A Ñisforuol NDIH'

./l . l'e-¡c .."$*{fr.n;iT " a^ã*'.t't ç1' """'" A ñisforuol NDIH' Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund Ël I-ondon and New York f røeo] i i f The Freedom Movement and the partition of India 277 I The Freedom 't Movement and the a solidarity based on a glorious past. This solidarity 7 .{ traditionalism became Partition of India i a major feature of Indian nationalism - and as it was based on Hindu v traditions, it excluded the Muslims. i The Muslims were suspicious of this neo-Hinduism and even distrusted iq I its profession of religious universalism. The emphasis on the equality F i: of all religions was seen as particularly t a subtle threat to Islamic identity. ! But while such trends among the educated Hindu elite were merely The Indian Freedom Movement i suspect to the Muslims, more popular movements of Hindu solidarity ,i - such as the cow-protection movement in Northern India _ were The challenge of imperial rule produced India's nationalism, which raised ''' positively resented by them as a direct attack on their own religious prac- its head rather early in the nineteenth century. Among the new educated i tices, which included cow-slaughter at certain religious fesiivals. the elite there were some critical intenectuars lookeã i wlo upon foreign rule i Hindi-urdu controversy in Northern India added additional fuel to the as a transient phenomenon. As earry as ; lg49 Gopal i{ari Desãmukh ! fire of communal conflict. The Hindus asked only for equal recognition praised American democracy in a Marathi newspaper and predicted that of their language Hindi, written in Devanagari script as a language the Indians would emulate the American I - - revolutionaries ànd drive out permitted in the courts of law, where so far urdu written in Nastaliq the British. such publications, for which the author wourd have been i' script had prevailed; the Muslims, however, resented this prosecuted as a challengé for sedition only a few decades later, were hardly to taken note i urdu and identified this linguistic advantage more and more with thei¡ of by the British ar rhat rime. t- Similarly, rhe political asslciations in existence as a religious community. Even illiterate Muslims whose Bombay, calcutta and Madras submitted parliament i lengthy petitions to language hardly differed from that of their Hindu neighbours could be in 1853 when the renewar of the charter past of ttle India company was I called upon to defend Urdu for the sake of their Islamic identity. due; 'j these did not attract much attention either, although they among other things, strong pleas for democratic "onøinø, I A New Generation of Liberal Nationølists righis anda reduction I of the land revenue. The Mutiny of lg57 then alarmed both the British I Liberal nationalists ofthe educated elite revived vocal political activity and the Indian educated elite. The i British became cautious, suspicious in the 1870s. They belonged to a new generation for whom the Mutiny and conservative; the Indian elite lapsed I into a prolonged silence. i of 1857 was only a vague childhood memory, whereas their experience i. Neo-Hinduism I in England where many of them had gone for higher studiei had and Muslim Resentment i - - stirred their political consciousness. The old and long-dormant associa- In a different held national thought i did progress, even in those silent I tions of the 1850s were now superseded by new organisations of a more years. Religious reform movements gained I more and more ground. t vigorous kind. chief among them were the Indian Association established Debates with christian missionaries stimulated quest ¡ the for a neí creed I in calcutta in 1876, and the Poona sarvajanik sabha which was founded among the Hindus. Defensive I reactions by religious orthodoxy and bord I in 1870. Mahadev Govind Ranade, the young judge posted in pune in innovations by Hindu revivalists ! resulted'from this encountei. Modern i 1871, emerged as the leading spirit of the Sarvajanik sabha. surendranath reiigious associations like the Brahmo samaj of Bengal and the Arya Banerjea was the mentor of the Indian Association and led an all-India samaj of Northern India vied with each otheì in om"ting u n"* ,"*. campaign for a better representation of Indians in the Indian civil service. of identity to the Hindus. christian forms of organisation were copied, Banerjea was one of the first Indians ever to be admitted to this service, the Brahmo Samaj sent missionaries to all parts of India, while the Àrya although he had been summarily dismissed from it for some minor Samjists spoke of a 'vedic church' ro indicate their feeling that tire mistake. The age limit for admission to the service had also been congregational solidarity of the christians was lacking among t¡e Hin¿us. deliberately reduced from 2l to l9 years of age, thus only Indians who The various strands of