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Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

Volume 19 Article 5

2006 Censorship and Censureship: Insiders, Outsiders, and the Attack on Bhandarkar Institute Adheesh Sathaye

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Recommended Citation Sathaye, Adheesh (2006) "Censorship and Censureship: Insiders, Outsiders, and the Attack on Bhandarkar Institute," Journal of Hindu- Christian Studies: Vol. 19, Article 5. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.7825/2164-6279.1360

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Censorship and Censureship: Insiders, Outsiders, and the Attack on Bhandarkar Institute

Adheesh Sathaye University of British Columbia

ON January 5, 2004, the Bhandarkar Institute, a prominent group of Maharashtrian historians large Sanskrit manuscript library in , was sent a letter to OUP calling for its withdrawal. vandalized because of its involvement in James Apologetically, OUP pulled it from Indian Laine's controversial study of the Maharashtrian shelves on November 21,2003, but this did little king . While most of the manuscripts to quell the outrage arising from one paragraph escaped damage, less fortunate was the in Laine's book deemed slanderous to Shivaji academic project of South Asian studies, which and his mother Jijabai: now faces sorpe serious questions. If our intellectual pursuits should result in the The repressed awareness that Shivaji destruction of the very materials we study, or had an absentee father is also revealed injury to those who help us to study them, are by the fact that Maharashtrians tell jokes they worth conducting at a1l?i Or might they be naughtily suggesting that his guardian conducted in such a way as to avoid violent Dadaji Konddev was his biological reaction? As groundwork for possible answers to father. In a sense because Shivaji's these questions, this essay examines the father had little influence on his son, for intellectual history behind the violence as many narrators it was important to revealed through Marathi-language reviews of supply him with father replacements, Laine's book published in the months prior to Dadaji and later Ramdas. But perhaps the attack. If we can understand how and why we read the story of his life as governed Laine's book came to be portrayed as censorable by motivations buried deep in his and the Bhandarkar Institute as censurable, then psyche by a mother rejected by her we may begin to see this event as more than just husband. One could then see that 'insider' hooligans protesting against an Shivaji's drive to heroism was spurred 'outsider' scholar. by his attempt to please his doting mother, and that she, aware of her Attack on the Bhandarkar Institute Yad<;lva heritage and thinking of her husband as a collaborator of low birth, Oxford University Press (OUP) published the insti1h:id in her son the dream of a Indian edition of James. W. Laine's Shivaji: revived Hindu kingdom. ii ~ Hindu King in Islamic in June 2003, but the moves towards censorship did not The furor over this passage resulted in two acts commence in earnest until Novemb~r, when a of physical violence. On December 22, 2003,

ADHEESH SATHAYE is an Assistant Professor of South Asian History, Language, and Culture in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia. His research interests include the Sanskrit epics and narrative literature as well as Marathi devotional poetry a\1d performance. An early version of this essay was presented at the 2004 American Academy of Religion meetings in San Antonio, Texas.

