Part II

Indian Historiography
Indian Historiography

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 Historiographical
UNIT 12 HISTORIOGRAPHICAL TRADITIONS Traditions in Early India

IN EARLY INDIA*
Structure
12.1 Introduction
12.2 Earliest ‘Histories’: The Vedic Danastutis
12.3 Are the Epics Historical Narratives?
12.4 Puranic Genealogies and What They Tell Us
12.5 Courtly Traditions: Prasastis
12.6 Courtly Traditions: Charitas
12.7 A Poet / Historian: Kalhana and the Rajtarangini
12.8 Other Traditions of Historical Writing
12.9 Dating Systems
12.10 Summary
12.11 Exercises

12.1 INTRODUCTION
It might seem rather trite to say that history is a study of the past, but, for understanding
ancient traditions of historiography, it is perhaps useful to remember that definitions
of history have been changing over time.
Today, our understanding of the scope of history has expanded considerably. We
no longer understand history to be simply a chronicle of kings. Instead, historians
are interested in, explore, and attempt to reconstruct histories of the environment,
of gender relations, of social categories and classes that were regarded as marginal,
subordinate or even insignificant, of processes, and of regions that were considered
peripheral. Many of these concerns find little or no place in ancient works that we
identify as historical. What then was the focus of these works?
As we will see, many of these works were composed by literate men, generally
(though not always) brahmanas, for consumption by the ruling elite. They were designed
to proclaim and legitimize claims to power by new aspirants (who might otherwise
have been dismissed as upstarts or interlopers). They were also deployed to
consolidate claims of more established rulers. Thus the concerns of both authors
and patrons seem rather narrow. Vast sections of the population, including common
women and men, find little or no place within such narratives.
It may seem easy, and even fashionable to dismiss these works on account of their
limitations. Yet, it is worth remembering that their significance has been debated
for nearly two centuries, and that a critical appreciation of the traditions within which
these texts were located can enrich our understanding of the past.
Initially, these texts were opened up for scrutiny using modern techniques of
analysis in the colonial context. Works that purported to be itihasas (literally

*
Resource Person: Prof. Kumkum Roy 135
Indian Historiography ‘so it was’) and puranas (‘old’) were compared with histories produced in
ancient Greece and Rome, and were found wanting. They were found to be
especially deficient in terms of spatial and chronological precision, which was
regarded as the minimum requirement of a historical work. And this was then
used to argue, implicitly and often explicitly, that, as they lacked a sense of
history, early Indians and by extension their descendants were intellectually inferior
to their western counterparts. Clearly, history and notions of the past were
inextricably enmeshed in notions of power.
As may be expected, attempts to suggest that Indians were somehow incapable
of writing histories led to a reaction, where virtually any and every textual tradition
which had some semblance of chronological underpinnings, was valorised as
embodying historical “fact.” These responses have in turn been critically examined
and questioned. It is useful to keep these perspectives and contexts in mind as we
examine specific examples of early texts and traditions that have historiographical
significance.

12.2 EARLIEST ‘HISTORIES’ : THE VEDIC

DANASTUTIS
If we understand histories as recording events that were regarded as significant by
those who chronicled them, some of the earliest examples of these come from the
Rgveda (c. 2nd millennium BCE). These include verses that were identified as
danastutis (literally ‘in praise of gifts’). These were composed by the recipients,
who were priests, and usually mention the name of the donor. Here is a typical
example. These verses are from the second hymn of the eighth mandala or book
of the Rgveda:
‘Skilled is Yadu’s son in giving precious wealth, he who is rich in herds of cattle.
May he, Asanga’s son, Svanadratha, obtain all joy and happiness. Asanga,
the son of Playoga, has surpassed others, by giving ten thousand. I have got
ten bright coloured oxen….’
As we can see from this example, the recipient acknowledges the gifts he receives
and prays for the well-being of the donor. Such acknowledgments or proclamations
were a part of major rituals such as the asvamedha as well. As part of the ritual,
the sacrificial horse was let loose to wander for a year. During that period, a brahmana
priest was expected to sing about the generosity of the patron every morning, while
a ksatriya was to sing about his war-like exploits every evening. It is likely that
many of the stories that were later compiled in the epics and the Puranas developed
out of such narrative practices.
It is perhaps worth reflecting on what would get recorded and why. Only what
was regarded as positive or desirable from the point of view of the brahmana or
the ksatriya would find a place in such eulogies. Other activities, or failures, would
tend to be glossed over or even obliterated from memory. We may also note that
recalling the generosity and prowess of the patron was not meant to be a simple,
objective recounting, but was in fact meant to ensure that the patron would continue
to live up to expectations. As such, these histories were related to a context of
patronage.
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12.3 ARE THE EPICS HISTORICAL NARRATIVES? Traditions in Early India

