Note to Users

Home , Attar (caste), Chapekar brothers, Chokhamela, Faith in Hinduism, Kolhapur State, Kuladevata

NOTE TO USERS

This reproduction is the best copy available.

® UMI

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with with permission permission of the of copyright the copyright owner. Furtherowner. reproduction Further reproduction prohibited without prohibited permission. without permission. HISTORICISM, HINDUISM AND MODERNITY IN COLONIAL INDIA

Apama Devare

Submitted to the

Faculty of the School of International Service

of American University

in Partial Fulfillment of

the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

International Relations

Chai

Dean of the School of International Service

2005

American University

Washington, D.C. 20016 AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 3207285

INFORMATION TO USERS

The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion.

® UMI

UMI Microform 3207285 Copyright 2006 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. © COPYRIGHT

APARNA DEVARE

2005

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. HISTORICISM, HINDUISM AND MODERNITY IN COLONIAL INDIA

Aparna Devare

ABSTRACT

This dissertation examines the manner in which modem historicist ideas were

negotiated in the lives and thought of three Hindu social and political figures from

nineteenth and twentieth century, western colonial India, Jotiba Phule, M.G. Ranade and

V.D. Savarkar. Using discourse analysis, I examine the writings and lives through the use

of autobiographies and biographies of all three individuals. I argue that while Phule and

Ranade both internalized as well as challenged historicist ideas, Savarkar’s life and

thought marks an uncritical acceptance of a modem historicist world-view. Savarkar

viewed the past including ancient Hindu customs, myths and practices solely through a

scientific and historicist lens and had little use for religious texts and practices, viewing

them as part of an objectified and museumized past. As a believer in the idea of progress,

he saw all forms of faith representing a backward and atavistic consciousness. He

privileged modem identities such as the nation and state along with an instrumentalist

reading of religion and upheld a religious identity while rejecting any form of religiosity.

On the other hand, while Phule and Ranade both historicized past Hindu customs,

legends and practices, they also used them to fashion a critical consciousness. In

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. their world-views, faith as piety and morality provided alternative critical ways of

organizing the past. Anticipating Gandhi, both rejected the history/faith dichotomy

prevalent in modem Europeanist thought. Phule unlike Ranade and Savarkar, provided a

lower caste critique that challenged the Hindu social order, including its heavy

Brahmanical leanings by drawing on modem ideas of history and scientific rationality.

Yet he was also deeply steeped in indigenous modes of story-telling, including rewriting

myths and practices which challenged notions of historical ‘objectivity’ and veracity.

This dissertation seeks to intervene in contemporary Indian debates about history,

religion and nation-hood by positing Phule and Ranade’s ideas as critical alternative

Hindu and modem Indian visions to that of Savarkar. Both Phule and Ranade provide

more pluralistic and humane visions comprising a limited historicism and modernity to

that of Savarkar’s violent and intolerant totalizing modern historicist world-view.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PREFACE

My dissertation challenges the history/faith dichotomy in modernist thought.

While this position may appear to coincide with right-wing religious perspectives such as

‘creationists’ or ‘fundamentalists’, this would be a gross misreading. The dissertation in

fact aims to do the opposite and this preface is written precisely to dispel any such

misinterpretations. While the dissertation rejects all right-wing perspectives as

propagating hatred, oppression and intolerance, it also questions the secularists or

modernists claim that any collapse between boundaries of faith and history or science and

religious thought necessarily endorses religious extremism. I draw from a ‘third space’

as articulated by scholars such as Ashis Nandy who contra both fundamentalists and

secularists argues that a just basis of social critique and an affirmation of plurality can be

offered from within a faith over historical or modem scientific standpoint. In many

cultures, especially where modernity has been less entrenched, boundaries between faith

and history or science and religion have been porous and have often allowed and

encouraged plurality and social critique. Nandy suggests the example of M.K. Gandhi as

someone who blurred the lines between faith or myth/history, science/religion and

religion/politics.

In this dissertation, I have analyzed the above ideas by examining the lives and

thought of two public figures from nineteenth-century western India, Jyotiba Phule and

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. M.G. Ranade as modernists who also simultaneously drew from this ‘third space’ of

critical piety/faith. Both were ardent advocates of a modem historicist perspective who

also at the same time realized its limitations. Both in many ways echoed Gandhian ideas

many years before him although they were far more impressed by modem ideas than he

was. I juxtapose their lives and thought which offered alternate possibilities from within

both a Brahmanic (in the case of Ranade) and non-Brahmanic (in the case of Phule)

Hinduism to that of V.D. Savarkar, a Hindu nationalist, who drew heavily from a modem

historicist perspective. He advocated a rigid separation between the lines of faith/history

and science/religion while advocating a scientific rationalist vision of Hinduism, which

had parallels with Nazism. Savarkar strongly opposed the blurring of boundaries

between faith/mythology and history prevalent within popular Hinduism.

My dissertation advocates visions such as those provided by Ranade and Phule in

contrast to that of Savarkar’s. It is relevant to contemporary politics in India which is

increasingly faced with extremist Hindu sentiments such as those echoed by Savarkar.

Hence my starting the dissertation by concurring with a ‘third view’ as advocated by

intellectuals such as Ashis Nandy, Vinay Lai and Ramachandra Gandhi in response to the

Babri Masjid tragedy in which Hindu extremists demolished an ancient mosque and

attempted to rewrite history. These intellectuals critiqued both secularists and Hindu

fundamentalists for their inability to understand and appreciate popular Hinduism which

blurred boundaries between myth/faith and history and allowed plurality of cultures. I

connected this event to my own research which focused on two public figures Phule and

Ranade who allowed for a pluralistic and critical Hinduism versus a dogmatic modernist

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. vision such as Savarkar’s which tolerated little dissent, including any blurring of

faith/history boundaries.

While writing my dissertation, by sheer coincidence I happened to find David

Myers’ book, Resisting History: Historicism and Its Discontents in German-Jewish

Thought. Myers’ work comes very close to what I do in this dissertation except that he

focuses on Jewish intellectuals in Weimar Germany. He examines four German Jewish

intellectuals who were historicists but were also heavily drawn towards a sacral Jewish

discourse which questioned historicism from a critical standpoint. Their challenging

modem historicist ideas did not necessarily mean a rejection of modernity in toto or an

endorsement of Jewish extremism but rather expressed a belief in the limitations of

historicism and modernity, especially after the growth of Nazism in Germany. Modernity

was therefore being questioned at the time not only from within non-western cultures

where it was often imposed violently through colonialism but also within the heart of

Europe itself by marginalized groups such as the Jews.

I see a direct connection between Myers work and my own written in two

different cultural contexts but expressing similar ideas and arguments. While Myers does

not discuss the implications of his work on contemporary politics in any detail, I have

made that central to my dissertation. The discussion on Savarkar in particular is

significant in this regard. Although historical in nature, I see my dissertation primarily as

a critical intervention in contemporary Indian and global politics.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This dissertation has been many years in the making. Along this journey, I have

incurred many debts. I would firstly like to thank my committee members Randolph

Persaud, Geoffrey Burkhart and Vinay Lai for their insights, support and encouragement.

I greatly appreciate their sustained enthusiasm toward my research and giving me the

freedom to explore. I am especially grateful to my chair Randolph Persaud. I would also

like to thank Mustapha Pasha for his intellectual contributions toward my graduate

education and for getting me excited about the world of theory. The School of

International Service (SIS), American University was kind enough to provide me with a

one year fellowship to carry out field research in India from 2002-2003. I appreciate the

support provided by Stephen Silvia, the present director of the SIS Doctoral Program and

Mary Barton, graduate student advisor. I am also thankful to Louis Goodman, Dean of

the SIS Doctoral Program for suggesting I add a Preface to my dissertation.

Several people read various drafts of the dissertation. Naren Kumarakulasingam

and Ashwini Tambe in particular went through innumerable versions of it and their input

has been invaluable and indispensable at every stage. The number of discussions I must

have had with them about my dissertation are countless. I thank them for their

commitment and patience. Kiran Pervez and Amal Khoury also read several chapters as

part of a writing group. Kiran spent many horns going through my work and provided

vii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. detailed comments on every chapter.

Many people provided feedback while the dissertation was still in its infancy, as a

prospectus including Shilpa Damle, Chandra Dunn, Sumi Madhok, Mvuselelo NcGoya,

Sujay Sood, Rajendra Vora, and my cohort proposal writing group who read a final draft

comprising Ishtar Guven, Peter Howard, Ayse Kadayifci-Orellana, Naren

Kumarakulasingam, Ramzi Nemo and Carrie Sheehan. Others read or heard parts of it as

conference papers and provided insightful comments including Naeem Inayatullah,

Jayant Lele, Patrick Thaddeus Jackson and Lee Schlesinger. An SIS Research Seminar

where I presented a chapter, proved especially useful. Lauhona Ganguly was an

excellent discussant, pointing to aspects about Phule I had not fully explored and Xavier

Guillaume, Patrick Jackson, Naren Kumarakulasingam, Mustapha Pasha, Kiran Pervez,

and Stephen Silvia challenged me in very constructive ways.

While doing my field-work over an eight month period in Maharashtra and Delhi,

I met several people who were very generous with their time. In Maharashtra, I met and

had discussions with Ram Bapat, Ravinder Bhatt, M.G. Dhadpale, Sada Dhumbre,

Dhanvanti Hardikar, Ashok Kelkar, A.R. Kulkami, Shahir Hemant Mawle, Sadanand

More, J.V. Naik, R.P. Nene, Suresh Pingle, Babasaheb Purandare, Shruti Tambe and

Rajendra Vora. I am especially grateful to Suresh Pingle for his interest in my work and

lending me crucial materials. I also appreciate Ram Bapat’s intellectual perspicuity and

enthusiasm. Rajendra Vora rendered very useful assistance and advice. In Delhi over

repeated visits Ashis Nandy always made himself accessible for which I am immensely

grateful. His infectious enthusiasm in the early stages of my project furthered my resolve

to venture down this path of researching Marathi public figures and the manner in which

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. they negotiated history and modernity. I thank him for his suggestion that I closely

examine biographical and autobiographical writings of the public figures I was looking

at. His intellectual imprint is quite obvious throughout this dissertation. I also met with

G.P. Deshpande in Delhi who provided some useful citations and suggestions.

While carrying out my fieldwork, the staff at various institutions provided

valuable assistance. In Mumbai I visited the Asiatic Society library, the Mumbai

Archives located in Elphinstone College and the Mumbai Marathi Granth Sangralaya. In

Pune I used the facilities of the Bhandarkar Oriental Institute, Deccan College, Fergusson

College, Peshwa Daftar, Tilak Trust (Kesari Wada) and Maharashtra Sahitya Parishad.

In Delhi I found many crucial materials in the Nehru Memorial Library and the National

Archives.

I also thank my relatives who hosted me in Pune and Bombay during my field

work and who often got actively involved in what I was doing. I especially thank

V.R.Deshpande, Sumatibai Devare, Sushila Ekbote, Dhanvanti Hardikar, Sudha

Kanitkar, Achyut and Manda Phadke, R.G. Wable and my in-laws Sudha and Vijay Joshi.

My ninety year old grandmother amongst others helped me with reading nineteenth-

century Marathi materials since I had no formal training in the language. Her wisdom,

knowledge and interest in social issues have always been a source of inspiration for me.

Both my late grandfathers were professors, one taught political science and the other

Urdu, Persian and Arabic. They inhabited the world of ideas and believed in plurality

and social justice. If in some small measure I am following in their footsteps, I am proud

of it.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Anyone who has written a dissertation knows folly well what an emotional roller

coaster ride it can be. It is thanks to the following people who helped me navigate its ups

and downs that I got through it. Ashwini Tambe besides being fully intellectually

involved at every stage in the dissertation has been a kind, caring and generous friend.

Her friendship and encouragement have been crucial in helping me get this dissertation

done. Both she and Shankar Vedantam have been pillars of support to me through good

and bad times. Naren Kumarakulasingam has been a fellow traveler, who has shared all

the angst and anxieties of graduate school. Apart from his substantial intellectual inputs,

his wry sense of humor, empathy and generosity have made this journey far more

bearable. He has been a tremendous source of support and a solid friend. Reina Neufeldt

has always added good cheer with her wit, supportive and positive attitude and the happy

times shared with Naren and Reina have substantially eased the burdens of writing the

dissertation. I also appreciate the heated discussions over politics I have had with

Chandra Dunn and Mvuselelo NcGoya along with many lighthearted evening chats spent

over Chandra’s delicious food. I thank them both for their friendship and feel lucky to

have a friend like Chandra with her affectionate, giving and cheerful temperament. I

have also enjoyed many stimulating conversations with Kiran Pervez whose joie de vivre,

creative energy and enthusiasm I really admire. Last but not least, I am grateful for Seira

Tamang’s support. Seira has been a source of inspiration with her acuity and resilience,

not to mention her ability to find humor in any situation. Graduate school would have

been much less fun and meaningful without her and the presence of all these friends.

Others who extended crucial support while writing my dissertation were Anita Weiss,

and Sumi Madhok. I appreciate Anita’s confidence in me even when at times I am not

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. sure it was warranted. I must also thank Dr. Anthony Aurigemma and homeopathy for

giving me my health and consequently life back or else this dissertation would have taken

many more years to complete.

Ashwini Devare-Modi and her family, Manish, Aman and Ishan constantly

reminded me that there was life beyond the dissertation. Aman and Ishan with their

antics provided much needed relief from time to time. My interest in pursuing an

academic path begins with my parents. I must thank them for getting me excited about

ideas and politics in the first place. The many heated discussions over politics carried out

across the dining table while growing up initiated an interest in such issues and an active

desire to make a difference. They always encouraged me to be my own person while

supporting my decisions. Their sensitivity, humanity and open-mindedness have taught

me a great deal. It is difficult to find words to express my gratitude for their selfless

love, unflinching support and constant encouragement. They also took great interest in

my research and helped me with translations of nineteenth-century Marathi materials. It

is to them that I dedicate this dissertation.

Siddhartha who was very much present during my defense listening from inside

the comforts of his mother’s tummy has allowed me to see life in a much more holistic

way. And lastly, through all the ups and downs of graduate school, Salil stood by me like

a rock. Despite years of serious health problems when at times I believed I could not

finish, he encouraged me never to give up. I wrote and finished this dissertation thanks to

his dedication and confidence in me and likely would not have completed it without him.

Moreover his eternal optimism and bubbling energy always reminded me to look at the

positive aspects of life. For all this and more, I can not thank him enough.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT...... ii

PREFACE...... iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...... vii

Chapter

I. INTRODUCTION...... 1

II. EXPLORING THE THEORETICAL AND POLITICAL CONTOURS OF HISTORICISM...... 32

III. THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL: EXPLORING JOTIBA PHULE’S ‘HISTORICISM’ THROUGH HIS LIFE AND TIMES 87

IV. SPEAKING FROM THE ‘MARGINS’: PHULE AND HISTORICISM AS HOPE AND ITS LIMITS...... 115

V. M.G. RANADE’S HISTORICIST AND RELIGIOUS SELF: A BIOGRAPHICAL ANALYSIS...... 164

VI. RANADE: HISTORICIZING RELIGION AND A FAITH-BASED CRITIQUE...... 196

VII. V.D. SAVARKAR: A LIFE OF UNEXAMINED FAITH IN HISTORICISM...... 243

VIII. SAVARKAR: HISTORICISM AS A HEGEMONIC DISCOURSE 271

IX. CONCLUSION...... 316

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 332

xii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Debates over ‘history’ are increasingly occupying a dominant place in modem

Indian public life. History writing has become a significant, if not central terrain on

which ideological battles are fought in contemporary India. The demolition of the Babri

1 9 Masjid (mosque) in Ayodhya , north India, by Hindu kar sevaks on 6 December 1992,

on grounds that it marked the historical site of the birthplace of the Hindu deity Ram3,

signified that ‘history’ had gained a new legitimacy in the Indian public realm. Marking

a significant shift, this event brought debates around ‘history’ tied to notions of scientific

evidence and national identity center-stage, capturing the imagination of a growing

number of Hindus, especially amongst middle classes.

While Hindu nationalists used historical arguments to justify their violent acts,

their opponents, the secularist historians, countered them by arguing there was no

historical ‘evidence’ for such claims. Both, to paraphrase S.P. Udayakumar, were

Ayodhya is a town in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, It is considered a sacred city for many Hindus. 2 Nandy et al. define kar sevaks as “those who offerkarseva , worship through work”. They go on to say “There is no tradition ofkarseva in Hinduism.” Ashis Nandy, Shikha Trivedy, Shail Mayaram and Achyut Yagnik,Creating a Nationality: The Ramjanmabhumi Movement and Fear of the Self (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995), 6. 3 It was alleged by Hindu groups that a Hindu temple marking the birthplace o f Ram was demolished in Ayodhya in the sixteenth century and replaced by a mosque, during the rule o f the first Mughal emperor, Babur. They claimed they were ‘avenging’ history, and correcting the ‘wrongs’ o f the past. For a good overview of the debates around the Babri Masjid demolition, see Vinay Lai’s chapter “History as Holocaust: Ayodhya and the Historians” in Vinay Lai,The History o f History: Politics and Scholarship in Modern India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003), 141-85. 1

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2

‘handcuffed to history’.4 Hindu nationalists who celebrated their ‘avenge’ o f ‘history’, as

well as secularists, bemoaned a lack of historical and scientific awareness amongst large

sections of the populace. The ‘masses’, it appeared to both groups, were too ignorant or

‘backward’ to adopt a sound historical and scientific temper. The fight, it seems, focused

around whose ‘histories’ were more factual, or resembled the ‘truth’ of the past.

However rather than arguing about ‘bad’ or ‘communalist’ versus ‘good’ or

‘secularist’ versions of history, some critics argued it was ‘history’ itself that needed to

be interrogated.5 As Ashis Nandy, one of those critics, pointed out, this dependence on

‘history’ by both groups, tied to nationalism, was closely related to the increasing use of

religion as an instrumentalist ideology (versus faith) in the public sphere.6 As this

particular incident made clear both groups, the Hindu nationalists and secularist

historians, relied heavily on notions of historicity and veracity, while skeptical of religion

as faith entering the public sphere. Nandy’s clarion call to opponents of Hindu

nationalists, following this incident, was the need to look beyond the modem discourse of

‘history’ to counter Hindu nationalist ‘histories’. Instead, he pointed out, what were

S.P. Udayakumar, "Introduction," inHandcuffed to History: Narratives, Pathologies, and Violence in South Asia, ed. S.P. Udayakumar (2001), 1-22. 5 Veena Das, Critical Events: An Anthropological Perspective on Contemporary India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995), Lai,The History o f History: Politics and Scholarship in Modern India, 41- 50, 141-85, Ashis Nandy, "History's Forgotten Doubles,"History and Theory 34 (1995): 60, Udayakumar, "Introduction." 6 I use Ashis Nandy’s distinction between religion as faith and religion as politics. Religion as faith according to Nandy refers to lived, practicing religion while religion as politics refers to secular ideologies that often disguise as faith for instrumental purposes. Those who practice the second definition according to Nandy, “use religion rationally, dispassionately, and instrumentally, untouched by any theory of transcendence.” Ashis Nandy, "The Twilight of Certitudes: Secularism, Hindu Nationalism, and Other Masks of Deculturation," Alternatives, no. 22 (1997): 166. The Hindu nationalists he continues belong to the second kind, who are most secular, and “represent most faithfully the loss o f piety and cultural self doubts that have come to characterize a section of urban, modernizing India.” Ibid., 159.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3

needed were counter-myths, that often carried religious undertones.7 In other words, he

suggested it was perhaps the faith and history dichotomy, deeply lodged within modernist

thought, that needed further questioning.

In this instance, Nandy and his co-authors argue, local Hindu and Muslim

residents of Ayodhya demonstrated non-historical sensibilities by accommodating each

other’s views and sentiments outside the terrain of modem ‘history’, through shared

notions of piety and ‘sacred’ spaces. They were able to find grounds for co-existence

through shared local religious idioms. This included eschewing any efforts towards

seeking historical ‘veracity’ for Ram’s birth unlike the loud battles being fought amongst

o the middle classes in Delhi and elsewhere. Amongst the latter, while one group aimed to

preserve the sanctity of ‘secular’ history (also with nationalist overtones), the other

argued they were preserving (or creating) the Hindu ‘nation’ as well as its ‘history’, and

that violence was often necessary to do so.

This incident brought to light the increasing tensions surrounding notions of

‘historical veracity’ and the separation between history and faith in contemporary India.

These ideas have had real and macabre political ramifications; the demolition was

followed by large-scale violence in which Hindu extremists massacred large numbers of

Muslims in their avowal to right the ‘wrongs’ of history. Secularists’ claims that only

‘bad’ or ‘unscientific’ histories, infused with hate lead to violence also became untenable.

It was ‘history’ itself, tied to nationalism, which had become inescapably linked to

violence. With the twentieth-century behind us, in which, numerous episodes of massive

7 He makes this point throughout the following articles: Nandy, "History's Forgotten Doubles.", Ashis Nandy, "Themes o f State, History and Exile in South Asian Politics: Modernity and the Landscape of Clandestine and Incommunicable Selves," Emergences 7-8 (1996-96). 8 Nandy, Creating a Nationality: The Ramjanmabhumi Movement and Fear of the Self, 171-75.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4

violence were condoned in the name of ‘history’, it was time for ‘history’ and its

scientific presuppositions itself to be interrogated.

The practice o f‘history’ as an ‘objective’ enterprise was first made possible with

the separation between history and faith within European thought, in the eighteenth and

nineteenth centuries. Such a separation allowed faith to be historicized and challenged on

grounds of historical veracity. Furthermore, it allowed the emergence of historicism, a

world-view that gave preponderance to historical over transcendental truths, while

emphasizing the idea of development of unities moving diachronically through history. It

embodied a particular conception of temporality, which distanced the past from the

present, denying simultaneity. This was closely linked to notions of progress that

regarded ‘scientific’ and ‘rational’ Man9 as superior and universal. Hence, the realms of

the supernatural or mythic were relegated to the sphere of the ‘irrational’ and gradually

expunged from religion as well, as embodied in the emergence of Protestantism within

Christianity. While modem European ideas may have emerged within the physical

boundaries of Europe, colonialism ensured they became fully entrenched within the

colonies. Two hundred years after colonial rale began in India, the Babri Masjid event

indicates both the power and tensions these ideas carry. These ideas are no longer

European in the physical sense but have become integral elements of how Indians grapple

with their modernity.

This dissertation explores how historicism as a world-view has played out in the

context of modem India through the writings and thought of three prominent public

I use the term ‘Man’ deliberately since this scientific rationality privileged masculinity over femininity, men over women.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5

figures from colonial western India, Jotiba Phule, M.G. Ranade and V.D. Savarkar. All

three were deeply impressed with modem historicist ideas, that gave precedence to

historical truths over faith and heralded a time of progress. However a closer look

reveals in the case of Ranade and Phule that they did not accept it unquestioningly.

There were points in both their thought and lives where contestations regarding these

ideas came to surface. This was particularly acute in the realm of ‘religion’ where the

separation between history and myth, science and faith was yet to fully occur as it had in

the West.

Traditions including religious ones provided a much greater basis of continuity in

India than in the West where modernity impelled a radical break with the past, traditions

and nature. In the latter, a particular conception of Reason emerged, which allowed Man

to see himself as the supreme controller of nature, breaking all ‘fetters’ o f ‘superstition’,

while giving him unprecedented confidence in his powers. Thus in the West, scientific

rationality became synonymous with ‘universal truth’, thereby delegitimizing many

existing knowledge systems and peoples, both within and outside the West. However

science’s ‘truth’ claims while relativizing those based on faith or the ‘mythic’ were often

viewed with some skepticism by the colonized. In this case both Ranade and Phule by

drawing on a piety-based non-modem Hinduism, did not wholly accept historicist

notions. I contrast this to Savarkar who embodied the total acceptance of the historicist

vision and discuss in later chapters the close links between historicism and modernity in

his world-view.

While I began with a relatively recent event, the desecration of the Babri Masjid,

which highlighted the growing importance of ‘history’ and nationalism in Indian public

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 6

discourse, one can justifiably ask why turn to past persons to understand what appears as

contemporary phenomena? Because as I argued earlier, modem notions of ‘history’ and

‘historicity’, focused around issues of veracity and national identity as demonstrated in

the disputes around the Babri Masjid, originated in the Indian context in the colonial

encounter. This dissertation seeks the origins of these present-day ideas in those first

‘moments’ of negotiation that the colonized undertook in the nineteenth and twentieth

centuries. Phule, Ranade and Savarkar’s attraction towards ‘history’ and historicizing

points to the introduction and acceptance of such ideas in Indian public discourse at the

time. Savarkar’s uncritical belief in scientific notions of ‘history’ and the Hindu nation

continue to resonate in present-day politics, including the Babri Masjid incident.

Ranade’s and Phule’s faith based critiques also suggest alternate possibilities akin to

those Nandy has suggested with respect to the residents of Ayodhya who drew on local

faith based traditions in dealing with the Babri Masjid demolition10.

This dissertation’s search for origins of notions of historicity in contemporary

India is itself indicative of a historicizing impulse that is always propelled by a search for

‘beginnings’ of all phenomena in the past. The past is privileged as a referent for the

present, an implicit tracing backwards of how we got to this point from another in a ‘past’

time. As Hans-Georg Gadamer eloquently puts it, historical consciousness is about

Knowing, not how men, people, or states develop in general, but quite on the contrary how this man, this people, or this state became what it is; how each of these particulars could come to pass and end up specifically there11 (original emphasis).

Nandy, Creating a Nationality: The Ramjanmabhumi Movement and Fear o f the Self. 11 H.G. Gadamer, "The Problems o f Historical Consciousness," in Interpretive Social Science: A Second Look, ed. Paul Rabinow and William Sullivan (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1987), 95.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7

My attempt to locate the origins of historicism in India within the colonial encounter is

part of a modem historical quest. This dissertation does not claim to step outside it. And

yet it also attempts greater self-awareness by turning the historical gaze on itself and

unearthing contestations that point to alternate conceptualizations.

This dissertation then explores different ways in which historicism was negotiated

by focusing on three distinctive individual ‘encounters’ with modem ideas as emblematic

of three significant (yet not exclusive) responses amongst Hindus. 19 It examines ways in

which historicism was both internalized as well as faced its limits in the face of a faith-

based, ‘fuzzy’13, non-modem Hinduism. These limits I argue draw from non-modem

conceptions of the Hindu and Indian14 self, which has not been primarily organized

around a modem scientific-historicist lens either in the past or in the present. There has

been an implicit awareness of the limitations of such a view and the violence it can

embody, especially if it becomes totalizing.

As modernity, embodied in processes of nation building, capitalism and scientific

rationality become a more powerful force within Indian society, this awareness is under

greater strain. It has therefore become increasingly difficult to say how long it can be

‘contained’, as only one amongst multiple ways and not the predominant manner in

which Hindu subjectivity is constituted in present times. The affirmation of plurality as a

12 This is not to say that this captures all major responses amongst Hindus. These were varied and complex, drawing on different regional repertoires, communities, castes and so on. I broadly identify these as ‘ideal types’. These ideas were unique to these individuals but also represented larger social forces. 13 I use Kaviraj’s term ‘fuzzy’ here to refer to blurred boundaries between past-present and secular- sacred. Sudipta Kaviraj, "On State, Society and Discourse in India," inRethinking Third World Politics, ed. James Manor (London and New York: Longman, 1991), 76. 14 When I say Indian, I am also referring to non-Hindus alike since many writings seem to too easily substitute Hindu for Indian and vice versa. South Asian Islam for instance can also be said to exhibit many of these views towards history, including a non-linear temporality. However, this dissertation focuses primarily on Indian Hindus, that too from a specific part of the country.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 8

principle in itself necessitates that historicism’s hegemony in the name of modem

scientific knowledge be challenged.

Jotiba Phule, M.G. Ranade and V.D. Savarkar all shared a fascination for notions

of historicity and scientificity. All three were cut from the same cloth, that of colonial

modernity. Yet this education and exposure to modem ideas took them in different

directions, albeit within a shared framework. Phule, a lower caste intellectual, ended up

with very different conclusions about Hinduism than the hyper-rational Brahmanical

Savarkar who was the loudest proponent of a ‘Hindu’ polity. Both however were

aggressively historical, debunking Hindu myths and popular beliefs and equally skeptical

of salvaging Hinduism as a faith. Ranade, on the other hand, who was far more confident

about Hindu beliefs, shared a social class and caste milieu with Savarkar (although he

died when Savarkar was young), which tainted them both with patriarchal Brahmanical

views, writing ‘glorious Hindu’ histories.

Yet Phule who often came out strongly against Ranade, his contemporary, as too

soft on classical Brahmanical Hinduism, also shared a great deal with him in his assertion

for an alternative religiosity that continued to privilege notions of piety and rewriting

traditions. Both he and Ranade, despite their differences, ended up sharing a more fluid

approach toward Hinduism where historicism played an important, but not all-

encompassing role. They were both nuanced enough, which allows us to detect in their

writings, a more ‘tempered’ historicism, influenced by a flexible, living Hinduism. This

is reflected in their constant use and critical interpretation of Hindu customs, practices

and legends, without rejecting them completely. Both, in other words, incorporated the

modern in their thought while displaying a healthy skepticism toward it.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9

The possibilities of pluralistic notions of being Hindu and Indian thereby remain

‘open’ for ‘retrieval’ in their lives and work. This study therefore attempts to ‘retrieve’

for the present, elements of their thought, which can lend themselves to such a pluralistic

reading in which historicism and other alternate beliefs can co-exist. This notion of

‘retrieval’ draws heavily from the work of Ashis Nandy whose writings have focused on

recovering aspects within the self or as he puts it, ‘recessive selves’ that have been

ambivalent or point to the limits of modernity. He attempts to create, as he puts, it a

politics of awareness of modernity’s Others which lurk within western and non-western

Selves and have been silenced by the former’s hubris. While not rejecting modem ideas

completely, he argues they need to be contained as only one vector, while drawing on

other frames of reference such as non-modem expressions through a creative rereading of

India’s multi-religious past and present. These ambivalences and alternative world-views

he argues need to be ‘recovered’ and creatively engaged with to create more humane and

just presents, pasts and futures.15 In other words, Nandy has consistently asserted that

modernity does not have a monopoly over notions of justice and civilization. In fact, he

argues that its record has certainly not demonstrated this to be the case.

Savarkar’s views in fact, demonstrate the lack of plurality in a total historicist

vision, which allows little room for other conceptualizations. In his thought, the realm of

the ‘unscientific’ such as the mystical, pious and non-historical are relegated to the

private sphere, if at all, while only those ideas considered ‘rational’ and ‘civilized’ can

exist in the public domain. An instrumental secularized version of religion on the other

See the Preface in Ashis Nandy,Traditions, Tyranny, and Utopias: Essays in the Politics o f Awareness (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987), xv-xx.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 10

hand is advocated to replace all forms of non-secular beliefs or piety/faith. Similarly he

has little use for Hindu texts, customs and practices, viewing them as part of a

museumized and objectified or ‘anachronistic’ past. The most openly ‘Hindu’ out of the

three in other words, was the least ‘Hindu’ in religious/pious terms. Hinduism in this

case has meaning only as a secular political/instrumental and nationalist identity. He,

unlike Phule or Ranade, uncritically espouses modem political forms of the nation-state,

science and history, all of which are seen as signs of progress.

All three, Phule, Ranade and Savarkar belong to the western part of India or more

specifically the Marathi speaking region. My choice of three figures from western India,

or what is today Maharashtra, is both personal as well as related to the significance of the

region in colonial India. My ability to access the writings of these figures in Marathi,

with which I am familiar, partly influenced my choices.16 But also significantly,

Bombay Presidency, parts of which form present-day Maharashtra, was one of British

India’s key territories, with Bombay city as its capital.17 Like Bengal, it was ruled

directly by the British and faced a long and deep exposure to colonial rule, commencing

in 1818. Not surprisingly then, like Bengal, it too was at the heart of much activity by

‘natives’ during the colonial period, including major social reform, nationalist, caste and

violent revolutionary movements.

While many o f Phule, Ranade and Savarkar’s works are translated, many nuances get lost in the act o f translation. 17 Bombay emerged as a major trading port and urban center under the British. The presence of Parsis, Jews, Muslims, Marathis, Gujaratis, Marwaris and other such groups made it very cosmopolitan in nature, which is a characteristic that it retains to this day. The Parsis and Muslim groups such as Bohras and Khojas were influential in Bombay’s economy. See Christine Dobbin,Urban Leadership in Western India: Politics and Communities in Bombay City 1840-1885 (London: Oxford University Press, 1972).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 11

In fact, Phule, Ranade and Savarkar can each be seen to represent a major current

of activity (lower caste, social reform and Hindu militant movements respectively) that

spanned the gamut of socio-political responses to colonial rule by ‘natives’ in the region.

In turn, each of these movements were ‘national’ in their scope, as they drew heavily

from trends elsewhere, especially Bengal, and were crucial in constituting varying

streams of ‘pan-Indian nationalism’. Many of the ‘nationalists’ such as leaders of the

Indian National Congress (henceforth Congress) were social reformers and prominent

personalities in the Bombay Presidency.

Broadly speaking, one can identify four major socio-political trends that

characterized ‘native’ responses in the Presidency. The first were the social reform

movements that spanned much of the nineteenth century, which used colonial ideas to

interrogate Hindu customs, beliefs and practices. M.G. Ranade can be considered one of

the most important social reformers in the Presidency at the time. As Rajendra Vohra

argues, it is no exaggeration to say that nineteenth century Maharashtra belonged to two 10 > # people: Jotiba Phule and M.G. Ranade. Ranade is remembered in popular Indian

nationalist history for his work on social reform alongside his crucial role in the early

formation of the Congress. Charles Heimsath points out that social reformers in the

Bombay Presidency “could take pride in the fact that their province had the longest and

most extensive record of public interest in social reform and of organized reforming

Rajendra Vohra, "Prasthavna: Adhunikta Ani Parampara, Ekonisavya Shatkatil Maharashtra," in AdhuniktaAni Parampara: Ekonisavya Shatkatil Maharashtra, ed. Rajendra Vohra (Pune: Pratima Prakashan, 2000), 15. B.R. Sunthankar also argues that “the last three decades o f the 19th century may be called the ‘Ranade age’ in Maharashtra.” B.R. Sunthankar,Maharashtra 1858-1920 (Bombay: Popular Book Depot, 1993), 139.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 12

activity of any Indian region.”19 These were however largely confined to the upper castes

and were embodied in debates such as those over the Age of Consent bill (which9H

became a law in 1891) and widow-remarriage. The Age of Consent debates brought

questions of social reform on the national stage. As Heimsath puts it, “By means of the

Age of Consent Bill controversy the social reform movement achieved national

recognition, and henceforth the social reform question was inescapably a part of 91 nationalist ideologies.”

The second major trend was the lower caste anti-Brahman movements that found 99 their first major voice in Phule and culminated in a much broader agitation, focusing on

the plight of the Untouchables or Dalits in the leadership of Bhimrao Ambedkar over fifty

years later. Many of these movements including those led by Phule and later Ambedkar

were very skeptical of the manner in which the Congress in particular was defining

nationalism. They saw it as a predominantly upper caste Hindu body that excluded the

masses, while seeking to represent them.

The third major current was that of militant revolutionary activity, known as

‘extremism’ in popular Indian nationalist literature. Youth from urban centers in the

Presidency such as Pune, Nasik and Kolhapur (which was then part of a separate princely

state), resorted to violent tactics including assassinating key colonial officials and

Charles Heimsath, Indian Nationalism and Hindu Social Reform (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), 236. 20 The Age of Consent Bill refers to a legislation passed in 1891 under tremendous controversy and opposition from conservative Brahmans increasing the age of marriage for girls to twelve and for boys till eighteen. 21 Ibid., 173. 22 Another strong advocate of lower caste rights in the nineteenth and early twentieth century was the Maharaja of Kolhapur, Shahu. See Y.D. Phadke, Visavya Shatkatil Maharashtra: 1901-1914, 1st ed., 5 vols., vol. 1 (Pune: SriVidya Prakashan, 1989), 223-38. This includes a useful discussion o f Shahu’s interventions on behalf of the lower castes and his differences with Brahmans in his court and from Pune, including Tilak.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 13

attacking symbols of the colonial administration. 23 Throwing bombs, secretly procuring

weapons such as guns and planning clandestine operations to foment dissent against the

government were some of the main activities these youth organized.24 Many of them

belonged to Abhinav Bharat, the organization that Savarkar started for explicitly militant

purposes. The young militants drew inspiration from both the Savarkar brothers (Ganesh

and Vinayak) along with Bengali revolutionaries such as Aurobindo Ghosh25. V.D.

Savarkar’s reach extended to the Bengali revolutionaries as well, particularly with his

book on the 1857 Revolt, titled ‘The Indian War o f Independence, 1857.’26 The Savarkar

brothers were active in organizing these youth, often under the banner of a militant and

masculinist Hindu nationalism. 97 However Savarkar’s strong anti-Muslim tendencies

were not so apparent at this time but became much more pronounced later in his political

life, especially when he was freed from prison in the 1920’s. By 1912 the movement

• • 98 fizzled out since most revolutionaries were caught and subject to long prison terms.

A close look at the membership of many of these clandestine groups reveals not coincidentally that most o f these youth were Brahmans, especially Chitpavans. See Phadke,Visavya Shatkatil Maharashtra, especially Chapter 5. 24 The most sensational assassination was that of Captain Rand, the British official who was responsible for stopping the spread of plague in Pune. His strong armed tactics were very unpopular and he was killed by the Chapekar brothers on 22nd June, 1897 as ‘revenge’ for his policies. Tilak was suspected of having prior knowledge o f this plan and encouraging it. See Phadke, Fisavya Shatkatil Maharashtra, 104. Chapekars were Chitpavan Brahmans from Pune who were socially very conservative, opposed social reformers and believed in a militant Hindu nationalism. Even Tilak was not seen as ‘orthodox’ enough for them. 25 Savarkar’s older brother Ganesh or Baba, was also a militant Hindu nationalist who was active in the revolutionary movement against the British. 26 This book unlike his later writings saw Hindus and Muslims as ‘Indian nationalists’ working together to defeat the British. 27 Tilak can also be seen as sympathetic to some aspects of this movement. He once told Senapati Bapat that if 40% of the population were to take up arms, the British could be easily defeated. In Phadke, Visavya Shatkatil Maharashtra, 248. However, unlike Savarkar, he did not advocate violence for violence’s sake. Shortly before his death, he became quite open and supportive o f Gandhi’s idea o f non violent satyagraha. 28 Ibid., 350. Phadke points out after 1912, the revolutionary movements were no longer centered in Maharashtra but moved to Bengal, Punjab, United Provinces, Bihar and other parts of India.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 14

Fourthly, the Bombay Presidency was also the epicenter for the growth of

‘secular’ nationalism, as embodied in the Congress. 9Q On 28 December 1885 in Bombay,

leaders who wanted greater representation for Indians in the colonial government, came

together to form a national body or the Congress to voice these demands. Known as the

‘moderates’ in popular nationalist literature, many of these individuals were from the

Bombay Presidency and were prominent social reformers. They differed from the

‘extremists’ such as B.G. Tilak who demanded swarajya or complete self-rule from the

British. M.G. Ranade, G.K. Gokhale, Dadabhai Naoroji and Pherozshah Mehta were

some ‘moderates’ amongst many others who were crucial in the formation and early

running of the Congress. Ranade organized and ran the social reform component of the

Congress or the National Social Conference for several years until the ‘extremists’ led by

Tilak successfully managed to push social reform questions out of the Congress in favor

of political ones.

In all the above trends, except the anti-Brahman movements, it was the upper

castes which dominated, as they had benefited the most from western education and

access to government jobs. Since the Brahmans were the traditionally learned castes, they

were not surprisingly the first to enter colonial educational institutions.31 In turn, they

The Congress was predominantly Hindu, although a few members were Muslim and Parsi. The Bombay based lawyer M.A. Jinnah was one of its Muslim leaders and a staunch supporter in the early years. He became a member o f the Muslim League in 1913, initially as a Congress representative. Leaders such as Ranade and Gokhale strongly disagreed with Tilak’s brand of overtly ‘Hindu’ politics within the Congress. There were thus varying and divergent streams of ‘Hindu’ nationalism within the Congress. 30 The heavy dominance o f Bengalis and those from Maharashtra in the Congress in its early years prompted the prominent Muslim reformer from the United Provinces, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan to ask, “can any Bengali clearly tell me if any other classes or people apart from Bengalis and Marathi Brahmans will benefit from the resolutions that the Congress has passed”? Cited in Phadke,Visavya Shatkatil Maharashtra , 87. Translation mine. 31 For instance in the period between 1885-1895, 1105 out of 1278 or 87% of the students in Fergusson College, Pune were Brahmans. Ellen and Craig M. Stark McDonald, "English Education,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 15

were indelibly shaped by this exposure to colonial education, even in their opposition to

it. Moreover this was actively encouraged by the colonial administration, which wanted

to create a western-educated class that could carry out administrative occupations, be

loyal and promote western ideas amongst ‘natives’. Not coincidentally then, for many

of them, modem notions of history and historicity became an important terrain on which

they began to articulate their responses. They believed the need to become civilized and

self-conscious human beings in the modem sense could only take place with a historical

sense of the past. Gaining this awareness of history and historicity was seen as crucial in

articulating new notions of self and community. As Chatterjee argues, in the context of

Bengal, it was an agenda for self-representation.

History was thus to be written through ‘Indian eyes’ and a national identity was

produced simultaneously as a new historical discourse was being written. History was

viewed as the only ‘civilized’ mode of response to colonizers’ claims of superiority over

the ‘natives’. For the Marathi elite to admit they were mythical and superstitious like

their epics or puranas, they believed would be tantamount to admitting a lack of a

scientific sense. Even non-Brahmans such as Phule who viciously attacked Brahmanism,

was infused with similar notions of scientific rationality, shorn of any pretensions of

Brahmanical superiority. The Brahmanical elite and those such as Phule viewed a lack of

Nationalist Politics and Elite Groups in Maharashtra 1885-1915," Occasional Papers of the Center for South and Southeast Asia Studies, University O f California, Berkeley, no. 5 (1969): 17. 32 Dobbin, Urban Leadership in Western India: Politics and Communities in Bombay City 1840- 1885,31. Dobbin however points out that the British would have preferred this new class to have emerged from the rich landed aristocratic or rich commercial classes and not solely poor Brahmans, who the administration would have to support. But the former classes were much more reluctant to embrace colonial education and it was the poor Brahmans who flocked toward these new opportunities. Ibid., 31- 32. By the mid to late 1800’s, Dobbin argues, “Brahmin dominance thus seems to have been an outstanding factor in the public service of the Presidency.” Ibid., 167. 33 Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 16

awareness of history and historicity as a sign of backwardness and ignorance. Having a

sense of history was crucial to a people’s self-identity and to rational secular thought as

well as a mark of progress.34 As in the case of Bengal, history and notions of historicity

in Marathi society became a significant mode of response to colonial rule. As a result,

the Marathi elite, like their Bengali counterparts, played a crucial role in the framing of a

nationalist imaginary, through the discourse of history, tied to a transformed notion of

Hinduism.

While this process has received considerable attention in the context of the

Bengali elite, it has been less discussed in the case of the Marathi elite35, although the

latter also experienced far-reaching effects of colonial rule. However, what makes the

Marathi Brahmanical elite somewhat distinctive from the Bengalis, although they shared

a great deal in common, was the specific status the former enjoyed in the region. The

Bengali elite did not enjoy unrivalled prestige, which the Marathi Brahmans, especially

Chitpavans, did before the British. The Peshwas, under Bajirao II, the last native ruler,

were Chitpavan Brahmans and unlike Brahmans in other parts of the country, were part

of the ruling class, traditionally the domain of Kshatriyas (warrior caste). This loss of

power to the British created an acute sense of disempowerment, while at the same time a

deep attraction toward colonial ideas, often privileging a historical discourse and a

martial-masculinist interpretation of Hinduism tied to nationalism. While this was also

34 Gyan Prakash, "Writing Post-Orientalist Histories of the Third World: Perspectives from Indian Historiography," inMapping Subaltern Studies and the Postcolonial, ed. Vinayak Chaturvedi (London and New York: Verso, 2000). 35 A notable exception is Prachi Deshpande’s work. See her dissertation, Prachi Deshpande, "Narratives o f Pride: History and Regional Identity in Maharashtra, India C. 1870-1960" (Tufts University, 2002). Deshpande focuses on the rise of history writing amongst the Marathi elite such as Ranade, Phule, Rajwade, Bhandarkar and others as expressing new forms of identity under colonial rule. She argues this identity constituted the ‘regional’ as much as it did the ‘national’.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 17

the case in Bengal, it reached a much higher pitch amongst the Marathi elite who

clamored for lost glory. While the Brahman Savarkar embodies these characteristics, his

caste-fellow Ranade also exhibits some of these traces in his history writing.

Furthermore, according to Kaviraj , in Bengal, which did not have a clear-cut

‘martial past’, rulers from different parts of India such as Rajasthan and Punjab were

stitched seamlessly together as ‘natural’ ancestors of Bengalis in a common ‘national

history’. This was not the case in Maharashtra, which had a long history of local rulers

such as Shivaji and the Peshwas who fought the Mughals and British. The Marathi

Brahmans drew effortlessly from this ‘martial’ past in writing their histories, especially

since the Peshwas rulers had been their own ancestors. But like Bengal this was framed

largely in Hindu terms, while the Muslims were increasingly seen as ‘foreigners’ and

‘invaders’. As Chatterjee writes, “the singularity of national history has inevitably led to

a single source of Indian tradition, namely ancient Hindu civilization.” "3 7

The transformation of Brahmans from being rulers of Maharashtra to serving in

the administration under the British was a gradual process fraught with anxieties. Along

with a loss of official power, the Chitpavan Brahmans also had to acquiesce to new

groups in society such as vanis or traders, moneylenders and kunbis (cultivators) who had

■30 profited from the colonial ryotwari system of land tenure. Non-Brahman groups such

as the one Phule belonged to, became more assertive and saw the advent of the British as

a positive counter-check to the extreme power of the Brahmans. Many Brahmans

36 Sudipta Kaviraj, The Unhappy Consciousness: Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay and the Formation o f a Nationalist Discourse in India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998). 3 Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments, 113. 38 Ravinder Kumar, Western India in the Nineteenth Century: A Study in the Social History of Maharashtra (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968). See especially Chapter III.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 18

therefore experienced a distinct discrepancy in their status as the highest caste with their

income levels, which were often very low39 and were also cut off from royal patronage.

However they remained influential throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth

centuries.40

While I read Phule, Ranade and Savarkar as representative of fairly distinct and

significant sets of ideas, they are by no means meant to exhaust the range of responses

articulated amongst Marathi Hindus or Hindus in general vis-a-vis colonial ideas.

Savarkar for instance represents only one strand within Hindutva41, albeit a powerful one.

Each of these three men were prominent public and ‘nationalist’ figures, who echoed

three radically different public visions, contributing significantly to Hindu consciousness

in their times and in the present. Elements within the life and thought of each individual,

sometimes even overlapping, can be found in contemporary Indian society. In fact lower

caste movements in India today draw heavily from Phule, both in their rationalism as

well as reinterpretation of Hindu mythology, Hindu nationalists or ‘extremists’ from

Savarkar and Hindu secular ‘moderates’ from Ranade.

This dissertation, while analyzing the world-view of all three, Phule, Ranade and

Savarkar, also takes specific positions towards them, by positing Phule and Ranade’s

Dobbin, Urban Leadership in Western India, see especially Chapter II. 40 While not affluent they owned land and quickly adopted practices such as law, teaching, medicine and civil service. Most o f the prominent Marathi Brahman social reformers were lawyers or had studied law. 41 Hindutva refers to Hindu nationalism. The term was first coined by Savarkar. There are several movements and organizations that come under the broad rubric of Hindutva or Hindu nationalism with significant differences amongst them. Amongst others, the major groups are the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) established by Dr. K.B. Hedgewar (1840-1940) in 1925 which claims to be purely ‘cultural’. The Bharatiya Janata Party established in 1980 is the political party representing Hindu nationalist interests. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) formed in 1964 concentrates on the Hindu diaspora, a significant support base o f Hindutva. Many o f these organizations’ origins are in Maharashtra.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 19

visions of Hinduism as viable alternatives to that of Savarkar’s hardened historicist

reading. Even between Phule and Ranade, the former’s reading as a lower caste

intellectual provides an important counter-point to that of Ranade’s upper caste one.

While all three embody ideas in the ‘past’, these can exist for us only in the present since

the past in reality is never really dead, but always as Johannes Fabian argues, co-eval

with the present.42 All interventions, even those that call themselves historical are

always, as Michel de Certeau’s evocative book suggests, always about the present.43 The

dissertation therefore partly aims to ‘recover’ visions from two leading Hindu public

figures, Phule and Ranade, both from western India in the nineteenth century, while

counter-posing it to the third, Savarkar, who represents a fully colonized world-view.

Methodology

This dissertation looks at how notions of historicism were negotiated by the

colonized, focusing on the lives and thought of three individuals from western India. It

argues that there were moments when these ideas were appropriated as well as

challenged, pointing to the limits of historicism and modernity. The objective of the

dissertation is to analyze these ideas because of their significance and relevance to

contemporary politics. While ‘recreating’ each person’s ‘worlds’ and emphasizing

contextual analysis, the dissertation does not aim to understand these worlds for their own

sake but attempts to relate it to the world which we live in. My interpretation of their

texts is to paraphrase R.G. Collingwood, a critical ‘reenactment’ of those ideas in the

42 Johannes Fabian, Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), 31. 43 Michel de Certeau, The Writing o f History, trans. Tom Conley (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 20

present44. Moreover, it pieces together an interpretation of the politics of historicism in

colonial and contemporary India, which can be challenged by competing interpretations.

It does not claim to ‘objectively’ ‘prove’ the past.

While the dissertation is historical in its overall approach, turning to the past to

understand the present, what it does not do is trace the development of historicism from

the nineteenth century to the present day. It does not construct a unified diachronic

developmental narrative from Phule to Savarkar, as representative of their ‘times’. While

all three belong to three different, although somewhat overlapping time periods, I do not

read them as reflecting the thought of their ‘ages’. Rather I adopt a synchronic approach,

preferring to read them as three critical ‘moments’ that are contemporaneous with our

times, speaking to us in the present. While there are some similarities with Foucault’s

genealogical approach, such as moving backwards in time from the standpoint of the

present, this dissertation is not focused on how certain discourses historically became

legitimized and normalized. It does focus on historicism’s claims to hegemonic

knowledge thanks to scientific ‘objectivity’, but it is also concerned with teasing out

moments when specific people in their lives and writings questioned this scientificity.

The overall methodological approach I adopt is ‘discourse analysis’. Foucault

refers to the term ‘discourse’ as “sometimes as the general domain of all statements,

sometimes as an individualizable group of statements, and sometimes as a regulated

practice that accounts for a number of statements.”45 Historicism can be seen as a

‘general domain of statements’ or a secular ‘discourse’ that emerges with modernity,

44 R.G. Collingwood, The Idea of History, Revised with an introduction by Jan Van Der Dussen ed. (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). 45 Foucault cited in Norman Fairclough, Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), 123.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 21

organizing temporality or the past and present in a specific way. As Norman Fairclough

points out, divergent discourses refer to varying ways of viewing the world.46 They not

only ‘represent’ but also produce the world in certain ways and always within relations of

power and politics. As my dissertation emphasizes, these discourses, unlike for theorists

such as Foucault, are located within the thought and lives of specific individuals, and are

often subject to contestation and negotiation.

I examine discourses of historicism and ‘history’ in the writings and lives of three

individuals by analyzing texts, both political and biographical, related to the nineteenth

and early twentieth centuries. I draw on ‘content analysis’ as a technique to analyze these

texts. Ole Holsti defines ‘content analysis’ as “any technique for making inferences by

objectively and systematically identifying specified characteristics of messages.”47 He

goes on, “Content analysis is always performed on the message, be it a novel, diplomatic

note, editorial, diary, or speech.” Drawing on content analysis, while reading the texts,

I asked questions such as who said what to whom, who were the audience and why they

said what they did. In other words it enabled me to understand the major characteristics

of the texts, their messages and their target audiences. It also helped me “make

inferences about the causes or antecedents o f the message, and more specifically, about

the author” (original emphasis). 49

As George Kamberelis and Lenora de la Luna argue, though “the origins of

textual meanings derive from discourses and discursive practices external to texts, these

46 Ibid., 124. 47 Ole Holsti, Content Analysis for the Social Sciences and Humanities (Reading: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1969), 14. 48 Ibid., 24.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 22

meanings find their expression in texts, and they are negotiated in and through texts in

concrete situations of social exchange.”50 Hence they point out “notions of discourses and

discursive practices foreground the social and ideological dimensions of language and

language use.”51 These texts in turn do not merely ‘represent’ the discursive realities out

of which they emerge but also transform them in the process.

With respect to each person I examined, out of a vast array of texts, I chose those

that especially pertained to historicity, history and religion. While each person had

extensive historical writings, I felt an exclusive focus on ‘history-writing’ would not

adequately capture the depth of their responses. Rather, the wider concept of historicism

allowed me to look at key relationships between notions of historicity that often under

girded ‘history’, religion and identity. For all three, religion played a significant role in

framing their identities; for Phule the central relationships were between religion and

caste, for Ranade religion and social reform, while for Savarkar between religion and

nationalism. Moreover, their non-historical works were also suffused with historicity. A

singular focus on historiography would be unable to capture this aspect. Each evinced

different concerns and I have tried to stay true to their own preoccupations rather than

construct a singular narrative common to all three.

While they shared the use of a modem historicist perspective, what they did with

it varied depending on the differing set of themes each focused on. They all did this

within the broad contours of ‘Hinduism’, however ambiguously defined, although

50 George Kamberelis and Lenora de la Luna, "Children's Writing: How Textual Forms, Contextual Forces, and Textual Politics Co-Emerge," inWhat Writing Does and How It Does It: An Introduction to Analyzing Texts and Textual Practices, ed. Charles Bazerman and Paul Prior (Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004), 241. 51

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 23

Savarkar and Phule in their own different ways altered these contours quite radically.

Hence while I looked predominantly at their historical texts, I also analyzed their

political, religious and social writings. In the case of Ranade and Savarkar, these

included their speeches. With respect to Phule, this included his essays set up as

conversations between himself and his son or with other people. Whenever relevant, I

also brought in other texts such as Gandhi’s to contrast with those of Savarkar’s or

Tukaram’s poems as a pre-colonial lower caste response in comparison to Phule’s.

While reading these texts, I paid attention to three significant aspects which

Kamberelis and de la Luna point out are important: “the text,the formal semiotic features

of writing products, context, the forces (both proximal and distal) that exert effects on

writing practices and products, and politics, the situated power relations involved in

writing” (original emphasis). In other words, I did not adopt a structural linguistic or

pure textual analysis, but also emphasized context, political and social milieus in which

these texts were produced. The texts were related and embedded within the worlds, both

personal and public, in which they were produced. As Sudipta Kaviraj cogently sums up

the distinction;

In his work an artist creates a world. Two distinct types of questions can be asked about this world of his. First, what kind of a world is this-what is its structure, its limits of possibility, the inner logic of its working? Second, how did this world that the artist created relate to the world in which he lived? In thinking about literature it is difficult to keep these two types of questions clearly apart, but they are analytically distinct. The second set of questions represent more the historian’s concerns; the first is textual, that is, the answer to them must be found within constructs that are internal to texts.53

Ibid., 240. Kaviraj, The Unhappy Consciousness, 1.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 24

Using this distinction, this dissertation eschews a pure textual framework for a more

historical one, which is to explore how these texts related to their contexts.54 However,

these ‘contextual worlds’ are also discursively produced through texts. I ‘recreated’ their

worlds through the use of historical and biographical texts.

I focused not just on each person’s writings but also their lives in order to tease

out the manner in which each responded to modem historicist ideas. Their lives, as lived

practice, just as much as their writings, point to the ambiguities in their life-worlds and

provide greater clarity in understanding their politics. However the biographies and life-

stories did not function merely as ‘background’ to their public politics or as ways in

which to understand the origins of their political ideas. I examined their lives in their

own right, as providing a critical lens in understanding how they negotiated historicism

and modernity. I read their lives as ‘texts’, reflecting their worlds, politics and beliefs

just as much as the ‘texts’ they wrote. For Ranade and Phule in particular, the lines

between private and public were blurred. Both believed that the personal was political

and vice versa. To ignore this aspect of their personas would be doing them an injustice.

Moreover by focusing on them as individuals, through both their writings and lives, it

allowed me greater room to explore the choices they made, since this dissertation is

concerned with agency that the colonized exercised in responding to colonialism. These

choices were in turn actively negotiated within the social-political and economic

locations each found themselves in, within the shared framework of colonialism.

I do not claim this project is not historicist, because as I said earlier, social science writing and living within a predominantly modem imagination is in many ways living within and with ‘history’.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 25

In order to carry out the research for this dissertation, I spent a total of eight

months in India. I conducted my fieldwork in two phases. The first phase lasted a period

of six months from June to December 2002 while the second covered a period of two

months, from June to early August 2003. Between the first and second phases of the field

research, I translated and interpreted some of the materials I had collected. In the case of

Savarkar, most of his works have been translated from Marathi into English, except for

his autobiographical writings. He wrote some of his major works in English. Ranade

wrote mostly in English, although his religious sermons are in Marathi and have not been

translated. In the case of Phule, some of his key works such as Gulamgiri or Slavery

have been translated but there are numerous powadas (ballads) and religious discussions

that remain solely in Marathi. With respect to all three, I read them all in the original,

either in English or in Marathi, based on the language the original text was written in.

Translations often remove the nuances in the writing and since I was familiar with

Marathi, I read them in their original form.

I spent eight out of the ten months in Maharashtra, gathering materials at various

local libraries in Mumbai and Pune. I also collected materials at the Mumbai Archives,

Delhi National Archives and the Delhi based Nehru Memorial Library. In addition, I

found some materials at the Library of Congress, Washington DC which houses a vast

range of Marathi texts. Within India and Maharashtra, many of the texts, including those

by Ranade and Phule, were not easily available. On the other hand, recent editions of

Savarkar’s collected writings were easy to find due to the efforts of the Swatantrayavir

Savarkar Rashtriya Smarak Prakash, a Mumbai based trust devoted to promoting

Savarkar’s writings and politics. The relative ease with which Savarkar’s works are

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 26

available to the public, in contrast to that of Phule and Ranade, points to the financial

clout and widespread popularity that the Hindu nationalists and their heroes enjoy in

present-day India. In addition to collecting material, I also met with a range of people in

Maharashtra including scholars of colonial Maharashtra, historians, playwrights, writers,

and public intellectuals. I attended historical plays, public lectures dealing with historical

themes and observed first-hand the annual Pandharpur55 religious procession in Pune.

Relevance of Dissertation to the Field of International Relations

The discipline of international relations has witnessed significant transformations

since the end of the Cold War in the 1980’s. The emergence of the ‘Third Debate’56 has

been marked by the proliferation of voices emanating from feminists, historical

materialists, post-structuralists and post-colonialists critiquing dominant realist

paradigms. These have included challenges against the ‘soft’ critics of realism who while

attacking realism, often buy into its assumptions. David Campbell, for instance, argues

that critics of realism such as Alexander Wendt, a constructivist and John Ruggie, a

neorealist, like the realists, continue to adhere to scientific rationalism and are unable to

go beyond a state ‘sovereignty problematic’.57 Mainstream international relations theory

remains mired in a positivist world-view. What these diverse critical approaches have

Followers o f the Marathi bhakti or devotional saints carry the palanquins of their saints from their birth-place to the holy city of Pandharpur, home to the temple of Lord Vitthal. 56 See Jim George for an overview o f the ‘Third Debate’. Jim George, "International Relations and the Search for Thinking Space: Another View of the Third Debate," International Studies Quarterly 33, no. 3 (1989). The ‘First Debate’ carried out in the 1920’s and 1930’s pitted the idealists against the realists where as the ‘Second Debate’ that raged in the 1960’s and 1970’s saw the scientifically oriented realists critiquing the classical realists for their lack o f science. See Richard Ashley’s article for a useful survey o f these debates, specifically the second one. Richard Ashley, "The Poverty of Neorealism," inNeorealism and Its Critics, ed. Robert Keohane (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986). 57 David Campbell, "Political Prosaics, Transversal Politics, and the Anarchical World," in Challenging Boundaries: Global Flows, Territorial Identities, ed. Michael and Hayward Alker Shapiro (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 19.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 27

highlighted, is the recognition that mainstream international relations (IR) theory is

constituted by the silencing of race58, gender59, questions of colonialism60 and power.61

Scholars highlighting questions of imperialism in particular have drawn attention

to the violence and domination that enabled the emergence of a Westphalian sovereign

state system. As Randolph Persaud and R.B.J. Walker, argue, the modem world-system

“was very much shaped by the conquest of territories and peoples.” As Aime Cesaire

famously pointed out, the violence Europe exercised on the colonies also came to be

exercised at home on the internal Others such as the Jews. 64 Hence, the establishment

of ‘universal’ notions of liberal rights tied to the individual, international law and

sovereign nation-states65 with relatively homogeneous populations drew from a largely

reformed European Christian world-view that was violently imposed on many parts of the

58 See Randolph Persaud and R.B.J. Walker, "Apertura: Race in International Relations," Alternatives 26, no. 4 (2001). They write “race has been given the epistemological status o f silence”, Ibid., 374. 59 See Christine Sylvester, Feminist Theory and International Relations in a Postmodern Era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). 60 Naeem Inayatullah and David Blaney,International Relations and the Problem of Difference (New York and London: Routledge, 2004), William Connolly, "Identity and Difference in Global Politics," in International/Intertextual Relations, ed. James and Michael Shapiro Der Derian (New York: Lexington Books, 1989), Sankaran Krishna,Postcolonial Insecurities: India, Sri Lanka and the Question of Nationhood (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1999). 61 Jim George, Discourses of Global Politics: A Critical (Re) Introduction to International Relations (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1994), R.B.J. Walker, "World Politics and Western Reason: Universalism, Pluralism, Hegemony," in Culture, Ideology, and World Order, ed. R.B.J. Walker (Boulder and London: Westview Press, 1984). 62 Inayatullah and Blaney,International Relations and the Problem of Difference, see especially Chapter 1. Also see Sankaran Krishna, "Race, Amnesia, and the Education o f International Relations," Alternatives 26, no. 4 (2001): 401. It is not that these are completely new. Marxists and dependency theorists in the 1970’s were highlighting the imperial assumptions of the world system. But these approaches were never seen as ‘central’ to International Relations. 6 Persaud and Walker, “Apertura: Race in International Relations”, 375. 64 Aime Cesaire, Discourse on Colonialism (New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1972), 14. Nandy asserts that the violence perpetrated by the imperial cultures dehumanizes the colonizer even more than the colonized. The two are linked in an “indissoluble bond”. See Ashis Nandy, "Oppression and Human Liberation: Toward a Third World Utopia," in Culture, Ideology, and World Order, ed. R.B.J. Walker (Boulder and London: Westview Press, 1984), 172. 65 See Siba Grovogui, "Rituals of Power: Theory, Languages, and Vernaculars of International Relations," Alternatives 23, no. 4 (1998): 499-529.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 28

world. But mainstream IR according to Sankaran Krishna, constantly seeks to “escape

history, to efface the violence, genocide, and theft that marked the encounter between the

rest and the West in the post-Columbian era.”66

My dissertation locates itself amongst such interventions that show the close links

between the violence of imperialism, including its categories and international relations.

It agrees with scholars who argue that rather than seeing discussions about how

modernity has played out in the Third World or non-West (including the native

Americans) as marginal, assert their centrality in the manner in which ‘international

relations’ as we know it, has been constituted. (\ 7 As an international relations graduate

student, amongst my colleagues and within disciplinary ‘sites’ such as conferences, I was

often made to feel that my research was outside the ambit of IR scholarship. My focus on

South Asia and the colonial period in particular was seen as more relevant to ‘area

studies’ and ‘post-colonial theory’ in general rather than IR. As Sankaran Krishna puts it,

“the world as perceived by mainstream international relations scholarship is confined to a

metropolitan West, whereas all other areas are either cast in the role of vernacular

variations on central themes or simply ignored.”68

The post-colonial and post-structural scholars, much like the feminists, are then

‘ghettoized’ into their own groups, carrying out debates amongst themselves while the

mainstream pays little attention to them. As Brian McCormack puts it,

conventional mainstream International Relations theoretical approaches to thinking about postcolonialism, to the extent that it is thought about at all, most often involves lumping it together as radical thought whose effective function is to instantiate the

Krishna, “Race, Amnesia, and the Education o f International Relations,” 401. 67 See Krishna, “Race, Amnesia and the Education of International Relations,” and Inayatullah and Blaney, International Relations and the Problem of Difference. 68 Krishna, Postcolonial Insecurities: India, Sri Lanka and the Question of Nationhood., xxi.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 29

mainstream and maintain the Third World at theoretical arm’s length—retrievable as a category of conflict, the site of ‘coups and earthquakes’, a site to be avoided.”69

However scholars as discussed above are increasingly opening up spaces in which these

exclusions are questioned.

My dissertation’s focus on historicism, as a key category of colonial modernity,

and the relationship with other concepts such as the nation-state, religion and identity fits

within the broad concerns outlined by scholars discussed above. Moreover the links

between an uncritical historicism, as part of a modem world-view and violence is also

made explicit in the dissertation, especially with respect to Hindu nationalist V.D.

Savarkar’s thought. The rise of religious nationalism and increasing intolerance is a

matter of deep concern in contemporary India. Within IR, the study of nationalism has

gained increased attention, including the links with religion.

Broadly speaking, the dissertation explores what Krishna calls ‘postcolonial

anxiety’ 70 with reference to societies that are grappling with modernity, brought via the

violence of the colonial encounter. It looks at how these ideas were negotiated, leading

to varying responses that were both imitative as well as critical. This process of

‘negotiation’ is well described by Krishna who points out that

as modernity spreads through the postcolonial world, it does not so much clone its western original as to translate them into a domestic idiom whose meanings and import depart considerably from the originals and are embedded in distinctively different nexuses of power and knowledge.71

Brian McCormack, "Postcolonialism in an Age of Globalization: Opening International Relations Theory to Identities in Movement," Alternatives 27, no. 1 (2002): 110. 70 Krishna defines ‘postcolonial anxiety’ “to be this attempt at replicating historical originals that are ersatz to begin with.” Krishna,Postcolonial Insecurities: India, Sri Lanka and the Question of Nationhood, xix., xix. Historical originals here refers to modem European categories such as the notion o f homogenous nation-states. 71 Ibid., 73.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 30

This dissertation looks at how these meanings were translated into local idioms,

that sometimes functioned within the same discursive space laid out by modem

categories while at other times went beyond them. It explores questions of difference,

and a recognition of plurality which scholars such as Naeem Inayatullah and David

Blaney have made central to rethinking IR. Much like Inayatullah and Blaney’s search

for alternative readings of key Western texts and history that suggest a more dialogical

relationship between the West and non-West, this dissertation looks for non-historical

imaginations that point to more humane and just ways of being. Like them, it seeks the

limits of modernity, which has been characterized by an unequal exchange between the

colonizers and the colonized. 77 As they aptly put it,

unquestioning compliance with the imperatives of modernity is now no longer possible. This does not mean that modernity offers us no guidance for life or lacks any critical purchase. It means only that the question of what we keep and what we discard from the heritage of modernity needs explicit and ongoing discussion.73

In doing so, this dissertation both draws from and adds to efforts by critical scholars to

rethink ‘IR’ and open up spaces for greater epistemological and ontological plurality. It

contributes to Blaney and Inayatullah’s overall objective to reimagine IR “as a theory of

intercultural relations or perhaps rediscovered as an important site of ‘heterology’—the

study of differences.”74 Gaining wider popularity amongst critical IR scholarship, this

kind of a re-conceptualization of IR intersects political theory, political economy, social

theory, cultural studies and post-colonial theory. This dissertation is written with such an

Inayatullah and Blaney argue like Nandy, Fanon and others that the West was perhaps a bigger victim of its colonial and imperial plunders. 73 Inayatullah and Blaney,International Relations and the Problem of Difference, 201. 74 Ibid., 17.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. interdisciplinarity in mind, which I believe reflects more adequately the complex

‘realities’ in which we live.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER II

EXPLORING THE THEORETICAL AND POLITICAL CONTOURS OF

HISTORICISM

All living things need an atmosphere, a mysterious mist, around them. If that veil be taken away and a religion, an art, or a genius condemned to revolve like a star without an atmosphere, we must not be surprised if it becomes hard and unfruitful and soon withers1

Defining Historicism

Before I begin my crab-like crawling backwards to the nineteenth-century2, it would

be expedient to define what I mean by historicism. Historicism is a complex notion that has

been defined in divergent ways. The most wide-spread understanding offered of historicism

is to see it as a disparate body of literature that emerged, especially in Germany as a response

to conceptions of natural law and positivism in Europe by the late eighteenth and early

nineteenth centuries.3 Most frequently associated with varied

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Use and Abuse of History, trans. Adrian Collins with an Introduction by Julius Kraft, 2nd edition ed. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Educational Publishing, 1957), 44. 2 Ivan Illich talks about doing historiography like a crab, who “moves backward, while its popping eyes remain fixed to the object they flee.” Ivan Illich,In the Mirror of the Past: Lectures and Addresses 1978-1990 (New York and London: Marion Boyars, 1992), 194. 3 Sheila Greeve Davaney, Pragmatic Historicism: A Theology for the Twenty-First Century (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), Paul Hamilton, Historicism (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), Thomas Albert Howard,Religion and the Rise of Historicism: W.M.L. De Wette, Jacob Burckhardt and the Theological Origins of Nineteenth-Century Historical Consciousness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), Steven Katz, Historicism, the Holocaust and Zionism (New York and London: New York University Press, 1992), Friedrich Meinecke,Historism: The Rise of a New Historical Outlook (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972), David N. Myers,Resisting History: Historicism and Its Discontents in German- Jewish Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), Berthold Riesterer, Karl Lowith's View of History (The Hague: Martinus NijhofF, 1969). Friedrich Meinecke traces the genesis o f historicism or what he 32

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 33

German thinkers such as Hegel, Herder, Dilthey, Ranke4 and others, it challenged natural

law and positivist claims to eternal, fixed and unchanging truths.5 Rather, these thinkers

believed it was historical context and historicity, which determined how humans were

shaped and acted at any given time.

According to Frederick Beiser, Hegel for instance, believed that “what appears to

be given, eternal, or natural is in fact the product of human activity, and indeed of that

activity in a specific cultural context.”6 Since humans ‘made’ history, these processes

could also be understood primarily through the lens of history. While discussing Hegel,

Beiser writes:

For historicism, understood in a broad sense as the doctrine that emphasizes the importance of history for the understanding of human institutions and activities, must by definition also be the product of history.7

It located the past in a separate temporality, which had its own characteristics and ‘spirit’.

This was closely tied to the notion of development and change, which saw Man as

developing from one historical epoch or point in time to another. According to Maurice

Mandelbaum, the notion of development is the most distinctive aspect of historicism. He

points out:

calls ‘historism’ to the second half of the eighteenth century. Meinecke,Historism: The Rise o f a New Historical Outlook. William Dean makes a distinction between ‘old historicism’ which he attributes to Kant, Schleiermacher, Hegel and Dilthey amongst others while ‘new historicism’ refers to postmodern critiques o f historicism. According to Dean, new historicists are against foundations, realism and a transcendental subject. See William Dean, History Making History (Albany: State University o f New York Press, 1988). See especially Chapter 1. 4 While these thinkers are broadly branded together as historicists, there are also fundamental differences between them. 5 Other non-German thinkers who first voiced historicist ideas included Vico in Italy in the eighteenth century. Isaiah Belin points out that in Germany historicism was closely tied to the rise of the German state. Isaiah Berlin, "Foreword," inHistorism: The Rise of a New Historical Outlook, ed. Friedrich Meinecke (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972), ix. 6 Frederick Beiser, "Hegel's Historicism," in The Cambridge Companion to Hegel, ed. Frederick Beiser (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 272. 7 Ibid., 271.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 34

Historicism is the belief that an adequate understanding of the nature of any phenomenon and an adequate assessment of its value are to be gained through considering it in terms of the place which it occupied and the role which it played within a process of development.8

Moreover, this development was largely seen with reference to unities, moving

through time or as Friedrich Meinecke puts it, “the substitution of a process of

individualising observation for a generalising view of human forces in history” (original

emphasis).9 This notion of development was extended not only to the regions where

these thinkers lived and thought but encompassed a universalizing tendency, to include

all peoples of the world. However this move was not always carried out in an equivalent

manner. This universalizing tendency was also frequently undergirded with notions of

progress, which placed European Man at the apex of civilization.

While the historicists emphasized historical context and the need to historicize all

phenomena in response to positivism’s notions of eternal Taws’ for all time and place, it

also ended up challenging transcendental truths of any kind, including religious ones.

According to this view, since religious truths and texts were always to be located within a

past historical context, they could never provide the basis for any fixed ethical truths. By

the onset of the First World War, particularly in Germany, this led to what Ernst

Troeltsch called a ‘crisis of historicism’10 where such extreme relativizing came under

severe strain. An increasing number of thinkers, critical of positivism were questioning

Maurice Mandelbaum, History, Man and Reason: A Study in Nineteenth-Century Thought (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University, 1971), 42. He goes on to say that crucial to this notion o f development is the idea that “what was present in the earlier stages becomes more marked or more explicit in the later stages.” Ibid., 44. Mandelbaum however argues that this notion o f development was also exhibited in positivist thinkers such as Comte and in the sciences such as Darwin’s theory o f evolution. 9 Meinecke, Historism, lv. 10 Cited in Myers, Resisting History: Historicism and Its Discontents in German-Jewish Thought, 2.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 35

the ethical implications of historicism. Anticipating the rise of post-modernism, it led to

more fundamental questioning of modernity itself.

This pointed to some convergences between historicists and positivists, deeply

rooted in modernist conceptions of the dichotomy between history and myth, science and

the ‘irrational’, man and nature. They shared skepticism toward faith-based notions of

agency either in nature or history. Science and history were seen as essentially secular

enterprises even if they drew heavily from religious underpinnings.11 In other words, the

emergence of historicism was part of the bigger story of the transformation and

secularization of religion, tied to the rise of a scientific rationality associated with the

‘modem’ in Europe.

The emergence of Protestantism over a less ‘rational’ Catholicism, was part of the

same process that allowed ‘religion’ or Christianity, in this case, its texts and practices to

become an object of historical scrutiny, rather than representing merely lived relations.

As David Myers puts it, the historicist’s aim was “to contextualize-which often meant to

dissolve the veneer of transcendence in which sacred texts were wrapped.” 1 It“J was not

so much as Thomas Howard has argued that religion was separated from the secular but

that a specific kind of religion which was based on science, rational and individuated

historicist thought, as reflected in Protestantism, came to define the secular. The two in

Karl Lowith argues that the philosophy of history draws heavily from Christian and Judaic theology. According to him, the “philosophy o f history originates with the Hebrew and Christian faith in a fulfillment and that it ends with the secularization of its eschatological pattern.” Karl Lowith,Meaning in History: The Theological Implications of the Philosophy of History (Chicago: University o f Chicago Press, 1949), 2. 12 Myers, Resisting History, 5.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 36

1 ^ other words were inseparable. This kind of ‘secularized religion’, saw the agency of the

supernatural, myth and divinity as incapable of co-habiting with or within historical time.

Historical development and change therefore always takes place as Dipesh

Chakrabarty argues, citing Walter Benjamin, in secular, empty, and homogenous time.14

This precludes the presence of multiple overlapping times, especially those that are non

secular. Hence, the past exists in a separate time that is no longer accessible to the

present. As Michel de Certeau points out, this makes the past amenable to

‘objectification’ while only the present can be ‘alive’.15 It results as Chakrabarty argues,

our capacity to deploy the historicist or ethnographic mode of viewing that involves the use of a sense of anachronism in order to convert objects, institutions, and practices with which we have lived relationships into relics of other times.. .this capacity to construct a single historical context for everything is the enabling condition of modem historical consciousness, the capacity to see the past as gone and reified into an object of investigation (emphasis mine).16

This then creates the conditions of possibility for history as a disciplinary practice, for the

notion of historical ‘evidence’:

Historical evidence (the archive) is produced by our capacity to see something that is contemporaneous with us—ranging from practices, humans, institutions, and stone- inscriptions to documents—as a relic of another time and place. The person gifted with historical consciousness sees these objects as things that once belonged to their historical context and now exist in the observer’s time as a “bit” of that past. A particular past thus becomes objectified in the observer’s time. If such an object continues to have effect on the present, then the historically minded person sees that as the effect of the past. It is through such objectification—predicated on the

Howard, Religion and the Rise of Historicism: W.M.L. De Wette, Jacob Burckhardt and the Theological Origins of Nineteenth-Century Historical Consciousness. 14 Dipesh Chakrabarty,Provincializing Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 23. 15 de Certeau in his seminal work, The Writing o f History, focuses on historiography as a practice, located in specific institutional sites. He argues at various points in the book that in order for history to objectify the past, it has to see it as dead but in reality it is predicated on its contemporaneity with the present. See Michel de Certeau, The Writing o f History, trans. Tom Conley (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988). 16 Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, 243.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 37

principle of anachronism—that the eye of the participant is converted into the eye of the witness.17

He goes on to say that the consequences are that

it can only “objectify”—and thus deny—the lived relations the observing subject already has with that which he or she identifies as belonging to a historical or ethnographic time and space separate from the one he or she occupies as the analyst.18

This principle of anachronism has gone hand in hand with the idea of progress as these

past relations are seen as ‘value-laden’, representing the ‘backward’, ‘traditional’ while

the modem or the ‘now’ comes to be seen as the ‘rational-scientific’. It makes us as

Chakrabarty suggests “see our ‘superstitious’ contemporaries as examples of an ‘earlier

type’.”19

These ruptures between history and myth, religion and science were to have

profound implications for both Europe as well as the rest of the world, since colonialism

introduced these dichotomies globally. What were once provincial debates and ideas,

soon took on a universal veneer through the exercise of power or colonialism. In fact as

Chakrabarty has penetratingly pointed out, historicism is what enabled colonialism in the

first place. The justification of colonialism was based on what he calls a ‘waiting-room’

conception of history; that while Europe represented ‘civilization’, the ‘savages’ in the

colonies would have to be ‘educated’ and ‘reformed’ in order to progress to the same

level. Their histories had already been imagined for them; these could be rewritten only

17 Ibid., 238-39. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid., 238.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 38

in Europe’s self-image. Colonialism was, as Ashis Nandy asserts, fundamentally a

civilizing mission, which was predicated on this kind of historicism.20

Historicism and Colonial Modernity

Colonialism did introduce new ideas and institutions into Indian society, many

which gained ‘legitimacy’ precisely because they were seen as ‘superior’ to those

existing in Indian society. Pre-modem Europeans in contrast with their Enlightenment

successors, viewed the ‘East’ and its cultures more favorably and respectfully.

