Revolt of the The Underprivileged Style in the Expression of the Warkari Movement in Maharashtra BHALCHANDRA NEMADE Marathwada Uniaersity, Aurangabad, India I IF WE MAY ASSUME that the bhakti movement is the most signifi- cant creative upsurge of the Indian mind during the present millennium, no student of literary culture can ignore the unique techniques of expression developed within the Warkari Movement in Maharashtra. The creative in- fluence of this movement has been felt in a variety of forms by several social and political revolts in the Indian subcontinent from Shivaji's rebellion in the seventeenth century to Gandhi's in the twentieth. In Maharashtra, to which the present study is confined, the movement has an unbroken tradition which can be traced back to the thirteenth century on the eve of the Muslim invasion of the kingdom of Deogiri. Throughout these centuries there has hardly been a period of any considerable length when the Marathi-speaking people of India can be said to have enjoyed peace and prosperity. Until the rise of the Maratha kingdom in the middle of the seventeenth century, society passed through "trying times" under often fanatical Muslim governments. That the Warkari movement, mostly led and sustained by the underprivileged classes, should arise in this time of national catastrophe and, despite hostile conditions, develop quietly into the most influential mass movement of rural Maharashtra, is the triumphant result of the broad-based, autonomous and unique style that it generated within itself. Perhaps a brief comparison with another major movement, that of the Mahanubhavas, which was influential predominantly in thirteenth-century Maharashtra, would make the unique stylistic contribution of the Warkaris more clear. The Mahanubhava movement 1 was a Hindu monastic cult founded by Chakradhar (1194-1276) and it too was supported by the under- privileged classes, although their leaders were mainly learned Brahmans. The cult preached radical values laid down by Chakradhar principally equality and brotherhood. It disregarded the Vedas, attacked Brahmanism, worshipped only one God Krishna and prohibited worship of any other god, and offered equal status to women and shudras. After Chakradhar was killed in 1276 as a result of the hatred he had aroused in the arrogant supporters of Brahman orthodoxy, 114 the Mahanubhavas, unlike the Warkaris, failed to improve upon their tech- niques of expression in order to cope with the changing political situation. For example, their tendency to favour written as against oral culture increased their dependence on bookish philosophy and textual criticism. Their wearing of conspicuous black dress and their secretive monastic activities alienated them from the common people. Their leadership, unlike that of the Warkaris, came from the top instead of from the grass-roots. Their monastic establish- ments, free association with women and shudras, their anti-Brahman philosophy and adoption out of fear of several esoteric scripts-all these characteristics made them ineffective in the successive waves of fanaticism and orthodoxy. Soon, therefore, this cult which once was so influential, so revolu- tionary and so creative in its literature, turned into a pale reflection of itself and by the end of the sixteenth century it had become an object of ridicule within Maharashtra at large. The Mahanubhava prose works which were created in the thirteenth century have great stylistic merit, but being written they soon became obsolete until in the twentieth century the cult began to show signs of revival. II In contrast to the Mahanubhavas, the Warkari movement did not have a prophetic autocracy. Its origins are not accurately traceable to any single source and we can only say that it had strong roots among the common people of the thirteenth century. It has often gone underground over long periods of time when little overt activity was possible in the adverse conditions prevailing, and yet it survived all such vicissitudes. At times the movement appears to have been compromised and diluted, yet at all times during the course of its history it has been capable of generating protest. In order to be effective the Warkari movement has chosen to be governed by laws generated from the mass of its own underprivileged supporters and has refrained from bursting out in short-lived manifestos which none of its essen- tially poor followers could afford to carry out. It maintained its distance from active politics and avoided direct comment on any political activity, whether of the Muslim or the Hindu rulers. It has been liberal and inclusive. In spite of being a movement of the shudras, it has respected all Brahmans, Muslims and Untouchables who came into its fold. Spread over Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra, it never had a fixed and regular establishment, so that it could not suffer economic loss or the destruction of its cult-objects at the hands of Muslim iconoclasts. Small village temples and individual domestic idols of Vitthal distributed the centres of its faith into every home. The origin of the God Vitthal is dubious. 2 He seems to have been set up as an alternative in order to diminish the importance of the existing pantheon of multitudinous Hindu gods. The idol of Vitthal at Pandharpur is a beautiful piece of sculpture, its arms akimbo and a confident expression on its face seem- ing to signify a kind of potent non-violence. This is in marked contrast to the .