Traditionally, the Mahabharata is recognised as an itihasa while the Ramayana

is regarded as a mahakavya (great poem). Each of these texts has a long and
complicated history. The kernel of the stories contained in the epics may date back
to the early centuries of the 1st millennium BCE, but the texts were finally written
down much later (c. 4th-5th centuries CE). As such, the texts have undergone alterations
and additions over several centuries. The Kurus and Pancalas in general are
mentioned in later Vedic literature (c. first half of the 1st millennium BCE). While
both these lineages were important in the Mahabharata, references to specific
personages mentioned in the epic are relatively sparse in the Vedic corpus. References
to the locale of the Ramayana, Kosala and Videha, are even fewer, and, once
again, the principal characters of the epic hardly figure in later Vedic literature.
Archaeological excavations and explorations indicate that sites such as Hastinapura
and Indraprastha (associated with the Mahabharata) and Ayodhya (associated
with the Ramayana) were small, pre-urban settlements during this period.
The literal historicity of the events depicted in the epics is unlikely to be established.
Nevertheless, the texts can and have been analysed in terms of the genre that they
represent. Significantly, both epics contain genealogies. The Mahabharata contains
the genealogies of the lunar (chandravamsa) lineage, while the Ramayana contains
the genealogy of the solar (suryavamsa) lineage. Several ruling families in the early
medieval period (c. 7th century CE) traced descent from these lineages. While the
genealogies may not be literally true, they are important for what they suggest about
socio-political processes.