Journal ofHindu-Christian Studies 19 (2006) 2-11

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members of the Pune branch of the about Jijamata's morals as well. How (. . assaulted the Sanskrit scholar Shrikant Bahulkar can we tolerate such blasphemy?Vl in his office at Tilak Vidyapeeth, "blackening" his face by pinning him down and The BORI Attack in the Media smearing tar on his visage. Bahulkar was targeted because Laine had thanked him in the The BORI attack received wide coverage in the book's acknowledgments. In support of his major Marathi- and English-language colleague, the noted Maharashtrian historian newspapers in Maharashtra (e.g., Sakal, Gajanan Mehendale approached the Sena offices Loksatta, Times of India, Indian Express), and on December 25 demanding an apology to the story remained in Pune headlines for over ( Bahulkar. His request denied, Mehendale two weeks. vii The electoral fallout of the attack destroyed four hundred manuscript pages of his and the charges brought against Laine for own definitive history of Shivaji. iii In light of "wantonly giving provocation with inten~ to Mehendale's protest, Shiv Sena leader Raj cause riot" (Sections 153 and 153A of the Indian Thakeray met with Bahulkar and offered a Penal Code) became the subject ofa number of personal (and well-publicized) apology, assuring stimulating analyses in the English-language him that "such incidents would not be repeated, Indian media. viii These journalists have painted a and that Sena activists would have to get a compelling picture of how and why intellectual 'clearance' from the toprung leaders before life in India is being violently appropriated by embarking on such 'aggressive campaigns' 111 political life. What remains unanswered, the future."iv however, is a basic, unavoidable question: Why Then, in the morning of January 5, Laine? 2004, approximately 150 young men appeared at was not the first Shivaji the gates of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research scholar-in. English or in Marathi-to be Institute (BORI) in Pune, overwhelmed the colltroversial, or even the first to be censored. handful ofBORI staff on duty, and proceeded to As Laine's work itself suggests, the narrative of ransack the 87-year old archives for nearly an Shivaji's life has always been subject to debate, hour. The group toppled massive shelves and even during the king's lifetime. There are cabinets housing rare books and manuscripts, interminable arguments about the date of damaged museum pieces, defaced portraits, Shivaji~s birth, his associations with the bhakti destroyed most. of the wooden fumiture, saints Ramdas and Tukaram, or if he was a shattered anything made of glass, and threw nation~l hero or a 'mountain ~at.' But few other BORI's computers into a pond. When the police publications have aroused the passions exhibited arrived, 72 individuals were arrested. The against Laine's work-passions that in India are attackers belonged to a group known as the . often associated with religious fervor. Indeed, Brigade-the youth ann of a relatively Laine did antlclpate controversy-seeing new 'cultural' organization called the himself as "a disturber of the tranquility with Maratha Seva Sangh. v Their leader Purushottam which synthetic accounts of Shivaji's life are Khedekar-an executive engineer in the Pune accepted"-but surely he expected objections to Department of Public Works-held a press his portrayal of Hindu and Muslim identity, and conference that evening, praising the Brigade not for publishing a joke about Shivaji's and explaining the need for the attack: mother. ix Making this connection to religion, It has come to our knowledge that some several English-language journalists erroneously passages in Laine's book state that ascribed the BORI attack to "Hindu extremists," Shivaji's renowned mentors, Samarth "angry Hindu activists," "a Hindu mob," or Ramdas Swami and Dadaji Kondeo, are "Hindu fanatics."x Though it is true that the pro­ his biological fathers. This kind of Hindu Shiv Sena had conducted the earlier brutish penmanship raises questions attack on Bahulkar, the professes a different, competing ideology. xi The

http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol19/iss1/5 2 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1360 Sathaye: Censorship and Censureship: Insiders, Outsiders, and the Attack on Bhankarkar Institute 4 Adheesh Sathaye

literature of its parent organization, the Maratha Western historical method (Dalrymple) Or are Seva Sangh, stresses devotion to Shivaji, to his protesting against perceived academic mother Jijabai, and to -modem non-Brahman hegemony (Braverman). leaders Jyotiba Phule, Bhimrao Ambedkar, and Shahu Maharaj, as part of a new Insider/Outsider and Emic/Etic religious/political movement known as Shivdharma. Founded in 2000, this largely In this manner, the attacks on Bahulkar and the lower-caste movement consciously regards itself Bhandarkar Institute touch upon a as distinct from mainstream Hinduism and is methodological issue that is central to religious particularly hostile towards Brahmanic studies: the "insider/outsider problem." xviii In hegemony. xii Shivdharma is, in short, a marriage some ways the BOR! attack might be read as the of a passionate folk devotion to Shivaji with ultimate testimony to Wilfred Cantwell Smith's anti-Brahman politics. xiii Given that BOR! is assertion that "no statement made by the scholar thought of as a Brahmanic institution, it appears, of religion is valid unless the religious believer then, that the Brigade did not carry out a 'Hindu could accept it as correct."xix (With fundamentalist' attack against non-Hindus, but 'Maharashtra' substitUted for 'religion' and one couched within ongoing caste politics that 'Maharashtrian' for 'religious believer'). are increasingly encroaching upon Conversely, one may argue that Laine, as an Maharashtrian cultural life. xiv outsider embedded in the Enlightenment On the other hand, as several writers tradition of scholarship, was incapable of have noted, the discourse of 'defending' Shivaji understanding (verstehen) the Maharashtrians' from a foreign writer is strikingly similar to conceptualization of their own history because critiques being raised against the Western study he did not share their essential belief in the of Hinduism by members of the Indian exemplary status of Shivaji (following diaspora. xv Considering it as the most extreme Sch1eiermacher and MacIntyre) or that he did example of " right's 'protofascist not make a sufficiently 'imaginative leap' in views, ", Amy Braverman has compared the order to produce an effective dialogue with BOR! attack to the Indian-American Maharashtrian insiders (following Otto and interrogation of psychoanalytic studies of Wach). xx Xlternatively, as I had _ argued Hinduism. xvi Braverman suggests a common elsewhere,_ the -BOR! attack and the Indian­ underlying argument: a desire to censor the Alnerican interrogation of Bindu studies might misrepresentation by , outsider' Western scholars be both regarded as reversals. of the and replace it (or at least balance it) with insider/outsider dichotomy, as forcible assertions 'insider' scholarship. William Dalrymple that Western scholars (and their Indian compares the BORI ~.ttack to the 'saffronization' accomplices) are the 'insiders' who do not allow of Indian history schoolbooks. Through such 'outsid~r' Hindus or Maharashtrians into their coercive acts, he believes that "a passionately private, privileged, and ultimately corrupt contested battle is taking place over the conversations about 'Hinduism or interpretation of Indian history."xvii -Dalrymple Maharashtra. xxi represents the conflict as one between two In this essay, I would like to raise two mutually horrified parties-Hindu conservatives points of objection to such wholesale unable to tolerate blasphemous Western applications of the insider/outsider dichotomy to misrepresentation of their national/religious the Laine controversy (including mine). First, heroes like Shivaji, and Westernized Indian implicit . in the equations of 'scholar' to historians aghast at the erroneous and 'outsider' and 'native' to 'insider' is a disregard unprofessional content of the new schoolbooks. for the scholarly capacities of the insider. In Like Braverman, Dalrymple posits an other words, tlle only possibility of a 'native unquestioned opposition between 'outsider' scholar' in this debate 'is one who is Western­ scholarship and the hostile reactions of trained. All other natives are infonnants. In the 'insiders,' who either have no conception of the case of the BOR! attack, this assumption leads