‘Orientalism’, as Edward Said has so insightfully argued, became the dominant lens with

which the West ‘framed’ the East. However while much has been written about this type

of essentializing of the non-West, it ultimately tells us more about the colonizers than

those they colonized. This dissertation places itself within a substantial and growing

literature that focuses on the other side or the response by the colonized and their

interpretations of colonialism. This is in many ways, I believe, the more interesting side

of the story since it points to the different ways the colonized negotiated colonial

modernity or exercised their agency. While some were purely imitative, others were very

creative in their dissent.21 It also allows us to explore sites where modernity was being

challenged.

Ashis Nandy, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983), xi. This is not to mitigate the importance of economic imperatives, which were crucial, since as Hamza Alavi has demonstrated, the Industrial Revolution in Europe was carried out thanks to the colonies, and not as its ‘after-effects’ as some have claimed. See Hamza Alavi, "India: Transition from Feudalism to Colonial Capitalism," Journal of Contemporary Asia 10, no. 4 (1980). 21 I am cognizant that framing it this way continues to adhere to a colonizer/colonized dichotomy. See Ann Stoler, "Rethinking Colonial Categories: European Communities and the Boundaries of Rule," Comparative Studies in Society and History 31, no. 1 (1989), Sara Suleri,The Rhetoric o f English India (Chicago: University o f Chicago Press, 1992). Both these scholars offer a critique o f these binaries. The victims o f colonialism as Nandy’s sensitive analyses of British individuals such as Rudyard Kipling shows

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 39

As Nandy points out, colonialism fundamentally altered the arrangements within

Indian society, bringing certain ideas to the fore while sidelining others. Following

Nandy, what is significant to keep in mind, therefore, is that modernity altered

arrangements within European society as well. The ‘modem’ with its privileging of

scientific rationality, the nation-state and notions of historical ‘objectivity’ became

dominant in Europe by marginalizing other non-modem world-views internally and

externally. Nandy’s conceptualization challenges East-West binaries since the modem

and non-modem are seen to exist within the West and East. Rather than viewing India

and Europe as irrevocably different, some values get accorded legitimacy and primacy

over others, defining what is ‘modem’. These values in turn, Nandy points out, have

become a source of violence and oppression as they leave little room for others, ensuring

they are accorded ‘universality’ in the name of science.

The task of ‘recovery’ that Nandy undertakes in his work, is predicated on the

assumption that Europe too, like India, has its ‘recessive’ non-modem sides that have

been marginalized and need to be brought to the fore. 22 Within the West itself, modernity

has never been completely hegemonic even in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in

Europe when it was most celebrated. Critiques have varied from internal dissenters to

those who have questioned the basic parameters themselves. And these critiques often

come from the margins. Not surprisingly then, it is the colonized or those who have been

often include the colonizer more than the colonized. Nandy, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism, 35-39. 22 Writings on recovering the ‘Other Europe’ have now proliferated, too exhaustive to list here. Many of these are coming from those who look at the politics of science and uncover the ‘other’ ‘mystical’ selves of western ‘scientists’ such as Newton and Galileo. The works of J.P.S. Uberoi have been most illustrative in this regard. See his trilogy, J.P.S. Uberoi,The European Modernity: Science, Truth and Method (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002), J.P.S. Uberoi,The Other Mind o f Europe: Goethe as a Scientist (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1984), J.P.S. Uberoi,Science and Culture (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1978).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 40

at the receiving end, who are often able to penetratingly guide the colonizer towards an

awareness of their own dehumanization. It is the victim, Nandy believes, who has not

fully internalized the victor’s values who can retrieve aspects of the latter’s humanity;23

hence to paraphrase Jotiba Phule, her role as a ‘third eye’.24 The ‘slave’ Nandy argues

always has a “higher-order cognition” because her experience as a victim also includes

the humanity of the oppressor unlike for the latter.

Colonialism therefore privileged certain values over others, such as the increased

importance of scientific reason, linked to the secularization of religion in the public

sphere. The manner in which the colonized responded to such ideas varied between

regions, communities, castes and classes. However in large part, it affected the elite

most, since they were the ones directly exposed to colonial ideas through western

education. Despite differences though, the Hindu and Muslim elite, for instance, both

responded by asserting a newfound reverence for modem history, which was increasingly

• y / r tied to nationalist imaginings. As Sudipto Kaviraj points out, with respect to Hindu

society in particular, with the colonial influence, “a culture which had treated history with

such indifference, suddenly erupts with a great historical discourse.”27

For the purposes of brevity and scope this dissertation focuses on Hindus,

specifically from the western or Marathi-speaking part of India although parallel trends

As Nandy points out, the East and West can meet outside the bounds o f modernity. He cites the example o f the friendship of C.F. Andrews, a practicing Christian and Gandhi, a practicing Hindu. See Nandy,Intimate Enemy, 48. 24 I adopt this expression, from Jotiba Phule who not coincidentally used it to address upper caste oppression in India. See his play, Jotirao Phule, "Third Eye," inMahatma Phule Samagra Vangmay, ed. Y.D. Phadke (Mumbai: Maharashtra Rajya Sahitya ani Sanskruti Mandal, 1992). 25 Nandy, Intimate Enemy, xv. 26 See Peter Hardy, "Modem Muslim Historical Writing on Medieval Muslim India," in Historians o f India, Pakistan and Ceylon, ed. C.H. Philips (London: Oxford University Press, 1961). 2 Sudipta Kaviraj, The Unhappy Consciousness: Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay and the Formation of a Nationalist Discourse in India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), 108.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 41

can be found amongst Muslims as well.28 Most discussions regarding the emergence of

historiography as well as notions of historicity in colonial India have focused on Hindus

in Bengal and extended this to the rest of India. This dissertation seeks to shift the focus

to a different locale, Bombay Presidency or parts of what is today Maharashtra.

Historicism as a Derivative Discourse and Beyond

In colonial India, one often sees evidence of both questioning and internalization

of historicist ideas within the same individuals. Therefore to argue that it was wholly

resisted or fully internalized fails to capture the complexity of the experience. These

complexities are often glossed over in prominent analyses of the colonial response

including Saidian inspired frameworks, which while insightful, often foreclose the

possibility of multiple voices and tensions. The framework itself presents limitations in

how such complexities can be accounted for. Much has already been said about the lack

of agency in Said; where are the ‘Orientals’ in Said’s Orientalism apart from being

representations of an equally essentialized West has been a frequently repeated critique.29

Nevertheless at the cost of sounding repetitive, the excessive emphasis on

‘representations’ generated by Saidian frameworks’ often tends to silence the colonized

in the process, saying more about the Self who is doing the representing than it does

about the Other. As Kaviraj argues these approaches are more of a “catalogue of how

28 While not discussing notions of historicity per say, Ayesha Jalal’s work on Muslims, insightfully explores the relationship between religion as piety and faith versus religion as politics. See Ayesha Jalal, Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian Islam since 1850 (London and New York: Routledge, 2000). 29 For useful critiques of Said see Homi Bhabha, "The Other Question," inContemporary Postcolonial Theory: A Reader, ed. Padmini Mongia (London: Arnold, 1996), Suleri,The Rhetoric o f English India. 30 Valentine Daniel also makes this point when he writes “Much academic writing on colonialism has opted to attend to the history o f the colonizer and his doings, the metropolises and their machinations,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 42

Westerners failed to get something right, not of how non-Westerners thought about

anything at all.”31

To illustrate my point, I focus on Partha Chatterjee’s well-known claim, that

nationalism was a ‘derivative discourse’. While Chatterjee, who draws from Said,

appears to address these criticisms by focusing on the agency of the colonized, he also

ends up foreclosing a range of possibilities with which the colonized elite sometimes -3-1 t interpreted their experience. In his seminal work, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial

World, Chatterjee argues that the Bengali elite when first exposed to colonial ideas, wrote

different versions albeit relying on the same rationalist, positivist assumptions. They

retained the thematic or the “theoretical framework of post Enlightenment thought”34

regarding nationalism while reversing its problematic. Chatterjee points out that the

rather than to focus on the effects that colonialism has had and continues to have, in its own peculiarly transformative fashion; on the people it had once subjugated.” See his Valentine Daniel,Chapters in an Anthropography o f Violence: Sri Lankans, Sinhalas and Tamils (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997), 73. Rosalind O’Hanlon’s critique also stresses on the agency of the colonized, pointing out that such approaches often “produces a picture of Indian actors who are helpless to do anything but insensibly reproduce the structures of their own subordination.” See Rosalind O'Hanlon, "Cultures o f Rule, Communities o f Resistance: Gender, Discourse and Tradition in Recent South Asian Historiographies," in Identity, Consciousness and the Past: Forging of Caste and Community in India and Sri Lanka, ed. H.L. Seneviratne (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997), 157. 31 Sudipta Kaviraj, "On the Advantages of Being a Barbarian," inAt Home in Diaspora: South Asian Scholars and the West, ed. Jackie Assayag and Veronique Benei (Bloomington and Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2003), 161-62. 32 Chatterjee himself has said that he has moved away from some o f these positions, quite evidently reflected in his later works but these ideas remain influential nevertheless. See especially his Preface in Partha Chatterjee, The Partha Chatterjee Omnibus (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999). 33 Another sophisticated work that does something similar is Gyan Prakash’s work with respect to science. Prakash focuses on how the colonizers’ ‘staged’ science, the manner in which it was represented and received by the colonized elite. He argues, however, that the colonized elite often rejected western science on the terms it was offered to them, while crafting a different modernity within the same logic provided by the colonizers. Hence the best the ‘natives’ could do was offer a ‘limited critique’. While this is a large part of the story, Prakash presents the entire gamut of Indians in this light, which overlooks the nuances in their positions. Due to his heavy reliance on a Saidian framework, I argue he does not adequately capture the complex ways Indians responded to colonialism. In other words, one hears little about ‘Another Reason’ the book’s title so suggestively points to. See Gyan Prakash,Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999). 34 Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse? (London: Zed Books, 1986), 39.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 43

Bengali elite, following the British, often adopted an orientalist position toward their own

culture in the early stages of nationalism or what he calls the ‘moment of departure’. In

other words, this version of nationalism Chatterjee points out,

asserts that the superiority of the West lies in the materiality of its culture, exemplified by its science, technology and love of progress. But the East is superior in the spiritual aspect of culture.35

In the case of history then, using this argument it can be said that the colonized

wrote their own versions of history but history nevertheless; colonial histories were not,

as David Scott points out, “so much confronted with its Other-legend, myth, superstition-

as merely with a different, indeed rival, position within its own discursive field of

historicist history.”36 While this is partly the case, since it applies to all three discussed in

this dissertation, Savarkar, Phule and Ranade, my discussion in later chapters also makes

clear that Phule and Ranade’s internalization o f‘history’ and notions of historicity was

tenuous. Chatterjee’s own reading of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, whom he uses to

make his argument, does not allow for contestations, which could see Bankim as

ambivalent about modem rationalism even as he admires it.

According to Chatterjee’s schema any affirmations of Hindu beliefs that might

challenge colonial ones can only be read as acts of self-orientalism as opposed to genuine

dissent. Chatterjee for instance quotes Bankim, on western science:

It cannot, because it is beyond the power of science. One can only go as far as one is able.. .Science is tied to its epistemic leash; how can it find a philosophy of spirit which lies beyond its range of proof? Where science cannot reach, it has no privilege: it can consider itself beholden by resting on the lowest steps of that stairway which

35 Ibid., 51. 36 David Scott, Refashioning Futures: Criticism after Postcoloniality (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 102.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 44

leads up to the higher reaches. To look for scientific proof where it cannot apply is a fundamentally mistaken search.37

Chatterjee argues that Bankim’s challenge to western science is unable to break the

epistemological boundaries laid out by colonial western thought because he believes in

the dichotomy that the East is spiritually superior while the West dominates materially.

Yet could one not read Bankim’s statement above as questioning the colonial notion of

science itself? By applying his rather fixed schema, is Chatterjee silencing Bankim’s

possible self-questioning of the thematic of nationalism?38 In the case of Marathi social

reformer M.G. Ranade for instance, there was a questioning of the philosophical

assumptions of western science, even as he expressed great admiration for its effects.

Unlike Gandhi, he did not reject outright the claims of modem science, but there are

moments in his thought where these ideas are seriously contested. Chatterjee’s notion of

‘derivative discourses’ is unable to capture such tensions.

Sugata Bose has incisively raised some of the limitations of Chatterjee’s

framework, pointing out that Chatterjee’s “formulation misses a nuance or two

concerning the relationship between nationalist thought and colonial knowledge.”39 Bose

points out that nationalist responses such as those articulated by Rabindranath Tagore or

Bankim quoted in Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World, 69. 38 Chatterjee himself alludes to the limitations o f his approach in his discussion on history inNation and Its Fragments. Even rationalists like Bankim he argues can be read as imagining alternate histories that fall outside the modem rationalist mode. See Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995), 113. Dipesh Chakrabarty suggests a more nuanced reading o f Bankim when he writes, Bankim’s “categoryprakriti mediates between the modem scientific understanding of nature as a collection of inert bodies driven by blind, unconscious physical laws, and the older Tantric understanding oprakriti f (nature) as a form of consciousness, a feminine power animating the world, creating it in collaboration withpurush, man”. See Chakrabarti, Provincializing Europe, 138. 39 Sugata Bose, "Nation as Mother: Representations and Contestations of'India' in Bengali Literature and Culture," in Nationalism, Democracy and Development: State and Politics in India, ed. Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), 59.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 45

the symbolism of the nation as mother often questioned the nationalist thematic itself.

Bose calls for a more complex understanding of how religion as faith influenced

nationalism, sometimes making the latter less dependent on European conceptions.40

However while I draw on Bose’s useful critical evaluation of Chatteijee’s argument and

the need for more nuanced understandings particularly between religion and politics, I

find his critique insufficient. Unlike subaltern and post-colonial historians, Bose shows

little reflection on the problem of ‘doing history’ in South Asia. He calls for ‘better

histories’ without acknowledging the problematic nature of ‘history’ itself.41

Sudipto Kaviraj’s The Unhappy Consciousness, looks at the contradictions within

Bankim’s thought overlooked by Chatterjee. He discusses Bankim’s transforming the

Hindu deity Krishna into a historical figure, who embodies modem values of hard

masculinity and realpolitik rather than the playful, effeminate, mischievous, and non-

historical persona that he is often worshipped as. In other words, according to Kaviraj,

Bankim is greatly attracted to a historicist imagination. On the other hand, he also points

to aspects within Bankim’s thought where this internalization appears to break down. He

points out that this is particularly acute in Bankim’s literary works where he challenged

fact/fiction boundaries by writing imaginative stories dealing with the past. History he

says showed to the colonized, a malleable world that could be made and remade, thereby

providing hope for the subjected. But this did not always fit the criterion of modem

scientific history, since it was precisely in the realm of the imaginative, that the challenge

40 Sugata Bose, "Nation, Reason and Religion,"Economic and Political Weekly 33, no. 31 (1998): 2092. 41 While Bose provides a nuanced analysis o f religion, nowhere does he ask how notions of religiosity may trouble the category of ‘history’ itself. This is the case with other Cambridge school historians as well who provide rich analyses of religion by making the distinction between religion as piety and politics. But few have undertaken any systematic questioning of ‘history’.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 46

to rationalist history advocated as the ‘truth’ was taken up. The process of ‘inventing’ the

nation had to be imaginary since “it could never be accomplished by a discourse of facts,

but by a discourse of truth, or poetry, of the imagination.”42 Bankim’s novels thereby

challenge history; by “placing fictional narratives in their midst they seek to shift and

displace their meaning.”43

According to Kaviraj, history for the Bengali elite was seen as another way of

writing myths, albeit those dealing increasingly with the nation and a martial masculine

modem Hindu identity. While Kaviraj might perhaps be overly optimistic about the

radical potential of these ‘mythical/imaginative histories’, since they too were also

suffused with a modem historical consciousness (quite evident in the case of someone

like Savarkar who wrote historical plays and poems), it does allow us to read these

responses as multi-faceted, nuanced and contradictory. Numerous writings that implicitly

or explicitly contest notions o f ‘derivative discourses’ have emerged since Chatterjee’s

influential book was published in 1986. Brian Hatcher’s work on Ishwarchandra

Vidyasagar also looks at the way this shastri (traditional scholar) both used rationalist

discourses as well as drew heavily on non-modem shastric traditions to make his case on

social reform, particularly widow-remarriage.44

Dipesh Chakrabarty talks about the need to be attuned to multiple ways of being

that are often overlooked. For instance, he cites examples of Bengali reformers

Rammohun Roy and Iswarchandra Vidyasagar who, he argues, were both heavily

influenced by David Hume and Adam’s Smith’s ‘natural theory of sentiments’ or

42 Kaviraj, Unhappy Consciousness, 131. 43 Ibid., 133. 44 Brian Hatcher, Idioms of Improvement: Vidyasagar and Cultural Encounter in Bengal (Calcutta: Oxford University Press, 1996).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 47

Enlightenment Reason in their compassion for the plight of widows. But to leave it at that

he says would miss a crucial aspect of the story. He points out that according to Roy’s

and Vidyasagar’s biographers, this compassion came from indigenous notions of koruna

or compassion, which certain individuals are just bom with, and cannot acquire.

Therefore he says:

One was the Enlightenment answer: the role of reason in freeing vision from the blindfold of custom. But they also had another answer, which was hriday (heart). They argued, in effect, that it was the “heart” that Rammohun and Vidyasagar were bom with that made them more compassionate.45

Such specific qualities were seen as unique to these individuals, making them almost

God-like, drawing from Sanskritic aesthetic theories, which he argues did not contain a

“theory of a general human nature” 46, like that of a Hume-Smith derived one.

Chakrabarty goes on to say:

The fact that we come across these two different answers in the same body of texts suggests that they did not displace each other but existed in a relationship of mutual supplementation to constitute an intertwined strand in Bengali modernity.47

According to Chakrabarty, indigenous notions highlighted by Roy and Vidyasagar’s

biographers, refer to:

practices of the self that always leave an intellectually unmanageable excess when translated into the politics and language of political philosophies we owe to the European intellectual traditions.. .that call us to other ways of being civil and humane.48

The colonized, in other words, did not always fully respond in the language

accessible to the colonizers and this ‘inscrutability’ often was an expression of alternative

critical imaginations not amenable to the modem objectifying gaze. Even the colonized

Chakrabarty,Provincializing Europe, 124. Ibid., 127. Ibid., 129. Ibid., 148.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 48

‘babus’ as Nandy’s evocative work has shown, often drew from these ‘excess

imaginations’ to creatively shift the terms modernity set into something quite

‘incomprehensible’ to the modem eye. This was not, according to Nandy, just

an attempt to explain Indian culture in Indian terms, or even in Western terms, but was an attempt to explain the West in Indian terms and to incorporate it in the Indian culture as an unavoidable experience.49

Having said that, there were also those such as Savarkar, who fully internalized colonial

discourses.50 As Nandy points out,

The pressure to be the obverse of the West distorts the traditional priorities in the Indian’s total view of man and universe and destroys his culture’s unique gestalt. It in fact binds him even more irrevocably to the West.51

He argues these were choices the colonized made. The extent to which colonial ideas

were internalized varied, making it difficult to identify one single overarching manner in

which the colonized responded to colonial ideas and practices. In some cases the

‘thematic’ was reversed while at other times, it was not.

Drawing from the above scholars then who have emphasized the contradictoriness

and complexity of the colonial experience and the difficulty in painting it with a single

brush, I focus on the manner historicism was negotiated in the lives and thought of three

Marathi public figures, Phule, Ranade and Savarkar. I argue that while Phule and Ranade

can be read as proponents as well as skeptics of modem historicism, Savarkar

internalized it fully. The ‘excess’ elements within Phule and Ranade point to alternative

imaginations, which indicate as Chakrabarty has argued, other ways of being humane and

49 Nandy,Intimate Enemy, 22. 50 As Nandy puts it, “The ultimate violence which colonialism does to its victims is that it creates a culture in which the ruled are constantly tempted to fight their rulers within the psychological limits set by the latter.” Ibid., 3. 51 Ibid.,73.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 49

just. In their world-views historicism does not become totalizing but co-exists with other

ways of being whereas in Savarkar, it is a hegemonic discourse.

Historicism Under Siege?

Historicism’s hegemony has not always been as smooth as one is sometimes led

to believe either in the West or non-West. In the West, critiques of historicism have

come predominantly from either faith-based approaches or in more recent times, from

post-modernists53 and post-structuralists.54 Debates within religious studies such as

Christianity or Judaism however have operated quite separately from that of Western

social theory55, pointing to the relatively autonomous spheres within which both have

functioned since the eighteenth centuries. Religion was increasingly confined to the

realm of ‘beliefs’, seen to be private, while the sphere of the political or public was

largely a domain of the secular and could be thus understood by secular political, social

and economic theory. Religion and theology would henceforth be a separate sphere of

As Myers puts it, “Anti-historicism has been a constant foil, casting its long shadow on historicism precisely as the latter climbed to a position o f intellectual dominance in the modem West. In this regard, historicism, despite its very considerable success, has never fully vanquished its intellectual opposite.” Myers, Resisting History, 6. Mandelbaum makes this point with regard to philosophers such as Nietzche, Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard. See hisHistory, Man and Reason, 311-347. 33 Jean-Francis Lyotard characterizes post-modernity as critiques o f the grand scientific narratives of modernity. He writes: “I definepostmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives” (original emphasis). Jean-Francois Lyotard,The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), xxiv. 34 Post structural critiques have often been used synonymously with post modem ones. Both share an incredulity toward modem scientific narratives. However post structuralism refers more specifically to a movement that emerged as a response to structuralism as embodied in linguists such as Ferdinand de Saussure. Post structuralists were generally critical of the over emphasis on structures and the scientific pretensions o f structuralist discourse. The most well known post structuralist is Michel Foucault. 3 I am not suggesting that Christianity, especially Protestantism, has not heavily influenced Western social theory. However religion entered social theory in a largely secularized manner. The debate within Christianity about a historical versus eternal/religious Jesus has been a long-standing one. For an interesting discussion about the relationship between the Christian faith and its historicization, see Van Austin Harvey, The Historian and the Believer (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1966).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 50

study. While religious scholars are more aware of trends within secularist social theory,

the latter often takes little cognizance of the former.

However from time to time, especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,

thinkers transgressed both lines, offering a philosophical critique of historicism from a

faith-oriented approach. A recent study focuses on challenges that were sometimes posed

to historicism from within a Jewish sacred discourse. It suggests that there was an

ambivalent relationship towards historicism amongst some Jewish intellectuals, because

it was seen as incapable of capturing the total human experience. David Myers’ Resisting

History: Historicism and Its Discontents in German-Jewish Thought provides a

compelling instance of how late nineteenth and early twentieth century Jewish

intellectuals in Germany were often caught between a historicist world-view that

demanded eschewing divine notions of the past, and one embedded in sacral time.

He argues that thinkers such as Hermann Cohen and Leo Strauss amongst others,

were increasingly disillusioned with European modernist intellectuals, increasingly seen

as nihilistic and faithless. This led them to turn to more pious non-historical approaches

within a Judaic framework that provided in their view, an alternative search for moral

truths. Yet at the same time some of these intellectuals were also deeply drawn toward a

modem historicist Jewish identity, focused increasingly around Israel, the modem nation

state, with a ‘national history’. Both tendencies, Myers argues, could be found within the

same intellectuals. Similarly, Berthold Riesterer argues that German philosopher Karl

Lowith, who was often identified as a ‘traditionalist’ and Christian thinker, although he

was a modernist, was skeptical about historicists’ claims to know and control history.

Deeply influenced by thinkers such as Leo Tolstoy who believed in notions of fate and

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 51

destiny as controlling historical events, he too saw history as outside human control and

understanding. Later in his life he believed historicism had become a malaise and the

only way such relativism could be overcome was to “recover and reassert a valid extra

temporal view of man and history” much like the Greeks had.56

Figures such as William Blake, Tolstoy, J.W. Goethe, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

amongst others represent what J.P.S. Uberoi writing with reference to Goethe calls the

‘Other’ Europe, which was skeptical of modernist ideas while drawing from alternative

western traditions, that were often religious in nature. Danish philosopher, Soren

Kierkegaard challenged the religion/science dichotomy and the notion of temporality that

lay at the heart of secular thought. As Mandelbaum argues, for Kierkegaard, faith leads

one to emphasize contemporaneity and that “every believer must, in his faith, be

contemporaneous with Christ.”57 He critiqued historicism on the grounds that its

emphasis on large scale abstract historical processes neglected the individual’s ethical

existence.

Post-modernist and post-structuralist inspired historians and philosophers have

also launched more recent critiques of historicism. These approaches have received far

greater attention and have been much more influential than those offered from a religious

perspective, partly due to the marginal role that religious studies plays within western

social theory. Post modem and post structural critiques have been generally skeptical of

religion, ‘essences’ and ‘traditions’. This is in part because of the legacy of Friedrich

Nietzche, who many of them draw from. Nietzche strongly denounced historicism and

56 Riesterer, Karl Lowith’s View o f History, 44. 57 Mandelbaum, History, Man and Reason, 333.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 52

the ‘historical sense’ but he was also equally skeptical of alternative religious traditions

unlike others such as Kierkegaard or Strauss. He was a philologist in his early years as a

co scholar , a discipline deeply wedded to a historicist consciousness. From philology he

moved later in life towards becoming a major critic of what he called a ‘historical sense’

which he believed was “a dreadful virtue, because it always undermines and ruins the

living thing-its judgement always means annihilation.”59

Nietzche’s concerns as articulated in his ‘Use and Abuse of History’ were

primarily two-fold. Firstly he denounced the hubris that a historicist world-view held

about itself, that it represented the pinnacle of progress, science and civilization. He thus

rejected the Hegelian notion that the present was a higher stage of self-consciousness,

arguing that it put “history in the place of the other spiritual powers, art and religion, as

the one sovereign.”60 Secondly and related to the first concern, he bemoaned the end of a

belief in ideal truths, at the altar of historical ones, due to the continual becoming or

world-process as he called it. He believed ideal truths could influence people into action,

since “The aim of mankind can lie ultimately only in its highest examples”61 whereas

“historical training of our critics prevents their having an influence in the true sense-an

influence on life and action.”62 Therefore,

An excess of history can do all that, as we have seen, by no longer allowing a man to feel and act unhistorically\ for history is continually shifting his horizon and removing the atmosphere surrounding him.63

For a good overview of a shift in thinking in Nietzsche’s life and thought, see his biography, Ronald Hayman,Nietzsche: A Critical Life (Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1980). 59 Nietzsche, The Use and Abuse o f History, 42. 60 Ibid., 52. 61 Ibid., 59. 62 Ibid., 33. 63 Ibid., 64.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 53

This he believed inevitably led to a deep feeling of skepticism, which was the

condition of the modem age. According to him, “an age reaches a dangerous condition

of irony with regard to itself, and the still more dangerous state of cynicism”64 which

results in endless criticism, “and the criticism itself has no influence, but only breeds

another criticism.”65 For Nietzsche it was the ‘unhistorical’ Greeks who were best able to

capture the human spirit, morality and true knowledge. This was not despite their

ahistoricism but because of it.66 Although he was skeptical of Christianity he believed it

had capitulated to a historical sense, by becoming its ally. He argued that the act of

historicizing religion entailed its destruction:

A religion, for example, that has to be turned into a matter of historical knowledge by the power of pure justice, and to be scientifically studied throughout, is destroyed at the end of it all.67

As a result, “Christianity has been denaturalized by historical treatment.”68

Having tom down the edifice of modem historicism, what were the directions that

Nietzsche suggested modems could go? Nietzche’s response was also fundamentally

modem, suggesting the power and impact that modem historicism has had on

contemporary imagination. Rather than writing myths like the Greeks, Nietzsche

suggested setting history against itself.69 The “modem consciousness”, he pointed out,

64 Ibid., 28. 65 Ibid., 33. 66 Ibid., 51. Hannah Arendt points out that modems historicized the Greek view of the eternal. See Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future: Six Exercises in Political Thought (Cleveland and New York: Meridian Books, 1963). See especially Chapter 2, ‘The Concept of History: Ancient and Modem,’ 41-90. 67 Nietzsche, The Use and Abuse o f History, 42. 68 Ibid., 43. 69 Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra does reflect an attempt to stress the ‘eternal’ over the historical. The notion of an eternal return points to a different temporality than that o f history. Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Modem Library, 1995).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 54

“must itself be known by a historical process.”70 History he believed should “solve the

problem of history, science must turn its sting against itself.”71 He also called for the

need to turn the “eyes from the process of becoming to that which gives existence an

eternal and stable character-to art and religion”72, much like the Greeks did. Nietzsche

therefore expresses a desire to move beyond a ‘historical sense’, although he suggests this

can be done primarily within a historical imagination itself.

I discuss Nietzche not only to point out how far back a critique of historicism

goes, questioning its ‘newness’ but also to show that he in many ways set the terms

within which critiques of historicism within western social theory (including much of

post-colonial theory), including this work , continue to respond. Critics of historicism

and history in contemporary times have picked up Nietzsche’s call to turn ‘history against

itself. While some historians have even called for an ‘end of history’74, most believe

what is required is a ‘chaste historical consciousness.’75 One of the most influential of

such attempts has been the linguistic intervention of historian-philosopher Hayden White.

White views history primarily as a ‘narrative prose discourse’ about the past. He

therefore highlights the fundamentally linguistic nature of history, whereby narratives are

Nietzche, The Use and Abuse o f History, 50. 71 Ibid. 72 Ibid., 69. 73 I am not excluding myself here. As stated at the outset, this dissertation is also a product of a ‘historical sense’. It seeks to turn history against itself. I am merely voicing a dilemma, which confronts many of those questioning historicism and it goes back to Nietzsche. 74 Keith Jenkins, Why History? Ethics and Postmodernity (London and New York: Routledge, 1999), 1. 75 Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), 50. Elizabeth Ermath, a postmodern historian points out, “one need not give up history to challenge its hegemony.” See Elizabeth Ermath, "Sequel to History," Thein Postmodern History Reader, ed. Keith Jenkins (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), 57. Berkhofer says “we could accept the death o f normal history without declaring the death o f history itself.” See Robert Berkhofer, "The Challenge o f Poetics to (Normal) Historical Practice," in The Postmodern History Reader, ed. Keith Jenkins (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), 153.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 55

plotted according to varying linguistic forms that can be rhetorically analyzed. Rather

than constituting any ‘verifiable knowledge’, history depends on the historian’s literary

imagination that constructs the past using modes of linguistic expression or ‘modes of

emplotment’ such as Tragedy, or Comedy and tropological strategies such as Metaphor

or Irony.76

White, however, while emphasizing literary strategies within the text, decries

Derridean deconstructionist literary critics who focus on an endless play of intertextual

criticism without a ‘referent’. This approach, White points out renders all meaning

meaningless, and is self-defeating and nihilistic. 77 While one can agree with White’s

skepticism toward this endless deconstruction, his analysis also neglects to examine

70 social relations within which historians make their choices about linguistic strategies.

Historians in his view choose between varying modes of emplotment while writing

history, but he does not ask why certain representations become more powerful,

appealing, or ‘legitimate’ than others. The difference between historical narratives can

then only be linguistic; “differences among competing narratives are differences among 70 the “modes of emplotment” which predominate in them” (original emphasis).

While White overemphasizes linguistic strategies and the literary

deconstructionists focus solely on the ‘silences’ in the text, both end up neglecting the

76 See White, Tropics of Discourse and Hayden White,Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth Century Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973). 77 White, Tropics of Discourse, see especially Chapter 12. 78 As Howard points out, White attributes Burckhardt’s ‘ironic’ stance mainly to formal literary characteristics rather than his Christian beliefs or his upbringing. Burckhardt’s approach, Howard points out, stems more from “a secularized continuation of the idea of original sin” and “an abiding attachment to the orthodox world of his father.” Howard,Religion and the Rise o f Historicism: W.M.L. De Wette, Jacob Burckhardt and the Theological Origins of Nineteenth-Century Historical Consciousness, 158. 79 Hayden White, "Historical Emplotment and the Problem of Truth," inThe Postmodern History Reader, ed. Keith Jenkins (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), 395.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 56

texts’ social locations as Edward Said insightfully points out.80 Asserting the primacy of

power relations, within a social and political milieu has been a major contribution of

Michel Foucault, most associated with a Nietzchean legacy, in its attempts to counter

grand ‘meta histories’ by turning history against itself. 81 Countering structuralist 87

approaches, he uses a genealogical method to trace the emergence of modem notions of

sexuality, criminality, health, history and other such ‘disciplinary sites’. He argues that

these modem notions have to be seen primarily as discourses, driven by a ‘will to power’,

8^ while this ‘will’ itself has no originating point or fixed location. For Foucault this ‘will’

is intrinsic to the knowledge form itself, to modem scientific rationality.

What is different in his approach from ‘ordinary’ historians is that he highlights

disjunctures over continuities, while rejecting notions of a ‘past’ that can be discovered

based on ‘evidence’, and a unified Subject moving through history. His genealogical

approach allows him to trace changes taking place in history, while always conscious it is

writing from the present. These changes are not seen to be articulated by a specific set of

people but rather appear as free-floating discourses imbued with power.

Moreover, according to Foucault, all that one can write is a genealogy of silences

since one can only talk about how modernity defined itself by delimiting the Other. In

the case of science for instance, once it begins to get defined in a certain way, it produces

‘irrationality’. In other words, it needs this particular notion or definition of ‘science’ to

80 Edward Said, The World, the Text and the Critic (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983). 81 Foucault challenged this notion of ‘unities’ developing over history. Yet he continued to operate within a historicist consciousness, even if he were subverting dominant notions o f ‘history’. See Hamilton, Historicism, 144. Hayden White calls Foucault an “anti-historical historian.” See Hayden White, "Foucault Decoded: Notes from Underground," History and Theory 12, no. 12 (1973): 26. 82 Albeit he has also been called a structuralist in a different way but is generally known as a post structuralist. See Robert Young, White Mythologies: Writing History and the West (London and New York: Routledge, 1990). 83 White, "Foucault Decoded: Notes from Underground," 48.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 57

perpetuate its own identity. As Foucault writes with respect to his history of sexuality,

his primary objective is to

account for the fact that it is spoken about, to discover who does the speaking, the positions and viewpoints from which they speak, the institutions which prompt people to speak about it and which store, distribute the things that are said. What is at issue, briefly, is the over-all “discursive fact,” the way in which sex is “put into discourse.”84

And it is genealogies of such ‘facts’ that Foucault sets out to explore. Foucault’s insights

have been applied by many contemporary historians seeking to displace history’s

scientific certitudes along with claims about ‘exploring the past for its own sake’.

The most explicitly Foucauldian are the new historicists who follow him in

rejecting a unified notion of history, opting for disjunctures and differences as well as

oc emphasizing circulations and flows, contra a sequential mode of narrating the past.

Like Foucault, power forms the central prism through which the new historicists view the

past, existing in diffused microsites of everyday life producing discourses that claim

‘truth’ in the name of science. Also inspired by deconstructionist techniques, they

eschew the latter’s methods, of reading texts intertextually without a historical referent or

context.

Led by Stephen Greenblatt 87 , new historicists attempt textual analysis of the past,

which is also contextually situated, thereby exploring the dialectic between text and

context. 88 These historians in other words while stressing the textual dimension of what

Michel Foucault, The History o f Sexuality, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), 11. 85 Hayden White, "New Historicism: A Comment," in The New Historicism, ed. H. Aram Veeser (New York and London: Routledge, 1989). 86 Catherine Gallagher and Stephen Greenblatt, Practicing New Historicism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000). 87 His most well known work is Stephen Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder o f the New World (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991). 88 Greenblatt, Practicing New Historicism.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 58

QQ makes ‘context’, do not collapse it entirely into the text. However they remain along

with Foucault, historians even if they challenge history.90 Foucault’s insights have also

been used incisively by Michel de Certeau to explore history-writing as a practice

inscribed within relations of power predicated on silencing History’s Other or

myth/imagination/faith. History writing, de Certeau points out, can only take place with

a death of the past, distanced from the present, existing in a separate time. The past as

Other, he goes on to say, can then only be accessed through ‘history’ which represents

the will to dominate the Other, as difference. The historian in turn adopts a third person

voice, while narrating her story, in order to claim ‘objectivity’, as though history

represents the ‘truth’ about the past. He argues, by erasing the ‘I’, it appears as though

the real is speaking to the reader rather than a contested fictional narrative, constructed by

the historian, communicating with her audience about the dead, who cannot speak.

It creates, as de Certeau argues, a closed uni-directional narrative in which the

dead are represented as dead “so that the living can exist elsewhere”91, or in the present.

Thus he argues,

Historiography takes for granted the fact that it has become impossible to believe in the presence of the dead that has organized (or organizes) the experience of entire civilizations.92

Others also focusing on power, although not part of new historicism, include Michel-Rolph Trouillot who looks at history as always for someone and by someone; it is power that determines whose voices are heard or silenced. However unlike many constructivist historians whom he considers relativists, Trouillot maintains the need for historical authority and evidence or the history/myth distinction. See Ralph-Michel Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995). 90 Arguing that all social reality is constructed is closely tied to historicism; it counters naturalist arguments that see the world as ‘fixed’ or ‘given’; it is also aboutprocess or development that is embedded within secular homogenous time. Mandelbaum argues this draws from a basic view about the ‘malleability o f man’, see Mandelbaum, History, Man and Reason, 170. 91 de Certeau, The Writing o f History, 101.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 59

While the challenge to historicism and history amongst post-structural historians, as seen

above, has been both vociferous and heartening, opening up critical spaces, these debates

remain largely internal to western social thought and are often both unaware of and/or

indifferent to non-western contexts. While there are some who are more sensitive to

these questions than others, broadly speaking the post-modern angst, which Nietzche so

powerfully embodies, with its suspicion towards ‘essences’ and religion as piety/faith has

not been an overarching condition in the non-western world. This is perhaps because

advanced capitalist societies in particular, as Max Weber argues, live in an iron-cage of

modernity tied to beliefs in the death of God and non-human agency. This is a specific

condition of western industrialized societies, related to what sociologist Emile Durkheim

once characterized as ‘anomie’, which is now being referred to as a ‘universal post

modern condition’.

However these debates often both pay little attention or are not entirely relevant to

non-western contexts where history is constantly being challenged overtly or covertly by

living traditions, religion as faith and non-secular imaginations. Linked to this is the

modernist secular suspicion toward transcendental notions of agency that problematize

historicism and history.94 Moreover, the increasing professionalization of the discipline

of history particularly in the west95 has led to the debates challenging ‘history’ to be

93 Max Weber,The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (London and New York: Routledge, 1992), 181 .While Nietzche longed for a recovery of the Greeks and their ahistorical world view, he was also skeptical of any religious reenchantment o f the world, particularly anything related to Christianity. This skepticism runs through post-modern theory and is partly responsible for its nihilism. Nietzche pushes the boundaries of what he calls a ‘historical sense’ but is very much in keeping with a modem historicist suspicion towards transcendental forces, while ironically affirming a belief in man. 94 For a trenchant critique from a non-westem perspective see Ziauddin Sardar,Postmodernism and the Other: The New Imperialism o f Western Culture (London: Pluto Press, 1998). 95 Gyan Pandey pointed out that as a South Asian historian he did not have the luxury o f isolating himself from larger political debates about the nature o f history in the public sphere. Gyan Pandey,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 60

confined largely to academic and theoretical discussions without grounding them in the

everyday politics of the present. ‘History’ as de Certeau points out creates a certain

“depoliticization of intellectuals.”96 Historians continue to be reluctant to accept that the

only time is that of the present and that their work represents a political intervention.

What may be needed then as Chakrabarty argues is

dialogues between intellectuals who locate themselves in the first world-where consumerism has been ‘naturalised’-and those who speak out their experience in the third world, where the state is, to return to Guha’s terms, dominant but not hegemonic.97

How does one account for the multiplicity of non-secular imaginations, notions of

living or co-eval pasts? In the South Asian context for example, ‘history’ is frequently

challenged when ‘faith’ and ‘myths’ keep interrupting the ‘secular’ functioning of the

‘rational’ public sphere. The difficulty in ‘doing’ history or the limits of historicism

within non-western contexts has been central to debates amongst historians dealing with

South Asia. ‘History’ and historicist ideas requiring the separation of faith and politics or

science, it may be important to recall, was introduced to this region through the violent

legacy of colonialism and its acceptance has always been somewhat tenuous, although it

has become increasingly popular in recent years, due to its deep collision with the nation

state. Like western Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries, the Indian nation

too was and remains dependent on ‘history’ to be written and ‘imagined’ into existence.

The discussions regarding ‘history’ in both post-colonial theory and South Asian studies

overlap with those taking place within the discipline of history.

"Roundtable: Revisiting the History of Partition: A Conversation with Gyanendra Pandey" (paper presented at the Annual Conference on South Asia, Madison, Wisconsin, October 15-17 2004). 96 de Certeau, The Writing o f History, 60. 97 Dipesh Chakrabarty, "History as Critique and Critique(S) of History,"Economic and Political Weekly 26, no. 37 (1991): 2166.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 61

Subaltern Studies and Rethinking History and Historicism

Amongst scholars looking at South Asia persistent questioning of historicism and

history has come from the subaltern studies school, comprising historians and

anthropologists. They have in recent years, become increasingly self-reflective about the

nature of their enterprise. In its early days, subaltern studies under the leadership of

Ranajit Guha was founded on a much more optimistic and unproblematic belief in

‘history’. The objective was to challenge nationalist and colonialist histories in India, by

writing histories in which subalterns, seen mostly in terms of insurgents/rebels/peasants,

would be their own agents of history, endowed with self-consciousness and reason.

Unlike nationalist histories, which were bourgeois and elitist, silencing the voice of the

subaltern, these purported to endow the subaltern with agency, and expose ‘small voices

of history’98 as collective subaltern consciousness. The ‘politics of the people’

constituted an autonomous domain that consciously resisted the dominance of nationalist •

and colonialist power structures (for the subalterns these were never hegemonic).

The subalterns were therefore not merely passive followers, engaged in sporadic

outbreaks or ignorant masses directed by a naive religiosity as part of their superstitious

world. Rather they were endowed with an autonomous will and consciousness, as agents

of history contra any explanations of transcendental will and consciousness, which

wrested this agency from them. The project of subaltern studies at the outset was thus to

search for this ‘prose of counterinsurgency’99, lodged in conscious action, endowed with

98 Ranajit Guha, "The Small Voice o f History," inIn Subaltern Studies Ix: Writings on South Asian History and Society, ed. Shahid Amin and Dipesh Chakrabarty (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986). 99 Ranajit Guha, "The Prose o f Counter-Insurgency," inSelected Subaltern Studies, ed. Ranajit Guha and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 62

reason. While the project challenged dominant Euro-centric Marxist renditions of

peasant rebellions (as ‘pre-political’ in Hobsbawn’s well-known formulation), it was also

steeped in concepts deeply tied to Enlightenment humanism, with the search for the

subaltern’s agency, self-conscious purpose and rational thought.

These assumptions were first vociferously challenged by Gayatri Chakravorty

Spivak who argued the search for a pure subaltern consciousness was futile; such a

‘thing’ did not exist for the very desire to uncover it and piece together constituted its

objectification. She pointed out that this would amount to a fixity that would be positivist

and totalizing; the only escape was to be self-aware by using deconstructive methods.

Since ‘subaltern consciousness’ appeared only through elite accounts and texts, she

argued an unmediated subaltern consciousness was too problematic; the “‘essentializing

moment, the object of their criticism, is irreducible.”100 The subaltern could be

understood only through silences and absences while resisting essentialist readings of any

kind. As Gyan Prakash drawing on this critique suggested, rather than constituting an

autonomous domain, subaltemity refers to that “impossible thought, figure, or action

without which the dominant discourse cannot exist and which is acknowledged in its

subterfuges and stereotypes.”101

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, "Subaltern Studies: Deconstructing Historiography," inSelected Subaltern Studies, ed. Ranajit Guha and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 13. 101 Gyan Prakash, "Subaltern Studies as Postcolonial Criticism,"The American Historical Review 99, no. 5 (1994): 1483.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 63

Subaltern studies from then on increasingly focused on deconstruction,102

searching for the silences of the past, since affirming any fixed readings would be

totalizing; all that could be done was to defend the ‘fragments of history.’ This was in

many ways aligned with parallel developments within post-structuralism and post

modernism that was weary of essentialisms, while highlighting silences, discontinuities

and ruptures. For the subaltern studies historian then, the essential task of the historian as

Gyan Pandey points out was to rethink evidence and what the historians

call a “fragment’’-a weaver’s diary, a collection of poems by an unknown poet.. .is of central importance in challenging the state’s construction of history, in thinking other histories and marking those contested spaces through which particular unities are sought to be constituted and others broken up.104

What Pandey does not ask in his statement above, is whether these ‘fragments’ of

‘history’ could embody non-secular imaginations that resist a historical reading. What

Pandey calls for are more sensitive ‘subaltern histories’, while using these ‘fragments’ as

part of the historian’s archive.

Dipesh Chakarabarty takes this a step further, in his Provincializing Europe, by

asking whether it is always possible to translate subaltern life-worlds into historicist

understandings. He argues that there may be an irreconcilable gap between the discourse

of ‘history’ and the language of the subaltern. According to Chakrabarty, in that case

Critiques o f the deconstructionist school in subaltern studies have come from ex-members of the collective such as Sumit Sarkar who feel the project has diverted from its main aims which was the search for social justice as part o f its Marxist-Gramscian orientation. See Chapter 3 in Sumit Sarkar,Writing Social History (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998). Critiques have also come from the Cambridge school o f South Asian historians. Rosalind O’Hanlon and David Washbrook for instance, decry the notion that there can be a non-essentialist reading o f any kind, as some categories, even admittedly constructed, have to be used. See Rosalind and David Washbrook O'Hanlon, "After Orientalism: Culture, Criticism, and Politics in the Third World," Comparative Studies in Society and History 34, no. 1 (1992). 103 Gyan Pandey, "In Defense of the Fragment: Writing About Hindu-Muslim Riots in India Today," in In a Subaltern Studies Reader, 1986-1995, ed. Ranajit Guha (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1997). 104 Ibid., 29.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 64

then history can never really fully capture the subaltern experience and is bound to

represent a failed attempt. Yet he points out that, since historicism is so closely tied to

modernity with its institutions and practices such as the nation-state, the public sphere,

human rights, capitalism and so on, it can not be abandoned since it is an integral part of

the quest for social justice. What he recommends in Provincializing Europe, then, is to

open up the multiple ways of being (drawing on Heidegger), while retaining the clamor

for social justice (drawing from Marx).

Apart from historians, anthropologists looking at South Asia have also dealt with

subaltern contestations toward historicist understandings with increasing self-reflexivity.

They have a distinct advantage over historians in that, as Nandy argues, their subjects are

usually not dead and, therefore, can speak back. In that sense it is more participatory,

although undoubtedly, within the parameters of a well defined power relation where the

anthropologist is doing the work of ‘knowing’ those she studies. The relation of the

observer as distanced from the object of analysis is maintained or what Fabian calls the

denial of ‘co-evality’, which constitutes ‘anthropology’ in the first place.105

Valentine Daniel’s reflections on the Tamil-Sinhala conflict in Sri Lanka suggest

a close relationship between modem historicist categories of understanding and present-

day ethnic violence. He argues that the increasingly strained relations amongst Tamils

and Sinhalas has been partly influenced by an increasing displacement under colonial

modernity from an ontic/mythic way of being-in the world, to an epistemic/ historical or

seeing-the-world.106 As he himself puts it,

105 Fabian, Time and the Other, 31. 106 According to Daniel, epistemic refers to modem historical consciousness, or a way o f ‘seeing the world’. There is an objective detachment involved in viewing the past. The ontic refers to ‘being in the

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 65

structural conditions for collective violence is to be found in the discordance that obtains between what I call the epistemic and ontic discursive practices and the subsequent plea for recognition of identities constituted of these practices. 107

Myth, part of the ontic he argues is more participatory and performative whereas history

is predominantly a theoretical, detached way of viewing the past and present. While both

co-exist in different degrees amongst these communities, the Sinhalas especially have

moved toward an epistemic or historical view of the past while this is less so amongst

Tamils.108

Also working along anthropological lines, some subaltern historian-

anthropologists weave their narratives between past and present, their living subjects and

historical pasts such as, among others, Shahid Amin’s work on subaltern memories, Shail

Mayaram on the Meos, Ajay Skaria on the Dangs and Nandini Sundar on the villagers of

Bastar. These point to increasing self-awareness about the multiple temporalities

prevalent in South Asia. Outside the subaltern studies school, historians such as Vinay

Lai have challenged history further by not only questioning the disconnect between the

practice of history-writing and subaltern life-worlds, but also the deep collusion between

historical thinking and modem forms of violence. He argues that the ‘need to forget’

sometimes may be more important than the need to remember, which might offer a clue

world’ where the past is not consciously theorized or viewed with detachment but part o f the everyday. In the ontic world, it is the mythic that prevails. The latter he argues is even more the case with Tamils who had few historical notions o f the past, whereas the Buddhist Sinhalas had some germs o f it. He writes, “I believe, colonialism hybridized what I shall now quality as traditional historic consciousness, which was part of ‘a way o f being’ in the world, with a modem European historical consciousness that presumed to provide its adepts a superior way, ‘a way of seeing the world.” Daniel,Chapters in an Anthropography of Violence: Sri Lankans, Sinhalas and Tamils, 43. 107 Ibid., 50. 108 In the case o f Tamils, especially Jaffna Tamils, he says “the conditions which generate violence by and among Tamils ought to be sought elsewhere, not in these Tamils’ views of their past; at least not yet.” Ibid., 53.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 66

to the largely ahistorical sensibility of Hindu beliefs.109 As both Lai and Nandy have

argued, these may be rooted in the pragmatics of burying the past in order to contain

violence and conflict.

But the difficulty facing all self-reflective historians is if subaltern experiences

cannot be captured by historicist understandings and the discourse of ‘history’, then to

write history is always going to be a self-defeating task. Through the act of writing

history then, indeed as Spivak in her much quoted article has argued, the subaltern cannot

speak110, but can only be subject to sociological and historical analysis.111 In other

words, there are limits -within history, as to how far a historian can go in challenging

history; the most history can do is to historicize itself. Perhaps as Veena Das suggests,

“the conceptual structures of our disciplines-social science, jurisprudence, medicine-lead

to a professional transformation of suffering which robs the victim of her voice and

distances us from the immediacy of her experience.” 119

Not surprisingly then critiques that challenge history and historicist thinking quite

aggressively, have often come from outside the discipline, such as from anthropologists

and literary/artistic forms, that are not considered ‘social science’. The latter is an

important site where, for instance, writers such as Amitav Ghosh, Gabriel Garcia

Marquez, Toni Morrison and Salman Rushdie, amongst many others are pushing

109 Vinay Lai, "History and the Possibilities of Emancipation: Some Lessons from India,"Journal o f Indian Council of Philosophical Research, no. June (1996): 121-24. 110 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, "Can the Subaltern Speak," inMarxism and the Interpretation of Culture, ed. C.Nelson and I. Grossberg (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988). 111 If the subaltern for instance believes he or she acted because God directed her to, the best a historian can do is to subject this to historical analysis by standing ‘outside’ the account. He or she is not going to believe the subaltern was directed by God but rather will sociologize it by arguing that that was the subaltern’s ‘belief. 112 Veena Das, Critical Events: An Anthropological Perspective on Contemporary India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995), 175.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 67

boundaries between history and fiction or the ‘fantastic’ and the ‘fact’. Within ‘social

sciences’, the work of social-psychologist Ashis Nandy has been most vociferous in

challenging history. He sees ‘non-historical’ modes such as epics, myths, legends as more

humane, just and participatory ways of writing about the past, which in turn decenter

history.

In ‘Time Travel to a Possible Self: Searching for the Alternative

Cosmopolitanism of Cochin”, he undertakes what he calls a “diary of a personal, cultural-

1 ji psychological journey rather than as professional ethnography” of Cochin. He goes on

to say that:

The search is not grounded in history. It rejects history as a guide to the ‘living past’ of Cochin. The only kind of history considered relevant here is the clinician’s idea of the case history, where the past is configured as an immediate, felt reality.114

What Nandy goes on to do in this study is to move between past descriptions of Cochin

and the present, weaving between official pasts and popular memories, some of which are

‘public’, while others, he argues, reflect ‘secret’ selves. He upholds ‘mythic’ Cochin by

exploring these ‘secret’ memories, rather than the more historicized accounts, identifying

traditional cosmopolitanism in the former, not latter.

He points to a living past, understood through how present-day Cochinis live and

remember it. Nandy privileges the present as the constitutive moment, which

encapsulates the past and future within it.

113 For several hundred years, Cochin was a major trading port for traders from many parts o f the world including China, Europe, the Middle East and South East Asia, thereby creating a diverse cultural, religious and linguistic mosaic. It is located in the state of Kerala in the south o f India, on the western Malabar coast, on the Arabian Sea. Jews fleeing persecution in the Middle East settled in Cochin as early as the 14th century and were warmly received by the local king. 114 Ashis Nandy, Time Warps: The Insistent Politics o f Silent and Evasive Pasts (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001), 162.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 68

According to him, in

some ahistorical cultures at least, all times exist only in present times and can be decoded only in terms of the contemporaneous. There is no past independent of us; there is no future that is not present here and now. And therefore the model of decoding is subject to the morality of everyday life, not to the various derivatives of the Baconian world-view.115

The past, present and future are not fixed entities; on the contrary, they are seen as fluid,

continually shaped and reshaped through collective memories. Moreover Nandy argues

“though the past lives only in the present, it is that part of the self on which the present

does not have a stranglehold”116 since “the pathway to the future may be through aspects

of our pasts that survive as our undersocialised or less-colonised selves.”117

The past according to this view is always seen as part of the present and the

present is seen as ‘eternal’. Certain ideas are selected from the past, which are

interpreted and reinterpreted from the viewpoint of the present, both to remake the

present, past and future. A ‘recovery’ of some aspect of the past then, also opens the

future, and rewrites both past and present. Synchrony is emphasized over diachrony, and

the past is not seen as irreversible or uni-directional; it has to be constantly ‘re-enacted’.

This is closely tied to some notions of reenactment found in modem historical arguments

such as R.G. Collingwood, without the heavy rationalism and historicism that

accompanies it. 118 As Nandy points out, “If the past does not bind social consciousness

Ashis Nandy, "History's Forgotten Doubles,"History and Theory 34 (1995): 64. 116 Nandy, Time Warps, 1. 117 Ibid., 2. 118 Similarly, Collingwood, without the notion of development of historical self-consciousness through history, and the related nature-culture divide, which is heavily historicist, argues that the past has to be re-enacted in the present because there is no past, separate from us. See R.G. Collingwood, The Idea o f History, Revised with an introduction by Jan Van Der Dussen ed. (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 69

and the future begins here, the present is the ‘historical’ moment, the permanent yet

shifting point of crisis and the time for choice.”119

The works of Ashis Nandy, Vinay Lai, Valentine Daniel, Dipesh Chakarabarty,

and T.N. Madan120, amongst others, in their different ways have opened up spaces to talk

about the possibility of alternative, non-modem understandings or what Chakrabarty calls

‘subaltern pasts’, drawing on different notions of temporality. The emphasis on ‘non

modem alternatives’ by these scholars has led incorrectly, I believe, to charges of

‘reactionary nativism’ against such scholarship. 1^1 The search for a language in which

‘subaltern pasts’ can be expressed and the inability for existing social theory to capture

‘transgressions’ such as those between ‘myth’ and ‘history’, propels many of these

scholars to question modem historicist categories themselves and point to their

limitations.122

The modem secularist world-view (which includes religious ‘fundamentalists’)

holds considerable hostility to the notion of ‘traditions’, transcendental agency or religion

as faith. It has also been fairly skeptical toward claims of affirming any indigenous non-

Nandy,Intimate Enemy, 62. 120 See T.N. Madan, Modern Myths, Locked Minds: Secularism and Fundamentalism in India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997). 121 Some critics argue that scholars such as Nandy and Madan make arguments that are dangerously close to the Hindu right. For instance Meera Nanda referring to Nandy argues, “Indian intellectuals have turned into full-fledged nativists. Their calls for ‘alternative science’ and ‘alternative modernity’ rooted in indigenous worldview and an Indian civilizational dynamic are not different in substance from similar calls for ‘ Vedic sciences’ and ‘authentic’ modernity issuing from Hindutva nationalists.” Meera Nanda, Breaking the Spell of Dharma and Other Essays (New Delhi: Three Essays, 2002), xv-xvi. Radhika Desai argues that Nandy and other ‘nativist’ intellectuals like him are voices of the Indian bourgeoisie, whose “claims to oppose Hindutva are clearly specious.” See Radhika Desai,Slouching Towards Ayodhya: Three Essays (New Delhi: Three Essays Press, 2002), 108. 122 Sudipta Kaviraj calls for a conceptual language to talk about the subaltern political, not captured in modem political and social categories. Sudipta Kaviraj, "The Politics of Subaltemity" (paper presented at the Annual Conference on South Asia, Madison, Wisconsin, October 15-17 2004).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 70

17^ historical conceptions viewing such a move as essentialist. This should not be read as

an attempt to ‘glorify’ or uncritically celebrate ‘traditions’ as they too can and should be

held under a critical lens. Ashis Nandy’s work has been instrumental in reopening the

debate about what constitutes ‘tradition’. He refuses to yield the ground of ‘tradition’ or

‘religion’ solely to those who claim to be its gatekeepers namely and ironically the

modernist religious forces, such as the Hindutvadis or Islamists. He is equally skeptical

of those modernists (known in India as secularists) who have eschewed the religious

terrain entirely and view traditions or religion as faith as ‘backward’ or dangerous

especially if expressed within the public sphere.

Nandy’s aim of recovering ‘traditions’ and religion as faith, is based on a refusal

to historicize Hinduism’s fluidity/amorphousness into a formal ‘religion’ that can be

museumized.124 He views Hinduism as alive, as a living body of practices and beliefs,

rooted in everyday realities of the present. Such a mode of interpretation towards

Hinduism is consistent with nineteenth century ‘reformers’ or public figures like Ranade,

In a slightly different yet similar vein Kaviraj poses the question about the ‘post’ in post-colonial theory. He points out that it has ended up being that “the sign of breaking away from Western theory is to show great proficiency in it” and “they do not constitute a different body o f theory.” Kaviraj, "On the Advantages o f Being a Barbarian," 161. Amitav Ghosh voices a similar concern, when he says “I feel that we sometimes prevent ourselves from keeping a genuinely open mind simply for fear of being labeled ‘nativist’, ‘indigenist’, ‘Orientalist’ and so on.” Amitav Ghosh and Dipesh Chakraborty, "A Correspondence on Provincializing Europe," Radical History Review 83 (2002): 166. 124 Dipesh Chakrabarty has referred to this approach which Nandy calls ‘critical traditionalism’ as ‘decisionist’, “a disposition that allows the critic to talk about the future and the past as though there were concrete, value-laden choices or decisions to be made with regard to both.” Dipesh Chakrabarty, Habitations of Modernity: Essays in the Wake of Subaltern Studies (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 39. This ‘decisionism’ he points out might be a critique of major modem theories but it remains historicist nevertheless, with its emphasis on voluntarism and choice. It refers to the “self inventing hero of modem life.” Ibid., 46. Nandy he argues while justifiably talking about the need for respect and critique o f traditions, “overstates the autonomy that we have with respect to the past.” Ibid., 47. Historicism as Dipesh argues continues to lurk in Nandy’s thought because that is in some ways inherent to the very nature of doing social science, to being a modem intellectual; the two were bom conjointly. While this may be the case to some extent, I would also argue that this ‘decisionism’ can be found within elements o f indigenous thought, which Nandy draws heavily from and attempts to ‘recover’.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 71

Phule and many others who believed traditions and religious beliefs could be

reinterpreted and challenged using modem ideas internally, while upholding elements

within one’s own knowledge systems.

Both Phule and Ranade used modem historicist ideas as critical lenses to view

traditions. These modem ideas reflected internal conversations, bringing to the fore

elements, which were present within Hindu traditions that may not have been previously

significant but were unleashed by the power of colonial ideas. But simultaneously,

‘limits’ which were present in Hindu traditions also acted to check these modem ideas

from becoming completely hegemonic. Thus, not so coincidentally many of these

critiques were rooted in piety, and were deeply skeptical toward a secular imagination.

Despite his move towards a secular critique, Phule never rejected the need for an

alternative religious or spiritual morality. Ranade’s skepticism towards the universal

claims of western science, and his refusal to separate piety from politics or morality and

science was part of such an affirmation. Savarkar on the other hand, eschewed traditional

categories completely, while rejecting any limits on modem historicist ideas.

With regard to critiques about essentialism often made against scholars such as

Nandy, Chakrabarty, Madan, and others, Daniel has cogently argued that essentialism

and constructedness always go together; emphasizing one completely at the expense of

the other leads to a “flattening down of culture to a single dimension and a loss of

perspective on the relative differences in resilience among the various cultural

constructions as well as their relative latency.” Many nineteenth-century Indian

intellectuals including Ranade and Phule did not shy away from proposing alternatives

125 Daniel, Chapters in an Anthropography o f Violence, 14.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 72

that could be construed as ‘essentialist’ such as a belief in an eternal dharma (moral

righteousness) or satya (truth). But while doing so, they were also simultaneously aware

that all knowledge was socially constructed. 17A Phule (much like Gandhi) may have

articulated what appeared to be an ‘essentialist’ reading of the concept of eternal truth or

satya but this was accompanied by a critical awareness which saw it as always

temporally and socially grounded. Perhaps more than anyone in his time, Phule as a

lower caste voice was aware that all knowledge was constructed, embedded in power

relations. That did not however deter him from arguing that the essence of religion was

satya (truth).

Hinduism and Historicism

As Sudipto Kaviraj argues, history was the “great collective discovery of the

nineteenth century” by the intelligentsia. Scholars such as Dipesh Chakrabarty, Partha

Chatterjee, Ranajit Guha, and Sudipta Kaviraj amongst others focusing on the Bengali

Hindu elite, have pointed to the ‘newness’ of history on the Indian landscape with the

advent of colonialism. The British saw this lack of ‘history’ especially amongst the

Hindus, as a sign of barbarity and ignorance amongst their subjects. It was common for

European scholars at the time, including Hegel, to view these non-historical attitudes

amongst Indians as a singular failing in Indian civilization. Many ‘native’ historians

however, from the colonial period onwards have responded to colonial allegations about

Hindus lack of ‘history’ by arguing that Hindus have been just as rational and historically

See Kaviraj’s insightful discussion o f Bankim on this point in his The Unhappy Consciousness. Kaviraj, The Unhappy Consciousness, 43.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 73

conscious as the Europeans. Kalhana’s Rajatarangini, written in 1148, is often held up

as a prime example of ancient ‘evidence’ of a historical spirit amongst Hindus. 178

In more recent times however, many historians have acknowledged that while

Indians may not have held a modem notion of historicism (which was new in Europe

too), they did hold the germs of a historical consciousness and forms of historicity in their

past. Romila Thapar refers to what she calls ‘embedded’ historical consciousness, which

she argues could be found in ancient India in the form of genealogies about royal

families, legends and chronicles.129 Moreover, some historians also argue that if not the

Hindus, the Muslims had a strong sense of ‘history’, due to their chronicles and tradition

of Persian historiography, which they brought with them to India.130 They argue that the

1 1 ‘break’ alleged between pre-colonial and colonial is often overplayed. While it is

entirely possible that elements of what today constitutes modem historicity may be found

in India’s past, most acknowledge that a modem European derived notion of historicism

was a product of relatively recent times.

Upon further scrutiny however, the claims that historicity, in the way we

understand it today, was prevalent in pre-colonial times is considerably weakened. The

Rajataringini, written in 1148, for instance contains strong elements of the supernatural in

C.H. Philips, "Introduction," in Historians of India, Pakistan and Ceylon, ed. C.H. Philips (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), 5. 129 Romila Thapar,Cultural Pasts: Essays in Early Indian History (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000), 165. 130 C.H. Philips, Historians of India, Pakistan and Ceylon. That was also the belief of colonial historians. See Peter Hardy, "Some Studies in Pre-Mughal Muslim Historiography," inHistorians o f India, Pakistan and Ceylon, ed. C.H. Philips (London: Oxford University Press, 1961). 131 Sumit Sarkar argues that while notions o f historicity existed earlier, what increased was its “unprecedented importance and reach.” Sarkar, Writing Social History, 12. This is also the argument of many of authors in this edited volume, Daud Ali, ed.,Invoking the Past: The Uses o f History in South Asia (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999). For a review o f these arguments see Arvind Sharma, Hinduism and Its Sense of History (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 74

its ‘historical’ accounts. As A.L. Basham asserts, man is not the maker of his destiny in

these narratives but ‘other’ transcendental factors such as notions of karma play a big

role.132 The Muslim chroniclers similarly do not display, as Peter Hardy argues, a

modem critical spirit, since they borrow heavily from scriptural authorities, without

challenging the sources. Harbans Mukhia commenting on Abu Fazl’s well-known

Akbar-Nama often held up as a pre-colonial work of history, is disgruntled by its use of

‘ semi-mystical ’ elements.134

Muslim chronicles, as Abdur Rashid argues, were written primarily as a collection

of examples to lead a virtuous life, for which following the teachings of past scholars was

important, not any search for ‘evidence’.135 Writing in a similar vein, Sudipta Sen argues

that historians in medieval Mughal India saw their writings as didactic, relating to

religious examples and truths, “integral to an overall sense of tradition in Islam which

include in the most extensive sense all the branches of knowledge ('ilm), and in

particular, religious knowledge.”136 In other words all these supposedly ‘historical’ works

flout some of the crucial norms of what constitutes a modem historicist spirit, outlined at

the outset.

My aim here is not to reclaim these ancient works as ‘legitimate’ histories or

search for signs of evidence in India’s past of history-writing but follow in the direction

A.L. Basham, "The Kashmir Chronicle," in Historians o f Indian, Pakistan and Ceylon, ed. C.H. Philips (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), 64. 133 Hardy, "Some Studies in Pre-Mughal Muslim Historiography," 125-26. 134 Harbans Mukhia, Perspectives on Medieval History (Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, Pvt. Ltd., 1993). 135 Abdur Rashid, "The Treatment of History by Muslim Historians in Mughal Official and Biographical Works," in Historians from India, Pakistan and Ceylon, ed. C.H. Philips (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), 150-51. 136 See Sudipta Sen, "Imperial Orders of the Past: The Semantics of History and Time in the Medieval Indo-Persianate Culture of North India," in Invoking the Past: The Uses o f History in South Asia, ed. Daud Ali (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999), 234.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 75

of scholars such as Madhav Deshpande, Vinay Lai, T.N. Madan and Ashis Nandy who

have pointed to the fundamentally non-historical nature of traditional Hinduism. In doing

so, they have read the Tack’ as alternative ways of ordering the world, rather than any

major epistemological failure. Some scholars have offered theoretical explorations of

this ‘alternative ordering’ or rather the different manner in which classical Hinduism for

instance has looked at the question of ‘history’ and notions of historicity.

All of them would generally agree with Sheldon Pollock’s claim that “there is a

1 17 stunning absence of apparent historicality in orthodox Sanskrit discourse itself...” and

“we can read thousands of pages of Sanskrit on any imaginable subject and not encounter

• 118 a single passing reference to a historical person, place, or event.” Rather he points out 110 there are only “phonemic resemblances to the names of historical persons.” Scholars

who have undertaken an in depth study of Sanskrit texts such as Pollock, Deshpande, and

J.N. Mohanty have all argued that it is not so much that Hindus were incapable of

thinking historically, as the fact that it has been deliberately downplayed.140 According

to Pollock, “History one might thus conclude, is not simply absent from or unknown to

Sanskritic culture; it is denied in favor of a model of truth that accorded history with no

epistemological value or social significance.”141

Pollock, Deshpande and Mohanty all point to what can be loosely referred to as

exegetical interpretive approaches in the Sanskrit texts that do not believe in any

137 Sheldon Pollock, "From Discourse of Ritual to Discourse of Power in Sanskrit Culture," Journal o f Ritual Studies 4, no. 2 (1990): 329. 138 Sheldon Pollock, "Mimamsa and the Problem of History in Traditional India,"Journal of the American Oriental Society 109, no. 4 (1989): 606. 139 Pollock, “From Discourse of Ritual to Discourse o f Power”, 330. 140 Jitendra Nath Mohanty,Reason and Tradition in Indian Thought: An Essay on the Nature o f Indian Philosophical Thinking (Clarendon Press: Oxford University Press, 1992), 190. 141 Pollock, “From Discourse of Ritual to Discourse o f Power”, 333.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 76

‘original’ or ‘fixed’ text or notions of ‘scientific’ ‘truths’ in the modem western sense.

Broadly speaking they argue the sruti texts or the Vedas, which were to be recited and

heard, were considered divinely ordained, eternal, authorless and the ‘final’ authority.

And yet built into this belief was also the assumption that these had to be interpreted

always in the light of the present, within the historical milieu of the interpreter. There

was thus no ‘fixed’ reading of these texts; they could always be countered with other

interpretations.

However all interpretations, even if radically different from each other, claimed

they were ‘true’ readings of the Vedas and not ‘innovations’; in other words as Pollock

points out, “contradiction between the model of cultural knowledge and actual cultural

change is thereby at once transmuted and denied; creation is really re-creation.”142 But

where Pollock parts ways with other scholars such as Deshpande and Mohanty is that he

reads this deliberate neglect of historicity as a kind of negative attribute of classical

Hinduism, which masks power relations; “by denying the historical transformations of

the past, deny them for the future and thus serve to naturalize the present and its

asymmetrical relations of power.”143

Sheldon Pollock, "The Theory of Practice and the Practice of Theory in Indian Intellectual History," Journal of the American Oriental Society 105, no. 3 (1985): 516. Both Pollock and Deshpande point out that such a view could not allow for a modem theory of progress. Pollock states “Logically excluded from epistemological meaningfulness are likewise experience, experiment, invention, discovery, innovation... there can be for the thinker no originality of thought, no brand-new insights... only the attempt better and more clearly to grasp and explain the antecedent, always already formulated truth. All Indian learning, accordingly, perceives itself and indeed presents itself largely as commentary on the primordial sastras.” Ibid., 515. But then he goes on to say this does not preclude actual innovation from taking place but it is justified in the language of re-creation, not change. Deshpande points out the Hindu notion o f time based on yugas, actually sees the present moving towards greater degeneracy and turmoil rather than any advancement. See Madhav Deshpande, "History, Change and Permanence: A Classical Indian Perspective," in Contributions to South Asian Studies, ed. Gopal Krishna (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1979), 4- 5. 143 Pollock, "Mimamsa and the Problem of History in Traditional India", 610.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 77

The shastras or what he calls ‘theory’ end up in his view becoming over codified

and rigidified, especially due to their ‘divine’ status, thereby allowing Brahmans to

maintain their power and superiority. According to him, “The dominant ideology is that

which ascribes clear priority and absolute competence to shastric codification.”144 Thus

he points out, “through such denial of contradiction and reification of tradition, the

sectional interests of pre-modem India are universalized and valorized. The theoretical

discourse sastras becomes in essence a practical discourse of power.”145 Interestingly,

Phule adopted a similar position over a hundred and fifty years ago when he attempted to

understand upper caste Brahman dominance. It is a characteristically modem reaction

since it sees the act of historicizing as emancipatory because it can tell the ‘truth’ as it

really is, by ‘uncloaking’ the ‘mask’ behind ‘mythical narratives’.

Therefore, what lies underneath can only be naked secular power relations. While

there may be some truth to this, and perhaps it was indeed the case that such a deliberate

neglect of historicity may have helped upper castes, (especially Brahmans) retain

ideological control, it also appears to provide too simplistic an explanation. According to

this view, the thousands of myths that populate these texts, which are deliberately non-

historical are reduced to one single factor; namely being a reflection of the ideological

control of the upper castes over the lower castes. Such an analysis is inadequate in

understanding why historicity was downplayed over such a long period of time.

Both Mohanty and Deshpande offer more nuanced positions on this debate,

viewing the relationship between classical texts and their interpretations in a more fluid,

Pollock, The Theory of Practice”, 510. Ibid., 516.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 78

dialogical and elastic manner than that of Pollock’s reading, which views them as reified.

Mohanty suggests that sabda or the ‘recited’ tradition of the sruti (Vedic) texts146 has

defined the contours of classical Indian thought, acting as

domains such as moral rules where it is through interpreting linguistic discourse (and not through any further empirical verification) that one determines what one ought or ought not to do.. .Note that if an accepted set of moral rules is given up, it is given up by imbibing another set of moral rules on the basis of another set of verbal or written instructions. In this case, sabda corrects sabda-as a perceptual error is corrected by another perception.147

Mohanty further points out that:

It is through these accepted texts that a tradition is built up, but the tradition is not a monolithic interpretation of the basic texts but leaves room for interpretive differences as well as for new possibilities for interpretation. Thus although the different schools of Indian philosophy moved within the space opened up by the sruti texts, these schools realized quite different interpretive possibilities.148

In other words while the-sruti texts may have provided the basic framework, this did not

necessarily entail rigidity in interpretation.149 As Mohanty goes on to say “Meanings of

texts are correlates of acts of interpretation by interpreters. The idea of the meaning is

misguided as it curtails the possibilities of new interpretations that lie ahead.”150

Moreover he argues the sruti texts having a ‘divine’ anonymous author actually allowed a

greater elasticity “since the author’s intention is irrelevant.. .the text stands on its own,

inviting us to interpret it, converse with it, and make it efficacious in shaping our

This also raises the question o f the dominance of writing. In ancient Hindu culture, while writing was significant, so was memory or oral forms o f transmitting texts which may have allowed for more fluidity in interpretation. 147 Mohanty,Reason and Tradition, 272. 148 Ibid., 273. 149 Mohanty points out thatsmriti texts (such as Manusmriti for instance) on the other hand acted more as injunctions, lacking a divine origin, thereby making them less elastic. 150 Mohanty, Reason and Tradition, 273.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 79

thoughts.”151 According to him, such “plasticity of sruti keeps open the hermeneutic

possibilities.”152

Arguing along similar lines Deshpande points out that while the Vedic texts were

seen as the highest authority, and all interpretations had to be ‘seen’ to be in consonance

with them, it was also the case that these interpretations could be ‘adjusted’ to show they

were the ‘true meaning’ (thereby transforming the ‘original’ texts themselves), often

drawing on ‘lost texts’. He writes,

The most important part of this hierarchy of authority is the assumption of lost Vedic texts and law-texts to support the practice of later times which are not contrary to the older authority.. .This presents to us a very different conception of history. A modem researcher looks at the Vedic text and says that certain things existed in Vedic times since they are mentioned in the Vedic texts. However, as far as the things which exist now and are not mentioned in the Vedic texts are concerned, a modem historian cannot say that those things also existed in Vedic times. However, the classical Indian tradition used a device like ‘the benefit of doubt’ to project the present into the

Hence Deshpande continues,

Justification for the present was sought in the past, but in this process, often an imaginary past was built to justify a concrete present.154

This was tied to specific notions of temporality, which as Deshpande and others have

pointed out, were not conducive to modem historical time, the latter grounded in

homogenous empty secular time and ideas of progress.155 As Mohanty points out:

What is needed is the conception of historical time as distinguished from cosmic time .. .The temporality of consciousness is not just consciousness’s being in time in the

151 Ibid., 273. 152 Ibid., 275-76. 153 Deshpande, “History, Change and Permanence”, 10. 154 Ibid., 10-11. 155 For a discussion on Hindu notions o f time, especially the four yugas and the cycles in which they run, see Wazir Hasan Abdi, "Ideas of Time and Space," inHistory o f Indian Science, Technology and Culture Ad 1000-1800, ed. A. Rahman (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999). Abdi however suggests these are cyclical which has been subject to great debate.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 80

same way as any natural event is in it. It is rather the fact that consciousness is time itself, that every event of consciousness carries with it the original, further unanalysable and irreducible temporal significations of past, present, and future in one. But such a theory of consciousness would also entail a rejection of that conception of self or atman which is almost a pervasive feature of Hindu thought. For temporality is, in that case, required to characterize not empirical consciousness alone but also transcendental consciousness.156

Hence according to Mohanty, “An essential temporality of atman is a necessary

1 S7 presupposition of a serious philosophical concern for history.” He points out history in

the modem understanding of the concept is a ‘history of man’ and a ‘history of human

consciousness.’

