The Travels of Dean Mahomet: Interrogating a Case of Plagiarized Narratives

Amitabh Vikram Dwivedi

Faculty in English, School of Languages and Literature
College of Humanities and Social Sciences
Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, Katra, Jammu & Kashmir
E-mail: amitabhvikram@yahoo.co.in

The paper attempts to focus on the originality of the work rather than a commentary written
on the work criticizing its validity based on historicity. The independence of the text should
be maintained rather than a reader is forced to select and read the second author’s point of
view in order to get the previous one. The paper questions certain fundamental things that
are to be preserved by the history writers, and should not violate the free will of the reader
because it is true that the author is dead but to entertain the death of the reader is both
hazardous for the writer who is alive and the writer whose work is not published
posthumously but only along with a posthumous writer.
Key words: commentary, independence of text, death of the reader; etc.

Ronald Barthes might not have been aware of this sandwiched narrative when he wrote
“The narratives of the world are numberless,” Roland Barthes stated in his famous
introduction to the structural analysis of narrative in 1966. In his essay he mentioned
different types of narratives: historical, psychological, sociological, etymological, aesthetic,
and alike. But perhaps he was not thinking of this situation (a sandwiched narrative) where a
critique becomes a co-author in the form of an introduction provider/writer, and later on
becomes the main force to state the matter of fact (or a written commentary on the first
Indian Writing drafted posthumously after the death of the author) rather than the original
narrative which would be sandwiched between the introductory and the concluding
judgments of the commentator.

This paper discusses the work The Travels of Dean Mahomet: An Eighteenth-Century
Journey Through India edited with an introduction and biographical essay by Michael H.
Fisher. Let us first have a look over the design of the book. The book is written by the two
authors-one original and dead, (who is dead now) and second, an imposed co-author (unreal
and alive) who, by sheer dint of writing this book after more than 200 years on the original
text becomes the chief source of passing comments on the real work. In fact, the author is
dead. And it would be an honor to state certain facts only to his original writing but not to
the commentary written by Fisher that the book which was written by Dean Mahomet in the

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form of letters to his masters that was the first Indian writing in English. The facts are
following:

a) Sake Dean Mahomet has been considered (in a way he is till date) as the first Indian
English writer in the history of Indian Writing in English.

b) This book is written in the form of letters. There are 38 letters in the book which later on
co-authored by Michael H. Fisher and compiled in Chapter two in the 1997 edition titled as:

“The Travels of Dean Mahomet, the native of Patna in Bengal, Through Several Parts of
India, While in the Service of The Honourable The East India Company Written by Himself,
Ina series of Letters to a Friend.”

c) Every chapter has a salutation ‘Sir’. The book is dedicated to William A. Bailie, Esq.,
Colonel in the Service of ‘The Honourable the East India Company’.

d) The book largely describes the socio-political and economic structure of India at that time
when East India Company in Bengal was taking interest in trade cum politics under the
expert guidance of Clive.

e) The thirty-eight letters in the book discuss different topic but once they are seen as a
whole narrative it gives a fine and minute details of customs of Indian rulers, and the culture
and traditions of common middle class Indians and the growing influence of East India
Company in Indian politics.

f) The author in his letters gives references of British writers Milton (in Letter I and In
Letter XXVI), Goldsmith’s Edwin and Angelina, where it says “Man wants but little here
below, Nor wants that little, long.” The references show his acquaintances to the
contemporary British writers.

g) The writer has used a rich translated devise to help the British understand the socio-
political terminology.

II

The Fisher’s study combines two elements in the form of a book in one (it seems like Noam
Chomsky’s example of inappropriateness in Syntactic Structures where he says color less
green ideas sleep furiously (1957). An example of a category mistake in this case, it is used
to show inadequacy of understanding the culture significance of the Travels, and the need
for more understanding to put both the work differently in order to maintain a clear
contextual preserved meaning of the text. The 1794 autobiographical travel narrative of an
Indian, Dean Mahomet, recalling his years as camp-follower, servant, and subaltern officer
in the East India Company's army (1769 to 1784); and Michael H. Fisher's description of

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 Mahomet's sojourn as an insider/outsider in India, Ireland, and England.
Travels presents an Indian's view of the British conquest of India and conveys the vital role
taken by Indians in the colonial process, especially as they negotiated relations with Britons.

Fisher writes in the section publication on Travels that When Dean Mahomet started writing
a travel narrative about India, he must have studied earlier travel narratives and copied parts
of them, including Jemima Kindersley's Letters from the Island of Teneriffe…and the East
Indies (1777) and, more extensively, John Henry Grose's Voyage to the East Indies (1766).
Kindersley and Grose present unsympathetic pictures of India and Indians. Nonetheless,
Dean Mahomet found aspects of their work worthy of emulation, since he paraphrased or
directly lifted material from them without attribution—a practice today termed plagiarism.
To illustrate how Dean Mahomet used Grose's words without accepting his perspective or
interpretation, I include a sample of both texts, underlining the words which he took from
Grose.

Fisher gives the examples from both the work in order to prove his point that the first work
done by an Indian was plagiarized. The following are the examples I am quoting from the
Fisher’s book in to show whether they are plagiarized or not in present day copy-right rules.

The first one is from the Grose’s work: Grose (vol. 1, p. 238)

Another addition too they use of what they call Catchoo, being a blackish granulated
perfumed composition, of the size of a small shot, which they carry in little boxes on
purpose. They are pleasingly tasted, and are reckoned provocatives, when taken alone,
which is not a small consideration with the Asiatics in general.

