To Mahasthivar Bhikku Bodhanand (1874-11 May 1952), who laid the ideological foundation of the Bahujan cultural movement

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Mahishasur A people’s hero

Pramod Ranjan

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Email: [email protected] Phone: +91-7827427377, 9968527911

© Forward Press Books ISBN: 978-81-932584-4-6

Cover painting: Dr Lal Ratnakar

Mahishasur: A people’s hero (A discourse on culture) Edited by Pramod Ranjan

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Contents

The power of a book A cultural battle Expression of different life values

Re-rendition Who are the Bahujans really worshipping? - Premkumar Mani Why this celebration of death? - Premkumar Mani On Dussehra - Premkumar Mani “I am proud to be an Asur!” - Shibu Soren Durga the Santal Slayer - Madhushree Mukerjee Asur traditions in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh - Rajan Kumar Dalitbahujan perspective on the Mahishasur debate - Braj Ranjan Mani Mahishasur: A linguistic view - Rajendra Prasad Singh The real Durga - Nutan Malvi Mahishasur and Bali Pratipada - Gail Omvedt Mahishasur, Ravan and Mahabali - Ajay S. Sekher

Cultural War ‘Mahishasur’s daughter’ gets award from President - Sanjeev Chandan Mahishasur’s descendant Sushma - Ashwini Kumar Pankaj

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‘Pluralist democracy is an imperative’ - Misa Bharti Kannada intellectuals on Mahisha’s side - M. Dileep Kumar Four years of a cultural movement - Pramod Ranjan & Ravi Prakash ‘There is no stopping these cultural battles’ - Kancha Ilaiah Durga, Mahishasur and caste politics - Ram Puniyani Understand India, Modi ji - Premkumar Mani Mahishasur via the Hindi media - Karmanand Arya The truth about a myth - Suresh Pandit Satiating your curiosities About the contributors

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The power of a book

I would like to begin with a quote of the great Bahujan thinker Bhikku Bodhanand. But before that, I have to tell you about Bodhanand. It is really strange that the common man and even the intellectual class of today is unaware of his multidimensional contribution to the cause of the deprived communities. Born into a Brahmin family in 1874, Bodhanand was orphaned at an early age. His widowed maternal aunt, who lived in Kashi, brought him up (Gulab Singh, Mul Bharatvasi Aur Arya, Anand Sahitya Sadan, Aligarh, Second Edition, 2005). We can only imagine the vulgar face of Brahmanism Bodhanand must have seen while living with a widow in Kashi. By the time he attained youth, he had become an ardent opponent of Brahmanism, and freeing Dalits and the Backwards from its clutches became the mission of his life. He embraced Buddhism in 1904 at the age of 30. It was in his company that Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar and Rahul Sankrityayan, among others, were drawn to Buddhism. Dr Ambedkar used to spend hours with him.

Bhikku Bodhanand’s thoughts not only gave a new direction to the Buddhist movement in the 1930s but also helped build a massive ideological movement among the backward and Dalit castes in north India. The Buddha Vihar that he established in Risaldar Park in Lucknow became the centre of the activities of the contemporary Bahujan intellectuals and the place from where his thoughts were disseminated far and wide.

“At that time, the ‘Navratnas’ (nine gems) of Bodhanand ji included, besides himself, Swami Achhutanand (Chamar), Raisaheb Ramsahai (Pasi), Raisaheb Ramcharan

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(Mallah), Shivdayal Singh Chaurasia (Barai Tamoli), Mahadev Prasad (Dhanuk), Badluram Rasik (Teli), Gauri Bhankar Pal (Gadaria) and Chandrika Prasad Jigyasu (Kalwar). They all were well-known personalities of their times. The movement they had launched for awakening Bahujan consciousness lasted till the 1980s. This movement gave birth to Bahujan thinkers like Lalaisingh Yadav, Ramswaroop Verma, Mangaldev Visharad and Dr Angne Lal.”

Bhikku Bodhanand’s ideological disciples later founded Bahujan Kalyan Prakashan and Samaj Sewa Press and took up the task of publishing Bahujan literature. The same set-up was subsequently used to propagate the thoughts of Dr Ambedkar in north India. All this is recent history that was not allowed to become part of our collective memory. Within just 60-70 years, most of the books of Bahujan Kalyan Mala faded into oblivion. The universities and so-called social research institutions completely forgot about them. When so recent a history can be erased in this manner, you can imagine what must have been done with the narrative of people’s hero Mahishasur that is thousands of years old.

Why was this done? Which idea of Bodhanand made the class dominating the realm of knowledge so frightened of him? That idea was of the downtrodden Bahujans staking a claim on their cultural heritage.

Bhikku Bodhanand had written a book Mul Bharatvasi aur Arya (Indigenous Inhabitants of India and Aryans), which was published by Chandrika Prasad Jigyasu in 1930 with financial support from Babu Ramcharan, a legislative councillor of Nishad

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What the book contained would become evident from a comment of Bhikku Bodhanand. But before that, let us see what kind of apprehensions Chandrika Prasad Jigyasu had while publishing the book. Jigyasu wrote in the introduction to the book: “People say that such a book will divide the country. If they say so believing what the book says is true but it is not the right time to say it, then I would say that their conscience is sullied and their mind weak. There is no auspicious time for revealing the truth. Whenever truth is revealed is auspicious. One who does not want to hear the truth is a sinner. One who believes that truth can divide, smothers justice … When this book is published, the selfish oppressors, who have been making merry for hundreds, thousands of years by looting the Hindu community, will rant and rave and, driven by rage, may try to inflict grief on the author. They may also harm the publisher and editor … The author and publisher, etc, of this book are ready to welcome all those calamities.” [Bhikku Bodhanand, Mul Bharatvasi Aur Arya, First Edition (publisher unknown), 1930]

The first edition of this book, which sparked a big ideological movement, sold out in a short period. But for the next 75 years, perhaps due to apprehensions surrounding it, no one could gather the courage to publish the second edition.

A.R. Akela, an Aligarh-based follower of Kanshi Ram, published the second edition in 2005 with donations from the public. He wrote in his publisher’s note, “This book was not reprinted because after its publication, Pujya Bhikshu Bodhanand must have

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