Constructing Nation and History Hindu Mahasabha in Colonial North India 1915-1930 Prabhu Narain Bapu Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Oriental and African Studies University of London November 2009 ProQuest Number: 11010467 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 11010467 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 Dedicated to ... Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha, Southall, London Gurdwara Guru Nanak Nishkam Sewak Jatha [UK], Hounslow, London Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha, Hounslow, London Declaration for PhD thesis I have read and understood regulation 17.9 of the Regulations for students of the School of Oriental and African Studies concerning plagiarism.I undertake that all the material presented for examination is my own work and has not been written for me, in whole or in part by any other person.I also undertake that any quotation or paraphrase from the published or unpublished work of another person has been duly acknowledged Iin present the work for which examination. Prabhu Narain Bapu School of Oriental and African Studies University of London Constructing Nation and History Hindu Mahasabha in Colonial North India 1915-1930 Abstract_____________________________________________________ This study’s paramount objective is to examine the emergence of the Hindu Mahasabha as a political force and its campaign for Hindu unity and organisation in the context of the growing Hindu-Muslim conflict in colonial north India, mainly focusing on the United Provinces, in the early twentieth century. It explains that the Mahasabha articulated sangathan [Hindu consolidation] ideology as a means of constructing a distinct Hindu political identity and unity in conflict with Muslims in India. The work explores the way Arya Samaj and sanatan dharm influences, though different, were opportunistically drawn on by the Mahasabha in its sangathanist narrative. It examines the ambivalence between the Mahasabha and the Indian National Congress and at the individual level [M.M. Malaviya, etc], despite their ideological opposition. It argues that the Mahasabha with its Hindutva ideology had its focus on anti-Muslim rather than anti-colonial antagonism, adding to the difficulties over the Nehru report and the Round Table Conferences, but also showing its occasional alliances with the British, despite its fascist sympathies. It suggests that the Mahasabha had a limited class and regional base and was unable to generate much in the way of a mass movement of its own, but nonetheless developed a quasi­ military wing, besides its involvement in a number of popular, more or less single-issue campaigns - shuddhi, cow protection, Nagari, etc. The work explains that the Mahasabha rejected the Congress’s vision of a secular territorial nation and instead advocated a state based on Hindu religion and culture, in effect a Hindu rashtra [nation] based on a Hindu majority rule, excluding Muslims and Christians from the India nation. The thesis bridges the gap in Indian historiography by focusing entirely on the Hindu Mahasabha’s politics and its sangathan ideology in the formative period in the UP. Contents. Acknowledgements ix-xii Note on Translation and References xiii Abbreviations xiv Glossary xv-xviii 1 1ntroduction 1-9 Parti Hindu Nationalism 2 The Origins and Evolution of Hindu Mahasabha 10-29 I. Hindu Sabha Movement 11 J. 1. Separate Electorates 1 3 I. 2 .‘Declining’ Hindu Numbers 16 1.3. Lai Chand’s Vision of Nationalism 18 I. 4. Punjab Hindu Sabha 19 II. Hindu Mahasabha’s Formation 21 II. 1. Non-cooperation Movement 25 Conclusion 28 3 Mahasabha’s Social Base and Organisation 30-48 I. Urban and High Caste Roots 30 1.1. Rural Base 35 1.2. Landed Aristocracy 37 1.3. Hindu Princely States 41 II. Organisation and Leadership 43 II. 1. Sangathan Hardliners 46 Conclusion 47 Part II Sangathan Ideology 4 Sangathan - Unity and Organisation of Hindus 49-65 I. Sangathan Movement 49 1.1. Moplah Conversions and Shuddhi 52 I. 2. Integration of Untouchables 55 II. Caste Hierarchy 60 11.1. Adi Hindu Movement 63 Conclusion 64 5 Hindutva - A Nation of Hindu Race and Culture 66-79 I. Hindu ‘Self and Islamic ‘Non-self 67 II. A ‘Hindu Fatherland’ 70 III. Hindu Rashtra 76 Conclusion 78 6 Masculine ‘Hindu Nation’ and the Muslim ‘Other1 80-98 I. Ideal of Hindu ‘Masculinity1 80 U.Akharas 84 II. Muslims - the ‘Historical Enemy’ 87 11.1. ‘Abductions’ of Hindu women 92 II. 2. Boycott of Muslims 94 III. Militancy of Hindu Festivals 95 IV. Hindu Processional Music 96 Conclusion 98 7 The Militarisation of Hindu Society 99-112 I. Hindu Militarisation 99 II. Mahasabha and RSS Nexus 104 III. Radicalisation of Militarisation 108 Conclusion 112 8 Gandhi andHindu Mahasabhaites 113-129 I. Gandhi’s Religion 113 II. Hindu Mahasabha Ties 116 II. 1. Gandhi-Savarkar Conflict 117 III. Opposition of Sangathanists 123 111.1. Ahimsa and Hindu-Muslim Unity 125 Conclusion 129 9 Nagari and Cow - the Symbols of ‘Hindu Nation’ 130-147 I. Hindu Campaign for Nagari 130 I . 