They pretend that this use of Betel sweetens the breath, fortifies the stomach, though the juice
is rarely swallowed, and preserves the teeth, though it reddens them; but, I am apt to believe,
that there is more of a vitious habit than any medicinal virtue in it, and that it is like tobacco,
chiefly a matter of pleasure. (Mohamet & Fisher, p.139)

The second one is from the Dean’s work: (Dean XXVII)

Another addition they use, termed catchoo, is a blackish, granulated, perfumed substance;
and a great provocative, when taken alone, which is not a small consideration with the
Asiatics in general.

It is taken after meals, during a visit, and on the meeting and parting of friends or
acquaintance; and most people here are confirmed in the opinion that it also strengthens the
stomach, and preserves the teeth and gums. It is only used in smoking, with a mixture of
tobacco and refined sugar, by the Nabobs and other great men, to whom this species of
luxury is confined.

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There might be a possibility that Dean had studied other Travels and a sort of language
pattern would have remained in his mind though he had not copied any information as it was
a common custom in India at that time to chew betel after meals.

It is taken after meals, during a visit, and on the meeting and parting of friends or
acquaintance; and most people here are confirmed in the opinion that it also strengthens the
stomach, and preserves the teeth and gums. It is only used in smoking, with a mixture of
tobacco and refined sugar, by the Nabobs and other great men, to whom this species of
luxury is confined.

There might be a possibility that Dean had studied other Travels and a sort of language
pattern would have remained in his mind though he had not copied any information as it was
a common custom in India at that time to chew betel after meals.

Now a few interesting facts come out from this description

a) A co-author is making charges on the main author of the text to which he is dependent for
his commentary. And the author is no more alive even to defend himself.

b) The proper and chief copy right act was the 1842 Act (5 & 6 Victoria c. 45),
otherwise known as The Copyright Amendment Act or The Imperial Copyright Act

c) Victorian Britain has the honors with respect to two publishing firsts: the postage stamp
and the international copyright act. Victoria's 1 & 2 c. 59 (1838) was in fact the world's first
copyright act in the modern sense, although the term "copyright" itself first occurs in that
act's revision, 7 & 8 Victoria c. 12 (1844).

d) The commentary of Fisher though rightly follow a contemporary copy-right act but raises
a fundamental human right violation as an author is dead is it correct to blame that author of
plagiarism though it was in fact not mentioned elsewhere and to neglect the importance of
the source by mentioning such insignificant thing by providing such an immaculate
observation of details of grammatical patterns.

III

The history of celebrating a death of the author is not quite clearly starts from Barthes but it
was John Keats who in his own poetic style gives a clear hint to the possibility of a work
that should and not might be read in the following way. He wrote a letter to J. H. Reynolds
on 19 Feb. 1818 stating the same thing when he says ‘for it is a false notion that more is
gained by receiving than giving-no, the receiver and the giver are equal in their benefits (qtd
in Forman: 112). In an another letter written on 27 Oct. 1818 to R. Woodhouse he says ‘A
poet is the most unpoetical of anything in existence; because he has no Identity-he is
continually in for [informing?]… (qtd in Forman: 245-6). A century later Ezra Pound tries
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to put the same ideas in more formal directions to judge a piece of work. He gives three
principle for such work: first, direct treatment to the work-irrespective of subjectivity or
objectivity; second, to avoid unnecessary word that does not contribute to the work; and
finally, to compose in the sequence…( qtd in Eliot: 3-4). Then the following year Eliot
comes with his technical terms namely, ‘objective correlative’, and a proclamation that
Hamlet is an artistic failure (Eliot: 145-6). Since the tradition to kill a author had been paved
the path for the theoreticians like Barthes to formulate a clear theory on narrative. And he
describes it clearly as:

The narratives of the world are numberless. Narrative is the first and
foremost a prodigious variety of genres, themselves distributed amongst
different substances- as though ant material were fit to receive man’s
stories………All classes, all human groups, have their narratives,
cultural backgrounds. Caring nothing for the division between good and
bad literature, narrative is international, transhistorical, transcultural: it is
simply there, like life itself. (Barthes 1977, p.79)

Barthes attempt was to find out the ultimate signified for the non-described text, and to
provide a meaning to it. It was never his intention to falsify the original work and start a
new discourse based on the interpreter’s own whimsical ideas over the text in the light of
present reader’s interest. Interests like emotions are fickle and decisive. They are highly
subjective and make their move from a theoretical base to fool the reader in order to impose
their interpretation. Similar sort of treatment has been done to The Travels of Dean Mahomet
by Fisher and the other writers.

References

Barnes, James J., and Patience P. "Copyright." Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia, ed. Sally
Mitchell. New York: Garland, 1988. pp. 192-3.

Barthes, Roland. “Introduction to the Structuralist Analysis of Narratives.” Image -Music -

Text. Ed. and trans. Stephen Heath. New York: Hill and Wang, 1977. 79-124.

Chomsky, Noam (1957). Syntactic Structures. The Hague/Paris: Mouton. pp. 15.

Eliot, Thomas Stern, ‘Hamlet’ (1919) Selected Essays (London: Faber & Faber, 1932), pp.
145-6.)

Keats, John. Letters, ed. M. D. Forman (1895; London: Oxford University Press, 1931), 2
vols, I. 112, 245-6)

Mahomet, Sake Deen. The Travels of Dean Mahomet. (Published by Dean Mahomet) 1794.

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Mahomet, Sake Deen.; Fisher, Michael Herbert. The Travels of Dean Mahomet : An
Eighteenth-Century Journey Through India. London: University of California Press, 1997.

Mahomet, Sake Deen.; Fisher, Michael Herbert. The Travels of Dean Mahomet : An
Eighteenth-Century Journey Through India. London: University of California Press,
1997.pp. 137-141

Pound, Ezra. ‘A Retrospect’ (1918), Literary Essays, ed. T.S. Eliot (London: Faber & Faber,
1954), pp. 3-4.)