This he points out is lacking in Hindu traditional philosophical categories because

he argues in Hindu thought “consciousness is above change” since it is intrinsically tied

to physical and cosmic time whereas modem history presupposes “a recognition of the

historicity of consciousness.”158 On the other hand, “The role that tradition as defined by

the sruti played for thinking was not one that could open up a sensitivity to the historicity

of thinking.”159 Modem European philosophy he points out

especially since Descarte’s founding of philosophy on the ego cogito, has been—as insisted upon by Heidegger—a metaphysics of subjectivity...Western attempts to understand the subject have been, more often than not, modeled after the concept of the person.160

In this view he points out that “The constituting ego is a transcendental, rational

person”161 in which consciousness is lodged primarily in the ‘human mind’ whereby it

“in its cognitive enterprise, becomes the constitutive source of the world that it purports

Mohanty,Reason and Tradition, 191. Ibid., 192. Ibid., 190-191. Ibid., 276. Ibid., 199. Ibid., 200.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 81

to know.” 1 /JO With respect to Hindu notions of subjectivity on the other hand he argues

that “The illuminating consciousness is not a representing consciousness.163 According

to Mohanty,

whereas Indian thought accorded primacy to the ‘pure subject’ for which the world is object, Western thoughts accords primacy to the person who lives in his world and the world of his community. Western attempts to comprehend subjectivity have resulted in a sort of transcendental person in a community of transcendental persons. Indian attempts to comprehend person have resulted in a ‘weak’ concept of person, according to which a person is a compound of two heterogeneous principles, cit and acit, consciousness and body.164

It is these differing philosophical precepts lodged in different notions of time,

subjectivity and agency that Mohanty suggests leads to divergent ideas about historicity;

not that Hindus lacked these notions but rather viewed them differently, thereby giving

them less importance. He implies therefore that historicity is not inherent or internal to

Hindu philosophy, a point of great significance when discussing Savarkar’s aggressive

historicist ‘Hindu’ beliefs in a later chapter. However Mohanty goes on, such a ‘lack’ of

historicist ideas does not reflect an absence of critical thinking within Hindu

philosophical systems as is sometimes alleged.165 Moreover he argues he is not making

a case for cultural relativism or the inherent and irreconcilable difference between Hindu

and western philosophy. Rather than eschewing one for the other, Mohanty argues both

can be reconciled. Rejecting an east-west dichotomy, Mohanty prefers to see these

boundaries in a more fluid manner where elements within each do share commonalities,

162 Ibid., 292. 163 Ibid., 202. 164 Ibid., 205. 165 The notion that somehow these are ‘traditional’ in a pejorative sense, implying a static, uncritical quality he points out is misleading because he asks, “Where indeed has philosophical thought been able to transcend the bounds of tradition? Is not European philosophy, despite all claims to the contrary, despite all claims to new breakthroughs, innovations, ‘deconstructions’, and ‘constructions’, still within the horizon which opened up with the Greeks and was subsequently determined by Christianity and the rise o f modem science-all three o f them historically based traditions?” Ibid., 15.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 82

and differences. The Greeks, he argues, purported to be ‘western’ philosophers, were just

as non-historical in their thought as Hindus.166

He argues that it is possible to operate within the parameters of ‘tradition’ and

allow a great deal of elasticity and flexibility. In this manner the tradition itself is

constantly transformed through interpretation in the present and yet appears ‘continuous’

or as he puts it “eliminate the jarring component and re-establish coherence.”167 He

views his own role in this light:

In order to be a critic of my tradition, I need, in some measure, to transcend it—while still, as a person, belonging to it.. .To be a critic of my tradition, I need to find an ‘Archimedean point’ outside it.

And this tradition he points out,

is constituted not by sruti alone, but by all those texts with which I think: Plato, Kant, and Hegel, to name a few.. .My tradition, as an Indian philosopher, needs, then, to be represented as a series of concentric circles opening out to many other traditions, to the large conversation of mankind at the outermost fringes.169

Moreover he points out that “The only absolute behind all this is the tradition with its

texts, endowed with a plasticity of meaning which allows such diverse interpretations.”170

While Mohanty outlines different notions of ‘subjectivity’ and the implications

for a historicist world-view or lack thereof within Hindu thought, he stops short of taking

a position on whether such a lack of historicity is desirable and should be retained,

defended or discarded. Deshpande on the other hand goes one step ahead in defending

what he calls such ‘wilful ignorance’ toward history, which, he argues contributed to the

proliferation and acceptance of difference as difference in India of diverse groups. He

166 Ibid., 188. 167 Ibid., 275. 168 Ibid., 275. 169 Ibid., 276. 170 Ibid., 277.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 83

points out this in turn allowed the blurring of lines between ‘foreigners’ and ‘indigenous

peoples’ seen synchronically as part of single process of creation rather than outcomes of

separate historical developments.171 The modem historical discipline he argues has been

much more divisive in contemporary Indian society. 177

Deshpande’s position is consonant with that of other skeptics of history such as

Vinay Lai and Ashis Nandy. Lai has consistently argued that traditional Hinduism has

been largely averse to history-writing and historicity in general. But he argues this

silence should be read productively, as pointing to the limits of history itself, rather than a

lack within Hinduism. He suggestively asks,

Cannot the not-writing of history be a way of writing history, or perhaps more simply be a mode of living with the present, an insistent and urgent reminder that history is i n'y another mythography?

Arguing that Hindu India decisively rejected the importance of history and

historicity rather than being ignorant of it, he finds this sensibility echoed in Gandhi

whom he says “rejected the notion, widespread even today, that there are ‘lessons to be

learned from history. Perhaps the only lesson was that history itself had to be

unlearned.”174

Nandy has often expressed the need for an interpretive and elastic reading of

‘traditions’ or what he calls ‘critical traditionalism’. Nandy however, unlike the classical

Julius Lipner’s analogy of a banyan tree to traditional Hinduism might be applicable to Deshpande’s argument. The banyan tree Lipner suggests has many branches and trunks without knowing which one is ‘the’ source or which is necessarily the ‘core’. He argues that this lack of a ‘core’ is often ignored in attempts to reify it as a thing, as ‘religion’, thereby not paying adequate attention to its fluidity and porous boundaries. Rather Lipner suggests Hinduism is more like a “family o f religious traditions whose kinship is based on the distinctive characteristic o f ‘Hinduness’.” Julius Lipner, "Ancient Banyan: An Inquiry into the Meaning of'Hinduness',"Religious Studies 32 (1996): 112. 172 Deshpande, “History, Change and Permanence,” 22. 173 Lai, "History and the Possibilities of Emancipation: Some Lessons from India," 106. 174 Ibid., 125.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 84

scholars, makes this point more on intuitive grounds, pointing to this elasticity as a

feature of traditional Hinduism, especially its critical folk traditions. The classical or

Brahmanical and folk did not historically exist in watertight compartments. Rather, the

folk constantly challenged the Brahmanical as is evident in the divergent folk

interpretations that are offered to the dominant Brahmanical versions of myriad legends

and epics. Again, the interpretive strategies are similar; there are common legends and

epics, with shared parameters while the interpretations are often radically different. Thus

in some folk versions, Ravan is greatly admired in the Ramayana epic and Gatotkatcha is

the hero of the Mahabharata in many Javanese tellings.

The puranic stories and myths can also be seen as instances where the folk heavily

weighed in on Brahmanical traditions. The latter in turn incorporated these as

‘continuous’ or consonant with the ‘eternal’ classical tradition although these folk

renditions often introduced real fundamental changes.175 The Brahmanical attempt to

incorporate Buddha’s critique, by making him an incarnation of Vishnu can be seen as

part of the same effort; both as a manner of ‘subduing’ dissent as well as an attempt to

genuinely incorporate it since Brahmanical Hinduism was not entirely the same after it.

In other words, Brahmanical orthodoxy was never accepted uncritically. There

has been a long history of dissent within folk Hinduism which took the form of offering

different renditions to the Brahmanical stories or rejecting them altogether in favor of

legends that gave non-Brahmanic deities and folk heroes centrality. This can be read as a

non-modem non-historical form of dissent, whereby the dissenter offers a competing

175 9th century Kashmiri logician Jayantabhatta says “How can we discover any new fact or truth? One should consider novelty only in rephrasing the older truths of the ancients in modem terminology”, quoted in Pollock, “The Theory of Practice,” 515.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 85

narrative, challenging the notion of any one ‘true’ version. Each counter-narrative

becomes ‘the version’ in that sense and as A.K. Ramanujan points out, every

author, if one may hazard a metaphor, dips into it and brings out a unique crystallization, a new text with a unique texture and a fresh context.. .In this sense, no text is original, yet no telling is a mere retelling-and the story has no closure, although it may be enclosed in a text. 76

According to this view then, there is no historically ‘original’ story that can be discovered

as the single historical truth; rather the story itself is reshaped according to every

(re)interpretation given to it. Phule’s interventions, I argue, must also be seen in this light,

in his retelling of key Brahmanic Hindu myths from a lower caste perspective.

While there were significant differences between the Brahmanic and folk, what

they shared was the lack of importance given to ‘evidence’ in the scientific sense. What

was accorded centrality was the ‘interpretation of interpretations’, while privileging

moral over scientific truths. This is not to take away from the often dogmatic and rigid

attitude shown by the Brahmanic in defending its interpretations or condoning the horrific

violence it has often perpetuated, but to assert that questions of ‘scientific facticity’ were

not a significant one. Rather, Brahmanic myths had to be countered by alternative ones

that challenged its authority. This point remains as significant today as it has in the past

regarding contemporary debates over ‘history’, particularly since the Brahmanic has

often hitched itself to the ‘scientific’ and the nation-state.

While Ranade drew heavily on the elasticity of the Brahmanic and Phule on the

folk, Savarkar embodied a hardened, rigidified Brahmanism, bereft of its flexibility,

while tied to a modem scientific statist vision. He rejected the elasticity of Hindu

176 A.K. Ramanujan, ""Three Hundred Ramayanas : Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation"," in Many Ramayanas: The Diversity o f a Narrative Tradition in South Asia., ed. Paula Richman (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1991), 46.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 86

traditions altogether, accompanied by a disdain toward them. While the chapters focusing

on him go into much greater detail about these aspects, for now it is sufficient to say that

traditional Hinduism dealt with the question of history and temporality quite differently

than that of the modem one. And this is not a plea for cultural relativism since other

systems of thought, apart from that of the Enlightenment, continue to do so in many parts

of the world. Toni Morrison for instance talks about her use of myth and magic as

“fidelity to the milieu out of which I write and in which my ancestors actually lived,”177

which rather than expressing ‘imaginative worlds’ she points out is in fact a closer

approximation of reality and of how ordinary people live their lives.

Toni Morrison, "The Site of Memory," in Out There: Marginalization and Contemporary Culture, ed. Russell Ferguson, Martha Gever, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Cornel West (New York and Cambridge: The New Museum of Contemporary Art and MIT Press, 1990), 302.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER III

THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL: EXPLORING JOTIBA PHULE’S ‘HISTORICISM’

THROUGH HIS LIFE AND TIMES

Introduction

Jotiba Phule can be considered one of the earliest voices from the ‘margins’ that

challenged the emerging compact between the colonizers and the ‘native’ western

educated elite or Brahmans in particular, in the constitution of a colonial Indian public

sphere. Modem ideas such as abstract equality did open new spaces for the marginalized

within societies such as India’s. In Hindu society, particularly in the Marathi speaking

region, socio-economic and ideological exploitation tied to hierarchies of caste, including

practices such as untouchability1, were prevalent, where Brahmans enjoyed an unrivalled

position of symbolic and political superiority2. While Phule welcomed colonial rule as

Within Hinduism, broadly speaking there are four castes: the Brahmans (priests), Kshatriyas (warriors), Vaishyas (traders and commercial castes) and the Shudras (the peasantry, artisan castes). The first three castes are considered ‘twice-born’ and have special privileges within the Hindu religion. The Dalits or Untouchables are seen to be outside the caste hierarchy altogether since they perform ‘polluting functions’ in society while the ‘learned’ Brahmans stand at the apex. In reality however, there are thousands o f castes within castes and sub-castes, each which follow their own customs and rules, which include consumption of food, marriage, appearance etc. However along with the upper castes, even the lower castes maintain this hierarchy which places Dalits at the bottom. In contemporary India, caste identities overlap with that of class, often making the plight of the Dalits even worse. Caste status is acquired solely by birth and is related to occupation. It is legitimized in the Hindu classical texts such as the Vedas and is also reinforced in the notion of karma and rebirth. In the Rg Veda for instance, the original man or Purusa was sacrificed by the Gods to create the world. The mouth became the Brahmans, the arms, which protect the man became the Kshatriyas while the thighs, the Vaishyas and the feet that serve, became the Shudras. See Julius Lipner, Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (London and New York: Routledge, 1994). See especially Chapter 4 for a useful overview. 2 Ashis Nandy suggests what makes the role of upper castes in the Marathi speaking region somewhat unique is that Brahmans here often fulfilled their own traditional caste roles as well as took on 87

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 88

providential, since it diminished the power of Brahmans and asserted new forms of

equality, he was also concerned that a newly emerging social order continued to

marginalize those at the peripheries and could become a source of new forms of

oppression toward the latter, thanks to the continuing high position of the upper castes.

The focus of his ire was Brahmans, often leading him to take a more apologetic view

toward the British, although he was not entirely unaware of the latter’s deficiencies.

What makes Phule’s intervention so distinctive and significant is that while most

Hindu responses toward colonial rule were coming from the elite, mostly western

educated Brahmans, from places such as Bengal and the Bombay Presidency, there were

few such as he who were challenging Hinduism and a Hindu social order from a lower

caste perspective, initiated by a contact with modem ideas. The bulk of post-colonial

literature focusing on how nineteenth century Indians negotiated colonial ideas has

focused on the elites. Phule on the other hand, spoke on behalf of the peasants and the

marginalized, questioning the ‘reformist’ attempts made by the intelligentsia and the

incipient discourse of nationalism, which he saw as predominantly Hindu and upper

caste.

However it would be erroneous to suggest that Phule was entirely articulating a

discourse of ‘subaltemity’, or voicing an indigenous world-view because his response

was very modem. Phule’s critique of Brahmanical hegemony was predominantly

the role of Kshatriyas or the warrior caste, since they were also the rulers and warriors. Ashis Nandy,At the Edge of Psychology: Essays in Politics and Culture (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1980), 77. See Ravinder Kumar for a useful overview of the material and political clout that Brahmans enjoyed in pre colonial Maharashtra. See especially Chapter 1 in Ravinder Kumar,Western India in the Nineteenth Century: A Study in the Social History of Maharashtra (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968). 3 Colonialism generated considerable anxiety and feelings of subaltemity amongst the Hindu upper castes. It did something similar to the lower castes, with respect to the upper castes. Both undertook a radical questioning o f Hindu beliefs from very different perspectives. However both often shared a discourse o f modem history and scientific rationality.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 89

undertaken through a modem historicist lens. It was by rationalizing and historicizing

Hindu legends, customs and practices that he challenged their stronghold, not by the ‘pre-

colonial’ methods of dissent such as bhakti or devotional movements that frequently

appealed to notions of justice and mercy, and which were inextricably tied to notions of

the sacred. While earlier protest movements such as Jainism and Buddhism had also

used rationalism4 to question Hindu Brahmanical practices and beliefs, what made

Phule’s response distinctive and modem was his tendency to historicize caste oppression.

Phule chose not to uphold the ‘eternal’ ideals within Hinduism that Brahmans and

others had somehow ‘failed’ to meet as many Hindu protest movements earlier had done.

Rather, he questioned the very framework of the Hindu religion, through a historical lens.

As will be discussed later in the chapter through an analysis of his texts, he rejected

notions that Hinduism held any eternal values, while arguing that these were historical

truths. He suggested further that these ‘eternal truths’ were in fact embedded in social

and material power relations that could be ‘unmasked’ and thereby transformed. It was

power which was accorded centrality in his historical analysis. Such a sole emphasis on

power relations as undergirding all social interactions within society, while relegating

transcendental notions to the realm of ‘false consciousness’, was a distinctly modem

perspective. While it is not to say that earlier dissenters within Hinduism5 were not

aware of power relations in society, the manner in which they expressed them was often

D.R. Nagaraj argues, “Rationalist traditions in India also were very sharp and severe in their criticism o f superstition, but they were part of a larger spiritual undertaking. Each act of superstition was defined against the backdrop of the necessity of cultivating real metaphysical wisdom.” D.R. Nagaraj,The Flaming Fleet: A Study of the Dalit Movement in India (Bangalore: South Forum Press, 1993), 50. 5 Pan-Indian pre-colonial protest movements amongst others include that o f the Buddha, Guru Nanak, the bhakti or devotional saints such as Kabir and Tukaram.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 90

through a sacred discourse, where notions of the social, temporality and agency were

different.

Although Phule relied on a modem historicist lens in his critique of Hinduism, he

also drew from non-modem modes in doing so. Steeped in indigenous modes of story

telling, he often went beyond the boundaries between myth and history, past and present.

While historicizing Hindu myths, exposing their social origins and power relations, Phule

also simultaneously rewrote these myths, as imaginative tales imbued with a moral

purpose, from a non-Brahman standpoint, which had been done within folk Hinduism for

centuries. This is best captured in Phule’s retelling of Bali’s story, a king in Hindu

mythology, also considered a rakshas (demon), discussed in the next chapter.

Moreover Phule’s critique of Hinduism also continued to operate within the

established parameters of reinterpretation of Hindu traditions, viewing them non-

historically, as living, open fluid texts. For instance, while he dismissed the

‘mythological’ Puranas as Brahmanical fabrications, he drew from them in his retelling

of one of the characters, Bali the demon-king. In doing so, he did not view the Puranas

as dead historical texts, but as stories that held continual relevance, even for the present.

Rather than viewing these texts as worthy of ‘museumizing’, as many Indologists in his

time were doing, Phule recognized their significance in shaping contemporary Hindu

beliefs and attitudes even as he dismissed them. While for Phule Bali may have been a

historical figure, his importance lay in his mythical qualities, as a symbol for lower castes

to rally around and construct alternative traditions. Phule thus made Bali a symbol of

empowerment for imagining a collective lower caste or Shudra identity in the present and

therefore his historical ‘facticity’ was of lesser importance.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 91

Furthermore, Phule appealed to non-Brahmanic or folk deities as alternative

sources of belief as well as rewrote many key Hindu rituals from a peasant-labor

perspective.6 While on the one hand, he rejected the basic terms of the Hindu religion

itself as flawed, he also refashioned many key Hindu practices and traditions in

n innovative ways. This is particularly evident with respect to the organization he started

for creating awareness, educating and improving the status of the Shudras, the

Satyashodak Samaj. This organization took many key Hindu rituals and practices and

transformed them, by making the peasant, woman and laborer at the heart of the activity.

Rather than rejecting Hindu rituals outright, Phule and the Samajists reinvented them by

incorporating peasant cosmologies, folk traditions as well as key elements from

Protestant Christianity in particular to create an alternative religious/ethical code, which

they referred to as the Satyashodak Dharma (Religion That Searches for Satya or Truth).

Phule emphasized satya or truth as the essence of religion, which he argued

people, and especially Brahmans, had failed to adhere to. Rather than rejecting Hinduism

or religion outright, he fashioned an alternative religious code, which he argued drew

from all religions, while staying within the bounds of Hinduism itself. As B.L. Bhole

In many ways he anticipated Gandhi in his emphasis on delegitimizing pure intellectual knowledge at the apex of society as Brahmanism had done, while stressing peasant knowledges, dignity of labor and the centrality o f rural life in Indian society. His views on gender relations were radical not only for his time but would be considered so even now. 7 This was somewhat different from Dalit leader B.R. Ambedkar who rejected Hindu traditions completely and believed the ideal itself was faulty. As Nagaraj points out, “Babasaheb’s total denial of the existing tradition” was based on the notion that “The caste ethos is at the core o f all institutions that the Indian society has evolved over centuries of its history and whatever protest erupted in the past was made to bite the dust.” Nagaraj,The Flaming Fleet, 55. Ambedkar always remained very skeptical of religion, and espoused Buddhism more as a political ideology although as Dr. R. Nagaraj suggests, this attitude seems to have changed somewhat in the later years of his life. Ambedkar, Nagaraj goes on to say was no pauranik (traditional story-teller, someone who recounts puranic stories). Rather he was deeply immersed in modem notions o f critique and history. Ibid., 15.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 92

points out, Phule strongly opposed atheism, even as he advocated rationalism.8 He argued

that while the Brahman religion did not hold these truths in their texts, this did not

preclude the possibility that these were held in the local traditions. By emphasizing

popular deities, family gods and local practices he reasserted the significance and

challenge of ‘low’ or folk to ‘high’ or classical Hinduism in the latter’s quest to

monopolize notions of religiosity and definitions of ‘mainstream’ Hinduism. Phule’s

critique can therefore be located within this continuing interplay between the classic and

folk, and while it was distinctly modem, did not purge the non-modem or traditional, but

rather, was heavily dependent on it.

Phule’s heavy use of traditional idioms was greatly influenced by his social

location, personal life, milieu and politics. In this chapter I explore his personal life with

the help of biographies, as integral to his politics. For Phule public politics could not be

separated from that of the private. He espoused the notion that an individual’s public

ideological beliefs and practices had to be consonant with those in private. I argue that

the use of Phule’s life-story is integral to his politics. Without such an analysis, I believe

this understanding would remain incomplete. Both his historicist outlook and the

limitations of historicism in his thought drew from his life experiences and the social

milieu within which he lived. I argue that his antipathy toward historicism drew partly

from peasant cosmologies in which he was embedded from his childhood onwards.

B.L. Bhole, Mahatma Jotirao Phule (New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1996), 47.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 93

Phule’s Life and Times

.In order to explore Phule’s personal and political life, it would be useful to examine

briefly the historical context in which he found himself. Phule’s virulent anti-

Brahmanism on one hand and embracement of colonial rule on the other is not a

surprising development in the context of the Bombay Presidency in the 1840’s. This

region had been a traditional strong-hold of Brahman power, particularly the city of Pune

which was the headquarters of the Peshwas, who ruled the region from the 1700’s

onwards, until 1818 when they were overthrown by the East India Company.9 Unlike

other parts of India, where rulers were generally from the Kshatriya caste, the Peshwas

were Brahmans of the Chitpavan10 sub-caste who considered themselves at the apex of

the caste hierarchy.11 Here as mentioned earlier the identities of Kshatriyahood and

Brahmanical status were fused into a potent combination. Under the Peshwas, the

Chitpavans virtually held complete administrative power in pre-colonial Maharashtra. As

Ravinder Kumar points out:

The control of political and social power by the chitpavans through their connection with the Peshwas, and the intellectual hegemony which they exercised by virtue of their caste, created a degree of brahmanical dominance in Maharashtra, to which there I ^ existed no parallel in the rest of India.

In addition to their administrative roles, Brahmans also held many other powerful

positions in the social hierarchy such as those of sawkars or moneylenders and

See B.G. Gokhale for a useful history o f Pune and the Peshwas in B.G. Gokhale,Poona in the Eighteenth Century: An Urban History (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1988). 10 Hence the Chitpavan Brahmans found particular favor under these rulers since they belonged to the same sub-caste while other Brahmans such as the Deshasthas, who had been much more powerful under Shivaji and Saraswat Brahmans, due to their meat-eating, were marginalized. See Gail Omvedt,Cultural Revolt in a Colonial Society (Bombay: Scientific Socialist Education Trust, 1976), 67. 11 See Uma Chakravarti, Rewriting History: The Life and Times of Pandita Ramabai (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1998). Chapter 1 especially includes an insightful discussion o f the historical context of Peshwa rule and caste relations immediately prior to British rule. 12 Kumar, Western India in the Nineteenth Century, 39.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 94

landowners. There did not exist separate castes for these groups or business communities 11 as in other parts of the country. Officials such as the Brahman kulkarnis (accountants)

and deshmukhs (petty landed chiefs) at the village level also enjoyed a great deal of

authority, often acting autonomously14, supplementing the Brahmanical Peshwa rule.

The Peshwa rulers themselves were actively involved in maintaining caste

hierarchy and discipline15 as well as cultivating networks of Brahman patronage through

the system of dakshina.16 Many abhorrent social practices were encouraged and

condoned under the their rule, towards lower castes. Since this region had been a

stronghold of Brahman power, it is not coincidental that it also was the site of powerful

anti-Brahmanism from the pre-colonial bhakti expressions spanning five centuries, to

those during• colonialism, • • such as represented by Phule, Ambedkar and Buddhist-Dalit..18

movements in present-day Maharashtra.

With the onset of colonial rule and the end of the Peshwai (Peshwa rule), during

the early years, when Phule was bom, the British, as Kenneth Ballhatchet argues, were

Chakravarty, Rewriting History, 7,63. 14 G.B. Sardar, Mahatma Phule: VyaktitvaAni Vichar. (Mumbai: Abhinav Vachak Chalval, 1981), 4-5. 15 Hiroshi Fukazawa, The Medieval Deccan: Peasants, Social Systems and States, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1991), 107. 16 Thousands o f Brahmans would gather in Pune to receive aid or dakshina (gift) from the Peshwas in return for their knowledge o f the shastras (holy texts/scriptures), which helped the rulers in turn consolidate their support base. It, as Kumar argues, “represented an informal alliance between the chitpavans and the State”. Therefore, the Chitpavans “were unstinting in the support which they extended to the State.” Kumar, Western India in the Nineteenth Century: A Study in the Social History of Maharashtra, 39. 17 Sudha Desai discusses these customs pertaining to Mahars or a community o f ‘Untouchables’ or Dalits. She writes that Mahars “were even required to carry an earthen pot tied round their neck into which they had to spit, for their sputum too was defiling, and a thorny branch in their hand with which they had to sweep off their defiling footprints.” Sudha Desai,Social Life in Maharashtra under the Peshwas. (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1980), 37. 18 Dalit is the term ‘Untouchables’ adopted with the emergence of radical movements in Maharashtra, rejecting Gandhi’s term Harijans‘ ,’ or children o f Hari or God. Henceforth I will use the term Dalit to refer to Untouchables.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 95

very cautious in their relations with Brahmans, as they did not want to antagonize them.

They maintained many Peshwa practices such as the daskhina although in a much

reduced form and tried to absorb as many Brahmans into their administration as possible,

thereby placating them. Most importantly, they did not wish to interfere in religious

matters19; “Traditional structures of dominance did not therefore undergo major changes

in the first few decades of colonial authority in Maharashtra.” 00 Hence Phule’s constant

pleas to the colonial state to take a more proactive role in such matters and come to the 01 assistance of lower castes.

A i It was within this historical context that Jotiba was bom in 1827 , in the Mali

caste, or that of florists/gardeners.25 His ancestors, whose name was Gorhe, were from a

village near Satara (located in the desh or mainland Maharashtra) but had migrated to

Pune and acquired the name Phule (comes from the word Phool or flower, pronounced

Fhool), since they provided flowers to the Peshwas. In appreciation, the rulers had

Kenneth Ballhatchet, Social Policy and Social Change in Western India 1817-1830. (London: Oxford University Press, 1957). See especially Chapter 5 for a detailed discussion of this theme. 20 Chakravarty, Rewriting History, 56. 21 The terms he used were Shudras for lower castes and ati-Shudras for Untouchables 22 His name was Joti, while people out of affection and respect later attached ‘ba’ to it. He was also affectionately known as Tatyasaheb. He was also known as Jotirao. ‘Rao’ is a term attached to an elder person’s name out o f respect. 3 The exact date seems unclear since none of his biographers or those who have written on him mention it. 24 The Mali caste were concentrated in the Deccan and their traditional occupation was gardening, including growing, selling and distributing flowers, vegetables and fruits. In the caste hierarchy, Malis were part of the Kunbi (cultivator/peasant) caste, and also Shudra\ they enjoyed a fairly respectable status as middle castes. 25 Phule’s biographical details are very sketchy. He did not leave any autobiographical writings and apparently there are few sources that document his life. He mentions anecdotes about his life in his writings. Many of his letters apparently were lost after his death. I have relied mostly on Keer’s biography, Dhananjay Keer,Mahatma Jotirao Phooley: Father of Indian Social Revolution (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1974), Rosalind O'Hanlon,Caste, Conflict and Ideology: Mahatma Jotirao Phule and Low Caste Protest in Nineteenth-Century Western India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), Sardar, Mahatma Phule: Vyaktitva Ani Vichar. While the latter two are not biographies, they have a lot of useful biographical information. I have also relied on reminisces o f Phule, in Sitaram Raykar,Amhi Pahilele Phule, 1st ed. (Pune: Mahatma Jotirava Phule Pratishtana, 1981).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 96

granted the family inam, or lands around Pune. His mother died when he was one while

his father, Govindrao, did not remarry but brought up his two sons, Jotiba and Rajaram,

with the help of a cousin from his mother’s side. She worked at a missionary’s house and

believed God’s path lay in helping the poor and Mahars, leaving a deep impression on

Of young Phule’s mind.

His father was fairly well to do, earning a living by growing flowers in his

gardens and selling them in his shop, that he ran along with some assistants. Govindrao

put Jotiba in a Marathi school but withdrew him, apparently according to his biographers,

at the behest of his Brahman clerk who feared a literate son, a rarity in the Mali caste,

would usurp his own job in the shop. But after working in his father’s gardens and fields

for some time, Jotiba’s father reentered him in a Scottish mission school in 1841, thanks

apparently to the advice of his neighbors, a Muslim teacher and a missionary.27 As per

prevailing custom, he also had him married when he was thirteen to an eight-year old

girl, from the same caste, named Savitri.28

In school, Phule was first exposed to western education, mainly through

OQ missionaries. This was to have a lasting impact throughout his life, since he drew very

heavily from their principles and practices. Phule, was greatly impressed by their work,

Her name was Saguna bai and she looked after Jotiba as an infant. See G.B. Sardar,Mahatma Phule, 46._However there are contradictory accounts. One set of recollections state he was brought up by a stepmother called Chimnabai. See Gajananrao Ganpatrao Phule, "Athavani," inAmhi Pahilele Phule, ed. Sitaram Raykar (Pune: Mahatma Jotirao Phule Samta Prastishtan Prakashan, 1981), 59. 27 Sardar identifies them as Urdu teacher Gaffar Beg Munshi and Ligit saheb, G.B. Sardar,Mahatma Phule, 43. He does not mention anything about the Brahman clerk, although Keer does. 28 Savitribai as she was known, bai meaning older lady, was Phule’s anchor and an educator/reformer in her own right. She learnt Sanskrit and English and was heavily involved with all of Phule’s socio-political activities. She remained an active member of the Satyashodak Samaj after his death. 29 While upper castes such as Brahmans and Prabhus were the main recipients o f western education, promoted by the colonial state, missionaries were at the forefront of providing western education to non elites, in a much more aggressive manner by the 1840’s.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 97

particularly their willingness to go into homes of Dalits (or Untouchables) and provide

i n assistance, as no other ‘natives’ were willing to do it. In fact, Phule’s close ties to

Protestant missionaries in particular and his heavy reliance on their ideas prompted many

upper caste Hindus at the time to dismiss his claims as missionary propaganda.31

The Protestant missionaries, much like other nineteenth century European

thinkers, despite their differences, were strong believers in modem science, reason and a

desacralized God. According to the Protestant Christian view, while God created

nature, he was not part of it but had to be worshipped as separate and above it, as the

source of all his Creations. It was primarily through man’s rational faculty that he could

know the Creator, which emphasized one’s moral behavior in this life (not the next)

towards fellow human beings and virtuous acts. The status of one’s birth and hierarchy

in the social order was not seen as significant in the worship of the Creator. As Rosalind

O’Hanlon points out, the missionaries “rejected the ascriptive values of Hindu social

hierarchies and affirmed that individual human merit should form the only valid basis for

social and religious hierarchies.”

Phule accepted the missionaries’ notion of an unsullied Creator, separate from the

physical world. Unlike the Hindu God, this was not an all-pervasive God that permeated

See Sardar, Mahatma Phule, 48. 31 G.P. Deshpande, "Introduction: O f Hope and Melancholy, Reading Jotirao Phule in Our Times," in Selected Writings o f Jotirao Phule, ed. G.P. Deshpande (New Delhi: Leftword Books, 2002), 10. Marathi upper caste Hindus even to this day are largely dismissive of Phule because they see him as ‘tainted’ by his proximity to missionaries and Christianity. In general, they ignore him while highlighting upper caste intellectuals such as B.G. Tilak and V.S. Chiplunkar, seen as the icons o f nineteenth century Maharashtra. 32 This section on the profound intellectual influence missionaries had on Phule draws heavily from Rosalind O’Hanlon’s illuminating discussion on this theme. See especially Chapters 3 and 6 in O'Hanlon, Caste, Conflict and Ideology: Mahatma Jotirao Phule and Low Caste Protest in Nineteenth-Century Western India. 33 Ibid., 56.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 98

all natural life but stood apart from and above it. Like the missionaries, Phule believed

the Creator could not be worshipped through idols, or in animistic ways, but through the

use of man’s reason, which comprehended his duty towards God and other human beings.

The emphasis was on moral conduct and good deeds toward others. The world of rituals,

magic, superstitions, myths and animism had to be demystified, debunked and exposed in

order to illuminate a single Creator who cared for all equally. Phule was especially

influenced by missionary attacks on caste and its linkages to Hinduism in general. He

was strongly impressed by their notions of equality and like them, denounced the notion

of karma, which he saw as crucial to maintaining the caste system. His vitriolic attacks

against Brahmans drew in part from preceding critiques voiced by missionaries against

the powerful religious positions of Brahmans.

He also followed the missionaries in their attack on Hindu religious texts as being

inconsistent and incapable of exalting moral conduct above all else while advocating

‘superstitions’. Missionaries relied heavily on colonial scholarly accounts, which

historicized the Hindu religious texts, thereby ‘disproving’ their divine basis. For

instance John Wilson’s India Three Thousand Years Ago, published in 1858, used

colonial sources to examine the historical origins of the indigenous peoples who he

argued became the lower castes after the foreign Brahman-Aryans defeated them.

According to him, the lower castes were then named accordingly with pejorative names

that persisted in present times. Similarly, John Muir’s four-volume text Original Sanskrit

Texts, on the Origin and Progress o f the Religion and Institutions o f India, collected,

translated into English and illustrated by notes analyzed the historical origins of

Hinduism. The first volume for instance dealt with the historical origins of castes and the

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 99

myths associated with them as discussed in the Vedas, Upanishads and other such texts.

Phule’s historical tracing of lower caste oppression to Brahman victories and power was

clearly shaped by missionary accounts such as Wilson and Muir’s.34

Although Phule greatly admired the missionaries’ work and many of their beliefs,

he did not accept that Christianity was the only revealed religion and the sole way to

God. There is no indication anywhere in his writings or biographies that he supported

their proselytizing drive, although there is no mention of him opposing it either. He did

not advocate that people should convert although if they did, he did not oppose it.35

Interestingly his friends’ recollections about their group, in their youth, which included

Phule, mentions their skepticism about accepting missionary beliefs completely and

converting to Christianity. A hint regarding Phule’s decision not to become Christian

despite the strong influence Christianity and missionaries played in his life and his deep

disillusionment with Hinduism, especially Brahmanism, can be found in his close

friend’s account of why he, Phule, and other colleagues decided not to convert:

When we were students itself we veered away from Hinduism towards Christianity and we felt that at a later time we should convert to Christianity. But we thought we should base this decision by comparing this new religion to our own. While studying Christianity we realized that so many things are accepted based on blind belief, without any skepticism. We then realized that all religions were like that and that no religion was really given by God. Since all religions meet, it means there is one God, we should worship him.36

O’Hanlon states that the author of a letter to the missionary newspaperDyanondaya on 15 March 1855 traces the historical genesis of caste to Brahmans during the Aryan invasions, arguing that the lower castes were the ruling and dominant groups before being subdued by the foreign Aryans. See O’Hanlon, Caste, Conflict and Ideology, 72. This predates Phule’s similar formulation in his work Gulamgiri or Slavery. 35 While most Hindu reformers denounced Pandita Ramabai’s conversion from Hinduism to Christianity in 1883, Phule was one of the few who publicly supported her, arguing that she had been driven to it due to the injustices of high caste Brahmanism, especially toward women. See Chakravarti, Rewriting History: The Life and Times o f Pandita Ramabai, 320. 36 Cited in Sardar, Mahatma Phule, 51 -52.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 100

Part of this skepticism toward Christianity came from reading Enlightenment

philosophers such as Thomas Paine who argued no religion was divinely revealed and

hence superior. Both in Phule’s writings as well as his biographies, Paine’s book Rights

o f Man is referred to as a turning point in the development of his own ideas. Phule read it

in 1847 and mentions that it ‘opened his eyes’ with respect to the truth of Brahman

■y'j hegemony , with its emphasis on the absolute equality of man and the need to reject any

kind of mediator between man and God.

O’Hanlon points out that English radicals such as Paine provided an alternative

view which in many ways converged with missionary beliefs but did not necessitate the

need to become Christian. Both Paine and the missionaries attacked idolatry,

superstitions, exalted reason and preached equality. Yet Paine and others like him also

argued that no religion was divinely revealed and hence beliefs in reason and equality

could be accepted outside the framework of Christianity. According to O’Hanlon, “more

convincing was the view of an impersonal and universal Creator, and of religious and

moral duties for man entirely consistent with human reason that were put forward in the

work of European deists and radicals” 39 such as Paine. Phule seems to have drawn from

Paine’s skepticism of Christianity as the sole path to God even as he embraced many

Protestant beliefs.

I use the word hegemony in a Gramscian sense, as a combination of coercion and consent and this was also the way Phule viewed it. He argued Brahman control was tied to state power, especially in this region, and was material and ideological, coercive and consensual. 38 Jotirao Phule, Mahatma Phuley Samagra Vangmay, ed. Y.D. Phadke, 5th ed. (Mumbai: Maharashtra Rajya Sahitya ani Sanskruti Mandal, 1992), 178. (henceforth MPSV). 39 O'Hanlon, Caste, Conflict and Ideology: Mahatma Jotirao Phule and Low Caste Protest in Nineteenth-Century Western India, 59-60.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 101

Along with Phule, others who were part of his ‘group’ in his youth were two of

his closest school friends, both Brahmans, from poor families, Sadashiv Ballal Govande40

and Moro Viththal Valavekar. Both were to later become his colleagues in many of his

anti-Brahman activities and remained life-long friends41, although they sometimes

differed in their approach. However at this time, it is clear that his anti-Brahmanism was

yet to fully take shape. He mentions that since Brahman students and teachers were

constantly interacting with him, he too was influenced by a growing anti-British

sentiment, convinced that they had to be removed from the country.42 But he says it was

only later that he became aware of Brahman duplicity, wanting to remove the British

while maintaining their stronghold over the lower castes. He believed this was a covert

attempt to reestablish the villainous Peshwai 43

As a boy, he also grew up with and around Muslims in his neighborhood and was

friendly with many of them. He mentions that they influenced him in exposing the

irrational beliefs of Hindus and Brahmans in particular. It is clear that these relationships

and this social milieu played a big role in his open views towards Muslims and his

According to Keer, Govande’s wife and Savitribai were extremely close and often went to each other’s homes. Keer, Mahatma Jotirao Phooley, 233. 41 Despite his strong anti-Brahmanism, Jotiba never faltered in his personal relationships with Brahmans, many of whom were his closest friends. He and Savitribai also adopted a Brahman widow’s child. 42 He apparently physically beat up two British soldiers who were being arrogant. Keer,Mahatma Jotirao Phooley, 15. As a youth Joti learnt martial exercises and was known for his physical strength and gymnastic talents. Ibid., 14. Thanks to his fearlessness and tough attitude, many turned to Phule for their own protection. Thus when Dayanand Saraswati (from the Arya Samaj) visited Pune, Ranade asked Phule and his supporters to join the procession in order to protect them, as they feared the orthodox would physically assault them. Ibid., 139. Also in another incident, reformers opposed the old practice of dakshina and wanted the government to channel the funds towards Marathi books, a move opposed by the orthodox. The reformers approached Jotiba who managed to gather two hundred men from his neighborhood (Mangs and Mahars) to protect the reformers as they marched to the government office, to make their demands. Phule was only twenty-two at the time. Ibid., 35-6. 43 Phule, Mahatma Phuley Samagra Vangmay, 178.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 102

positive views towards Islam in his own thought.44 He believed it held many liberating

elements, which he used generously in crafting his own religious ideas. Interspersed in

his writings was the belief that it was the Brahmans who were perpetuating hatred against

the Muslims, through their writing of Maratha history in order to maintain their power

and control over the lower castes.45 In fact, he believed that Muslim rule in India had

been providential, in order to punish Brahmans for their injustices.

According to his biographers one event that apparently marked a turning point in

his life and radicalized him was a Brahman friend’s wedding he attended, where he

walked along with the groom’s procession to the bride’s house. Some others in the

procession objected to his presence there, being a lower caste and created a

pandemonium, insulting and forcing him to leave. His biographers recount his returning

home humiliated and furious, telling his father he refused to accept these conditions,

especially under British rule, since Brahmans were no longer rulers. His father, being

part of the older generation and more cautious and traditional in his approach, apparently

told him to accept the status quo, in order to avoid his life becoming unpleasant. It was

this day his biographers seem to indicate, that Phule was bom a ‘Shudra’ in the political

sense, determined to craft a modem political identity, on historical grounds that would

counter Brahman control and power. He believed lower castes or Shudras and ati-

Shudras needed to be ‘educated’ to become aware of their subordination; hence the stress

he laid on education and his appeal to the government to take an active role in this regard.

44 He once wrote an akhanda or poem (which is meant to be orally recited) eulogizing Prophet Mohammed as someone who stood up against all odds to fight injustice and promote equality between humans, Ibid., 572. He often uses the word stri-purush (man-woman) when referring to humans, rather than using the word ‘men’ or ‘mankind’. 45 Phule’s Marathi is replete with Arabic and Urdu words and expressions, quite distinct from the more Sanskritized Marathi that was gaining acceptance at the time.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 103

Inspired by missionary schools, along with his friends Govande and Hate, he

opened a school for low caste girls, perhaps the first of its kind in the country started by a

‘native’, which taught basic skills such as math, grammar and reading. Since he could

not find Brahman teachers who were agreeable to teach there, his wife Savitribai

undertook the task of teaching the students, without remuneration, often facing abuse and

opposition from the orthodox Brahmans for her acts.46 This also earned disapproval from

Jotiba’s father, pressured by Brahmans and his Mali caste members alike, who were

disapproving of young Jotiba’s rebellious activities 47 He asked his son to choose

between continuing the school or living at home; the resolute son chose to leave and their

AO relations remained somewhat strained ever since. Another such incident with his father

gives important clues about Jotiba’s personality, described by some who knew him as

determined, persistent, fearless, strict, sometimes too stubborn, while also being

compassionate and mayalu (mother-like)49 As Jotiba and Savitribai could not have any

children, his father who badly desired a grandchild, urged his son to marry a second time

Keer writes that cow-dung, dirt and stones were often thrown at her on her way to school. Finally she had to walk to school with an escort. Keer, Mahatma Jotirao Phooley, 26. 47 Opposition to Phule was considerably strong amongst Brahmans and his own caste or Malis. They saw him as an apologist for the British and Christian missionaries. Many amongst the Mali community opposed him and his son’s father-in law writes that he had to face harsh consequences for marrying his daughter to Phule’s son. See Gyanoba Krishnaji Sasane, "Athavani," inAmhi Pahilele Phule, ed. Sitaram Rayakar (Pune: Mahatma Jotirao Phule Samta Pratishtan Prakashan, 1981), 40. His opponents tried to have him killed by sending two assassins to his house with swords who broke in at night. Keer writes that Phule instead o f getting alarmed, forgave them and his detractors, persuading them against it. As one was a Ramoshi (tribal caste), the other a potter, he convinced them both they were being exploited by Brahmans and encouraged them to join his organization Satyashodhak Samaj which they did and became his life-long devotees. Ibid., 76. 48 As Phule himself describes it: “Having however, by my teaching the low castes, become odious to my castemen, my father at last drove me out of his house and left me to shift for myself m the best way I could. So the school was, as a matter o f course closed, and I was compelled to engage in business to gain a livelihood.” Quoted in Keer, Mahatma Jotirao Phooley, 27. 49 See Keer, Mahatma Jotirao Phooley and H.A. Talcherkar, "Devdasi Prethechey Virodhak Jotirao," inAmhi Pahilele Phule, ed. Sitarama Rayakara (Pune: Mahatma Jotirava Phule Samata Pratishtana, 1981).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 104

as was common practice at that time, claiming Savitribai’s parents also had given their

consent. Even when he was very ill and lay dying, while making this request, Phule

maintained his position that he would not remarry, as he argued this practice was an

injustice to women, who were not given the same option in such a situation.

Despite such strong social pressures at home and in public, Phule always

displayed a strong resolve in maintaining a consistency between his principles in private

as well as public. This was one of the major differences between him and the Brahman

social reformers at the time, most of whom could not withstand social and family

pressure and ended up flouting the very reforms they preached in public. Jotiba once

reprimanded M.G. Ranade when the latter had come to visit him in his home, for not

being able to personally undertake the reforms so dear to him in public and advised the

prominent reformer, to eschew reformist politics.50

Phule later reopened the school, followed by several other schools in the 1850’s,

the expenses of which he paid himself. He later received help for these schools from the

government, who impressed with his efforts, honored the twenty-five year-old in a public

ceremony on 16 November 1852 in a palace of the former Peshwa, Vishrambagwada.51

Phule eventually moved away from involvement with the schools after disagreements

with his Brahman colleagues who felt his reading of Hindu texts/myths were too harsh

This meeting between Ranade and Phule is described in greater detail in Kolhe,Amhi Pahilele Phule, 25. Ranade and Phule were friends, visited each other’s homes and supported each other’s causes, although Phule wrote a few critical pieces against Ranade’s ideas. When the Satyashodhak Samaj had a procession in Pune of lower castes, led by Mahars with their drums, as a show of strength against Brahmans in April 1885, Ranade participated and was one of the speakers. See Keer,Mahatma Jotirao Phooley, 214. 51 This earned the ire of Pune Brahmans as he was given two shawls, a custom usually reserved for Brahman scholars or pundits.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 105

and conflictual, to be included in the curriculum. He was also beset by financial

difficulties, especially since he had to leave his father’s home.

He and Savitribai had to live frugally to make ends meet and chose to live in an

‘Untouchable’ or Dalit, neighborhood54, known as Ganj Peth.55 Jotiba later applied for

contracts to supply materials for construction projects such as dams and bridges for the

government56, which proved to be commercially very successful.57 This allowed Phule to

finance many of his charitable activities including opening an orphanage for Brahman

widows to deliver their unwanted illegitimate children safely58, many of whom would die

It was and is customary in many parts of the country (except for the matriarchal communities) for the son to continue living with the parents, even after marriage. 53 In the interim he accepted a job as a teacher in the Scottish mission school and ran a tailoring shop, also selling quilts Savitribai made at home. They also ran a boarding house/school next door with 25- 30 students, from lower castes; the rich students paid their way while expenses o f poor students were taken care of by Jotiba himself. One of the subjects they were taught were Sanskrit which Phule himself was learning. See Phule, "Athavani," 60. 54 L.D. Thosar, "Sadhya Rahnichey Jotirao," inAmhi Pahilele Phule, ed. Sitarama Rayakara (Pune: Mahatma Jotirava Phule Samata Pratishtana, 1981), 42. He welcomed Dalits to use his cistern for water, which was considered a radical and unheard of act in those days. 55 During my field-work in Pune, I visited Phule’s home in Ganj Peth which has been turned into a memorial/museum. The neighborhood is next to the timber market, where sanitation facilities and roads are poor, and remains an ‘unrespectable’ part of town. The upper castes would not live or visit these parts. This was the case even in Phule’s time. Thus caste relations, supplemented now by class played and continue to play a predominant role in how and where people lived and continue to live in urban locales. 56 He chose not to enter government service, which was the norm for western educated Marathis at the time, especially upper castes. But Phule must have consciously chosen not to do so, given his skepticism toward the collusion between the Brahman-filled bureaucracy and English officials in perpetuating Brahman hold over education. It is indicative of the fiercely independent spirit that he was. He also chose to embrace his own caste occupations and that o f lower castes such as agriculture, gardening, construction, running a shop and so on. His work as a contractor exposed him to the widespread corruption he argues was taking place between the Brahman clerks and English officials, at the expense of the common worker, laborer and public. Phule’s critique was always rooted in both economic and ideological realities and related to the hardships o f everyday life for common people, especially the peasant and laborer. 57 He employed hundreds of laborers, for whom he also ran a night school and fed them generously, arguing that virtue lay in feeding them, not ‘lazy’ Brahmans. O’Hanlon,Caste, Conflict and Ideology, 256. 58 The condition o f Brahman widows was appalling at the time. They were not allowed to remarry and since many were child widows, they had illegitimate affairs and children, who were often abandoned. Phule was greatly pained with this plight of widows and believed it was part o f the overall injustice o f Brahmanism, which their own women were equally victims of. Uma Chakravarti argues Phule challenged ‘Brahmanical patriarchy’. See Uma Chakravarti, "Reconceptualising Gender: Phule, Brahmanism and Brahmanical Patriarchy,"Nehru Memorial Museum Research-in Progress Papers "History and Society", no. No. XCIV, 2nd series (December 1994).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 106

at childbirth. Both he and Savitribai tended to the widows and their babies, eventually

adopting one of the latter as their own son in 1873, naming him Yeshwant59 (one who is

successful). It also allowed him to buy fifteen acres of land near Pune on which he grew

sugar cane in order to demonstrate to farmers that the channels of water drawn from the

nearby Khadakwasala dam could effectively irrigate the land.

Throughout his life he remained in touch with his Mali roots, maintaining a

connection with agriculture, including farming and gardening. Phule’s colleague

Gyanoba Sasane recounts an incident when he went along with Phule to visit his orchards

near Pune. While the farm workers were taking a lunch break, Phule began to use the

well bucket himself and continue with the tasks at hand

singing as he did so. The labourers laughed to see him, whereupon Phule turned to explain. He was just a cultivator in his bones, he said. What was more, all plain cultivators sang at their work. It was only those who did not toil with their hands that had the leisure to sit with musical instruments. The real cultivator had to make his music as he worked.60

While there were organizations in place such as the Prarthana Samaj and the

Sarvajanik Sabha tackling prevailing political and social issues, Phule felt these were all

upper-caste dominated, far removed from the everyday realities of the common people,

such as peasants, workers and lower castes in general. This was also to become his main

critique of the Indian National Congress (INC) started in 1885. He questioned the

caste/class composition of these organizations, arguing that they left all the cultivating

and laboring castes and classes out.61 Rather than ‘ sarvajanik ’ (all peoples or public)

59 Phule was deeply impressed with both Jesus and Mohammed, particularly their life’s message. He gave Jesus a Marathi name, Yeshwant (successful) and it is possible he named his son after him. Quoted in O’Hanlon, Caste, Conflict and Ideology, 251. 61 In one of his essays written as a dialogue, he has a person called Govindrao ask whether these organizations that call themselves ‘sarvajanik’ (all inclusive) and national include the common people such

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 107

bodies, he believed these were bhat-sabhas or Brahman organizations, comprising mostly

clerks, government officials, lawyers or the educated, upper sections of society. He

argued that the inability or unwillingness of these bodies to be truly representative gave

them no right to speak for the ‘people’ as well as all Hindus; “in this sarvajanik sabha has

c ry any Brahman representative or member asked a Mahar representative to sit alongside

him?”63

In the same vein he challenged the notion of national unity advocated by the

Congress, exhorting all lower castes to remain skeptical of such overtures. Brahmans, he

believed, looked down upon everyone else and since they ensured that

there was no intermingling, mixing, inter-dining and inter-marriage between castes, there is thus bound to be different views, thoughts, customs and practices that will not be compatible. How can then all these varying streams become one people, or ‘Nation’?64

Congress therefore he argued would always remain a bhat-sabha, looking out for the

upper castes only, without true representation from lower sections of society; “If our

Aryabhat Brahmans are the only who have established and run the National Congress,

who is going to pay any attention to them?”65

Phule always remained wary of the upper caste/class basis that characterized the

newly emerging colonial public sphere. Particularly troubling to him was the disconnect

it had with the productive classes and castes and their problems, while perpetuating old

forms of Brahman control in new guises. As O’Hanlon points out:

as dhangars, kolis, Bhils, kunbis, lohars, suttars, chambhars, kumbhars, dukandaars or shopkeepers and traders (all these refer to various occupations such as weavers, tailors, potters, which also reflects their castes), Ibid., 492. 62 Mahar refers to one of the ‘Untouchable’ (Dalit) castes. 63 Phule, MPSV, 493. 64 Ibid., 494. Translation mine. 65 Ibid., 495.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 108

The focus of his attack moved, however, to a vividly drawn contrast between all those who made their living in clerical, professional, and religious pursuits, and the great mass of people who toiled daily to provide the material support for all classes. 6

This in turn, O’Hanlon continues, “drew attention to the injustice of a community that

reserved its greatest rewards for those furthest from the productive process.”67

This sensitivity towards socio-economic injustice is well illustrated in an incident his

biographers always recount.

When the Duke of Connaught was visiting Pune and a huge, lavish reception was

thrown in his honor, a man wearing a simple home-spun dhoti (loin cloth), an old turban,

angarkha (tunic or upper garment with strings), an old blanket on his left shoulder, worn-

out sandals and a stick in hand was refused permission to enter the banquet hall even

though he had a pass. When the host discovered the man, who was having a heated

argument with the guards was Jotiba, he immediately invited him inside and seated him

near the Duke. When asked to give a speech, the audience as well as the Duke and

Duchess were apparently surprised that this elderly rustic man spoke fluent English and

delivered a biting speech about the plight of the peasantry and masses in India who, he

argued, were not represented in this luxurious hall. He exhorted the Duke to go out and

see the ‘real India’ in the villages, in the fields where peasants toiled, visit Mang68 and

Mahar localities and report this to Queen Victoria, who, he pointed out, had not fully

understood the gravity of the situation, rather than basing his (the Duke’s) view of the

country on the elite he met and the affluent parts he would visit.69

66 O’Hanlon, Caste, Conflict and Ideology, 257. 67 Ibid. 68 Also another Dalit sub-caste. 69 As recounted in Keer, Mahatma Jotirao Phooley, and in Rayakar,Amhi Pahilele Phule, 22-3.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 109

While expressing such views, however, Phule believed in the ‘benevolence’ of

Queen Victoria and the British Empire, who, he felt, would come to the help of the

downtrodden and marginalized, if only they were made aware of upper caste, especially

Brahman ideological and material control over the rest of society. He believed the

‘crafty’, ‘crooked’ Brahmans had deceived the British, by monopolizing education and

jobs, while depriving lower castes. Moreover he wanted the British to hear the lower

castes’/classes’ voice, which he felt was drowned out thanks to immense influence

Brahmans wielded over public discourse. He saw it as his role to ‘educate’ the British, to

make them aware of these unequal social relations, in the hope they would come to the

aid of Shudras and ati-Shudras. He states this explicitly in his most well known work,

Gulamgiri or Slavery when he writes:

My object in writing the present volume is not only to tell my Shudra brethren how they have been duped by the Brahmins, but also to open the eyes of Government to.. .take the glory into their own hands of emancipating my Shudra brethren from the trammels of bondage which the Brahmins have woven around them.70

For Phule, as was the case with many other lower caste movements and leaders,

colonialism was viewed very positively, as a god-sent opportunity to end Brahman

hegemony. The British he argued had brought manushyapana (humanity).71 Instead

however to his dismay, they were propping up Brahmans, allowing them to maintain their

positions of privilege along with creating new forms of patronage through jobs and

western education. There was an urgency he felt for the lower castes to make full

70 Phule, MPSV, 127-128. 71 Ibid., 497. He believed that the British treated the Shudras and ati-Shudras as equal human beings, in the manner they spoke and interacted with them, unlike the Brahmans who always looked down on them. He says in his playThird Eye through the commentator, “the English are always trying to treat malis (gardeners) and kunbis (farmers/peasants) equally where as the Brahmans are always trying to make them utensil washers/cleaners” (i.e. lowly). Ibid., 27. Translation mine.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 110

opportunity of what he argued were socially lenient British attitudes as their rule would

soon be over, to be replaced once again he believed by the wily Brahmans.

In his zeal to improve conditions of the lower castes, Phule often took, as G.P.

Deshpande argues, too soft a stance on colonialism, (such as denouncing peasant

uprisings rooted in colonial policies) while unaware of the oppression that Europe was

perpetrating on its own peoples such as its working classes and peasants.72 He often

seemed too uncritical of the colonial project, despite its inherent racism, exploitation and

civilizing mission. And yet Phule cannot be seen as an uncritical apologist of the Empire

either. He was acutely sensitive to the plight of the indigenous peoples and slaves in the

Americas, whom he believed the colonizers had subjected to unspeakable atrocities,

devoting a whole section to them in his work Gulamgiri.

Moreover, it was in the realm of socio-economic relations pertaining to the

peasantry where Phule was most critical of the British. According to him, while

Brahmans as priests, moneylenders and village accountants were some of the overarching

factors in the peasant’s poverty and misery, British agrarian policies also were causing

untold hardships. These included support for their own manufacturing industries and

goods at the cost of the Indian peasants and weavers; refusal of the colonial state to

tamper with existing agrarian social relations dominated by Brahmans; and forest policies

that removed common lands from the peasants, impoverishing them further. Previously

he argued these common lands provided important means of sustenance for the peasants

but now

72 Jotirao Phule, inSelected Writings o f Jotirao Phule, ed. G.P. Deshpande (New Delhi: Left Word, 2002). 73 This appears to be the trend amongst 19th century Indian reformers who believed England was draining India’s wealth while spiritually reviving her.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I l l

our maibaap (paternal) government and sly European officials have used their foreign- based experience and intelligence to establish a large Forest Department which has taken over mountains, hills.. .and left no place for the poor farmers and shepherds’ sheep and cows to graze.. .English goods made with machines are sold here cheaper.. .weavers have been thrown out of work and are starving.. .they drink alcohol in despair.74

In addition, Phule criticized British officials for being out of touch with the Indian

populace, unable to speak Indian languages effectively and indifferent to the suffering of

the peasants, while they “were enjoying themselves hunting, doing aish-araam (relaxing-

having fun), indulging in luxuries.”75

In order to persuade the government as well as lower castes to challenge Brahman

hegemony, by dispensing with the latter’s roles altogether, sixty people came together on

24 September 1873 under Phule’s leadership to start the Satyashodhak Samaj (The

Society for the Search for Truth). The aim was to carry out constructive work amongst

the Shudras and included people from all castes as well as communities, including a few

Muslims and Jews. At the outset, members drew up a set of twenty-three rules and drew

on local peasant deities such as Bali and Khandoba as part of their initiation rites.76

On 25 December 1873 the first Satya Shodhak Samaj wedding was held, without

the services of a Brahman priest. Both the bride and groom, the latter who was one of

Jotiba’s relatives, took vows composed by Phule. Several such weddings followed

including his son Yeshwant’s, who was married according to these rites when he was

sixteen to a colleague’s daughter, eleven or twelve years old, on 16 February 1889. In

this region Brahmans priests almost always carried out weddings, many who made their

livelihood from fees given during such ceremonies. Feeling threatened, Brahmans

74 Phule, MPSV, 269. Translation mine. 75 Ibid., 271. Translation mine. 76 They held prayers every Sunday evening. It is not clear what the content of these prayers were.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 112

claimed these weddings lacked religious and legal sanction. However this issue was

taken to court and eventually on 8 January 1890 Phule was vindicated when two judges,

Chief Justice Sargent and Justice Telang (a reformer) decreed that the SatyaShodhak

Samaj weddings were legal, while there was no obligation to pay Brahmans any fees

even if they did not conduct the rites.

By 1875 the Samaj had made much greater inroads, with its membership

increasing to two hundred thirty-two members. 77 Phule traveled extensively in the

region, spreading the message of the Samaj, exhorting peasants and lower castes to

educate themselves, thereby breaking Brahman monopoly in positions of power, whether

in state jobs or in the village economy/polity. Moreover he encouraged a rationalist

outlook, an end to ‘superstitions’, mysticism and a need to demystify Hindu or what he

termed Aryan-Brahman mythologies. He also argued that education had to be made more

practical, and useful, in tune with the productive classes and their practical realities. He

and the Samaj or society members drew from missionaries in their urge to spread their

message, arguing about the evils of Brahmanism and the need to debunk its claims. As

O’Hanlon points out,

The conviction that the society was a purveyor of religious truth and light, surrounded on all sides by darkness and error, was also strongly reminiscent of the missionaries sense of their role. 78

Towards the last years of his life, while remaining active in the Samaj, Jotiba was

appointed by the government to work on the Pune Municipal Committee, where he

77 O’Hanlon points out that there were many fractions and debates within the Samaj. Some did not approve of Phule’s radical stance against Brahmans. There was also resistance amongst lower caste communities such as the Malis against the Satya Shodhak Samaj, see O’Hanlon,Caste, Conflict and Ideology, 238-9. 78 Ibid., 233.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 113

served from 1876-1882. Here he had many differences with the government on various

issues; such as when the municipality decided to spend large funds decorating the city,

for the then Governor-General Lord Lytton’s visit while Phule argued the money was

better spent on educating poor children; or when the government increased the number of

liquor shops in 1880, as Phule opposed liquor sale in general, arguing that it increased

liquor consumption in the city, which so far had been marginal.

On 11 May 1888 at the age of sixty, he was conferred the title of Mahatma (great

man) at a gathering of his supporters. Today he is generally known as Mahatma Phule.

In July of the same year he suffered from a stroke, paralyzing his right side, which

considerably slowed down his activities as well as brought substantial financial difficulty

to the household. The family got by with the help of friends and supporters even though

Phule had been wealthy at one time. However he had used all his money to finance his

causes. He died on 27 November 1890 and was cremated following most of the Hindu

rituals except for the presence of any Brahman priests.79 His activism and involvement in

the Satyashodhak Samaj was carried on by his wife Savitribai, until she died soon after,

by succumbing to plague in 1897, followed by her son Yeshwant, who apparently eight

years later, also fell prey to the same illness.

Conclusion

Phule’s social location and personal life were crucial in shaping his politics. As a

lower caste intellectual, who greatly admired colonial ideas as a way of breaking

Brahman control, he was captivated by history and historicist ideas. He believed these

79 One o f his nephews, also a follower, when describing Phule’s death rites, says o f him, “he at heart was a Hindu reformer, who mainly rejected the hold of the Brahmans over society.” Phule, "Athavani," 65. Translation mine.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 114

would lead to greater political and social consciousness amongst the lower castes, and

thereby end the ancient hold of the Brahmans. His own life experiences played a

significant role in influencing his views in this direction. However he was also very

rooted in peasant cosmologies and ways of life. While admiring colonial ideas, he was

also skeptical of their complete adoption, particularly with respect to the peasantry and

lower castes. He recognized that while modem historicist ideas provided hope and

possible emancipation for the ‘subaltern’ classes, he also believed these could not

supplant indigenous notions steeped in myths and faith. Rooted in the day-to-day

experiences of the peasantry, Phule knew that an uncritical historicism would not offer a

viable and acceptable alternative. Rather alternatives had to be generated that were

sensitive to the world of the common people and their belief structures. He belonged to a

peasant world-view and was deeply embedded in its realities; he did not need to

romanticize it or view it as uncivilized. He upheld the dignity of labor and working with

one’s hands, which was often looked down upon in the Brahmanical worldview and

strove for basic dignity and humanity of the Shudra and every human being.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER IV

SPEAKING FROM THE ‘MARGINS’: PHULE AND HISTORICISM AS HOPE AND

ITS LIMITS

Introduction

Phule incorporated the modem without fully rejecting ‘subaltern pasts’. His

historicist outlook was not totalizing but had space for other modes of dissent and ways

of being. In other words, Phule’s historical and non-historical selves could co-habit, as

he did not feel the need to purge the latter in order to embrace the former. In this chapter

I focus on the interplay between his historicism and its limits through his writings and

ideas. I focus on his historicizing and rationalizing Brahmanical oppression through key

Hindu legends and myths, contrasting it briefly to ‘pre-colonial’ expressions such as

bhakti. The limits of his historicism are in turn demonstrated in the stories he constructs

while writing these ‘histories’ and the modes in which he chooses to express himself,

which draw heavily from pre-colonial forms. His non-historical use of Hindu traditions

is also apparent in his rewriting and reinventing Hindu practices through the activities of

his organization, the Satyashodak Samaj. The chapter is organized accordingly; the first

section focuses on his historicism, and the second section looks at alternative

understandings of traditions and the past in his world-view.

115

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 116

Phule’s Historicist Construction of the Past

In order to challenge Brahmanism, Phule inserted himself into historical debates

taking place between British and Brahman intellectuals, and historicized Hindu legends

and myths, as reflecting secular relations of exploitation that needed to be ‘exposed’. He

argued that since Brahmans were the authors and repositories of ‘knowledge’, they

deliberately wrote these stories in order to conceal their power. Thus popular memories

such as the Hindu epics handed down for generations were nothing but stories that

reflected Brahmanical hegemony, while they wrote their victories and oppression of the

lower castes as ‘religious truths’. Moreover in doing so, Phule imagined1 ‘Brahmans’ as

a unified social category through history along with a ‘Shudra’ and ‘ati-Shudra’

community, drawing from existing social relations in Maharashtra.

Existing analyses of Phule, such as those by Gail Omvedt and Rosalind

O’Hanlon, while very insightful, have focused on Phule’s interpretation of history rather

than examining the terms of the discourse itself or what David Scott calls the “language-

game of history.” Similarly those who argue that he was not writing ‘history’ and hence

should not be critiqued for writing an unscientific version also leave ‘history’

uninterrogated. He takes recourse to history in order to counter the naturalistic

arguments of Brahman superiority; history shows us that the Shudras and ati-Shudras

have lived in oppression for thousands of years and since these reflect social relations,

1 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1983), 48. 2 David Scott, Refashioning Futures: Criticism after Postcoloniality (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 103. 3 G.P. Deshpande defending Phule’s unscientific history writes: “His is a shudratishudra rewriting of history. It is not scientific as much as it is subversive.... Phule was not writing history” (original emphasis). Jotirao Phule, inSelected Writings o f Jotirao Phule, ed. G.P. Deshpande (New Delhi: Left Word, 2002), 7.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 117

this can be ended. It refers, as Georg Iggers points out, to a modem approach of

understanding the nature of a phenomenon in its history .4 As Dipesh Chakrabarty

argues, “The naturalism of historical time, however lies in the belief that everything can

be historicized” (original emphasis).5 He further points out that:

it is always possible to assign people, places and objects to a naturally existing, continuous flow of historical time.. .Thus, irrespective of a society’s own understanding of temporality, a historian will always be able to produce a time line for the globe, in which for any given span of time, the events in areas X, Y, and Z can be named.. .the historian has the capacity to put them into a time we are all supposed to have shared, consciously or not. History as a code thus invokes a natural, homogeneous, secular, calendrical time without which the story of human evolution/civilization-a single human history, that is cannot be told.6

Phule in such a vein attempts to construct unities such as Brahmans and Shudras moving

through history, within such secular calendrical time. His objective is to show with the

use of history that Brahmans have exploited Shudras and ati-Shudras, by fabricating their

holy books, and there is no natural or divine basis for this exploitation. This he believes

n will in turn open Shudras’ eyes and break their shackles ; hence his effort to historicize

popular Hindu legends which form part of the everyday world of the Shudras and ati-

Shudras, who constitute the mass of society.

Phule however had no interest in scholarly history. He was not concerned with

trying to understand the past for its ‘own sake’ based on evidence as the Indologists,

Brahman and colonial historians in his time were trying to do. Rather ‘history’ was

aimed toward explicitly political purposes in the present. His aim was to make political

Georg Iggers, Historiography in the 20th Century: From Scientific Objectivity to the Post-Modern Challenge (Hanover: Wesleyan Press, 1997), 29. 5 Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, 73. 6 Ibid., 74.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 118

interventions in the here and now, to counter Brahman hegemony and history provided

him with the weapon to do so. For him, history functioned as the basis of social critique

in the present, with an ever-present ‘I’. He was interested in understanding the present

condition of the Shudras and ati-Shudras as a historical process, showing how these

relations developed through history. By doing so he believed he could expose how they

came to be what they were in the present, thereby allowing the possibility for

transformation. It was imperative therefore, in his mind, that Shudras and ati-Shudras

acquire a historical consciousness, viewing it as one of his life-long tasks to promote this

awareness primarily through education.

The Modernity of Phule’s Claims

Phule’s challenge to Brahmanical authority can be seen as part of a long lineage

of low-caste anti-Brahman movements that emerged from the thirteenth-century in the

region. What makes Phule’s response modem however, deeply influenced by colonial

modes of thinking as mentioned earlier, is its historicist approach. The low-caste anti-

Brahman movements in pre-colonial times, such as those based on bhakti or devotion to

God showed little need to historicize Brahman oppression. It would be useful to briefly

posit Phule’s critique against one such set of movements, those of the bhakti saints in

order to assess the modernity of his claims. I focus on sant (saint) Tukaram, who like

Phule was also a Kunbi (peasant/cultivating caste) or Shudra, from the Vani (merchant)

This belief in Shudra domination as historical draws heavily from missionaries such as John Wilson; see O’Hanlon, Caste, Conflict and Ideology, especially Chapter 3, for an excellent discussion o f these links.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 119

caste8 and is closest to Phule in time, bom in 15989 in Dehu10, and died in 1650, two

hundred years before Phule.

Tuka as he is affectionately known in Maharashtra, grew up under tremendously

adverse conditions, losing most of his family to starvation during famines. Although he

had taken up the family business of selling com in his thirteenth year, the famines led to

bankruptcy and he turned to a life of devotion to Vitthala, the primary deity of the bhakti

saints11 who had been the object of his family’s worship for a long time. Tuka’s devotion,

while challenging caste hierarchies became widespread, and he faced stiff opposition

from the local Brahmans who threw his writings into the river, while expelling him from

the village. However, it is popularly believed that his writings miraculously reappeared 10 and that when he died, he ascended to heaven in the car of Vishnu.

Tuka’s legacy is his thousands of abhangas or religious poems (written in

irregular rhymed meter). While he critiques the existing social order, one sees a clear

absence of the use of history in his writings, such as the search for historical origins of

popular customs or the notion of social phenomena developing over time. One of his

many abhangs makes that clear,

The bhakti saints were drawn from all castes including Dalits. Some of the more well known sants or saints were Dyaneshwar and Eknath (Brahmans), Namdev (tailor) and Chokamela (Dalit). 9 Tukaram’s exact birth-date is contested. All biographical details about Tukaram are taken from R.D. Ranade, Tukaram (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994). 10 a town near Pune. 11 Vitthal, a local deity or folk God who was incorporated into Brahmanic Hinduism by becoming an incarnation o f Vishnu, as Krishna sits in a shrine in Pandharpur, the holiest place for most ordinary Maharashtrians. 12 Even today Tuka is loved and revered— adherents o f the Varkari or the bhakti movement in Maharashtra, go on awari or pilgrimage by foot every year from Dehu and Alandi, birthplaces o f Tukaram and Dnyaneshwar (another major saint) to Pandharpur, home of Vitthala. I participated briefly in this procession in Pune during my field-work in the summer of 2002, walking with thousands o f devotees, mostly peasants, artisans, laborers etc. from rural Maharashtra, where this tradition is still alive. Most people knew Tukaram’s abhangas by memory and were reciting them along the way.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 120

Drop-outs from decency Brahmins lie and steal... They occupy seats of power And mete out injustice to the poor... They become the hired servants of the corrupt And take a beating whenever they err The ruler exploits his own subjects The warrior strikes at the suffering masses... It is all a superficial show Hiding the ugliness within Says Tuka, have you dozed off, my Lord? 1 ^ Run to their rescue, be quick.

For Tuka, God as the primary agent of history, has failed to instill moral norms in

the Brahmans, who need to be ‘rescued’ by him. It is God who is the ultimate witness, in

whose eye the Brahmans have lost all moral legitimacy.14 Phule on the other hand takes

a far more direct and confrontational approach, with the assumption that man is the sole

agent of history, capable of rational action and responsible for his or her justice/injustice.

For Tuka rather than such a historical consciousness, what matters is a devotional

relationship with God based in the here and now. He believes that the true meaning of

freedom comes only with total surrender to his Lord, Vitthala. In Tuka’s everyday life-

world and beliefs, transcendental forces are co-eval and act as agents. For instance, in his

dream, God tells him to become a devotee, which in turn determines his life trajectory.

In the modem sense it is not ‘self-willed’.15

Dilip Chitre, Says Tuka-1: Selected Poems o f Tukaram, trans. Translated from the Marathi with an Introduction by Dilip Chitre, vol. 1 (Pune: Sontheimer Cultural Association, 2003), 146. 14 “Call him a pandit, he’s in bliss, yet everywhere he looks an ass. What will you do my muttering the Vedas, wasted sputtering.. .He does not do what the Vedas say, the evil fellow knows no righteousness.” Gail Omvedt, Tuka's Poetry (2003 [cited 29th October 2003)., #1622. 15 Tuka says, “It wasn’t I, who Ordered These words: The idea is His.” Quoted in Chitre,Says Tuka- 1: Selected Poems o f Tukaram, 9., and “It is The Cosmic One Making Me speak.” Ibid., 12. See Dipesh Chakravarty for an insightful discussion on history’s relation to the transcendental. Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, 13, 16.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 121

Although Phule does not discard religion, he believes largely in a desacralized

world. He is skeptical about the blurred lines between nature and humans in Hindu

mythology. He adheres to the modem notion that man as a rational creature must know

himself, be self-conscious as the sole agent of history and maintain a strict nature/culture

boundary.16 History, as Kaviraj points out, allows an understanding of the social world

as malleable, as capable of transforming into something else, over a period of time17;

hence its lure as a discourse of hope, of possibilities. For Phule it was precisely this

characteristic of history that made it most attractive. Moreover this realization was based

on a collective consciousness unlike the individualism or self-transformation of the

saints. In a non-modem universe including that which was prevalent in the West, Man

aspired for oneness with the eternal since God or natural/transcendental forces were also

seen as agents. Hence self-reflection would entail reflecting upon his or her larger

connection with the cosmos rather than one’s self as a mover of history.

Phule’s differences with pre-colonial responses such as Tuka’s can be read in this

light. Both question the legitimacy of the Brahmans though differently.18 While Phule

addresses an emerging public sphere, Tuka holds people accountable to God, as having

failed Him or vice-versa. Moreover unlike Tuka, Phule posits the Shudras against the

See R.G. Collingwood, The Idea o f History, Revised with an introduction by Jan Van Der Dussen ed. (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). 17 Kaviraj furthermore states that “to puzzle about the self is an unmistakably modem form of reflection. Settled traditional societies were marked by an assumed sense o f self which was rarely a matter o f debate.. .To construct an identity is essentially a modem activity.. .In a fundamental sense both individuals and groups can, under philosophic conditions o f modernity, choose what they would like to be”, and it is historical self-reflection he points out that provides such a means to do so. Kaviraj, The Unhappy Consciousness, 160. Phule exhibits all the following whereas Tukaram did not; he showed no interest in constructing and reflecting upon a collective identity, rooted in history, which is not to say he was not aware o f the oppression his caste fellows faced since that was also what he fought against but the manner in which he did so was very different.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 122

Brahmans as a separate, historically self-conscious community, that need to become

aware of this difference rooted in oppression and resist it. While Tuka is acutely aware

of exploitation and oppression by Brahmans this remains at the individual level, whereby

the upper castes have failed the test of religiosity and truth.19 Freedom for Tuka then is

accessing God directly through absolute devotion as the saints have done, thereby

challenging the Brahman hold over religiosity-

No need to read the Veda, or know the shastras, memorize the name only. No need to take up yoga or do austerities, Take up the blessings of bhakti with the sants. We want no pious rituals, we know no brahmadnyan, we should do the simple Krishna stories. Tuka says the secret is shown to the Sants, there is no other refuge than this.

It is Brahmans through their defiling dharma or righteousness who have lost the right to

consider themselves superior-

He sells his daughter, cows and stories. He is the true Chandala.21 Merits and faults are the real measure, caste does not determine this, O God.. .Entangled in desire, they do what they should not, Tuka says, they go to hell.22

Moreover most protest movements earlier did not reject the social compact

between upper and lower castes within Hinduism entirely, which saw in some aspects of

the religion, ‘eternal truths’ which went beyond history, beyond power relations and

which in the eyes of God could act as the ‘final court of justice’. In other words, many

dissenters believed that while the upper castes had a monopoly over knowledge and were

Phule’s rejection of caste, more than the bhakti movements, is closer to that of the Mahanubhava sect that came before it in the 12th century, which rejected the caste system altogether, idol worship and Vedic deities and appealed to Dalits or Untouchables. 19 Many in the Dalit movements today reject thebhakti tradition, especially Dalit saints such as Chokhamela since they are seen as too servile and placatory, as they do not radically challenge the Hindu social order as Ambedkar was to later do, see Jayashree B. Gokhale-Tumer,"Bhakti or Vidroha: Continuity and Change in Dalit Sahitya," inTradition and Modernity in Bhakti Movements, ed. Jayant Lele (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1981), Eleanor Zelliott, "Chokhamela and Eknath: TwoBhakti Modes of Legitimacy for Modem Change," in Tradition and Modernity in Bhakti Movements, ed. Jayant Lele (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1981). 20 Omvedt, Tuka's Poetry, #3113. 21 Chandala refers to Shudras, or low castes. 22 Omvedt, Tuka’s Poetry, #123.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 123

oppressive, they did not have a monopoly on the Hindu religion, loosely defined. The

saints for instance reasserted the eternal truths of religiosity or piety, which they argued

could be found in the ideals of Hinduism while rejecting its historical practices such as

• 93 idol-worship, caste practices and rituals. In earlier movements unlike in Phule’s case,

as D.R. Nagaraj points out, “The notion of sharing a certain common past with upper

castes acts as the hinge: the case rests on evoking the forgotten ideal which lies in a

dormant state in the symbolic realms of Hinduism.”24 In Phule’s case however, the ideal

and the practical were indistinguishable.

Moreover Phule, unlike these saints, applies a scientific-rationalist lens towards

the past, which discards most myths and legends as irrational and ignorant. Similarly

those who believe in such ‘irrational’ beliefs, which cannot separate secular from sacred,

myth from history, in his view, have been co-opted by Brahmans into their ideological

system. A historicist lens, imbued with a rational-scientific perspective therefore

becomes for Phule a tool with which to challenge Brahmanical excesses and control over

knowledge. For him, myths about deities are too fantastic to be true.

