4 May 2024, NIICE Commentary 10795
Sharon Bhattarai
Treaty as an aesthetic artifact of colonial power, an idea greater than just an idea in international relations. Treaty is an agreement between nations, states; they aren't merely utilitarian, but they're highly symbolic and aesthetic. Treaties in colonial times were intended to display order, legality, and civility, instruments which cast the imperial endeavour as "legitimate" and "rational." Colonizers tended to present treaties as altruistic pacts, camouflaging uneven power relations. Aesthetics in this case operated as a soft power strategy; the mannerisms of signing, the mutual language, and the performative diplomacy all placed a layer of consent and cooperation.
Treaties, traditionally regarded as neutral legal documents in International Relations, can also be interpreted as aesthetic objects of colonial power documents that not only legalized imperial domination but did so through rituals, language, and symbolism that camouflaged unequal power relations. Far from being agreements between equals, most colonial treaties were coerced, drafted in alien legal language, and used to legitimize dispossession. Their shape and design conveyed an illusion of common agreement, and diplomacy became a dance of civility that masked domination. Thus, the treaty becomes not just a notion in IR but a manifestation of the historical and continuing patterns of coloniality in the global system.
In international relations, specifically in colonial situations, power was not exercised exclusively by direct military power or coercion. Although violence, war, and economic domination were indeed among the most important weapons of empires, they were frequently coupled with another very influential mechanism: "representation". Representation is a term applied to how power was constructed visually and symbolically through images, language, rituals, and spatial organization. These representations facilitated the consolidation of imperial hegemony by rendering it natural, legitimate, and indeed desirable. As a case point, the Treaty of Sugauli (1816) not only represented a defeat of Nepal by force but was also a performative symbol of British dominance. The very process of writing the treaty, the choice of some legal language, and executing it in a formal setting created a document that reflected the British as rational, authoritative leaders and Nepal as defeated and subordinate.
Perception is an essential context in order to preserve colonial hierarchies. Perception in this context refers to how Individuals, colonizers, and the colonized interpreted and internalized power structures based on the symbols and structures surrounding them. After the Treaty of Sugauli, the British redrew the map of Nepal, reducing its territory and expanding their own. This was not merely a cartographic shift; it was an act of seeing dominance that asserted to the world and to Nepal itself that Britain had remade the area. New maps were published, disseminated, and taught, enshrining a new spatial truth in the collective imagination. Such symbolic acts, over time, could remake national identities and local understandings of sovereignty, modernity, and legitimacy.
Moreover, the British employed ceremonial and theatrical performances to exercise authority as well as to capture territory. The negotiation of a treaty was a production in itself. The stationing of a British Resident at Kathmandu, the ritualistic signing ceremonies, and the presence of British officials in uniforms bedecked with ornaments were all theatrical events. They were designed to be viewed by the broader colonial community as well as by the native inhabitants. Such performances consolidated the imperial hegemony by making it normal, appropriate, and in fact desirable. For example, the Treaty of Sugauli (1816) not only signaled the defeat of Nepal at the hands of force, but it also stood as an indexical marker for British predominance.
Finally, these practices of perception and representation had enduring consequences. They contributed towards the building of a colonial reality where British dominance appeared to be both overwhelming and rightful. Well into decades of decolonization, the symbolic and aesthetic impacts of such a treaty as the Treaty of Sugauli persisted to shape national memory, historical narratives, and global diplomacy. Although the treaty has previously been celebrated as a diplomatic triumph in British narratives, it stands as a reminder of humiliation and resistance in Nepal. This contradiction demonstrates how power, when assumed in images and symbols, does not vanish but instead continues to inform the ways individuals see the present and recall the past.
Viewing the Treaty of Sugauli aesthetically permits us to view colonialism not merely as a political or economic regime but as a visual and symbolic order that refigured visions of power, legitimacy, and sovereignty. Colonial power was not only exercised through military conquest or trade but also done and represented through the instrumentality of treaties, maps, language, and ceremonial pageants. They helped to construct a story of British dominance that appeared logical, civilized, and durable. The Treaty of Sugauli, in its bureaucratese tone and pictorial reinterpretation of Nepal, did not simply chronicle defeat; it sold it, so British dominance appeared normal and justifiable (Sugauli). This aesthetic construction continues to shape the way such events are remembered: whereas Nepal remembers the treaty as a sour memory of defeat, British representations prefer to present it as a diplomatic triumph. These rival memories show how aesthetics not only constructed the colonial present but also remain present in the collective memory, shaping contemporary diplomatic narratives and national identities.
Aesthetics transcends material interests and norms in IR to work on images, symbols, style, and senses that make up world politics. Roland Bleiker's contribution brings out how aesthetics shape perceptions, imaginations, and affective processing of political events. Treaties, maps, flags, and rituals of diplomacy are all included, since they are not necessary on a functional basis but carry meanings and aesthetic undertones. The Treaty of Sugauli, forced on Nepal by the British in 1816, is an example, as it was an act of power enactment that reshaped the political topography as much as it was a legal document. The treaty itself then became a monument to British imperial power, commemorating the defeat of Nepal and converting victory into a spatial and textual regime of domination. Colonial maps, reconfigured after the treaty, reconstituted Nepal as a shrunken, bordered kingdom in British India, an aesthetic reconstitution of space which reflected the imagination of British ascendancy. This reconstitution was not merely spatial but symbolic of domination because the British created maps to mark out their dominion as modern, rational, and civilizing. Likewise, the legalistic, old-fashioned language of the treaty exaggerated the duality of the British as well-organized and superior, and the colonized as disorganized and requiring discipline. The signing of the treaty ceremony, ritualistic gestures, and the institution of the British Resident at Kathmandu were all a display of imperial power; designed not only to accomplish political business but also to be seen to have been accomplished as a demonstration of British hegemony over both the native and colonial worlds.
