising of the voluntary societies, organizations, and publishers emerging in this period.” Shipbuilding improvements in concert with the newly-opened Suez Canal further expedited information exchange: “In the 1830s an exchange of letters between Britain and India could take two years; by 1870… a letter could reach Bombay in only one month.” (Metcalf & Metcalf, 2006, p. 99) Thus, Ranganathan was born to an India newly-transformed by transportation and information networks.
In contrast to the EIC, the Crown’s civil apparatus became increasingly occupied with information control. The first decennial Indian census was undertaken in 1872, and a full geographic survey completed in 1878. Newspapers now required government permits, and copies of books and pamphlets were required to be submitted to the government.5
Coming full-circle to the beginning of our journey: British enthusiasm for racial segregation, information control, and 19th c. scientific practices coalesced into an increasingly systematized and policed anthropological view of India’s 200 million deeply heterogeneous residents. Traditionally nomadic “pastoral” tribes were now classified as “itinerant,” and therefore “criminal.” (Metcalf & Metcalf, 2006, p. 112) Bolstered by the ever-improving technology of photography,
The most important identity for Victorian anthropologists of India was ‘caste’, taken as a concrete, measuring ‘thing’ that could be fitted into a hierarchy able to be ascertained and quantified in reports and surveys… The first major compilation of such photographs was The Peoples of India, published by the Government of India in 1868 in eight volumes. The picture of the Banjaras, for example, nomadic herdsmen and traders… was accompanied by a description of them having ‘a reputation for perfect honesty’, but they were later relegated to the status of ‘criminal tribe’, a reminder of the fantasy that passed for exactitude. The caste ‘system’ is thus one of the countless parameters of life in India that is a product of modern change… now too often identified as ‘traditional’. [Emphasis mine.] (Metcalf & Metcalf, 2006, p. 112)
For example, the 1901 decennial census attempted to “arrive at a [hierarchical] classification of castes in accordance with an order of precedence established on the basis of native public opinion:”
The following criteria were considered: the varna to which the caste in question belonged; whether or not the Brahmans accepted water from it; whether it was served by Brahmans of high status, by other Brahmans, or by its own priests; whether it practised infant marriage and forbade remarriage for widows; profession; whether or not it was served by the barber and other specialists; whether or not it had access to the precincts of certain temples; whether or not it was excluded from using the communal well, was regulated to a distinct quarter, was obliged to leave the road when a superior was encountered. (Dumont, 1970, p. 79)
But amid this obsessive environment of systematization, there were, of course, people heading in the exact opposite direction. I’ve been popping through a collection of essays by the Indian Anarchist M.P.T. Acharya on my BART commutes to-and-from work. Acharya and R. overlap in some surface respects: They were born just a few years apart to brahmin families in the Madras Presidency; but beyond this, I’m as yet unaware if their (greatly) divergent trajectories ever crossed.
Acharya’s family was influential in the opening phases of the formal Indian Nationalist movement, and he took to the written word early. His predilection for political envelope-pushing eventually necessitated a flight to continental Europe, where he linked up with various threads of the international communist and anarchist movements. He continued agitating for Indian independence, and The British Raj banned his increasingly radical writings in his home country from 1910 to 1935. The collection I’m reading (Laursen, 2019) spans 1923 to 1953, and the essays therein are perhaps better termed missives; They’re typically under a thousand words and address current events.
Beyond opposition to hierarchical organizations, anarchists are a pretty varied bunch when it comes to theory & praxis. From the pieces I’ve read so far, his work skews utopian rather than practical: He advocates for the abolition of money, government beyond commune-level direct democracy, the military, etc. etc. In the context of the nationalist movement, Acharya’s pacifism resulted in an interesting relationship with his (much) better-known contemporary Mahatma Gandhi. Sometimes effusive in praise (Gandhi and Non-Violence, 1930; Nationalism in India, 1933), Acharya also criticized Gandhi’s approach to pacifism for concluding at civil disobedience rather than disavowing the violent coercion present at the root of the State.6 (Mother India, 1928)
To put a slightly finer point on this, Acharya saw the cessation of British rule as an opportunity for social liberation: He advocated against the formation of a constitutional government, and instead suggested devolving sovereignty directly to the people. There’s a steady, illicit thrill in encountering ideas like this: Constitutions, Bills of rights, and other government-formation documents are double-edged swords. On the one hand, they draw boundaries around what the State can and cannot do; But on the other, their existence legitimizes both State control of the citizenry, and a framework for expanding the circumstances and nature of this control. If a country without a constitution seems a bit too wacky, a bit too utopian, even a cursory glance through the history books reveals it’s a rare day indeed when the State dissipates rather than consolidates its own power – so in another way of thinking, it’s actually deeply practical to decline repeating this pattern.
A little surprisingly, recent political events in the U.S. have begun to bubble these ideas up from hyper-niche academic discourse into the public sphere. The week following my detour into Acharya, NYT published a longread titled “The Constitution is Sacred. Is It Also Dangerous?” while the op-ed department went with the characteristically clickbaity “The Constitution Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed” just a few days later.
A few weeks ago, an excellent item appeared at the Prelinger Library: A rotational poster by graphic designer Emily Larned, depicting material from Wheeler & Chinn’s Peace & Power: A Handbook of Feminist Process. (The poster includes material from both the 3rd and 8th editions, 1984 and 2012, respectively.) The poster is divided into a grid, where each square has text depicting two diverging ways to consider or implement power, in Feminist and Patriarchal modes. Here’s a few examples:
(Feminist) Power of distribution: Goods and resources shared to benefit all according to need. (Patriarchal) Power of accumulation: Material goods and resources are hoarded for personal gain.