Influenced by a modem scientific rationalism, he views Krishna stories very

skeptically as compared to the saints who were his devotees and were immersed in his

stories. He argues tales surrounding Krishna are much too incredible to be believable

such as his lifting Govardhan Mountain to save all his people, or his jumping into the

Yamuna River to battle an enormous serpent, which he killed with ease. Also, Phule’s

puritanical norms influenced by Protestant Christianity saw Krishna’s actions as deeply

23 As Tuka says, in anabhang, “TheBrahmin who flies into a rage at the touch o f amahar — That’s no brahmin”, Chitre, Says Tuka-1, 140. 24 Nagaraj, Flaming Fleet, 55.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 124

troubling from an ethical standpoint; Krishna he says was a thief since he stole butter as a

child, an adulterer since he had so many wives, while having an affair with Radha, and a

womanizer since he stole women’s clothes while they bathed. These vices he argued

were hardly qualities that could be assigned to a divine being.25

Historicizing Brahmanical History from a Shudra/Ati-Shudra Perspective

Phule historicized Brahman oppression by linking it to wider debates taking place

between colonial Indologists and western educated Brahman scholars over the original

inhabitants of India or the ‘Aryan question’. The historical search for these ‘original’

societies was entirely a colonial enterprise that was then adopted enthusiastically by

western educated Marathi elite and became a raging debate that lasted till the end of the

twentieth century, involving many of the major intellectual stalwarts such as Ranade,

R.G. Bhandarkar and B.G. Tilak. The Aryan theory of race first emerged with Max

Mueller and became highly influential, setting the stage for the debates that followed. As

David Scott, writing in another context, puts it: “Henceforth, everything else had to be

written, so to say, in its wake, in (or at least in relation to) the critical discursive space it

has levered open” (original emphasis). 77

Mueller argued in the 1840’s in Europe that there were two races in early Indian

civilization, one, which came from Persia or the light-skinned Aryans (who were the

Brahmans) who invaded India and defeated the other group, the indigenous peoples who

were racially dark. These Aryans then civilized those they assimilated with but those

25 Phule, MPSV, 469. 26 Madhav Deshpande, "History, Change and Permanence: A Classical Indian Perspective," in Contributions to South Asian Studies, ed. Gopal Krishna (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1979). 27 David Scott, “Dehistoricizing History”, 101.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 125

who lived in remote areas remained barbaric, and were considered lower castes or

outcastes.28 Brahman historians also argued that present-day Brahmans were the original

civilized Aryans and had a great and glorious Vedic civilization, which was increasingly

corrupted with Shudra or non-Aryan contact.

Missionaries who argued on behalf of the Shudras refuted these arguments. John

Wilson for instance, in a book titled ‘ India Three Thousand Years Ago’ published in 1858

argued that indigenous peoples fought the invading Aryans and were given names such as

rakshas, asuras and yaks has (all referring to types of demons) by them. He also pointed

out that the caste system was not mentioned in the Vedas. Rather the epithet Kshatriya

referred to those who owned the fields or kshetrapati, and to those who possessed power

or kashatrapati; in other words “ kshatriya is the equivalent of Kshatrapati.” 7Q Phule was

clearly influenced by Wilson and the missionaries’ historical writings and arguments,

which posited an alternative account to that of the Brahmans. In fact he argued that the

English, including the missionaries, had done the Shudras and ati-Shudras a great favor

by introducing a historical perspective with which to understand their own oppression.

As Phule puts it:

Sir William Jones and other English wise men exposed how the shudras and atishudras were treated and oppressed by demystifying the Aryabhat Brahman’s Vedas, Smritis, Samhitas, by utilizing a itihasacha tapas (historical investigation or scrutiny), making it known to the whole world, thereby opening all our shudra eyes who were earlier blind. Brahman duplicity was thereby made fully transparent, staring at us in the face.30

In the pre-colonial and early colonial period, the politics of caste-status had

always been contentious but one sees little indication of these debates using a historical

28 This section on Max Mueller draws from Thomas Trautman,Aryans and British India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 175-78. 29 John Wilson cited in O’Hanlon,Caste, Conflict and Ideology, 81.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 126

turf. On the other hand it was the writing of genealogies to claim higher caste status tied

to divinity that was prevalent. Brahmans who had been very powerful in the region,

especially the Chitpavans believed that Parshuram, one of the incarnations of Lord

Vishnu had killed all the Kshatriyas twenty-one times over, which left only Brahmans

and Shudras since the intermediary caste had been wiped out. This led to an ongoing

dispute between Brahmans and non-Brahman ruling families, the latter who claimed

Kshatriya status. Even Shivaji, who was a powerful king, had to face the ire of Brahmans

for claiming Kshatriya status and had to bring a Brahman, Gagabhatta from Benares to

11 perform Vedic ceremonies appropriate for a Kshatriya. Gagabhatta ‘found’ genealogical

links between his family and those of a ruling family in Rajasthan32, thereby enabling

Shivaji to be crowned ‘ ChatrapatV , one who is entitled to a parasol or canopy, a great

honor for a Hindu king. These disputes continued till the twentieth century with Shahu

IT Maharaj, the king of Kolhapur being refused Vedic rituals.

While in the pre-colonial and early colonial period, these competing claims to

caste status were tied to puranic legends and writing ancestral genealogies, with the

establishment of colonial rule, this was slowly transformed into historical debates, tied to

new constellations of caste groupings.34 ‘History’ increasingly took the place of ‘legends’

Phule, MPSV, 491. Translation mine. 31 Reciting the Gayatri Mantra (a Vedic verse) in particular was the most controversial as this was reserved only for Brahmans and was denied to Kshatriyas. 32 O’Hanlon, Caste, Conflict and Ideology, 20. 33 See Dhananjay Keer’s biography on Shahu for a informative discussion on these conflicts. Dhananjay Keer,Shahu Chhatrapati: A Royal Revolutionary (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1976). 34 Hence “a movement o f upward mobility within the Maratha-Awni/ complex was underway at the turn of the eighteenth century” and the caste Maratha slowly emerged as wider caste grouping tied to anyone working on the land whereas earlier it referred to all Marathi speaking people of the region, O’Hanlon, Caste, Conflict and Ideology, 40.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 127

and ‘myths’ in contesting caste status and the historical quest for origins became

particularly important.

Phule transformed these debates and within a historical framework, took them in

innovative directions. Taking the basic assumptions within the Aryan debate that the

Aryans came from Persia and defeated the indigenous peoples, he challenged the

characterization of Aryans as ‘civilizers’ and argued that they were the barbaric

aggressors who used brute force to establish their rule. As Omvedt argues, he turned the

Aryan theory of race on its head.35 Moreover he took the claim of Brahmans that all non-

Brahmans are Shudras as an empowering label rather than as a pejorative. Shudras were

now all those who had been collectively oppressed by Brahmans due to their wickedness,

greed and deceit. The Brahmans or Aryans were henceforth colonizers, not civilizers.

Moreover, all indigenous inhabitants or non-Aryan Shudras were the original

Kshatriyas, a novel claim that drew on lower caste aspirations towards Kshatriya status,

along with challenging the caste hierarchy in toto, unlike done previously. As O’Hanlon

points out, the

idea of an original Kshastriya identity for the lower castes bears a very obvious similarity to the myths of a high status, now lost, that are a common feature of the culture of low and untouchable castes. But Phule’s was an origin myth with a difference. Rather than limiting himself to a history of a particular caste, his account projected a central historical and cultural tradition for Maharashtra itself. This tradition was shaped and given meaning by the struggles of Maharashtra’s lower castes, her warriors and peasant cultivators.36

All non-Brahmans were clubbed together as Shudras, while Mahars and Mangs

(Untouchables) as ati-Shudras and all previously ‘fallen’ Kshatriyas, united by a common

35 Gail Omvedt," Hinduism as Brahman Exploitation: Jotiba Phule," inDalit Visions: The Anti- Caste Movement and the Construction of an Indian Identity, ed. Gail Omvedt (Hyderabad: Longman, 1995), 104-10.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 128

bond of oppression. By this move, he hoped to create new forms of political communities

that transgressed caste lines, a novel and modem claim. He explicitly avoided, as

O’Hanlon points out, using the caste epithet Maratha, that included several upwardly

mobile castes and was becoming much more prominent during his time, since he feared

this would be divisive.

He begins his most well-known essay, Gulamgiri, or Slavery, written in 1873 and

dedicated to the people of the United States with an introduction in English that states:

Recent researches have demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt that the Brahmans were not the aborigines of India. At some remote period of antiquity, probably more than 3000 years ago, the Aryan progenitors of the present Brahmin Race descended upon the plains of Hindoostan.3

He points out the importance of historical research done by colonial scholars that shows

Aryans came to India from Iran as conquerors attracted to the fertile soil of India. The

indigenous peoples of India whom they defeated were the original Kshatriyas or people

of the region, the word derived from kshetra, meaning region. Once defeated by the

marauding Aryans, they were called ‘Shudras’ indicating that they “offered the greatest

resistance in their power to their establishing themselves in the country, and hence the

great aversion and hatred in which they are held.”39 Phule argues that the Kshatriyas or

people of the land gave the Aryans a tough fight but they had to give in and based on the

many customs traditionally handed down to us, as well as from the mythological legends contained in the sacred books of the Brahmans, it is evident that there has been a hard struggle for ascendancy between the two races.40

O’Hanlon, Caste, Conflict and Ideology, 139. 37 This is how the dedication reads: “Dedicated to the Good People of the United States, as a token o f admiration for their Sublime Disinterested and Selfsacrificing Devotion in the cause o f Negro Slavery; and with an earnest desire, that my countrymen may take their noble example as their guide in the emancipation of their Shudra Brethren from the trammels of Brahmin thralldom”, Phule,MPSV,l 14. 38 Ibid., 117 39 Ibid., 118. 40 Ibid., 118.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 129

Phule reads these books, legends and customs as instances of Brahman power, written by

them to perpetuate their rule. Hence it is these that need to be historicized, demystified

and exposed to understand their ‘true’ nature and thereby break the backbone of Brahman

control.

Phule begins his historical analysis with Hindu legends of creation and

incarnation as recounted in the Bhagvat Pur an and attempts to analyze these stories and

retell them as ‘they really are’, as historical stories, of power, control and domination. He

focuses especially on the stories of Vishnu and his incarnations as stories that reflect the

manner in which the Aryans invaded India and subjugated the indigenous peoples.

According to him, the rakshashas, Bhils (a tribe), forest peoples and other such marginal

groups were always the ‘demonic’ forces vanquished by the supposedly righteous who

were none other than the deceptive Brahmans writing their victories as the victory of

divine forces. While in the puranas themselves, Vishnu’s incarnations are not dealt with

in any linear organized fashion but appear as stories within stories, in fragments41, Phule

constructs a fairly coherent sequential narrative of one incarnation to the next and

attempts to rationalize them.

In the Hindu pantheon, Vishnu’s ten avatars generally appear as follows: first

comes Matsya, the fish, then Kurma the tortoise, followed by Varah the boar, Narsimha

41 The Bhagvat Pur an, is completely indifferent to any kind of linearity and hence history. One story leads to another story that ties to a previous story written in another purana oritihasa. I have relied on this version for all references to the Bhagvat Puran, see SrimadBhagavata Mahapurana, trans. C.L. Goswami, 8 vols., vol. 1 (Gorakhpur: Gita Press, 1971). “Today it is common to list ten famous avataras as the foundation o f an evolutionary Vaisnavite theology, but in the Puranas... Sometimes they are listed in apparent evolutionary order, from the fish to the amphibian, to the hybrid, and to the human heroes, while at other times they occur in apparently random order.” Cornelia Dimmitt and J.A.B. van Buieten,Classical Hindu Mythology: A Reader in the Sanskrit Puranas. (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1978), 62.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 130

the half-lion half-man, the dwarf Vaman and then the axe-wielding Parshuram, followed

by Ram, Krishna, Buddha and Kalki (who has yet to come). Phule deals with the first six

as mirroring the Aryan/Brahman conquests and establishing their rule. The text is set up

as a conversation between Phule and a person named Dhondiba; the latter asks him

questions and Phule answers with a view to enlightening. The text is broken up into

sixteen parts; the first eight deal with incarnations as popularly understood in the puranas,

especially the Bhagvat Pur an, the ninth on the origin of the Vedas and the tenth on

Buddha and the Brahmans suppression of a major challenge to them through the

Shankaracharya’s intervention, followed by the Muslim invasions. The remaining six

deal with the continued Brahmanical control on all aspects of social life including

religion, education, work, economy and day-to-day life even under British rule. This

latter part includes a discussion of British appeasement and bolstering of Brahmans and

the benefits of western education accruing to them. The conversations between

Dhondiba and Phule are in Marathi, while the introduction, written by Phule, is in

English. In order to demonstrate the manner in which Phule attempts to historicize Hindu

legends and myths, I examine the first eight parts dealing with incarnations, all the way

until the sixth incarnation, which is Parshuram.

Phule goes sequentially through all Vishnu’s incarnations one at a time, starting

with Matsya the fish. This, he tells Dhondiba, coincides with the first set of Aryan

invasions from Iran and since they came in small fish-like boats their leader was known

as Matsya. Phule rejects the notion that a human can be equated to a fish. Here he is

responding to the Bhagwat Pur ana, in which Vishnu, bom as Matsya, a fish, saves Manu,

“This familiar systematization of theavataras of Vishnu does not occur in this clear and tidy form from

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 131

the first human from the flood. Phule views this as unscientific and points out to

Dhondiba that even advanced scientific experts in Europe and America would be unable

to transform a man into a fish. After Matsya’s people, he goes on, came another set of

Aryans in larger boats that moved slowly like tortoises; hence their leader was known as

Kacha or tortoise, who went on to defeat the local inhabitants, followed by Varah, their

leader who resembled a boar.

In the Bhagvat Pur an, Varah, a boar emerges from Brahma’s nostrils in order to

save the earth from the demon Hiryanya. Growing to an enormous size, he is

effortlessly able to slay the rakshas or demon. Rejecting this tale as a fabrication, Phule

argues the boar is a vile animal whose female eats her own child. Such an animal he

argues can hardly be considered an incarnation of God! Since this Brahman leader must

have been filthy, loud and obnoxious, Phule goes on, the great Kshatriya rulers Hiryanya

and his twin-brother Hiryanyakashyapu must have referred to him as a boar, which in

turn so infuriated Varah that he vowed to avenge this insult and killed Hiryanya.

After Varah died, Phule tells Dhondiba, a man named Narsimha took over as the

leader of the Brahmans, and hence he came to be known as the next incarnation of

Vishnu. His ambition was to become ruler and in order to do so, he needed to defeat the

powerful Kshatriya ruler Hiryanyakashyapu. He began enacting his strategy by

brainwashing the ruler’s son Prahlad into believing his father’s beliefs were evil while

that of Narsimha’s righteous, persuading the son to assist him in killing his father.

Dressed up as a lion, Narsimha stood like a pillar in Hiryanyakashyapu’s temple and

waited for his arrival. While the ruler was resting there, Narsimha pounced on him and

anywhere in the great Puranas, although each one is mentioned at least once.” Ibid., 63.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 132

tore open his stomach with his claws, killing him, after which Narsimha fled, never to

return.

In the Bhagvat Puran, Hiranyakashyapu the twin-brother of Hiryanya is a demon

who through severe austerities is given a boon by Brahma that an animal or a man will

not kill him. He becomes extremely powerful, cruel and corrupt, ruling the three

worlds42, performing God’s functions, violating the shastras (scriptures or holy books)

and terrorizing people. He tries repeatedly to kill his son Prahlad, who is saved each time

by Vishnu, to whom he is devoted. Prahlad is given a boon for his devotion and asks that

his father’s evil ways and weapons be snatched from him. Hence Vishnu comes as

Narsimha, half man-half lion from a pillar and kills the demon. Brahma in turn rewards

Prahlad for his loyalty and righteousness.

Phule interprets this Hindu puranic story as a classic case of Brahmans

subjugating those who disobeyed their authority or religious codes. Hiryanyaksashyapu

is characterized by Phule as a brave Kshatriya king who stood up to the Aryans.

Moreover he points out there is no rational explanation as to how Narsimha could have

emerged from a pillar to slay Hiryankashyapu. How was he bom from a pillar? Who gave

him milk and how did he grow up? Phule asks Dhondiba. Moreover, if Narsimha’s

purpose was to convert Prahlad, and win him over to his side, why did he kill his father in

this cruel manner? He points out that American and European missionaries do not go

about killing fathers of the young men they convert!43

Also known as Trilokcr, the three worlds are Bhurloka (earth), Bhuvarloka (atmosphere) and Svarloka (heaven) Ibid., 24. 43 Phule, MPSV, 147-50.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 133

The next incarnation of Vishnu is Vaman the dwarf who slays Bali, a king,

considered a demon in the Puranas, while brave and generous according to Phule.

According to the Bhagvat Pur an, Vaman asks Bali, the king, for as much land as he can

take three steps with, which the latter readily grants. Vaman covers the entire sky and

earth in two steps and the third step he takes on Bali’s head, thereby defeating him.

Phule questions the veracity of these claims such as Vaman’s ability to cover the entire

sky and earth in his steps, impossible for a human being and the destruction of innocents

he must have caused with his actions. He asks Dhondiba, when Vaman asked Bali where

he could take his third step, how could Bali have heard him if he was up in the sky? How

could the Russians, French and English have understood him if their languages are

different?44 Phule tells Dhondiba that the Bhagvat Purana is too incredulous, while

stories such as Aesop fables far more useful.

Breaking with the order of incarnations given in Hindu mythology (Vaman is

followed by Parshuram), Phule takes Brahma as the next incarnation from whose mouth

Brahmans claim originated all knowledge, including the vedas, puranas, itihasas,

shastras (scriptures) and the four-fold varna or caste system. Phule argues that Brahma

rather than being the source of all creation was none other than a petty Brahman karkun

or official who became the leader and hence his people (the Aryans) came to be known as

Brahmans. Since he was so unreliable and deceitful, he was characterized as having four

faces. He concocted stories that included Irani jadumantra or magic and once these

spread far and wide, people began to believe they came from his mouth. Along with his

people, the Brahmans, he attacked the son of Bali or Banasura, protected by rakshaks

44 Ibid., 155.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 134

(protectors), who in turn the Brahmans called rakshasas (demons); hence the origin of

this word. In order to identify his own people, Brahma put a white thread around them

(the mark of identification of a Brahman) and taught everyone the gayatri mantra 45 and

told them that if a Kshatriya attacked and captured them, under no circumstances were

they to share this mantra, although they could recite it amongst themselves. The

contemporary custom Phule points out of not allowing anyone but Brahmans to recite or

hear this mantra has its origins here.

Once Brahma defeated Banasura and became king, Phule tells Dhondiba, he

enslaved people and was very arrogant. This is how the Kshatriyas became Shudras,

serving Brahmans and doing all the menial work. Those people Phule argues who had

resisted the most, the maharis (great enemies), were treated with utter disdain and began

to be called Mahars or Untouchables. Brahmans he goes on, refused to touch food or

drink water from their hands, which explains the origins of the practice of untouchability.

Looking down upon all such activities carried out by people who labored the soil, Phule

argues Brahmans refused to do any work with their hands such as working in the fields,

looking after cattle or carrying vegetables on their heads as all this was considered

demeaning and below their dignity. They wrote their books accordingly, which

characterized these people as lowly, polluted and prevented them from reading their

books, while keeping them intentionally ignorant and illiterate.

Once they defeated the original Kshatriyas and made them into Shudras, in order

to legitimize this victory and keep the people in their ‘places’, Phule tells Dhondiba,

Brahma came up with this varna or caste scheme thereby ensuring his people would

45 A vedic mantra which Brahmans have historically claimed only they can recite.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 135

always remain at the top of the hierarchy; hence the origins of the varna or caste system.

Furthermore, he argues, these followers of Brahma continuously filled Shudras’ minds

with lies to perpetuate their own rule, such as instigating them against the British, or

telling them that Shivaji was a noble king only because he fought the Muslims, while

protecting Brahmans.

With the death of Brahma, Phule goes on, Parshuram succeeded to lead the

Brahmans and was hence considered the next incarnation. Parshuram is of particular

significance for Phule and a major target of his ire, as he is the kuladevata or patron God

of the Chitpavan Brahmans and is considered immortal. According to the Bhagvat

Puran, Parshuram kills all Kshatriyas twenty-one times and also kills his own mother

who is brought back to life, thanks to a boon he wins from his father. Phule points out to

Dhondiba that this story embodies the horrific crimes Brahmans perpetrated. Parshuram

defeated and slaughtered the Kshatriyas or indigenous peoples, who Phule argues fought

valiantly and then to ensure they would be forever subjugated as well as for

identification, he made them tie a black string around their necks, calling them names

such as Mahar, Mang, Chandal (all names of Untouchable castes).46

Furthermore he argues they were often brutally tortured such as being buried alive

with a dead Brahman with hot oil being poured down their mouths to stifle their cries, a

practice that declined only with the Muslim incursions. Parshuram, according to Phule

was the one who began the practice of forbidding Brahman widows to remarry, because

they were losing so many of their men in war and the leaders did not want them mixing

with Kshatriyas. The notion that Parshuram is immortal was false argues Phule since he

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 136

was defeated by Ram, the Brahmans’ next leader or ‘incarnation’, after which Parshuram

fled to the mountains where he killed himself, overcome by guilt for his sins.

Phule’s historicism is apparent in his reading of major Hindu legends and myths;

he constantly seeks the historical origins of all customs, while rationalizing them in the

process. The ‘myths’ he rationalizes such as those in the Bhagwat Purana in turn do not

demarcate between ‘reality’ and ‘imagination’, the secular and non-secular, the human

and natural worlds. For Phule on the other hand, guided by his modernist reading, these

are indicative of a ‘backward’, ‘ignorant’, and ‘unscientific’ consciousness, that are

unable to draw such boundaries. He attempts to read the puranas as stories that point to

historical conditions prevailing at that time, and often disparages them for being

unscientific and irrational. As has been discussed above in Phule’s treatment of the

Hindu incarnations or avatars, this sentiment is exhibited throughout.

His treatment of the Ramayana is one such instance. He is very skeptical of this

epic, which he sees as full of fantastic stories that are unbelievable, untrue, and illogical

such as Ravana and his ten heads. He tells his son Yeshwant, in another dialogue dealing

with the Ramayana, about the factual impossibility of Ravana having ten heads, noses

and mouths and then two legs to support these heads. Moreover, he asks his son (and his

readers) a slew of questions about events in the Ramayana and their veracity: if Sita or

Janaki was so strong that she accidentally lifted Parshuram’s bow as a child, how was she

so easily carried away by Ravana in the forest?47 If Ravana was not fully human and of

an inferior caste, how is it that he was invited to Sita’s swayamvara ? He dismisses any

ethical bases for these stories, arguing that these were written purely to entertain. About

46 Since Phule’s time, this practice continues in some parts of India.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 137

the Ramayana story, in general he says “all the stories in the Ramayana are improbable

and unlikely”48 and that

The stories in Ramayana were made up by story-tellers just to fill people’s minds with all kinds of false ideas and there is not a trace of moral teachings or ethics in my view 49 ...

Phule’s skepticism and suspicion towards puranic myths and the epics however is

not entirely new. In previous centuries, dissenting groups asserted some measure of

incredulity towards puranic legends and the epics, often viewed as Brahmanical. The

Jainas for example rationalize Ravana’s ten-head story, by saying that when he was bom,

his mother put a necklace of nine gems around his neck and saw his face reflected in it

and called him Dasamukha or Ten-Faced50 but attempts to seek historical origins, for all

phenomena while rationalizing them as Phule does is a novel enterprise.

Where History Meets its Other

While I argue that Phule historicizes and rationalizes Hindu legends and myths he

does not rest at that. He is not interested in only showing the origins of certain customs or

trying to analyze them historically. Rather he is engaged simultaneously in rewriting

these legends and providing alternative stories to those at hand. While he uses the

practice of historicizing as a means to expose relations of power undergirding knowledge,

and locate these stories within ‘real historical time’, which is in a distant past, his history

writing is overtly concerned with telling stories. The boundaries between history and

47 Phule, MPSV, 467. 48 Ibid., 466. Translation mine. 49 Ibid., 467. Translation mine. 50 A.K. Ramanujan, ""Three Hundred Ramayanas'. Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation"," in Many Ramayanas: The Diversity o f a Narrative Tradition in South Asia., ed. Paula Richman (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1991), 35.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 138

myth begin to blur in his ‘historical’ writings and popular traditions in particular, play a

critical role. I argue therefore that while Phule historicizes, the discourse of modem

scientific history can only play a limited role for him. His main objective is to tell

counter-stories; he is not concerned about ‘facticity’ although every now and then he

mentions drawing from previous researches, particularly by colonial historians. In fact he

can be read as a critic of the modem discourse of history, with its notions of ‘objectivity’,

which he reads as another form of Brahmanism, not coincidentally because many of its

practitioners belonged to this community at the time.

Brahman intellectuals were, in fact, severely critical of his inability to write

‘proper’ history and were thus generally dismissive of him. The critique posed by V.S.

Chiplunkar, the doyen of Sanskritized Marathi literature at the time, best exemplifies this

attitude. He accused Phule of fabricating stories by writing poems, plays and dialogues

that could hardly claim to be ‘legitimate’ history. Along with sarcasm, the strong elitism

is also apparent in his denouncement of Phule’s scholarly and historical abilities:

Our great historian starts from the beginning.. .goes through all the avatars all the way to the time of the English.. .until now no historian must have had such a wide and vast breadth. Until we read Jyotiba’s ‘Gulamgiri’, we thought of Gibbon’s history as a marvel51

Chiplunkar continues:

Gibbon relied on other historical works and findings to come up with his books, shouldn’t one rely on others’ legitimate knowledge and research to come up with these heavy arguments and books? But look at our shudra historians! They have written such caricatured history that it has no factual or scholarly basis.52

What is significant to note here is that underlying Chiplunkar’s critique is the assumption

that Phule’s Shudra background can only make him worthy of writing Tower’ forms such

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 139

as plays, dialogues and ballads, not ‘real history’, based on ‘genuine’ evidence. However

what he misses (which his Brahmanical and colonized mentality will not let him see) is

that Phule did have the abilities to write ‘proper history’ if he wished to. He too was a

product of western colonial education and it is clear he read works of history since he

alludes to some in his writings.

While Phule historicizes the past, he consciously chooses not to write ‘objective’

histories based on evidence. If one were to hold up his writings to scientific scrutiny,

none would meet the standards of ‘proper histories’.53 Rather his Shudra heritage leads

him to openly espouse popular forms such as powadas or ballads, conversations and

plays. All his major works are expressed through ‘folk’ idioms; Third Eye for instance

which alludes to the Shudra standpoint as the ‘third eye’ exposing the nexus between

Brahman knowledge and power is a play; Gulamgiri is written as a dialogue between

himself and a person named Dhondiba; his piece on Shivaji is a powada or ballad; his

writings on religion and truth are written as conversations between him and his son

Yeshwant. While such forms in themselves do not indicate a lack of historical

consciousness, they do indicate Phule’s preference for expressing himself in more

traditional idioms, which end up resembling the very myths he seeks to critique. He is

convinced of the truth of his claims as moral truths, which he considers higher than

scientific ‘objective’ ones.

51 See V.S. Chiplunkar, Nibhandmala, 5th ed., vol. 1 (Pune: Wardha Books, 1993), 447. 52 Ibid., 448. Translation mine. 53 This is in contrast to Ambedkar, who many years later, was determined to show the Brahmans that he could be a better historian and scholar than them, earning a doctorate in economics at Columbia University, New York and writing with the ‘objective’ detachment necessary for a historian such as his explorations into the origins o f Shudras in his essayWho ‘ Were the Shudras'. See B.R. Ambedkar, The Essential Writings o f B.R. Ambedkar, ed. Valerian Rodrigues (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002), 385-95.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 140

I argue for Phule, much like a pauranik or traditional storyteller54, history is

predominantly about story telling, which puts him squarely in the tradition of (re)

interpretation, within popular Hinduism. Furthermore, the audience he writes for is very

different from that of his Brahman critics which influences the modes in which he

chooses to express himself. This is where Phule the ‘subaltern’ becomes significant.

Phule’s main aim is to educate and persuade his fellow Shudras, not ‘discover’ the past

for its own sake. It is inherently and self-consciously political, tied to raising

consciousness amongst the lower castes. He writes mainly for a non-literate non-

Brahman audience which necessitates that he use popular forms such as abhangs (short

poems), powadas (ballads), plays and stories which can be recited and heard orally which

was often the case. Many of his views are expounded through conversations set up

between himself and a friend or his son, reminiscent of conversations in Hindu legends

and myths, which he criticizes so vehemently. History for Phule is always told from a

specific location, which is always in the present. For him, there can be no ‘objective’

history in scientific terms but only in the moral sense.

Therefore, while Phule’s approach is deeply historical, marking it from pre

colonial lower caste responses such as that of Tukaram’s, I argue it also draws heavily on

‘subaltern pasts’ in significant ways. While analyzing Hindu myths, Phule attempts to

retell them in creative ways, drawing from a long tradition of challenging Brahmanical

authority by providing competing interpretations to the myriad legends and myths that

constitute Hindu folklore and religious beliefs.55

54 Phule would have most likely not liked my referring to him as such. 55 Badri Narayan argues that over history the traditional mode of dissent among lower castes has been to create an “alternative symbolic authority...The lower caste people attempted to defy the religious

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 141

The Significance of Bali, the ‘Demon-King’

Phule actively participates in such retelling of key legends as we have seen with

respect to Vishnu’s incarnations and the stories of Parshuram, Narsimha and

Hiryanyakashyapu. Nothing demonstrates this better than Phule’s retelling of the story of

Bali Raja, (defeated by Vishnu’s incarnation Vaman), who symbolizes the search for an

alternative reading of the past and hence present, rooted in a search for a non-

Brahmanical identity, that can also be read as a challenge to Brahman-inspired

nationalism. The defeat of Bali, and his land that Phule calls Balisthan (or India) is

synonymous with the defeat of his people, the original Kshatriyas and Balisthan (or

India) leading to the establishment of Brahman Raj. Phule’s retelling of these legends is

deeply steeped in the folklore of the region. It gives primacy as Omvedt points out, to a

peasant world-view and life.56

Traditional interpretations of myths and legends are always usually context

specific; the telling is always about the local customs, practices and beliefs. Thus a story

of the Ramayana in Thailand will look very different from the same story in Orissa as

each will be embedded in local practices and folklore. As A.K. Ramanujan points out,

“Texts may be historically dateless, anonymous; but contexts, uses, efficacies, are

symbolic ritual system and hierarchy of gods perceived, constructed and transmitted by Brahmanical power. They developed a series of ‘deified heroes’ as deities of their own in the course o f history.” Badri Narayan,Documenting Dissent: Contesting Fables, Contested Memories and Dalit Political Discourse (Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 2001), 60-61. 56 Gail Omvedt, Cultural Revolt in a Colonial Society: The Non Brahman Movement in Western India: 1873-1930 (Bombay: Scientific Socialist Education, 1976), 100.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 142

explicit”57 and referring to a poem as an example of such context specificity, he goes on

to say it

depends on a taxonomy of landscapes, flora and fauna, and of emotions-an ecosystem of which a man’s activities and feelings are a part. To describe the exterior landscape is also to inscribe the interior landscape.58

Benedict Anderson tells us something similar in the case of medieval Europe. Biblical

tales were always locally grounded. The Virgin Mary would be shown as a Tuscan

merchant’s daughter; “Christendom assumed its universal form through a myriad of

specificities and particularities: this relief, that window, this sermon”59 and could not be

taken out of context.

Phule’s interventions are context specific when he draws on the figure of Bali,

who while considered a demon in the puranic stories, is a heroic peasant king in Marathi

folklore. Ashok Chousalkar points out that he is popularly known as the brother-in-law

of Lord Shankara and during the

four days of Diwali in rural Maharashtra ‘gaulans’ of cowdung are laid out in the frontside open space of the house. They are called Baliraja and his consorts. They are worshipped by women.60

During the festival of Raksha bandhan, when the sister ties a rakhee or thread on the

brother’s hand, who in turn swears to protect her, the women remember Bali.61 Phule also

draws on local gods who are non-Brahmanic as well as intricately tied to the geography

of the region, weaving them into his narrative on Bali. While he is speaking of a wider

A.K. Ramanujan, ""Is There an Indian Way of Thinking: An Informal Essay"," inIndia through Hindu Categories, ed. McKim Marriott (New Delhi: Sage, 1990), 48. 58 Ibid., 50. 59 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 23. 60 Ashok Chousalkar, "Mahatma Phuley and theMyth of Baliraja," inJotiba Phule: An Incomplete Renaissance (Surat: Centre for Social Studies, 1991), 78. 61 Kunbis are called Bali, meaning possessing strength,O’Hanlon, Caste, Conflict and Ideology, 153.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 143

place called Balisthan, his story is embedded in the folkways of the region. What he

means by Balisthan is unclear; at times it refers only to the Marathi region, other times it

refers to India. All the actors in his story however are from his region and context. One

does not see him trying to link Shudras and ati-Shudras of Bengal or Tamil Nadu into this

notion of Balisthan, like the manner in which nationalists are trying to do at this time.

His is a specifically local discourse that is then projected as a wider one, involving all

Brahmans and all Shudras but these are all assumed to be linked to his region and its

specific geography.

The Puranic telling of Bali, the Demon

In order to understand Phule’s ‘retelling’ of the Bali story, it would be useful to

briefly examine the puranic telling, specifically that of the Bhagvat Purana which deals

with it at some length. ft} Phule often refers to the Bhagvat Puran in which Bali is the

grandson of Prahlad, whom we saw earlier assisting Vishnu’s avatar the half-man, half

lion Narsimha defeat his own father, the demon Hiryanyakashyapu. The lineage of

asuras or the demon family of the Daityas to which Hiryanyakashyapu belonged, had

carried on, becoming very powerful.

Bali, the great-grandson of Hiryanyakashyapu, was the Daitya ruler, known to be

brave and generous. He was a disciple of the Brahmans of the Bhrgu race who had

brought him back to life after being defeated by Indra and hence he revered them greatly.

They then honored him through a sacrifice whereby he became powerful like Indra.

Blessed by these Brahmans, he waged battle against Indra and his forces. Indra was

62 I have relied for the Bali story on the SrimadBhagavata Mahapurana, 885-933.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 144

anxious as he realized he could not defeat Bali and was told by the sage Brhaspati that

only if Bali insults the Bhrgus, could he be defeated. In the meantime, Bali became

invincible and conquered the three worlds. Bali’s “reknown, already well-known all over

the three-worlds, Bali now shone like the moon.. .the high-minded Bali enjoyed the

overflowing wealth.. .bestowed on him by the Brahmans.”

Aditi, the mother of the Gods was very distressed about this state of affairs since

they (the gods) had lost the three worlds to the demons led by Bali. Hoping that her sons

would regain the three worlds, her husband, the sage Kashyap, told her to worship

Vishnu for twelve days, which she did, after which he appeared in front of her. On

seeing him, she pleaded for his help on behalf of her sons in order to defeat the asuras

(demons). Vishnu himself was apprehensive, since he believed the asuras were too

powerful to be defeated in battle but thought of other means by which this task could be

accomplished.

He was bom to Aditi as her son, in the form of a Brahman dwarf named Vaman.

He proceeded to go to a horse-sacrifice conducted by the Bhrgus for Bali, where he was

welcomed by all present. Bali out of respect for his guest, told Vaman he could request

anything from him since he assumed the Brahman had come to ask for something of him.

Vaman praised Bali’s family (his grandfather Prahlada and Bali himself), and knowing

the ruler was generous asked him for a small piece of land, the dimensions which would

be equivalent of his own three strides. Bali readily accepted this request, which angered

the Bhrgus Brahmans who tried to warn their protege, since they knew this dwarf was

actually Vishnu. Self-preservation, they told him, was more important than fulfilling a

63 Ibid., 889.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 145

vow. But Bali was resolute, stating he believed in magnanimity and would rather suffer

than be a cheat and a liar. The Bhrgu sage Sukracharya then cursed the king about his

impending downfall since he had insulted the Bhrgus.

Once Bali had acceded to Vaman’s request, the dwarf transformed into a giant

and his first step covered the earth and sky, while the second, the heavens. Vaman asked

Bali to show him where he could take his third step since he had covered the three

worlds, accusing the latter of breaking his vow. Bali who was bound up in cords, offered

that Vaman take his last stride on his head, in order to keep his vow. In the meantime,

Bali’s wife, Vindhyavali, was beside herself, pleading with Vaman to let her husband go.

While Vaman did no such thing, pleased with Bali’s devotion, he declared that this brave

and generous demon-king would go to heaven and be Indra at a later time but until then,

would have to occupy the subterranean region of Sutala. Vaman or Vishnu thus restored

the heavens to Indra and his mother Aditi was satisfied.

Phule’s telling of Bali Raja

Phule takes the story of Bali, a ‘demon’, which the puranas are themselves a little

ambivalent about, and fashions it into one of Shudra defeat and oppression at the hands of

the Brahmans. His telling sees Vaman and Bali as real historical figures that fought

battles over Balisthan or India, although Phule is referring largely to the Marathi

speaking region. According to Phule Brahman historians then recorded these victories as

conflicts between Gods and demons in the puranas. In Phule’s telling, Vaman is leader

of the Brahmans or Aryan invaders from Iran who wanted to seize Bali’s kingdom, which

spread far and wide, including possibly what is today the island of Bali, which Phule

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 146

suggests, was named after this king. Territories he mentions under Bali’s rule include

Konkan, and parts of Mawal (today parts of Maharashtra).

Phule also suggests he ruled a region to the south called Maharashtra kshetra,

which he divided into 9 parts or khandas and each khanda was likely given to one officer

called Khandoba. His revenue officer according to Phule was called Mahasubha whose

name probably later became Mhasoba. Both these names are very significant in the

region even in contemporary Maharashtra. Khandoba, whose other name includes

Mhasoba is an important deity amongst the peasantry. Thousands visit his main shrine,

in a place called Jezuri and worship him in their homes and fields, before important tasks

such as harvesting and tilling the soil. Phule suggests that the origin of these deities was

likely in prominent leaders who served Bali and fought the Aryan-Brahmans.

There was great prosperity in Bali’s kingdom, Phule goes on, as he ruled wisely,

was brave, strong and greatly loved by all; hence the contemporary popular folk saying

“Bali toch kan pili” (Bali, he is the one who will wring your ears).64 According to

Phule, Vaman and the Aryans attacked Bali in order to capture his kingdom and

subjugate his peoples. While Bali fought with Vaman for fifteen days his wife

Vindhyawati dug a pit, placed wood in it and sat there for eight nights and days

abstaining from all food and drink, praying for her husband’s victory. When at night on

the eighth day the news came that Bali had fallen, she lit the wood and jumped into it,

dying as a sati. Once Bali had fallen and Vaman defeated Banasura, (Bali’s son), he

along with his army raided the capital and looted all the gold. When Vaman went home,

Phule, MPSV, 151.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 147

his wife made a symbolic Bali with flour, and kept it at the door, telling her husband that

Bali had come back to fight; Vaman kicked the flour upon entering the house.

Phule tells us that in Brahman households this practice continues of making Balis

with rice grains or flour, placing it at the door and kicking it while entering on the day of

the festival of Dussehra to reenact this event. Similarly when Banasura’s supporters went

home after he was defeated, their wives placed a symbolic Bali, telling their husbands

Bali would come back and God’s rule would be reestablished. Taking a lighted candle

and circling it around their husbands, they said, ‘Let troubles and sorrows vanish, with

the power of the twice-born65 and Bali’s rule come back.’66 This ritual of remembering

Bali according to Phule, continues amongst non-Brahman families, hoping for his rule to

come back.

In Phule’s telling, Banasura was able to recoup his forces and chase Vaman and

his troops to the Himalayas where the latter was defeated. This was followed by great

celebrations amongst Banasura’s people. He rewarded all those who had fought bravely

for him. In Phule’s version, unlike the puranic one, even though Bali is defeated, his son

in the final outcome is able to rebuke Vaman. According to Phule, Bali’s Raj recurred in

different parts of the world. He includes Jesus and Buddha as marking the return of

Bali’s rule and the English missionaries, George Washington and Lafayette as followers

of Bali or Jesus.

Phule therefore provides a different interpretation of the Bali story from that of

the puranic ones. In his version, Bali is a brave ruler who is defeated by the powerful

65 Twice-boms refer to Brahmans. 66 Phule, MPSV, 153. While Phule writes in the nineteenth century, paeans to Bali can still be heard amongst the rural peoples of Maharashtra today, particularly during the festivals o f Diwali and Dussehra.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 148

Brahmans and gets characterized as a ‘demon’ by his victors. Here Phule draws from a

long tradition of reinterpreting Hindu epics and legends, which have always been retold

in highly political ways that challenge Brahmanical tellings. This tradition persists in fn present-day Maharashtra where Dalit renditions of the Ramayana for instance, form an

important part of challenging Brahmanical dominance and the caste hierarchy in

general.68 Phule, despite his modernist bent towards historicizing, is at base writing

fiction, like a balladeer or storyteller, drawing from historical personages for symbolic

and not scientific purposes.

As seen in his accounts of Bali, he makes no attempt to search for historical

evidence for his claims, apart from conjectures about the origins of certain words linked

to certain events in the past, around which he weaves his stories. While he is

historicizing these legends, he is also constructing alternative imaginative accounts. For

instance, for a historian who writes ‘objective’ histories, an analysis of Bali would

include amongst other things, attempts to date his life, write about his historical context,

as well as efforts to understand the origins of the Bali story within the social context in

which it emerged. All this would be done with the aid of ‘scientific’ sources such as

inscriptions, texts, archives and other such ‘data’. This would place the mythological

Bali within what Michel de Certeau calls ‘dead’ historical time. While Phule is interested

67 . Phule also reads the Ramayana differently, drawing from a long tradition o f interpreting this epic. Ravana’s role in particular has always been contentious. Why Phule asks, is someone like Parshuram who commits such horrendous atrocities considered divine, while Ravana is unfairly targeted? Phule,MPSV, 468. Sympathy towards Ravana is age-old. Many tellings see Ravana as a hero and a great ruler who due to unfortunate circumstances is defeated. The Jaina tellings for instance see Ravana as a “great man undone by a passion that he vowed against but that he cannot resist” and in another telling, Sita is his daughter, whom he does not know about. Ramanujan tells us that “we are moved to admiration and pity for Ravana when the Jainas tell the story”, Ramanujan,“Three Hundred Ramayanas”, 34.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 149

in some aspects of a historical analysis of the Bali story such as its social origins, yet at

the same time, for him the Bali stories are not part of a dead historical past.

For instance, while discussing Bali as a historical figure and rationalizing his

mythical status to be a king of the oppressed, he writes a fictional account of what must

have transpired between this ruler and the so-called Aryan-Brahmans. The historian who

seeks to historicize and locate events or stories in time and space, does not attempt to

retell the legend or story from her imagination because when one actually enters the

world one is attempting to historicize particularly through ‘fictional’ accounts, this is

viewed as a lapse in ‘objectivity’. By fictionally retelling the legend rather than merely

historicizing it, it erases the distance that is supposed to exist between past and present

and brings the ‘I’ back into history, which has to be silenced in order to make history

possible.69

Phule’s historicism is further tempered by his disavowal of any notions of ‘laws

of history’ even though he envisions history as being characterized by an antagonistic

relationship between an oppressor and oppressed. Although power undergirds all

historical relations, history is not driven by these conflictual relationships in a law-like

fashion. Phule tells open-ended, imaginative stories which can be countered with

alternative versions. Here boundaries between past and present are constantly

transgressed. Moreover, while he debunks the human/nature slippage that occurs

continuously throughout the Puranas, he does see history as being providentially driven.

68 See Anand Patwardhan, "We Are Not Your Monkeys," (India: First Run/Icarus Films, 1996). The late Daya Pawar, a well-known Marathi Dalit intellectual sings powadaa or ballad, challenging Hanuman’s role as servile to Ram in the Ramayana. 69 See Michel de Certeau, The Writing o f History, trans. Tom Conley (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 150

In his view, the Creator or Nirmik is the one who directs social changes and

events always have a purpose. Thus when his son, Yeshwant, asks Phule why God was

unable to stop the injustices Brahmans inflicted on Shudras and ati-Shudras, Phule

argues:

Our Creator, who is compassionate towards all, took pity on the weak shudras and ati- shudras, in light of the slavery the Brahmans had imposed on them and since He created all men equally, wanted to end caste and liberate shudras/ati-shudras. He sent Muslims who were against caste to this country but Muslims did not heed this task and began to indulge in eating good foods, music, dancing, relaxing and enjoying luxuries.. .therefore our Creator God got angry with them, took away their wealth and ended their rule of Balisthan. 70

Phule proceeds to tell Yeshwant that it was the Creator who sent the English to liberate

the Shudras through the message of an upholder of truth or Jesus since the Muslims had

let the Shudras down. According to Phule, the Creator or Ishwar (here he means Jesus)

will ensure through the Shudras and ati-Shudras that Brahman books that preach 71 inequality and slavery will be made redundant.

Phule’s Elastic Use of Hindu Traditions: The Search for ‘Satyrf or ‘Truth’

Despite his strong denunciation of Hindu traditions and practices, Phule continued

to see them as living, contemporaneous and open to constant interpretation in the present.

He sought to transform these practices into something new, by incorporating modem

ideas, as well as drawing from elements within Christianity and Islam. He also brought

to the fore ‘subaltern’ elements within it, such as privileging ancestral/family gods and

non-Brahmanic deities embedded in peasant cosmologies. It is poignant that he hardly

used the word Hindu or Hinduism at all throughout his writings; his critiques mostly

70 Phule, MPSV, 457. Translation mine. 71 Ibid., 458.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 151

referred to Aryan-Brahmans and their vedic-puranic-shastric religion. Yet at times he

seemed to suggest the two were inseparable. In other words, the manner in which he

deals with Hinduism is ‘fuzzy’ 7 7 , lacking very clear boundaries, which allows him to

work within the Hindu fold without having to convert, while incorporating many

Christian and Islamic elements, especially modem Protestant rationalist versions.

This ‘frizziness’ seems to suggest that at times he did not view Hinduism in a very

*7^ historically bounded manner. He could assert the primacy of popular non-Brahmanic

beliefs, thereby providing an alternative set of traditions, without calling himself a Hindu

(he called himself a Satyashodhak Samaji), and feeling the need to officially leave the

fold. While appealing to his Shudra brethren to throw off the yoke of Brahmanism, he is

not asking them to abandon Hinduism. He appears to make a distinction between the

two, as he was known to have discouraged people from converting, since he believed

every religion had some faults.74

Unlike other reform organizations such as the upper caste Prarthana Samaj that

Ranade was part of, Phule and the Satyashodak Samaj while incorporating modem ideas

as well as tenets from other religions, never claimed they were attempting to make new or

Sudipta Kaviraj, "On State, Society and Discourse in India," inRethinking Third World Politics, ed. James Manor (London and New York: Longman, 1991), 76. 73 Gail Omvedt argues Phule’s disavowing the word Hindu suggests he is making an external critique o f Hinduism, ‘outside the cultural system ’ (original emphasis) by rejecting its terms and definitions completely. Omvedt, Cultural Revolt in a Colonial Society, 108. I, however, prefer to read it as his working within a more ‘pre-colonial’ or non-modem fuzzy approach that views Hinduism more as Lipner puts it, as a “way of life, a collection of religions, a complex culture”, rather than a well bounded organized religion.” See Julius Lipner,Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), 5. The term Hinduism as a self-definition by Hindus itself is recent. Phule appears to draw from this open-endedness although it is clear in the previous discussion, he was also simultaneously trying to make it more bounded and historically self-conscious. See Lipner for a useful discussion on Hinduism as a term that better describes a “family of culturally similar traditions” (original emphasis). Ibid., 6. 74 R.S. Ghadge, "Jotiravani Amhas Manushyatachi Alokh Karun Dili," inAmhi Pahilele Phule, ed. Sitarama Rayakara (Pune: Mahatma Jotirava Phule Samata Pratishtana, 1981), 31.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 152

exogenous ideas appear traditional to Hinduism itself. In fact they argued they were

breaking with the past and rejecting a shared frame of discourse. This was not merely a

sect “whose essential characteristic is to challenge the mainstream Hinduism by invoking

the same motifs and images that it holds spiritually sacred.” It was undoubtedly

attempting to break with traditional parameters of dissent without doing so fully. They

remained rooted within local traditions and in effect were adhering to continuity with the

past, by emphasizing popular forms.

Phule’s ambiguous relationship with the bhakti traditions, very powerful in the

region, especially amongst those he referred to as the Shudra and ati-Shudras, points to

his ambivalent relationship with Hinduism and past traditions. As Sadanand More points

out, while he was very skeptical of the Brahman bhakti saints (such as Dynaneshwar and

Ramdas), he and his Samaj colleagues viewed Tukaram favorably, as a saint of the

peasants and many of his own akhandas or poems were styled on Tukaram’s abhangs,

sometimes drawing directly from them. While he clearly was not attracted to Vitthal

worship or the varkari/bhakti followers, he also was not averse to them either,

maintaining as More shows, a somewhat mixed relationship to these popular movements.

He did not oppose many of his Samaj colleagues remaining varkaris, who took regular

pilgrimages to the saints’ birthplaces and sometimes sang Samaj abhangs along the

way.76

75 Nagaraj, Flaming Fleet, 53. 76 Sadanand More, "Akonisavya Shathkatil Varkari Sampradaya," inAdhunikta Ani Parampara: Akonisavya Shathkatil Maharashtra, ed. Rajendra Vohra (Pune: Pratima Prakashan, 2000), 43. Gyanoba Sasane whose daughter married Phule’s son Yeshwant remained a staunchvarkari. More argues that it is Phule more than anyone else who has used Tukaram’sabhangs so innovatively since Tukaram himself. Even though Phule opposed Jnaneshwar and the varkaris, he visited Alandi, birthplace o f Jnaneshwar. He was known to have helped tired pilgrims on their journey. Ibid., 44.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 153

This flexibility appears to have been the overall characteristic of the Samaj, which

drew heavily from local, folk traditions. While it prescribed alternative rituals to those of

the Brahmanic ones, it was not rigid or very well defined. This was a major critique

launched against it by some of its disgruntled supporters at that time, who called for

greater discipline and clearer boundaries:

Some claim that we all have a right to wear the sacred thread; others dispute whether it , should be worn around the neck or the loins; some say, we do our marriages with Vedic rituals, and other say we should use puranic texts; others still condemn both as just another excuse for Brahmans to fatten themselves. Some ask what is the use of sacred verses and the sacred fire in the marriage rite, and say that it is all an empty game.. .others try to conduct their funerals without any visible rites at all! Others again conduct all sorts of pujas to images of Bali, Jotiba77, Kalbahiri and Mahasubha!.. .Satya Samajians have taken on every one of the old rituals of the Hindu priests! All they have done is to get rid of the Hindu priests.. .and they call this reform!78

Also, it appears that since members were allowed to continue with their previous

religious affiliations, such as participating in the Pandharpur procession or remaining

Kabir panthis (followers of the saint Kabir’s sect), they were not required to give sole

allegiance to the Satyashodhak dharma or even if so, were allowed to interpret it loosely

enough to accommodate their other beliefs. 70 While it is not clear whether Phule fully

approved such flexibility, he does not appear to have opposed it either, possibly making

the Samaj much more acceptable to the communities it purported to speak for, since it did

not require them to completely break with their traditions.

What Sudipto Kaviraj writes with respect to Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, (a

Bengali Brahman responding to colonialism) ironically applies to Phule as well, since

Jotiba refers here to a non-Brahmanic deity by that name, not Phule (he was possibly named after him). 78 Krshnarao Bhalekar quoted in O’Hanlon,Caste, Conflict and Ideology, 302.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 154

both were enamored by modem historicism and yet also reinterpreted traditions, albeit

from different social locations, the former drawing on the classical and the latter on folk

elements. As Kaviraj puts it:

There is an implicit and decisive recognition of the nature of the elasticity of a tradition, of the fact that a tradition has such longevity precisely because it is internally diverse and it is possible to stretch its resources to make it accomplish tasks it had never undertaken before.. .The apparatus of argument it used was almost wholly rationalistic.80

Significantly, however, while they came from very different social milieus and had very

different objectives, both arrived at similar conclusions when they questioned the notion

of what it meant to be religious. Bankim says of a man who follows dharma 81

(righteousness, morality) but not religious rituals-

Are the rituals religion, or is dharma religion? If rituals are not religion, but dharma is, then we have to call that man who has strayed from the rituals the truly religious person. 82

Phule similarly argued that rather than religious practices and rituals, it was truth or satya

that constituted ‘eternal religion’. According to him:

To satisfy and please our Creator who created us all, in order to uphold truth, whosoever will treat others as their brothers, that is what is the meaning of niti or ethics, whether he is Christian, Mohammedi, Satyashodak Samaji...

By asserting that the essence of religion was ‘truth’, not formal religion, Phule

was continuing in the tradition of dissent movements in India of rejecting formal aspects

of religion while asserting truths (based in the centrality of a single Supreme Being) that

More argues some actually reconciled the Satyashodhak Samaj ideas with that o f thevarkaris, saying they were not that different, More, “Akonisavya Shathkatil Varkari Sampradaya,” 43. 80 Kaviraj, The Unhappy Consciousness, 141. 81 Dharma is a very difficult concept to translate. It is context-specific since it takes on different meanings in different situations. 82 Bankim quoted in Kaviraj, The Unhappy Consciousness, 143. 83 Phule, MPSV, A ll. Translation mine.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 155

went beyond history, and that constituted the kernel of humanity.84 Yet unlike the pre

colonial dissenters, he used a modernist lens in his quest for equality, rejection of caste as

well as his incorporation of notions of public/social service as religiosity, drawn from

missionaries, which M.K. Gandhi was to popularize in the next century. For Phule, (as

for Gandhi later) it was only through service to others that one could find one’s true

religion.

Similarly, one’s private conduct also had to be guided by the search for satya or

truth. The notion of religiosity as tied to one’s moral conduct privately and personally,

challenged the boundaries between the two since the search for satya or truth was equally

and conjointly linked to both. The juxtaposition of these ideas such as the notion of

religion as service to society and a strict personal moral conduct was quite novel within

Hinduism and Phule was one of the earliest to assert it. But Phule of course unlike

Gandhi was far more skeptical of mainstream Hinduism. He was not, as mentioned

earlier, accepting its ideals in theory while critiquing it in practice and would never have

called himself a sanatani (orthodox) Hindu as Gandhi did.

Therefore while Phule was vehemently critical of existing Hindu texts and

practices, this disillusionment was not complete as seen in the case of Savarkar, discussed

in a later chapter. Rather than relegate these texts to a museumized dead past, Phule

chose to reinterpret many in creative ways, thereby keeping them alive and relevant in the

present. While he may have departed substantially from previous expressions, he did not

reject them completely. As Ashis Nandy points out, Indie “civilization has survived not

84 Tukaram expressed something very similar two centuries ago when he said, “He who identifies With the battered and the beaten Mark him as a saint For God is with him.. .He holds Every forsaken man

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 156

only because of the ‘valid’, ‘true’ or ‘proper’ exegesis of the traditional texts.. .but

because of the ‘improper, ‘far-fetched’ and ‘deviant’ reinterpretations of the sacred and

the canonical.” Phule could be said to be engaging in such stretching, with his ‘deviant’

interpretations, which continued to creatively engage with Hinduism even as he

vehemently countered it. It represented what Nagaraj would call a “creative dialogue

with the radical traditions within the broad framework of Indian culture,”86 which would

include other religions, and which often functioned, as Nandy points out, as internal

critiques within the Hindu social order.87

I explore such ‘stretching’ through his notion of religion as ‘satya dharam ’ or true

morality/righteousness as enunciated in his work Sarvajanik Satya Dharam Pustak (The

True Religious Book for All Peoples) and his involvement in the Satyashodak Samaj and

their rewriting key Hindu rituals. These included everyday rituals and ceremonies,

thereby constructing alternative Shudra traditions88, focusing on the centrality of labor,

caste equality and an equal status for women. They referred to their principles as part of

an alternate code called Satyashodak dharma or the religion that seeks the truth. Phule

and his colleagues in the Samaj worked with the assumption that Hindu practices and

traditions were elastic enough and capable of reinterpretation in and for the present.

Close to his heart He treats A slave As his own son... Such a man Is God In person”, translated in Chitre, Says Tuka-1, 185. 85 Ashis Nandy, "Cultural Frames for Transformative Politics: A Credo," in Political Discourse: Explorations in Indian and Western Political Thought, ed. Bhiku and J.Pantham Parekh (New Delhi: Sage, 1987), 243. 86 Nagaraj, Flaming Fleet, 50. 87 Ashis Nandy, Time Warps: The Insistent Politics o f Silent and Evasive Pasts (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001), 142-43. It can be argued that conversion as well as aggressive adoption of Islamic and Christian traits by lower caste Hindus especially was and is an important form o f dissent against upper caste control and dominance. 88 For a very useful discussion on the indigenous sources of SatyaShodhak Samaj’s critique, see O’Hanlon, Caste, Conflict and Ideology, especially chapter 14.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 157

According to Phule, the essence of religion lay not in any kind of rites or practices

but in the notion of truth or satya which he argued was missing in the Aryan Brahman

religion but existed to some extent in Christianity and Islam. However he was hesitant to

endorse any single religion as fully embodying the notion of truth since he believed none

of the religious texts provided all the answers. The Sarvajanik Satya Dharam Pustak,

which he recited to his family and supporters during the last phase of his life, since he

was too ill to write it himself, is written as a set of dialogues between him and his son

Yeshwant. In one of these dialogues he tells Yeshwant,

The rivers belonging to all countries on this earth, all of them meet the sea. How can the river from one of these countries be sacred and not the others?.. .similarly how can only some people on this earth be treated as more sacred and akin to God over the others? God has given everyone limbs and intellect equally.. .In what ways are some treated more powerfully than others?89

According to Phule, the quest for ‘truth’ lies in individual and collective moral conduct

such as compassion towards others, honesty, respect and equality for all human beings.

Phule, clearly influenced by Christianity, tells Yeshwant that it is the Creator that

must be worshipped and not His Creations such as the act of worshipping idols and

offering them flowers and food. Rejecting the practice of making offerings to gods, he

argues one should respect:

Without any discrimination, any human being who will take care of their family, and work for the good of society night and day, whether he is a Brahman, or an American Indian or whom you consider low and untouchable. That person deserves alms and this is equivalent to making an offering to the Creator.90

Phule, MPSV, 441. Translation mine. Ibid., 445. Translation mine.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 158

He says only when we start behaving towards all humans as our brothers and sisters can

we say God’s rule has been established.91 Treating women as equals and respect for them

is practicing religious truth, which he points out Brahmans have flouted by subordinating

their women, thereby causing great damage to them and to society.

Rather than emphasizing religious appearances, which he argues Brahmanism

does, thereby absolving the person of all moral behavior and accountability , he stresses

moral and personal conduct. As he tells his son:

On this issue I will introduce what that great man Yeshwant said-when you hear these great words you will realize how holy they are. They go as foliows-The way you believe people should behave with you, you should also behave with them accordingly.93

Yeshwant here refers to Jesus94, who Phule gives an indigenous name, meaning one who

is successful. The Brahmans he points out would never accept Shudras treating them the

way they treat the latter; hence they have always violated this fundamental principle.

Moreover he argues Brahmans hold notions of purity and pollution only with lower

castes while dining and eating meat with impunity with the English. The Christians, he

says, brought their great man Yeshwant’s teachings to India to save the Shudras,

preaching the need for equality, personal ethics and service to others.

Similarly he argues the Mohammedi religion (Islam) provides powerful ethical

teachings, most importantly equality of man. When the Muslims first came to India he

91 Ibid., 444. 92 He argues that religiosity for Brahmans constitutes following certain rituals and practices such as calling out God’s name ten times a day while behaving in the most licentious and unethical manner, including cheating the poor. Ibid., 444. 93 Ibid., 465. Translation mine. 94 In Marathi Jesus is often referred to asYeshu.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 159

argues they did good deeds by breaking Hindus’ idols and converting them into their

fold,

Because in the holy book of the Koran Mohammedi peoples believe all are equal.. .and that the Creator of all beings is One who is called Khudah.. .and that all humans created by Khudah should be treated as brothers. Hence all peoples have the freedom to read their holy Koran and behave according to it, thereby giving everyone equal rights, eating and mixing freely together.. ,95

Notions such as fate and the Brahman perpetuated view of karma that present life

is based on actions of past life96, he argues militates against satya. Moreover he valorizes

dignity of labor, while asserting that Shudras must also have access to education. Q7 He

contests the supremacy of knowledge delinked from productive relations, which he

argues is the basis of Brahmanism and their power, and argues that the two must go hand

in hand. And there must be respect for all kinds of occupations and skills, while

debunking the idea that there is anything lowly about any caste occupation, particularly

those carried out with one’s hands:

Women or men who accord respect to farming and artisans and who help them, these are people who are followers of truth.. .Women or men who do not look down upon people making their livelihood as a chambar or bighar and in fact respect those who help them in their work, these are followers of truth.98

If Brahmans, he tells Yeshwant, are prepared to seek such a road of satya or truth, there

can be reconciliation:

Brahmans can redeem themselves in the present by giving up notions of superiority, considering themselves equal to all others, they should all seek the truth and behave according to the truth, if they do this then all shudras, ati-shudras, Bhil, Kolis, Gond

Phule, MPSV, 470. Translation mine. 96 Tuka two centuries ago had also rejected the notion ofkarma. 97 Phule tells Yeshwant in one of his dialogues that our mother cleaned our shit when we were young and we never consider her lowly, so why should this activity be seen as lowly? Phule,MPSV, 455. 98 Ibid., 500. Translation mine.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 160

and so on peoples will let their past and present excesses go and will without a doubt forgive them. 9

The Satyashodak Samaj and Rewriting Hindu Rituals

Phule challenges Brahmanical Hinduism in significant ways, not doing away with

all Hindu rituals and practices but fundamentally reworking them to put the peasant and

productive relations at the center, as reflected in the principles adopted by the

Satyashodak Samaj. Phule recognized that ceremonies and rituals were an essential part

of people’s everyday lives which could not so easily be done away with. Rather what

was necessary was to reorient these to make them more humane and egalitarian, while

bringing to the fore, local, non-Brahmanic elements, within them. Unlike many of his

Shudra activists and colleagues who were influenced by an aggressive rationalism, Phule

did not advocate scrapping the past and building society anew. Rather he believed that

the past could be rewritten in innovative ways.100

This also reflected a pragmatism that came with living amongst Shudras, being a

peasant-activist himself and part of that world-view. He was not an outsider to that

society, looking at it from a purely intellectual position, as many were to do later. Rather

Ibid., 497. Translation mine. 100 Badri Narayan notes such a difference between a more aggressive rationalist and historicist or modem manner of approaching the past in present-day Maharashtra with that of lower castes in other parts of the country such as north India. He points out that from the 1960’s onwards in particular, Dalit movements in Maharashtra, greatly influenced by Marxism have been far more skeptical about local myths. In the Hindi speaking region he says on the contrary, the critiques are far more rooted in local traditions. He goes on to say “In north Indian rural society the dominance of the epics and scriptures (the Vedas, Puranas, Ramayana and Mahabharata) was countered with folk histories...In Marathi Dalit discourse this tendency is less visible, even though dalit communities in Maharashtra have a rich oral tradition.” Narayan,Documenting Dissent, 118. In Phule one is yet to see this complete break that takes place in Marathi lower caste movements later but there are certainly seeds of it in his aggressive historicism. Could the nature of the difference between lower caste expressions in Maharashtra and that o f north India, particularly its rural areas, be attributable to the legacy of colonialism especially since the former saw a much deeper penetration of colonial modernity? The hyper-rationalist response of Phule and certainly

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 161

he was a critical insider, who understood and empathized with the hardship of the

Shudras’ everyday lives. He was particularly sensitive to the suffering of women

(especially Brahman women) and Untouchables, both of whom he believed had been at

the receiving end of Hindu exclusivism, especially its Brahmanic form.

Phule and the Samaj focused on rituals and ceremonies that were part of peoples’

daily lives, such as amongst others, weddings, naming ceremonies for infants, vastushanti

or rites for a new home. The Satyashodak Samaj provided alternative rites and customs,

which they wrote themselves to be used for such occasions. All ceremonies such as

weddings, death rites and others got rid of the Brahman priest101 and the object of

worship was usually the kuladevata or family/ancestral God, not the pan-Indian

Brahmanic deities.102 The vasthushanti ceremony, conducted when a new house is built

to propitiate the gods and bring good luck henceforth focused on the workers, who built

the house, rather than the priest who was the one usually fed and rewarded on this

occasion. The Samaj rites for this occasion dispensed with the Brahman altogether. Here

is how Phule suggests the rite take place:

First you should pay all dues owed to the workers (from those who dig the foundation, to carpenters, cement layers, bricklayers etc.). Then along with everyone who has financially contributed in building the house, have a puja or ritual and pray to the family deity. Donate money for educating all boys and girls of your caste. Then feed all the workers and your near and dear ones. At the end give betel leaf, sprinkle

Ambedkar seems to point in that direction, although as discussed in this chapter, Phule was also very rooted and wedded to local traditions and differed from Ambedkar in this important respect. 101 In many regions of India, in matrilineal parts of Kerala for instance, a Brahmain does not officiate at Hindu weddings. In Maharashtra their presence was far more pervasive. 102 Usually religious ceremonies in this region include worshipping both the pan-Indian deities as well as local and family/ancestral gods. Each family has an ancestral god which is usually tied to the region they originally migrated from or belonged to. Many of these local deities have been incorporated into the classical Hindu pantheon as avatars of a major deity such as Vitthal is Krishna or Bhavani is Durga.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 162

rosewater and put some attar (perfume) on them.103 Later, based on your capacity to give, give additional rewards to all workers for their dedication and hard work. Finally, donate to charitable causes, especially orphaned and disabled people of other castes including Untouchables, Muslims, Christians and Parsis. Having done all this, then enter a new home.104

Conclusion

Phule was a nuanced public figure, deeply influenced by modem historicism in

his construction of a modem Shudra identity, while also allowing for a flexible non-

historical interpretation of Hindu traditions and practices. He can be characterized

neither as a total advocate nor a complete skeptic of modernity. Rather his historicist

thought allowed him to envision a politics of hope against Brahman oppression but it

could not and did not capture all modes of dissent as Phule was deeply embedded within

indigenous traditions. These in turn acted to limit his historicism, allowing him to stay

firmly rooted in indigenous world-views while espousing elements of modernist thought.

Phule did not want to “museumise cultures”; rather he sharply criticized traditions while

living with and within them.

This allowed him to question mainstream notions of Hinduism, while drawing

from its fringe elements such as those that challenged orthodoxy and asserted the

centrality of an amorphous universal Supreme Being, while going further by challenging

the social compact between classical and ‘subaltern’ aspects of the religion. For Phule

however, despite his skepticism, there were alternative readings of Hinduism that could

incorporate tenets of Christianity, Islam and Buddhism. It was a reading of Hinduism

103 This custom is very common in Maharashtra even today for welcoming guests on special occasions.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 163

that saw the necessity of other beliefs and communities as part of its self. He believed

there were truths within all religions and that people should be able to choose their

religion105, and have mutual understanding in doing so. He thus advocated as ideal a

family in which each member belonged to a different religion such as Buddhism,

Christianity, Islam and Sarvajanik Satya Dharma with the belief that since they were all

children of the same Creator, they ought to be able to co-exist in peace. Such peaceful

co-existence he argued was the essence of religion.106

Phule, MPSV, 421. It is significant that he advocates a rite such as vasthushanti, meant to propitiate the spirits and ensure good luck in the new home. Savarkar on the other hand decries the vasthushanti rite altogether as superstitious and unscientific nonsense. Translation mine. 105 Such kind of ‘voluntarism’ where one can choose one’s religion reflects a modernist perspective. 106 Ibid., 504.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER V

M.G. RANADE’S HISTORICIST AND RELIGIOUS SELF: A BIOGRAPHICAL

ANALYSIS

Introduction

Historicism, incited by western colonial contact, mainly via western education

played an important role in the world-view of M.G. Ranade, one of colonial India’s

leading Hindu social reformers and public figures within the nationalist movement. Yet

non-modem ideas and practices often troubled an uncritical acceptance of a modem

secular historicist outlook. Ranade, like Phule was deeply impressed by colonial

modernity, and especially with the notion of equality, reason and ideas of progress. Like

Phule he too believed that colonialism marked what he considered a divine opportunity to

break the fetters of Hindu ‘backwardness’1 and create conditions for a renewed Hindu

society, although he had much greater faith in Hinduism than Phule did. It opened up he

believed, along with Phule, critical spaces to rethink the traditional parameters of society

although their responses were very different due to their divergent social locations.

One of the key differences between Phule and Ranade was the latter’s belief in Brahmanical culture. A combination o f notions of Brahmanical superiority and modem rationalism led Ranade, contra Phule, to believe Hindus were backward partly because Brahmanical ideas had not been influential enough. “The fact is, that Brahmin civilization, with all its poetry and philosophy, with strict rules o f abstinence and purity, had hardly penetrated below the upper classes who constituted less than ten percent o f the population.” M.G. Ranade,The Miscellaneous Writings o f the Late Honorable Mr. Justice M.G. Ranade (Bombay: The Manoranjan Press, 1915), 204. (Henceforth MW). 164

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 165

Phule was more aggressively rationalist toward Hindu traditions and much more skeptical

about the possibility of these being stretched to incorporate notions of egalitarianism. For

Ranade on the other hand, ideas of equality and justice could be found within the

mainstream Hindu fold itself and emphasized the language of continuity. Moreover

being very pious himself, he had far greater apprehensions about a complete confidence

in the agency of humans as sole purveyors of history. However while the two had

important differences, both can be read as proponents and skeptics of historicism and

consequently modernity. For both, while religious practices, beliefs and customs were

subject to historical analysis, viewed in terms of a secular dead past, at the same time,

they were also treated as living, existing within the same temporality, in the present and

capable of interpretation and renewal.

A product of western education and an employee of the colonial administration,

Ranade had few doubts about the superiority of western civilization and its notions of

progress. Ranade believed that the adoption of colonial ideas was necessary for Indians

to ‘advance’, much like the Europeans had. History and notions of historicity were an

important part of this ‘education’. Like the Indologists and Orientalists, Ranade believed

one could achieve a better understanding of one’s own religion and identity through the

use of a historical lens. Moreover, as an early Indian nationalist, Ranade also saw the

significance of history in crafting an ‘Indian’ ‘national’ identity. Yet his piety led him to

regard a historical perspective along with notions of progress and historical change as

limited in its reach to understand all dimensions of human life. Faith played a crucial

role in his personal and political life. This influenced his views towards history, as not

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 166

merely guided by human actors in a modem secularist sense but also shaped by

transcendental factors as agents of change.

His life and persona had a large role to play in helping us understand the tensions

between his modem historicist and non-historicist views and beliefs. Ranade himself

believed like Phule that one’s public life could not be separated from that of the private;

in highlighting his life-story, I attempt to emphasize the intentional blurring that often

took place between these two spheres. The ‘contradictions’ within Ranade, rather than

indicating confusion or hypocrisy, I argue, have to be read productively, as indicative of

the limitations of both historicism and modernity in his life-world. The struggle to

make sense of modem categories and the modem experience without completely

abandoning traditional or non-modem parameters can sum up Ranade’s life-long attempts

as a ‘social reformer’ and public intellectual. As he himself sums up the act of negotiating

modernity (the new, the present) with tradition (the old, the past), the struggle concerns:

two ideals of life, of two civilizations, of two modes of thought, acting upon us forcibly and calling on all to make the choice of alternative courses.. .Those who surrender themselves to one of these influences have their course of life comparatively smoothed for them. A considerable body amongst us cannot, however, claim this advantage, if indeed it is an advantage at all to do so. We cling to the past, we are drawn to the present. Both have their claims on us, and we seek to re-concile these •a claims as best we can by not breaking abruptly and finally with either.

Ranade is often accused of following such double standards, of not being ‘modem’ enough, in a pejorative sense. One such author for instance epitomizes this view when he says “Ranade contradicted himself by first drawing attention to the compelling and forward-moving forces of social evolution, but thereafter by reminding his audience of how they could ill-afford to ‘kick the old ladder’ from under their feet. Roughly two years earlier.. .he had similarly committedfaux a pas by trying to understand social progress both in terms of human intervention and ‘God’s hand in history’.” Amiya Sen,Social and Religious Reform: The Hindus o f British India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003), 19. 3 Quoted in Richard P. Tucker, Ranade and the Roots of Indian Nationalism (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1972), 186.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 167

The Public/Private Life of M.G. Ranade

Ranade was bom on 18 January 1842, named Mahadeo4, into a family of

Chitpavan Brahmans, in Niphad (Nasik district).5 Chitpavan Brahmans are from the

mountainous region of the Western Ghats on the Konkan6 coast, especially concentrated

in an area called Ratnagiri. The Ranades too, were from this part but like many other

Chitpavans, due to the harsh terrain, migrated in search of work to the Desh, or the

mainland, to Solapur. Ranade’s ancestors had served the Peshwas, the former rulers of

7 • • the region, in an administrative capacity. The family was neither very poor nor affluent;

his father served the Kolhapur state as a revenue clerk. Biographers describe young

Mahadev as a quiet and determined child whose precocious and serious disposition was

often made fun of.8 He was the only son, with one younger sister, thereby putting all

family responsibility on him, as he grew older and this sense of responsibility was to

This name later became Mahadev. 5 Nasik, located in the Desh, the heartland of what is today Maharashtra was a well-known holy place and also was at that time under direct British rule as part of the Bombay Presidency. 6 Hence they are also known as Konkanastha Brahmans. 7 Chitpavans had gained predominance because of the Peshwas who belonged to the same sub-caste. They occupied many of the key administrative positions and were the Peshwa’s keysardars (chieftains). In the Konkan they had been moneylenders and landowners. However in terms of status the Deshastha Brahmans or Brahmans from the Desh were seen as ritually purer and had dominated during Shivaji’s time but this role and caste status was slowly yielded over to the Chitpavans. The Deshashta Brahmans had been village accountants and landholders. Caste status was clearly closely tied to the political economy of the village. See Tucker, Ranade and the Roots of Indian Nationalism, 8 and Ravinder Kumar, Western India in the Nineteenth Century: A Study in the Social History of Maharashtra (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968). 8 Biographical information about Ranade comes from his biographers, namely James Kellock, Mahadev Govind Ranade: Patriot and Social Servant (Calcutta: Association Press, 1926), T.N. Parvate, Mahadev Govind Ranade: A Biography (New York: Asia Publishing House, 1963), N.R. Phatak, Nyayamurti Mahadev Govind Ranade Yanche Caritra (Pune: Neelkanth Prakashan, 1966), Ramabai Ranade, Amchya Ayushatil Kahi Athavani (Pune: Wardha Prakashan, 2002). Writings about the historical milieu were also useful including Uma Chakravarti, Rewriting History: The Life and Times o f Pandita Ramabai (New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1998), Tucker,Ranade and the Roots of Indian Nationalism.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 168

become acute in later years. He was a favorite of his mother’s while his relationship with

his father was very formal. His father, known for his strictness, interacted with his son

only during mealtimes and young Mahadev, often approached him through an

intermediary.

He lost his mother at a very early age and his father remarried within sixteen days

of his mother’s death to a woman not far apart in age from young Mahadev. This perhaps

made him sensitive to the status of women in the household, particularly the practice of

elderly men, including widowers, marrying young girls, which he later vehemently

opposed, although he ended up doing this himself. He was always very protective about

his stepmother even when she later was often harsh with his own wife.

Ranade’s formal relationship with his father was to become significant later in life

when he had to face his father’s intransigence on vital issues concerning his own life. He

avoided conflicts with his father and followed this approach even in politics, where he

always tried to solve problems through consensus rather than confrontation. The family

was orthodox, strictly following daily rituals of prayer. This included Ranade who also

did his daily sandhya (evening prayer) recitation as a child although it is not clear

whether he did this in his adult life as a ‘reformer’. The practice of child-marriage was

prevalent then, and his parents had him married at thirteen to Sakhubai, renamed

Ramabai, who was ten years old. While Vedic and Sanskrit knowledge was greatly

revered in the household, so were the bhakti traditions of Maharashtra9, embodied in the

9 The bhakti saints’ who were Brahmans and non-Brahmans alike practiced popular religion, which was non-iconoclastic, tolerant and compassionate and deeply influenced the popular ethos o f the desh or western region of Maharashtra, from where these saints hailed. Although Ranade’s ancestors were from the Konkan, he and his family were more likeDeshasthas Brahmans or Brahmans of the desh, many who were deeply embedded in the bhakti tradition, which was to greatly influence his public politics. Thebhakti

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 169

many saints both Brahman and non-Brahman. His family were “devoted bhaktas ”10 or

followers of these saints, especially his grandfather who lived with them and Ranade

must have been greatly influenced by him, since he carried this deep immersion in the

spirit of bhakti into his public politics.

Young Ranade spent most of his childhood in Kolhapur (western Maharashtra)

until he was fifteen years old. In other words he had a traditional Brahman upbringing

and it was only when he moved to Bombay for education that he was exposed to colonial

life-styles. When, upon his insistence, he was sent to Bombay in 1857 to study in

Elphinstone School, and later Elphinstone College, he got his Bachelors and Masters

degrees here mastering English and Latin, as well as learning Sanskrit on his own with

the help of a shastri .u One of his favorite subjects his biographers tell us, was history,

and he himself recounts that he did all his spare reading in it, particularly European and

Maratha history; he says “I am fond of all kinds of books and all learning but I have a 17 special fascination for history.” He taught in Elphinstone College as a professor of

history for a short time after which he was appointed a Marathi translator by the Bombay

government. After acquiring a law degree in 1871, he worked as a judge in various

courts throughout his life, rising to the position of a Bombay High Court judge13, earning

him the epithet, Justice Ranade, which he held until his death on 16 January 1901.

movement was a protest movement within Hinduism that was greatly influenced by Islam. It opposed the following within high Brahmanical Hinduism; Sanskrit language, rituals, yogic system o f austerities, caste, animal sacrifice, polytheism, textual knowledge and believed in attaining the divine primarily through devotion. 10 Tucker, Ranade and the Roots of Indian Nationalism, 9. 11 A shastri is someone who studies/knows the shastras or scriptures, usually a learned Brahman. 12 Quoted in Parvate, Mahadev Govind Ranade: A Biography, 15. 13 It was popularly felt at the time that rising to a position of a mere judge and not a more senior position was an intentional snub by the colonial regime to mark its disapproval for Ranade’s political activities which at times were very critical o f the government such as his role in the Sarvajanik Sabha

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 170

Due to his western education and proclivity towards learning, Ranade was widely

read in European thought. His rationalist views drew greatly from European modernist

writings. He especially enjoyed reading modem works of history such as Edward

Gibbon’s Decline and Fall o f the Roman Empire, Macaulay’s several volumes of History

o f England and historical realist novels by Walter Scott.14 His own historical writing was

clearly influenced by those such as Gibbon who purported to write ‘objective’ histories.