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one to believe that there was no intellectual rigor uttered, while 'phonemics' is the specific set of behind the physical violence-only political sounds recognized within a particular language. rhetoric. On the contrary, we shall see that since For example, while the single American English at least early September 2003, writers dose to phoneme /p/ is uttered as either the phonetic the Shivdharma movement had been voicing allophones /p/ or /ph/ (e.g., /p/ in 'nap' or /ph/ in their discontent with Laine's book through 'paint'), /p/ and /ph/ are distinct phonemes in detailed-though not unbiased-reviews. . Pike's neologisms 'emics' and 'etics' Second, the equation of 'insider' vs. generalized these descriptions for cultural 'outsider' to 'informant' vs. 'scholar' not only systems-etic analyses being universal, gives the false impression of a single, 'scientific' descriptions of culture, emic analyses homogenous 'insider' identity, but also describing structures of meaning belonging to a represents this identity as a natural property of particular culture. While the· etic analysis of a an individual, like skin color or blood type. As handshake would describe the physical actions easily as :-insider' and 'outsider' labels are involved-the clasping of right hands, the affixed to etlmic identities, a cognitive system a vigorous up-and-down motion-an emic also regarded as automatically being an 'Indian analysis would understand a handshake to way of thinking' or a 'Maharashtrian signify greeting, or bidding goodbye, or an worldview' or a 'non-Brahman discourse' (as I agreement (for North Americans). These have had to do here to Shivdharma). However, contextual differences of meaning do not derive keeping in mind Alasdair MacIntyre's from the empirical properties of the act, but observation that "criteria and concepts have a belong to the cognitive system in which the act history; it is not just activities which have a is interpreted. Scholarship, according to Pike, is history," it is manifestly important to investigate not a dichotomy between these two modes of how 'insider' identities are constructed. xxii In the analysis, but a dialectic between them. xxv The case of the Sambhaji Brigade's attack, I suggest one modification I'd like to make to Pike's that . new boundaries of Maharashtrian theory is to regard emic structures themselves as sociopolitical identity are being carved using historical constructs (following Harris). xxvi That Western scholarship itself as a scalpel. Since the is, someone-at some time and for some boundaries between 'insiders' and 'outsiders' reason-has taught us what a handshake means. are negotiated precisely around the knowledge Furthermore, borrowing Julia Kristeva's of Shivaji, I argue that an insider/outsider tenninology, every cultural act is not simply a representation of intercultural or interreligious product of emic structure but a productivity-an scholarship is inadequate to understand why act of redistribution and pennutation which has Laine's Shivaji provoked violence. Instead of a the power to transform its governmg dichotomization of 'insiders' and 'outsiders,' an structure. xxvii In other words,. every hand we emic/etic model, based on a dialectic between shake affects our understanding of what a cognitive systems. or worldviews, will better handshake means. Using .this methodology, let enable us to isolate intellectual conflicts from us see how emic incongruities between Laine's sociopolitical ones. Shivaji and the Shivaji of Shivdhanna led certain While 'emic' and 'etic' are often anti-establishment writers in Maharashtra to call conflated with 'insider' and 'outsider' points of for action against the book and those responsible view-particularly in the anthropological work for its writing. of Marvin Harris-one should note that the originally intended meanings of these terms Marathi~Language Reviews of Laine's Shivaji were not bound to social identities but to cognitive systems. xxiii 'Emics' and 'etics' are Laine's Shivaji initially received good reviews tenns coined by the linguist Kenneth Pike in in late August (Sakal) and early September (the 1954. xxiv In linguistics, 'phonetics' is the Shiv Sena's daily' Samana) in the Marathi­ scientific description of articulated sounds, language press, lauding it as "a good reference regardless of the language in which they are text."xxviii However, writers soon began to voice

