The Mortal God: Imagining the Sovereign in Colonial India'

H-Asia Imy on Banerjee, 'The Mortal God: Imagining the Sovereign in Colonial India'

Review published on Saturday, October 26, 2019

Milinda Banerjee. The Mortal God: Imagining the Sovereign in Colonial India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. xviii + 435 pp. $120.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-107-16656-1.

Reviewed by Kate Imy (University of North Texas)Published on H-Asia (October, 2019) Commissioned by Sumit Guha (The University of Texas at Austin)

Printable Version: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=53810

Milinda Banerjee’s ambitious new study, The Mortal God: Imagining the Sovereign in Colonial India, analyzes the shifting meanings of kingship, rulership, and sovereignty in late colonial Bengal. The primary goal of the work is to “focus on varying ways in which multiple political actors in colonial India ascribed divine and kingly status to specific political forms and beings” (p. 5). He finds hints of this type of political formulation in political reforms as varied as human rights, education, territorial autonomy, and employment, which he argues reflects the “democratization of divinity” (p. 6). This proves to be a fruitful yet challenging, intellectual undertaking, bridging concerns of nationalist, princely, peasant, colonial, and postcolonial forms of political imagination. It opens up many new areas of inquiry for political theory, the history of religions, and the shared histories of colonialism and anti-colonialism.

After an interesting discussion of the title’s debt to the seventeenth-century political theories of Thomas Hobbes, Banerjee situates his analysis firmly within the context of colonial Bengal while gesturing to broader dynamics across India. He reminds us that there was no single universal idea of monarchy or divine kingship that caught on across all cultures and communities, making it difficult to envision a single Indian or Indo-Islamic national monarchy. Similarly, critiques of rulership predated British colonialism, especially under Maratha and Sikh traditions. Historical and living monarchs nonetheless inspired various political agendas. Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar became a rallying symbol in the rebellion of 1857. Queen Victoria’s Proclamation provided a rationale for “benevolent governance” (p. 58). Her acceptance of the title of empress in 1876 cultivated some support from local rulers, including Indian princes. When she died, many Bengalis responded as if it was the death of a mother. In some instances, Indian nationalists critiqued British rulers as fake kings due to their inability to live up to the benevolent and charitable standards of Indian rulers. Bal Gangadhar Tilak made an increasingly influential claim that everyone was considered part of divinity and that an unjust ruler was destined for hell. King George V became the first ruling monarch to visit India in 1911, inspiring some hope that the British monarchy would take a more active role in protecting the welfare of Indians. While this proved largely unfulfilled, many political leaders mourned his death in 1936, while challenging and criticizing British rule in India.

Banerjee also examines how Indian princely states provided alternative models for imagining national rulership. This is an important contribution to a growing field of study reevaluating debates over the sovereignty of princely rulers as more than British puppets.[1] Banerjee focuses on Cooch Behar and

Tripura in particular, the two states most associated with Bengal. For intellectual and reformer Keshub Chunder Sen, “monotheistic monarchisation” was the ideal vision of princely rule, which he tried to impress on his daughter’s husband, the ruler of Cooch Behar, Nripendra Narayan (pp. 114-15). While Narayan enjoyed a reputation as a modernizer who built roads and railway links, Banerjee highlights his role in transferring government power to upper-caste Bengali elites, clearing land, exploiting labor, and forcing the expulsion of communities classified as “wild tribes” in favor of “civilized tenants.” The modernizing projects of Sen’s monotheistic monarchy, therefore, reflected European trends of indigenous disempowerment and environmental devastation in the name of progress. Ultimately, Cooch Behar’s monarchizing agenda led to breakup and division within the Brahmo movement. In Tripura, Bengalis became emboldened in their opposition to the colonial state’s efforts to maximize revenue and restructure royal dynasties. This was despite the support of noted intellectuals like Rabindranath Tagore, who saw dynastic kingly rule as a safeguard against Brahmin dominance. As left-nationalist visions of postcolonial India became stronger, princely rulers increasingly branded themselves as sponsors of Hindu, Muslim, or Sikh interests, exacerbating sectarian divisions and, in some cases, encouraging violence against perceived threats.

When princely leaders failed to inspire unity, Indian intellectuals envisioned rulership and sovereignty through the lens of a national monarch. One attempt came from Surendranath Banerjea, a moderate Indian politician—who tried to have himself anointed and crowned in 1906 during the Swadeshi movement. However, national visions of kingship were less convincing for many Indian nationalists who admired European liberal constitutionalism and socialism, which they saw as opposed to the despotism and tyranny of absolute rule. Other national models could sometimes be more inspiring, including the unifications of Germany and Italy and, especially, the rise of Japan. Historical examples became popular touchstones but provided some challenges. Emperors, for example, could not be tied to a single “national” heritage (p. 188). Celebrations of kings of the past, such as seventeenth-century ruler Shivaji, often exacerbated other divisions. Shivaji had fought against the Mughal Empire, leading festivities in his honor to take on increasingly anti-Muslim tones. These glorifications of supposedly ideal rulers also tended to praise Bengali masculinity and warrior prowess against charges of effeminacy, which marginalized women as symbolic mothers of heroes. Fascistic and socialistic visions of an independent India similarly relied on the notion of the strong, commanding kingship. One prominent example was Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who blended idealized images of nationalist kingship with ideas from European fascism. The growing appeal of strong-man militarism inspired Jawaharlal Nehru to warn against “Caesarism” and decline a third term as president of the Indian National Congress (p. 263).