He also read political economic writings of those such as Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham,

John Stuart Mill and others. While on the one hand he was favorable toward their

notions of progress and the advancement of European civilization, he was also deeply

critical of their emphasis on laissez-faire and free trade. Ranade advocated state

intervention in the economy and protection for indigenous industries, especially in India.

He also disagreed with the classical economists’ views on human nature, emphasizing

self-interest and the pursuit of wealth as guiding society and the economy.

In his time intellectuals like Herbert Spencer were especially popular and

influential amongst the young western educated Marathi intelligentsia.15 While Ranade

read Spencer and like him believed that society was continuously ‘evolving’, needed a

rationalist basis and that change was inevitable, he was also harshly critical of him. He

which demanded changes in governments policies to alleviate the economic misery of the common people. His other colleagues such as Bhandarkar and Telang who were less ‘political’, it was believed at the time, were given appropriate promotions. See Parvate, Mahadev Govind Ranade: A Biography, 246. 14 His biographer, T.N. Parvate mentions that whilst in college, Ranade wrote a list o f all the books he had read. These included works by Shakespeare, Francis Bacon, Gibbon, Macaulay, Scott, Buckle, Plato, Milton, Byron and Adam Smith amongst others. Ibid., 14. 15 Vitthal Ramji Shinde, a Maratha reformer mentions Spencer’s popularity in his college days in the 1890’s. “When I entered the Intermediate [Year] I read in the original English Spencer’s Education and Introduction to the Study of Sociology. At that time the influence of Spencer had become very impressive and predominant not only in Europe and America, but also in Eastern countries India and Japan. Most of the college teachers of that time were swept off their feet.” Matthew Lederle,Philosophical Trends in Modern Maharashtra (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1976), 166-67. Spencer, Mill and Bentham were the core prescribed readings in the college curriculum in those days.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 171

chastised Marathi intellectuals for following Spencer’s beliefs, which he believed led

inevitably to atheism and faithlessness. Later in life, in one of his sermons at the

Prarthana Samaj, a religious reform body he helped establish, he recounted a trip he made

with his ‘reformer’ colleagues to a village called Yavtheshwari, in Satara zilla or district.

Here he recalls encountering mobs of people coming to the Siddheshwar temple. When

the ‘reformers’ asked the villagers the purpose of their visit, the latter told them they were

seeking God’s advice by giving him offerings. According to the villagers if God

accepted these offerings they would willingly remain in the village, or else leave. In

other words they left their major life decisions to God, via signs with which He would

communicate. In this instance, depending on the side on which the flowers that the

villagers had placed on the idol fell, the villagers would decide whether to stay or depart.

This time it fell to the side that indicated the villagers should stay, an instruction they

cheerfully obeyed.

However Ranade recounts that while the villagers left the temple contentedly, a

heated debate ensued amongst the visiting ‘reformers’. The ‘Herbert Spencer’ educated

individuals he says, were very skeptical of such ‘superstitions’ exhibited by the rustic

villagers, dismissing their beliefs as naive and ignorant. In their eyes, the villagers were

incapable of making decisions for themselves but left it to ‘fate’. Western education

however he believed, did not affect everyone in the same manner. While it induced some

to become very skeptical of such ‘old ways’, others, (suggesting himself), found this

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 172

devotion as displayed by the villagers, uplifting and liberating. Contra Spencer, he

argued it was indeed God who decided one’s destiny as these villagers believed.16

Not coincidentally then, in the years preceding the establishment of the Samaj in

the 1960’s, Ranade was an avid reader of theological texts, including the Bible which he

used extensively in his sermons at the Samaj. Since he was skeptical of the faithlessness

that pervaded most European secular thought, he was especially drawn towards western

scholars emphasizing divinity while challenging the science/religion or morality

dichotomy such as the theists. A.C. Fraser’s Philosophy o f Theism, presented by the

author as a series of lectures between 1894-5 in England, was especially influential in this

regard. Ranade drew from Fraser’s skepticism toward atheism, reason as defined in

purely scientific terms, the science/morality dichotomy and the limitations of science in

understanding deeper metaphysical questions. 1 7 According to Ranade, Fraser and the

theists’ claims that a single unified God was seen as part of nature, as imminent and

permeating all life, was akin to several Hindu positions, especially as enunciated in the

Upanishads. However he argued there were other strands within Hindu traditions such as

the bhakti tradition, which emphasized the oneness and immanence of God, while

maintaining dualism. This he argued was superior because it primarily stressed love,

self-sacrifice and devotion in approaching God, as well as toleration to all beings,

M.G. Ranade, Nyayamurti M.Mahadev Govind Ranade Hyanci Dharmapara Vyakhyane, 2nd ed. (Bombay: Dvarkanath Govind Vaidya, 1915), 116-18. 17 According to Fraser theism is defined in the following manner; “Theistic faith claims for man a right to recognise the universe of the Real as supremely a moral or spiritual unity, incompletely comprehensible, that may reasonably be rested in and reverenced.” Alexander Campbell Fraser,Philosophy o f Theism, vol. First Series, The Gifford Lectures: Delivered before the University of Edinburgh in 1894-95 (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1979), 37. He goes on to say “Each finite thing and person is so connected with every other, in the past and in the distant, that a complete knowledge of each is possible only to omniscient intelligence. Accordingly, unconditional certainty, or an absolute knowledge of the natural causes and end of the things that are presented in our experience, is unattainable.” Ibid., 239.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 173

animate and inanimate which he said was lacking in the western theists and could greatly 1 8 enhance their philosophy. Ranade thus sought to align Fraser’s arguments with

debates within Hindu philosophy, by arguing there was a great deal in common between

them. In many of his intellectual endeavors in interpreting western philosophical

arguments, Ranade was constantly seeking indigenous sources and arguments. He was

widely read in Hindu philosophy and the writings of the bhakti saints.

In his work, Ranade like most others in his generation, before modem notions of

disciplinary compartmentalization set in, in the nineteenth century, wrote and was

publicly involved with legal, historical, political, economic and religious issues, viewing

them as all interlinked, rather than separate fields of knowledge. He was a political

economist, historian, religious scholar and social reformer, all rolled into one. But such a

generalist approach by a single individual was not uncommon at the time, since there

were few ‘specialists’ or ‘experts’ in the modem sense of the term until the early

twentieth century. Ranade is an exemplar of such a traditional non-compartmentalized

approach exhibiting considerable depth and understanding on a wide gamut of issues. He

can be considered one of Maharashtra’s earliest modem historians, publishing a modem

history of the Marathas in 1901. He was also well known for his economic writings and

activities, and is often hailed as the ‘father of modem Indian economics’.19

But he is most well known for his social reform activities and leadership in the

early years of the Indian National Congress on social issues. In popular Indian nationalist

18 M.G. Ranade, "Philosophy of Indian Theism," inThe Wisdom o f a Modern Rishi: Writings and Speeches of Mahadev Govind Ranade, ed. T.N. Jagadisan (Madras: Rochhouse and Sons Limited, 1900- 1988). 19 See M.G. Ranade,Essays on Indian Economics: A Collection of Essays and Speeches, Reprint of revised edition ed. (New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government o f India, 1982).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 174

literature, he is termed a ‘moderate’, due to his belief in the necessity of social reforms

preceding political ones and his belief in ‘moderate’ means to do so, namely using legal

and constitutional means. Hindu social reform throughout his life remained one of his

most important causes, because he believed that a religious upheaval would affect all

spheres of life, economic, political and social since he viewed them as indivisible.

He moved to Pune in 1871 where he lived on and off for twenty-two years and

thus began his foray into public life, with the issue of widow-remarriage. A brief

discussion about the influence of western education and colonial rule in general on Pune

would be useful here to provide a historical background in which Ranade found himself.

We have already seen while discussing Phule, the heavy influence that Brahmans,

particularly Chitpavans, the sub-caste to which Ranade belonged, wielded in pre-colonial

Bombay Presidency, particularly Pune. This was to continue with the British since

Brahmans were the first to take to western education and hold administrative posts in the

colonial regime. Pune remained a Brahman stronghold, while this was not the case in

Bombay. The latter city had emerged as a major port under the British and other groups

there wielded considerable influence due to their commercial activities such as the Parsis,

Gujaratis and Muslims.20 By shifting the capital from Pune to Bombay, the British had

also shifted the center of power, tied to the rise of new commercial groups who had

benefited from the colonial political economy, in which Brahmans were not necessarily

powerful.

See Chakravarti, Rewriting History, for a good overview of the historical context in Pune at the time and for Bombay see Christine Dobbin, Urban Leadership in Western India: Politics and Communities in Bombay City 1840-1885 (London: Oxford University Press, 1972), Tucker,Ranade and the Roots of Indian Nationalism.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 175

Moreover colonialism ushered in a new socio-political economic order in which

along with non-Hindu groups, non-Brahman groups such as the Marathas (or those who 91 increasingly identified themselves as such) , and as seen earlier, individuals from lower

castes such as Phule, were able to gain new socio-economic opportunities under the

colonial regime. 99 Even amongst Brahmans, it was the Saraswats, not Chitpavans who

9 -3 gained opportunities in Bombay as the Chitpavans moved there only by the 1850’s.

Furthermore, the old Brahman aristocracy of the Deccan, tied to previously ruling landed

families was giving way to formerly unknown Brahman groups24, many of whom were

migrants to Bombay and other cities. It was from these previously unknown groups that

the newly western educated Brahmans or ‘new Brahmans’ emerged, who worked closely

9^ with the British. Moreover many of these Brahmans held high status in society due to

their high caste, but were economically very poor. A growing awareness of this disparity

between caste and class also heightened their insecurity under the colonial regime.

All these changes resulted in a growing sense of anxiety amongst the Brahmans

who felt their power had been challenged by the British as well as these new groups who

were questioning their authority in society. 9 fi This was compounded by the aggressive

For an insightful discussion on the modernity of the ‘Maratha’ identity, see Prachi Deshpande, "Narratives of Pride: History and Regional Identity in Maharashtra, India C.1870-1960" (Tufts University, 2002), Rosalind O'Hanlon, Caste, Conflict and Ideology: Mahatma Jotirao Phule and Low Caste Protest in Nineteenth-Century Western India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985). 22 O’Hanlon, Caste Conflict and Ideology, Chakravarti, Rewriting History, see specifically pages 53- 54. 23 Tucker, Ranade and The Roots of Indian Nationalism, 4. 24 The East India Company dissolved the inams (gifted lands) of the old aristocracy from 1851 onwards. See Phatak, NyayamurtiM.G. Ranade Yanche Caritra, 119. 25 Tucker, Ranade and The Roots of Indian Nationalism, 70. 26 Ashis Nandy, At the Edge o f Psychology: Essays in Politics and Culture (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1980), 84., and Chakravarti,Rewriting History, 97. These anxieties were then as Nandy points out, often transferred onto Muslims, as responsible for this ‘emasculation’. The Muslims therefore became the main target of ire in many Marathi Brahman writings, as manifestedhistorically due to the Maratha-Mughal conflict, which was now read as a Hindu (equated with India)-Muslim one.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 176

presence of Christian missionaries by the mid-nineteenth century, virulently attacking

Hinduism in public spaces such as bazaars, jatras (fairs), recreational places and

wherever people gathered.27 Feeling increasingly threatened, Pune was at the heart of

socio-political and religious debates in the wake of these changes induced by colonialism

since Brahmans viewed themselves as legitimate upholders of religious ‘traditions’,

‘knowledge’ and leadership in the region.

As a result, debates regarding the role of religion and custom in the wake of

modem ideas, tended to be Brahman and male dominated, reflecting social concerns

within the Brahman community mostly surrounding the status of women such as

widow-remarriage, age of marriage and other such issues. Not surprisingly, it also

became the site for virulent anti-British sentiment by the late nineteenth-century, often

taking very militant forms and one of the primary sites for the rise of strong masculinist

Hindu political extremism found particularly amongst Chitpavan Brahmans. This was

the climate that Phule lived in, as seen earlier and also where Ranade began his foray into

public life where he faced considerable opposition for many of his stances on social

reform issues and a ‘softer’ version of Hinduism.

Ranade, while in Bombay, was already writing the English columns for

Induprakash, a reformist bilingual newspaper 9Q , run by Vishnushastri Pandit, the leader

of the widow-remarriage movement in the region. He was closely involved with the

27 Phatak, Nyayamurti M.G. Ranade Yanche Caritra, 70. 28 Practices and customs surrounding women became the site on which these debates between Brahman men were fought which pointed to the need to ‘manage female sexuality’ within Brahmanical society, particularly since women were viewed as the ‘repositories of Hindu tradition’. Uma Chakravarti refers to this as ‘Brahmanical patriarchy’ in contrast to the status o f women in other castes and the radical views that non-Brahmans articulated for women such as Phule. See Chakravarti, “Reconceptualising Gender: Phule, Brahmanism and Brahmanical Patriarchy.” 29 He first ran the English section from 1862-63, and then became a columnist for it.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 177

Prarthana Samaj, which was a religious organization aimed to reform Hinduism, started

in 1867 in Bombay. But his career as a ‘social reformer’ began with the issue of widow-

remarriage, which had emerged as a very contentious social issue at the time, a debate

that raged from the mid to the late nineteenth century amongst Marathi (mostly Brahman)

intellectuals and public figures.

Women who lost their husbands in upper caste communities, especially

Brahmans, were not allowed to remarry upon their husbands’ deaths and were in many

instances widowed at a very young age, due to the prevalent practice of child-marriage.

They were then forced to live a life of social opprobrium, treated as an outcaste both in

TO the family and in society in general. The horrors that child-widows and widows overall

were subjected to formed one of the main planks on which the ‘modernist’ social

reformers fought the ‘orthodox’, taking inspiration from similar struggles led by Pandit

Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar in Bengal.31 Ranade himself had experienced the hardships

that women widows faced in his own household as his sister who was married at nine,

lost her husband a few years later and lived as a pariah in her in-laws home. She was

allowed few visits to her brother until much later, when at the age of twenty-one, she

came to live with him.

This would include physical humiliation; their hair would be immediately tonsured, they could no longer grow their hair, wear ornaments, had to wear only white, eat by themselves and not partake in any festivals or family rituals etc. This was very different from lower caste women who enjoyed many freedoms and could remarry if widowed. However some upwardly mobile caste groups also emulated Brahmanical practices because they believed it would elevate their caste status. See Chakravarti,Rewriting History, 27 and also 52, 55-56. 31 Vishnushastri Pandit was called the Vidyasagar of western India because he led the widow- remarriage movement in the region, primarily through interpretation ofshastras. He published his arguments as a widow remarriage booklet in 1865 and later himself married a widow. See S.G. Malshe and N. Apte, Vidhwavivah Chalval, 2nd edition ed. (Pune: Anmol Prakashan, 1990). 32 Tucker, Ranade and the Roots of Indian Nationalism, 49.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 178

The first widow-remarriage took place in Bombay under heavy security in 1869 in

which seven reformist Brahmans including Ranade were involved; Vishnushastri

performed the marriage rituals for the couple amidst death-threats issued against him.

The reformers were excommunicated from their caste for this act and told to take

prayaschitta or penance34 to be readmitted.35 Reformers faced considerable practical

difficulties and hardships due to their activities. Ranade could not meet his sister as her

in-laws took her away, his Brahman cooks left him while other priests refused to conduct

religious ceremonies and women in the family were insulted while visiting the temple.

Ranade while battling these forces in public was also doing so in private. He lost

his first wife in 1873 when he was thirty-two years old, and within a month his father

arranged for him to marry again, this time to a girl who was twelve years old, also

renamed Ramabai. Through an act of moral coercion and some manipulation, his father

This led to the formation of the Vidhva Vivahottejak Mandal (Widow Remarriage Association) in 1866. Several reformers were involved such as R.G. Bhandarkar, Gopal Hari Deshmukh and others. See Malshe and Apte, Vidhwavivah Chalval. 34 This often involved feeding Brahmans, taking pilgrimages and other such ‘expiatory’ rituals. 35 Social reformers found it very difficult to implement reforms within their own households as Ranade himself realized. One of the reformers belonging to a generation before Ranade, Gopal Hari Deshmukh’s (1823-1892) daughter’s mother-in law threatened to find another wife for her son unless Deshmukh took prayaschitta (penance), which he did. Bhandarkar had his widowed daughter married some years later and was nearly excommunicated from his sub-caste, the Brahman Saraswats for doing so. 36 One such incident points to the social dilemmas and difficulties the reformers faced. On October 14, 1892, Christian missionaries at the St. Mary’s Convent invited reformers Ranade, Bhandarkar, Tilak, Gokhale and others for a public lecture after which tea was served. As guests they could not refuse but as Brahmans they were not supposed to accept tea from Christians. Some drank while others merely held the cup without drinking but leading newspapers in Pune reported it as a scandal and all are were seen as ‘polluted’, transgressing caste. The orthodox took the matter to the Shankaracharya seeking excommunication for this group and only Ranade and Tilak agreed to appear in his court. Ranade did not want to dismiss religious authorities outright. As he stated in his justification, much to the disapproval of his colleagues: “The position that reformers ought regard all ecclesiastical authorities as their open enemies is one which nobody in active life will venture on urging for one moment. These authorities have their uses and no great or good purpose is served by ignoring them or treating them with contempt.” Quoted in Parvate, Mahadev Govind Ranade, 118. Both Tilak and Ranade faced considerable social ostracism, borne particularly by their families for two years and Ranade agreed to prayaschittado (penance) for a friend’s sake to please the latter’s father. These details are mostly taken from Parvate,Mahadev Govind Ranade, 117. 37 Ibid, 51.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 179

compelled his son to accept this marriage.38 When news of this reached people, there

was shock and dismay amongst the reformers and jubilation amongst the orthodox at this

‘breach’ of reformist principles. Ranade had lost all credibility for advocating social

reform, since like everyone else he spent his life advocating to, he had also succumbed to

family pressure, which he could not withstand.

One of his earliest biographer’s, N.R. Phatak defends his decision by calling

Ranade a ‘pitrbhakt ’ or devotee of his father. Loyalty and duty to his father Phatak

argues, preceded Ranade’s own judgment on this matter even though he knew it would

-3Q haunt him in public for the rest of his life. Ramabai writes about this moment in her

reminisces of her husband by calling his decision to marry her “among all examples of

his self-sacrifice and magnanimity this is the brightest and most significant.” 40 Perhaps

Ranade was influenced by pragmatic considerations such as avoiding social ostracism for

the whole family, particularly since his family was orthodox. However whatever the

reasons may have been for him to take such a socially regressive step, particularly for a

well-known reformer41, it certainly left an indelible stain on his otherwise unsullied

Concerned that his son would marry a widow, his father requested one of his friends, a rural jagirdar (a landed aristocratic family), to bring his young ‘marriageable’ daughter to Pune to marry his son. Once the daughter was brought to Pune both men knew it would be socially unacceptable for her to be taken back to her hometown without marrying the groom, as no one else would marry her. Ranade’s father also threatened him with breaking all ties and leaving the house to go live in Kolhapur permanently if he did not agree to this alliance. 39 Phatak,NyayamurtiMahadev Govind Ranade: Yanche Caritra, 237. 40 Ranade, Amchya Ayushyatil Kahi Athavani, 24-25. As Chakravarti points out, in Rewriting History, since Ranade was old enough to be father to his wife Ramabai, his reformist agenda which he had betrayed by marrying her, he tried to fulfill by ‘reforming’ her, educating and exposing her to ‘modem’ ways, such as public speaking and learning English. She suffered a great deal for her public activities urged by her husband, amongst his relatives, especially female, who taunted her for disregarding her ‘traditions’ and role in the household, 204, 209, 217-224. See her autobiographyAmchya Ayushatil Kahi Athavani for her attempts to negotiate these two worlds. 41 A clue can be offered by this statement made by Ranade in one of his speeches: “we should not hold to our notion o f truth if it is going to hurt one’s father. Just as I have firm beliefs about certain things,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 180

reputation, as his opponent Bal Gangadhar Tilak42 often reminded people through

speeches and newspaper articles.43

Battles between ‘reformers’ and ‘orthodox’ became increasingly heated by the

late nineteenth-century over issues such as widow-remarriage and a ‘legitimate’

marriageable age for boys and girls. The reformers, most notably Ranade, Bhandarkar44,

Telang45 and others wanted to increase the legal marriageable age of boys to eighteen,

and girls to twelve by passing a bill. There were some orthodox shastris who opposed

this bill because it contravened ‘age-old Hindu custom’ but there were others such as

Tilak, a believer in reform in principle, who argued the ‘foreign’ colonial state had no

business interfering in Hindu custom through legislative enactments; rather the problem

should be addressed at the level of the community itself. Both sides marshaled

arguments from the Hindu shastras or scriptures46 as they had in the case of widow-

remarriage, claiming their interpretations had religious sanction. The vituperative battles

so does he. So what gives us the right to assert our claims over his? We should try to reason with one’s father.” Quoted in Phatak,NyayamurtiMahadev Govind Yanche Caritra, 211. 42 Tilak, popularly known asLokmanya (man of the people) was a major nationalist leader, credited for taking the Congress to the masses, through his slogans ofSwaraj (self-rule). He was bom July 23, 1856 in Ratnagiri (Konkan) and was one of the reformers, including Ranade’s fiercest opponents. See Richard Cashman, The Myth of the Lokmanya: Tilak and Mass Politics in Maharashtra (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), Dhananjay Keer,Lokmanya Tilak: Father o f the Indian Freedom Struggle (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1969), Y.D. Phadke,Shodh Bal-Gopalancha (Pune: Sri Vidya Prakashan, 1977). 43 He was the editor of the English newspaper, Mahratta and later the Marathi paper, Kesari thereby wielding considerable influence over the newspaper reading public. He made an attack on Ranade’s credibility as a reformer due to his second marriage to a young girl in the 8 August 1884 issue oMahratta. f 44 R.G. Bhandarkar a close reformer colleague of Ranade’s was a Sanskrit scholar, Indologist, professor and part of the Prarthana Samaj. He was bom on 6 July 1837 also in Ratnagiri district. See S.N. Kamataki, Dr. Sir Ramkrishna Gopal Bhandarkar Yanche Caritra (Mumbai: Srilakshmi Narayan Press, 1930), H.A. Phadke, R.G. Bhandarkar (New Delhi: National Book Trust, 1968). 45 K.T. Telang was also a reformer colleague of Ranade’s and the latter succeeded him as High Court judge. 46 Shastras are religious texts, scriptures. According to Kane, they are “that which regulates and declares (human) activities and abstentions by means o f eternal words (Vedas) or by works composed by men”. P.V. Kane,History of Dharmasastra, 5 vols., vol. V, Part II (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Institute, 1962), 1182.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 181

climaxed over the passing of the Age of Consent Bill in 1891. This debate brought Tilak

to the fore and marked his entry into nationalist politics as an advocate of a masculinized

modem political Hinduism, which was essentially defensive, and a voice for swarajya or

self-rule.

Ranade, in the later stages of his life, became actively involved with the founding

of the Indian National Congress in 1885. Although he could not be in the forefront since

he worked for the government, he ran its social reform program, which held simultaneous

conferences with the political branch.47 He opposed the separation of the social from the

political but by the late 1800’s demand for political rights began to take precedence over

social reform issues. This divide is encapsulated within the Tilak-Ranade relationship

(which carried on into the Tilak-Gokhale conflict). Tilak vigorously opposed Ranade

for his emphasis on Hindu social reform over political freedom, although in principle he

too, as a modernist believed in reforms, but felt Swarajya or self-rule had to come first

before tackling social issues. Ranade on the other hand, believed in the providential

nature of British rule, although he often challenged it on its policies 49 The British had

This was known as the Indian National Social Conference and had its first meeting in Madras in December 1887, alongside that of the Congress. 48 Ranade-Gokhale was aguru-shishya (guru-disciple) relationship that was especially close. It started out when Gokhale was only 21 while Ranade was 24 years older in age. Ramabai said Ranade treated him like a dutiful son. See Parvate, Mahadev Govind Ranade, 234. Gandhi who considered Gokhale his guru, recollects that the latter’s “reverence for Ranade could be seen every moment”, quoted in Ibid, 248. For differences between Tilak and Gokhale see Stanley Wolpert,Tilak and Gokhale: Revolution and Reform in the Making of Modern India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962). 49 Ranade was very active in the Pune Sarvajanik Sabha, a body that dealt with social and agrarian issues, which challenged the government on many o f their policies in these areas. The Sabha also demanded greater political rights for Indians, specifically allowing Indian representatives in the British Parliament. Ranade traveled extensively in rural areas under the auspices of the Sabha, to survey the agricultural and social situation. He helped bring about the Deccan Agriculturists Relief Act, which helped the peasantry by addressing their disputes through conciliators rather than going to law courts, which were expensive and was given the task of administering this act. He also spoke o f the importance o fswadeshi or the need for India to have its own manufacturing base and decrease its dependence on foreign goods. He

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 182

clearly ‘rescued’ India from dark times and led her toward greater advancement socially

and politically. He did not vociferously challenge what he saw as the ‘benevolent’ nature

of the British Empire, much to the chagrin of Hindu extremists, who were also

modernists such as Tilak, Vishnu Shastri Chiplunkar and others, who were doing so in his

time.

For Ranade, Indians had to be ‘tutored’ under the British and had much to imbibe

from them before they could rule on their own. This was a deeply historicist belief

because it assumed Indians were not ‘ready’ for self-rule since they had yet to learn the

qualities of being ‘modem’ and had to be ‘educated’ in order to do so.50 He writes:

Neither the old Hindu nor the old Mahomedan civilization was in a condition to train these virtues in a way to bring up the races of India on a level with those of Western Europe, and so the work of education had to be renewed, and it has been now going on for the past century and more under the pax brittanica with results—which all of us are witness to in ourselves.51

According to Ranade, it was Britain that marked the ideal of progress. He believed in the

prevalent European view as echoed in diverse thinkers such as John Stuart Mill, Hegel

and Marx that colonialism was a necessary stage to uplift non-westem ‘traditional’

societies out of their backwardness. As Ranade puts it:

Asia must pass through the Caudine Forks of a surrender, temporary, but complete, to the discipline of European forces, if she anxiously aspires to emerge into the fullness of her own great destinies in near future52

He continues:

With the whole resources of England to back us, we, as the first bom of the converted Empires, must lead the van.. .This is the great moral of the Central Asian Question.53

gave many speeches on economic issues, critiquing the government for draining India’s wealth while the British were getting richer. See Parvate, Mahadev Govind Ranade, 77. 50 Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 8. 51 Ranade, MW, 226. 52 Phatak, Nyayamurti Mahadev Govind Ranade Yanche Caritra, 234.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 183

Like Phule, Ranade too believed colonial rule marked an opportunity to put one’s

own house in order, as a force to regenerate Indian society.54 Ranade’s emphasis

throughout his life was on social reform issues. While the latter dominated intellectual

debates for much of the nineteenth century, by the end of the nineteenth and early

twentieth centuries, demands for political rights became much louder while social reform

questions were increasingly marginalized. The ascendancy of Tilak in the Congress

Party and in nationalist politics in general marks this shift. Tilak was able to ensure that

the Social Conference or the social reform body of the Congress did not meet alongside

the Congress, thereby effectively separating social reform questions from nationalist

ones. By the time of Ranade’s death, and for the next forty years, until Gandhi’s

leadership and Ambedkar’s rise to the national scene, social reform questions within

Hinduism no longer formed the subject of key debates.

Ranade unlike Tilak, however, could never become a mass leader. He remained

constrained by an intellectual Brahmanical elitism, in which politics was seen as ‘dirty’

and the populace ignorant and illiterate. Mass politics also had not emerged as a feature

of political life until the early twentieth century, although one can only speculate whether

he would have thrown himself into such activities had he been alive later. Part of this can

be attributed to personalities; Tilak was a great orator, dynamic, bold and able to rouse

53 Ibid., 235. 54 “While You cannot be liberals by halves. You cannot be liberal in Politics and conservative in Religion...It is an idle dream to expect men to remain enchained and enshackled in their own superstition and social evils, while they are struggling hard to win rights and privileges from their rulers.” Quoted in Ibid., 347. Ranade’s belief in the providential nature of colonial rule ended up becoming quite a liability for him and the reformers, explaining to some extent the rise of Tilak as a mass national leader. Ranade was unable to address this voice, which was growing louder amongst the Indian population. Tilak’s notion of nationalism on the other hand completely sidelined social issues and only when Gandhi came on the scene, did both get dealt with in unison. Gandhi, in other words, corrected the extreme positions on this question that were adopted by both Tilak and Ranade.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 184

the masses but even more so, he felt the need to do so. Anticipating Gandhi, he was one

of the first nationalists to realize the significance of bringing the masses into politics and

he was quite effective in doing so. Gandhi successfully imbibed this trait from Tilak

while rejecting his masculinist, hard, Brahmanical-nationalist reading of Hinduism.

Ambedkar, otherwise a great supporter of Ranade’s, sums up this inadequacy of Ranade

when he writes that, “Ranade belonged to the Classes. He was bom and bred among

them. He never became a man of the masses.”55

Ranade’s Persona and Religious Life

Most accounts that remember Ranade highlight two things about him: his

ungainly physical appearance and his personal piety. He was physically very large,

known as ‘baby elephant’ in college, and rather unkempt in his clothing.56 His habits and

home have also been described as simple and austere which was often considered at the

time as a Brahmanical virtue. Unlike the Brahmos and many reformers in Bengal, the

Marathi Brahman reformers maintained fairly traditional life-styles and in Ranade’s case,

this marked a conscious attempt not to ‘break-away’ from social mores and norms. He

maintained this ‘conformist’ yet reformist approach in his personal life as well as in his

public politics. In other words, Ranade was aware, having experienced it in his own

household, that reform had to take on a traditional face, or else it would be less

B.R. Ambedkar, Ranade, Gandhi andJinnah (Bombay: Thacker&Co., Ltd., 1943), 82. 56 Here is how one Englishman described him: “Mr. Ranade was a man notoriously indifferent to appearances. His physique was rugged, with one drooping and watery eye.” Quoted in Tucker,Ranade and the Roots of Indian Nationalism, 164. Kellock tells us he was known to wear old rough khaddar (khadi) clothes, See Kellock, Mahadev Govind Ranade: Patriot and Social Servant, 143. Srinivasa Shastri says that he “was, besides, so shabbily dressed that he shocked European observers by the frayed shirt that peeped through his sleeves and the shortness o f his trousers.” Quoted in Parvate, Mahadev Govind Ranade, 256.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 185

acceptable and easily rejected as it has been in Bengal, especially with respect to the

Anglicized Brahmos.

cn Ranade dressed traditionally even in Bombay , while his household was also

fairly orthodox58, comprising a large number of relatives that he supported. One

commentator describes the surprise visitors had on seeing lack of any western styled

furniture in this eminent judge’s house since he sat mostly on the floor on a mat.59 At

home he maintained several Brahmanical60 practices for the family’s sake, such as eating

separately from his father since he was a ‘reformer’. While his father did not always

support many of Ranade’s reformist activities61, he did not do anything to stop him,

although he forbade him from traveling abroad for fear of ‘moral corruption’. Unlike the

Brahmos and more overtly Westernized elite in Bengal, in the Bombay Presidency the

reformers had many British friends and acquaintances but they appear not to have had too

much social interaction, such as visiting their clubs or maintaining too many overtly

British habits such as their counterparts in Bengal. In other words the Brahmo

experience in Bengal had made the Marathi reformers weary; this was reflected in

Mahajan described his clothing as old stylepeledar angarkha (tunic), dhoti (loin cloth), uprane (silk scarf), pink turban. Cited in Phatak, Nyayamurti Mahadev Govind Ranade Yanche Caritra, 168. In later years he wore trousers and boots. 58 Ranade’s household is described in Ramabai’s autobiography,Amchya Ayushatil Kahi Athavaney. 59 Kellock, Mahadev Govind Ranade: Patriot and Social Servant, 143. Gokhale recalls that “He was accessible to all— even the humblest— at all hours of the day.” Gokhale quoted in Parvate,Mahadev Govind Ranade, 258. 60 Uma Chakravarty criticizes him for refusing to reject his Brahmanical identity at home. She writes, “None of the reformers, especially not Ranade, managed to throw off Brahmanism in their personal lives” in Rewriting History, 104. However it appears that Ranade made a conscious effort not to make a ‘radical break.’ Maintaining his Brahman traditions in private might have been a conscious decision, which was very consistent with the way he approached politics in general. 61 In one well-known incident when Vishnushastri Pandit who had married a widow was invited for a meal, his father refused to participate and left the house, making plans to return to his hometown of Kolhapur. Ranade regretted offending his father and apologized for this incident, which indicates his strong desire to appease his father and seek conciliation. See Tucker,Ranade and the Roots of Indian Nationalism, 60.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 186

Ranade’s political approach to reform, which was aimed towards minimizing a ‘radical

break’ with the past. Ranade was also known to have a very calm disposition, hardly

ever losing his temper , always seeking consensus over conflict and turning to self-

c ' i critique or introspection if attacked or challenged.

Most significantly, accounts of Ranade stress his piety, describing him like a

“hermit”64 and “saintly.”65 He was a devotee of the Marathi bhakti saints, Tukaram in

particular, and was often found immersed in bhajans or chanting verses from the saints’

abhangs or poetry. His wife recounts how she would read him the saints’ abhangs early

morning and he would sing along, closing his eyes, clapping his hands, oblivious to the

world around him.66 She describes him as going into a deep meditation with tears

pouring down his eyes. Gokhale also recalls when he was traveling with Ranade on a

train in 1897, he was awakened at 4 am, by Ranade in a meditative like trance, clapping,

while singing Tukaram’s abhangs and that while he himself was not religious, he was

inspired by the devotional fervor of his guru. Ranade, would also occasionally visit the

holy town of Pandharpur.69

He himself said he preferred taking his anger out on himself, but never on others. Phatak, Nyayamurti Mahadev Govind Ranade Yanche Caritra, 173. 63 When attacked for not marrying a widow but a young girl, he admitted he was weak and his critic should lead the way and be a better person than he was, Ibid, 226, and also agreed he needed to correct himself when attacked by Tilak. See Kellock,Mahadev Govind Ranade: A Patriot and Social Servant, 140. 64 Tucker, Ranade and the Roots of Indian Nationalism, 58. 65 Parvate, Nyayamurti Mahadev Govind Ranade Yanche Caritra, 313. 66 Ranade, Amchya Ayushatil Kahi Athavaney, 91. 67 Ibid., 165. 68 Kellock, Mahadev Govind Ranade: Patriot and Social Servant, 147-8. 69 Pandharpur is a major site of pilgrimage in the region, home to the popular folk deity, Vithoba (Krishna). The annual pilgrimage orvari begins from the birthplaces of the various saints who were devotees of Vithoba and ends in his temple at Pandharpur. See M.S. Mathe, Temples and Legends of Maharashtra (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1962). Ranade also supported pilgrim rest houses around temples in Alandi and Kolhapur. See Tucker, Ranade and the Roots of Indian Nationalism, 57.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 187

Phatak, recounts many people telling him that when Ranade gave public lectures,

he would be silent for the first ten minutes, occasionally tears streaming down his cheeks,

much to people’s bewilderment. 7 0Few people knew he was actually praying. He

believed the divine communicated with him through signs and through his conscience.

V.M. Mahajani remembers when Ranade once said he “felt as if God were speaking at

one end of a long tube, at the other end of which he was listening.”71 Rao Bahadur Joshi,

a colleague of Ranade sums up his pious disposition in the following manner:

With him (Ranade) life was a duty—a holy gift of God—to be religiously employed in his service. He was one of the most religious of men and what most struck and impressed me during my association with him was his simple, exalted and fervent piety. He always seemed to feel that he was in the presence of the Almighty, a humble servant doing his appointed task as best as he could and with the light of faith that was vouchsafed to him.

According to Gokhale, Ranade “saw God everywhere. He saw Him in Nature, in Human

Life, and in Human History."TX

Personal/Public Religiosity and the Challenge to Historicism

Ranade’s historicism which was anchored in the idea of progress, of secular dead

history and scientific reason was troubled by his piety, which could not make easy

separations between past and present or divine and secular forces. As seen earlier his

interpretation of the bhakti movements, coming out of his own belief in them, did not

view them as historical but as alive, as contemporaneous, informing his own everyday

life-world. Past and present could not be separated in such a faith based view since these

forces were seen as eternal and not time-bound within a specific historical period.

70 Phatak, Nyayamurti Mahadev Govind Ranade Yanche Caritra, 357. 71 Quoted in Kellock, Mahadev Govind Ranade: Patriot and Social Servant, 145. 72 Quoted in Parvate, Mahadev Govind Ranade, 6. 73 Quoted in Parvate, 268.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 188

The debate about a ‘historical’ versus ‘eternal’ Jesus raging in Christianity evokes

this tension, found in other religions as well. In the latter faith-based view, there are

universal truths that can be found beyond history. The relationship with God and access

to this religious past is therefore always in the present, in the here and now. It

presupposes a co-eval relation with divine forces; since they are believed in, in the

present, they cannot be dead. The presence of divine or transcendental forces as agents,

as motors of historical change, is regarded with great suspicion from a modem historical

perspective since it would be neither scientific nor objective and would counter the

notion of history in Benjamin’s words as ‘homogenous, empty time.’74 As Myers points

out referring to historicism,

This worldview proclaims that human history belongs to a long, undulating but ultimately chartable current—not to a vast Divine terrain whose grand design eludes full human comprehension.75

For Ranade, it was an all-pervasive formless God that directed the human and

physical world. As he writes, “ An interpretable universe brings man face to face with

God as the ever acting immanent cause of all natural changes, and the spirit which

animates and regulates the world.”76 He was more inclined to view man as dependent on

God as the purveyor of his destiny, as opposed to the modernist notion of man as the sole

agent of historical and social change. This was reflected for instance in his view on

natural disasters and calamities, attributed to divine forces. Again anticipating Gandhi,

who expressed similar views, Ranade too, saw such events as tied to human ‘sin’ for

74 Walter Benjamin, "Theses on the Philosophy of History," inWalter Benjamin: Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), 261. 75 David N. Myers, Resisting History: Historicism and Its Discontents in German-Jewish Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 5. 76 Ranade, “Philosophy of Indian Theism,” 73.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 189

which these acted as ‘signs’ from larger forces for human self-correction, referring to the

excesses within Hinduism. In a speech at the tenth social conference in Calcutta,

referring to the devastating famines, he said, “It may well be that these visitations are

intended as warnings of our duty in this respect, to set our house in order and not to sin

against the laws of our existence.”77

He continues:

and that these ‘visitations’ had a deeper meaning, and that there was a solemn obligation on us all to make a confession of our errors and sins; and as the Jewish prophets of old called upon the chosen people in distress and in peril to renew their covenant with their Lord, we-the men who can read the signs of the times and feel the burden laid upon us-should meet to urge from this and other platforms the necessity of self-correction and self-exertion, in a spirit of pious resignation joined with a fixed resolve that, come what may, ourselves and the generations to come after us shall no suffer as brave men suffer.

While in other words, Ranade did espouse a secular notion of history as exhibited

in many of his own historical writings, he also believed history was moved by divine

forces. 70 Whatever happened in history happened for a purpose, since God had a hand in

it. For instance, the Muslim invaders against whom the Marathas fought for a long

period of time, he argued had been characterized in many accounts as marking a dark

period in history, but in fact, he said this was divinely ordained since it only strengthened

the Indian character, alleviating some of its deficiencies. It was God’s will that the

Muslims invade India and live with the Hindus. As a result, “the civilisation of the united

Hindu and Moslem powers represented by the Moguls at Delhi, was a distinct advance”

77 Ranade, MW, 172. 78 Ibid., 171. 79 Viewing disasters as ‘signs’ from God was in keeping with ‘pre-modem’ Indians. As P.V. Kane writes “ancient and medieval Indians regarded earthquakes as punishments sent by God for the sins of men.” Kane,History of Dharmasastra, 764.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 190

and “both the Mahomedans and Hindus benefited by contact with one another.”80 Islam

he believed, allowed some deficiencies to be addressed in Hinduism, leading to powerful

bhakti movements throwing up great men like Nanak who were neither Hindu nor

Muslim and challenged excesses within both. Christianity too he argued, like Islam,

could also provide important lessons, helping in some self-corrections.

If the guiding hand of God in history has so favoured us hitherto, why should we despair now when we have been brought under influences of a still more elevating kind? The Old Testament testifies to the truth and benignity of the promise of the New Gospel... It teaches us by example and precept the supreme virtue of organization and self-reliance. It holds before us a brighter ideal of the dignity of the individual soul-the image of God in us.81

Similarly, he believed British rule was bringing new influences that would lead to

self-questioning and strengthen ‘native character’. It was divine providence he argued

that brought such ideas into India and like Christian notions of Last Judgement of the 87 heavenly days yet to come , he too believed in such a ‘heavenly future’ if Indians

bettered themselves. “Famine and pestilence, oppression and sorrow, will then be myths

of the past, and the Gods will then again descend to the earth and associate with men as

0 -2 they did in times which we now call mythical.”

He was highly critical of the separation between secular and sacred undergirding

western science and European thought in general. The search for meaning beyond mere

human life he believed was an eternal quest for which western science had few answers.

It was the relationship between the “Finite linked together in some bond with the

80 Ranade, MW, 224. 81 Ibid., 126-7. 82 The relationship between Christian notions of better days ahead at the ‘end of history’ and modem ideas of progress have been shown by Kenneth S Latourette, "The Christian Understanding of History," in Ideas of History, ed. Ronald H. Nash (New York: E.P. Dutton and Company, 1969), Reinhold Niebuhr, "Faith and History," inIdeas of History, ed. Ronald H. Nash (New York: E.P. Dutton and Company, 1969). 83 Ranade, MW, 180.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 191

Infinite”84 that drove all human thought. While western science has yielded some useful

insights, its excessive arrogance about the power of man he argued was “self-destructive”

Of and the separation between man and divinity led to “a collapse of our moral nature.”

On the question of scientific evidence, Ranade argued there could be no useful or

meaningful science that made a separation between religion or morality and the

physical/natural world. For him the latter was imbued with moral purpose, along with

history guided by the hand of providence. Referring to European modem notions of

validity he says:

It is just possible that practical or moral conviction is all that is needed and therefore attainable by the human mind in its search after the Absolute, and in that case the demand for logical proof may itself be an unreasonable demand. If practical certitude is attainable, it does not follow from our inability to furnish a logical demonstration by way of proof, that nothing can be positively and certainly known about these matters. The failure of the human mind to attain to a living knowledge of the Absolute has partly arisen from this confusion of certitude with demonstration.86

Science was attempting to substitute itself for morality and religion, and claim

absolute ‘truths’, which greatly troubled Ranade. Humans he believed were essentially

moral and religious beings and no part of their existence could be separated from it.

Science too he argued was not all that different because it was also ultimately based on

faith:

We substitute faith for knowledge and act on that faith and suffer for it. Our Earth, or even the Solar system is not the Universe, nor is our time Eternity. Finite existence in time and space becomes intelligible only when they discover their background of the Infinite87

According to him,

Ranade, “Philosophy of Indian Theism,” 61. Ibid, 65. Ibid., 69. Ibid., 69.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 192

We can never demonstrate logically our reasons for the faith that we feel in the continuity of nature and the uniform operation of its laws. All science ultimately resolves itself into a product of our faith.88

Science, politics and history were therefore inextricably linked, tied to a greater moral

purpose, which was divinely guided. This religiosity or piety, informed both his private

life as well as his notion of public politics. He did not subscribe to the public/private

dichotomy prevalent in modem politics. As he pointed out, “What is true in our private

QQ concern is equally true of our public life.”

Hence, just as in private, the public sphere too in his view could never be

divorced from morality, which was not the same as formal organized religion.

Religiosity or piety referred to the role of morality in politics. Rather, like the bhakti

saints or the concept of dharma, translated as righteousness or ethical life, it placed an

emphasis on conduct rather than ritualism. It was a version of Hinduism, which as he

himself puts it, was inspired by the “teaching of the Old Testament”90, in which there was

one immanent God who was all pervasive. In other words he aligned certain elements

within Hinduism, with elements from other religions such as Christianity, Islam and

Buddhism, to come up with his religion of bhagwat dharma, which he argued was the

belief of the common people of India. His personal and public faith therefore was Hindu

but had place for all religions within it; this notion of Hinduism contained the others

within it.91 It was an inclusive and open-ended notion of public religion, which he also

88 Ibid.,70. 89 Ranade, MW, 231. 90 Ibid., 72. 91 He recounts an anecdote about a missionary who visited him and was disappointed to see the Bible placed below Tukaram’s Gatha (book o f religious poetry) since it appeared to have less importance. To this he responded by telling the missionary that in fact it was the Bible that supported theGatha, by being placed under it. Ranade, Dharmapara Vyakhyane, 235.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 193

held privately as faith, which he referred to as his ‘voice of conscience’. He believed in

the essential unity of all religions and his Hinduism, incorporated all of them. It was this

private and public religion that he adhered to and promoted.

Ranade was strongly skeptical of the agnostic and atheistic tendencies that were

creeping in with western education. It was religion that had to be purified and revived,

not discarded since it provided a moral framework.

Hindu students especially need the strengthening influence which faith in God, and in conscience as His voice in the human heart, alone can give. The national mind can not rest in agnosticism.• • 92

India’s strength, he argued, was its deep religiosity, since atheism had never been

encouraged, and would bode badly for the society’s future, were it to spread. Shraddha

or faith/belief, he argued once again echoing Gandhi, was what was most necessary for

Indian society. He feared that if religion were abandoned, there would be no moral

framework to act as an anchor, and politics would become purely instrumental. A belief

in God or religion he said “is in our blood. Even if we try to escape it by running away it

will follow us. It won’t leave us alone.”93

It is telling that the only time apparently Ranade was known to have lost his

temper in public was over the very issue of the role of piety in politics. On 24 May 1885,

at the annual gathering of Deccan College, Pune, R.G. Bhandarkar, Ranade’s colleague

asserted the need for religiosity in public and private for the society’s betterment. The

‘old school’ ‘reformers’ who had gone through college together and participated

vigorously in the early social reform debates such as Bhandarkar, Wagle, Modak and

92 Ibid., 69. 93 Quoted in Phatak,Nyayamurti Mahadev Govind Ranade Yanche Caritra, 358. Translation mine.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 194

Ranade were all religious men who believed religion needed to be transformed, not

abandoned. It was the later generation such as G.G. Agarkar94 and Tilak who began to

abandon this view95. At this meeting, Agarkar stood up and protested Bhandarkar’s

point, arguing that religion weakens and debilitates men, acting as an impediment to the

development of civilization and progress. While Agarkar was a well-known atheist and

rationalist, Tilak, known for his defensive stance towards many Hindu traditions and

practices, stood up in defense of his former ally96, concurring that religion and politics

had to be separate and that the former had no role in realpolitik. Ranade apparently, in a

fit of rage, argued that religiosity and piety was Hindustan’s strength, which it had and

could continue to offer to the world. He apparently told the audience that

“acknowledging one’s ancestors’ religious faults did not have to mean embracing atheism

which was not beneficial. I am not arguing that one should choose any specific religion,

rather each one should decide based on one’s own thinking and inclinations.”97

He decried the influence of European thinkers such as Herbert Spencer, Jeremy

Bentham and John Stuart Mill who he argued had an unnecessarily heavy influence on

the minds of young Indians such as Agarkar and Tilak, who were their ‘ bhaktas ’

(devotees) and neither did these writers nor their followers understand the Indian context.

Although much younger to Ranade, social reformer/social critic G.G. Agarkar (1856-95) was a hardcore rationalist who believed the basis for change in Hindu society should come entirely from non- traditional or rationalistic grounds. He was also an agnostic, who decried religion in politics. As Sunthankar writes, Agarkar “was the only reformer who did not seek the sanction o f the shastras. To him religious scriptures were of no use, as they would not lead to progress in society.” See B.R. Sunthankar, Maharashtra 1858-1920 (Bombay: Popular Book Depot, 1993), 265. 95 Ibid, 103. 96 Agarkar and Tilak were once closest friends and political colleagues but while both were modernists, Agarkar rejected the use of religion in politics and the need for the colonial state to legislate over custom while Tilak believed in the political uses of Hinduism, as nationalism and wanted the state to keep out of the realm of custom. See Phadke, Shodh Bal-Gopalancha. 97 Quoted in Phatak,Nyayamurti Mahadev Govind Ranade Yanche Caritra, 246. Translation mine.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 195

Western education had led to the ill effect of creating non-believers or atheists, which he OR argued had to be discouraged.

Conclusion

Ranade’s personal and public life was deeply steeped in colonial society. As an

upper caste western educated Brahman and a colonial official, he was part of the Marathi

elite. From all external appearances, he seemed a loyal and staunch advocate of the

colonial apparatus, including its institutions and the ideas they embodied. Hence Ranade

maintained a reputation primarily as a social ‘reformer’, rather than an advocate for

radical political change. Ranade’s attachment to history and historicism flowed from this

belief in the colonial mission and his life’s integral connection with it. Yet a closer look

at his private life revealed that he was also deeply entrenched in traditional world-views

which influenced his public politics, especially his emphasis on faith. Rejecting the

separation between religion and politics in public life, he questioned the viability of

historicism as a complete world-view. According to Ranade, a historicist lens could be

used to historicize religion but the latter also was a living and influential component of

private and public life. He believed it would be politically unwise to relegate religion to

the realm of the private and to that of history. Faith could provide critical moral codes

for public life. A complete and uncritical historical perspective would put an end to that.

Thus for Ranade, historicism was a significant world-view, but it was limited at the same

time.

Ibid., 109.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER VI

RANADE: HISTORICIZING RELIGION AND A FAITH-BASED CRITIQUE

Introduction

Ranade displayed a pronounced historical mind-set when he historicized Hindu

traditions like many other historians and Indologists in his time, by searching for

historical evidence and placing traditions and texts within a contextually specific time

frame, separate from the present. He also displayed a keen interest in historicizing his

region’s past, by writing about the history of the Marathas as a developmental narrative,

closely intertwined with that of the nation. In fact, Ranade’s History o f the Marathas can

be considered the first truly comprehensive historical work on this theme, to be written

by an Indian. It was only after this work, that a large number of histories were written,

rebutting that of colonial historian Alexander Grant Duff1 on his ‘perverted’ historical

reading of the Marathas.

And yet at the same time, Ranade also treated Hindu traditions and practices in a

non-historical manner, when addressing social reform questions in his day by drawing

from ancient Hindu texts. These were seen as providing a continuing basis on which to

deal with issues of religion and custom. Rather than being treated as dead and best

James Grant Duff,History of the Mahrattas, Indian reprint edition ed. (Bombay: Printed at the "Exchange Press" Fort, 1863), 28-29. 196

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 197

consigned to a museum purely as ‘evidence’ for the archeologist or historian, these texts

were seen as capable of providing guidance and subject to interpretation for all time and

place. This was done entirely in the language of continuity or ‘eternal’ values, in contrast

to the historian’s emphasis on context and change. In other words the language of

change and historical contextuality was downplayed, while that of continuity and

timelessness emphasized, but that did not preclude the actual change in emphasis that

Ranade provided to many of these customs and practices, as we shall see later in the

discussion. The distance between past and present often collapsed in Ranade’s thought;

all that existed was the present, and yet the latter was projected as merely a mirror of the

past. I point to the limits of historicism in Ranade’s life-world, through an analysis of his

historical writings and religious speeches made from the pulpit of the Prarthana Samaj,

the social reform organization he was associated with, as well as the many speeches he

gave at the various Congress Party’s Social Reform conferences, which he often headed.

Ranade’s Historicist Approach towards the Past

Religion Historicized: A Glorious ‘Vedic ’ History

Ranade, like many of his Brahman intellectual contemporaries, such as a growing

breed of Indologists, adopted a historicist approach towards Hinduism. He searched

Hindu texts and customs for historical origins as well as ‘evidence’ for the development

of certain present-day practices. Part of the impetus to do so was to counter colonial

aspersions of Hinduism’s ‘fallen’ state. The vitriolic attacks against Hinduism for its

‘effeminacy’, ‘superstitions’, ‘irrationality’ and ‘ignorance’ made by colonial historians,

scholars and missionaries, irked Brahman intellectuals at the time who often looked for

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 198

‘historical evidence’ within ancient texts to dispute these colonialist versions and

‘discover a glorious past’. In other words, religious texts and customs soon became a

mining ground for historical materials to provide alternative accounts to that of the

colonizers and a historical perspective increasingly became the shared terrain on which to

do so. Ranade was no exception in this regard in his aggressive use of history. As N.R.

Phatak points out, one cannot find a single essay or speech of Ranade’s where he did not

make use of history.

In order to provide such counter-histories, Ranade like Phule, also inserted

himself into debates about Aryan invasions and the origins of India, taking place during

his time.3 Contrary to Phule however, Ranade believed like many of his Brahman

contemporaries, that the Aryans were the upholders of a ‘glorious Vedic’ civilization

which was pure and untainted. The Aryans represented Hinduism in its highest form, and

subsequent periods of history could not aspire to that goal. Hence the need to study and

‘objectively’ examine the origins of the Aryans in order to ascertain how it was that they

reached such a level of development. He begins his historical analysis by stating,

It is proposed here to take such a survey of the growth and decay of the Aryan social usages regarding the Institution of Marriage in this country during historic times, that is, the times of which we can trace the history in records, or institutions, or customs (emphasis mine).4

This celebration of the past was however not a product solely of the modem

historical view. In traditional or non-modem Hindu Brahmanical world-views, the Vedas

were divinely inspired and Vedic times seen to represent the ‘golden age’. Idealizing

2 Phatak, Nyayamurti Mahadev Govind Ranade Yanche Caritra, 369. 3 See Chapter IV for a background on these debates. 4 M.G. Ranade, "The Sutra and Smriti on the Age of Hindu Marriage," inReligious and Social Reform: A Collection of Essays and Speeches, ed. M.B. Kolasker (Bombay: G. Claridge and Company, 1902), 28.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 199

Vedic times was therefore not entirely a modem invention, but what was modem and

distinctive was transforming these beliefs into a glorious historical past. In other words,

the Vedas were no longer seen as divinely ordained but historical texts, sources of

evidence that could be culled to show how glorious the past was, an endeavor in which

Ranade also participated. There were broadly two responses to colonial allegations about

the present-day depravity of Hinduism amongst upper caste Marathi intellectuals: those

that defended Hinduism, even its excesses (which was purely defensive) usually turning

to a past ‘glory’, and those such as Ranade who did that too, but at the same time also

believed it needed to be reassessed, purified and renewed. Both, however, had been

worked through by colonial modernity. Both, therefore, turned to history to argue their

differing positions, primarily surrounding practices relating to women in Hindu society.

In dealing with Hindu customs regarding women such as widow-remarriage and

women’s marriageable age, which were some of the most significant issues that social

reformers highlighted in the nineteenth-century, Ranade adopted a modem historical

approach. In other words, while analyzing a custom or text, this entailed discussing it in

relation to the time period in which it was apparently practiced as well as tracing its

development through time. According to Paul Hamilton, historicism is “a critical

movement insisting on the prime importance of historical context to the interpretation of

texts of all kinds.”5 Ranade undertook such a contextual reading. This effected a

distancing between past and present since the custom or text was seen to inhabit only the

specific period in which it was temporally embedded, as a reflection of a historical

milieu, or historically contextualized.

5 Paul Hamilton, Historicism (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), 2.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 200

The texts themselves took on the role primarily as sources of historical evidence

and archives, reflecting a past time no longer accessible to the present. They became in

de Certeau’s terms ‘dead texts’ since they belonged to a different temporal location other

than the present. Moreover this also meant creating a historical chronology in which

some texts preceded others entirely on temporal grounds. For instance the Vedas were

seen to come first and reflect the ‘Vedic Age’, followed by the Puranic texts, as a

reflection of the ‘Puranic Age’, both seen as unities with their own distinct

characteristics.

Ranade clearly made a distinction between his own historical perspective and that

of the traditional shastris, whom he claimed, paid less attention to chronology. While

they too considered the Vedas and the Vedic age to precede that of the Puranas (Smritis),

the shastris he argues drew from these texts in an ahistorical manner, moving between

Vedic and Puranic texts and not reading them as reflecting distinct historical periods.

In their inability to fix the relative locality, order or date of the Smritis, and under the stress of a false theory of exegesis, the Shastris lump the Smritis together, and attempt the hopeless task of reconciling opposite texts by inventing fictions.6

In other words the shastris he argues would draw from Puranic texts and claim it

represented the Vedic ideal, whereas Ranade believed in upholding a strict chronology,

based on the distinct ages whereby principles of one age were not applicable to any other

age. Each age he maintained could be studied as a consistent whole and compared with

other ages, as unified entities.

By clearly separating the texts relating to each period, the confusion of thoughts and ideas, which marks all orthodox discussion of these subjects, will be avoided, and the whole history presented in such a way at once intelligible and suggestive.7

6 Ranade, "The Sutra and Smriti on the Age of Hindu Marriage," 37.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 201

Ranade examined early texts as reflecting the ‘Vedic age’, in which a certain set

of customs and social characteristics were prevalent. Reading these texts as ‘evidence’,

Ranade points out that pre-Vedic texts suggest that in pre-Vedic times, women did not

have a good status in society. Even the Mahabharata, for instance he points out shows

that husbands shared wives during this pre-Aryan time. But as the Aryans settled he

argues and became more civilized, this changed.

The writings of Manu and Yajnavalkya show, what the Itihasas and Purans confirm, that monogamy is the natural condition of Aryan life, and that both polygamy and polyandry are disreputable excrescences.8

These improvements he points out gradually led to the emergence of the ‘Vedic Age’ in

which women could be independent and were greatly respected. Marriage was upheld,

widows could remarry and women were accorded great dignity as indicated by texts such

as the Ramayana. This Vedic age then he argues was seen to be the ‘ideal’ time when

Hinduism was at its zenith in all aspects, subsequent to which there was a decline. The

Vedic Age in other words was the ‘glorious’ age, succeeded by ‘distortions’ that

prevailed in the Puranic Age.

Ranade read the myriad legends within the Puranas and Itihasas as providing

historical ‘proof of practices and customs followed in the past. He argued that stories

such as Damayanti and Rukmini’s, for instance, indicated the practice of Swayamwara9

to be common. Damayanti for instance, when she thought she had lost her husband in the

forest, staged a swayamwara, which many kings attended in the hope Nala (her husband)

7 Ibid., 29. 8 Ranade, MW, 72. 9 Swayamwara refers to an age-old practice of a woman choosing her own husband from a group of ‘eligible’ men, sometimes through a contest. The most well known swayamwaras are from the epics; Sita’s in the Ramayana and Drapaudi’s in the Mahabharata.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 202

would come back to marry her. Ranade uses this story as ‘evidence’ that it was socially

acceptable for women to choose their own partners, reflecting their freedoms at the time.

This indicated that this practice “went on for many centuries, and the proofs of it are too

numerous in all our Purans and Itihasas.”10 Another such puranic story of Savitri he

points out, also ‘proves’ the freedom women enjoyed. Savitri chose her own husband

once she was at a marriageable age even though she knew he would die in a year’s time.

Similarly while women enjoyed a better position during this ‘ideal age’, he argues there

was also greater openness towards non-Brahman castes as indicated by the story

surrounding the legendary rivalry between two sages, Vasistha and Vishvamitra.

While both are mentioned in Vedic hymns, he points out there is no historical

evidence for their fame, but it is likely he says their story reflected the historical realities

at the time. He points out that Vasistha was known for his Brahman orthodoxy while

Vishwamitra, although not bom a Brahman, was very learned and aspired to Brahman

status. Vasistha however continually denied him this status indicating the rigidity of the

orthodoxy at the time; “Throughout the story Vishwamitra represents the view of those

who try to admit the non-Aryans into the Aryan community and seek to elevate them.”11

Vasistha he tells us ultimately had to concede to Vishwamitra the status of a Brahman

although he was not one by birth, from which Ranade surmises that “It may be seen that

there was no monopoly of learning in those early times and Rajas and Brahmins sat at the 10 feet of each other to learn wisdom.”

Ranade, MW, 74. Ibid., 243. Ibid., 244.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 203

These freedoms within Hinduism he argues gave way to a decline in Aryan

civilization ‘mirrored’ in the Puranic texts. The introduction of many abhorrent practices,

which included the subjugation of women he argues was justified by traditional shastris 1 as the beginning of Kali Yuga or the Dark period. But for the historically minded

Ranade, this is an inadequate explanation. He seeks to understand these changes

historically by arguing that in reality, it was infighting between Aryans, namely the

Brahmans and Kshatriyas along with foreign invasions that led to decline of Aryan

civilized ways and this affected women’s positions in society. He refers to this as the

onset of the Puranic Age where women became subservient to men. This he points out

was exacerbated by the rise of Buddhism and the many foreign invasions (including

Muslim conquerors), since he claims these marauding groups treated women barbarously.

This he argues was the ‘true’ historical reality behind the decline in Hindu character,

which was reflected in the texts written at that time, and were used to legitimize

barbarous practices such as sati (widow self-immolation), rigid caste hierarchies and

polygamy.

In Ranade’s historicist approach towards Hindu texts, the texts themselves

therefore are seen to reflect or mirror a historical reality in the form of distinct historical

periods or ages (classified into pre-historic, classical or Vedic and Puranic). Each period

or age in turn is seen to correspond to distinctive social and material realities such as

social relations, land rights and political arrangements. One of the main criteria or

13 In Hindu notions of time, there are four yugas (sata , dwapara, treta and kali) or periods of time, each yuga endowed with a moral purpose. It is a declining theory of time, from a period o f goodness to that of evil, the last being the Kaliyuga, which is the worst and is currently what we are living in. Since the human race is declining, different laws and prescriptions apply to different ages. Some texts are meant specifically forKali Yuga.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 204

‘evidence’ he uses to draw such distinctions between ‘ages’ was differences in the texts

regarding women’s freedoms such as the age of marriage. According to Ranade, while

the Vedic age characterized by the Sutras, gave a great deal more flexibility to women by

not fixing a marriage age, the Smritis'4 as part of the Puranic Age curbed women’s

freedom. Later Smritis especially he says, condemned girls who were not married before

reaching puberty, as a social taboo on the family. From here onwards he argues one can

trace a process of deterioration over time in women’s status based on an increase in

restrictions on women as reflected in the texts, which in turn mirrored historical changes.

Ranade thus historically traces the development of the present-day custom of

early marriage of girls through the religious texts, placing them in a chronological and

sequential order while doing so. In this way an irreversible chronology is established, in

which each text is placed within a temporal framework, belonging to an ‘age’ which

exhibits similar characteristics. This is a distinctly modem way of approaching these

texts since the traditional method paid less attention to chronology or notions of tracing

unities as developing over time. This establishes a linearity in reading the past which was

lacking in the traditional method.

The traditional shastris looked at these religious texts, as Madhav Deshpande

argues, with precedence to philosophical over historical analysis. In other words, when

analyzing past forms, a conceptual map of all the forms that existed were drawn out and

compared on a synchronic, not diachronic plane. This did not include analyzing a

practice or custom’s development over time but rather as viewing them all

14 Sutra is an aphorism; the shastras contain thousands of such sutras. The Vedas are known as sruti texts, or that which is heard or recited, seen as divine, eternal and embodying the highest authority.Smriti texts or that which is remembered refer to Puranas, which are also seen to be derived from Vedas and have final authority if not interpreted to contravene the former.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 205

contemporaneously, in the present.15 According to Deshpande, “these entities were

placed by the classical tradition at the head of history, rather than viewing them as

outcomes of a long historical development.”16 Here “the different historical states and

stages of a civilization are imposed on a flat atemporal ground.. .This is a synchronic

approach to diachronic problems.”17

Ranade, espousing the modem historical approach, was frequently critical of such

‘traditional notion of exegeses’, which he often called ‘false’ and ahistorical. Referring

to it as the ‘method of tradition’, he defined it in the following manner: “The weapon of

the school of tradition was interpretation, in other words, taking the old texts as the basis

and to interpret them so as to suit the new requirements of the times” 1and 8 yet in doing

so, “to make all feel that there was an effort to preserve the old continuity, and that there

was no attempt at innovation.”19 He was critical of this method, which he claimed

colleagues such as Bhandarkar resorted to while he himself did not (although he did)

because he saw it as defying chronology and a context-oriented temporality. Traditional

shastris according to him “try to distort the old texts so as to make them fit with what is

hopelessly irreconcileable with them. This desperate attempt must be abandoned if it is

desired to look at the subject in its true historical aspect.”20 Moreover, due to this

method, “There is not a custom however absurd which cannot be defended by some

strong text of law. The usual practice of reconciling texts intended for different ages and

15 Deshpande, “History, Change and Permanence.” 16 Ibid, 19. 17 Ibid, 12. 18 Ranade, MW, 112. 19 Ibid.,112. 20 Ranade, "The Sutra and Smriti on the Age of Hindu Marriage," 28-29.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 206

countries, and the loss of the spirit of true criticism, have benumbed the power of 91 judgement.”

History-Writing and the Nation: The ‘Maratha National Awakening’

Ranade was clearly influenced by a modem historical outlook, linked to a strong

belief in the modem discipline of history. His writings are replete with a historical view

of the past and it was his lifelong ambition to write historical works on the Marathas, a

subject very dear to him. He can be viewed as one of the earliest modem Indian

historians in the region, writing several historical essays based on historical evidence

drawn from Peshwa diaries, bakhars (chronicles) and other historical records. His

ambition was to write three historical volumes on the Marathas, which however was not

fulfilled due to his death. His essays however compiled as ‘The Rise o f the Maratha

Power’ published in 1900, a year before he died was followed by a vast number of

histories on the Marathas written after his time, by well-known historians such as G.S.

Sardesai, Jadunath Sarkar and others. 99 Although not a historian by vocation, Ranade retained a life-long interest in

history, his favorites being ancient Indian history and the Marathas. For Ranade, as for

9 - 2 many of his Indian contemporaries, history was a ‘sign of the modem’ , of progress. He

writes in a report on Education for the government, addressing the need for history-

Unless the minds of our young men are disabused of the prejudice they imbibe in early life that the historical sense is wholly absent in India, and until they are trained to appreciate the value of these contemporary narratives and records at their true worth, it is hopeless to expect any real and permanent growth of the true historical and critical

Ranade, MW, 82. Disciplinary boundaries of being exclusively a ‘historian’ had yet to emerge during his time. Nicholas Dirks, "History as a Sign of the Modem,"Public Culture 2, no. 2 (1990).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 207

spirit which alone can ensure success in the future cultivation of this department of our literature.24

Ranade’s own historical writings were written quite evidently in response to that

of frequently derogatory colonial writings of history on the Marathas and the region’s

past. Ranade’s Chitpavan Brahmanic roots were clearly insulted by the negative picture

painted of his ancestors and he felt compelled to write a more ‘objective’ version.

History writing in other words increasingly became the terrain on which to counter

colonial aspersions about Indians, to assert dignity and pride in one’s past, as has been

extensively discussed in the case of Bengal. As Sudipto Kaviraj points out, it was a

way for the colonized to find hope and a sense of self-worth. This was not unsurprisingly

often a ‘martial’ history that was reclaimed, in order to counter colonial aspersions of

‘effeminate’ Indians, lacking a sense of history.

Rewriting the past inevitably meant rewriting the present, which was tied to

imagining new regional and national political and social communities, both, which as on Prachi Deshpande argues, emerged simultaneously, in a dialectical manner. The history

of history writing has been deeply intertwined with that of the nation and Ranade was no

exception in this regard. In his case, a regional Marathi socio-political and cultural

community, rooted primarily in history and geography, was being linked to that of an

Indian nation. However, while drawing from a regional context the new imagination was

24 Ranade, MW, 27. 25 These include Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995). Ranajit Guha,An Indian Historiography of India: A Nineteenth Century Agenda and Its Implications (Calcutta and New Delhi: KP Bagchi and Company, 1988). Sudipta Kaviraj, The Unhappy Consciousness: Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay and the Formation of a Nationalist Discourse in India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998). 26 Kaviraj, The Unhappy Consciousness. 27 Prachi Deshpande, "Narratives of Pride: History and Regional Identity in Maharashtra, India C. 1870-1960" (Tufts University, 2002).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 208

also distinctly national in its reach. The nation was primarily Indian even if it was

composed of diverse peoples. Thus Ranade writes:

In the modem conditions of life, the India that is to be bom will have no room for mere distinction of Race, Creed, Colour. We aspire all of us to be Indians first, and Indians to the last, over every other condition which has separated us so long and made a united India impossible.28

Historical legends, ballads and stories proliferated about the Marathas, and were

deeply embedded in people’s popular consciousness. A long period of Maratha history

and their battles with various rulers all over India, particularly the Mughals, provided a

fertile ground for reclaiming a ‘martial’ past that was now increasingly imagined within a

nationalist imaginary. However while these stories were popular and well-known, such

as those surrounding the exploits of the Maratha king Shivaji , his90 iconic status as a

major historical figure was essentially a nineteenth and twentieth century phenomenon,

tied to reasserting self-pride and a ‘martial glorious’ past in the face of colonial

subjection by both upper and lower caste groups. While lower caste groups as seen in

voices such as Phule, were reacting to upper caste dominance, Brahmans were writing

history that glossed over such differences.

Thus by the nineteenth century, rulers such as Shivaji whose caste origins were

low, and whose caste status had been much disputed during his own times, were being

woven by Brahman intellectuals into a collective history of the ‘Marathas’, and a

‘glorious martial past’. This ‘unified’ and ‘glorious’ history included pre-Peshwa rulers

28 Quoted in Phatak, Nyayamurti Mahadev Govind Ranade Yanche Caritra, 387. 29 Shivaji Bhonsle, bom on February 19 1630, was crowned as ‘Chatrapati’ or King in 1674 and died in April 1680. He ruled over parts of western Maharashtra, around the Pune region, which he wrested from the Bijapur Sultanate. He engaged in guerrilla warfare against the Mughal king Aurangzeb and undertook constant raids against his territories as far as Surat in the north. 30 For a more detailed discussion on the uses of Shivaji as a historio-political symbol, see Malavika Vartak, "Shivaji Maharaj: Growth of a Symbol,"Economic and Political Weekly 34, no. 19 (1999).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 209

such as Shivaji and Sambhaji as well as Peshwas as though all were the Brahmans’ own

family ancestors. In this way Ranade’s history-writing although much less chauvinistic,

also came out of a shared Brahmanical sense of defensiveness, to demonstrate to the

colonizers, that they, the natives, did not lack modem values of a martial nationalistic

spirit and nation-building.

Ranade’s historical work was a direct rebuttal to that of Alexander Grant D uffs

‘History o f the Marathas’, the first modem historiographical work of its kind on this

theme in the colonial period, written in 1818, which had set the stage for all subsequent

•5 j histories on the Marathas. D uffs derogatory reading of the Marathas as largely

‘freebooters’ and ‘plunderers’ piqued the pride of the Brahmans in particular, who felt

they were the carriers of that legacy. A counter-history therefore had to be written, which

would be written from the ‘natives’ point of view, which would be more sympathetic

towards its objects of study. As Ranade writes in the Preface to his book, “my aim is

rather to present a clear view of the salient features of the history from the Indian

standpoint, to remove many misapprehensions which detract much from the moral

interest and the political lessons of the story.” Moreover, he points out his research is

aimed to “furnish grounds which will lead the historical student of Modem India to the

conclusion that such a view is inconsistent with facts, and that the mistake is of a sort

which renders the whole story unintelligible.”33 According to him, “Freebooters and

Stewart Gordon, The Marathas 1600-1818, South Asian edition ed., The New Cambridge History o f India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 3. 32 M.G. Ranade and K.T. Telang, Rise of the Maratha Power and Other Essays (Ranade) and Gleanings from Maratha Chronicles (Telang) (Bombay: University of Bombay, 1961), I. 33 Ibid., 1.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 210

adventurers never succeed in building up empires, which last for generations and

permanently alter the political map of a great Continent.”34

Thus Ranade’s attempt was to counter history with history, a colonial version

with an Indian one, based on the modem historiographic rules of ‘evidence’. Rather than

viewing the Marathas as rulers, who merely vied for more territories and loot, Ranade

saw them as nation-builders, infused with the nationalistic spirit.

This feeling of patriotism illustrates most forcibly the characteristic result of the formation of a Nation in the best sense of the word, and constitutes another reason why the History of the Marathas deserves special study.

The history of the Marathas was seen as integral to the history of the Indian nation. He

pointed out, like the Europeans, Indians too had the spirit of patriotism in their history,

which was exhibited by the Marathas. For him, Maratha history was therefore, a history

of nationalist awakening; nationalism as a sentiment was as much Indian as it was a

foreign import. History after all ‘proved’ its existence to the extent that

European writers, who have condemned the Indian races for their want of national feeling, have themselves been forced to admit exceptions in the case of the Marathas, Rajputs and Sikhs.36

He argues that this nation building was not top-down but was a culmination of an organic

link between rulers and common people, which included the peasantry, Brahmans, non-

Brahmans and Muslims as epitomized in the leadership of rulers such as Shivaji. It was

this feeling of Marathaness which brought the disparate peoples together as true

‘defenders’ of India which he points out the colonial historians were unable to

comprehend or acknowledge.

34 Ibid., 2. 35 Ibid., 4. 36 Ibid., 4.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 211

While Ranade does not directly say so, inbuilt here is the assumption that

Marathas were the ‘authentic native rulers’ as Hindus, while Muslim rulers such as the

Mughals were ‘outsiders’. In other words Marathaness, while a regional identity, is also

defined as ‘authentic Indian-ness’, with the Marathas acting as ‘natural defenders’ of the

Indian ‘nation.’ This imagination is distinctly Hindu. Ranade argues that since it was the

Marathas who consistently fought the Muslim invaders, they carried the mantle of being

‘defenders’ and ‘protectors’ of the nation. In this historical narrative then, Marathas

become the repositories of nationalism, of India, protecting her from the ‘Other’ or

Muslim invaders—the lines of who belong to the nation and who do not being drawn

here.

However he makes a distinction between Mughals and Muslims from the region,

or Deccani Muslims; the latter he sees as fully assimilated into Marathi society and more

‘tolerant’. The local Muslim rulers of the Deccan (now Maharashtra) he argues treated

their subjects well, and like Emperor Akbar were very open-minded. Unlike the north

Indian Muslims, he points out; “on the whole great toleration” “towards their Hindu

subjects by these Mahomedan kings” was exhibited. Moreover he argues they also

fought against the Mughals alongside Maratha rulers such as Shivaji. So while his notion

of nationalism was drawing boundaries, based on the Muslims as foreigner, it also

allowed for co-existence:

If the lessons of the past have any value, one thing is quite clear, viz. that in this vast country no progress is possible unless both Hindus and Mahomedans join hands together, and are determined to follow the lead of the men who flourished in Akbar’s time.38

37 Ibid., 17. 38 Ranade, MW, 226.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 212

Ranade also historicized popular expressions such as the bhakti movements that

spanned five hundred years in the region and which posed a major challenge to

Brahmanism, as part of this larger historical process of ‘nation-building’, shared by rulers

and masses alike, tied to the production of a simultaneous nationalist Indian and Marathi

identity. The popular bhakti movements are thus placed within this grander historical

regional-national narrative of a Maratha ‘national spirit’ known as Maharashtra-

dharma 39 and it is this spiritual-mass based aspect of the movement, which Ranade points

out, colonial and other historians have missed:

Both European and Native writers have done but scant justice to this double character of the movement, and this dissociation of the history of the spiritual emancipation of the national mind accounts for much of the prejudice which still surrounds the study of the Maratha struggle for national independence.40

His own Brahamnical heritage plays a significant part in this romantic reading of history,

which glosses over caste differences highlighted by those such as Phule. For Phule, such

a synthesis in history is not possible since the organic unity between peoples of the region

cannot exist due to Brahmanical oppression.

The bhakti movements while positioned within the larger narrative of Maratha

regional and national identity are also viewed by Ranade as akin to the European

Protestant Reformation or “Reformation in western India.”41 Parallels are drawn with

This term was first coined by the saint Ramdas who was Shivaji’s advisor. Ranade recounts Ramdas telling Shambhaji, Shivaji’s son that his duty was to “Unite all who are Marathds together.. .Propogate the Dharma (religion) of Maharashtra.” Ranade and Telang,Rise of the Maratha Power and Other Essays, 78. He argues that Ramdas did not advocate the “Vedic, Puranic, or the Hindu religion generally, but the religion of Mahdrashtra.” Ibid., 78. Ranade is thereby advocating a unified Maharashtra transcending religion, caste, and other markers; whether this is what Ramdas meant when he talked about Maharashtra dharma is besides the point as this is what Ranade interprets him to be saying and links it to a pan-Indian, mainly Hindu nationalist spirit. 40 Ibid., 78. 41 Ibid., 81.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 213

this phase in Europe, particularly the challenge to priests as religious and social

authorities, excessive ritualism and the demand for a direct relation with God. Ranade

argues that bhakti saints were drawn from all castes and challenged caste hierarchies

while also incorporating principles from Islam; “There was a tendency perceptible

towards a reconciliation of the two races in mutual recognition of the essential unity of

Alla with Rama.”42 What was different however in the case of the bhakti movement in

contrast to the European Reformation, he points out, was that the former was not

iconoclastic. Each saint had a specific God they worshipped such as Tukaram and

Namdev’s worship of Vitthal. While the saints were not idol-breakers, he argues they did

not worship idols. Rather than worshipping an impersonal God, characteristic of Semitic

Gods, he goes on, they privileged a very personal god who could be reached through pure

devotion.

The bhakti movement is thus placed by Ranade within this larger canvas of

historical development of both region and nation, which had its own ‘Reformation’,

guided by an organic unity of rulers and masses. The saints are in other words hitched to

this modernist project of history and nation when in fact they can be read as critiquing

these very categories, in their privileging divine forces over history, inside/outside

boundaries as defined by the idea of the nation, upper caste definitions of the caste

hierarchy and what constitutes ‘Hinduism’.