http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol19/iss1/5 4 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1360 Sathaye: Censorship and Censureship: Insiders, Outsiders, and the Attack on Bhankarkar Institute 6 Adheesh Sathaye

alternate opinions. The earliest negative review Laine's misrepresentation of history onto is Yashwant Kharade's three-page piece 'insider' intellectuals. appearing in Rangataranga magazine, dated Paygude's wake-up call (avhan) seems October 2003. xxix Analyzing several passages in to have been answered. In the weeks that Laine's book, Kharade was the first Marathi­ . followed, the voices of condemnation grew in language reviewer to draw attention to the intensity, and two letters calling for the complete controversial passage believed to slander withdrawal of Laine's Shivaji were sent to OUP, Shivaji's mother. However, he dismisses Laine's resulting in the book's censorship. The first, observations as "ridiculously [hasyaspad-pane]" already mentioned above, was signed by a group written, and not as a defamation (badnami). of prominent Shivaji historians (including Ninad Indeed, Kharade judges Laine to be "seasoned in Bedekar, Gajanan Mehendale, Jayasinhrao talking in circles around his ignorance," whose Pawar, and Babasaheb Purandare) and Pune BJP book is negligible at best, a work that is politician Pradeep Rawat. xxxiii The second, "unnecessarily crowded with contradictory lesser-known letter was authored by a group ideas, that's all!"xxx headed by Dr. Praphullachand Tawade, the Laine has arguably produced an ewc Executive Director of the "Center for Indian study that seeks to describe the possible Historical Research and Education [Bharatiya narratives of Shivaji's life as they circulate Itihas Samshodhan va Prabodhan MandaTJ." As through Maharashtrian culture, but it is clear that a Marathi newsletter explained, this letter was Kharade (and most other reviewers) read it as an written because "a wave of rage among lovers of etic history ordering the events of Shivaji's life Shivaji has been spreading on account of this in an absolute, chronological, and thematized defamation of King Shivaji."xxxiv At a press 'master' narrative. The intolerability of such a conference, Tawade also suggested: master narrative is expressed III the Rangataranga editor Ram Paygude's Indian intellectuals who have given introduction to Kharade's review: guidance to the author in question should also explain themselves This book, which the American regarding this matter. TheYr should professor James W. Laine has published declare the nature in which they through the graces of Oxford University communicated with this author. A Press, is truly a wake-up call sent out to certain foreign writer writes in a historians. No one has made the effort to defamatory fashion regarding King condemn the material [majakur] found Shivaji and acknowledges his gratitude within this book. We hereby publicly to intellectuals .here for giving him condemn it, the author, and those who assistance; thereupon these intellectuals have provided him with false and say nothing. Does this mean that they malicious infonnation. xxxi too are taking p~rt III this defamation? xxxv The rhetorical difference between Kharade and Paygude is striking-while Kharade is content Like Paygude, Tawade also blamed Laine's with explaining why he thinks Laine is a poor Indian associates, though the crime is no longer scholar, Paygude condemns the author and those a "tarnishing" (kalankit karane) of history but who helped him. Paygude's argument relies on "defamation" (badnami). Tawade's the assertion of Laine's linguistic 'outsider' refocalization of blame from Laine onto his status: "People come from great countries to our colleagues was then picked up in December by a countly to study it. And though they don't even writer named Jnanesh Maharao, through a series know our language, our intellectuals tell them all of articles in Chitralekha, a weekly magazine sorts of things in an effort to tarnish history."xxxii published in . xxxvi Maharao did three In doing so he displaces the culpability for things that had not been previously done in print: he called for direct action against the