12.4 PURANIC GENEALOGIES AND WHAT THEY

TELL US
By the middle of the 1st millennium CE, another category of literature, the Puranas,
was written down. Like the epics, the antecedents of the Puranas can be traced
back for several centuries. And as in the case of the Mahabharata, a social group
known as the sutas evidently played an important role in the composition, compilation
and transmission of at least some of the narratives that were included in the Puranas.
The sutas are often regarded as bards. They were important in early states, so
much so that they are listed amongst the “jewels” or principal supporters of the
raja in the later Vedic texts. They were expected to act as messengers of the king,
accompany him in battle, and maintain as well as narrate stories about his exploits.
However, sutas are also mentioned as low status people in the Dharmasastras such
as the Manusmrti. This would suggest that at least some people in society, perhaps
the brahmanas, were contesting the claims of the sutas to be both close to the
king and transmitters of royal lore. And when the epics and Puranas were finally
written down, the authors were recognised as brahmanas rather than as sutas.
We find two or three types of genealogies in the Puranas. The first includes lineages
of sages. Such lineages, which perhaps served as markers of legitimate transmission
of knowledge, are found in some of the Upanisads and Dharmasastras as well.
The other genealogies are those of rulers. These in turn are divided into two
categories, those that pre-date the onset of the Kaliyuga and those of rulers who
are post- Kaliyuga. The first category, delineating the original solar and lunar lineages, 137
Indian Historiography includes the heroes of the epics. In fact, the war that constitutes the central event
of the Mahabharata is recognised as marking the turning point (for the worse) in
human history, and the beginning of an age of decline, i.e. the Kaliyuga. The genealogy
of the second category of rulers, clearly lesser mortals, is marked by an interesting
feature. All these genealogies, which in some cases run till about the 5th century
CE, are constructed in the future tense. For instance, a verse about the Gupta rulers,
who ruled in north India from c. 4th century CE, runs as follows:
‘Kings born of the Gupta family will enjoy all these territories: viz. Prayaga
(Allahabad) on the Ganga, Saketa (eastern Uttar Pradesh) and Magadha.’
Why were these genealogies compiled, and why did they take such a curious form?
There are no easy answers. It is likely that the final compilation was undertaken
during the time of the Gupta rulers, as (with few exceptions) later rulers are generally
not mentioned. Was the future tense adopted so as to suggest that these rulers
were destined to rule, and was this then a possible strategy for legitimation? It is
likely that this would have also created an illusion of stability and permanence that
may have been valuable in a fluid political situation. What is interesting is that many
(though not all) of the rulers mentioned in the Puranic genealogies are known from
other sources such as inscriptions and coins as well. At the same time, not all rulers
who are known from other sources find place in these genealogies. Clearly, traditions
of recording the names of rulers as well as the duration of their reigns were widely
prevalent, and were more or less systematised within the Puranic tradition.
It has been suggested that genealogies become particularly important during certain
historical moments, when attempts are made to either contest or consolidate power.
Invoking genealogies at such moments may become a means of asserting status,
which may be especially important when these claims are somewhat tenuous. Claims
to continuity, implicit in invoking lineage identities, are also particularly significant
when there are major resources that are accumulated and handed down from one
generation to the next. These resources could include land, and in the ultimate analysis,
kingdoms. What is also important is to focus on the principles of inclusion and
exclusion that underlie genealogies. We can examine whether kinship is traced bilaterally
(i.e. through both parents) or is patrilineal or (in some rare instances) matrilineal.
We can also examine the positions assigned to elder and younger brothers in these
texts. Thus the genealogies often provide information about the kind of kinship
networks that were valorised. What is evident then is that such genealogies need
not be literally true. Nevertheless, insofar as they appeal to selected events and
ancestors in the past, they allow us to speculate on the circumstances in which
such strategies of drawing on or even constructing a mythical past may have been
important.

12.5 COURTLY TRADITIONS : PRASASTIS

Much of the literature we have been considering so far was written in relatively
simple Sanskrit verse. Although access to Sanskrit learning was limited, the Puranas
and the epics contain provisions that suggest that these could and probably were
read out to all categories of people, including women and sudras, who were otherwise
denied access to Sanskrit texts. In other words, there were certain kinds of ‘histories’
that were meant to be accessible to all sections of society. These were not only
138 meant to provide an understanding about the past, but were also probably visualised
as a means of disseminating information about social norms. In a sense, these agendas Historiographical
Traditions in Early India
were complementary.
There were at the same time, other categories of texts that were probably meant
for circulation amongst a more restricted, elite audience. These were associated
with the royal court, and were usually written in ornate Sanskrit, with prolific use
of similes, metaphors, and other strategies to render the text weighty. Examples of
these texts are found in prasastis or eulogistic inscriptions as well as in caritas.
While some of the earliest examples of prasastis are in Prakrit, the best-known
examples are in Sanskrit. Such inscriptions become particularly common from c.
4th century CE. These were often independent inscriptions, but could also be part
of votive inscriptions, commemorating the generosity of the royal donor. Perhaps
amongst the best-known of such prasastis is Samudragupta’s
Prayaga prasasti, also known as the Allahabad Pillar Inscription (it is inscribed
on an Asokan pillar). It was composed by Harisena, who evidently was a skilled
poet, apart from holding several offices. The inscription describes how the ruler
was chosen by his father, his numerous exploits, and the strategies whereby he
won the allegiance of rulers of distant lands, his heroic qualities and his boundless
scholarship. In short, the ruler is idealized as an all-rounder, someone who excelled
in just about everything. It is likely that some of the descriptions of the ruler’s exploits
are true. Nonetheless, the element of poetic exaggeration is also more than apparent.
To cite just one example: the ruler’s body was described as having become even
more handsome as it was adorned with the wounds caused by axes, arrows, spikes,
spears, darts, swords, clubs, javelins and other weapons. Such elaborate descriptions,
couched in ornate Sanskrit, were probably meant to impress the ruling elite. While
the inscription was literally visible, its contents would probably have been accessible
only to a relatively limited audience.
Another famous prasasti is that of Pulakesin II, the Calukya ruler of the 7th century
CE. The poet who composed this particular prasasti, Ravikirti, compared his skills
to those of Kalidasa and Bharavi. Once again, we have a description of Pulakesin’s
accession to the throne, and his military exploits, which included pushing back the
contemporary ruler of north India, Harsa, when he attempted to cross the Vindhyas.
Ravikirti’s composition is part of a votive inscription that also records how the poet
donated a house for a Jaina teacher.