neo-Hinduism showed different tendencies some were sent to attend school in England by their parents could ever hope aimed at a universalism - embracing ail nations and religions of the worrd; to qualify for admission at all. others were eagerly reconstructing a nationar tradition so as to achieve I Viceroy Lord Lytton, a Conservative, immensely fostered I the co- 276 ll ¡ : i : I I I 278 The Freedom Movement and the partition of India The Freedom Movement and the Panidon of India Z7g operation of Indian nationalists by his reactionary measures; in this he make the British the umpires of India's fate. Dissociation rather than was to be surpassed only by Lord Curzon some decades later. Lytton association was the watchword of the revolutionaries. Vedanta introduced a vernacular Press Act in l BTB which subjected newspapers philosophy, the mainstay of neo.Hindusim, lent itself to a political inær- published in Indian languages to a censorship so severe as to bJ prac- pretation by the national revolutionaries: its emphasis on spiritual unity tically tantamount to a suppression of their publication. This raiied a and on the liberation from illusion could be transformed into a message storm of national protest in India and was also criticised by Gladstone of national solidarity and of a political awakening which would put an and his Liberals in Parliament. Henceforth, Indian nationalists believed end to foreign rule. that the British Liberal Party was their natural ally. They were later disabused of this notion, but for some decades a faith in the Liberals Vedanø, Kannayoga and the National Revolutiorøries greatly influenced their policy. Vedanta philosophy was certainly an inspiration for the national revolu- Lord Ripon's appointment as viceroy in l B80 gave great encourage- tionaries, but it had one major disadvantage: it was originally aimed at ment to India's liberal nationalists, who intensified their contacts the liberation of the soul by meditation and by the renunciation of worldly throughout the country and finally held the first annual session of the preoccupations. Therefore it was necessary to emphasise the concept of Indian National Congress in Bombay in 1885; the second was held in Karmayoga, which implies that action as a sacrifice as an unselfish calcutta, where - the Indian Association was in charge of the arrangements quest for right conduct is as good as renunciation. The crucial proviso (indeed, the - Indian Association had wanted to host the first session, and is that one should not expect any reward or benefit from such action Bombay got ahead of Calcutta only by accident). In subsequent years and must remain compleæly detåched. In this way active self-realisation all major Indian cities vied with each other for the great honour of hosting rather than passive contemplation could be propagated as the true message the National congress. There was hardly any activity in the time between of Vedanta philosophy. annual sessions, nor was there any permanent office. The nationalists Swami Vivekananda was the prophet of this new thought. He the inviting of city and the local chairman of the reception committee impressed the rilestern world when he propounded this message at the did what was necessary; they also decided whom to invite to preside World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1894; on his return to India over the session which was more of a mark of distinction than an onerous in 1897 following his spiriural corquest of the West, he gr€atly stimulated duty. An informal group of leaders emerged to co-ordinate the affairs Indian nationalism. The British rulers had usually looked down on of the National Congress. For a long time the political boss of Bombay, Hinduism as a ragbag of superstition; Vivekananda's reh¿bilitation of Parsi lawyer Pherozeshah Mehta, was the mentor of the Congress. He Hindu thought in the rr¡/est was therefore considered to be a rnajor national felt that the congress should work like an Indian branch of the British achievement. Even contemporary liberal nationalists (e.g. Cnpal Krishna party Liberal and was therefore at loggerheads with the national revolu- Gokhale) or socialists of the next generation (e.g. Jawaharlal Nehru) tionaries, who preferrei to fight for Indian independence rather than put admired Vivekananda and found his ideas attractive. their trust in any British parry. Vedanta philosophy and Karmayoga were, of course, of importance The liberal nationalists and the national revolutionaries held fundamen- only to members of the educated elite who had looked for a new identity tally different views about the Indian nation. The liberals believed in and found that borrowed British liberalism was not enough of an inspira- nation-building within the framework of British rule. To them an Indian tion for Indian nationalism.

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