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perpetrators of the defamation, he explicitly have nurtured James's vileness."xlii He adds that noted that these ,perpetrators were Brahmans, though the book has been censored, the and he provided a list of their names. historians' letter to OUP has "neglected the domestic minds which injected the perverse filth Jnanesh Maharao's Chitralekha Articles into James's book."xliii Finally, noting the previous involvement of BORl in Shivaji­ In an essay entitled "Foreign Book, Domestic centered controversy and citing an emailed Minds [Videshi Pustak, Svadeshi Mastak]" dated suggestion from a reader in the Netherlands­ December 22, 2003, but in circulation at least' "The first thing we shoul,d do is to ask the one week prior, Maharao describes the explaination [sic] of this Bhandarkar research controversial passage as reflecting a long­ institute-Pune. Who I think is responsible for running Brahman conspiracy to denigrate it"-Maharao concludes his s~cond article by Shivaji's rule in favor of the Peshwas. Maharao demanding a public clarification from BORl. first gives a full citation of the controversial Further, adds Maharao: paragraph and then declares that Laine's statements are "entirely based on fiction."xxxvii Since one is unlikely to receive a Providing historical evidence to refute them, confession of their guilt through such a Maharao then argues that Laine's ideas "must statement, the government itself should have come about through the writhing of those investigate Pune's 'Bhandarkar sorts of age-old insects [sanatani kide] who have Historical Research Institute' and the idiotic ideas of status in their minds, and then 'American Institute of Indian Studies,' they must have been somehow filled into James as well as the other related parties, and Laine's head."xxxviii Using intricate metaphor and the appropriate measures should be wordplay, Maharao suggests that the taken. "xliv "Maharashtrians" who told Laine the jokes were in fact Brahmans: "true Cobra serpents [attal Did Maharao' s articles directly lead to the kobra nag], who, in order to cover up the sins of actions of the Sambhaji Brigade? We can gain a the Peshwas, spew their venom of defamation on sense of his influence by noting that two the spotless Maratha rule of King Shivaji-as if celebratory Sambhaji Brigade publications' possessed by Afjhal Khan." xxxix Maharao's reprinted Maharao's two Chitralekha' articles in. conclusion to this piece strengthens Paygude and February 2004. xlv Moreover, BORl scholar M. Taware's finger-pointing: A. Mehendale explained that in the days before the January 5 attack: Neither the institute which provided James Laine with historical information Some officials from the Maratha regarding King Shivaji, nor any of the Mahasangh met with the Institute intellectuals who directed him have Librarian, Mr. Satish, Sangale. At that publicly condemned this book. Because time, they showed him an issue of the the principal criminal lives in a foreign Chitralekha weekly. The Librarian made country, we cannot beat him with our a Xerox copy of the relevant article shoes. And therefore those who have within it, and only then did the Institute given him assistance are shamelessly become aware of the reprehensible having a good time. xl nature of the material Prof. Laine had written. xlvi Significantly, this article names these individuals and institutions for the first time in Though Maharao unequivocally-and, I believe, the Marathi-Ianguage print media. xli In his genuinely-denounced the attack on BORl in follow-up article, Maharao laments that despite the pages of Chit/;alekha, it is clear that his all sorts of talk, no one has yet "stood up and writings provided an intellectual and ethical actually confronted those of perverse minds who foundation to the Sambhaji Brigade's

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Sathaye: Censorship and Censureship: Insiders, Outsiders, and the Attack on Bhankarkar Institute I 8 Adheesh Sathaye