Ranade by placing them within this developmental historical framework can only

historicize and rationalize their belief in God as the agent of history. He can sympathize

with these beliefs but for him it is a secular sentiment of nationalistic patriotism that is

42 Ibid., 92.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 214

driving history and not divine forces. History with its rules of evidence would no longer

be what it is if divine forces were seen to be controlling and directing it. Ranade the

rationalist historian, exhibits the same skepticism in his historical analysis of the bhakti

movements. While clearly moved by the ‘unscientific’ miracles associated with these

saints, he ultimately speaks as a historian when he says:

As is the case with all biographies of saints, the popular imagination attributes to these persons, wonderful and miraculous powers, notably those of raising the dead to life, healing the sick and feeding the hungry. The stories which are told of the way in which they were helped by supernatural agency in their mission of love may or may not be accepted in these days of vigilant criticism.43

However while Ranade the historian views the bhakti movements from a

historical standpoint, of contextualizing it within a specific time-period, as well as fitting

it within this larger historical unity and developmental narrative of the region and nation,

Ranade the devotee approaches it somewhat differently. His use of the saints’ teachings

to reinterpret religious practices and ideas in the present, as part of the ‘eternal’ message

of Hinduism, points to a non-historical and non-contextual approach towards these

movements, explored as part of his skepticism toward historicism in the section below.

Ranade and the Limits of Historicism

While Ranade was a strong advocate of a modem historical approach as seen

above, and was often critical of traditional modes of interpretation, which he believed

could not maintain a strict chronological separation between past and present, he also

relied on them while participating in debates on Hindu social reform. In the nineteenth

century most debates carried out between the ‘orthodox’ and ‘social reformers’ involved

43 Ranade, Rise of the Maratha Power and Other Essays, 80.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 215

interpretation of religious texts and traditional modes of argumentation. However this

was not entirely the case and Ranade was not compelled to do so. There were prominent

reformers such as Agarkar who broke with this trend and decried all religious grounds

entirely, while opting for discourses of rights and freedoms as embodied in the western

Utilitarian theorists.

Ranade however, was no traditional shastri; colonial modernity via western

education had transformed as Deshpande argues, the traditional shastris into ‘professors’,

which was more than just a shift in titles but rather in orientations.44 However many

continuities remained as many jobs that Brahmans did in colonial society were an

extension of their traditional occupations such as teaching, law, clerical and

administrative work while older modes of knowledge and thinking often lurked alongside

newly adopted ones. Such continuities were strongly exhibited in the case of Ranade.

For him, it was important not to completely eschew traditional modes of interpretation

while adopting modem historical approaches, as both appear to have co-existed in his

thought and life.

Despite his belief in the colonial mission as a progressive force and his strongly

historical bent of mind, Ranade was not completely divorced from a traditional world

view. I argue he was bi-cultural, remaining rooted to traditional modes of knowledge

even while he adopted modem ones. In other words, he did not give up one for the other

despite his immense fascination for the latter. However his use of tradition was not an

unexamined one, but rather open to scrutiny, especially with winds of change blowing via

44 Madhav Deshpande, "Pandits and Professors: Transformations in the 19th Century Maharashtra," in The Pandit: Traditional Scholarship in India, ed. Axel Michaels (Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 2001).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 216

modem ideas. He believed that while change regarding Hindu customs and practices was

inevitable, this was possible by reassessing and not abandoning tradition. While modem

historicism played an important role in his world-view, it was not totalizing. This is

apparent in his use of traditional modes of argumentation alongside historical ones in his

interventions in religious debates. This is also evident in the manner in which he

reinterpreted the teachings of the bhakti saints in crafting a contemporary Hindu identity.

I examine both these aspects in order to further elucidate my claim that Ranade’s modem

historicist approach was nuanced and limited by his religious and traditional world-view.

Interpretation of Hindu Religious Debates over Social Reform

As discussed earlier, Ranade did view Hindu customs and practices through a

historical lens and while he was often critical of the ‘method of tradition’, he also

occasionally resorted to it. In his historical analysis, he would place texts such as the

Vedas or the Puranas, within a historical context, namely a specific time-period with its

characteristic features. This would separate them from the present, as existing within a

different age, and no longer accessible or relevant, as dead rather than living texts, or

mere pieces of ‘evidence’. Traditional approaches towards these texts on the other hand,

were fundamentally non-historical because they would analyze them precisely by

removing or ignoring their historical contexts. Rather, they were deemed to be relevant

for all times, as living texts, thereby collapsing the distance between past and present.

Ranade made use of such approaches in dealing with major Hindus customs of his time

that he attempted to reform, namely the prohibition of widows remarrying and increasing

the marriageable age, for young boys and girls. Debates on the practice of widow-

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 217

remarriage between the reformers and the orthodox, took place largely based on the

interpretation of the shastras or Hindu religious texts/scriptures. This followed mostly

the ‘method of tradition’, which looked at this practice from within competing

interpretations of these texts, which were not treated as historically dead or irrelevant but

rather as applicable to present-day Hindu customs and everyday lived realities.

The historical method however was not completely excluded from these debates.

In fact social reformers such as Telang, Bhandarkar45, Ranade and from the ‘orthodox’

side Tilak, all used historical arguments to make their claims about the presence of

widow-remarriage in the past, using texts as historical evidence. Ranade as a modernist

could have decried the need to interpret the shastras and argued for widow-remarriage

purely on rationalist, historical and humanitarian grounds. However he chose not to do

so, because he believed that traditional modes of interpretation, even if he was critical of

them, still mattered and could not be entirely discounted. Both grounds were therefore

furnished, the historical as well as the interpretive or ‘method of tradition’46 in dealing

with widow-remarriage. Divergent interpretations of the treatment of widows as laid out

in the shastras formed the focus of these debates between the two camps. The social

reformers’ main contention was that the practice of widow-remarriage was sanctioned by

the ancient shastras, while the orthodox on the other hand claimed otherwise, arguing

Bhandarkar outlines the differences while his preferences are for the second kind; “(i)There are the Pandits of the old school who have spent long years in studying, in the traditional way, the authoritative Sanskrit texts o f different branches of Sanskrit learning such as Vyakarana and Nyaya. Their studies, exclusively confined to particular branches, are no doubt, deep and sound, but they are lacking in historical, comparative and critical outlook, (ii) Then there are those scholars who have been studying the literature of the country and the inscriptions and antiquities scattered in different provinces, by the application of the historical, comparative, and the critical method”. Quoted in Deshpande, "Pandits and Professors: Transformations in the 19th Century Maharashtra," 22. But he too like Ranade used both methods. 46 This is not to say that these methods and approaches remained in a ‘pure’ form but also underwent important transformations; nevertheless they remained distinct from historical methods in their treatment of these texts and practices as living, rather than mere historical sources of evidence.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 218

that reform of this ‘age-old’ practice would be a ‘foreign innovation’, an ‘import’,

antithetical to the ‘original essence’ of Hinduism. Both however marshaled passages

from the shastras to back their claims.

A brief mention of the ‘great debate’ of 1870 attended by hundreds of people, in

which Ranade participated on the side of the reformers, would indicate the extensive use

of these approaches and Ranade’s own commitment to them. One of the traditional

methods of resolving disputes around upper caste religious custom and practices was for

Brahmans to debate each other in public with a religious head acting as arbitrator to

decide the outcome. These debates could carry on for days, sometimes weeks. In the

midst of the widow-remarriage controversy in the mid-nineteenth century, the orthodox

agreed to have the Shankaracharya of Karvir act as an arbitrator in a debate on the

shastric permissibility of widow-remarriage against the reformers.

This debate took place in Pune from 28 March to 5 April 1870 in Sanskrit, in

which five members from both sides faced each other, citing relevant verses from the

shastras to make their claims.47 The event had all the elements of high drama; at the very

last minute when the reformers appeared to have the upper hand, one of their members,

Vyenkatesh Shastri Mathe defected to the other side, by changing his mind about the

validity of widow-remarriage in the present age of Kali Yuga and voted against the

AO reformers. The orthodox thus emerged victorious. The Shankaracharya thereby

announced that amongst the upper castes in the period of Kali Yuga, there was no shastric

47 Bhandarkar was not allowed to debate despite his erudition because he did not belong to the ‘Chitpavan’ sub-caste but was a ‘Saraswat’ Brahman, who are fish-eating. See Sridhar Sakharam Pandit, Vishnu Parshuram Shastri Pandit Yanche Caritra (Pune: Aryabhushan Press, 1936), 53. 48 The reformers suspected some foul play on the part of their opponents in persuading one o f their members to switch sides. Details of the debate are taken mostly from Malshe and Apte, Vidhwavivahchalwal, 62-70.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 219

sanction for widow-remarriage, thereby declaring it invalid. The losing side or the

reformers were threatened with excommunication from caste unless they undertook

prayaschitta or penance and many had to do so under considerable pressure from their

families.

It is within this context that Ranade’s interventions must be examined. Ranade

turned to the Vedas, in an essay written in 1870, after the ‘great debate’ to argue that

widow-remarriage was sanctioned by the scriptural sources and therefore was valid in

present times. The main objective of the reformers including Ranade was to show that

“that the re-marriage of widows has the positive authority of the Shastras, which Shastra

authorities hold good for all the four Yugas, that is for all time.”49 Classifying the texts

in the following order, the Vedas, then Puranas and lastly Itihasas, he lists passages from

each one to show that re-marriage is sanctioned under certain circumstances and hence is

permissible within Hindu society. For instance, in the Vedas, specifically the Yajurveda,

Taittiriya Aranyaka, Prapathaka, VI Shloka 14, he points out, there is a passage

addressed to the wife of an Agnihotri Brahman who has died that says “Get up, oh

woman, you who lie down by the side of this your lifeless husband. Come to this crowd

of living people about you here, and may you become the wife of some person desirous

of taking the hand of a widow in re-marriage.”50 This Ranade argues clearly indicates

that the woman is encouraged to resume her life upon the death of her husband and marry

again.51

49 M.G. Ranade, "Vedic Authorities for Widow Remarriage," inReligious and Social Reform: A Collection of Essays and Speeches, ed. M.B. Kolasker (Bombay: G. Claridge and Company, 1902), 55. 50 Ibid., 57. 51 Disagreements between the reformers and orthodox often surrounded interpretation o f certain words. Divergent interpretations would entail divergent meanings and hence implications for the custom at

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 220

Ranade brings out relevant passages allowing widow-remarriage, from several

texts such as Manu, Narada, Wasistha, Katyayana, and others all which he says are

relevant for all Yugas or ages. He points out there are seventeen cases in which

remarriage is allowed; “Against this mass of authorities, what have the other side to

show?-not a single express text which negatives this permission.” While he says there

are some passages in Manu, which state that a woman marries only once, there are also

several exceptions made to this general rule, which allow under certain circumstances,

such as the death or absence of a husband, for the wife to remarry. He refutes the claim

made by the orthodox that in the present time or Kali Yuga, the Puranic texts do not

allow a widow to remarry since he argues none explicitly mention a widow and do make

provisions for exceptional circumstances.

Moreover Ranade enforces the traditional hierarchy of the Smriti texts or the

Vedas as the ultimate authority if contravened by ‘lower’ texts such as the Puranas;53

“Besides, most of them being only found in the Puranas, they have no force against

express Smriti texts, by a well-known rule of construction.”54 Moreover he says, the

most important Smriti for the Kali Yuga age, or Parashara, the “binding authority for the

age”55 merely replicates Narada and Manu’s texts, thereby establishing them as the laws

for the Kali Yuga or the present which in turn sanction widow-remarriage. He points out

hand. So for instance in the ‘great debate’ the two sides differed over the wordpati, used in Manu, Narada and other Smritis, the reformers reading it as husband while the orthodox interpreted as protector which had different implications. The former argued that husband was the correct interpretation, thereby allowing the wife to remarry anotherpati when the husband died. 52 Ranade, "Vedic Authorities for Widow Remarriage," 69. 53 The Vedas were held as the highest authority. Thus “Manu states that, for those who desire to know Dharma, Sruti (Veda) is the highest authority. Therefore, in case of conflict between sruti and smrti the former prevails.” Kane, History of Dharmasastra, v.5, part II, 1265. 54 Ranade, "Vedic Authorities for Widow Remarriage," 76. 55 Ibid., 80.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 221

that in this way, “ all the authorities are reconciled. This great argument of the

reconciliation of the texts was first laboured out by the late lamented Pandit

Ishvarachandra Vidyasagara.”56 The reference to Vidyasagar is significant here since it

was he in Bengal,57 who first turned to the shastras to find justification for widow-

remarriage within classical Hinduism.

Ranade therefore works here within the ‘method of tradition’ of finding shastric

sanction by reinterpreting religious texts for this ‘innovation’ of widow-remarriage within

Brahmanical society. However, according to this traditional method, the ‘innovation’ had

to be argued as already existing in the texts for all time and not bound by time and place.

Hence Ranade’s downplays the ‘newness’ of his claims; “The change is sought not as an

innovation, but as a return and restoration to the days of our past history”• ( Oand

It is a fortunate thing that most of the social evils complained of in these days, were unknown in the days of our highest glory, and in seeking their reform, we are not imitating any foreign models, but restoring its ancient freedom and dignity in place of subsequent corruptions.59

The ancient texts laid down laws and codes that were seen to be true as much for the past

as for the present, subject to interpretation in the here and now. This did not preclude an

awareness that they were written in the past, but it also included the belief that while the

past informed the present, it was the present that in turn rewrote the past.

56 Ibid., 78. 57 Vidyasagar, ashastri and social reformer in Bengal, led the agitation against the widow- remarriage movement by reinterpreting theshastras. For a useful discussion on Vidyasagar see Brian Hatcher, Idioms of Improvement: Vidyasagar and Cultural Encounter in Bengal (Calcutta: Oxford University Press, 1996), Ashis Nandy,The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983), 27-29, Amales Tripathi,Vidyasagar: The Traditional Moderniser (Bombay: Orient Longman, 1974). 58 Ranade, MW, 81. 59 Ibid., 89-90.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 222

The modem historical approach is predicated as de Certeau argues, on the

separation between past and present, on the past as difference, as Other whereas in the

traditional approach, this difference is rejected. The present must look exactly like the

past. But this is not an unmediated past, since the act of interpretation itself is always an

act in the present, which in turn rewrites the past. The ‘innovations’ are projected back

into the past as the original past itself, as the ‘tradition’ thereby transforming both the

past and the present. There is therefore no ‘unmediated tradition’ that lies outside the

present and yet it is projected as an ‘eternal’ tradition. As Deshpande points out,

In the classical Indian mind, the Vedas have never ceased to exist, and hence there is no reason to deal with them as a matter of the past...Thus the past and the present are not distinct from each other, but the past is alive in the present, and the present was there in the past. The classical term for the Hindu religion is sanatan-dharma, and this term carries this very same meaning of having been there in this very form all the time. Thus the past forms of religion and medieval and modem developments in religion are all equally current and valid. Similarly they are all viewed to be equally ancient.60

Ranade emphasized throughout his speeches and writings, that social reformers

were not introducing change, but rather highlighting the essential purity of Hindu

customs and practices as embodied in Hindu religious texts or shastras. These they then

interpreted accordingly to show that in fact it was the ‘orthodox’ that were deviating from

these principles, not them.

The reformers of the present day are certainly not open to the charge that they are handling roughly with time-honoured institutions. It is rather for the reformers to take their stand as defenders of these ancient ordinances, and denounce those who have set God’s law at defiance to suit their own purposes.61

Madhav Deshpande, “History, Change and Permanence: A Classical Indian Perspective,” 14. Ranade, MW, 234.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 223

It was the reformers who provided the ‘true’ interpretation of these texts and hence were

not introducing innovations at all since these were already present in the ‘venerated’ texts

themselves:

Nobody can, under these circumstances, contend that, on the strictest interpretation of the texts, the local usages which obtain at present agree with our best traditions of the past. Those who advocate a return to the old order of things are thus in good company, and are not foreign imitators.62

The texts as Ranade interprets them, allow for a reading that is compatible with

modem ideas because these ideas or ‘innovations’ are not seen as modem. On the

contrary they are seen as traditional and have always existed, since the ancients have

scripted them. ‘True Hinduism’ is therefore seen to be quite compatible with certain

modem ideas, and the new starts looking not so new after all. As he puts it,

All our new looking ideas have a place in our religion. The other fortunate thing is that following caste differences, idol worship, practicing untouchability, none of these practices are essential to Hindu religion.63

Thus the ‘modem’ is transformed into the ‘traditional’. Deshpande argues this is how

traditional India incorporated new influences by incorporating them as part of the

unchanging, the eternal and ahistorical, while transforming the ‘traditional’ in the

process. As a result, he says:

History as viewed from this perspective is not a matter of new creation of events or new inventions, but simply an unfolding of implicit aspects and values of the eternally self-existing reality. Deduction does not give us any new information, but the conclusion of a deductive argument is an extraction of information already implicit in the first premise. The validity of deduction rests on the validity of the first principle and the method of deduction. The only self-improvement in the eyes of classical Indian tradition is to come up not with new truths, as there can be none to be newly discovered, but to come up with better methods of deduction, or to use a more common expression, to come up with a better interpretation. A so-called new theory can be in

Ibid., 72. Ranade, Dharmapar Vyakhyane, 258. Translation mine.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 224

fact nothing but a new interpretation of the old theory. The present can be nothing but a new interpretation of the past.64

While this may seemingly underplay innovation, since all change has to take

place in the name of the ‘past’, or ‘tradition’, it does not in effect preclude

transformations. As Deshpande points out, it merely embodies a different conception of

change to that of the western historical one.

Whatever a thinker found to be true must be in total agreement with what the Vedas say. Thus starting from an independent personal investigation and self-conviction about a doctrine, the thinker had to turn himself into an interpreter of old scriptures and try to show that the scriptures indeed sanctioned what he believed firmly.. .Thus as a matter of the claim of the classical Indian tradition, there was no independent thinking and all that thinking was directed towards a faithful interpretation of the older scriptures where the first principles of Hindu religion and philosophy were stated. However, every interpreter was at the same time an original independent thinker, and the more independent he was as a thinker, the harder was the task of interpreting an old text to fit his philosophy.65

Since the ‘ancients’ were seen to hold clues to all times, all interpretation carried out in

the present, including that carried out by Ranade, was generally done in the name of the

‘past’. The notion that the ancients were more civilized is tied to the division of Hindu

time into ages, the present seen as the degraded age or Kali Yuga. According to

Deshpande this directly contravenes the modem historicist notion of progress. Rather

than viewing man as moving from a lower to a higher stage, according to this view the

reverse is happening.

As a result, it is the ancestors who are seen as wiser, and progressive, who have

laid down eternal, not historical tmths. But these truths while viewed as essential are also

always being interpreted differently, according to the needs of the present. There are thus

Madhav Deshpande, “History, Change and Permanence,” 19. Ibid, 21.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 225

no fixed or objective ‘truths’ outside the act of interpretation. Hence the confidence that

Ranade and his colleagues displayed in the notion that present-day ‘innovations’ or

‘modem’ ideas such as ‘widow-remarriage’ were in fact ‘eternal’ ‘traditional’ ‘truths’,

sanctioned by the shastras such as the Vedas. The belief in the Vedas as the highest

authority was tied to this non-progressivist notion of time. According to Deshpande,

While the early western scholars of Vedic literature concluded that the Vedas were produced by ‘primitive’ peoples and that later the Indian religion developed into a ‘non-primitive’ form, the traditional Hindus cannot accept such conceptions. For them, the Vedic Aryans are the ultimate authority in every matter, and hence they must be at least as much ‘developed’ as the modem Hindus, if not more. The Hindu theory of declining ages combined with the notion of the authority of the past for the present leads to an inevitable construction of a more developed and a more glorious past. A primitive past cannot be considered to be an authority for the developed present. This is the western conception of history. In the Hindu conception, the past must have been more developed than the present, since the past is the authority for the present.66

Ranade’s belief in the necessity of viewing ‘modem innovations’ as ‘tradition’,

thereby redefining ‘tradition’ itself, was reflected also in the approach of the Prarthana

Samaj, the social reform body he was associated with for many years. Ranade was one of

the key players along with Indologist and social reformer R.G. Bhandarkar in the Samaj,

started in 1867 with the explicit purpose of providing a religious platform from which to

challenge the doctrinaire aspects of Hinduism. Emphasizing prayer without idol-

worship, while holding religious sermons and discussions every Sunday, Ranade and his

colleagues were clearly deeply influenced by some aspects of Christianity as other

reformers like them in Bengal had been. The Samaj under Ranade attempted to reform

Hinduism, by incorporating modem ideas, drawn from Protestant Christianity such as

challenging caste hierarchies, idol-worship and ritualism but they did so by reinterpreting

66 Ibid, 11. 67 For a useful background and history of the Prarthana Samaj itself, see Dwarkanath Govind Vaid, Prarthanasamajacha Itihas (Mumbai: Prarthana Samaj, 1927).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 226

the teachings of the bhakti saints in Maharashtra. These ideas were seen as inherent to

the teaching of the saints and therefore ‘traditional’ and ‘essential’ to Hinduism.

The Samaj under Ranade emphasized the need to conform ‘modernity’ with

‘tradition’, the ‘past’ to the ‘present’. Like Gandhi, many years later, Ranade perceived

that the only manner in which Hindu society would accept reforms was through a

religious idiom (which he believed in, not merely in instrumental terms) that could be

reconciled with ‘tradition’ (albeit reconstructed). Moreover, he was acutely aware that

breaking away into separate ‘sects’ as the Brahmo and Arya Samajs’ in Bengal had done,

or those who had converted to Christianity would have very little influence in reforming

mainstream, especially Brahmanical Hinduism from within. These would be viewed as

renegade groups, whose critiques could be easily dismissed by the orthodox who would

see themselves as the ‘true’ apostles of Hinduism.68 Ranade wanted to take them on, on

their terms, of ‘tradition’, by redefining it, while arguing it was in effect the ‘essence’ or

‘truth’ of Hinduism. He in other words, did not want to accede this terrain to them,

which he would have done had he approached reform primarily through a modernist-

historical lens.

The main criticism leveled against the reformers in the nineteenth-century was

that they were seen as ‘foreign imitators,’ too ‘westernized’ and ‘Christianized’

(missionaries were unpopular amongst the Brahman population especially) since they

adopted Christian like practices such as holding prayer meetings on Sundays at the Samaj

where Ranade and others delivered sermon like speeches. To combat this criticism,

68 For a useful comparison between the Bengal and Maharashtra approaches, and how they differed, see Charles Heimsath, Indian Nationalism and Hindu Social Reform (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), 98-109.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 227

Ranade attempted to frame the existence of the Samaj as part of an ancient trend within

Hinduism of the prevalence of sects that continually broke off and in turn transformed the

mainstream. He believed Hinduism (or what he called Aryadharma ) was fundamentally a

non-historical religion and saw that as part of its resilience. A characteristic of

Aryadharma he says is that:

.. .it is not a historical religion. At a specific time, in one particular country, did God take shape in one specific person and expound the ‘true religion’ while all others were in darkness did not happen.. .Nor is there ‘truth’ only in one text. Whether that is convenient or a good thing or not is a different question. However one text or sect is not privileged over the other. All are treated equally.. .A third characteristic of Aryadharma like other religions is it is not stagnant but grows.. .New influences and mixes keep coming in and adding to it.. .The Vedas were not seen as enough so the Upanishads added on to it, and then puranas, but due to their inadequacies, the bhakti and sadhu folk established the bhaktimarg or the path of bhakti and the Warkari sect.. .this made it grow continuously and did not stagnate.69

While the Samaj may have appeared as a challenge to Hinduism, Ranade was very

insistent that it carefully follow the approach o f‘internal dissent’ and distinguished itself

from others such as the Brahmo Samaj, in Bengal 70 for this very reason. He drew a very

clear distinction between the methods and approach of the Samaj in the Bombay

Presidency versus his counterparts in Bengal, who he believed had isolated themselves by

taking an extreme position on many of these issues. He clearly stated that as the Samaj,

“We desire above all not to occupy a separate camp for ourselves.” 71 Moreover he points

out:

The peculiar feature of the movement in the Presidency is that we want to work on no single line, but to work on all lines together and above all not to break with the past and cease all connection with our society. We do not proceed on the religious basis exclusively as in Bengal.. .We do not desire to give up our hold on the old established

Ranade, Dharmapara Vyakhyctne, 65-66. Translation mine. B.R. Sunthankar, Maharashtra 1858-1920 (Bombay: Popular Book Depot, 1993). Ranade, MW, 160.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 228

institutions. Some might say this is our weakness—others think in it consists our strength 11

Referring to those who emphasized discontinuities between past and present, as

advocating a ‘method of rebellion’, distinct from his own, he says:

The method of rebellion, i.e., of separating from the community, naturally suggests itself to such minds. I am constitutionally inclined to put more faith in the methods mentioned above. They keep up continuity, and prevent orthodoxy from becoming reactionists out of a mere spirit of opposition.. .This has been the characteristic line of action followed by our ancestors, and there is no reason to think they were essentially mistaken.

He continues:

Conservatism is a force which we cannot afford to forego or forget.. .you are unconsciously influenced by the traditions in which you are bom, by the surroundings in which you are brought up.. .To say that it is possible to build up a new fabric on new lines without any help from the past is to say I am self-bom and my father and grand-father need not have troubled for me.74

The traditional mode of coping with change, he argues, was to incorporate the

changing with the unchanging, to project an ‘eternal’ past eschewing radical breaks

between past and present, which was an approach he also actively discouraged within the

Samaj.

There has been no revolution, and yet the old condition of things has been tending to reform itself by the slow process of assimilation.. .Change for the better by slow absorption-assimilation not by sudden conversion and revolution-this has been the characteristic feature of our past history. We have outlived Buddhism, and we conquered it by imbibing its excellences and rejecting its errors75

He further points out:

We cannot break with the past altogether; with our past we should not break altogether, for it is a rich inheritance, and we have no reason to be ashamed of it. The society to which we belong has shown wonderful elasticity in the past, and there is no

72 Ibid., 159. 73 Ibid., 132. 74 Ibid., 158. 75 Ibid., 126.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 229

reason for apprehending that it has ceased to be tractable and patient and persistent in action. While respecting the past, we must ever seek to correct the parasitical growths that have encrusted it, and sucked the life out of it.76

Ranade argued that it was this kind of ‘elasticity’, which also allowed the ‘tradition’ to be

constantly interrogated, and he strongly advocated the need to do so. This constant

questioning he argued was not just a result of western education as popularly believed,

but an integral part of the society’s past, namely as embodied in the religious dissent of

Buddhism, Jainism, intellectuals/scholars such as Shankar, Ramanuja, Madhava and

Vallabh. It also included dissenting movements of the bhakti saints as represented by

Kabir, Nanak, Chaitanya,• Tukaram and others. 77

While ‘upholding’ the past, Ranade also argued that this past had to be

questioned, contrary to what the ‘orthodox’ during his time were doing. His main

critique against his ‘orthodox’ opponents including Tilak was their attempt to ‘reify’

tradition and reject what he believed was Hinduism’s elasticity. He believed this kind of

questioning and dissent was the only way the religion would grow and adapt to modem

changes. In other words while he attempted to rewrite the ‘traditional’ or the past,

through contact with the modem, or the present, he believed the orthodox were taking

present-day practices such as forbidding widow-remarriage as ancient and hence ‘fixed’.

The ‘ancients’ were being venerated without reflection, merely because they were

‘glorious ancestors’; Ranade strongly denounced this kind of blind acceptance of the past

in the name of ‘tradition’. He argued that the ‘orthodox’ were following tradition merely

for its own sake, while attempting to ‘revive’ it, without any kind of questioning:

76 Ibid., 118. 77 In his times he mentions the example o f Brahmahahdav Upadhyay who he says went from being a Hindu to a Brahmo to a Roman Catholic, representing in India the spirit of religious critique. It is this spirit he argues that has been India’s strength and there is no alternative to it, as it is hersvabhav or nature.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 230

When we are asked to revive our institutions and customs, people seem to be very much at sea as to what it is they seem to revive.. .What shall we revive?... Shall we revive the twelve forms of sons, or eight forms of marriage, which included capture, and recognised mixed and illegitimate intercourse? Shall we revive the Niyoga system of procreating sons on our brother’s wives when widowed?.. .Shall we revive the Sati and infanticide customs, or the flinging of living men into the rivers, or over rocks, or hookswinging, or the crushing beneath Jagannath car? Shall we revive the internecine wars of the Brahmin and Kshatriyas, or the cruel persecution and degradation of the aboriginal population? 78

Ranade was acutely aware that there were many practices within Hinduism done

in the name of ‘tradition’ that were abhorrent and his life-long social reform efforts were

geared towards addressing these. He argued he was not eulogizing ‘tradition’ for its own

sake but reinterpreting it, influenced by the new winds of change.

Are we or are we not conscious that many of us, under the narcotic influence of custom and usage, too often violate the feelings of our common human nature, and our sense of right and wrong, stunt the growth of higher life, and embitter the existence of many of those who depend on us, our wives and children, our brothers and sons, relatives and friends? Are we prepared to point out any single hour of the day when we do not unconsciously commit injustice of a sort by the side of which municipal injustice is nothing, when we do not unconsciously sanction iniquities by the side of which the 7 0 most oppressive tyrant’s rule is mercy itself?

For Ranade, despite his respect for ‘tradition’, it could not override empathy and

sensitivity towards human suffering. Ultimately, if it was a choice between tradition that

entailed human suffering and a rejection of that tradition, Ranade believed individual

conscience (in the present) had to act in favor of doing the latter:

Above all mere ordinances and institutes stands the law eternal, of justice and equality, of pity and compassion, the suggestions of the conscience within and of nature without us. 0

So while attempts to show continuity between past and present was important, it did not

matter to the extent that it could override blatant injustices in the present.

78 Ranade, MW, 190-91. 79 Ibid., 124. 80 Ibid., 234.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 231

Anticipating Gandhi, he too believed he was primarily accountable to an ‘inner

voice’ and not merely ‘tradition’ for its own sake:

We are children, no doubt, but the children of God, and not of man, and the voice of God is the only voice which we are bound to listen... With too many of us, a thing is true or false, righteous or sinful, simply because somebody in the past has said that it is so. Duties and obligations are duties and obligations, not because we feel them to be so, but because somebody reputed to be wise has laid it down that they are so.. .Now the new idea which we should take up.. .is not the idea of a rebellious overthrow of all authority, but that of freedom responsible to the voice of God in us. Great and wise men in the past, as in the present, have a claim upon our regards, but they must not come between us and our God-the Divine Principle enthroned in the heart of every one of us high or low. It is this sense of self-respect, or rather respect for the God in us, which has to be cultivated.. .Revere all human authority, pay your respects to all prophets and all revelations, but never let this reverence and respect come in the way of the dictates of conscience, the Divine command in us.81

Like Gandhi, Ranade too believed change had to come from within, based on self

introspection, along with changes in the public sphere. Extending this individualist

notion, prevalent within Hinduism, to the Hindu collective self, the curse of

untouchability he pointed out was no different from that of European colonialism,

thereby viewing the former as another form of internal colonialism.82 For Ranade, it was

internal deficiencies within Hinduism that had allowed colonialism to take root in India

and hence the need to transform tradition’. He writes:

Now what have been the inward forms or ideas which have been hastening our decline during the past three thousand years? These ideas may be briefly set forth as isolation, submission to outward force or power more than to the voice of the inward conscience, perception of fictitious differences between men and women due to heredity and birth, passive acquiescence in evil or wrong-doing, and a general indifference to secular

81 Ibid., 194. 82 In an incident with Gokhale, when Ranade’s seat was taken by a young junior English judge on the train, he did not lodge an official complaint because anticipating Gandhi, he told Gokhale Hindus treat Untouchables the same way. See Tucker,Ranade and the Roots of Indian Nationalism, 220. While responding to British conservatism in the wake of the Ilbert Bill, he pointed out all conquering races were alike including “our own country, the regenerate castes had the mass of aboriginal population under their foot and put them down with the severity.. .British population in India has arrogated to itself the distinctive position of a superior caste and history but repeats itself in their cry for power and privilege and their contempt for the conquered and subject population”, Quoted in Parvate,Mahadev GovindRanade, 295.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 232

well-being almost bordering upon fatalism. These have been the root ideas of our ancient social system. They have as their natural result led to the existing family arrangements where the woman is entirely subordinated to the man and the lower castes to the higher castes, to the length of depriving men of their natural respect for humanity.83

His writings are replete, like Gandhi’s, with the notion of purification and self-renewal,

through contact with new influences, centered on individual conscience.

The turn of life and light is in the individual. We have to purify it to feel the heat and light of truth in us; and if we care each for thus acting in the faith of duty, we may be sure that God’s helping hand will come to our relief. If we suffer misery, we have earned it by our sins in the past and present84

He continues:

We have pursued that way too long, and it is time now that we should take due care to set our houses in order, as no mere whitewashing and no plastering would remove these hidden sources of our weaknesses. The whole existence must be renovated. The baptism of fire and not of water must be gone through by those who seek a renovation of heart such as this.85

He points out that this should happen “not by cold calculations of utility, but by the

cleansing fire of a religious revival.” And yet he also always wanted to make it clear

that these foreign influences were not ‘imposing’ their ways and ideas on the native

population, but rather this process of reflection was and had to be an internal process,

emerging out of the individual conscience. “Until the conscience is stirred up, nothing

great or good can be accomplished by the agencies from outside, which hardly touch the

surface.”87

83 Quoted in Kellock, Mahadev Govind Ranade: Patriot and Social Servant, 93. 84 Ranade, MW, 142. 85 Ibid., 125. 86 Ibid., 71. 87 Ibid., 173.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 233

Interpreting the Message of Bhakti as Sanatan Dharam or Eternal Hinduism

While Ranade’s historical analysis of the bhakti movements placed them within a

chronological narrative of the development of the nation, his use of their teachings to

create an alternative reading of Hinduism, is indicative of a non-historical or synchronic

approach towards the past. Ranade attempted to reform Hinduism in his times, which he

saw as a thriving and practicing religion that could be constantly refashioned and

reinvigorated by rereading and reinterpreting the past. In this instance, the historical

existence of the bhakti saints is of lesser importance. In his reading of their religious

teachings, he is not concerned with locating them as historical figures, bounded within a

particular time and space. Rather the reverse is sought here; removing them from their

historical context and viewing their messages as universal and timeless is the primary

objective. His recovery of the bhakti teachings, through his interpretation of them, along

with drawing from other religions, was an attempt to shift the focus of Hinduism by

making these principles the core of the religion.

Rather than viewing these saints and their messages as dead, he argued they were

always alive and ever-present. As stated earlier, he hoped to take these teachings that

were articulated in past centuries as dissent to mainstream aggressively Brahmanic

Hinduism and refashion them as the ‘essence’ of Hinduism, as sanatan dharma, as its

very core. He hoped to bring elements within the religion that had been sidelined to the

surface as the ‘mainstream’. As Kellock points out, “Ranade taught that the Bhagwat

Dharma with its Path of Bhakti is the essence of true Hinduism, and that that essence has

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 234

been preserved in the Vaishnava Sects.”88 Here we see once more, the attempt was

innovative and new but it was couched in terms of merely restating the eternal, in the

language of continuity. Once again, change in the present, the new, the innovative,

becomes the past, tradition and the unchanging; in a dialectical fashion, the modem

becomes ‘traditional’ and traditional becomes ‘modem’.

This is the manner in which he dealt with criticism leveled against him and the

Samaj about their ‘western’ influenced reforms of Hinduism. He recounts a conversation

that transpired between him and a few young people who accused him of defiling saints

such as Eknath by preaching their message in a ‘Christian’ like set-up such as the Samaj.

Ranade says he responded by telling them what he practiced and preached was in fact

sanatan dharma (orthodox religion), or ‘true’ Aryadharma. He believed he had not

o n strayed away from its principal teachings contrary to what these people believed.

Hinduism he says in one of his speeches is like a tree with different branches,

each branch having its own place and importance on the tree, none more significant than

the other. Knowledge about the historical genesis of the tree and its branches is

intentionally silenced; “if any religion is historical, its development is restricted. Once

history determines the truth, and there can only be fixed interpretations, the growth is

stunted.”90 He points out that this lack of a historical core is the strength of Hinduism,

which is defined by its various branches. This makes it a ‘timeless’ religion precisely

because it lacks any core texts that can be defined as ‘historical’.

Kellock, Mahadev Govind Ranade: Patriot and Social Servant, 175. Ranade, Dharmapara Vyakhyane, 62. Ibid., 66. Translation mine.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 235

In other words, although the Vedas came first, and those who were dissatisfied

with it added the Puranas and later bhakti teachings, all these are viewed synchronically,

not developmentally, as separate branches of a tree, while none is considered the ‘trunk’.

He points out, that this tree, through the teachings of the bhakti saints grew towards the

direction of the sun or love and compassion, which he argues is the ‘true essence’ of the

religion. Ranade saw his role almost in missionary91 terms, to spread the message of this

‘eternal’ Hinduism, which he did through organizations such as the Prarthana Samaj and

in his role as a Congress leader.

Ranade’s interpretation of Hinduism can also be seen as an attempt to maintain

the organic connection that existed between folk and classical elements of Hinduism, in

which many of the folk deities were incorporated into the classical pantheon, thereby

both ‘subduing’ the radical elements as well as reconstituting the mainstream in the

process. Ranade, being a Brahman himself, was deeply wedded to the mainstream, and

therefore attempted to reconstitute and redefine the mainstream by re-reading the

‘dissenters’ as the core. These attempts to maintain the dialectic interplay between

classical and folk without disrupting a shared frame of reference is what lower caste

leaders such as Phule challenged. As D.R. Nagaraj argues, Dalit leaders like Ambedkar

He believed that the religion of bhakti or bhagwat Dharma had to be aggressively promoted despite any personal persecution; “In the words of the Prophet of Nazareth, we have to take up the cross not because it is pleasant to be prosecuted, but because the pain and injury are as nothing by one side of the principle for which they are endured”, Ranade,MW, 170. 92 Phule tried to make the ‘folk’ central but also challenged the viability o f the core itself. In other words he challenged the basic edifice of Hinduism and yet as argued earlier, he stopped short o f a complete rejection of it unlike Ambedkar. As Nagaraj writes, “The line that separates the forced consensus from the collaborative mechanism is very thin.”Nagaraj,The Flaming Fleet, 55.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 236

took this even one step further by rejecting Hinduism completely, due to the oppressive

nature of the caste system. 93

Ranade on the other hand, attached to Hinduism, a ‘synthesizing’ version, in part

coming from his own caste roots, and attempted to recover principles from lower caste

protest movements in the past, which worked within this shared frame of reference. The

religion as defined by saint poets such as Eknath, Tukaram, Kabir, Nanak and Namdev,

which he referred to as ‘ bhagwat dharma', or ‘Indian Theism’, was, he argued the

religion of the common people of India, and constituted sanatan dharma. It was defined

by:

Its non-historical character. It is associated with no particular saint or prophet, though it has room for reverence to all saints and prophets. It is not bound down to any particular revelation but is open to the best influences of all revelations.. .Indian Theism is built on the rock of the direct communion of the individual soul with the Soul of the Universe to which it is linked by the tie of faith, hope and love.. .Indian Theism teaches toleration to all, self-sacrifice, and the duty of Love, not only of man to man but to all animated beings.94

While he drew from many of the major bhakti saints of Maharashtra such as

Eknath, Dyaneshwar and Ramdas, Tukaram seems to be his favorite. Using Tukaram’s

abhangas (poetry) as well as stories from his life, Ranade argued that the principal

message of bhagwat dharma was compassion, love, devotion and humility. He argues

that the low caste saints such as Tukaram were able to expose the inadequacies of the

shastric (priestly) and yogic (austere, renunciatory) emphases within Hinduism that

Ibid. As Ambedkar himself put it, “The Hindu Religious and Social system is such that you cannot go forward to give its ideal form a reality because the ideal is bad; nor can you attempt to elevate the real to the status o f the ideal because the real, i.e. the existing state o f affairs, is worse than worse could be.” B.R. Ambedkar,Ranade, Gandhi andJinnah (Bombay: Thacker&Co., Ltd., 1943), 24. 94 M.G. Ranade, "Philosophy of Indian Theism," inThe Wisdom o f a Modem Rishi: Writings and Speeches ofMahadev Govind Ranade, ed. T.N. Jagadisan (Madras: Rochhouse and Sons Limited, 1900- 1988), 78.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 237

privileged certain castes and restricted access to God through their positions of power.

He refers to these as gyanmarg (path of knowledge) and yogamarg (path of

yoga/austerities) respectively. The former he points out was the domain of only the

upper castes and the literate where as the latter was not conducive for the common people

since it meant neglecting family and social responsibilities. But bhaktimarg (path of

devotion) he argues has been accessible to everyone, including women and others

excluded from these modes.95 Women and untouchables such as Muktabai and

Chokhamela respectively, became saints under this path, as did Muslim saints such as

Kabir and Sheikh Mahommed. This path he points out, allows different religions to come

together such as Hinduism and Islam since it advocates equality, harmonious co

existence and belief in one God.

God, he writes, in one of his sermons,96 according to this view is seen as one,

universal and all pervasive. Quoting Eknath, he states that it is selfless love and

compassion that become the only criteria of religiosity, of connecting with God, and not

through rituals, penances and austerities, all heavily emphasized within mainstream

Hinduism. By stressing devotion rather than ritualistic elements, he argues it disregards

caste since it is one’s conduct and ‘true’ knowledge of God that matters, not the family

one is bom into. In fact Ranade argues Brahmanical upper caste knowledge as the path

to God was severely challenged by these saints and as Eknath argued, learning Sanskrit

and the Vedas for years did not bring one necessarily closer to God.

95 Here he takes a position in favor of bhakti, which was also a challenge to the non-dualist philosophy ofAdvaita, a central debate within Hinduism. Bhakti saints rejected this non-dualism and said man and god were separate so that the former could worship him.Bhakti was an attempt to counter this excessively Brahmanic metaphysical trend within classical Hinduism. 96 Ranade “Karmayog vah bhaktimarg” in Ranade,Dharmapara Vyakhyane, 18.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 238

Moreover he points out, Brahamanical Hinduism stressed the attainment of

moksha or freedom by escaping the cycle of life and death but the saints deemed this less

significant as there was no desire to escape life at all. Ranade argued that Tukaram

celebrated life, while rejecting notions of renunciation, karma and penance. Karma he

points out in particular was rejected because of its close association with caste. Moksha

according to Tukaram writes Ranade, in fact entailed serving God selflessly with no

expectations, while living many lives would entail many chances to worship God, rather

than break away from it. This form of worship according to Ranade, was based on

music, celebration and joy of devotion, not hard austerities, withdrawal from the world or

mere cerebral knowledge of God. Bhaktimargis or those who follow the path of bhakti

according to Ranade, have always lived in the world of experience, of sense, smell and

touch. They do not escape ordinary life and yet give themselves completely to God by

carrying out their duty, which is embracing, not eschewing life. This he says is most

feasible for ordinary people and the most suitable path to follow. It is not geared toward

past or future lives but to life in the here and now. It entails accepting both joys and

sorrows and has no need for temples or books.97

Rejecting textual or intellectual knowledge as the basis to attain God, Ranade

argues that such a connection is made primarily through the soul and heart, attainable

only through devotion, which is accessible to all. Such devotion he believed came though

prarthana or prayer, which he promoted in the Samaj on Sundays. But unlike traditional

Hinduism, based largely on individual worship, with little emphasis on collective social

97 Here he expresses his own beliefs about being abhakta\ “The best ablution is when the senses are drowned in the ocean of God’s presence about us, and the same presence is made to fill us inside and out. The best sacrifice and the highest dana or gift is when we surrender ourselves to His sweet will and for His service, and claim nothing as our own.” Ranade,Rise of the Maratha Power, 90.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 239

action, he incorporated certain Christian elements such as coming together once a week

on Sunday for collective prayer and giving sermons in the Samaj while encouraging

social intervention within Hindu society. He believed doing prarthana or prayer together

QO allowed one to feel collectively inspired. The Samaj also did not identify any central

texts that they followed; rather Ranade often read from all religious books, including the

Koran, Bible and Tukaram’s abhangas. The Christian-like reading of sermons, which

he often carried out from the Bible, indicated the influence this religion in particular had

on him. This was also apparent in his emphasis on human conduct as indicative of

religiosity rather than ritual or any formal appearances of organized religion. This

prompted Kellock, one of his biographers to say about him;

His ethical outlook and practice were so markedly Christian in their tendency, that the old theologians would undoubtedly have dubbed him an example of the anima naturaliter Christiana. He always maintained, however, that he was a Hindu, and asserted that the Prarthana Samaj, having rid of the system of the false excrescences of ages, represented the true Hinduism."

Ranade in his attempts to enunciate a new religious doctrine, drawing from bhakti

saints, was responding to critiques of Hinduism from a colonial Protestant Christianity in

particular, deeply intertwined with scientific modernity. Hinduism in this view was seen

as superstitious/unscientific, ritualistic, highly renunciatory and therefore unpragmatic,

fatalistic and effeminate. Missionaries launched scathing attacks against the religion in

their efforts to win converts. Many amongst the Indian intelligentsia responded by

becoming ultra-protective of all Hindu customs and practices, defending them at any cost

while others denounced religion altogether and aggressively promoted atheism. Thus

98 Phatak,Nyayamurti Mahadev Govind Ranade Yanche Caritra, 113. 99 Kellock,Mahadev Govind Ranade: Patriot and Social Servant, 151.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 240

while Ranade was responding to missionaries, he was also responding to his Marathi and

Indian counterparts who felt increasingly threatened and insecure about their religion in

the wake of such aggressive criticism.

Ranade on the other hand, exhibited much less of this insecurity. He was secure

enough to realize that while Hinduism had its faults and terrible ones at that, there were

elements within it that could be salvaged, to construct an alternative interpretation of it

that incorporated both the traditional and the modem, and that ‘tamed’ the modem. His

was an attempt to find a middle ground, a reconciliation of principles, which would draw

from certain modernist ideas such as egalitarianism without abandoning traditional

emphases on devotion and self-sacrifice/abnegation. It also could confidently draw from

other religions and even incorporate some of the missionaries’ critiques of Hinduism. As

he himself says,

The power of organization, active hatred of sin, and indignation against wrong-doing in place of resigned indifference, a correct sense of the dignity of man and woman, active philanthropy and a feeling of fraternity, freedom of thought and action, these are Christian virtues which have to be incorporated into the national character.. .the Bhagavata Dharma has many points of contact and kinship with the Christian system of faith.100

This he points out allows a “general recognition of the essential equality between man

and man.”101 He argued that the Bhakti teachings in fact incorporated many of these

ideas already, and was the ‘core’ of the religion’s teachings. In this way he ‘defended’

and ‘challenged’ Hinduism at the same time, but from within itself, by recovering a

‘branch’ of it, arguing it as its core and also transforming it in the process, by aligning it

with certain modernist ideas.

100 Ranade, “Philosophy of Indian Theism,” 77. 101 Ranade, MW, 193.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 241

Many of his detractors accused him and his colleagues in the Samaj of promoting

a ‘weak’ and ‘effeminate’ Hinduism in their emphasis on bhakti, the path of love and

devotion. Ranade however countered this view by referring to Tukaram who argued that

this was the most difficult path, requiring the most strength, rather than that of animal

force, which was the weakest kind. Ranade had the confidence influenced in part through

his own devotion to stress the path of bhakti, love, compassion and tolerance rather than

assert a masculinist aggressive martial Hinduism as the ‘core’ which many of his

counterparts were doing at the time and continue to do so today.

Moreover, he was trying to make Hinduism more accessible, by appealing to the

egalitarian teachings of the bhakti saints, who had opposed caste and the monopoly of

Brahmans over knowledge and truth. The timing was not coincidental; the introduction

of modem ideas via colonialism, either through western education or missionaries clearly

provided the impetus. New notions of equality, which appealed to lower castes such as

Phule with whom he shared some personal contact, he realized were both powerful and

necessary, but believed these could be highlighted from within the religion itself, by

ahistorically reinterpreting its dissenting traditions and making them central. His

counterparts such as Tilak on the other hand, in the wake of colonial ideas, were asserting

a more ‘hard’, masculinist and real-politik oriented reading, also drawing from Hindu

texts and traditions. Ranade felt the urgency to counter such readings and most

importantly, did not want to cede the grounds of religion to his opponents. The nineteenth

century debates over issues such as age of consent over marriage and widow-remarriage

between the ‘modernist’ reformers and ‘modernist’ orthodox were therefore much bigger

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 242

than these issues themselves; they represented the very battle-ground of what constituted

‘Hinduism’.

Conclusion

Ranade’s historicism was therefore limited by his non-historical interpretations of

Hindu religious practices and traditions and his attempt to recast elements of modernity

as tradition, present as past, all in the name of ‘eternal’ Hinduism. While he can be called

a modernist, he was not unabashedly so; modernity was not hegemonic in his world

view. Modem history therefore was not a ‘derivative discourse’ in this instance but was

challenged even while it was articulated. His ability to navigate both modernity and

tradition allowed him to be viewed differently by different sets of people; to some he was

a ‘modem rishi’• • (seer) 1 O') , and others a hard-core rationalist. Ambedkar was one such

person who read him admiringly as a modernist; “He never claimed to be a mystic

relying on an inner voice. He was a rationalist prepared to have his views tested in the

I A 1 light of reason and experience.” However, as mentioned earlier, there were many who

described him as a mystic and ‘prophet’.104 These contradictions within Ranade that

allowed him to be different faces to different people, point to the limits of history and the

role that a critical ecumenical religiosity played in his thought. It allowed modem ideas

to play a creative and healthy role with respect to traditional ideas without capturing all

spaces of ‘alterity’ and monopolizing dissent.

102 Some such as Gokhale believed that had he been bom 200 years ago, he would have been a saint like those in the bhakti movement. See Gokhale’s preface in Ramabai Ranade’s Amchya Ayushatil Kahi Athvaney, 3-5. 103 Ambedkar, Ranade, Gandhi and Jinnah, 53. 104 Karve referred to him as a Prophet. See D.G. Karve, Ranade: The Prophet of Liberated India (Poona: Aryabhushan Press, 1942).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER VII

V.D. SAVARKAR: A LIFE OF UNEXAMINED FAITH IN HISTORICISM

Introduction

The man who spent his life preaching the need to ‘Hinduize’ the political sphere

detested the presence of religiosity in politics. Vinayak Damodar Savarkar held great

aversion to any form of ‘faith-based’ beliefs entering the political realm. He believed the

two had to be kept distinctly separate. Hence his persistent claim that the notion of

Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism, a term he first coined, as a political ideology shared no

relation whatsoever with Hinduism or religiosity. Savarkar was the most aggressively

modem, historicist and secular figure of all the three being considered in this work.

While Phule and Ranade too were mostly modernists, there were spaces within their

thought and lives that point to the limitations of historicism, unlike for Savarkar, for

whom it was hegemonic.

I argue that Savarkar’s notion of Hindutva cannot be detached from his

modemist-historicist outlook. It was predicated on an unchallenged historicism, tied to

an uncritical belief in western science that allowed him to articulate a virulent Hindu

political identity, resting on western notions of statecraft. As Ashis Nandy argues,

Savarkar’s world-view was entirely secular, devoid of any elements of lived religion,

allowing him to imagine a modem Hindu identity entirely around the contours of the

243

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 244

nation-state. It reflected as Max Horkeimer puts it, a ‘formalized’ use of reason.1 The

meaning itself had been emptied out while the shell was retained for ideological

purposes, yielding a purely instrumental reading of Hinduism. As Nandy points out,

referring to Hindu nationalists,

Occasionally, in place of political expediency, they are motivated by political ideology, and that ideology may appear to be based on faith. But on closer scrutiny it turns out to be only a secularized version of faith, or arbitrarily chosen elements of faith packaged as political ideology.2

However a secular historicist world-view did not always inevitably lead to an ideology of

Hindutva. On the contrary, there were several other prominent Marathi figures at the

time who, while favorable to historicism, rejected Hindutva such as historian D.D.

Kosambi or Dalit leader B.R. Ambedkar.3 However despite the significant differences

between these figures, they functioned on a common terrain of historicizing religion,

relegating it to a dead past, while separating it from contemporary politics. They all

believed in the overall ‘liberating’ effects of western scientific rationality. Part of this

can be attributed to the social and historical context in which these individuals lived and

Max Horkheimer,Eclipse of Reason (New York: Oxford University Press, 1947), 7. 2 Ashis Nandy, "The Twilight of Certitudes: Secularism, Hindu Nationalism, and Other Masks of Deculturation," Alternatives, no. 22 (1997): 166. However this is not to say that Savarkar’s ideas fully represent the ideology o f all Hindu nationalism since there are different strands within it, where religion is not always seen in purely instrumental terms. Savarkar represents one view-point, albeit a powerful one which is gaining greater legitimacy and often cuts across to those who are not self-avowed Hindutvadis but like him assert the primacy o f the nation, history and science. 3 I include Ambedkar in this list with an important caveat. Ambedkar’s personal relationship with religion as faith is a little more complex than that o f Savarkar and Kosambi; the latter two who were Brahmans, were avowed atheists. While Ambedkar propagated a political use o f Buddhism and was an aggressive rationalist, he also later in life began to see it as faith as well. For a very insightful discussion on such shifts in his thinking, see Nagaraj, Flaming Fleet.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 245

functioned, or the early and mid-twentieth century, by which time as Nandy points out,

colonial ideas had gained far greater legitimacy.4

In the nineteenth century on the other hand, Marathi public figures, while deeply

enamored by western science and historicism continued to function within traditional

parameters of lived religion in their daily lives. Thus even if they had eschewed all

traditional beliefs in their thinking they still lived within powerful social milieus where

they could not break free from these beliefs completely in private and were also hesitant

to do so in public. Hence varied public figures such as Phule, Ranade, Tilak and Gokhale

despite their differences over Hinduism and the role of religion in general, could not and

did not fully eschew religion as faith in the public sphere. Even G.G. Agarkar, a hard

core rationalist and atheist in the late 1800’s, was more circumspect about condemning

religion and traditions altogether, which Savarkar did with impunity, some forty years

later. Twentieth century public intellectuals shared a much more openly aggressive and

uncritical secular scientific and historicist terrain even if what they did with it yielded

different outcomes and politics.

It was Gandhi who challenged his twentieth century contemporaries with his

approach towards past traditions as living and capable of constant reinterpretation, and

not merely confined to history. The discussion on Savarkar will therefore necessarily

weave in Gandhi since on most occasions the former was reacting to the latter’s politics.

Gandhi represented for Savarkar everything that was weak, wrong and irrational about

Hinduism, which needed to be ‘rectified’. It is therefore no exaggeration to say it was his

4 Ashis Nandy, Time Warps: The Insistent Politics o f Silent and Evasive Pasts (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001), 16-17.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 246

life’s mission to provide a counter-politics and Hindu identity to that of Gandhi. His life,

thought and politics can be read in this light.

For Savarkar Hindu traditions and practices belonged to a previous stage in

historical development. Echoing a deeply held colonial view of progress and historicism,

Hindus were backward because of their lack of historical and scientific thinking and their

only path to becoming modem was to adopt these ideals. Serving the Hindu nation he

believed was a Hindu’s highest duty and this could be achieved only by shedding all

notions of mysticism, piety, divinity and notions of non-humans as agents. Savarkar was

clear that all such notions including that of faith were to be expunged from the public

sphere. Unlike Phule and Ranade, Savarkar was adamant that the public domain was to

be strictly monitored in favor of scientific rationality. Thus concepts of history,

historicity and nation hood were all seen as part of this scientific world-view and hence

acceptable and desirable in public life. Savarkar policed his own life and those around

him accordingly, ensuring that all ‘superstitions’ and ‘traditions’ were rejected. The idea

of ‘progress’ tied to these categories, permeated all his actions, both personal and public.

A glimpse into Savarkar’s life-world helps demonstrate the totalizing role historicism,

scientific thinking and national identity played in shaping his politics, both private and

public.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 247

Reading Biography as Politics: Savarkar’s Life Sketch

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar was bom in a village called Bhugur, in Nasik district

(now central Maharashtra) on 28 May 1883.5 His family had a generally high status in

the village, being Chitpavan Brahmans, jagirdars (landowners) as well as sawkars

(money lenders). Like other Chitpavan Brahmans (such as Ranade’s family) his too had

left the Konkan coast in the west (Chiplun district) for the desh or mainland for better

opportunities. Legend goes that the Peshwas gave the village as inam or gift to some

families from Konkan including his. As the son of a well-to-do Brahman he enjoyed a

respectable position, often called ‘chota jagirdar’’ (small landowner) by the villagers and

from his own as well as his biographers’ accounts, his childhood appears to have been

spent idyllically. However like Phule and Ranade, he too lost his mother very early and

was brought up by his father, along with two brothers and a sister. His sister however as

was common practice at the time, married very early and lived in another village.

The kuladevata or family goddess of the Savarkars’ was Bhavani whose idol was

brought to the home, despite popular beliefs in the village that doing so would bring bad

luck. Bhavani, a local goddess of the region, incorporated into the classical Hindu

pantheon as Durga, was king Shivaji’s family deity who according to Marathi folklore,

entered Shivaji’s body and would give him directions on how to proceed against his

enemies. In other words according to legends, Shivaji would often hear Bhavani’s voice

5 Most o f his biographical information is taken from his own autobiographical writings, V.D. Savarkar, "Majhi Janmathep," inSamagra Savarkar Vangmay (Mumbai: Sva. Savarkar Rashtriya Smarak Prakashan, 2000-2001), V.D. Savarkar, "Majhya Athvani," inSamagra Savarkar Vangmay (Mumbai: Sva. Savarkar Rashtriya Smarak Prakashan, 2000-2001). Also his biographers such as Chitra Gupta,Life o f Barrister Savarkar (Madras: B.G. Paul, 1926), S.L Karandikar,Savarkar-Charitra (Pune: Modem Book Depot Prakashan, 1947), Dhananjay Keer,Veer Savarkar, 2nd ed. (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1966), Y.D. Phadke, Shodh Savarkarancha, 2nd ed. (Pune: Sri Vidya Prakashan, 2000).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 248

whose guidance he would always follow. Bhavani therefore had been strongly associated

with Shivaji in the region and it is not surprising then that young Vinayak became her

ardent worshipper, being a strong admirer of Shivaji. According to his own account, by

the age of thirteen he became her zealous devotee, spending hours every day doing

sadhna or praying to her idol, reading religious texts out loud. He also watched for signs

from her which he says often came such as a flower falling a certain way or getting

instructions, indicating she was communicating with him, along with being able to see

and hear her at times. At one such instance he says, he took an oath in front of her that he

would devote his life to freeing his motherland.

Young Savarkar was devoted to the worship of Bhavani, a powerful goddess-

mother like figure. This faith in Bhavani however declined as he grew in age, or appears

to have been transferred from a belief in the divine to a secular deity, or that of the

nation.6 Such transference of symbols was common especially in the case of Bengal

where this trend has been well documented7. While Vinayak the youth believed he was

communicating with the divine, he tells us his exposure to western education and his

worsening personal circumstances led him to believe that such beliefs were

‘superstitious.’ By the time he was in his late teens, he writes, he had lost his shradha or

It does point as Sugata Bose has argued to the complex relations between religious devotion and the nation; is this merely another kind of religious belief? Savarkar appears to have believed in the nation in a religiously devotional manner. Referring to India asBharatmata or mother India and Swantantrayalakshmi or goddess of independence, he says “freedom of our motherland is our religious and national duty and our national deity...our moksha” (liberation). Savarkar ‘Majhya Athvani’, 125. He often described his patriotism almost as a devotional experience. For instance he tells us his father once came upon him with tears streaming down his cheeks while singing poetry he had composed on the goddess-like nation’s’ fettered existence. See Savarkar, "Majhya Athvani," 101. 7 See Sugata Bose, "Nation as Mother: Representations and Contestations of'India' in Bengali Literature and Culture," in Nationalism, Democracy and Development: State and Politics in India, ed. Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), Tanika Sarkar, "Nationalist Iconography: The Image o f Women in Nineteenth-Century Bengali Literature," inHindu Wife Hindu Nation (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2001).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 249

faith. While he avidly read, listened and believed in puranic stories as a child, as he grew

older, his ‘buddhV or intellect he writes began to supplant his ‘ bhavna ’ or

imagination/faith, making him a skeptic of such stories. What frustrated him most, he

writes, was their inconsistency since each Purana appeared to contradict the other,

resulting, he recollects, in heated arguments with his relatives in an attempt to convince

them of their folly in believing such ‘fabrications’ and ‘legends’.

Scientific rationality, spawned by an exposure to colonial ideas, was beginning to

take over young Vinayak’s mind and this process was completed by the time he was an

adult, leading him to become a fierce rationalist and agnostic in later years. While he

became an atheist later in life, his family members including his elder brother who like

him became a militant Hindu nationalist, remained religious. By his late teens he tells us

he was skeptical of his brother’s beliefs in divinity, in reincarnation, holy men,

astrologers and mendicants, whom he believed were mostly charlatans trying to dupe

people. Much to his disapproval, his elder brother Baba, also followed many orthodox

Brahmanical practices such as maintaining a separate garb for meals, following many

rituals of purification in the home, eating no meat, as well as wearing traditional clothes.

Savarkar later ate meat although he confessed he did not like the taste very much. He

was mostly vegetarian due to his strict Brahmanical upbringing, but encouraged Hindus

to eat meat since it made them more ‘virile’ and ‘manly’. With respect to his own habits,

he prided himself in being ‘modem’ by rejecting many Brahmanical customs such as

sporting a shendi or traditional tuft of hair. He sported a shendi throughout his youth in

deference to his brother’s wishes but cut it as soon as he entered college. Similarly, with

regard to his attire, he writes how he longed to wear western clothes from his teenage

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 250

years but was prohibited by his brother, but only adopted ‘trousers, shirts and coats’ when

he went to England. He continued wearing western clothes in public throughout his life.

Like many people in the region, he grew up with stories about Shivaji, the

Peshwas and Hindu epics. His favorite character from the epic Mahabharata was

Bheema, because he was a ‘true warrior’ who never hesitated to fight unlike the more

hesitant Arjuna who showed ‘weakness’ in the battlefield before Krishna convinced him

otherwise. He was steeped in bakhars or chronicles of the Peshwas and Shivaji, and like

Ranade, developed a passion for history, calling it his favorite interest. Being a

Chitpavan Brahman, the exploits of the Marathas, including the Peshwas, felt like his

o own rightful legacy. This was translated into his belief that the Marathas were the

‘natural defenders’ and ‘protectors’ of the Indian ‘nation’ since they had fought the

‘foreign’ Muslims. While his Chitpavan background did not necessarily entail an anti-

Muslim attitude or the belief that Marathas were the first ‘Hindu nationalists’, a deep-

seated resentment within this community toward the British for loss of power and

prestige was often displaced onto Muslims. Anti-British sentiment was often

accompanied with a hostility tinged with envy toward Muslims, who were seen as less

‘effeminate’. Even Ranade, despite his ecumenical views, was also greatly influenced by

his Chitpavan upbringing and heritage in his version of history, which also glorified the

Marathas as protectors and advocates of a nationalist spirit vis-a-vis the ‘foreign’

‘marauding’ Muslims.

By the twentieth century Brahmans had accepted Shivaji and his successors as one o f their own although this was not necessarily the case in Shivaji’s own time.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 251

Savarkar’s autobiographical writings indicate he had little direct contact with

Muslims. His recollections do not mention any Muslims friends or acquaintances in his

youth. Perhaps since such reminisces were written much later in his life, he deliberately

chose to silence such memories even if they existed. Savarkar was known to have taken

a much more anti-Muslim stance later in his life.9 The only recollection of his youth that

mentions his interactions with Muslims directly is when he and his friends attacked a

mosque to ‘seek revenge’ for Hindu-Muslim riots happening elsewhere and ‘defend’ the

Hindus of Bhugur. When the Muslim youth retaliated, Savarkar said he and his group

defeated them by using penknives, pins and thorns.10 The vilification of Muslims as

‘barbaric’, and ‘fanatical’ runs throughout Savarkar’s personal and political writings.11

In other words, even in his personal life, particularly in his post-jail years 1 , 0he made little

attempt to develop any personal relationships with Muslims. The objectification of the

‘Other’ was profound unlike in the case of Phule who, while strongly opposing and

vilifying Brahmans for instance, had many Brahman friends and colleagues, as well as

adopted a Brahman child. In any mention of conversations with Muslims, Savarkar held

each Muslim as representative of the historical ‘incursions’ and ‘injustices’ of the Muslim

community in India as a whole, pointing to his obsession with a historical vision. Each

See Phadke, Shodh Savarkarancha. 10 Savarkar,‘Majhya Athavani,’ 83. 11 There are many examples in his writing that point to his view of Muslims as‘fanatical’. For instance he writes, unlike a Muslim, “a Hindu thief will only steal but while stealing he will not break a temple because it’s a temple, or break an idol or bum a Veda.” Savarkar, ‘Majhi Janmathep,’ 162. Translation mine. Elsewhere he states: “in the case o f Mohammedans especially their religious zeal, more often than not, borders on fanatism!” V.D. Savarkar,Hindu Rashtra Darshan, Second ed. (Bombay: Veer Savarkar Prakashan, 1984), 15. He continues: “they as a community still continue to cherish fanatical designs to establish a Moslem rule in India,” Ibid., 24. He views them as mired in religiosity and therefore ‘backward’: “Indian Moslems in particular have not as yet grown out of the historical stage, o f intense religiosity and the theological concept of the state,” Ibid., 49. 12 He was jailed by the British in the Andaman islands from 1911-1924.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 252

Muslim was held accountable for Savarkar’s view of Islam’s incursions throughout

history rather than a living Islam in the present, which could possibly counter or

transform that historical version.

Y.D. Phadke argues that Savarkar developed a far greater intolerance for Muslims

in his post-Andaman jail years. 11 His writings and others’ recollections of him also

suggest this to be the case. Before going to jail, while living at the India House in

London, Savarkar was known to have Muslim friends, whom he believed could also be

patriots and loyal Indian nationalists. This was echoed in his book on the 1857 Revolt or

the Indian War o f Independence in which he writes extensively on the role of Muslims,

working alongside Hindus against the British for their motherland. While writing about a

certain Moulvie Ahmed Shah who fought the British during this revolt and died, he says

The life of this brave Mahomedan shows that a rational faith in the doctrines of Islam is in no way inconsistent with, or antagonistic to, a deep and all-powerful love of the Indian soil; and that the true believer in Islam will feel it a pride to belong to, and a privilege to die for, his mother-country.14

His version of nationalism at this stage had room for other religious groups including

Muslims and his belief in a ‘purist’ Hindu nation had not become fully entrenched yet as

echoed in this statement below, part of a speech made at the India House, London:

Hindus are the heart of Hindustan. Nevertheless, just as the beauty of the rainbow is not impaired but enhanced by its varied hues, so also Hindustan will look the more beautiful across the sky of future by assimilating all the best from the Muslim, Parsi, Jewish and other civilizations.15

He changed his stance significantly in later years, after returning from jail,

arguing that Muslims as believers of Islam could never be genuine Indians since their

13 Phadke, Shodh Savarkarancha, J 70. 14 V.D. Savarkar, The Indian War o f Independence 1857 (Bombay: Phoenix Publications, 1947), 456. 15 Quoted in Keer, Veer Savarkar, 64.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 253

loyalty would always be to their religion first, as their holy lands lay elsewhere16. Phadke

suggests that the turning point for both him and his brother in their attitudes towards

Muslims came with the treatment they received in the Andaman jail at the hands of the

Muslim Pathans, who as prison guards treated prisoners cruelly and inflicted severe

punishments on them, only sometimes at behest of British officials. 17 Savarkar in his

recollections of his prison years or Majhi Janmathep is convinced they represented all

Muslims, favoring their own kind over Hindus, all the while converting many prisoners

1 o to Islam in the process. He only once acknowledged in his account that these Muslims

were perhaps different from those he knew in Maharashtra as well as other parts of

India19, but quickly reverted back to categorizing all Muslims as one, embodying the

same traits, as ‘fanatics’ and ‘barbaric’. Underlying this disdain however, was a secret

admiration, for Muslim ‘masculinity’, ‘virility’ and conquering spirit, which he points out

also prevailed amongst the British, but felt Hindus ‘lacked’.

Leaders such as Subhash Chandra Bose and M.N. Roy and intellectuals such as Laxmanshastri Joshi said they admired the early patriotic Savarkar and not the post-Andaman narrow-minded Hindu nationalist that he became. After returning from jail, his criticism toward the British became far more muted while his ire was largely directed toward Muslims and the Congress. Savarkar himself denied he had changed. See M.K. Savkar, "Savarkar: Before and after Andaman," inSavarkar Commemoration Volume (Bombay: Savarkar Darshan Pratishthan, 1989), 172. Savkar is a Savarkar admirer and also denies Savarkar was any different before he went to jail. 17 Phadke, Shodh Savarkarancha, 170. The rules in jail were often cruel and harsh. These included eating outside in the pouring rain, within a specified time limit; political prisoners were not allowed to talk to each other and were handcuffed for seven days if they did so; working on the kolu or oil mill. This involved being yoked to a handle that turned the wheel, from morning to evening, which crushed coconut to make oil. Many fainted and were not given much water while being physically tortured. Some were made to substitute bullocks or horses and physically drag carriages with British officials around the island. The Pathan petty officials enforced these rules. These details are taken from Savarkar’s jail reminisces or ‘Majhi Janmathep,’ 64-65. 18 Savarkar writes: “From the beginning in the Andaman jail, these bigoted and fanatic Pathan, Baluchi and other Muslims were appointed as warders.. .these people make the Hindus work nearly to death, while torturing and telling lies about them.” Savarkar, ‘Majhi Janmathep,’ 160. 19 He says that the Bengali, Marathi, Tamil and other Muslims are not so cruel and hateful toward Hindus. Ibid., 51.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 254

Before his imprisonment by the British in 1911, he enjoyed wide popularity

amongst all those engaged in revolutionary or armed methods to overthrow the British.

However, his virulent anti-Muslim positions espoused in his later years alienated him

from many of his followers such as Chandrashekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh, Subhas

Chandra Bose and P.M. Bapat (known as Senapati), all of whom disagreed with his

stance. Bapat noticed the difference when he met Savarkar in 1938 and commented on it:

Savarkar would spend day and night laughing, playing, chatting, gossiping with Mirza Abbas and Ali Khan. He would often vividly describe Hindu Muslim Unity of 1857 in his speeches at India House on Sundays. Then all believed that Muslims could be equally patriotic as Hindus.. .what could I say about the change is his attitudes? I did not have the right (adhikar) to say anything to him.20

His views towards caste equality however remained unchanged. Throughout his

life he advocated erasure of caste differences and practiced this in private as well. He

was later to engage in considerable public activity towards this end with his inter-caste

dining and temple campaigns. From his childhood days young Vinayak rejected caste

distinctions and many of his closest friends were from lower castes such as a Shimpi

(tailor) family in Bhugur with whom he ate meals, which was considered taboo for a

Brahman at the time.

At the age of thirteen, he left Bhugur for Nasik to study English. His fascination

with militant activity, arms and the use of physical force for political objectives began

during his teenage years. As discussed earlier, the incident of attacking the mosque was

one such event in his life. He also recalls being fascinated by his father’s swords and

guns. His belief in Hindu ‘militarization’ and the use of violence to overthrow the British

can be traced to this time. He mentions being painfully aware of his physical deficiencies

20 Phadke, Shodh Savarkarancha, 170-71. Translation mine.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 255

of not being adequately big-built, ‘tough’ looking, and strong-framed21 but was in fact

thin, frail and reticent . However, he was known for his oratorical abilities. It is clear

there was a gap in perception between his own physique and his ideal; this appears to

have induced some insecurity, resulting in his aggressive clamor for the need for Hindus

to be well built, ‘masculine’ and develop strong physiques24, through rigorous physical

exercise.

Young Vinayak’s life significantly changed for the worse with his father’s death.

The village of Bhugur was hit with a plague epidemic, which killed his father and uncle,

leaving the three young boys orphaned and practically destitute, burdened by their

father’s debts. Although they survived, both his brothers were also struck by the plague.

The three Savarkar brothers went from a situation where they lived relatively well with

high status as ‘ jagirdars ’ to one of dire poverty, which may have made them more

militant, austere and insecure. Vinayak especially had been the father’s favorite child

and was seen as somewhat of a prodigy in the family, considered most likely to succeed

and his older brother made many sacrifices in order to ensure this would happen.

Savarkar also displayed few inhibitions discussing his own significance in his family,

neighborhood and with all people he came into contact with, all whom he says believed

he was destined for great things. It can be safely said that self-abnegation was not one of

Savarkar, ‘Majhya Athvani,’ 159. 22 He was also known to have an effeminate voice while speaking in person. Asaf Ali remarked on this quality when he said about Savarkar: “The moment he opened his lips there emanated from them a sort o f juvenile musical voice, which bordered on the feminine.” Asaf Ali, "Savarkar: Glimpses o f a 'Passionate Patriot1," in Savarkar Commemoration Volume (Bombay: Savarkar Darshan Pratishthan, 1989), 66. 23 Asaf Ali said his speeches were some of the best he had ever heard, Keer, Veer Savarkar, 64. 24 Meat-eating was therefore desirable. 25 Savarkar was known to be very austere which was a typical Brahmanical trait. He hardly had any money or possessions most of his life and even in later years when he was better off, he continued to live very frugally and was also very stingy. Moreover he was a social recluse, known to entertain few visitors and was aloof and distant, particularly after his jail experience. See Keer,Veer Savarkar.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 256

Savarkar’s qualities. The Savarkar brothers along with the eldest brother’s wife, with

whom Vinayak shared a very close relationship, moved to Nasik. Here they lived in

severe hardship, relying on the hospitality of some friends.

It was in Nasik that Savarkar began his political activities. The first organization

he started with friends was called the Mitra Mela in 1900, which demanded complete

independence from Britain through any means possible, but mostly through

militarization. One of the major activities of the Mitra Mela was the annual Shivaji

Utsav, or festival, commemorating the birthday of this Maratha king. It was only in the

nineteenth-century that Shivaji had been revived as a historical icon by a wide array of

figures with varying ideological persuasions such as Phule and Tilak. Savarkar was

carrying this trend forward. Shivaji, while a historical figure, was treated often with the

same devotion and passion as would be a religious deity. In the Shivaji festival, his idol

was carried out in a palkhi or palanquin, accompanied by men in turbans through the

streets of Nasik. Savarkar, like his nineteenth-century predecessors, was acutely aware of

the power of historical symbols in present-day politics:

Until today, we the people of Maharashtra believed celebrating Shivaji’s birthday was purely historical and had nothing to do with our present-day politics. But we are celebrating this event primarily because it is political. Only those like Shivaji who are ready to fight for the freedom of the motherland have the right to celebrate Shivaji utsav. The main objective of the Shivaji utsav is to inspire people to achieve freedom from the British.26

Savarkar’s belief in resurrecting Hindu historical figures, whether Maratha or otherwise,

was to forge a ‘community of Hindus’ who fought Muslims as part of the ‘martial

heritage’ of Hinduism. This in turn would embody the Hindu ‘nation’ contra colonial

26 Savarkar,‘Majhya Athvani’, 127. Translation mine.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 257

allegations of Hinduism’s ‘effeminacy’. It also points to a transferal of religious-like

devotion to historical figures, much like when Nandy states “the newly historicised South

Asians have brought to history the passions they traditionally associated with epics and

legends.”27

Savarkar moved to Pune after completing high school in 1902 to attend Fergusson

College. Since his brother could not afford to pay for his education, he consented to

marry a family friend’s daughter from a neighboring village from the same sub-caste, on

the condition that his father-in-law cover his expenses for college. Savarkar was able to

live on the college campus in college housing and devote himself fully to his college

education thanks to his father-in-law’s support. 98 Savarkar in his own recollections of

this time makes little mention of his marriage (apart from stating the event), or his

relationship with his wife although he discusses his father-in-law admirably at great

length. It is curious that even in his later autobiographical writings, there is virtual

silence about his marriage, private and family life. 90

In college, Savarkar read and became a follower of western political theorists,

John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, and Herbert Spencer, the latter who was one of his

intellectual heroes. He first read a translated version (into Marathi) of Spencer when he

Ashis Nandy, "Themes of State, History and Exile in South Asian Politics: Modernity and the Landscape of Clandestine and Incommunicable Selves," Emergences 7-8 (1996-96): 109. 28 He acknowledges his father-in-law as the biggest source of support in his life apart from his brother Baba. See Karandikar, Savarkar-Charitra, 71. 29 Savarkar, however, was apparently known to be a womanizer although he makes no mention of this in any of his writings and neither do his biographers While I have searched extensively for some ‘evidence’ about his apparent ‘womanizing’ in either his own writings or that o f his biographers or others who have written about him, I have not come across any. I was told based on personal communication with several residents o f Ratnagiri (the town where he lived for several years under restrictions by the British government) but who had since moved that while he lived in Ratnagiri, he held such a reputation. However this is entirely based on anecdotal evidence since I have been unable to corroborate this information.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 258

■JA was in high school but states he could not understand it until much later, when it

dawned on him that Spencer’s utilitarianism matched his own philosophy of life.31 He

saw these thinkers as enunciating what he would call his “main moral principles”, that is,

his “practical religion” which he argued was closely aligned to Krishna’s teachings and

principles in the Mahabharat, calling the latter the first exponent of the principle of

utility. 37 He argues that Krishna in killing his maternal uncle Kamsa and Ram in slaying

Ravan were committing acts of necessary violence, which when dealing with injustice

was always justified. According to him, this was the central focus of Krishna’s teachings

in the Mahabharat. Given his interest in historical figures and the past, history, not

surprisingly, became his favorite subject in college. In college he read Macaulay’s

historical works, G.S. Sardesai’s recently written historical writings of the Marathas and

histories of Italy.

He was deeply fascinated by the works, life and thought of Italian revolutionary

nationalist Joseph Mazzini. He appears to have styled his own life somewhat akin to that

of Mazzini’s, as a revolutionary, ready to sacrifice his life for the cause of the nation.

Savarkar seems to have drawn heavily from Mazzini’s single-minded purpose of unifying

Italy, which was yet to come into existence as a nation in his time. Mazzini often

referred to Italy as mother, in almost pious terms, thus exhibiting a devotion for Italian 33 nationalism that bordered on religious fervor. While he remained religious although he

had eschewed Catholicism, his religion of birth, it was the cause of the nation and the

30 Savarkar,‘Majhya Athavani,’ 143. 31 During his imprisonment he read Spencer’s First Principles. See Matthew Lederle, Philosophical Trends in Modern Maharashtra (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1976), 287. 32 Savarkar, ‘Majhya Athvani,’ 143. 33 See Ronald Sarti, Mazzini: A Life for the Religion of Politics (Westport and London: Praeger, 1997).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 259

Italian peoples that came first.34 In Savarkar, one sees a similar tendency, whereby there

appears to be a transference of almost religious-like devotion from practicing religion to

nationalism. Mazzini was clearly his role model in this respect. As Dhananjay Keer,

Savarkar’s biographer writes, Savarkar’s “mind was saturated with the teachings of

Mazzini when he went to England.”