12.6 COURTLY TRADITIONS : CHARITAS

Another genre of text associated primarily with the courts was the charita. These
were meant to be accounts of the lives and achievements of ‘great men.’ Most of
the surviving examples of charitas are in Sanskrit, and, like the prasastis, the style
of these compositions is extremely ornate. Given the length of these texts, it seems
likely that these were composed entirely for elite consumption. Somewhat
paradoxically, one of the earliest charitas that survive is the Buddhacharita,
composed by Asvaghosa (c.1st century CE). Although purporting to be the life of
a world renouncer, the author dwells at length on the luxuries of courtly life, including
elaborate descriptions of women. It is possible that this was meant to serve as a
representation of life at the Kusana court. Perhaps the best-known of the charita
genre is the Harsacharita, composed by Banabhatta. This is an account of the
early years of Harsa’s reign. Bana’s composition contains some of the most complex 139
Indian Historiography prose sentences in Sanskrit literature, carefully crafted so as to lend an aura of
exclusiveness to the ruler who was eulogized. The description of Harsa’s feet, cited
below, is just one example of this style:
‘His feet were very red as if with wrath at insubordinate kings, and they shed
a bright ruby light on the crowded crests of the prostrate monarchs, and caused
a sunset of all the fierce luminaries of war and poured streams of honey from
the flowers of the crest garlands of the local kings, and were never even for a
moment unattended, as by the heads of slain enemies, by swarms of bees which
fluttered bewildered by the sweet odour of the chaplets on the heads of all
the feudal chiefs…..’
The writers of charitas adopted other strategies as well. We find that
Sandhyakaranandin, a poet who eulogized the Pala ruler Rama Pala of eastern India
(c. 11-12th centuries CE), composed the Ramacharita in such a way that each
verse could be interpreted as referring either to the life of the epic hero or to that
of his patron. It is likely that both prasastis and charitas were especially valuable
in situations where rulers were somewhat insecure. In the case of all the four rulers
we have mentioned, it is evident that their claims to the throne did not rest on
primogeniture. In Samudragupta’s case Harisena states that he was chosen by his
father, ignoring the claims of rivals. Pulakesin was the nephew of his predecessor.
Harsa succeeded to the throne on the sudden death of his elder brother, and claimed
the kingdom of his deceased brother-inlaw as well. Rama Pala, too, had no direct
claim to the throne. It is possible that these elaborate texts were to some extent
visualized as strategies for exalting rulers who might otherwise have been vulnerable.