violence. xlvii He articulates a particularly volatile what did transpire, and it certainly has not been anti -Brahman discourse that first posits . the the aim of this paper to discuss what Laine did existence of a Brahmanic cultural hegemony and right or wrong. Instead, I hope this investigation then demonstrates how it perpetuates itself into the intellectual history behind the BOR! through a conspiratorial and deeply rooted attack has been able to highlight some intellectual control of the history of Shivaji. One methodological limitations of positing a binary goal of the Shivdharma movement is to rescue opposition between 'insider' informants and Shivaji-and therefore all non-Brahmanas­ 'outsider' scholars. The ontological from Brahman hegemony. Shivdharma's Shivaji impossibility of 'native scholars' like Maharao, is an untarnished and socially progressive hero, Tawade, or Kharade forces us to perceive the but his character is eclipsed only by that of Sambhaji Brigade's attack as arising from a Jijabai, who is treated as a sort of 'Holy nebulous mob mentality. Furthermore, the a Mother.' In other words, Laine's emic analysis priori assumption of natural 'insider' and of Shivaji mother jokes is irreconcilable with 'outsider' identities fails to see how scholarship Maharao's emics, which demand a Shivaji and a itself (be it Western or 'indigenous') is Jijabai who are consonant with Shivdharma. It is imbricated in the construction of these very the politicized juxtaposition of this emic conflict ethnic boundaries. If we may learn anything with social ones-between Brahmans and non­ from the BOR! attack, it is that thinking of Brahmans-that makes violence into an intercultural research as consisting of 'outsiders' acceptable, legitimate response to Laine's trying to understand the history, religion, or writings. culture of 'insiders' fails to capture the political We may now return to our original dynamics of scholarship in today's India. In question. Why Laine? Because his emic making sense of the censoring of Laine and the narratology revealed a Shivaji that etic histories censure of the Bhandarkar Institute, I hope to could not. Unfortunately, unlike Kharade's have. shown the value' of regarding Laine's review, Maharao's writings politicized this emic Marathi-language reviews as productivities~as conflict along insider/outsider terms, calling for intellectual attempts to redefine and control the a (legal) censure of the 'insider' parties that are knowledge of Shivaji. to blame. Since the 'outsider' Laine is merely a tabula rasa, unable to come up with such ideas on his own, the defamatory nature of his book i Vaishnavi K. Sekhar, "Historians rue attack on '. must therefore originate from his 'insider' freedom of expression," Times of India, March 24, Brahman infonnants. To censure these 2004; James W. Laine, "In India, 'the Unthinkable' is informants, therefore, is to resist .Brahmanic Printed at One's Peril," Los Angeles Times, January hegemony. 12, 2004; John D. Smith, "Why I Urge India's Politicians To Denounce Cultural Vandalism," The Times Higher Education Supplement, January 23, Conclusions 2004,18. ii James Laine, ShivaJi: Hindu King in Islamic India When I presented this paper at the AAR (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), conference, an interesting question was posed 93. from the audience: Would the attack have iii One volume of this work, more than a thousand occurred if James Laine had described the joke pages in length, has already been published: Gajanan about Shivaji's birth as a Brahman joke rather Bhaskar Mehendale, Shri Raja Shivachhatrapati than a Maharashtrian one? In all likelihood, it (Plme: G. B. Mehendale, 1996). does seem to be a joke that a Brahman-and not iv Times News Network, "Raj Thakeray Apologises a Maratha-would tell, and Maharao' s to Bahulkar," Times ofIndia, http://timesofmdia.indiatimes.com/artic1eshow/38821 arguments of a Brahman conspiracy might have 6.CIllS. , lost some of their weight if Laine had v More information about the Maratha Seva Sangh contextualized his fieldwork in any folkloristic and the Sambhaji Brigade may be gleaned from their detail. However, such speculation is ilTelevant to handbook: Balkrishna Parab, ed., Maratha Seva