1. Hindi - India’s National Language 136 II. Cow Protection Movement 140 II. 1. Cow-the Mother of a ‘Hindu Nation’ 142 Conclusion 146 Part III Hindu Nation 10 Hindu Mahasabha and Congress Conflict 148-162 I. Malaviya’s ‘Hindu’ Congress 149 II. Mahasabha and Congress Nexus 154 III. Savarkarite Mahasabha 159 Conclusion 162 11 Sangathanist Plan for Hindu Majority Nation 163-183 I. Separate Electorates 163 1.1. Lucknow Pact 166 II. Jinnah’s Delhi Proposals 171 III. All-Parties Conference 173 III. 1. Nehru Constitution 174 IV. Round Table Conferences 180 Conclusion 182 12 Conclusion 184-186 Bibliography 187-213 viii Acknowledgements This thesis has been inspired by Sir Christopher Bayfy: the theme of the Hindu Mahasabha came up in one of my informal meetings with him on a foggy winter day at the British Library, London, in 2000. Professor Bayly wondered that no one had written a complete history of the Hindu Mahasabha, which remained an unexplained mystery in Indian historiography. The theme appeared novel, as it represented a political movement in colonial India. The Hindu Mahasabha has rarely been on the academic agenda in India, far less a topic of discussion in the classes and seminars of the University of Delhi - where I have studied. At the first glance, it appeared almost unfathomable: I did not anticipate a long story of sangathan [Hindu unity] and its contextual anti-Muslim tirade and hostility that incubated the Mahasabha’s politics of a ‘Hindu nation’ in India. Later on, it has dawned on me that this study is perhaps one of the first or pioneering attempts on the formative history of the Mahasabha: the narrative begins in 1915 and ends in 1930. The thesis revisits the Hindutva assumption that the Hindu-Muslim divide in colonial India was deeply rooted in the country’s social and political history, an issue of debate that is bound to dominate the decades to come. It was strange that many of the vulnerabilities of my own student life and its aims were reconciled, despite the absence of secure funding, at my PhD course’s difficult birthing at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, in September 2000. I could not get a fellowship to pursue this project: there was the seriousness, the infatuation with SOAS, and the surprising naivete, nevertheless. The funding crisis plunged me into a gloom. I did not fully realise the magnitude of the research I was undertaking. My research certainly went through a tidal rhythm of advance and retreat, dictated by the availability money at every step. Even I steadied my footing in the City of London, there was a turmoil as well as depression, marked by isolation and loneliness. My road to the thesis’s completion has become longer, more tortuous and far to less likely than anticipated. This thesis has taken over eight years to write, and I owe a great debt to my teacher and Orientalist - Professor Peter Robb. Professor Robb is my most important audience and critic: he has been a patient and generous supervisor and a great editor throughout. He guided my research with energy and steady purpose in a genial spirit and courtesy, showing an understanding of me and my own vulnerabilities. I am grateful to him for the long hours he has spent on the countless number of drafts and patient explanations he made in the chapters through suggestions and detailed comments, written in feathery strokes. His approach is tutorial: when I required his rescuing, he has given more attention to the chapters. The chapters have gone through many drafts destroyed by him at various stages and kept changing in detail and argument till September 2009 when the thesis rolled out. Professor Robb has looked as generously as possible on many of my own weaknesses and remained attentive and sympathetic. If there is one reader to whom this work is addressed as my first audience, it is to him as a social historian. Source material for this thesis has been collected in Lucknow, New Delhi, and London. However, there is a vacuum of data on the Hindu Mahasabha due to the missing of many documents, particularly in Lucknow; and the assembling of evidence on Mahasabha activities and campaigns in the United Provinces has been extremely difficult.