12.7 A POET/HISTORIAN : KALHANA AND THE

RAJTARANGINI
It is often said that the only truly historical work produced in ancient India was
the Rajatarangini, or the river of kings, authored by Kalhana, (12th century CE).
The Rajatarangini is, at one level, a history of Kashmir since its inception (the
account begins with the creation of the land from primeval waters). It consists of
eight books or tarangas, and is composed in verse.
The first three tarangas deal with the history of the region till the 7th century CE,
tarangas 4 to 6 carry the story forward till the 11 th century, while the last two
tarangas (which are also the longest) deal with the 12th century. What is interesting
is to see how the tone of the narrative changes: in the first section, the author, who
was a brahmana, the son of a minister, and a learned Sanskrit scholar, paints a
picture of what, from his point of view, was an ideal world, one in which sons
succeeded fathers, and in which the brahmanical norms of varna and gender
hierarchies were strictly followed. However, in the next two sections, he documents
in detail how these norms were violated. Amongst the “horrors” according to Kalhana
is the phenomenon of women rulers. As is obvious, not all present-day readers
will share Kalhana’s perspective, even as they might derive information from his
writing.
What makes Kalhana’s work unique is that he mentions at the outset the sources
he consulted. These included sasanas or royal proclamations pertaining to religious
endowments, prasastis or eulogies, and the sastras:
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Traditions in Early India
and grants, laudatory inscriptions, as well as written records, all wearisome
error has been set at rest.’
He also attempts to distinguish between the plausible and the fantastic, and offers
explanations for changes in fortune. These are, more often than not, in terms of
invoking fate, whose ways, according to the author, were mysterious. Kalhana is
scathing in his critique of earlier writers, whose works, according to him, were full
of errors and lacked style. Unfortunately, none of the works of his predecessors
have survived, so we have no means of assessing his claims. He himself set a precedent
that was emulated by later writers, who continued his narrative down to the times
of the sultans of Kashmir.
Kalhana regarded himself as a poet. Ideally, according to him, a poet was supposed
to be endowed with divine insight, (divyadrsti), and was almost as powerful as
Prajapati, the god recognised as the creator within the brahmanical tradition. He
also envisaged his work as a didactic text, meant especially for the education of
kings. There is an emphasis on trying to offer impartial judgments, and to cultivate
a sense of detachment. As a poet, moreover, Kalhana functioned within the Sanskritic
tradition according to which every composition was expected to have a dominant
rasa (emotion, mood or sentiment). The rasa he valorised was the santa rasa
(tranquility), although there are sections where the heroic tone dominates. There
are also sections where the horrors of war and the destruction it leaves in its trail
are graphically highlighted. Interestingly, although Kalhana was clearly close to the
court, he was not the court poet.

12.8 OTHER TRADITIONS OF HISTORICAL

WRITING
While most traditions of historical writing were related to kings, other traditions
developed around religious institutions. These included the Buddhist, Jaina, and
brahmanical institutions. Of these, the early Buddhist tradition is perhaps the best-
known at present.
Buddhist traditions record the convening of three (according to some versions four)
Buddhist councils, where early Buddhist doctrines and teachings were recorded.
Gradually, as the monastic order was consolidated, more systematic records were
kept, and a system of chronology, marking years in terms of the mahaparinirvana
or the death of the Buddha, was evolved. Maintaining such records probably became
more important as monasteries became rich institutions, receiving endowments of
villages, lands, and other goods, as well as cash, from benefactors including kings.
Such chronicles were best preserved in Sri Lanka, where there was a close bonding
between the state and the monasteries. This relationship was documented in texts
such as the Dipavamsa and the Mahavamsa.

12.9 DATING SYSTEMS

Chronologies are crucial to history, and it is in this context that it is worth examining
the varieties of dating systems that were used in early India. One of the earliest
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Indian Historiography systems to be documented, and one that remained popular for several centuries,
was the use of regnal years. This was a system whereby kings took the first year
when they began ruling as a starting point, counting years of their rule in terms of
this beginning. This was used by the Mauryan emperor Asoka, for instance. He
used dates derived from the time of his abhiseka (sprinkling with sacred water).
We learn from his thirteenth major rock edict that he attacked Kalinga eight years
after he had been installed as king. In other instances, dynastic eras were developed.
Perhaps the best-known example of this is provided by the era of the Guptas. This
was projected as beginning from c. 320 CE, the date assigned to the first important
Gupta ruler, Chandragupta I. Interestingly, the use of the era began with retrospective
effect, from the time of Chandragupta II, about 80 years after the date from which
it was supposed to begin. Clearly, it was only after they had consolidated their
power that the Gupta rulers thought it fit to begin an era, pushing back the antiquity
of their claims to power as far back as possible.

Other eras that have endured for about two millennia are the Vikrama era (c.
58 BCE) and the Saka era (c. 78 CE). Both of these eras were probably of
royal origin, but there is little or no consensus regarding who the kings in question
were. The Vikrama era is particularly problematic from this point of view, as several
kings in early India adopted the title of vikramaditya (literally the sun of valour),
and we have no means of determining which one amongst these initiated the era
which is still in use. The Saka era may mark the beginning of the reign of Kaniska,
arguably the most illustrious of the Kusana rulers. However, it is worth remembering
that the Kusanas and Sakas were different groups of Central Asian peoples. What
is possible is that the term Saka was used as a generic term for foreigners, and
an era that may have been begun by the Kusanas came to be known by this
name.