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Sangh: Jijau Brigade va Sambhaji Brigade xii Shivdharma as a religious and political movement Samskarmarga [Maratha Seva Sangh: The Activity is still in need of thorough analysis. The centr~l Guide for the Jijau Brigade and the Sambhaji social and ethical issues involved in Shivdharma are Brigade], Maratha Samskarmala 1 (: discussed in the writings of A. H. Salunkhe, Jaimini Nirmalkumar Deshmukh, [ca. 2002?]). See also the Kadu, and Shrimant Kokate, as well as in the weekly magazines Marathamarg (edited by Febmary 2003 annual of the Shivasphurti magazine Prabhakar Pawade) and Saptahik Shivadharma (edited by Shailaja Molak). (This magazine is now (edited by Pmushottam Kbedekar). Note that the called' Shivasparsha. ') Maratha Seva Sangh is a distinct, culttrral xiii For studies of Maharashtrian anti-Brahman organization from the Maratha Mahasangh political politics, see: RosalindO'Hanlon, Caste, Conflict, and group. Ideology: Mahatma Jotirao Phule and Low Caste vi Times News Network, '''Love for Shivaji' Trotted Protest in Nineteenth-Century Western India Out As Reason for Attack," Times ofIndia, January (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 6,2004, 1985); Gail Omvedt, Cultural Revolt in a Colonial http://timesofindia.indiatimes. comlarticles how140721 Society: The Non Brahman Movement in Western 8.cms. India, 1873 to 1930 (Bombay: Scientific Socialist vii An excellent online archive of media coverage and Education Tmst, 1976). responses to the BORI attack is "James Laine's xiv Both Leonard and Vajpeyi have raised similar Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India and the Attack points, though from different disciplinary viewpoints. on the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute," the xv See, for example: Shankar Vedantam, "Wrath Over complete review, S, no. 1 (Febmary 2004), a Hindu God: U.S. Scholars' Writings Draw Threats http://www.complete- from Faithful," Washington Post, April 10, 2004, review. comlquarterly IvolS/issue l/laineO .htm. AOl. viii E.g.: Dilip Chitre, "BORl Shame: Intolerance xvi Amy M. Braverman, "The Interpretation of Gods: Tolerated, , January 16,2004, Do Leading Religious Scholars Err in their Analysis http://www.indianexpress.comlfultstory. php? content of Hindu Texts?" University of Chicago Magazine, _id=3927S; Ananya Vajpeyi, "The Limits of December 2004, 36. Tolerance," Outlook (India), January 30, 2004, xvii William Dalrymple, "India: The War Over http://outlookindia.comlfull.asp?fodname=20040 130 History," The New York Review, April 7, 200S, 62. &fuame=anya&sid=l; Smmti Koppikar, "To Chase a xviii Russell T. McCutcheon, ed., The Insider/Outsider Mountain Rat," Outlook (India), April 12, 2004, Problem in the Study ofReligion: A Reader (London http://outlookindia. comlfull.asp? sid= 1&fodname=20 and New York: Cassell, 1999); Elisabeth Arweck and 040412&fname=Shivaji+%28F%29 Mmiin D. Stringer, eds., Theorizing Faith:. The ix Laine, Shivaji, 8, Insider/Outsider Problem in the Study ofRitual x Mary J ~e Smetanka, "Book Incites a Riot a World (Birmingham: University of Binningham Press, Away: A Macalester Professor's Study of a Hindu 2002). Theinsider/outsider debate in Hindu studies King Led to a Rampage by Extremists," Star Tribune has beendiscussed in a special issue of the Journal of (Minneapolis, MN), January 9,2004, lA; Martha the American Academy ofReligion: Caldwell, Sarah, Ann Overland, "Hindu Protesters Attack Prestigious and Brian K. Smith, eds. "Who Speaks for Research Institute in India," Chronicle ofHigher Hinduism?" Journal of the American Academy of Education, January 23, 2004, . Religion 68 (2000): 70S-837. Similarly, S. N. http://chronicle.comiweekly/vSO/i20120a0410l.htm; Balagangadhara has deconstmcted 'religion' as a Pallava Bagla, "Book Triggers Attack on Research Western category of thought: S. N. Balagangadhara, Institute," Science, January 16,2004,296; Sara 'The Heathen in His Blindness ... ': Asia, the West, Rajan, "A Study in Conflict," Time (Asia), March 29, and the Dynamic ofReligion, Studies in the History 2004,' of Religions 64 (Leiden, New York: Brill, 1994); see http://www.time.com/time/asiaimagazine/article/0.13 also a symposium volume on Balagangadhara's work 673,SO 104040S-60SSS0,00.html. in Cultural Dynamics 8 (1996): 11S-2l0.

