SUBALTERN STUDIES m & IV 39 have allowed him to propagate anything apart from this. It ought to be remembered that ultimately the Maulvi was not a revolutionary but a religious leader with political ambitions. Forgetting this simple fact, Bhadra decries his use of religion for political pursuits. All the rebels of Gautam Bhadra's article function in an atmosphere charged with hopes of victory. Had he included any one of the rebel regiments in his narrative, it would have been possible to show that fear of retribution was equally potent in engendering violence. Saurabh Dube Bernard Cohn's The Command of Language and the Language of Command* focuses on the appropriation and control of Indian languages and knowledge: the project was an integral component of colonial power and domination. Cohn rehearses the history of British encounter with Indian languages by presenting a series of examples; the efforts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to leam Indian languages, particularly Persian, which were blocked by cultural and practical obstacles; the exercise between 1770 and 1785 to 'master* 'classical* and 'vulgar* languages by ordering and codifying them through a simultaneous production of grammars, dictionaries, treaties, class books and translations and of notions of the relationship between these languages; and, finally, the efforts to build institutions—the Calcutta Madrassa, the Sanskrit College at Banaras and the college at Fort William—to 'preserve' Indian knowledge. The difficulty with Cohn's essay lies in his treatment of the central theme: the exercise of power through the British 'command' over Indian languages and knowledge. Cohn's statement of the problem is narrow and limited:The knowledge which this small group of British officials sought to control was to be the instrument through which they were to issue commands and collect ever-increasing amounts of information':17 in official sources 'we can trace the changes in the forms of knowledge which the conquerors defined as useful for their own end' (p.276). Cohn tends to reduce the exercise of power through the British control of Indian languages to the needs and necessities of the colonial enterprise. He does not, as a result, adequately address issues which are central to the theme. Cohn acknowledges that he is dealing with a process which involved an interface: the British drew upon the categories of their cultural order to act upon Indian categories and forms of knowledge; Indian categories and forms of knowledge were not inert and passively yielding. At the same time, Cohn does not go far enough in his attempts to tackle these questions through an engagement with the evidence he presents. We do not find out the manner in which 'European grammatical' and cultural categories seized upon Indian languages and knowledge to reorder and transform them. Equally, Cohn does not explore the creative cultural role played by dominated but ever resurgent 'Indian forms of knowledge' in shaping a project which sought to objectify and convert them into an instrument of colonial rule. What is missed out is the way power was implicated in and built into the categories through which the British appropriated Indian knowledge and languages18 and the process of the cultural construction of this enterprise.19 Cohn's assertion that the British control of Indian languages and knowledge 'began the establishment of discursive formation, defined an episfemological space, created a discourse (orientalism), Department of History, School of Correspondence Courses and Continuing Education, Delhi University.