One of the most innovative sections examines how notions of queenship could be just as, if not more, powerful than imagining the ideal king. Sunity Devi had solidified links between Indian reformists, princely rulers, and the British state through her marriage to Sen, the ruler of Cooch Behar. In addition to affirming her family’s loyalty to Britain’s king-emperor, she believed that women should play an advisory role in state governance to ensure the protection of citizens. Nivedita praised rulers, such as the rani of Jhansi, who rebelled in the Uprising of 1857. She insisted that India had its own history of “feminist institutions” that deserved further consideration and attention and should not be buried beneath Western feminisms (p. 204). Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, meanwhile, hoped that women would serve as judges, magistrates, and even viceroys. She wrote “Sultana’s Dream,” envisioning a “Lady-land” ruled by a queen, where men were kept in seclusion. Women’s commitment to pacifism and science helped to maintain peace and stability. Sarojini Naidu, meanwhile, evoked

Citation: H-Net Reviews. Imy on Banerjee, 'The Mortal God: Imagining the Sovereign in Colonial India'. H-Asia. 10-26-2019. https://networks.h-net.org/node/22055/reviews/5186057/imy-banerjee-mortal-god-imagining-sovereign-colonial-india Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 2 H-Asia queenship in a more anti-colonial vein while also recalling mythic and historical models of queenship to undermine potential hostility to women’s empowerment. This section proves an interesting counterpoint to the largely male-dominated sphere of kingly political imaginings. At the same time, it suggests further room for exploring how and why nonintellectual or elite women sometimes supported patriarchal, rather than matriarchal, rule.

Visions of the ideal ruler crossed not only gender but class-caste lines as well. For Banerjee, a “Kshatriyaisation movement” in Bengal, particularly among “peasant elites,” enabled peasant and pastoral communities to claim ties to zamindar rulership or Kshatriya (warrior) ancestry. This became a pretext for claiming greater political representation and participation, in what Banerjee calls a “collective assertion of rulership” (pp. 296, 321). The Rajavamshi of northern Bengal identified with royal lineages in a way that was relatively inclusive, particularly among upwardly mobile peasants who made claims for political power. They increasingly formed various youth movements to revitalize a militant Kshatriya ethos in the region. This made it a useful identity for military recruitment during the First World War. In some circles gendered discourses of militant masculinity continued to marginalize women’s political roles as the “mothers of heroes.” Others, such as the Samiti, encouraged the militarization of women with stick and dagger fighting. Banerjee argues that peasant engagement with a collectivized identity expanded the meaning of sovereignty and democratized Indian politics. At the same time, an emphasis on political divinity, or “messianic politics,” linked peasant and elite movements. “Messianic politics,” for Banerjee, took inspiration from various Indic and Islamic cultural formations while also responding to class and cultural differences (p. 350). After the First World War, utopian visions of a messianic leadership became especially exciting after the Russian Revolution, the Khilafat movement, and Gandhi’s fusing of Christian and Indian symbols to resist colonialism. The figure of the imprisoned rebel body became a nearly divine symbol as anti- colonial resistance increased.

This work makes a fantastic contribution to political and intellectual histories of India and South Asia. It carefully analyzes invocations of divine and human rulership and sovereignty, which reveal the dreams, and realities, of political and social movements in late colonial, and postcolonial, India. The work is worthwhile for graduate students, scholars of South Asia, and political theorists who hope to think through the plurality of visions of ideal rule in colonial India. While much of the focus remains on intellectuals and rulers, efforts to incorporate perspectives of women and low-mid-caste communities are largely successful. It also offers the opportunity for further fruitful comparative studies. Examining notions of sovereignty and divine rulership in Punjab would be particularly helpful to understand how prevalent military recruiting and economic devastation in the region transformed localized understandings of both the power of the ruler and claims to divinity/royalty for individuals. A longer study of women’s visions for queenship—or their support of kingly rule—across India would also prove informative, building on influential works about women’s late colonial political activism from Mrinalini Sinha (Specters of Mother India: The Global Restructuring of an Empire [2006]), Charu Gupta (Sexuality, Obscenity, and Community: Women, Muslims, and the Hindu Public in Colonial India [2001]), and many others. At times, Banerjee’s employment of such terms as “sovereignty,” “kingship,” and “rulership” may confuse some readers. Nonetheless, it is an essential entry into debates about late colonial India and the fluidity and flexibility of late colonial politics. Afterall, many postcolonial nation-states continue to grapple with and negotiate the hope for a messianic ruler who can right the wrongs of past governments. At both local and national levels, people exalt missed or misunderstood rulers of the past who are taken as evidence of better days.

Others invest hope in those who promise semi-divine omnipotence, backed by the all-too-familiar militarism and violence of the late colonial period.

Note

[1]. See, for example, Teresa Segura-Garcia, “Towards a Connected History of the Indian Princely States,” Revue d’histoire du XIXe siècle 56 (2018): 132-34; and Madihah Akhter, “In Her Own Right: Sovereignty and Gender in Princely Bhopal, 1901-1926” (PhD diss., Stanford University, 2020).

Citation: Kate Imy. Review of Banerjee, Milinda,The Mortal God: Imagining the Sovereign in Colonial India. H-Asia, H-Net Reviews. October, URL:2019. http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=53810

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.