xi Spencer Leonard has noted the political aspects of XIX Russell T. McCutcheon, "Introduction," to The these differences in his "Regressive Anti-? Insider/Outsider Problem, 18. Note also Mircea The James Laine Affair within and besides Election Eliade's assertion that'religious data "exist on their 2004," (paper presented at the 200S Association of own plane of reference" (Mircea Eliade, "A New Asian Studies meetings, March 31, 200S). Humanism," in The Insider/Outsider Problem, 98).

http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol19/iss1/5 8 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1360 Sathaye: Censorship and Censureship: Insiders, Outsiders, and the Attack on Bhankarkar Institute 10 Adheesh Sathaye

xx Alasdair MacIntyre, "Is Understanding Religion September 7, 2003 (as cited by Jnanesh Maharao, Compatible with Believing?" in Faith and "Foreign Book, Domestic Minds [videshi pustak, Philosphers, ed. John Hick (London: Macmillan, svadeshi mastak]," Chitralekha, December 22,2003). I 1964) (reprinted in McCutcheon, The xxix Yashwant Kharade, review of Shivaji: Hindu Insider/Outsider Problem, 37-49); Rudolf Otto, The King in Islamic India, Rangataranga, October 2003: Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-Rational 171-175. This magazine lists Maratha Seva Sangh Factor in the Idea of the Divine and Its relation to the chief Purushottam Khedekar as a member of its Rational, trans. John W. Harvey, 2nd ed. (London: Editorial Advisory Committee. Oxford University Press, 1950); Joachim Wach, "The xxx Kharade, review of Shivaji, 175. Meaning and Task of the History of Religions xxxi Ram Paygude, Rangataranga, October 2003, 17l. (Religionswissenschaft)," in The History of xxxii Ibid., 171. Religions: Essays on the Problem ofSelf­ xxxiii According to Frontline, this letter stated: Understanding, ed. Joseph Kitagawa (Chicago: "Though we do believe in freedom of expression, we University of Chicago Press, 1967) (reprinted in cannot subscribe to the practice of maligning the life " McCutcheon, The Insider/Outsider Problem, 82-94). and character of any person, especially of one who xxi Adheesh Sathaye, "Attacking the Text: New commands the love, respect, and admiration of crores Approaches to Sanskrit Literature in the Wake of the of people and is a source of inspiration to them, by Bhandarkar Incident" (paper presented at the 2004 casting baseless aspersions" (Anupama Katakam, International Conference of Vedanta, Miami "Politics of Vandalism," Frontline, January 30,2004, University (Ohio), April 10, 2004). http://www.flonnet.comlfl2102/stories/20040130003 xxii MacIntyre, "Is Understanding Religion 802800.htrn). , xxxiv ,i Compatible with Believing?"Al. Michel Foucault "A Wave of Rage from Writings Defamatory to I,'I has demonstrated how the genealogies of seemingly Great King Shivaji [ Shivaji natural categories involve the political control of maharajanvishayi badnamikarak lekhane santapaci knowledge; see Hube~t L. Dreyfus and Paul lat]," Ravivar Maharashtra Dinank, November 30- Rabinow, eds., Michel Foucault: Beyond December 7,2003, l. Structuralism and Hermeneutics (Chicago: xxxv Ibid., 2. University of Chicago Press, 1982). xxxvi Mahanlo appears aware of Tawade's activities, xxiii For a good introduction to the emic/etic debate­ as he mentions Tawade, his Indian History and as well as its conflation with the insider/outsider Education Society, and the co-signers of his letter to problem, see Thomas N Headland, Kenneth L. Pike, Oxford University Press in his Chitralekha article of Marvin Harris, eds., Emics and Etics: The December 29,2003. InsideriOutsiderDebate, Frontiers of Anthropology 7 xxxvii Maharao, "Foreign Book, Domestic Minds (Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1990). [Videshi Pustak, Svadeshi Mastak]," Chitralekha, xxiv Kenneth L. Pike, Language in Relation to a December 22,2003, Unified Theory of the Structure ofHuman Behavior, http://www.chitralekha.comlchitra_mar/22 _12_ 03/m 2nd ed. (The Hague: Mouton, 1967). aajkall.asp. xxv See Kenneth L. Pike, "On the Emics and Etics of xxxviii Ibid. Pike and Harris," in Emics and Etics, 28-47; on the xxxix Ibid. By 'Cobra serpents,' Maharao is making a notion of emic and etic as a dialectic, see also Dell H. pun using an item of Marathi-English folk speech Hymes, "Emics, Etics, and Openness: An Ecumenical denoting the sub caste of Konkanastha Brahmans: Approach," in Emics and Etics, 120-12l. "Ko-Bra." Afjhal Khan was a noted adversary of xxvi See Marvin Harris, The Nature of Cultural Shivaji. Things, (New York: Random House, 1964) as well as xl Ibid. his more recent Theories of Culture in Postmodern xli Ibid. Note that the names he exposes are all Times (Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press, 1999). Brahman names. What of non-Brahmans that Laine xxvii Julia Kristeva, Desire in Language: A Semiotic acknowledges, such as Asghar Ali Engineer? "The Approach to Literature and Art, (Oxford: Basil mention of Asghar Ali Engineer among them," Blackwell, 1984),36. asserts Maharao, "must be a precaution taken so that xxviii Santosh Shenai, "Shivaji in the People's [his book] should not get the stamp of being a Consciousness [lokamanasatil Shivaji]," Sakal, 'spectacle put on for tightening the grip of Hindu­ August 31,2003,4; Anant Deshpande, review of Muslim conflict''' (Ibid.). Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India, Samana,

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xlii Jnanesh Maharao, "King Shivaji: Beliefs­ Misconceptions [Shivachhatrapati: samaj­ apasamaj]," Chitralekha, December 29,2003, http://www.chitralekha.comlchitra_mar/29_12_03/m aajkall.asp. xliii Ibid. xliv Ibid. xlv Maharao's "Foreign Book, Domestic Minds" appears in Sambhaji Brigade: Vastav va Bhumika [Sambhaji Brigade: Foundations and Founding Principles] (pune: Jijai Prakashan, February 11, 2004), 9-13; Saptahik Shivadharma [Shivadharma Weekly], February 1,2004,20-27. Maharao's piece also appears in Shivajanma: Kucalaki Brigade ani Sambhaji Brigade [The Birth of Shivaji: The Conspiracy Brigade and the Sambhaji Brigade], edited by Govind Pansare (: Shramik Prakashan, ca. April 2004), 17-20; this is an independent volume of essays regarding the Brigade's attack. I wish to thank Lee Schlesinger for these and other bibliographical references to Maharao. xlvi M. A. Mehendale, "Bhandarkar Pracya Samstha ani American Pra. James Laine [The Bhandarkar Oriental Society and the American Prof. James Laine]," Satyagrahi Vicaradhara, March 2004, 35. xlvii Jnanesh Maharao, "The Unforgivable Attack on Bhandarkar [Bhandarkar-varil akshamya halla]," Chitralekha, January 19, 2004, http://www.chitralekha.comlcitra_marI19_01_04/maa jkall.asp.

http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol19/iss1/5 10 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1360