(Feminist) Power of integration: Decisions are examined in context consider “both” “and” possibilities. (Patriarchal) Power of opposites: Decisions are polarized into “for” or “against” choices.
And of course:
(Feminist) Power of solidarity: Responsibility is distributed in a lateral network of connections. (Patriarchal) Power of hierarchy: Linear chain of command with layers of privilege and responsibility. [Emphasis mine.]
I’ve been considering the character of my research process here in these early stages, where the shrub must be left to grow wildly before it’s eventual topiary prune. Left to my own devices, I seem to naturally pursue a strategy expertly detailed and executed in Melissa McCarthy’s Sharks, Death, Surfers: An Illustrated Companion (2019): I will be “slipping” along “the boundary;” Practicing “he’e nalu [ed: surfing]… a controlled and focused slipping, using ‘great dexterity & address.’” (McCarthyl, 2019, p. 39) This research approach is
the sort of activity that could swerve a man away from the imperial regimen of classifying, claiming territory, drawing fresh maps, and systematizing the unknown. Away from a distinct world defined by external coordinates and into a particular sort of immersion and participation in that world. [Emphasis mine.]
Surfing has a particular sort of freedom, the special quality of being in a privileged relationship with the boundary. The surfer is not in the water, in the air, on dry land, but a little of all of these, all at once; in a carefully controlled balance between each element. There is a useful term that we could borrow from the world of football [ed: soccer] the surfer is a Raumdeuter, or “space interpreter,” who can make something from one realm comprehensible in another, who can negotiate between the two zones. The surfer understands that a boundary is not an impermeable, confining membrane, nor a simple signpost indicating a new state, but fundamentally an opportunity. It enables the surfer to slide along and enjoy the interface. (McCarthy, 2019, p. 45)
This approach not only better aligns with perspective on the value of academic research as a whole, but hews well to my practical experience with entities like the Prelinger Library, who encourage a broader understanding of the knowledge space than is typical of academic institutions. But there are dangers to this approach when engaging with material outside one’s own culture and experience; To continue the metaphor, patterns of swell and tide obvious to a beach’s residents that can easily cause a visitor to bail.
“‘Pravachanam’ is a Sanskrit word meaning a discourse from a Guru on any matter related to spirituality or code of conduct. In the good old days of Guru-Shishya tradition, [ed: Teacher-student] Gurus dedicated their lifetime propagating the principles they believed through ‘Pravachanams’ to the interested Shisyas in particular, and to the common public in general.” (pravachanam.com, 2024)
I found this particularly fascinating: “[Ranganathan] reverentially recalls the moment of his first meeting with the great American philosopher and educationalist John Dewey (1859–1952): ‘The very moment of my entering his room an unusual thrill came over me — a thrill usually experienced on entering into the sanctum sanctorum of Lord Venkatachlapathi in Tripuathi temple. His face irradiated all love. The gleams from his eyes were charming. I felt transformed… [mesmerized]’.” [Emphasis mine] (Satija & Gupta, 2024)
Butterworth (1932, p.267) notes, “The storm of the [1958] mutiny raised only a couple of ripples in Madras. …The transfer of the government of India to the crown caused no stir whatever. The local annals are silent on the subject because methods and principles remained unchanged.” However, Madras was hit particularly hard by the 1876-7 famine, including about a third of the fallowed land and some four million deaths. Prior to the famine, Madras was experiencing an annual population growth of about 1.2 million; Afterword, its population growth remained halted until 1881.
For a particularly nightmarish tangent, see the execution method of ‘Blowing from the Gun;’ which the EIC began using as a punishment for desertion and treason following a survey of the region’s common execution techniques, and was employed extensively following the 1958 rebellion.
Side note: I’d honestly never considered the surveilance aspect of the LOC’s repository function until reading this.
E.g. The legislatively-sanctioned ability of the police and military to enact violence on citizens; See (Wacks, 2014) and (Graeber, 2015).
“Katarzyna Niewiadoma, looking resplendent in yellow”
Serious Person / Unserious Person is a false dichotomy: A person’s seriousness is temporal, relational, contextual, interpretive, etc. etc. This is doubly true when considering art and artists; Sprechstimme’s significant and continuing impact in classical vocal music is a perfect example of this enormous grey area.
“they’re just following the ribbon of road into the clouds”
Imaginal Disk by Magdalena Bay, August 2024
The new Spectral Wound isn’t as good as the last two
Academia is a magic circle
I have the luxury of unsuccessful experiments
There was a new employee at the coffee shop, and she got my order wrong… but it was actually a great; a surprise; a nice change of pace. The rich taste of chocolate. How do we replicate this experience on the internet?
you can feel the heat lurking
That strange feeling of emptiness when there’s no more Olympics to watch
bright-eyed and bushy-tailed
lol get it together king rex
“Stats give our submitters, and Admins confidence that their work is seen and valued, and provide external and internal justification for continued investment in the platform”
psychological contagion
“Probably the most common question I got right after we announced GraphQL was ‘Why didn’t you just use REST, SOAP, OData, JsonSchema, JsonAPI, Rammel, Swagger, RDF, OWL, or CORBA, or – you know – one of the other major, established technologies for building APIs?’ But just because there’s a tool out there, or a set of best practices, doesn’t mean it’s the best solution to your particular set of problems – and none of these were right for ours.”