Savarkar translated Mazzini’s autobiography into Marathi during his stay at the

India House in England in 1906. In the preface to the translation, Savarkar eulogizes the

role Mazzini played in bringing about the unification of Italy through the establishment

•>/ of secret revolutionary societies such as ‘Young Italy.’ Savarkar’s own secret society

Abhinav Bharat appears to have been styled on Young Italy. According to Savarkar,

Mazzini rightly believed that only revolutionary, violent tactics including secret societies

and guerrilla warfare could bring an end to Austrian rule in Italy. Savarkar quotes ^7 Mazzini as stating that war and violence for these reasons is just and holy. What

Savarkar fails to mention and perhaps intentionally so since it also applies to him and his

secret societies was that Mazzini did not have a mass following in Italy and he made

several failed attempts to make the people ‘rise’ up in the name of the nation. While

peasant revolts occurred from time to time in places such as Southern Italy, these were

often for other reasons such as local grievances rather than the cause of national

unification. While these peasants may have been reacting to the oppressions of the ruling

34 Mazzini called himself a believer although he had abandoned Catholicism. Later in life, he apparently veered towards mysticism and a belief in the after life. Savarkar appears to have espoused Mazzini’s nationalist fervor without his spiritual leanings. Unlike Savarkar, according to Sarti, Mazzini believed that the “living had an obligation to remember the dead in rituals and ceremonies.” Ibid., 209. 35 Keer, Veer Savarkar, 34. 36 V.D. Savarkar, "Joseph Mazzini: Atmacharitra-Prasthavana," inSamagra Savarkar Vangmay (Mumbai: Svatantrayaveer Savarkar Rashtriya Smarak Prakashan, 2000-2001). (Henceforth SSV). 37 Ibid., 12.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 260

government, nationalists such as Mazzini, much like Savarkar did in the case of India,

read these as aspirations of the ‘masses’ for nationhood. It is also interesting that Mazzini

was accused in his own lifetime of sending other people to their deaths while protecting 10 himself and not getting his own hands dirty , a charge that was also often leveled against

Savarkar by his own followers. Thus, the English utilitarians, revolutionaries such as

Mazzini and historians, both European and Maratha were some of the major intellectual

influences on Savarkar.

In Pune Savarkar furthered his militant activities, changing the name of his earlier

organization Mitra Mela into Abhinav Bharat. The organization advocated ending

colonial rule through any means, including targeted violence at British officials and a

boycott of foreign goods. It appealed to young urban youth in particular, who were taken

in by Savarkar’s fiery speeches and calls for militarization. The Hindus, he told them, had TQ to be made ‘virile’ in order to drive out the British. Savarkar believed colonial

allegations of Hindu ‘effeminacy’ were humiliating and false. He believed that Hindus

were as ‘masculine’ as the British and Muslims and had been unfairly characterized as

‘effeminate’. In order to counter such a charge he marshaled many historical examples of

See Sarti, Mazzini, 7. 39 The British often characterized Indians as ‘effeminate’ and hence ‘weak’. This has been insightfully argued, especially in the context o f Bengal, by various scholars such as Nandy,The Intimate Enemy, John Rosselli, "The Self-Image of Effeteness: Physical Education and Nationalism in Nineteenth- Century Bengal,"Past and Present 86 (1980), Mrinalini Sinha, Colonial Masculinity: The 'Manly' Englishman and the 'Effeminate Bengali' in the Nineteenth-Century (Manchester, New York: Manchester University Press, 1995). In fact, Nandy argues inThe Intimate Enemy that colonialism was predicated on this bifurcation, in which the colonizers viewed themselves as masculine and virile while the colonized was seen as feminine and passive. This was the manner in which the colonizers justified colonialism. Many Indians such as Savarkar internalized colonial notions of masculinity and femininity and saw Indians, especially Hindus as inadequate. He also adhered to a Brahmanic view o f womanhood, which Gandhi dislodged. According to Nandy, Gandhi “rejected the British as well as the Brahmanic-Kshatriya equation between manhood and dominance, between masculinity and legitimate violence, and between femininity and passive submissiveness”, Nandy,The Intimate Enemy, 74.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 261

Hindu ‘militant’ ‘valor’ such as Shivaji who fought the Muslims and the Queen of Jhansi

who fought the British.

The Indian National Congress, which had a strong presence in Pune, was in the

midst of a major transition while Savarkar lived there. The ‘moderates’ led by Ranade

and later Gokhale who demanded more representation for Indians within the framework

of the Raj, were being overshadowed by fiery radical leaders such as Tilak, who

demanded complete swarajya or independence from British rule and were galvanizing

the masses while doing so. However, Tilak, in order to popularize the anti-colonial

Swarajist movement alienated Muslims by emphasizing overtly Hindu religious symbols

such as the elephant god Ganpathi or Ganesh festivals and discouraging Hindus from

participating in Muslim festivals such as Moharram in Pune, which they had been

traditionally doing for many years.

While Savarkar considered Tilak his mentor and the latter was broadly supportive

of him, the two were not close as Tilak continually advised him restraint in his

insurrectionist activities. In his later years Tilak also supported Gandhi’s methods of

non-violent agitation and his attempts to take the movement to rural areas. While Tilak is

sometimes believed to be an antecedent of Savarkar’s militant Hindu nationalism, and

there are certainly some overlaps in this respect, Tilak was a far more nuanced and

complex public figure. Although he was aggressively historicist in his approach, he

continued to believe in a living Hinduism40. In other words, while Tilak did use religion

J.V. Naik, interview by Apama Devare, personal communication, 17 September 2002, Mumbai, India. Professor J.V. Naik, in the History Department at the University o f Bombay alerted me to this position when I met with him in Bombay.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 262

instrumentally in politics, unlike Savarkar, he did not believe in the complete separation

of religion as faith and politics.

Savarkar went to England in 1906 to study law and recruit youth, while

organizing the revolutionary resistance movement from abroad.41 While there he sent

arms to India, 42 some of which were used to assassinate key British officials43, and

which was usually followed by considerable British repression in India. While Savarkar

was in England, his older brother Baba, carried on the activities of Abhinav Bharat in

India leading to his arrest and life-sentence to the Cellular Jail on the Andaman Islands.44

In the meantime Savarkar was also under investigation by the British police for aiding

seditious activities in India. Savarkar escaped to Paris but returned to London as his

supporters increasingly criticized him for evading the police and facing imprisonment

unlike them. Once in London, he was arrested in March 1910 in connection with the

Jackson murder case in Nasik, India.45 While on a boat returning to India four months

later, he made a daring escape by jumping through the porthole of the bathroom and

swimming to the shore in Marseilles, France. On French soil he was unable to

communicate with the local police due to his inability to speak French. The French

Savarkar’s accounts of life in England hardly mention any social interactions, leave alone friendships with any English people. This is in stark contrast to Gandhi’s autobiographical writings about his England stay. 42 He sent mostly pistols and sent colleagues such as Senapati Bapat to Paris for bomb-making training. 43 Under Savarkar’s direct orders and with a gun provided by him, Madanlal Dhingra shot Lord Curzon Wyllie in England in 1909 as revenge for his repressive policies in India. See Keer,Veer Savarkar, 53-4. 44 The British sent many convicts and political prisoners to the Cellular Jail in the Andaman Islands, located in the Bay o f Bengal, Indian Ocean, between India and Burma, from where many never returned. 45 Jackson was the Collector of Nasik who was involved with sentencing Baba, Savarkar’s older brother to a life sentence in the Andaman jail. Jackson was assassinated by a person named Kanhere largely in revenge for his role in Baba Savarkar’s trial. The police believed Savarkar had provided the weapons with which to carry out such assassinations, including that o f Jackson’s.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 263

police in turn handed him over to their British counterparts on the boat. His friends who

had come there to assist him also arrived late. In India, Savarkar demanded that his case

be sent to the International Tribunal in The Hague since he had been forcefully taken

from French soil while demanding asylum and therefore illegally arrested. The case was

submitted to the Tribunal in The Hague where the court ruled against Savarkar. His trial

began on 15 September 1910 and he was sentenced to life imprisonment on 23 December

1910. A month later in another trial he was found guilty for aiding and abetting the

assassins in the Jackson murder case and sentenced to another term of life

imprisonment.46

On 4 July 1911, Savarkar was taken to the Cellular jail in the Andaman Islands.

He spent fourteen grueling years in prison, from 1911-1924 documented in his own

account Majhi Janmathep or My Life-Imprisonment which provides a graphic description

of the barbarous conditions under which convicts were treated by prison officials in the

Andamans. Prisoners including Savarkar were often tortured, hung up in chains for days

at a time, fettered, given little to eat, lived in very unsanitary conditions, and had to do

back breaking work at the oil-mill. He was also denied visitation rights with his family,

which was given to all other prisoners, and was kept in solitary confinement for several

years. Although his brother was in the same jail, they were not allowed to meet or

communicate until the last few years of his confinement. Savarkar’s health deteriorated,

nearly escaping death several times. While in jail he continued some of his political

activities such as organizing prisoners to demand better conditions by going on strike,

46 Details o f his arrest, escape and trial are taken from J.D. Joglekar, "Veer Savarkar: Profile o f a Prophet," in Savarkar Commemoration Volume (Bombay: Savarkar Darshan Pratishthan, 1989).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 264

secretly sending letters which found their way to the Indian press, and conducting

‘‘shuddhV or reconverting Muslim converts to Hinduism.

During his long confinement, notable Congress leaders such as Gokhale and Tilak

died. In the meantime Gandhi was gaining greater influence within the party. In May

1921 Savarkar and his older brother were transferred to Indian jails. With intense

political pressure on the colonial government for his release, the softening of his own

position including agreeing to the conditions laid down by the British to abstain from

politics for five years, and acknowledging his violent political tactics in the past had been

wrong47, Savarkar was released on 6 January 1924 while his brother was released shortly

before without any preconditions. Savarkar was however ordered to live in Ratnagiri, a

town on the Konkan coast, under government supervision and restricted travel for the

next thirteen years. He lived here with his wife, son and daughter till May 1937, barred

from politics during this period. During this time he focused on Hindu reform activities

including the abolition of caste, conversion or shuddhi campaigns, and the propagation of

‘Hindutva’ as a political identity. He opened one of the first inter-caste temples in the

region known as ‘PatitPavan’, which allowed the entry of Untouchables and inter-dining

amongst castes, in which Savarkar often participated.

While Savarkar mentions his change of heart about his past violent activities and the acceptability of reformist methods over violent ones, which allowed him to be transferred from Andaman to Indian jails, he does not mention he also made a statement while in the Andamans admitting that his trial fourteen year ago by the British had been fair and just, a position he did not hold during the trial itself. Noorani points out that this amounts to a “surrender to British imperialism.” A.G. Noorani,Savarkar and Hindutva: The Godse Connection (New Delhi: LeftWord Books, 2002), 20. His petition to the British government stated he would be “the staunchest advocate of constitutional progress and loyalty to the English Government” and that he was ready to “serve the Government in any capacity they like.” See his petition to the Government o f India, 14 November 1913, reprinted in R.C. Majumdar, Penal Settlement in Andamans (New Delhi: Ministry of Education and Social Welfare, Government of India, 1975), 213.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 265

By this time Gandhi had emerged as the undisputed leader of the Congress, and

the principle of non-violent non-cooperation or satyagraha, had become the dominant

strategy of the Congress in challenging British rule. Savarkar vehemently opposed this

approach as he believed it would ‘weaken’ the Hindus, since they needed to ‘match’ the

might of the Empire. For Savarkar contra Gandhi it was instrumental power relations or

realpolitik, governed by armed might and an uncritical belief in western scientific

rationality that was the ‘reality’ of the world. Hindus were being ‘cowardly’,

‘effeminate’ and ‘ignorant’ by shirking this ‘dominant’ world-view. While Savarkar met

Gandhi personally only a few times, he remained one of his fiercest critics, convinced

that the latter would ‘emasculate’ Hindus.

Even though he claimed innocence in Gandhi’s assassination, he clearly had no

remorse about Gandhi’s removal from Indian political life. He believed Gandhi had

‘appeased’ Muslims by supporting ‘their’ causes such as taking the side of the Muslim

AQ rulers of Hyderabad, backing the Khilafat Movement in India and granting the Muslim

League demands that it made with respect to separate electorates for Muslims which

finally led to demands for a separate nation. To counter the Congress’ attitude towards

Muslims, its policy of non-violence and its overall ‘weakening’ of Hindus, Savarkar

joined and galvanized the Hindu Mahasabha49 from 1937 onwards, shifting his home and

headquarters to Bombay. Savarkar, through the Mahasabha, demanded a secular

Launched in India by the Ali brothers from 1919 to 1924, theKhilafat movement expressed solidarity with the Caliphate in Turkey, which was being dismembered by the British. In order to encourage Hindu-Muslim unity, Gandhi urged the Congress to support this movement. 49 The Hindu Mahasabha was founded in 1915 as an organization to represent the interest of ‘Hindus’ as its members believed the Congress was appeasing Muslims. Savarkar was elected President in 1937 and transformed it into a political party.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 266

democratic nation-state in which Hindus would be the ‘majority’ while ‘others’ would

‘respect’ their wishes.

On 30 January 1948 Nathuram Godse, a Chitpavan Brahman from Pune and an

active member of the Hindu Mahasabha as well as an ardent follower of Savarkar,

assassinated Gandhi at a prayer meeting in Delhi. These close links with the murderers

Godse and his associate Apte led to Savarkar’s arrest and widespread anti-Brahman riots

in Bombay in which Savarkar’s younger brother was injured. At the murder trial Godse

and his associate Apte, while stating their loyalties for their guru50, claimed they acted

independently and due to lack of evidence Savarkar was acquitted. While it is not clear

whether he gave the orders to kill Gandhi directly51, he clearly provided the ideological

In his testimony, Nathuram Godse mentions some differences he held against Savarkar in the years preceding the assassination. These include Savarkar’s hoisting the Congress flag as the Indian flag along with the bhagwa jhanda (saffron flag o f Hindu Mahasabha and Hindu nationalists) in his house, along with his recognition of the Congress as the legitimate government of independent India. Savarkar encouraged the Mahasabhaites to support the newly formed Congress government as theIndian government and encouraged Shyama Prasad Mukherji, his colleague in the Mahasabha and founder o f the Jan Sangh (later BJP) to accept a post in the new government. According to Nathuram, based on his testimony at the trial, he resented his mentor’s ‘softening’ stance towards the Congress in light o f the latter’s policies towards Muslims and Pakistan. See Nathuram Godse,May It Please Your Honour, 3rd ed. (Delhi: Surya Prakashan, 1987). 51 What might have restrained him from direct participation in the assassination was his constant dread of being sent back to jail. He virtually stopped criticizing the British for fear o f imprisonment once he returned from the Andamans, focusing his attention instead on Gandhi, the Congress and Muslims. But it is likely he was aware o f the plot since he worked so closely with Godse and Apte. A recent book argues cogently based on the evidence presented later by two long-term employees of Savarkar that he was directly involved with the murder. See Noorani, Savarkar and Hindutva: the Godse Connection. Apparently one did not have to know Godse and Apte very well to know their intentions for many years to kill Gandhi. My great-uncle who was taught physics in high school by Apte in Pune, told me the latter openly declared his and Nathuram’s intentions to kill Gandhi to his students as well as his colleagues. Godse and Apte’s intentions were apparently well known in Pune much before it happened and it came as no surprise to many in the city. Personal communication with Dr. Achyut Phadke, July 30th, 2002. The public knowledge o f these plans indicates how ‘acceptable’ Gandhi’s murder was and the wide complicity in the plot since no one really tried to stop them. Also as Tarun Gandhi points out, Apte and Godse were involved in at least three earlier attempts to kill the Mahatma. See Tushar Gandhi, Murder of the Mahatma (Mahatma Gandhi Foundation-India, [cited 18 August 2005]); available from http://www.mahatma.org. in/m urderattempts/attempts.jsp?link=ld&id=l&cat=murderattempts.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 267

motivations for wanting Gandhi killed.52 After this event, he retired from the Mahasabha

and withdrew actively from public life. However, he continued to express his political

views, such as opposing the Congress under Nehru’s leadership and demanding

aggressive realpolitik in foreign and domestic policies. He died voluntarily in 1966, at

the age of 80 by stopping all consumption of food, as he believed it was time to embrace

death.

Just a few years before his own death, his wife had passed away with the express

desire to die at home amongst her family. Savarkar on the other hand had her sent to the

hospital while she was on her deathbed, and did not see her before she died. Unlike him,

she was a traditional Hindu who was religious, following Hindu customs such as fasting

in spite of her husband’s disapproval. When she died, however, he refused to give her

any traditional rites against her wishes and had her cremated in an electric crematorium

without any public display of grief. In deference to his dead mother, his son secretly

carried out these rites that he knew his mother wanted. Savarkar requested the same for

himself; no religious ceremonies, including that “his body should not be carried to the

crematorium on human shoulders, or on animal-drawn vehicles”54 but only in

mechanized transport and cremated electrically.

He was the assassins’ mentor and role model. Nandy points out that both Godse and Savarkar were men who were conflicted about their sexuality and it was alleged they had an affair. He writes, “Godse belonged to a group which was deeply conflicted about sexual identity and had learnt to politicize some of these conflicts.” Ashis Nandy,At the Edge of Psychology: Essays in Politics and Culture (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1980), 86. 53 This included not doing the traditional Hindu ritual of feeding the crows after cremation in the belief that if the crows reject the food, it indicates the dead person has unfulfilled desires, which need to be carried out. Keer, Veer Savarkar, 529. 54 Ibid., 544.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 268

Supporters recollect when Savarkar was hospitalized, some time before his death,

they were searching for an auspicious day to bring him home. In his usual historicist-

rationalist manner, this is what they remember Savarkar telling them:

when he should go home was the concern of the doctors and not the concern of the astrologers. It pained him to see that when a Russian woman was soaring in the space and the United States and Russia were striving to land on the Moon and Mars, some of his followers were superstitiously consulting astrology about his returning home. He said it was ridiculous and irrational to do so.55

For Savarkar, as indicative above, Europe was the barometer for having reached the

‘scientific age’, whereas Hindus continued to be mired in traditions and superstitions that

were five thousand years old. They were unable to come out of what he referred to as the

‘shruti-smruti-puranic’ disposition. In other words, Hindus continued to live in the times

represented by religious texts such as the smritis, smrutis and puranas, seen as ancient

and irrelevant while the Europeans were living in the now, the present, the age of science.

The Europeans, he pointed out, were ‘fresh’, ‘young’ and ‘forward looking’ while ‘we’

(referring to Hindus) were ‘stale’, ‘old’ and ‘backward looking’56; “Our culture has been

c*7 moving in a bullock cart, even in the days of the steam engine.”

But these attitudes were not confined to Hindus only but all those who let

traditions, along with notions of divinity, ‘dictate’ their lives. Savarkar believed even

practicing Christians, Muslims and Jews were gulams or ‘slaves’ of the past. He argued

Europe was mired in the same backwardness until at a crucial historical juncture, when it

co discarded religion for the ‘Goddess of Reason.’ According to him, as soon as they

35 Ibid., 529. 36 V.D. Savarkar, Samagra Savarkar Vangmay, 8 vols., vol. 3 (Mumbai: Swatantraveer Savarkar Rashtriya Smarak Prakashan, 2000-2001), 67. 37 Ibid., vol. 6, 66. Translation mine. 38 Ibid., vol. 5, 114.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 269

discarded their religiosity, they became powerful militarily and scientifically. Hence

their strength lay in their being “vagyanik” (scientific) whereas ‘we’ (Hindus) were

“dharmik” (religious) and hence weak which needed to be changed.59

Conclusion

Savarkar’s hyper-rationalism and historicism permeated all aspects of his life and

influenced his politics accordingly. He believed Europe was the pinnacle of ‘civilization’

precisely because it had impelled a radical break with the past. Unlike Ranade or Phule,

he had little patience for traditions or faith, which could be seen as living and capable of

reinterpretation. India and Hinduism he believed had to start ‘afresh’ in its attitudes,

especially towards science and history. Hinduism had to be cast off all its traditional

‘baggage’ and made ‘modem’ by aligning itself to the ideals of the scientific and

historicist West. He practiced these beliefs in his everyday life especially in his attitudes

toward his more ‘traditional’ family members and made them a plank of his public

politics. Yet as a youth, he did not always display this vehement attitude towards

‘traditions’ and religious beliefs. As his autobiography and biographies indicate, young

Savarkar exhibited less skepticism towards local beliefs, such as indicated in his worship

of the local goddess Bhavani. He also had personal relations with people from other

religious communities and his politics were less intolerant. But the later Savarkar clearly

marks a shift from the earlier one in his rabid opposition to all ‘superstitions’ and

espousing a politics which institutionalized violence against non-Hindus, especially

59 It is ironic that he was displaying such absolute confidence in western science and modernity in his writings between the 1930’s to 1950’s when trenchant critiques of modernity had already begun such as those offered by the Frankfurt school of philosophers. He shows no awareness o f knowing or reading critiques coming from within the West, while it is unlikely his unquestioned devotion and faith in modernity would have been shaken by them.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Muslims. His public disagreements with Gandhi stemmed from his resistance to

‘mixing’ religion and politics and the latter’s flexible, open-ended Hindu vision.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER VIIII

SAVARKAR: HISTORICISM AS A HEGEMONIC DISCOURSE

Introduction

A historicist mode of thought is fully internalized in the world-view of Hindu

nationalist V.D. Savarkar. Unlike Ranade and Phule, Savarkar displays few ambiguities;

rather, he demonstrates a complete devotion to the historicist faith. In Savarkar, unlike

Phule and Ranade the separation between religion as piety, morality and/or faith with

politics is total. Here western scientific rationality meets one of its most aggressive

proponents, not coincidentally advocating a ‘Hindu’ identity. But on closer reflection

this identity has little to do with Hinduism as a faith, based on living traditions and

everyday practices. Rather it is a politico-historical identity in which Hinduism as a faith

is seen to be ‘anachronistic’.

In other words in this view the time of the present belongs to that of modem

science, secularism and reason while religious beliefs belong to a past time that cannot

and should not be accessed but dumped in the dustbin of history. For Savarkar Hindu

traditions and practices as living are relegated to a dead past, replaced by a political

Hinduism or Hindutva, based on the modem pillars of nation, science and history. Once

he rejects all traditional categories as ‘unscientific’ in his thought, these are uncritically

replaced with modem ones, most notably notions of ‘historicity’.

271

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 272

In order to examine his use of modem historicist categories to interpret Hinduism,

while rejecting traditional ones (as historically irrelevant), I examine his reading of Hindu

religious texts and Marathi popular traditions respectively. I also contrast Gandhi’s

attitude towards history with that of Savarkar, to emphasize their differences. Moreover I

look at Savarkar’s historical writings, dealing with the nation, his conceptualization of

Hindutva and a modem Hindu identity.

Savarkar’s Historicist Framework

Historicist Renderings of Hindu Religious Practices and Texts

For Savarkar, Hindu practices and traditions were either to be rejected or

realigned according to scientific criteria in order to ‘catch’ up with the West. However,

his notion of what a Hindu should be had very little of Hinduism as a faith in it, which he

himself admitted by making a distinction between Hinduism and Hindutva, discussed

later in the chapter. What irked him most was Hindus’ belief in transcendental notions of

agency directing life rather than humans themselves and the desire to place one’s life in

the hands of such forces. The belief that such forces could guide actions and thoughts

was a notion repugnant to Savarkar’s modernist sensibility. In his historicist world-view,

a belief in divine forces as agents belonged to a previous age, which had no place in the

‘modem’ world.

He argued that while the West was finding solutions for curing diseases and

making technological advances, Hindus were still finding more effective ways to

communicate with God and relying on divine forces to take care of all problems in this

world. He points out that since Vedic times Hindus had been unable to invent better

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 273

transport mechanisms than the age-old bullock-cart or palanquins while Europeans were

building aircrafts. He points to several rituals as indicating the unreflective continuance

of traditions such as child-bearing practices where women gave birth in the most crude

ways, while even the scissors used to cut the umbilical cord were worshipped as a

goddess. And yet he argues despite all these time-honored traditions, babies were dying

in larger numbers in India than in Europe. Thus traditions he argues continued in India

only because they were uncritically received from the past, ordained by ancestors living

in previous ‘unscientific’ periods in history. If these practices were scientifically

scrutinized, he points out, most would have to be discarded.

Hindus, for instance, he points out, are afraid of cutting certain trees such as vad-

pipal (peepal) as they believe this would earn the wrath of gods. However according to

him, Muslims and British cut these trees with impunity, which indicates the irrational and

foolish basis of such beliefs.1 For him, worship of animals, trees and nature, which is

common amongst Hindus, reflect a lower stage of human development, suitable only for

primitive times. Similarly, Savarkar critiques the practice of vastushanti, a ritual

Hindus performed to appease the gods, while moving into a new house or dwelling as an

initiation rite by arguing that the structures and houses British built were often sturdier

and safer, without such rites or beliefs. Phule, on the other hand, as seen earlier, while

skeptical of such practices including that of vastushanti did not reject them outright but

rewrote them in innovative ways.

Savarkar argues that according to traditional Hindushastris Muslims and Christians are exempt from any adverse effects o f cutting trees since they are non-believers. According to Savarkar, the same logic should be applied to Hindus as well. Savarkar, SSV, v.5, 140.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 274

Likewise he recounts a legend concerning the practice of cow-worship.2 His

attitude towards it indicates the close links between science, nation and a modem Hindu

identity in his thought. He writes that when the Muslim armies were attacking north

India, the soldiers placed cows in front of the opposing Hindu forces, which led to the

latter’s retreat since they refused to kill the animals. Savarkar argues that in deference to

the shastras or scriptures, Hindus in this instance, and in general, would rather sacrifice

their own lives as well as their rashtra or nation, rather than kill ‘sacred’ cows. Many

such examples he says can be found in Hindus’ history, reflecting irrational behavior at

the cost o f the nation. It is the nation he argues whose protection must come first rather

than any superstitious and unscientific beliefs, which ‘emasculate’ Hindus and keep them

‘backward’.

Savarkar’s reading of the ‘cow’ legend, indicates that he viewed a Hindu identity

largely in terms of secular loyalty to the nation and science, not towards notions of the

sacred or piety in a lived sense, where certain practices are meaningful, such as in this

instance, reverence for the cow. According to Savarkar:

Even if in the age of superstition, if the belief in cow worship was believable, in present times, or the scientific age, it maybe harmful to hold such beliefs.. .merely to believe something because religious texts declared that to be the truth and follow it blindly needs to be discouraged since this is antithetical to true scientific progress.. .we need to put things that were written and said five thousand years ago to scientific scrutiny and discard all these unscientific ideas, for the benefit of the Hindu nation or else our Hindu nation and religion will remain five thousand years old and will be unable to compete with the rest of the world, remaining backward in this age of progress or present-day scientific era.3

The worship of cows is common amongst Hindus. The cow is treated as a sacred animal. Savarkar, SSV, v.5, 74-75. Translation mine.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 275

Furthermore he argues most Hindu practices needed to be read as expressing a material

reality, which had taken a religious form (i.e. religion as ‘false consciousness’). For

instance in the case of cow-worship, since cows were clearly useful to ancient peoples,

they became objects of worship, but it was important to recognize primarily the material

significance of these animals and recognize that sacred notions were derived from that.

As he points out: “It is one thing to say the cow is divine and another to actually believe

it.”4 Hindus, he argued, had to learn to understand not to take these beliefs literally but to

realize that they were expressions of a material and practical reality, which needed to be

investigated and explored further. It was important, he states, to treat animals such as

cows with respect, but purely due to their utility as they were in the West.

Similarly, religious texts, whether Hindu or not, belonged to museums and

libraries where they could be historically examined and studied through fields such as

history, archaeology, philology and Indology. According to Savarkar, they held little

contemporary ethical or social value. As he writes:

If India has to be also victorious like Europe became, then the book of the ancient past has to be shut/closed and all our scriptures nicely wrapped and preserved in a museum allowing us to turn the page of the new scientific era.5

These texts were primarily useful as historical materials, which deserved reverence solely

for their ancient contributions and needed to be “treated with motherly love.”6 However,

these texts held little value for the present, especially in terms of scientific knowledge. In

his view, since no religion embodied the ‘truth’, this was the most appropriate manner of

studying such ideas.

4 Ibid., 88. Translation mine. 5 Savarkar, SSV, v.6, 72. Translation mine. 6 Ibid., 72.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 276

In other words, only a historical method enabled an ‘objective’ analysis of the

context and times. “We must give up our age-old practices and adopt a new practise of

testing everything, to see whether it is useful or not.” Whether the practice had

scriptural legitimacy or not, he argued, was irrelevant. Rather it was the principle of

utility that was the best guide for Hindu society and the Hindu nation.8 Savarkar rejected

any attempts at interpretations of these texts in light of the present because these were

seen to belong to another historical period, thus reflecting an ‘uncritical consciousness’.

Nineteenth-century intellectuals on the other hand, such as Phule, Bhandarkar,

Ranade, and even Savarkar’s role model Tilak, held a much more open attitude towards

these texts, interpreting them for their presents, and thereby treating them as relevant and

living. It is ironic then that Savarkar always eulogized Tilak as his mentor in this regard.

Tilak, he argues, had a historical bent towards religion because he undertook a historical

analysis of the Vedas, tried to locate them in a specific period and critically analyze them

primarily as historical texts. He points out that Tilak used what he refers to as an

^itihasic, or historical lens, challenging the divinity of the Vedas and exposing their

social origins.

While this is indeed the case, what Savarkar fails to mention is Tilak’s use of the

shastras as living codes of custom and practices to analyze the question of reform within

Hinduism. For Tilak, while he historicized the shastras, he also saw them as relevant for

his times, thereby displaying an ambivalent historicism that Savarkar chooses to

overlook. In fact the latter decried any such attempts by reformers to justify their

7 Ibid., 79. 8 Savarkar, SSV, v.5, 148.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 277

reforms through the use of the shastras or attempts by traditional shastris to find

contemporary scientific inventions within religious texts such as the Vedas or Puranas9,

viewing it as ‘anachronistic’. Madhav Deshpande argues such a perspective runs

contrary to traditional Hindu interpretive approaches of finding the present in the past,

thereby blurring the lines between the two.

Deshpande points out that finding modem technologies in the Vedas or other

ancient texts is consonant with a Hindu traditional approach but ‘anachronistic’ from a

modem perspective since such technologies have to succeed the Vedas temporally.

Furthermore, according to him, locating the present in the past in such a non-linear

manner or ‘reversing’ temporality is possible within traditional Hindu conceptions of

time, allowing an elasticity of traditional texts by keeping them open-ended and

continually relevant. Savarkar on the other hand rejected the very terms of this

traditionalist discourse on historicist grounds, maintaining strict boundaries between past

and present.

Historicizing Marathi Popular Traditions

Similarly, he adopted a historical and rationalist lens towards the religiosity and

miracles associated with the bhakti saints of Maharashtra. Unlike Ranade however,

Savarkar hardly discussed what was a very significant part of popular folklore in this part

of the country. Most Marathi people in the region grew up with stories and legends of the

sants (saints) Tukaram, Dyaneshwar, Chokhamela, and others, and it is likely Savarkar

did too. Not surprisingly, his writings downplay these spiritual figures while highlighting

9 For instance Savarkar decries attempts byshastris to find airplanes in the Vedas or claims that Satyagraha (non-violent non-cooperation) was consonant with the Vedas, Savarkar, SSV, v.6, 75.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 278

historical Hindus associated with militarism and power such as kings Shivaji, Bajirao I,

Madhavrao Peshwa and others. The bhakti saints’ emphasis on compassion, faith,

oneness of religions and love is clearly a legacy that does not ‘fit’ within Savarkar’s

martial chauvinistic Hindu historical narrative but in fact troubles it. While he briefly

discusses other saints, the saint he admires and focuses on most, expectedly, is Sant

Ramdas. This saint was the favorite of Hindu ideologues since he was one of Shivaji’s

principal advisors and was often seen as critical to the king’s martial successes. He was

also the first proponent of Maharashtra-dharma, which was interpreted by his later

admirers as Hindu nationalism and patriotism.10

The lives of the saints are replete with miracles and that is how they are popularly

remembered in the region up to this day. Ranade, too, as seen in the previous chapter,

like Savarkar, evinced skepticism about the veracity of these miracles. His modernist

orientation also precluded the possibility of viewing these miraculous occurrences as

actual events. But Ranade at the same time was a devotee of the saints or a practicing

bhakta, and thus moved between positions of observing them detachedly and historically

as well as viewing them as lived-fluid ‘texts’, open to interpretation in the present. As

seen in the previous chapter, Ranade used their teachings to enunciate the principles of

Bhagwat-dharma or Theism through the Prarthana Samaj, which he argued was the

‘essence’ of Hinduism. With Savarkar, no such movement between positions took place

since he viewed them only contextually or historically; in his words “none of these saints

10 However, according to some scholars, the notion of Maharashtra-dharma reflected a regional aspiration that was not tied to modem notions of a Hindu nation and Ramdas’ views are less amenable to realpolitik than they are made out to be. See Prachi Deshpande, "Narratives of Pride: History and Regional Identity in Maharashtra, India C. 1870-1960" (Tufts University, 2002), Milind Wakankar, "The Pre-History o f the Popular: Caste and Canonicity in Indian Modernity" (Columbia University, 2003).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 279

stories once put to historical scrutiny can be considered true.”11 According to him, these

were ‘chamatkaric’ or fantastic episodes and not ‘itihasic ’ or historical. These miracles

were not ‘real’ but had to be explained as expressions of a secular reality, falsely ascribed

to divine agency rather than men themselves.

One such legend he mentions surrounds the popular saint, Tukaram, whose

abhangs or poems were snatched away by his detractors (orthodox Hindus) and

submerged in the river. But miraculously, in a day or two, the papers reappeared on the

surface of the river, exactly as they were prior to being thrown in the water, and could be

effortlessly read. People ascribed this to Tukaram’s mystical powers, derived from his

unflinching devotion and many such miracles were associated with him. Savarkar argues

people out of pure respect for the saint ascribed such miraculous occurrences to him, not

because they actually happened. Rather, he says it was likely that the papers had been 17 strung together by a thick bounded cover which protected them but the “truth is

deliberately shrouded by weaving all kinds of fantastic episodes that never happened.” 11

Due to the ‘mythical’ and ‘fantastic’ nature of these stories, he argues it was difficult to

ascertain the ‘facticity’ of the events. Moreover, these ‘myths’, he argued, deliberately

obfuscated the ‘historical reality’ of the times, which included the persecution of these

saints by Muslim rulers. Why, he asks, was there no mention of such persecution in the

saints’ stories if historical evidence proved this to be the case? 14

According to Savarkar, this ‘deliberate silencing’ o f ‘historical truths’ was a sign

of Hindu ‘weakness’ since it intentionally hid the reality that Muslims were attacking

11 Savarkar, SSV, v.6, 52. Translation mine. 12 Savarkar, SSV, v.5, 141. 13 Savarkar, SSV, v. 6, 52. Translation mine. 14 Ibid., 50.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 280

Hindu masses and converting them, while committing atrocities. He argued it was only

later militant Hindu rulers who made Hindus ‘proud’ by ‘avenging’ such humiliations

such as Shivaji and Baji Rao I.15 According to him, exposing such important ‘historical

facts’ silenced by these legends was crucial since it would make Hindus aware of the

injustices committed against them. Much like Phule he asserted the need for Hindu

legends to be historicized. He argued that in their current state, they held little historical

value but were suitable only as poetry or entertainment. Unlike Ranade, they could not

be (re)interpreted for their eternal values, as he believed they held none.

Savarkar evinces a solely historical view towards these stories by dismissing them

as ‘poetry’ or ‘ myths’ for entertainment purposes rather than reading them as perhaps

expressing intentionally non-historical statements that aim to convey a higher moral

statement. Perhaps it is the case that these stories are meant to be allegorical; they are

moral statements of a different kind, which are not out to prove historical ‘veracity’ but to

affirm a moral order in which in the case of the above legend, Tukaram’s devotion and

compassion is considered so unflinching that none of his detractors, notably the upper

castes could harm him, because God was seen to be on his side. The story sees him as

entirely protected and helped by divine forces that reward his faith in Him. Tukaram’s

message and life is upheld as an ideal, as the upholder of dharma (righteousness) and

truth, unlike those who persecuted him who are clearly seen as unjust. The names or

15 How ‘anti-Muslim’ both Shivaji and Bajirao were in their personal life although they fought Muslim rulers is also circumspect. They also often allied with Muslim rulers in their battles and had many Muslims in their armies and courts, and were greatly influenced by Indo-Islamic culture including in speech, customs, dress and music. The legend of Bajirao I and his Muslim courtesan Mastani is well known. Savarkar’s ‘Hindu nationalist’ ruler was besotted by Mastani, had a son with her who fought in the Peshwa army and died against Ahmed Shah Abdali in the Battle of Panipat in 1761. The Brahman orthodox of Pune heavily opposed this union and was successful in separating the two lovers, which led to the king’s downfall largely due to heartbreak.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 281

identity of those who did persecute him are perhaps not deliberately mentioned, because

Tukaram’s ability to forgive is seen to be more important here than the specifics of those

who opposed him. The point of the story, it seems, is to affirm these moral values, which

includes not demonizing the Other, whether Brahman or Muslim.

It is indeed possible that Tukaram’s persecution by upper castes or others yielded

a different outcome than what the legend tells us; perhaps his letters were drowned, or he

was brutalized or murdered, and Savarkar and Phule would argue that was likely the case

(although Savarkar would say at the hands of Muslims while Phule, Brahmans) since they

believed such stories needed to ‘unmasked’ for their historical veracity. But one can ask

if indeed historical veracity here matters?16 Do we need to know the ‘facts’ of the episode

or is the story trying to communicate something else by intentionally not telling us the

specifics of what happened? Could it be that the infamous non-historical consciousness of

Indian civilization 17 actually self-consciously mythologized the past as Vinay Lai, Ashis 1 ft Nandy and Madhav Deshpande have all in different essays suggested, in order to give

precedence to dharma (righteousness) or morality? They all argue that it was not the case

that Indians could not grasp the notion of historical veracity in pre-colonial times as many

While making this argument, I am sensitive to the critiques of contemporary Dalit scholarship, which is influenced in part by Phule and Ambedkar’s rationalism, that injustices within history against lower castes were intentionally silenced by these ‘fantastic’ myths because storytellers were often Brahmans or those in power. But I believe attempts to tell the stories differently or retell myths are a more powerful medium even amongst Dalit communities than adopting a purely historical view-point, which is out of tune with large sections of Indian society, ft is in this regard that Phule provides important directions in his retelling o f myths. D.R. Nagaraj offers a very nuanced position with respect to these contentious debates. See Nagaraj, The Flaming Fleet. 17 Many Europeans including Hegel termed Indians, especially Hindus ahistorical although Muslims also were not entirely free from it. For such an argument regarding Muslims see Peter Hardy,Historians of Medieval India (London: Luzac and Company Limited, 1961). 18 Madhav Deshpande, "History, Change and Permanence: A Classical Indian Perspective," in Contributions to South Asian Studies, ed. Gopal Krishna (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1979), Vinay Lai, "History and the Possibilities of Emancipation: Some Lessons from India,"Journal o f Indian Council of Philosophical Research, no. June (1996), Ashis Nandy, "History's Forgotten Doubles,"History and Theory 34 (1995).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 282

Europeans have claimed, but that they deliberately rejected it because of the divisive

implications it contained.

As Ashis Nandy argues, the legend or myth is a different kind of moral and

political statement, which is deliberately ahistorical; ethics are privileged over scientific

objectivity. He says:

Mythologization is also moralization; it involves a refusal to separate the remembered past from its ethical meaning in the present. For this refusal, it is often important not to remember the past, objectively, clearly, or in its entirety.19

Referring to this as willful ignoring, Deshpande points out that Hindus have traditionally

been aggressively ahistorical in remembering their past, particularly in dealing with

questions of origins of Indian civilization. He provocatively suggests that there has been

a deliberate downplaying of the search for origins. According to him:

By failing to recognize the foreign and racially different origins of the different peoples in India, and by focusing on their synchronic socio-religious positions, rights and duties, the classical Indian tradition brought about a wonderful racial and cultural synthesis of Indian people. 10

Interestingly and not surprisingly, it is precisely this point that Savarkar faults

Hindu mythologies for, that is, of purposefully hiding the historical origins of foreigners

coming into India, while labeling them all with generic terms such as lyavanas':

[W]hy did they refer to foreigners such as the Greeks and Muslims as ‘yavans’ and not by their respective identities? Especially when our people began to call the Muslims ‘Yavans’, they really committed a blunder. Although the Greeks were aggressors and foreigners, they were, comparatively speaking, considered to be particularly devoted to learning and highly cultured and civilized according to the standards of the time. The Muslim hordes that invaded India, centuries afterwards, were highly fanatical, diabolic and ruthlessly destructive. It would have been in the fitness of things to call them

Nandy, "History's Forgotten Doubles," 47. Deshpande, “History, Change and Permanence,” 22.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 283

‘Mussalmans’ in view of their demonic nature. To call them ‘Yavans’ is doubly wrong 'y 1 in as much as it unduly flatters them.

However, the deliberate appellation of all foreigners as yavanas in ancient mythologies,

irrespective of their religions, places of origins and tribes, as Deshpande has pointed out,

could be a self-conscious attempt to intentionally erase the specifics and allow the

newcomers a home within the civilization. Savarkar clearly understood this ahistorical

tendency amongst the Hindus since he opposed it so vehemently, seeing it as a sign of

weakness rather than as Nandy, Lai and Deshpande indicate, possibly civilizational

resilience. For Savarkar it was precisely such tendencies that needed to be curbed and

transformed. He showed little awareness that his own view also represented a particular

cultural construction rather than any ‘objective’ method.

Unlike Ranade who displayed a keen sensitivity to such pre-modem worlds,

Savarkar displayed only disgust and a sense of deep embarrassment. And again unlike

Ranade he had to disavow his ‘irrational traditional’ self completely, in order to feel

comfortable as a ‘modern’. His heightened insecurity and anxiety towards his own

traditions and everyday practices indicates the extent to which he believed and

internalized the scientific-historicist colonial world-view.

Historicism versus ‘Critical Traditionalism’: Savarkar and Gandhi

In a similar light, Savarkar saw Gandhi’s mysticism and notions of non-violence

as part of this ‘lack’ amongst Hindus. When Gandhi admonished villagers during a

plague outbreak for killing thousands of mice by questioning their right to such killing in

V.D. Savarkar, Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History, trans. S.T. Godbole, 1st ed. (New Delhi: Rajdhani Granthnagar, 1971), 9.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 284

order to save their own lives, Savarkar denounced such views on grounds that human

lives could not be equated with those of mice. The former were clearly more valuable.

Savarkar stated that: “I don’t believe that man and rat, Bajirao and a coward, Shivaji and

a bug in cow-dung are the same. Even in nature there is no equality in any form.” “JO

Similarly, Gandhi ascribed a major earthquake in Bihar to God’s wrath due to Hindus’

continuing practice of untouchability. Man’s sins, he argued, were at the root of nature’s

anger and one of the solutions he offered was prarthana or prayer. Natural events were

thus seen as linked to transcendental ones, in which human actions collectively were

also culpable. For Savakar on the other hand, it was purely scientific laws that guided

nature, which could be predicted and scientifically analyzed. He argues such prediction

was common in the West, due to their scientific ingenuity. Morality and science were

completely independent of each other. Thus an earthquake had nothing to do with moral

or immoral actions in the world; such a link he thought absurd. He also called Gandhi’s

‘inner voice’ a public nuisance24 and a shame, in light of scientific advances in the West.

Nandy refers to Gandhi’s traditionalist approach in dealing with modem ideas as

‘critical traditionalism’. Both Nandy and Deshpande discuss the elasticity of traditions or

the notion of a living past as the starting assumption upon which such critical thinking

was conducted. Traditions could be stretched and reinterpreted to incorporate the modem

without rejecting the traditionalist terms of discourse, thereby transforming both the

modem and traditional in the process. This was, as Nandy has argued, the predominant

22 Savarkar, SSV, v.5, 95. Translation mine. 23 This was Gandhi’s innovation of extending it beyond individual action and behavior, due to the individualism inherent within Hinduism, to a collective notion of human accountability and morality. In fact, Ranade as seen earlier, had also subscribed to such a notion. Gandhi popularized it. 24 Keer, Veer Savarkar, 288.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 285

view that Gandhi adopted toward the past, which by comparison, Savarkar’s modernist

orientation vehemently resisted. Terming it ‘Gandhi -gondhaV (chaos), Savarkar’s

anger and frustration at Gandhi’s ahistorical sensibility drove him to write volumes and

volumes of ‘Hindu’ history stressing the importance and need for Hindus to gain a

historical consciousness.

One of Gandhi’s greatest strengths in fact was his flexibility and elasticity or non-

historicist approach in viewing Indian traditions (which also incorporated the non-Hindu

in its belief of the oneness of religions). He argued for the acceptance of the precepts of

non-violence and Satyagraha entirely on the basis of Hindu traditions, claiming these

were the principal messages of Hindu texts25 and beliefs, enunciated most clearly in the

Geeta.26 Gandhi’s primary source for his beliefs in the efficacy of non-violence as a

political philosophy was, in other words, the critical interpretation of Hindu traditions. In

the process he was also transforming these traditions and getting them to say something

‘new’, yet ‘old’ at the same time. In other words, he was highlighting non-violence as the

core principle of politics, which was a novel and innovative claim and yet he justified this

by saying Hindus had said it all along and that it was an eternal message. Proving the

scientific and historical veracity of such a message was therefore unimportant.

It was his interpretation of the Geeta that allowed him to make this assertion. In

other words, ‘traditions’ did not lie outside the act of interpretation. Rather, it was the

manner in which they were interpreted that ‘constructed’ ‘tradition’, which was neither

25 I use ‘texts’ very loosely here, referring also to oral traditions since that was predominantly the case in India where large numbers were and are illiterate but were familiar with ‘texts’ such as the Ramayana. 26 For a useful delineation o f Gandhi’s use of Hindu traditions and what the author argues is his rejection o f conventional history, see B.G. Gokhale, "Gandhi and History,"History and Theory 11, no. 11 (1972).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 286

static nor dead. Therefore, like Ranade had done in the last century, traditions could be

adopted as well as rejected', as Gandhi himself puts it:

I do not hold that everything ancient is good, because it is ancient. I do not advocate surrender of God-given reasoning faculty in the face of ancient tradition. Any tradition, however ancient, if inconsistent with morality, is fit to be banished from the land. Untouchability maybe considered an ancient tradition.. .and even so many an ancient horrible belief and superstitious practice. I would sweep them out of existence if I had the power.27

Flexibility and openness or ahistoricity of traditions therefore allowed Gandhi to absorb

from other religions in his interpretation of Hindu traditions and make them look like

they were ‘indigenous’ to Hinduism itself or what he referred to as a sanatani Hindu

approach . He stated he could find no difference between Sermon on the Mount and the

Geeta 9Q and that while the essence of all religions was the same, only the paths were

different. Hence he believed “What does it matter that we take different roads, so long as

we reach the same goal? In reality, there are as many religions as there are individuals.”

While an awareness of the defects in one’s own faith and that of others was

crucial, he believed it was also important to incorporate good elements from other faiths

into one’s own. And thus he could find this pluralistic universalism within Hinduism

itself. As he stated-

I have found (Hinduism) to be the most tolerant of all religions known to m e.. .Not being an exclusive religion, it enables the followers of (the) faith not merely to respect

M.K. Gandhi, The Teaching o f the Gita (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1971), 40. 28 “I am not a literalist. Therefore, I try to understand thespirit of the various scriptures o f the world. I apply the test of Truth and Ahimsa laid down by these very scripturesfor interpretation. I reject what is inconsistent with the test, and I appropriate all that is consistent with it.” M.K. Gandhi,My Religion (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1955), 21. 29 Gandhi, The Teaching o f the Gita, 36. 30 Gandhi, My Religion, 18.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 287

all the other religions, but it also enables them to admire and assimilate whatever may be good in the other faith (original emphasis) .3I

As Nandy argues, Gandhi drew from India’s ‘little’ traditions, or the ‘folk’, in his

interpretation of Hindu traditions. On the other hand, Savarkar represented the high

Brahmanic traditions bereft of their elasticity, while viewing them only historically. He

represented the melding of Brahmanic traditions with modem rationalism and scientism,

since, as seen in the case of Ranade, the Brahmanic traditions also had their more fluid

sides. Gandhi rejected the Brahmanic world-view while not decrying elements of its

elasticity, which was precisely Savarkar’s frustration.

Savarkar’s hardened reading of Hinduism’s pasts ridiculed Gandhi’s

‘contradictions’, which were in turn an attempt to maintain this elasticity. In keeping

with this elastic approach Gandhi’s principle of non-violence was therefore contextual.

There were instances when violence was seen as legitimate since it was morally correct in

that particular situation33. Savarkar who could not comprehend this ‘flexibility’

attacked Gandhi for being ‘inconsistent’ in his positions such as when the latter backed

Indian forces fighting alongside the British against the Nazis or supported killing dogs

afflicted with rabies. For Savarkar, a theory of non-violence had to be absolute in

keeping with scientific certitudes. Multiple, context-specific and seemingly contradictory

interpretations were problematic.

Quoted in T.N. Madan, Modern Myths, Locked Minds: Secularism and Fundamentalism in India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997), 229. 32 It is interesting to note that Ramanujan has argued that the predominant Hindu way o f thinking is ‘context-specific’. See A.K. Ramanujan, "Is There an Indian Way of Thinking?," Indiain through Hindu Categories, ed. McKim Marriott (New Delhi and Newbury Park: Sage, 1990). 33 According to Gandhi, violence could also sometimes be interpreted as non-violence because it was morally or ethically justifiable. Thus regarding the armed Polish uprising against Germany in World War II he said “history will forget she defended herself with violence. Her violence will be counted almost as non-violence.” M.K. Gandhi, Towards Lasting Peace, ed. Anand Hingorani, Gandhi Series (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1956), 83.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 288

Savarkar’s belief in the necessity of violence was also not absolute. He argued

there were times when violence did not work but while Gandhi allowed for violence

within a largely non-violent framework, Savarkar’s vision can be said to be exactly the

reverse; non-violence could be occasionally adopted within a framework of violence.

And this inevitability of violence was justified on the basis of human nature and the

natural world. He saw violence as an inescapable condition and necessity of human life.

According to him it was part of nature: “Whenever man has to commit violence, that is

not man’s fault but that of sushticha, nisargacha (nature).”34 Furthermore he states:

“This emphasis within religious scriptures on non-violence and compassion is not

impractical since it is for man to decide how much violence he has to allow for his own

benefit. Whenever it is in man’s self-interest, violence is necessary...such as for instance

killing plants, vegetables and germs even by those who are vegetarians.” He believed

such an attitude was acceptable in private, but dangerous and harmful in public, and

particularly degrading for the Hindu nation. Similarly he pointed out virtues such as

compassion and pity, which while positive in themselves, ‘did not work’. Some violence,

he argued, was both a necessity and a duty particularly in self-defense. By decrying force

altogether, Savarkar argued Gandhi was lowering young people’s self-esteem.36

Savarkar rarely resorted to finding justification for these claims within Hindu

traditions, unlike many of his Hindu militant counterparts who frequently used the Geeta

and other texts to justify violence and a masculinist world-view. He sometimes alluded

to the Geeta, particularly Krishna’s exhortation to Aijuna to fight his relatives, the

34 Savarkar, SSV, v.5, 128. Translation mine. 35 Ibid., 128. Translation mine. 36 Savarkar, SSV, v.5, 18.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 289

Kauravas in the battle of Kurukshetra, as an example of realpolitik and the legitimate use

of violence. For Gandhi, on the other hand, the Geeta did not exhort violence but

reflected an internal dialogue within the Self about following one’s duty; the great battle

he points out was just an allegory or a way of showing that internal conflict in an

accessible way for people to understand. Savarkar and the other Hindu militants, Gandhi

argued, were reading it literally and historically as a call for violence rather than a moral

battle within the Self.

For Gandhi, moreover justice was not entirely in people’s hands. Rather, Krishna

represented the “God-the All-Knowing-who descends to the earth to punish the

wicked.”37 While Savarkar talked about Krishna killing his evil uncle Kamsa as an act

of legitimate violence, he had no faith in the divinity of Krishna and read him as a

historical figure. As seen earlier, for both Gandhi and Ranade, in the final analysis,

people could not be the ultimate dispensers of justice since they were not only

accountable to themselves but higher forces. For Savarkar on the other hand, only man

could take revenge or defend himself and therefore determined justice. Rather than any

higher divine forces, man had to seek his own revenge, fight for his own justice:

because every Hiryanyakashipu has his Narasimha ; because every Dushshasana has his Bheema; because every evil-doer has his avenger, there is still some hope in the heart of the world that injustice cannot last.40

While notions of realpolitik did exist within Hinduism, Savarkar attempted to bring these

ideas to the fore as the dominant conception of politics. Savarkar and Nathuram Godse

37 Gandhi, The Teaching o f the Gita, 4. 38 These characters are from a Puranic story, see Chapter IV for a background o f this story. 39 These are both important and opposing characters in the epicMahabharata. Bheema is a Pandav while Dushshasana a Kaurav. 40 Quoted in Keer, Veer Savarkar, 277.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 290

(Gandhi’s assassin) both felt that while they admired some traits in Gandhi as a person,

such as his work amongst Untouchables, they believed this was commendable at a

personal level, but that he should not ‘dabble in politics’.41 Godse stated that Gandhi’s

bringing such unrealistic or idealistic, mystical, superstitious, effeminate and cowardly

ideas into politics was one of the major reasons why he had to be ‘eliminated’42. Politics

in his view could only be about realpolitik and Gandhi was ‘messing’ all that up,

especially with his policy of ‘appeasement’ towards Muslims and later towards Pakistan.

He could ‘tolerate’ Gandhi’s beliefs as long as they were confined to his private world

and not part of public politics. This is apparent when he states, “In Gandhiji’s politics

there was no place for consistency of ideas and reasons...His politics was supported by

old superstitious beliefs such as the power of the soul, the innervoice, the fast, the prayer,

and the purity of the mind.43 He did not object to Gandhi’s private religiosity. As he puts

it, “The fact that Gandhiji honoured the religious books of Hindus, Muslims and

others.. .never provoked any ill will in me towards him.”44. But for Godse, this private

religiosity could not slip into the public domain. As he points out, “In my writings and

speeches I have always advocated that the religious and communal consideration should

be entirely eschewed in the public affairs of the country (emphasis mine).”45 According

to Godse, based on statements made at his trial, he believed that:

41 Savarkar mocks Gandhi’s excessive attention to what he termed feminine matters fit only for the kitchen and not for politics such as diet, gardening etc. He calls them “kitchen matters o f the Sabarmati ashram” Savarkar,SSV, v.5, 34. In Savarkar’s Brahmanic -Kshatriya world-view, such ‘feminine’ matters were not to be brought into politics but left to the private sphere. Politics had to be secular, rational and devoid o f any mysticism/spirituality. 42 For Savarkar’s views and speech in the trial see Savarkar, SSV, v.5, 19. For Godse see Nathuram Godse, May It Please Your Honour, 3rd ed. (Delhi: Surya Prakashan, 1987). 43 Ibid., 133. 44 Godse, May It Please Your Honour, 62. 45 Ibid., 64.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 291

Indian politics in the absence of Gandhiji would surely be practical, able to retaliate, and would be powerful with armed forces. No doubt my own future would be totally ruined but the nation would be saved from the inroads of Pakistan.. .the nation would be free to follow the course founded on reason which I consider to be necessary for sound nationbuilding.46

Unlike Savarkar, Godse relied much more on Hindu religious texts for his

justification of realpolitik and other instrumental notions of power. But unlike Godse,

Savarkar hardly used Hindu traditions and texts to bolster his views although he was very

familiar with them. Rather, for him, it was far more useful to turn to a ‘rationalist’

‘objectivist’ history to justify one’s position. According to him, realpolitik was a

historical reality and it was the dominant motif of human society throughout history.

Rather than using a critical traditionalist method (of Hindu texts and practices) Savarkar

relied mostly on history to justify his claims. As A.G. Noorani points out, “Savarkar was

obsessed with the past.”47 As one of Savarkar’s admirers proudly points out:

No other political leader of modem India—of India of the bygone days for that matter.. .seems to have felt, as ardently as did Savarkar, the dire need of having a full historical perspective of a problem before trying to find a solution for it48.

According to Savarkar, Hindus’ ancient and glorious ‘valor’ as well as an

instrumental notion of power was historically validated by the presence of Hindu kings

such as Shivaji, Rana Pratap and Vickramaditya. It was precisely this ‘Hindu’ past which

needed to be revived.

Unlike Gandhi, in Savarkar’s view, historical truths were more important than

religious ones. Hindu mythologies such as the Ramayana or Mahabharata as mentioned

Ibid., 155. Gandhi justified his belief in non-violence as the central message of Hinduism also by the use of the Geeta. 47 A.G. Noorani, Savarkar and Hindutva: The Godse Connection (New Delhi: LeftWord Books, 2002), 39. 48 S.T. Godbole, "Savarkar's Approach to History," inSavarkar Commemoration Volume (Bombay: Savarkar Darshan Pratishsthan, 1989), 196.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 292

earlier, were for Gandhi, primarily allegorical stories which represented ideal and not

historical truths. According to him, “My Krishna has nothing to do with any historical

person.”49 He continues, “That does not mean that Krishna, the adored of his people,

never lived. But perfection is imagined.”50 However he argues:

But if it was proved to me that the Mahabharat is history in the same sense that modem historical books are, that every word of the Mahabharat is authentic and that the Krishna of the Mahabharat actually did some of the acts attributed to him, even at the risk of being banished from the Hindu fold, I should not hesitate to reject that Krishna as God-incarnate. But to me, the Mahabharat is a profoundly religious book, largely allegorical, in no way meant to be a historical record.51

For Gandhi, it is “the history of the human soul in which God, as Krishna is the chief

actor” and as he puts it, “the truths they teach me are the ‘eternal verities’”.

In a response to one of Gandhi’s statements that Islam is a religion of peace and

that the “seat of Religion is in the heart”54, Savarkar argued this was completely contrary

to the history o f Islam. The origins and development of Islam he argued were immersed

in violent expansions and conquests. People he pointed out, had to flee Islamic

persecutions throughout history, such as the Parsis who found refuge in India, and who

were welcomed hospitably by Hindus. According to him, the history of India had been

marked by Islamic invasions, which were violent and forced Hindus to convert by the

sword. He says

Gandhiji! What religion of peace is this? Till today all they have done is conquer countries.. ..who ever is not a Muslim is a considered a kafir.. .and is converted to

Gandhi, The Teaching o f the Gita, 5. 50 Ibid., 19. 51 Ibid., 5. Gandhi did not deny that history may indeed have recorded ‘facts’ or that certain events may have occurred. He was indifferent to history not because he did not believe in ‘facts’ but because he saw the role o f history as largely conflictual and divisive and thought Indians were better off without it. 52 Ibid., 6. 53 Ibid., 13. 54 Quoted in Savarkar, SSV, v.5 ,26.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 293

Islam by force.. .Not one mosque was destroyed by Marathas or Rajputs and not a single Muslim was forced to become a Hindu. Which religion is more peaceful, Hindu or Islam?55

In this instance, as in many other instances, he was often angered by what he termed

Gandhi’s historical ignorance and ahistorical sensibility, arguing that the Mahatma

needed to pay more attention to historical ‘facts’.

It is evident that Gandhi and Savarkar were operating on two different planes.

Gandhi’s statements about Islam were not concerned with historical analysis; it mattered

little to him if indeed ‘historical evidence’ proved otherwise.56 Contra Savarkar,

Gandhi’s claim was a moral one, based on what he viewed as the eternal truth of Islam,

irrespective of its historical ‘veracity’. The two may indeed have overlapped but that was

not important to Gandhi. Affirming a moral claim such as the peacefulness of Islam was

more important than arguing about its historical veracity, thereby allowing morality to

take precedence over history. In Savarkar, the reverse tendency was exhibited; historical

‘truths’ were more important and had to guide actions of the present.

Thus ‘historical evidence’ according to him showed that Islam had always been

violent and expansionary and therefore all Muslims exhibited the same tendency both in

the past and present; their history could not make them otherwise. He referred to

Gandhi’s position as “unitihasik khotepana” or ahistorical lies.57 Anyone, he argues,

“who has studied Indian history and knows anything about it will acknowledge this.”58

He goes on to exhort Hindus to ‘remember’ historical ‘truths’:

55 Ibid. Translation mine. 56 For an insightful argument on Gandhi’s indifference to history, which has influenced my views, see Lai, "History and the Possibilities of Emancipation: Some Lessons from India," 124-28. 57 Savarkar, SSV, v.5, 290. 58 Ibid., 289.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 294

Oh Hindus, on the basis of thousands of sentences in the Koran, lakhs of Muslim maulvis, missionaries and soldiers have been spreading Islam through force and greed and spread of Islam always treated as primary duty. This is the bitter truth, which you should always remember, or you will deceive yourself through false greatness and an illusion of security which is harmful. Don’t hate Muslims per se, don’t dislike them but spread of their religion through force is their way of life. This is a historic truth, bearing that in mind, try to raise your strength to such a point that you will be able to blunt the thrust of their coercive and forcible proselytization.. .Hindu society should be so powerful that not only Muslims but no one else should be able to apply any force against them. This fight for justice should be both mental as well as physical. Only then can you get justice in this world.59

In the case of Phule and Ranade, while historical truths mattered, they did not always

override all other claims. Despite Phule’s belief that Brahmans had oppressed Shudras

throughout history, he was more willing to concede that Brahmans’ ethical claims and

actions in the present could indicate some form of conciliation. For Savarkar, since

history ‘proved’ Muslims to be ‘bigots’ and ‘fanatical’, no moral claims by them in the

present could change ‘historical facts’. Morality in his case was sacrificed at the altar of

historical ‘objectivity’, contrary to Gandhi’s position, which was exactly the reverse.

Writing the Hindu Nation through History

Savarkar’s world-view was framed around the primacy of the Hindu nation and

this nation, like any other, had to have a history. The significance of history according to

him, therefore, rested in its ability to show the development of this nation over time, and

in particular the assimilation of various races60 into a Hindu rashtra. He exhorted all

Hindus to study history in order to gain awareness of this age-old ‘unity’ of the Hindu

nation. Despite all differences amongst Hindus, he pointed out, the realization that they

Ibid, 290. Translation mine. Here Christians and Muslims are excluded.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 295

were part of one unity was made possible only through knowledge of history. Historical

awareness was therefore also national awareness. As Savarkar put it-

The nation that has no consciousness of its past has no future. Equally true is that a nation must develop its capacity not only of claiming a past but also of knowing how to use it for the furtherance of its future. The nation ought to be the master and not the slave of its own history.61

He held up England as the role model, which he argues was able to forge diverse

languages, customs, and peoples into a unified Britain, where these differences were

submerged in the face of national loyalty. ED

Throughout Savarkar’s writings, the historical existence of the Hindu nation is

assumed, brought about by ‘brave’ Hindu rulers who fought in the ‘national interest’. His

Six Glorious Epochs o f Indian History writes such a ‘national’ ‘history’ in which,

contrary to Ambedkar and colonial claims about Hindu ‘effeminacy’, Savarkar argues

there is adequate ‘evidence’ pointing to Hindu valor and courage driven by nationalism.

Both Savarkar and Ambedkar, while debating the role of Hindus, relied heavily on a

historical analysis, which Gandhi disregarded altogether. And both Ambedkar and

Savarkar were deeply frustrated at Gandhi’s lack of historical knowledge and interest.

According to Ambedkar, the historical life of “Hindus, has been a life of continuous

defeat. It is a mode of survival of which every Hindu should feel ashamed.”64 Savarkar’s

Six Glorious Epochs o f Indian History can be read as a response to such claims made by

Quoted in Noorani, Savarkar and Hindutva: The Godse Connection, 40. 62 For Savarkar, Hindus are more likely to give undivided loyalty to their nation unlike Muslims who he argues are drawn to their faith and religion, and not their nation. 63 Ambedkar stated that he treated sacred texts purely in a historical fashion, “to be examined and tested by accepted rules of evidence without recognizing any distinction between the sacred and the profane and with the sole object of finding the truth.” Valerian Rodrigues,The Essential Writings o f B.R. Ambedkar (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002), 392. He goes on to say “In writing about theShudras I have had present in my mind no other consideration except that o f pure history.” Ibid., 394. 54 Quoted in Savarkar, Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History, 131.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 296

Ambedkar about Hindu ‘weakness’ and ‘passivity’. It can also be read as a retort to

Gandhi, who Savarkar believed was actually celebrating this ‘passivity’ rather than

countering it. He, therefore, saw it as incumbent upon himself to ‘defend’ the Hindus,

through history, which he argued allowed one to scientifically ‘prove’ that Hindus were

indeed courageous, masculine, and capable of valor and violence.

He divides this ‘glorious’ Hindu history into six epochs, each marked by one or a

set of ‘brave’ Hindu rulers who fought valiantly and defeated the foreigners. The first

epoch begins during the time of the Emperor Chandragupta Maurya and the defeat of

Alexander in India. This is followed by epochs, in which rulers such as Pushyamitra,

Vikramaditya, Yasodharma, and later Maratha rulers are highlighted. He argues that

each of these Hindu rulers were victorious against the Greeks, Turks, Afghans, Mongols,

and other invaders, thereby dispelling the notion that Hindus had been historically

‘passive’ and ‘feeble’. Hindus such as the Marathas fought back the invading Muslims

and established what he refers to as Hindupadpadshahi (Hindu Empire). These Hindu

rulers, he argued, behaved in the ‘national interest’ since Hindus historically were part of

a common nation. Marauding foreigners (especially pre-Islamic ones which he says

eventually became Hindus) were absorbed into Indian society by the sword and not

through peaceful means. He asks why Hinduism did not get wiped out in the face of so

many invasions. For Savarkar, Hinduism survived because of Hindu rulers’ ability to

fight back, as argued in his Six Glorious Epochs o f Indian History.

However, an alternative, more ‘traditional’ Hindu’s response would be to say

Hinduism survived because it absorbed the differences by stratifying the newcomer into a

separate ‘caste’ or group with its exclusive beliefs and practices. While there was little

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 297

assimilation in the realm of marriage or the family, each was given a place within the

larger social order. This allowed the group to maintain its own identity, albeit within a

well defined hierarchy where the state held a relatively marginal role vis-a-vis other

societal groups. As Kaviraj points out, what is famously referred to as Hindu ‘tolerance’,

was nothing but a manner of organizing difference around a polity structured differently

from that of the modem one65 with a “peculiar combination of absorption and

rejection.”66

Savarkar acknowledged that even though there was historical proof to show

Hindu rulers challenged the invaders, there also was evidence to show they often

succumbed willingly. This act of not ‘retaliating’ in his martial, modernist world-view

could only reflect Hindu ‘cowardice’ and ‘passivity’, not alternative ways in which to

conceptualize difference. Hindus he argued, needed to adopt traits from Muslims who

were more ‘masculine’ and ‘ruthless’ or learn from their own ancient past when such

tendencies were prevalent. As he put it: “The war-strategy of Nursinh of the ancient

times, which sought a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye had now become vegetarian,

Sudipta Kaviraj, "Religion, Politics and Modernity," inCrisis and Change in Contemporary India, ed. Upendra and Bhikhu Parekh Baxi (New Delhi: Sage, 1995). 66 Sudipta Kaviraj, "On State, Society and Discourse in India," in Rethinking Third World Politics, ed. Janies Manor (London and New York: Longman, 1991), 77. Kaviraj writes “Gradually, indigenous society allowed the two types of Islamic groups-the military entrants and the large masses of indigenous converts-to settle down into exclusive groups or circles of their own, obeying in an indirect sense the exclusivist logic o f the Hindu social order.. .The two communities retained their distinctness unlike, say, in England where Normans and Saxons mixed into a distinctly new indiscernible identity. Yet the historical record seems to indicate a remarkably low degree of organised violence.. .Nationalist history in India put this down to the principles of unity in diversity, or mutual tolerance, and thus a conscious decision o f the leaders to create a composite culture. I feel this was more due to the logic o f social organization and the fuzziness of the world of communities.” In “Religion, Politics and Modernity,” 303-4. While I agree with Kaviraj to a large extent, I would argue there was a certain pragmatism inbuilt into this ‘pre-modem’ social order that recognized the need for interdependence, cultural, political or economic. This is not to say that there was no conflict but each seemed to recognize they needed the Other to exist.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 298

submissive, tolerant and shameless.”67 It was this ‘tolerance’ he argues that was and

continued to be Hinduism’s downfall;

From the very ancient times, the Hindus have been boasting of their high ideals of religious tolerance, of the equal status they conceded to all the religions of the world, of preaching the sameness of Ram and Rahim, of allowing everyone to follow his own faith! This they considered to be the height of their religion! Instead of massacring en masse the hundreds of thousands of Muslims, who from time to time fell in their hands completely vanquished and utterly helpless, in order to avenge the untold wrongs and humiliation heaped by them on Hindus, the Hindus in their turn refrained from doing the Muslims slightest harm because they were in the minority and belonged to another religion. On the contrary, the Muslims were allowed to enhance the glory and scope of their own religion without the least possible hindrance...—a fact which is borne out by pages after pages of Indian history.. .Religious tolerance! A virtue!.. .But to tolerate the Muslim religion, the followers of which right from the Sultans like Mahmud of Ghazni and Ghori and others to the various Shahs and Badshahs thought it their religious obligation to massacre the Kafir Hindus to celebrate their accession to the throne and had been carrying on horrible religious persecution of the Hindus for nearly a thousand years, was tantamount to cut the throat’s of one’s own religion!.. .It was not even tolerance, it was impotence! ...Ahimsa (non-violence), kindness, chivalry, even towards the enemy women, protection of an abjectly capitulating enemy.. .and religious tolerance were all virtues no doubt—very noble virtues! But it is blind and slovenly—even impotent—adoption of all these virtues, irrespective of any consideration.68

Traditional Hinduism’s manner of coping with ‘difference, while also violent,

such as embodied in the practice of untouchability, also grudgingly accepted the Other or

non-Hindu, even if there were no syncretic bonds or love between communities. It had

an in-built mechanism of allowing the Other to exist, even if assimilation was at a

minimum or even if there was outright hostility at times between communities, castes and

other groups. Savarkar’s rejection of these traditional techniques of coping with

difference, which he saw as Hinduism’s weakness rather than strength, was as Nandy has

pointed out, a death-call to Hinduism itself. And this death he says would be

Savarkar, Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History, 258. Ibid., 187.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 299

celebrated by the votaries of Hindutva. For they have all along felt embarrassed and humiliated by Hinduism as it is; hence the pathetic, counter phobic emphasis in Hindutva on the pride that Hindus must feel in being Hindus.69

Savarkar’s aggressive emphasis on history in his writings point to his repugnance

of traditional Hinduism’s indifference to quests for historical origins and historical

attitudes in general.70 Traditional Hinduism, with its tremendous fragmentation of castes,

sects, and communities and other groups was not conducive to writing ‘Hindu’

‘nationalist’ histories. History provided the most suitable rationalist terrain to construct

such a singular homogenous nationalist discourse. All events in the past were then seen

to ‘fit’ this Hindu nationalist narrative. One such instance in his Six Glorious Epochs

highlights this general approach. When discussing a historical story about Chanakya

who became the chief advisor to king Chandragupta Maurya, Savarkar dismisses claims

that the former rose to power to address personal vendettas, rather than nationalist

aspirations.

Savarkar recounts the popular version of the story: The Emperor of the state of

Nanda, Chandragupta’s father, during an inspection round of his royal palace where

Chanakya was serving as a officer in the Grants Commission, insulted the latter by

pulling his tuft of hair (he was a Brahman) and jeering at his ugly, disfigured body.

Chanakya at that point made a vow to destroy the Emperor and bring about his downfall.

It is this incident which led to the rise of one of the most famous and Machiavellian

advisors in history, the brain behind the emergence of one of the most powerful

69 Ashis Nandy, "The Twilight of Certitudes: Secularism, Hindu Nationalism, and Other Masks of Deculturation," Alternatives, no. 22 (1997): 171. 70 It is not as if traditional Hinduism is indifferent to founding myths, which every caste, community and sect has in India. Each one has a story that talks about where the group came from or its beginnings but these are rarely historical in the modem sense of the term but almost always mythical.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 300

71 dynasties, that of the Mauryas. Savarkar disputes this version because of the suggestion

that the “India-wide revolution that he (Chanakya) successfully brought about was not for

the sake of freeing the Indian land from the foreign Mlenchcha domination, but only to

avenge his personal insult. For this very reason this •anecdote is •clearly perverted.” 10

Rather, “It is for the progress and prosperity of his own nation and motherland that Nanda

was destroyed!”73 Chanakya, in Savarkar’s view, could only be guided by nationalist, not

personal considerations. He had to be written into history as a nationalist, guided solely

by dreams of liberating India.

Savarkar’s voluminous historical writings largely emphasize militaristic Hindu

rulers who ‘defended’ the nation. What is intriguing though is that the same themes are

highlighted just as forcefully through the use of historical fiction, namely through large

numbers of poems, plays and ballads. While Savarkar clearly believed in the separation

between historical fact and fiction, he was also aware of the power and effectiveness of

these other modes to convey a historicist Hindu nationalist imagination. In that sense the

methods he used were not entirely dissimilar from that of Phule’s. While Ranade

confined himself to sermons to a select audiences, speeches, reports and newspaper

articles, Savarkar attempted to reach non-elite audiences through the use of popular forms

such as powadas (ballads), short stories, and plays, some of which were actually staged.

Since one of his primary objectives was to inculcate a scientific temper and nationalist

spirit amongst ordinary Hindus, he used popular means also to reach his target audiences.

He relies for his claims on one of the most orientalist colonial historians, Vincent Smith. Savarkar, Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History, 44. Ibid., 45.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 301

In one of his essays written for a Shivaji festival for instance, Shivaji himself

comes back to the present and exhorts his ‘fellow Hindus’ to shed their effeminacy and

remember his legacy of uniting the Hindu rashtra. But as Kaviraj has asked, does writing

historical fiction alongside that of ‘factual’ histories indicate, in the case of Bankim, an

implicit awareness of the constructedness and imaginary nature of history?74 Or that it is

predominantly a discourse of power? Savarkar nowhere appears to demonstrate such

ambivalence. In an essay on Ranjit Singh, he briefly outlines his position on

historiography. History he argues has to be based purely on evidence while historical

fiction is creative and entertaining, but not ‘objective.’ He writes:

If one is to write history or itihas, then it should be iti-h-as. What consequences this history will have on the present, is not the concern of the historian. Based on the sources and evidence the historian must seek the truth.76

This includes he argues not bringing one’s own ‘biases’ while writing history.

History he goes on, is about telling the past ‘as is’, excluding one’s own passions. It is

the historian’s duty, he argues, to accurately portray the context and the times, avoiding

anachronisms. He points out that while he writes ‘objective’ histories, others such as

Congress supporters write ‘Congress influenced histories’, which fail to take into account

Muslim ‘atrocities’ on Hindus. In the case of India, he argues history is characterized by

a Hindu-Muslim conflict, which should be ‘objectively’ exposed. Veracity of the past he

argues, comes first, not concerns about what the political implications of such findings on

Kaviraj, The Unhappy Consciousness. 75 Savarkar exhorts Hindus to view religious deities and religious men or ‘devic purush’ as historical men or ‘itihasic purush'. Celebrations of them are therefore historical celebrations, not religious ones; thus deities such as Ram and Krishna are historical, not religious figures according to Savarkar and no different from more recent ones such as Shivaji. 76 Savarkar, SSV, v.4, 178. Translation mine.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 302

the present are. He points out that the Welsh, Scottish and English are united while living

peacefully in the present although their histories are full of conflict.

But it is doubtful whether he wrote historical fiction or powadas (ballads) on

historical figures such as Tanaji77 only to entertain; Savarkar was too shrewd a politician

for that. He was well aware that in a society where these modes of communication were

more accessible and resonant than ‘factual’ history, his message would be far more

effective and widespread. Historicism linked to nationalism was not only confined to

‘factual’ histories, but imaginative ones as well. As Prachi Deshpande argues, the limited

narratives thrown up in Marathi fictional writings dealing with the past such as the

stereotypical ‘marauding’ ‘fanatical’ Muslims and Maratha valor, indicated the “demands

of nationalism, which drew other boundaries, within which this historical imagination

was forced to function.”78 In either manner ‘history’ whether ‘factual’ or ‘fictitive,’ was

the primary site for articulating a modem Hindu identity. Savarkar’s modem Hindu self

was primarily historical and political, not religious; hence his emphatic assertions that his

philosophy and politics were not about Hinduism as a religious system but about

Hindutva.

Hindutva: The Historio-Political Face of Hinduism, not Faith

Savarkar makes a stark distinction at the outset of his work Hindutva, between

Hinduism and Hindutva, largely on politico-historical terms: “Hindutva is not a word but

a history.. .Hinduism is only a derivative, a fraction, a part of Hindutva.” 70 In other

77 Tanaji was Shivaji’s lieutenant who sacrificed his life to win the Kondana fort near Pune for his leader. 78 Deshpande, Narratives of Pride, 132. 79 V.D. Savarkar, Hindutva (Bombay: Veer Savarkar Prakashan, 1969), 3.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 303

words he argues Hindutva has little connection with religion, which becomes apparent

once he begins to define a Hindu. A Hindu according to him is not someone who

believes in the Vedas, or non-Brahmanic deities or follows certain religious practices or

OA customs but a member of the Hindu race, whose holy lands are in India. The main

criteria is territorial and ethnic, closely aligned to nation-hood; all those whose holy lands

are in India such as Sikhs, Buddhist and Hindus are Hindus (also Indians), but others

such as Christians and Muslims have ‘divided loyalties’ (i.e. to the nation) since their

holy lands are elsewhere. The criteria then for being an Indian is being a Hindu; “He is

an Indian because he is a Hindu. He is not a Hindu because he is an Indian.. .India is dear

to him because Hindutwa flourished there and because it is the Father Land of the Hindu

a i Race and the Holy Land of his Hindu Gods.” In his view, non-Hindus have no sacred

associations to this land either in their myths or holy places, and “Consequently their

names and their outlook smack of a foreign origin. Their love is divided.”

In such a conceptualization, religious identification has to be aligned with a

territorial one; Muslims for instance cannot be loyal to Islam and India at the same time

because their belief in the sacredness of Mecca would entail a greater love for it than that

of the nation.83 With other non-Hindu groups such as Buddhists on the other hand, their

love for Buddhist holy lands would not counteract that of the nation since both would

He rejects orthodox claims that following certain religious practices makes a person a Hindu; this he argues would alienate many groups who would otherwise be part of the larger Hindu umbrella, defined not in any religious sense but as a homogenous race, belonging to a homogenous nation. 81 V.D. Savarkar, Veer Savarkar's "Whirld-Wind Propaganda". Statements, Messages and Extracts from the President's Diary of His Propagandistic Tours, Interviews from December 1937 to October 1941 (Bombay: Anant S. Bhide, 1941), 260. 82 Savarkar, Hindutva, 113. 83 It is not surprising, therefore, that Savarkar was an ardent supporter of the creation o f a Jewish state of Israel since it was a nation based upon a holy land. He advocated the creation of Israel in Palestine, through “unrestricted recolonization” with the argument that it was their holy land while the Arabs should leave since they, the Arabs originally drove the Israelis out. See Savarkar’sWhirl-WindPropaganda, 71.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 304

seem to overlap. For Savarkar, only the nation was capable of receiving supreme and

undivided allegiance. National solidarity therefore comes in “the case of people who

inhabit the land they adore, the land of whose forefathers is also the land of their Gods

and Angels, of Seers and Prophets.”84

The Hindu nation in other words is already taken as a historical given, and this

national unity comes about historically. Hindus were those who historically lived across

the river Sindhu: “Thus in the very dawn of history we find ourselves belonging to the

O ff nation of the Sindhus or Hindus.” Hindu myths are read as historical events, that is, part

of a common Hindu history. Thus in the Ramayana, king Rama’s defeat of Ceylon is

seen to mark the welding of both Aryans and non-Aryans into a ‘nation’, as “that day was

the real birth-day of our Hindu people. It was truly our national day.”86 Differences

amongst those who were foreigners (Aryans) and the indigenous peoples were resolved

since the

word Arya is expressly stated in the very verses to mean all those who had been incorporated as parts integral in the nation and people that flourished on this our side of the Indus whether Vaidik or Avaidik, Brahmana or Chandal, and owning and claiming to have inherited a common culture, common blood, common country and 07 common polity.

And these common ties were reinforced by Islamic invasions since all faced their wrath.

Thus Savarkar writes that the “Sanatanists, Satnamis, Sikhs, Aryas, Anaryas,

Marathas.. .all suffered as Hindus and triumphed as Hindus.”88 This allowed a common

feeling of Hinduness. As he puts it: “This one world, Hindutva, ran like a vital spinal

84 Savarkar, Hindutva, 136. 85 Ibid., 7. 86 Ibid., 12. 87 Ibid., 33. 88 Ibid., 45.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 305

cord through our body politic and made the Nayars of Malabar weep over the sufferings

of the Brahmins of Kashmir.”89 Hindus are thus part of a single ‘race-jati’90, sharing not

only common blood but also common ‘Sanskriti’ or civilization. Here is Savarkar-

That is why Christian and Mohammedan communities, who, were but very recently Hindus.. .claim though they might have a common Fatherland, and an almost pure Hindu blood and parentage with us, cannot be recognized as Hindus; as since their adoption of the new cult they had ceased to own Hindu civilization (Sanskriti) as a whole. They belong, or feel that they belong to a cultural unit altogether different from the Hindu one. Their heroes and their hero-worship, their fairs and their festivals, their ideals and their outlook on life, have now ceased to be common with ours.91

Savarkar vehemently denies his beliefs are related to Hinduism as a religion; in

fact he constantly refers to it as a sanskriti or cultural system. However, interestingly

scholars such as Nandy, Lai, Kaviraj and others have also argued, Hinduism in pre

colonial times was more a way of life, far more amorphous and loosely defined. Less of

a ‘religion’ and more lived behavior, Lipner describes Hinduism as a family of

religions/traditions or cultural systems. On the face of it then it appears Savarkar is in

consonance with these scholars and a pre-colonial version, which claims to be all

encompassing, as a way of life, or culture (of which the social and political are integral

parts) rather than a ‘religion’. However if one probes a little further, it becomes clear

89 Ibid., 46. 90 This is Savarkar’s own term.Jati refers to a group to which one belongs. This is not exclusive to Hindus but exists within Sikhs, Muslims and others as well. A jati is more complex than a caste identity since it is more specific; for instance there are hundreds of Brahman jatis within the Brahman caste fold itself. Each jati has its own set of rules and arrangements which percolate to all aspects o f life. According to Lipner, “For Hindus,ja ti is not only a social term, it has religious, economic, occupational, psychological and other connotations as and when the context demands”. Julius Lipner,Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), 112. It is likely that Savarkar here is referring to Hindus in racial terms and as a ‘jati’, governed by a shared set of cultural symbols, regulations and customs. 91 Savarkar, Hindutva, 101. 92 Julius Lipner, "Ancient Banyan: An Inquiry into the Meaning o f ’Hinduness',"Religious Studies 32(1996): 112.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 306

there are fundamental differences between the two; in the former Hinduism is not seen as

rigidly bounded, but fluid and amorphous (where insiders and outsiders are not clearly

defined) thereby allowing diversity. It is also concerned with shared spaces of piety and

religiosity, as inseparable from politics.

In Savarkar’s case on the other hand Hinduism is historically bounded, obsessed

with history, rigidly defined, shuns difference while defining Hindus essentially around a

political identity, in which the nation and state play a primary role. The gendered

differences underlying both are also significant. The former is at ease with femininity

while the other shuns it. Savarkar’s notion of Hindutva, therefore, is linked to Hinduism,

only with all religiosity, and religious customs and practices shorn of it. What is

privileged in turn is the terrain of politics and history, which are inextricably linked to

nation-hood. All transcendental aspects are relegated to the private sphere (if at all).

What he therefore ends up advocating is an instrumental use of religion since he is not

denying the use of religious symbols and affiliations in the public sphere; he in fact calls

for the need to “Hinduise all politics and militarise Hindudom.”93 He merely wants to rid

them of all religious or spiritual meaning.

This is typified in Savarkar’s approach towards the use of Hindu religious

festivals for political/instrumental purposes. The Ganpathi or Ganesh festival is a case in

point. Ganpathi, the elephant-headed god has been the favorite deity of Chitpavan

Brahmans in particular. Tilak, himself a member of this community, was instrumental in

popularizing the Ganpathi festival as primarily a political movement in the late 1800’s

and early 1900’s. In earlier times the Ganpathi festival which concludes with submerging

93 Quoted in Keer, Veer Savarkar, 295.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 307

the idol of Lord Ganesha or Ganpathi in water, was generally a private affair conducted

in homes of Brahmans. But Tilak made this private custom a public one, by linking it to

anti-colonial politics and bringing other non-Brahman Hindus also into this celebration,

making it a basis of a shared public political Hindu identity, rather than merely a religious

one. While the seeds of Hindutva can perhaps be found here, Tilak still straddled a much

more ambivalent position. For Tilak, as a practicing, albeit modernist Brahman,

Ganpathi was both a political symbol and a living deity. Hence the religious dimensions

of the festival were not completely denied in the process.

Savarkar, unlike his role model Tilak regarded the Ganpathi festival in purely

instrumental terms. While decrying idol and animal worship as superstitious, he

advocated the use of an ‘irrational’ idol for political processions that would help forge a

Hindu nationalist identity. The distinction between Hinduism and Hindutva becomes

clear in his discussion on the uses of religious festivals. He refers to differences between

the Pandharpur94 religious processions and that of the Ganesh Utsav95 or festival, two

very significant religious festivals in the region. The former, he points out, is purely a

religious event not conducive to political organizing whereas the latter is inherently

political. Thus he writes-

There is an important difference between Pandhori festival and national level Ganesh festival. Pandharpur’s congregation brings Hindus together only on religious, spiritual grounds, through the threads of religious unity. On the other hand Ganesh utsav is

In the bhakti religious processions , thousands of devotees, known as Varkaris, carry their saints’ palkis or palanquins from their birthplaces to their final destination, which is the temple o f Vitthal in Pandharpur. Every year, the devotees reenact the journey the saints once made from their hometowns to that of their lord Vitthal. This festival has carried on uninterruptedly for the past four hundred years. 95 In the contemporary Ganesh festival (after it became a public affair), devotees carry the idol of Ganpathi or Ganesh on the tenth day from the time the idol is brought home through the streets to a water body, whether it is a lake, river or sea where it is submerged with loud chanting, calling on this day to ‘return quickly the following year’. It is no longer conducted only in homes but also organized by large neighborhood committees, some of which are affiliated to political parties.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 308

sarvajanik or social/public in nature. Its basis of worship is inherently national; by bringing together a consciousness of Hindu national unity, it motivates people to create a homogeneous and united feeling.96

Savarkar strongly advocates the Ganesh festival primarily for political reasons

while he has little use for its devotional purposes. In fact, he argues that the religious

elements should be downplayed whereas only its national dimensions should be

highlighted. Here he turns to Arya Samajis for support, whom he argues denounce idol

worship as a contemporary corruption of ancient ‘glorious’ Hinduism. Like the Arya

Samajis, he points out, idol-worship is not necessary to Hinduism but can be replaced by

devotion to the nation.

We don’t want to see spiritual effects or religious benefits of Ganesh festival but how this festival is useful in today’s situation in developing material and practical strength on this earth and national consciousness/national organization. We are also not interested in the religious dimension or image worship in this festival. 0 7

He justifies his own participation and advocacy of such a festival purely from a utilitarian

standpoint arguing that it does not contradict his own rationalism or atheism since what is

primarily at stake here is politics, i.e. pushing forward a Hindu nationalist agenda. It is

not necessary to believe in it in religious terms and in fact discourages people from doing

so since it is ‘irrational’.

The danger occurs he argues, when people actually start blurring the lines

between politics and faith such as when they start offering food, garlanding and

worshipping the idol or figure at hand, while believing it controls their destinies. He

points to western countries as ‘role models’, where they have successfully made such

distinctions and do ‘not go about offering food to their statues in their cities’, which the

96 Savarkar, SSV, v.5, 334. Translation mine. 97 Savarkar,SSV, v.5, 335. Translation mine.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 309

‘ignorant’ Hindus have been unable to ‘learn’. In the West, he argues these are viewed as

symbols of liberty or are purely aesthetic, both, which, are conducive to political

organizing. Similarly, Ganpathi should be viewed no differently from historical figures

such as Shivaji, Lenin, symbols of Liberty and so on, all which are tied to national pride

and unification. These festivals he states should not become ‘ tamashas ’ or spectacles of

mere singing, dancing and raucous behavior, but display a single minded focus towards

uniting Hindus through collective community/nation building projects, which should

include all castes. “Even from the point of view of rationality and from building Hindu

national organization, this festival is very important and the reformists should not hesitate

to take part in it.”98

Savarkar’s Modem Hindu Self

Forging a singular Hindu identity whose primary affiliation or loyalty was not to

religious deities or other kinship, familial or caste ties but to the nation was Savarkar’s

primary objective. It was imperative in his mind that Hindus consolidate themselves as

‘Hindus’,

We always accuse our opponents that they follow a policy of divide and rule to undermine the strength of the Hindu people. But if we ourselves persist in dividing out consolidated strength numerical or otherwise, by cutting up Hindudom in different pieces refusing even to own a common name to indicate our integrity as a people, what blame can attach to our opponents if they take advantage of this our suicidal tendency with a view to undermine the numerical strength of us Hindus and to break our consolidated political Being as a people and as a Nation by ourselves?99

Any ‘other’ kind of affiliation was seen as a ‘threat’ or impediment to the forging of such

a national identity including Muslim religiosity and belief in pan-Islamism. Gandhi, on

98 Savarkar, SSV, v.5, 338. 99 Savarkar, “Whirl-Wind Propaganda,” 300.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 310

the other hand, saw no contradiction between the two, as demonstrated in his support for

the pan-Islamic Khilafat movement.100

For Savarkar, believing in modernist notions of abstract equality and

‘disembedded’ homogeneous identities, the complex social universe in India that

constituted a ‘Muslim’, a ‘Sikh’ or a ‘Hindu’ was anathema to him. Identities had to be

singular, well bounded and well defined. For him, all these overlapping identities needed

to be abstracted and crystallized into a monolithic one. His whole life’s effort was in a

sense an attempt to forge this singular Hindu identity, which would be centered primarily

around nationalism, knowing very well that it did not exist but had to be constructed.

Hence his vocal support for the Census during these years101 and exhortations to Hindus

to register thereby ‘enumerating’ themselves. If one belonged to a particular sect that

could not be classified, one had to choose to be so. Hindus would therefore be

constituted into a ‘majority’ by sheer dominance of their numbers.

In this manner of thinking, all other markers of identity such as amongst others,

tribe, caste, region, language and place of habitation, prevalent in India, are abstracted

into homogeneous markers such as ‘Hindus’ or ‘Muslims’ which become significant in

modem politics. While this is not to say that such markers did not exist earlier and

indeed they did, they also overlapped with others, and were embedded within contexts

rather than becoming abstract, singular and fixed markers of identities. These large

Gandhi was not supportive of the modem nation-state, but adhered to an open-ended, non- exclusivist notion of Indian civilization, which came from his ecumenical Hinduism. 101 See Savarkar’s speech on the need for the Hindu Mahasabha to advocate the Census and assist the British in carrying it out. The speech is entitled “Hindu Sabhas, Watch Out: The Coming Census and Your Duty” in “Whirldwind Propaganda,” 266.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 311

generic categories as bases of conflict as Nandy points out is a much more recent

phenomenon102.

As Kaviraj points out, pre-colonial Hinduism was a ‘thick’ religion-people were

embedded in a multiplicity of social worlds and beliefs, which resulted in a tremendous

fragmentation of religious groups within the wide umbrella of Hinduism itself, and it is

not clear that one group would call itself similar to the other, namely as ‘Hindus.’ 1 0^ This

is precisely what Savarkar feared. Jains or Arya Samajis would constitute their own sects

due to differences with Brahmanic Hindus as also tribals who would have little in

common with any of these. This would then be reflected in the Census, whereby Hindus

would be ‘fragmented’ and ‘disorganized’. Savarkar felt a tremendous urgency to

transform these divergent religious sects into a singular one, whether Hindu or Muslim104,

by going from conceptions of ‘thick’ to ‘thin’ religions.

In fact the debate about who is a ‘Hindu’, which lower caste intellectuals such as

Phule, and Ambedkar brought to the fore, greatly troubled Savarkar’s notions of a

singular Hindu identity. He was acutely aware of this and hence the aggressive

missionary zeal with which he believed this transformation or social engineering needed

to be brought about. He called upon Hindu Mahasabha workers to aid and assist the

British in their Census operations and travel to remote areas to convince people they were

‘Hindus’.

There happen to be some communities like the Santhals, Gond, Bhils etc. etc. who although they are indifferently called, in the general vogue, as Aborigines or Fetish

102 Nandy, “The Twilight of Certitudes, ” 162. 103 Kaviraj, “Religion, Politics and Modernity,” 307. 104 According to Savarkar, Muslims too could not be loosely defined but had to ‘enumerated’. He even exhorted Mahasabha workers to ensure the British also counted Muslim women living behind curtains or observing ‘parada’. Savarkar, “Whirldwind Propaganda,” 277-278.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 312

Worshippers or Animists etc., are in fact Hindus.. .It must be looked upon as one of the most urgent tasks by the Hindu Sabhas to get these communities registered definitely as Hindus in this Census without fail.105

Savarkar himself also led many ‘shuddhV or conversion campaigns to convert people into

Hinduism as he believed only Hindus would be ‘loyal’ to the nation and their numbers

had therefore to be increased.

He was thus a big proponent of a ‘ maj oritarian’ - ‘ minoritarian’ discourse that was

to become dominant in Indian politics from the late colonial period onwards. For him,

once Hindus were seen as a numerical ‘majority’, Hinduism had to become the dominant

national religion and ‘Hindu interests’ paramount.106 The terms of a majority-minority

discourse had been set. Even critics of Hindu nationalists often fell prey to the same

discourse, arguing that ‘minorities’ had to be ‘protected’ from the ‘majority’.

Savarkar vehemently opposed caste practices and exhorted Hindu Mahasabhaites

to transgress all caste rules as far as possible to unite Hindus. While his opposition to

untouchability and caste oppression was admirable, and was acknowledged by many

lower caste leaders, he also held as Ram Bapat points out, an instrumental view towards

caste107. His main opposition to caste was that such affiliations created undesirable

boundaries between and amongst Hindus, acting as an impediment to the creation of

singular identities, which was tied closely to his belief in the primacy of the nation. As

Veena Das argues the modem social order vests all authority and control including those

105 Ibid., 270-71. 106 He himself knew these common interests were not apparent but had to be forged. As he says: “A Hindu has always been known not to look further than his nose and not to care a fig for the interests and sufferings o f Hindudom as a whole.” Ibid, 403. 107 Ram Bapat, interview by Apama Devare, personal communication, 8 July 2003, Pune, India. Professor Bapat, a retired professor in Political Science at the University o f Pune, made this point to me during my field-work in Pune.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 313

relating to private matters in the modem state while decrying ‘primordial’ loyalties such

as caste, religion and so on as ‘atavistic’. While in the past, this was often the domain of

community relations or that of castes, these were taken over by the state once the British

began to rule India.108

Savarkar, a strong statist and nationalist, was acutely aware that sects and castes

could act as alternative sites of identity representing another type of community, which in

fact could run contra to the nation, impeding its development. A Hindu identity primarily

based on the nation, he argued, would lead to no objections being raised by religious

sects that did not want to associate with Hinduism, the religion. It would then be easy to

advance convincing proofs to the full satisfaction of our Jain, Devasamaji, Arya Samaji and other non-Sanatani or non-Vaidic Hindu brothers in persuading them to register themselves as Hindus under the above arrangement-It should be clearly understood that ‘Hindudom’ is a wider conception and entity than what is implied by “Hinduism” or “Vaidicism” which is only a religious aspect of Hindutva.109

Savarkar’s opposition to caste stemmed from his belief in the primacy of the nation-state

as a source of identity unlike his contemporaries such as Gandhi and predecessors Tilak

and Ranade.

All these men in their different ways recognized this intermediary role of caste in

the form of caste associations or caste affiliations as a potential site of social grouping

and identification. Despite vast differences in the political positions they espoused, could

it be that their shared ambivalence toward the power, intrusive capacity and control of the

modem nation-state could have perhaps led them not to reject caste outright, which to

108 Veena Das, "Difference and Division as Designs for Life," in Contemporary Indian Tradition: Voices on Culture, Nature, and the Challenge o f Change, ed. Carla Borden (Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989), 51. 109 Savarkar, Veer Savarkar's "Whirld-Wind Propaganda". Statements, Messages and Extracts from the President's Diary of His Propagandistic Tours, Interviews from December 1937 to October 1941, 211.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 314

many at the time appeared as socially regressive positions?110 While aware of the

horrendous effects of caste (although Tilak displayed much less sensitivity in this regard),

each was searching for alternative bases of community and shared identity to that of the

state. In Gandhi’s case, perhaps rightly or wrongly, he believed it could have acted as a

buffer against the singularity of a national identity, which was increasingly framed in

majoritarian (Hindu)-minoritarian (Muslim) terms. As long as an abstract Hindu

(increasingly equated with Indian) political identity did not emerge, immersed in the din

of multiple affiliations such as caste, region, language, sect, the marginalization of

Muslims in the newly emerging national public sphere could have been averted. But this

process was much beyond Gandhi’s reach and voices such as Savarkar’s and other non-

Hindutva nationalists were already vociferous.

For Savarkar, as for many others, the dilution of caste, religious sects, tribes and

other affiliations were required in order to create a modem ‘Hindu’ whose primary

identity and affinity was to that of the nation. Yet the difference between him and other

modernists (such as Nehru for instance) was that while others spumed Hindutva, he used

religion, in a purely political/instrumental sense as the replacement, exclusively for

Hindus. Nehru and other ‘secular’ nationalists wanted all to become ‘Indians’, leaving

their specific identity ‘baggage’ behind while Savarkar wanted all to become ‘secular’

Hindus. Both groups however shared a deep belief in statism and its intrusive role in all

avenues, the modem nation as a primary marker of identity and an abolition of ‘pre

The close relationship between Savarkar’s secularism and his belief in the primacy o f the nation state is apparent here. He had an essentially statist vision. As Nandy points out: “Secularism and statism in India have gone hand in hand-which is perhaps the main reason why Hindu nationalism, statist to its core, has not given up the language of secularism.” Nandy, “The Twilight of Certitudes,” 164.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 315

colonial’ ‘atavistic’ affiliations in the public sphere. For both the primary identity and

affinity was to that of the nation.

Conclusion

In Savarkar, Hinduism is subjected entirely to a modem historicist world-view,

which in turn has made the ideology of Hindutva possible, resting on the modem pillars

of scientific rationality and nation. He exhibits few ambiguities or complexities, either in

his private or public life, that allow one to investigate a possible self-questioning or

limitations of such a world-view, as in the case of Ranade. For Savarkar, historicism is

totalizing in his view towards the past and present. The modem Hindu self that he

imagines has no room for an open-ended, fluid notion of lived religion. Nandy’s analysis

of the relationship between Hindutva and Hinduism, captures this point aptly when he

argues that Hindutva is a negation of Hinduism as a living faith, and heralds in fact its

impending death:

Hindutva will be the end of Hinduism. Hinduism is what most Indians still live by. Hindutva is a response of the mainly Brahmanic, middle-class, urban, Westernizing Indians to their uprooting, cultural and geographical. According to V.D. Savarkar, the openly agnostic, Westernized nationalist who coined the term, Hindutva is not the only means of Hinduizing the polity but also of militarizing the effeminate, disorganized Hindus. It is an answer to and a critique of Hinduism, as most Indians know the faith.111

Savarkar’s modem scientific world-view has little room for popular Hinduism in which

the sacred/secular or past/present dichotomies are often blurred. Such beliefs for him can

only be understood as reflecting a dead past, rather than a living present.

Ibid., 171.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER IX

CONCLUSION

The entry point for this dissertation was the emergence of public debates in

contemporary India centered on notions of ‘history’ and historicity. In the wake of the

Babri Masjid demolition and its violent aftermath, exploring the relationship between

history, historicism and religion became particularly urgent. While present day debates

or events did not figure explicitly in this dissertation except by way of introduction, they

were implicit in the framing of the research, since all history writing begins from the

vantage point of the present. If indeed traditional Hinduism was largely impervious to

historicity as many scholars were claiming, and as I also believed, why had ‘history’ and

notions of ‘historicity’ taken such a pronounced role in public debates, especially

amongst the Hindu middle classes? Moreover why was it that the self-proclaimed

‘Hindu’ groups were loudest in defending ‘history’ and notions of historicity? If these

ideas had indeed emerged in India’s more recent past, what were their origins? And were

they always accepted? In other words my dissertation was guided by a search for

‘historical origins’ of ‘historicity’, tracing backwards the emergence of these ideas and

debates in Indian society.

While this dissertation eschewed a chronological and linear historical framework

in favor of discussing three ‘moments’ encapsulating in three individuals at different

316

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 317

points in time, it presumed a historicist study of ideas of history and historicity in India1.

The quest for ‘origins’ compelled me to turn to the colonial ‘encounter’ since it first

brought notions of history, in the modem sense of the term, into the world of the

colonized elite or those most directly exposed to colonial rule. The colonized elite was

the first to engage with modem ideas of history. How did they negotiate these ideas and

what were the varying directions in which they took them? What were the choices they

made? These were some of the central questions that drove my research. These questions

are significant because present day Indians are living with the colonized elites’ choices

today. In many ways those early choices set the parameters of the discourse which later

ideas drew upon. However the colonized elite did not determine these choices once and

for all; on the contrary negotiating notions of historicity is on going even in the present

although these ideas can no longer be considered ‘external’. They have penetrated far

deeper into Indian society than they had at the time, but their origins lie in this historical

‘moment’. Hence it is this ‘moment’ or that of the colonial encounter that has been

emphasized in this dissertation.

The colonized negotiated these notions of history and historicity in complex ways,

sometimes internalizing these ideas and at other times displaying deep ambivalence

toward them. The contradictions were often displayed within the same individuals such

as Phule and Ranade or hardly surfaced such as seen in Savarkar’s response. While a

common belief in historicity was to some extent an outcome of the colonial experience,

what was however not inevitable was the manner in which each individual chose to

1 Between the three, they spanned the length o f time the British ruled India, starting from the early nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. However it was not my intent to write them in a sequential manner; I did not read them as being ‘representative’ of their ‘phases’ of history or follow a traditional ‘history of ideas’ approach.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 318

negotiate historicity. The objective of this dissertation then was to, as Dipesh

Chakrabarty puts it, “write into the history of modernity the ambivalences, contradictions,

the use of force, and the tragedies and ironies that attend it” . Therefore by looking at

these three individuals, I have argued in the preceding chapters that ‘history’ was both a

‘derivative discourse’, and sometimes not, indicating an excess or surplus, which could

not be ‘contained’ within modem categories of understanding. In the case of Phule and

Ranade, this ‘excess’ often pointed to alternative imaginations, rooted in non-modem

world-views that acted to limit the modem-historical in productive ways, pointing to

more humane possibilities.

It would appear that Phule and Ranade were far more ‘colonized’ given their

frequently ‘soft’ stance toward the British, as opposed to Savarkar, who took a far more

strident anti-colonial position especially in the early pre-jail phases of his life. However,

to simply dismiss Phule and Ranade as apologists of the Empire would be to caricature

them. While they were both largely modernists, my discussion of their lives, politics and

thought has shown that they also exhibited skepticism toward colonial ideas and ways of

being. While impressed with some aspects of the British and their rule, they maintained a

healthy critical distance by not allowing colonial ideas to become totalizing in their

thought. Ironically this is in contrast to Savarkar who was virulently anti-British and

demanded complete independence for India from the outset.

While an arch anti-imperialist, a close examination of Savarkar’s life and thought

reveal that colonial ideas made a profound impression on him. He fully accepted the

colonizer’s world-view as legitimate. In his world, the only way to defeat the colonizer

2 Dipesh Chakrabarty,Provincializing Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 43.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 319

was to beat him at his own game. For Savarkar, Indians had to become more like the

British, imbibing the latter’s ‘manly’ qualities, ruthless efficiency, scientific abilities and

massive defense/industrial power in order to regain their dignity. Gandhi’s methods of

non-violence, his piety as well as morality and his belief in the village economy were all

seen as liabilities in this quest for India’s ‘freedom’.

Thus in the overtly ‘anti-colonial’ Savarkar, one sees the close relationship

between an uncritical modem historicism and violence, in which faith can no longer be

the basis of shared piety or accommodation. Religion as faith is desacralized, rigidified

and intolerant, whereby it becomes the source of conflict and hatred against the Other.

History, nation and science tied to an instrumental reading of religion become the

primary markers of identity, which allow for little dissent. While there are similarities

between Phule, Ranade and Savarkar with respect to the importance they accorded the

discourse of ‘history’, there are also stark differences. In the sections below, I compare

and contrast all three figures with respect to their views on history and historicity. Since

historicism was inextricably linked to notions of religion, caste and nation, these

categories will also be discussed.

Historicism and Religion or Hinduism

One of the central relationships explored in this dissertation was that between

religion, or in this case Hinduism, and historicism. While it was not my intent when I

first began the dissertation to focus on religion even though I chose to look at three

Hindus, I found my objects of analysis leading me in that direction. In their differing

ways, religion was an essential component of their social and political thought. What

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 320

was common to all three was the use of history in dealing with the religious past. Each

one historicized religious ideas, customs, practices and mythologies as objects of

historical investigation. Phule placed myths within a historical framework and

rationalized them; Ranade placed religious texts within specific ages or time-periods with

their own distinct characteristics; and Savarkar placed all Hindu religious customs and

practices within a linear time-period based on the notion of progress. For all three,

religious practices and thought were subject to a historical gaze, which placed these ideas

and practices solely in the realm of the ‘secular’.

However, while there are similarities, there are also significant differences in the

manner in which each dealt with religion. What is distinctive about Savarkar unlike the

other two is that he relegates religion entirely to the realm of the historical and secular.

Religion has no living basis for him except as a political ideology, shorn of all its

spirituality or transcendental qualities. It is appropriate solely for historical analysis,

which is in turn the basis for a contemporary politico-religious identity. The purely

historical and ideological shell is hitched to the ideology of the nation, which is for him

the highest organizing principle of all social life. In Phule too, like Savarkar, one sees the

attempt to make Hinduism more historically self-conscious by attempting to draw sharp

historical boundaries between communities and identify modem political identities that

emerge out of these constructed historical unities . Furthermore, he focuses entirely on

caste as the distinguishing feature of Hinduism and organizing principle of all social life.

However the objectives of both Phule and Savarkar could not be more different.

This is not to say that the caste based identities Phule suggests are entirely ‘invented’ since they come out of existing social constellations but they are nevertheless distinctly modem.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 321

While Savarkar was attempting to show historically that Hindus were organically

one race and one nation, Phule attempted to show the disparate and conflictual paths that

Hindus historically took based on their social location. Savarkar’s desire to liquefy all

caste boundaries was tied to his quest for an identity centered on a Hindu ‘nation’. Phule

would have strongly rejected such a position, since he was deeply skeptical about a polity

in which Brahmans and lower castes could rally around a common ‘national’ identity

when the latter had been marginalized in the constitution of a newly emerging public

sphere. In fact his forays into ‘history’ were precisely to argue the different historical

trajectories that Brahmans and Shudras had undertaken, based on power relations,

thereby resulting in a distinct identity for the latter. Unlike Phule, both Ranade and

Savarkar downplayed the internal conflicts within Hinduism in order to project a more

synthesizing view of Hinduism. This was in part due to their shared Brahmanical

backgrounds, highlighted in the biographical discussions in earlier chapters.

However, despite Phule and Ranade’s clear drawing of boundaries between the

historical/secular and religious, both continued to operate within non-modem notions of

‘religion’ in which the latter had yet to be constituted as an autonomous sphere. Unlike

Savarkar, in their case, the religious was yet to be seen as completely independent of the

social and political. These lines were beginning to emerge in their writings. For instance

in the case of Phule one sees the demarcation of the realm of the ‘social’ and a newly

emerging notion of the ‘public’ which is distinct from the religious. Yet in both Phule

and Ranade constant slippages occurred. In Phule’s case for instance, the Satyashodak

dharam or religion he propagated encompassed politics, morality and social criticism. In

Ranade’s case morality could not be divorced from science or politics. In Europe as well,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 322

it was only from the seventeenth and eighteenth century onwards, as Talal Asad argues,

with the establishment of the modem state, that religion was increasingly defined as

‘belief, a matter of personal identity that was best kept out of the public sphere4. As

Asad insightfully writes:

we have the construction of religion as a new historical object: anchored in personal experience, expressible as belief-statements, dependent on private institutions, and practiced in one’s spare time. This construction of religion ensures that it is part of what is inessential to our common politics, economy, science and morality5.

Ironically, as discussed in chapters seven and eight, it was Savarkar who clearly

demarcated the lines between the spheres of religion and politics, even though he

advocated a religion based identity in the public sphere. But for him the practice of

religion or piety had to be completely privatized or preferably done away with. In other

words he transformed Hinduism into a ‘religion’, in the modem sense, as a distinct

domain, or an objectified ‘thing’. As Asad points out once again in the context of

modern Europe which would be relevant to Savarkar’s modernist leanings as well:

religious belief was the source of uncontrollable passions within the individual and of dangerous strife within the commonwealth. It could not, for this reason, provide an institutional basis for a common morality-still less a public language of rational criticism6.

However, one caveat is necessary here. For Savarkar religious beliefs were dangerous

but not the language of religion itself. It was a type of secularism somewhat

distinguishable from the secularists who did not want to use the religious discourse at all.

For Hindu nationalists such as Savarkar, unlike for the secularists, religion was

completely massified but its outer shell remained a mobilizing and ideological tool to

4 Talal Asad, Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 205. 5 Ibid., 207. 6 Ibid., 205.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 323

engineer new identities. But is precisely because religion was secularized and privatized

that it could be mobilized as an ideological tool centering on a national identity.

History and the Nation

It is in Savarkar’s thought that the nation comes most prominently to the fore.

The context and times in which Savarkar lived may also have influenced his thought.

Unlike Phule and Ranade who died by the end of the nineteenth century, Savarkar lived

through more than half of the twentieth century, when nationalism as an organizing

principle was crystallized, particularly amongst the Indian elite and became very potent.

Phule did not articulate any well-demarcated notion of the nation but he was skeptical of

claims by Brahman intellectuals in his time who were beginning to propound such ideas.

He believed that a unity such as the ‘nation’ could not come into existence as long as

upper caste Hindus oppressed the lower castes. It was the Shudras and ati-Shudras that

needed to become historically and politically self-conscious communities, who could

then articulate a strong voice within the public sphere, to counter that of the educated

Brahmans. Phule’s identities were very regional, embedded within the social relations of

the Marathi speaking region. He did not attempt to construct shared unities with other

lower caste groups in other parts of the country.

In Ranade’s case, it was through history writing that he constructed a nation that

he referred to as ‘India,’ but this too was largely regional in character, drawing from local

contexts. It drew on the martial legacy of the Marathas and their wars with the Mughals.

The Marathas (not coincidentally Hindu) were seen as the natural defenders of ‘India’ as

opposed to the ‘foreign’ Islamic Mughals. Ranade’s nation however was not exclusively

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 324

Hindu but had place for other communities in it. This was made clear in his religious,

social and political thought where he advocated Hindu-Muslim unity within the broad

framework of the nation.

While Ranade accorded some importance to a national identity, the exact nature

of this ‘nation’ was amorphous. For instance, in his essays it was not quite the modem

nation-state that he was referring to when he talked about the nation. Unlike that of the

Indian nationalists later, Ranade’s ‘Indian nation’ resembled the heterogeneous and plural

pre-colonial formations such as the Mughal Empire that characterized the region. He

envisioned a loose federal structure comprising British India and native princely states

that would have autonomy in their day-to-day matters. He advised the British to learn

from the Mughal state in this regard and it was more the Mughal Empire he had in mind

when he suggested this federal structure:

For centuries past, India has reconciled herself to the existence within its midst of a foreign paramount power, provided that power left free scope in the shape of Indian states for the ambition and independent action of the Indian races, and provided also that the paramount power displayed by its acts complete freedom from a conceited exclusiveness in religious and political matters. The history of the Mahomedan Empire in Hindustan under the first five monarchs of the House of Timur affords the best illustration of this peculiar national temperament.. .The whole history of the Mogul Empire in Hindustan points to a moral which our government should certainly lay to heart.7

Savarkar’s conception of the nation draws from the modem European nation-state

whereby the ‘ideal’ is greater homogeneity in terms of language, ethnicity and other such

markers of identityt .8 . Unlike the pre-colonial empires, • which ruled over large, complex

M.G. Ranade, Selected Writings o f the Late Honorable Mr. Justice Ranade on Indian States, 1st ed. (Indore: Datta Printing Works, 1942), 73-74. 8 Thus Savarkar argues Hindus will be the ‘majority’, Hindi (expunged of all Persian and Arabic elements and heavily Sanskritized) will be the national language which will be compulsory for all, and the

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 325

and very heterogeneous linguistic and ethnic populations, in the case of the modem

nation there is an attempt to construct homogeneity even if it does not exist. And the

discourse of ‘history’ becomes one of the primary tools with which to do so9. As Craig

Calhoun argues, the modem notion of nation

commonly involves the claim that some specific ethnic identity should be a ‘trump’ over all other forms of identity, including those of community, family, class, political preference, and alternative ethnic allegiances.10

In a pluralistic and extremely diverse country such as India where for instance even the

smallest region has its own distinct language and script, the nation-state model poses

considerable complications.

What then are the criteria out of which a national identity is molded? In

Savarkar’s case it is political Hinduism that becomes the ‘glue’ with which to meld

people together into an ‘Indian’ nation11. This political Hinduism or Hindutva also

includes Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs since his notion of religion is geographic and

Nagari script will the national script. V.D. Savarkar, Hindu Rashtra Darshan, Second ed. (Bombay: Veer Savarkar Prakashan, 1984), 84. 9 As discussed in previous chapters, Savarkar relies most heavily on ‘history’ to justify his Hindu nation. As he puts it, “It is at least some 5,000 years ago, to the Vaidic age that the beginning o f our Hindu Nation could be historically and undeniably traced,” Ibid., 33. He goes on: “for thousands o f years our Hindu people had been definitely conscious of their religious and cultural, political and patriotic homogeneity as a people by themselves, as a Nation unto themselves,” Ibid., 36. 10 Craig Calhoun, Nationalism, ed. Frank Parkin, Concepts in Social Thought (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), 36. 11 Thus Savarkar writes: “We Hindus, in spite of thousand and one differences within our fold or bound by such religious, cultural, historical, racial, linguistic and other affinities in common as to stand out as a definitely homogeneous people as soon as we are placed in contrast with any other non-Hindu people— say the English or Japanese or even the Indian Moslems. That is the reason why today we the Hindus from Kashmere to Madras and Sindh to Assam will to be a Nation by ourselves— while the Indian Moslems are on the whole more inclined to identify themselves and their interests with Moslems outside India than Hindus who lived next door, like the Jews in Germany.” Savarkar,Hindu Rashtra Darshan, 80.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 326

territorial. It excludes Christians and Muslims who are seen to have allegiances

elsewhere although it is Muslims for whom he reserves his greatest hostility . 19

While in the case of Ranade and Phule, there are other nodes around which

identity is organized such as caste, class, community and region, for Savarkar it is the

nation that comes first above all else. Phule, for instance, argued that British agrarian

policies and the hierarchy of Brahman officials at the village level were doubly

oppressing the peasantry. According to Phule, this exploitation was both caste and class

driven and the peasantry needed to become aware of these shared socio-economic and

political identities.

This is in stark contrast to Savarkar who argues that the nation must be given

precedence over the rights of labor and the peasantry. He writes:

Peasants and labourers must be enabled to have their share in the distribution of wealth to such an extent as to enable them not only with a bare margin of existence but the average scale of comfortable life. Nevertheless it must be remembered that they too being a part and parcel of the Nation as a whole must share obligations and responsibilities and therefore, can only receive their share in such a way as is consistent with the general development and security of the National Industry, manufacture and wealth in general.. .But the interests of both the capital and labour will be subordinated to the requirement of the Nation as a whole.13

Savarkar does not hesitate to promote violence in dealing with peasants and laborers if

they contravene the interests of the ‘Nation’. This is clear in his statement below:

All strikes or lockouts which are obviously meant or inevitably tend to undermine and cripple National industry or production in general or are calculated to weaken the

Ironically Savarkar does not exclude Parsis from his notion of Hindutva even though their religion or Zoroastrianism is not ‘indigenous’ to India based on Savarkar’s criterion. In an interview he states: “The Parsees, amongst the other minorities, are by race, religion, language and culture almost akin to the Hindus. The Christian and Jews could be politically assimilated with the Hindus.. .The problems o f the minority is that of only one minority—the Muslim minority.” See "Savarkar's Last Press Interview," inSavarkar Commemoration Volume (Bombay: Savarkar Darshan Pratishthan, 1989), 241. 13 Savarkar, Hindu Rashtra Darshan, 109.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 327

economic strength of the Nation as a whole must be referred to State arbitration and get settled or in serious cases quelled.14

While Savarkar’s notion of nationalism may have been influenced by the times in which

he lived, it is historically over deterministic to argue that his ideas were solely products of

his context. Such a historically over deterministic reading removes all agency from the

individual concerned who made choices about the kind of nationalism he or she

envisaged. This is apparent in the fact that there were others who were Savarkar’s

historical contemporaries who offered alternative visions to that of a European nation

state model. Ashis Nandy points to two such contemporaries of Savarkar who can be

read as critics of European style nationalism. He argues that for Tagore, “nationalism

itself became gradually illegitimate; for Gandhi, nationalism began to include a critique

of nationalism.”15 Both, he points out, drew from pre-colonial or pre-modem

conceptions of complex and plural civilizations that had found ways for their different

constituents to co-exist. Referring to Tagore and Gandhi he goes on:

They did not want their society to be caught in a situation where the idea of the Indian nation would supersede that of the Indian civilization, and where the actual ways of life of Indians would be assessed solely in terms of the needs of an imaginary nation state called India.16

According to Nandy, in contrast to Savarkar, Tagore’s

version of patriotism rejected the violence propagated by terrorists and revolutionaries, it rejected the concept of a single ethnic Hindu rashtra as anti-Indian, and even anti-Hindu, and it dismissed the idea of the nation-state as being the main actor in Indian political life.17

Ibid., 110. Ashis Nandy, The Illegitimacy o f Nationalism (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994), 2-3. Ibid., 3. Ibid., 87.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 328

In other words, both Gandhi and Tagore rejected Savarkar’s type of ‘Hindu’ vision as

dangerous and futile. Both offered an alternative religiosity, which celebrated difference

as an essential element of Hinduism. Therefore it is to Gandhi and Tagore rather than

Savarkar that one must look for more humane, just and ethical possibilities.

Three Individuals. Three Visions: Making Choices

Phule, Ranade and Savarkar each represent three distinctive visions of modem

India. While I have argued that there are elements within Phule and Ranade that can be

‘recovered’, I have also explicitly argued against Savarkar’s vision, which has gained

considerable support in contemporary India. In many ways, Phule, Ranade and

Savarkar’s ideas are as ‘alive’ today, or if not more, than when they were first articulated

in their respective contexts. Elements of each person’s ideas circulate today in

Maharashtra and India and sometimes overlap. The ideas echoed by each are of course

also much more pervasive and widespread than the individuals themselves; the latter are

both active propagators of these ideas as well as their carriers or representatives.

While the dissertation is written in a historical mode, which allows one to

seemingly step back into time, and recreate the historical milieus in which these

individuals lived, in reality the only time that exists is that of the present. As stated

earlier, my reading of them, to paraphrase Collingwood is a ‘reenactment’ of those ideas

through my specific construction or interpretation of them. This dissertation in turn, is

also influenced by some of these ideas.

In terms of these individuals themselves, how each is interpreted and the

‘reception’ of their ideas in contemporary India is outside the scope of this dissertation.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 329

It is sufficient to say that Phule and Savarkar are both ‘mythic’ heroes in many parts of

India today, and Savarkar amongst the Hindu middle classes in particular18. The facticity

of what they “really said” or “did” seems less important than the symbolism that each is

associated with. It is also significant that Ranade is the least remembered public figure

out of all three in contemporary Maharashtra and India. Ranade’s marginalization

especially amongst the Hindu middle classes (he never was a mass based leader but

appealed to the western educated in his own time) perhaps points to the gradual erosion

within this community of a more ecumenical Hinduism, which questioned the separation

of politics, religion and science. Perhaps Ranade articulated the most pragmatic vision

by rejecting the separation of religion from politics or science, thereby positing a ‘Hindu’

politics which was pluralistic and allowed the co-existence of all faiths.

Ranade seemed to sense that the pulse of Indian society had been traditionally

based on a politics of reconciliation of opposites or a synthesis of extremes, which was

always couched in the language of continuity, and not change, but that did not preclude

the latter. Thus he attempted to reconcile contradictions without erasing the differences

themselves. Both Phule and Ranade allowed the possibility of plural selves, whereby

aspects of the modem and traditional could co-exist. However this is not to downplay the

similarities between Ranade and Savarkar. Both drew heavily from Brahmanical world

views and Phule’s politics acts as an important counter-point to Ranade’s upper caste

orientation.

18 A statue o f him was recently unveiled outside the Parliament in Delhi by the BJP government, ironically near that of Gandhi’s. See Editorial, "Affront to the Founding Principles,"The Hindu 2003. Before that BJP Minister L.K. Advani also renamed the Port Blair airport, on the Andaman Islands after Savarkar. See "No Single Family Can Claim Credit for Leading Freedom Struggle,"The Hindu, May 5th 2002.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 330

Phule’s critique also addressed what Uma Chakravarty calls ‘Brahmanical

patriarchy’19. For Phule, caste and gender oppression were inextricably linked. He

believed that unless the condition of Brahman women and women in general did not

improve in Hindu society, neither would that of caste relations. Ranade’s ‘reformist’

approach toward women was influenced by both Brahmanism as well as liberal bourgeois

notions, as reflected in the manner in which he ‘reformed’ his wife, holding her up as the

‘ideal’ Hindu woman, educated, yet obedient. However aspects within his thought such

as his interpretation of bhakti principles point to a more ‘soft’ feminine version of

Hinduism to that of Savarkar’s hard masculinist one.

Savarkar embodies an entirely masculinist world-view which shows

condescension, intolerance and embarrassment toward the feminine, as echoed in

Savarkar’s critique of Gandhi’s ‘kitchen’ politics. Femininity in Savarkar’s world-view

was completely devalued while only a hard, historically ‘objective’ and masculinist

realpolitik could be the basis for politics. Linked to this then was an instrumentalist

notion of religion in which the Other, particularly the Muslim, was fully demonized and

historically demarcated as separate, without the possibility of co-existence. This was tied

to a rejection of plurality, consonant with a belief in the nation as the primary marker of

identity.

The act of rereading or interpretation in the present, therefore, cannot be an

apolitical or disinterested enterprise. My reading of Phule and Ranade points to their

internalization of historicism but also attempts to ‘recover’ aspects of their thought and

19 Uma Chakravarti, "Reconceptualising Gender: Phule, Brahmanism and Brahmanical Patriarchy," Nehru Memorial Museum Research-in Progress Papers "History and Society", no. No. XCIV, 2nd series (December 1994).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 331

selves that were deeply dissatisfied with a rejection of faith in the public sphere, along

with its separation from the sphere of the socio-political and a purely historical view

towards the past. It points to a more non-historical, elastic and open-ended reading of

religion or in this case Hinduism, as understood in notions such as satya or bhakti, which

are ‘eternal’ and yet always ‘contextual’. In doing so, therefore, it allows the possibility

of exploring the limits of historicity or as Dipesh Chakrabarty puts it, to “distance

ourselves from the imperious instincts of the discipline-the idea that everything can be

historicized or that one should always historicize” . It also points to more humane and

socially just possibilities than Savarkar’s hateful, violent and intolerant world-view,

which is entirely beholden to historicism.

Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe. 112.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abdi, Wazir Hasan. "Ideas of Time and Space." In History o f Indian Science, Technology and Culture Ad 1000-1800, edited by A. Rahman, 94-128. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Ali, Asaf. "Savarkar: Glimpses of a 'Passionate Patriot'." In Savarkar Commemoration Volume, 65-74. Bombay: Savarkar Darshan Pratishthan, 1989.

Ali, Daud, ed. Invoking the Past: The Uses o f History in South Asia. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Ambedkar, B.R. The Essential Writings ofB.R. Ambedkar. Edited by Valerian Rodrigues. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002.

. Ranade, Gandhi andJinnah. Bombay: Thacker&Co., Ltd., 1943.

Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. London: Verso, 1983.

Apte, S.G. Malshe and N. Vidhwavivah Chalval. 2nd edition ed. Pune: Anmol Prakashan, 1990.

Arendt, Hannah. Between Past and Future: Six Exercises in Political Thought. Cleveland and New York: Meridian Books, 1963.

Ashley, Richard. "The Poverty of Neorealism." In Neorealism and Its Critics, edited by Robert Keohane, 255-300. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986.

Ballhatchet, Kenneth. Social Policy and Social Change in Western India 1817-1830. London: Oxford University Press, 1957.

Bapat, Ram, interview by Apama Devare, personal communication, 8 July 2003, Pune, India.

Basham, A.L. "The Kashmir Chronicle." In Historians o f Indian, Pakistan and Ceylon, edited by C.H. Philips, 57-65. London: Oxford University Press, 1961.

Benjamin, Walter. "Theses on the Philosophy of History." In Walter Benjamin: Illuminations, edited by Hannah Arendt. New York: Schocken Books, 1969. 332

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 333

Berkhofer, Robert. "The Challenge of Poetics to (Normal) Historical Practice." In The Postmodern History Reader, edited by Keith Jenkins, 139-55. London and New York: Routledge, 1997.

Bhabha, Homi. "The Other Question." In Contemporary Postcolonial Theory: A Reader, edited by Padmini Mongia, 37-54. London: Arnold, 1996.

Bhole, B.L. Mahatma Jotirao Phule. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1996.

Bose, Sugata. "Nation as Mother: Representations and Contestations of'India' in Bengali Literature and Culture." In Nationalism, Democracy and Development: State and Politics in India, edited by Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal, 50-75. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998.

. "Nation, Reason and Religion." Economic and Political Weekly 33, no. 31 (1998): 2090-97.

Campbell, David. "Political Prosaics, Transversal Politics, and the Anarchical World." In Challenging Boundaries: Global Flows, Territorial Identities, edited by Michael and Hayward Alker Shapiro, 7-31. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.

Cashman, Richard. The Myth o f the Lokmanya: Tilak and Mass Politics in Maharashtra. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975.

Cesaire, Aime. Discourse on Colonialism. New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1972.

Chakrabarty, Dipesh. Habitations o f Modernity: Essays in the Wake o f Subaltern Studies. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2002.

------. "History as Critique and Critique(S) of History." Economic and Political Weekly 26, no. 37 (1991): 2162-66.

------. Provincializing Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.

Chakravarti, Uma. "Reconceptualising Gender: Phule, Brahmanism and Brahmanical Patriarchy." Nehru Memorial Museum Research-in Progress Papers "History and Society", no. No. XCIV, 2nd series (December 1994).

------. Rewriting History: The Life and Times o f Pandita Ramabai. New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1998.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 334

Chatterjee, Partha. The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995.

. Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse? London: Zed Books, 1986.

. The Partha Chatterjee Omnibus. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Chiplunkar, V.S. Nibhandmala. 5th ed. Vol. 1. Pune: Wardha Books, 1993.

Chitre, Dilip. Says Tuka-1: Selected Poems ofTukaram. Translated by Translated from the Marathi with an Introduction by Dilip Chitre. Vol. 1. Pune: Sontheimer Cultural Association, 2003.

Chousalkar, Ashok. "Mahatma Phuley and the Myth of Baliraja." In Jotiba Phule: An Incomplete Renaissance, 74-86. Surat: Centre for Social Studies, 1991.

Collingwood, R.G. The Idea o f History. Revised with an introduction by Jan Van Der Dussen ed. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Connolly, William. "Identity and Difference in Global Politics." In International/Intertextual Relations, edited by James and Michael Shapiro Der Derian, 323-42. New York: Lexington Books, 1989.

Daniel, Valentine. Chapters in an Anthropography o f Violence: Sri Lankans, Sinhalas and Tamils. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Das, Veena. Critical Events: An Anthropological Perspective on Contemporary India. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995.

. "Difference and Division as Designs for Life." In Contemporary Indian Tradition: Voices on Culture, Nature, and the Challenge o f Change, edited by Carla Borden, 45-56. Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989.

De Certeau, Michel. The Writing o f History. Translated by Tom Conley. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988.

Desai, Radhika. Slouching Towards Ayodhya: Three Essays. New Delhi: Three Essays Press, 2002.

Desai, Sudha. Social Life in Maharashtra under the Peshwas. Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1980.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 335

Deshpande, G.P. "Introduction: Of Hope and Melancholy, Reading Jotirao Phule in Our Times." In Selected Writings o f Jotirao Phule, edited by G.P. Deshpande, 1-21. New Delhi: Leftword Books, 2002.

Deshpande, Madhav. "History, Change and Permanence: A Classical Indian Perspective." In Contributions to South Asian Studies, edited by Gopal Krishna, 1-28. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1979.

. "Pandits and Professors: Transformations in the 19th Century Maharashtra." In The Pandit: Traditional Scholarship in India, edited by Axel Michaels, 119-53. Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 2001.

Deshpande, Prachi. "Narratives of Pride: History and Regional Identity in Maharashtra, India C. 1870-1960." Tufts University, 2002.

Dimmitt, Cornelia and J.A.B. van Buieten. Classical Hindu Mythology: A Reader in the Sanskrit Pur anas. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1978.

Dirks, Nicholas. "History as a Sign of the Modem." Public Culture 2, no. 2 (1990): 25- 32.

Dobbin, Christine. Urban Leadership in Western India: Politics and Communities in Bombay City 1840-1885. London: Oxford University Press, 1972.

Duff, James Grant. History o f the Mahrattas. Indian reprint edition ed. Bombay: Printed at the "Exchange Press" Fort, 1863.

Ermath, Elizabeth. "Sequel to History." In The Postmodern History Reader, edited by Keith Jenkins, 47-64. London and New York: Routledge, 1997.

Fabian, Johannes. Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983.

Fairclough, Norman. Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London and New York: Routledge, 2003.

Foucault, Michel. The History o f Sexuality. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.

Fraser, Alexander Campbell. Philosophy o f Theism. Vol. First Series, The Gifford Lectures: Delivered before the University o f Edinburgh in 1894-95. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1979.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 336

Fukazawa, Hiroshi. The Medieval Deccan: Peasants, Social Systems and States, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Gadamer, H.G. "The Problems of Historical Consciousness." In Interpretive Social Science: A Second Look, edited by Paul Rabinow and William Sullivan, 82-140. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.

Gallagher, Catherine and Stephen Greenblatt. Practicing New Historicism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.

Gandhi, M.K. My Religion. Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1955.

. The Teaching o f the Gita. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1971.

------. Towards Lasting Peace. Edited by Anand Hingorani, Gandhi Series. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1956.

Gandhi, Tushar. Murder o f the Mahatma Mahatma Gandhi Foundation-India, [cited 18 August 2005]. Available from http://www.mahatma.org.in/murderattempts/attempts.isp?link=ld&id=l&cat=mur derattempts.

George, Jim. Discourses o f Global Politics: A Critical (Re) Introduction to International Relations. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1994.

. "International Relations and the Search for Thinking Space: Another View of the Third Debate." International Studies Quarterly 33, no. 3 (1989): 269-79.

Ghadge, R.S. "Jotiravani Amhas Manushyatachi Alokh Karun Dili." In Amhi Pahilele Phule, edited by Sitarama Rayakara, 30-1. Pune: Mahatma Jotirava Phule Samata Pratishtana, 1981.

Ghosh, Amitav and Dipesh Chakraborty. "A Correspondence on Provincializing Europe." Radical History Review 83 (2002).

Godbole, S.T. "Savarkar's Approach to History." In Savarkar Commemoration Volume, 192-97. Bombay: Savarkar Darshan Pratishsthan, 1989.

Godse, Nathuram. May It Please Your Honour. 3rd ed. Delhi: Surya Prakashan, 1987.

Gokhale, B.G. "Gandhi and History." History and Theory 11, no. 11 (1972): 214-25.

. Poona in the Eighteenth Century: An Urban History. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 337

Gokhale-Tumer, Jayashree B. "Bhakti or Vidroha: Continuity and Change in Dalit Sahitya." In Tradition and Modernity in Bhakti Movements, edited by Jayant Lele, 29-42. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1981.

Gordon, Stewart. The Marathas 1600-1818. South Asian edition ed, The New Cambridge History o f India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Greenblatt, Stephen. Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder o f the New World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.

Grovogui, Siba. "Rituals of Power: Theory, Languages, and Vernaculars of International Relations." Alternatives 23, no. 4 (1998): 499-529.

Guha, Ranajit. An Indian Historiography o f India: A Nineteenth Century Agenda and Its Implications. Calcutta and New Delhi: KP Bagchi and Company, 1988.

------. "The Prose of Counter-Insurgency." In Selected Subaltern Studies, edited by Ranajit Guha and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, 45-84. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.

------. "The Small Voice of History." In In Subaltern Studies Ix: Writings on South Asian History and Society, edited by Shahid Amin and Dipesh Chakrabarty, 1-12. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Gupta, Chitra. Life o f Barrister Savarkar. Madras: B.G. Paul, 1926.

Hamilton, Paul. Historicism. London and New York: Routledge, 1996.

Hardy, Peter. Historians o f Medieval India. London: Luzac and Company Limited, 1961.

. "Some Studies in Pre-Mughal Muslim Historiography." In Historians o f India, Pakistan and Ceylon, edited by C.H. Philips, 115-27. London: Oxford University Press, 1961.

Harvey, Van Austin. The Historian and the Believer. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1966.

Hatcher, Brian. Idioms o f Improvement: Vidyasagar and Cultural Encounter in Bengal. Calcutta: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Hayman, Ronald. Nietzsche: A Critical Life. Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1980.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 338

Heimsath, Charles. Indian Nationalism and Hindu Social Reform. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964.

Holsti, Ole. Content Analysis for the Social Sciences and Humanities. Reading: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1969.

Horkheimer, Max. Eclipse o f Reason. New York: Oxford University Press, 1947.

Howard, Thomas Albert. Religion and the Rise o f Historicism: W.M.L. De Wette, Jacob Burckhardt and the Theological Origins o f Nineteenth-Century Historical Consciousness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Iggers, Georg. Historiography in the 20th Century: From Scientific Objectivity to the Post-Modern Challenge. Hanover: Wesleyan Press, 1997.

Inayatullah, Naeem and David Blaney. International Relations and the Problem o f Difference. New York and London: Routledge, 2004.

Jenkins, Keith. Why History? Ethics and Postmodernity. London and New York: Routledge, 1999.

Joglekar, J.D. "Veer Savarkar: Profile of a Prophet." In Savarkar Commemoration Volume, 11-41. Bombay: Savarkar Darshan Pratishthan, 1989.

Kamberelis, George and Lenora de la Lima. "Children's Writing: How Textual Forms, Contextual Forces, and Textual Politics Co-Emerge." In What Writing Does and How It Does It: An Introduction to Analyzing Texts and Textual Practices, edited by Charles Bazerman and Paul Prior, 239-77. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004.

Kane, P.V. History o f Dharmasastra. 5 vols. Vol. V, Part II. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Institute, 1962.

Karandikar, S.L. Savarkar-Charitra. Pune: Modem Book Depot Prakashan, 1947.

Kamataki, S.N. Dr. Sir Ramkrishna Gopal Bhandarkar Yanche Caritra. Mumbai: Srilakshmi Narayan Press, 1930.

Karve, D.G. Ranade: The Prophet o f Liberated India. Poona: Aryabhushan Press, 1942.

Kaviraj, Sudipta. "On State, Society and Discourse in India." In Rethinking Third World Politics, edited by James Manor, 72-99. London and New York: Longman, 1991.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 339

------. "On the Advantages of Being a Barbarian." In At Home in Diaspora: South Asian Scholars and the West, edited by Jackie Assayag and Veronique Benei, 148-62. Bloomington and Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2003.

. "The Politics of Subaltemity." Paper presented at the Annual Conference on South Asia, Madison, Wisconsin, October 15-17 2004.

------. "Religion, Politics and Modernity." In Crisis and Change in Contemporary India, edited by Upendra and Bhikhu Parekh Baxi, 295-316. New Delhi: Sage, 1995.

. The Unhappy Consciousness: Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay and the Formation o f a Nationalist Discourse in India. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Keer, Dhananjay. Lokmanya Tilak: Father o f the Indian Freedom Struggle. Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1969.

. Mahatma Jotirao Phooley: Father o f Indian Social Revolution. Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1974.

------. Shahu Chhatrapati: A Royal Revolutionary. Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1976.

------. Veer Savarkar. 2nd ed. Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1966.

Kellock, James. Mahadev Govind Ranade: Patriot and Social Servant. Calcutta: Association Press, 1926.

Krishna, Sankaran. Postcolonial Insecurities: India, Sri Lanka and the Question o f Nationhood. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1999.

. "Race, Amnesia, and the Education of International Relations." Alternatives 26, no. 4 (2001): 401-24.

Kumar, Ravinder. Western India in the Nineteenth Century: A Study in the Social History o f Maharashtra. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968.

Lai, Vinay. "History and the Possibilities of Emancipation: Some Lessons from India." Journal o f Indian Council o f Philosophical Research, no. June (1996): 95-137.

------. The History o f History: Politics and Scholarship in Modern India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 340

Latourette, Kenneth S. "The Christian Understanding of History." In Ideas o f History, edited by Ronald H. Nash, 224-45. New York: E.P. Dutton and Company, 1969.

Lederle, Matthew. Philosophical Trends in Modern Maharashtra. Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1976.

Lipner, Julius. "Ancient Banyan: An Inquiry into the Meaning of'Hinduness'." Religious Studies 32 (1996): 109-26.

------. Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices. London and New York: Routledge, 1994.

Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.

Madan, T.N. Modern Myths, Locked Minds: Secularism and Fundamentalism in India. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Majumdar, R.C. Penal Settlement in Andamans. New Delhi: Ministry of Education and Social Welfare, Government of India, 1975.

Mathe, M.S. Temples and Legends o f Maharashtra. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1962.

McCormack, Brian. "Postcolonialism in an Age of Globalization: Opening International Relations Theory to Identities in Movement." Alternatives 27, no. 1 (2002): 99- 115. McDonald, Ellen and Craig M. Stark. "English Education, Nationalist Politics and Elite Groups in Maharashtra 1885-1915." Occasional Papers o f the Center for South and Southeast Asia Studies, University O f California, Berkeley, no. 5 (1969): ii- 83.

Mohanty, Jitendra Nath. Reason and Tradition in Indian Thought: An Essay on the Nature o f Indian Philosophical Thinking. Clarendon Press: Oxford University Press, 1992.

More, Sadanand. "Akonisavya Shathkatil Varkari Sampradaya." In AdhuniktaAni Parampara: Akonisavya Shathkatil Maharashtra, edited by Rajendra Vohra, 27- 61. Pune: Pratima Prakashan, 2000.

Morrison, Toni. "The Site of Memory." In Out There: Marginalization and Contemporary Culture, edited by Russell Ferguson, Martha Gever, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Cornel West, 299-305. New York and Cambridge: The New Museum of Contemporary Art and MIT Press, 1990.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 341

Mukhia, Harbans. Perspectives on Medieval History. Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, Pvt. Ltd., 1993.

Myers, David N. Resisting History: Historicism and Its Discontents in German-Jewish Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.

Nagaraj, D.R. The Flaming Fleet: A Study o f the Dalit Movement in India. Bangalore: South Forum Press, 1993.

Naik, J.V., interview by Apama Devare, personal communication, 17 September 2002, Mumbai, India.

Nanda, Meera. Breaking the Spell o f Dharma and Other Essays. New Delhi: Three Essays, 2002.

Nandy, Ashis. At the Edge o f Psychology: Essays in Politics and Culture. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1980.

. "Oppression and Human Liberation: Toward a Third World Utopia." In Culture, Ideology, and World Order, edited by R.B.J. Walker, 149-79. Boulder and London: Westview Press, 1984.

------. Traditions, Tyranny, and Utopias: Essays in the Politics o f Awareness. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987.

. "Cultural Frames for Transformative Politics: A Credo." In Political Discourse: Explorations in Indian and Western Political Thought, edited by Bhiku and J.Pantham Parekh, 238-48. New Delhi: Sage, 1987.

. "History's Forgotten Doubles." History and Theory 34 (1995): 44-66.

------. The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery o f Self under Colonialism. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983.

------. "Themes of State, History and Exile in South Asian Politics: Modernity and the Landscape of Clandestine and Incommunicable Selves." Emergences 7-8 (1996- 96): 104-25.

------. Time Warps: The Insistent Politics o f Silent and Evasive Pasts. Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001.

. "The Twilight of Certitudes: Secularism, Hindu Nationalism, and Other Masks of Deculturation." Alternatives, no. 22 (1997): 157-76.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 342

Nandy, Ashis, Shikha Trivedy, Shail Mayaram and Achyut Yagnik. Creating a Nationality: The Ramjanmabhumi Movement and Fear o f the Self. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Narayan, Badri. Documenting Dissent: Contesting Fables, Contested Memories and Dalit Political Discourse. Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 2001.

Niebuhr, Reinhold. "Faith and History." In Ideas o f History, edited by Ronald H. Nash, 245-64. New York: E.P. Dutton and Company, 1969.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Modem Library, 1995.

------. The Use and Abuse o f History. Translated by Adrian Collins with an Introduction by Julius Kraft. 2nd edition ed. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Educational Publishing, 1957.

Noorani, A.G. Savarkar and Hindutva: The Godse Connection. New Delhi: LeftWord Books, 2002.

O'Hanlon, Rosalind. Caste, Conflict and Ideology: Mahatma Jotirao Phule and Low Caste Protest in Nineteenth-Century Western India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

. "Cultures of Rule, Communities of Resistance: Gender, Discourse and Tradition in Recent South Asian Historiographies." In Identity, Consciousness and the Past: Forging o f Caste and Community in India and Sri Lanka, edited by H.L. Seneviratne, 147-76. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997.

O'Hanlon, Rosalind and David Washbrook. "After Orientalism: Culture, Criticism, and Politics in the Third World." Comparative Studies in Society and History 34, no. 1 (1992): 141-67.

Omvedt, Gail. Cultural Revolt in a Colonial Society. Bombay: Scientific Socialist Education Trust, 1976.

------. Cultural Revolt in a Colonial Society: The Non Brahman Movement in Western India: 1873-1930. Bombay: Scientific Socialist Education, 1976.

------." Hinduism as Brahman Exploitation: Jotiba Phule." In Dalit Visions: The Anti- Caste Movement and the Construction o f an Indian Identity, edited by Gail Omvedt, 104-10. Hyderabad: Longman, 1995.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 343

. Tuka's Poetry, 2003 [cited 29th October 2003.

Pandey, Gyan. "In Defense of the Fragment: Writing About Hindu-Muslim Riots in India Today." In In a Subaltern Studies Reader, 1986-1995, edited by Ranajit Guha, 1- 33. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.

------. "Roundtable: Revisiting the History of Partition: A Conversation with Gyanendra Pandey." Paper presented at the Annual Conference on South Asia, Madison, Wisconsin, October 15-17 2004.

Pandit, Sridhar Sakharam. Vishnu Parshuram Shastri Pandit Yanche Caritra. Pune: Aryabhushan Press, 1936.

Parvate, T.N. Mahadev Govind Ranade: A Biography. New York: Asia Publishing House, 1963.

Patwardhan, Anand. "We Are Not Your Monkeys." 25 minutes. India: First Run/Icarus Films, 1996.

Persaud, Randolph and R.B.J. Walker "Apertura: Race in International Relations." Alternatives 26, no. 4 (2001): 373-76.

Phadke, H.A. R.G. Bhandarkar. New Delhi: National Book Trust, 1968.

Phadke, Y.D. Shodh Bal-Gopalancha. Pune: Sri Vidya Prakashan, 1977.

. Shodh Savarkarancha. 2nd ed. Pune: Sri Vidya Prakashan, 2000.

. Visavya Shatkatil Maharashtra: 1901-1914. 1st ed. 5 vols. Vol. 1. Pune: Sri Vidya Prakashan, 1989.

Phatak, N.R. Nyayamurti Mahadev Govind Ranade Yanche Caritra. Pune: Neelkanth Prakashan, 1966.

Philips, C.H. "Introduction." In Historians o f India, Pakistan and Ceylon, edited by C.H. Philips, 1-10. London: Oxford University Press, 1961.

Phule, Gajananrao Ganpatrao. "Athavani." In Amhi Pahilele Phule, edited by Sitaram Raykar, 58-65. Pune: Mahatma Jotirao Phule Samta Prastishtan Prakashan, 1981.

Phule, Jotirao. In Selected Writings o f Jotirao Phule, edited by G.P. Deshpande. New Delhi: Left Word, 2002.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 344

. Mahatma Phuley Samagra Vangmay. Edited by Y.D. Phadke. 5th ed. Mumbai: Maharashtra Rajya Sahitya ani Sanskruti Mandal, 1992.

Pollock, Sheldon. "From Discourse of Ritual to Discourse of Power in Sanskrit Culture." Journal o f Ritual Studies 4, no. 2 (1990): 315-45.

. "Mimamsa and the Problem of History in Traditional India." Journal o f the American Oriental Society 109, no. 4 (1989): 603-10.

. "The Theory of Practice and the Practice of Theory in Indian Intellectual History." Journal o f the American Oriental Society 105, no. 3 (1985): 499-519.

Prakash, Gyan. Another Reason: Science and the Imagination o f Modern India. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.

------. "Subaltern Studies as Postcolonial Criticism." The American Historical Review 99, no. 5 (1994): 1475-90.

------. "Writing Post-Orientalist Histories of the Third World: Perspectives from Indian Historiography." In Mapping Subaltern Studies and the Postcolonial, edited by Vinayak Chaturvedi, 163-90. London and New York: Verso, 2000.

Ramanujan, A.K. ""Is There an Indian Way of Thinking: An Informal Essay"." In India through Hindu Categories, edited by McKim Marriott, 41-58. New Delhi: Sage, 1990.

. ""Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation"." In Many Ramayanas: The Diversity o f a Narrative Tradition in South Asia., edited by Paula Richman, 22-49. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.

Ranade, M.G. Essays on Indian Economics: A Collection o f Essays and Speeches. Reprint of revised edition ed. New Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, 1982.

. The Miscellaneous Writings o f the Late Honorable Mr. Justice M. G. Ranade. Bombay: The Manoranjan Press, 1915.

. Nyayamurti M. Mahadev Govind Ranade Hyanci Dharmapara Vyakhyane. Bombay: Dvarkanath Govind Vaidya.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 345

------. "Philosophy of Indian Theism." In The Wisdom o f a Modern Rishi: Writings and Speeches o f Mahadev Govind Ranade, edited by T.N. Jagadisan. Madras: Rochhouse and Sons Limited, 1900-1988.

. "The Sutra and Smriti on the Age of Hindu Marriage." In Religious and Social Reform: A Collection o f Essays and Speeches, edited by M.B. Kolasker. Bombay: G. Claridge and Company, 1902.

------. "Vedic Authorities for Widow Remarriage." In Religious and Social Reform: A Collection o f Essays and Speeches, edited by M.B. Kolasker. Bombay: G. Claridge and Company, 1902.

Ranade, M.G. and K.T. Telang. Rise o f the Maratha Power and Other Essays (Ranade) and Gleanings from Maratha Chronicles (Telang). Bombay: University of Bombay, 1961.

Ranade, R.D. Tukaram. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.

Ranade, Ramabai. Amchya Ayushatil Kahi Athavani. Pune: Wardha Prakashan, 2002.

Rashid, Abdur. "The Treatment of History by Muslim Historians in Mughal Official and Biographical Works." In Historians from India, Pakistan and Ceylon, edited by C.H. Philips, 139-51. London: Oxford University Press, 1961.

Raykar, Sitaram. Amhi Pahilele Phule. 1st ed. Pune: Mahatma Jotirava Phule Pratishtana, 1981.

Rodrigues, Valerian. The Essential Writings ofB.R. Ambedkar. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Rosselli, John. "The Self-Image of Effeteness: Physical Education and Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Bengal." Past and Present 86 (1980): 121-48.

Said, Edward. The World, the Text and the Critic. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983.

Sardar, G.B. Mahatma Phule: Vyaktitva Ani Vichar. Mumbai: Abhinav Vachak Chalval, 1981.

Sardar, Ziauddin. Postmodernism and the Other: The New Imperialism o f Western Culture. London: Pluto Press, 1998.

Sarkar, Sumit. Writing Social History. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 346

Sarkar, Tanika. "Nationalist Iconography: The Image of Women in Nineteenth-Century Bengali Literature." In Hindu Wife Hindu Nation. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2001.

Sarti, Ronald. Mazzini: A Life for the Religion o f Politics. Westport and London: Praeger, 1997.

Sasane, Gyanoba Krishnaji. "Athavani." In Amhi Pahilele Phule, edited by Sitaram Rayakar, 39-44. Pune: Mahatma Jotirao Phule Samta Pratishtan Prakashan, 1981.

Savarkar, V.D. Hindu Rashtra Darshan. Second ed. Bombay: Veer Savarkar Prakashan, 1984.

. Hindutva. Bombay: Veer Savarkar Prakashan, 1969.

. The Indian War o f Independence 1857. Bombay: Phoenix Publications, 1947.

. "Joseph Mazzini: Atmacharitra-Prasthavana." In Samagra Savarkar Vangmay, 1-16. Mumbai: Svatantrayaveer Savarkar Rashtriya Smarak Prakashan, 2000- 2001.

. "Majhi Janmathep." In Samagra Savarkar Vangmay, 1-327. Mumbai: Sva. Savarkar Rashtriya Smarak Prakashan, 2000-2001.

------. "Majhya Athvani." In Samagra Savarkar Vangmay, 59-185. Mumbai: Sva. Savarkar Rashtriya Smarak Prakashan, 2000-2001.

------. Samagra Savarkar Vangmay. 8 vols. Vol. 3. Mumbai: Swatantraveer Savarkar Rashtriya Smarak Prakashan, 2000-2001.

------. Samagra Savarkar Vangmay. 8 vols. Vol. 4. Mumbai: Swatantraveer Savarkar Rashtriya Smarak Prakashan, 2000-2001.

------. Samagra Savarkar Vangmay. 8 vols. Vol. 5. Mumbai: Swatantraveer Savarkar Rashtriya Smarak Prakashan, 2000-2001.

. Samagra Savarkar Vangmay. 8 vols. Vol. 6. Mumbai: Swatantraveer Savarkar Rashtriya Smarak Prakashan, 2000-2001.

------. Six Glorious Epochs o f Indian History. Translated by S.T. Godbole. 1st ed. New Delhi: Rajdhani Granthnagar, 1971.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 347

------. Veer Savarkar's "Whirld-WindPropaganda". Statements, Messages and Extracts from the President's Diary o f His Propagandistic Tours, Interviews from December 1937 to October 1941. Bombay: Anant S. Bhide, 1941.

Savkar, M.K. "Savarkar: Before and after Andaman." In Savarkar Commemoration Volume, 171-76. Bombay: Savarkar Darshan Pratishthan, 1989.

Scott, David. Refashioning Futures: Criticism after Postcoloniality. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.

Sen, Amiya. Social and Religious Reform: The Hindus o f British India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Sen, Sudipta. "Imperial Orders of the Past: The Semantics of History and Time in the Medieval Indo-Persianate Culture of North India." In Invoking the Past: The Uses o f History in South Asia, edited by Daud Ali, 231-57. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Sharma, Arvind. Hinduism and Its Sense o f History. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Sinha, Mrinalini. Colonial Masculinity: The 'Manly' Englishman and the 'Effeminate Bengali' in the Nineteenth-Century. Manchester, New York: Manchester University Press, 1995.

Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. "Can the Subaltern Speak." In Marxism and the Interpretation o f Culture, edited by C.Nelson and I. Grossberg, 271-313. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988.

------. "Subaltern Studies: Deconstructing Historiography." In Selected Subaltern Studies, edited by Ranajit Guha and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, 3-32. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Srimad Bhagavata Mahapurana. Translated by C.L. Goswami. 8 vols. Vol. 1. Gorakhpur: Gita Press, 1971.

Suleri, Sara. The Rhetoric o f English India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Sunthankar, B.R. Maharashtra 1858-1920. Bombay: Popular Book Depot, 1993.

Sylvester, Christine. Feminist Theory and International Relations in a Postmodern Era. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 348

Talcherkar, H.A. "Devdasi Prethechey Virodhak Jotirao." InAmhi Pahilele Phule, edited by Sitarama Rayakara, 45-47. Pune: Mahatma Jotirava Phule Samata Pratishtana, 1981.

Thapar, Romila. Cultural Pasts: Essays in Early Indian History. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Thosar, L.D. "Sadhya Rahnichey Jotirao." InAmhi Pahilele Phule, edited by Sitarama Rayakara, 41-43. Pune: Mahatma Jotirava Phule Samata Pratishtana, 1981.

Trautman, Thomas. Aryans and British India. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.

Tripathi, Amales. Vidyasagar: The Traditional Moderniser. Bombay: Orient Longman, 1974.

Trouillot, Ralph-Michel. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production o f History. Boston: Beacon Press, 1995.

Tucker, Richard P. Ranade and the Roots o f Indian Nationalism. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1972.

Udayakumar, S.P. "Introduction." In Handcuffed to History: Narratives, Pathologies, and Violence in South Asia, edited by S.P. Udayakumar, 1-22, 2001.

Vaid, Dwarkanath Govind. Prarthanasamajacha Itihas. Mumbai: Prarthana Samaj, 1927.

Vartak, Malavika. "Shivaji Maharaj: Growth of a Symbol." Economic and Political Weekly 34, no. 19 (1999): 1126-34.

Vohra, Rajendra. "Prasthavna: Adhunikta Ani Parampara, Ekonisavya Shatkatil Maharashtra." In Adhunikta Ani Parampara: Ekonisavya Shatkatil Maharashtra, edited by Rajendra Vohra, 9-24. Pune: Pratima Prakashan, 2000.

Wakankar, Milind. "The Pre-History of the Popular: Caste and Canonicity in Indian Modernity." Columbia University, 2003.

Walker, R.B.J. "World Politics and Western Reason: Universalism, Pluralism, Hegemony." In Culture, Ideology, and World Order, edited by R.B.J. Walker, 182-216. Boulder and London: Westview Press, 1984.

Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit o f Capitalism. London and New York: Routledge, 1992.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 349

White, Hayden. "Foucault Decoded: Notes from Underground." History and Theory 12, no. 12 (1973): 23-54.

. "Historical Emplotment and the Problem of Truth." In The Postmodern History Reader, edited by Keith Jenkins, 392-96. London and New York: Routledge, 1997.

------. Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth Century Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973.

. "New Historicism: A Comment." In The New Historicism, edited by H. Aram Veeser, 293-302. New York and London: Routledge, 1989.

------. Tropics o f Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978.

Wolpert, Stanley. Tilak and Gokhale: Revolution and Reform in the Making o f Modern India. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962.

Young, Robert. White Mythologies: Writing History and the West. London and New York: Routledge, 1990.

Zelliott, Eleanor. "Chokhamela and Eknath: Two Bhakti Modes of Legitimacy for Modem Change." In Tradition and Modernity in Bhakti Movements, edited by Jayant Lele, 136-56. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1981.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.