12.10 SUMMARY
It is evident then that a sense of history, if by this we mean an awareness of the
past, was well-developed in early India. There were several systems of reckoning
dates that were in existence, and that were commonly used, as is evident from
finds of inscriptions bearing dates. These have been found throughout the
subcontinent. Inscriptions and in textual traditions tell us about how elites thought
about the past and attempted to both use and manipulate it through specific
strategies of recording. These include recording the names and deeds of generous
patrons, as for instance in the Vedic danastutis. Genealogies, too, could be
constructed to meet political exigencies, and could be extended in innovative ways.
Besides, distinctive genres were developed to proclaim the status of rulers, most
evident in the prasastis and the charitas. Yet, there seem to have been other
traditions as well. Kalhana’s Rajatarangini, though for and about kings, is very
different in its tone and tenor.

It is when we search for histories of non-elite groups that we run into problems.
These were clearly of marginal interest to the literate few, who compiled the textual
traditions we have examined. So we are left with the sense of historiographical
traditions that were rich, but restricted.
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12.11 EXERCISES Traditions in Early India

1) Write notes on the following :

a) Vedic Danastutis
b) Charitas
c) Prasastis
2) Discuss the tradition of Puranic genealogies.
3) Who was Kalhana? Discuss his historical work.
4) Write a note on the dating systems used by various dynasties in early India.

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Indian Historiography
UNIT 13 INDO-PERSIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY
IN MEDIEVAL INDIA*
Structure
13.1 Introduction
13.2 Sultanate Period
13.2.1 The Pioneers
13.2.2 The Fourteenth Century Historiography
13.2.3 Late Fourteenth Century Histories
13.2.4 The Fifteenth Century Histories
13.3 Historiography under the Mughals
13.3.1 The Early Writings
13.3.2 Akbar’s Reign: Official Histories
13.3.3 Akbar’s Reign : Non-official Histories
13.3.4 Histories during Jahangir’s Reign
13.3.5 Histories during Shahjahan’s Reign
13.3.6 Histories during Aurangzeb’s Reign
13.4 Summary
13.5 Exercises

13.1 INTRODUCTION
The Ghurian conquest of north India towards the close of the twelfth century A.D.
is an important event in Indian history. This is because an independent sultanate,
founded in its wake, opened India to foreign influences on the one hand and led
to the unification of the country under a strong centre on the other. It also attracted
emigrants from the neighbouring countries who represented different cultural traditions.
One of the traditions introduced by them was that of history writing. The historical
literature produced by them in Persian language is of vast magnitude. As a matter
of fact, the study of history was considered by the Muslim elite as the third important
source of knowledge after the religious scripture and the jurisprudence. With the
coming of the Mughals in the 16th century the tradition of history writing achieved
new heights. During the Mughal period, the state patronised writing of history and
we have a large body of historical literature in Persian spread over two centuries.
In this Unit, we will analyse the tradition of history writing during the Sultanate and
Mughal periods.

13.2 SULTANATE PERIOD

The early writings in Persian on the history of Turks who came to India are traceable
to 12th Century. As far as Delhi Sultanate is concerned we have a continuity of
available texts in Persian till the end of the Sultanate (1526). Many of the authors
were attached to the court as officials while a few were independent scholars not

*
144 Resource Person: Prof. I.H. Siddiqui
associated with any official position. In general, the available histories put forward Indo-Persian Historiography
in Medieval India
the official version of events, rather than a critical evaluation of the policies and
events.
It is rare that one comes across any critical reference to the reigning Sultan. Even
the style is also generally eulogising or flattering to the Sultan under whose reign it
is written. In most cases, the authors borrowed freely from the earlier works to
trace the earlier period. We have referred to the constraints faced by various scholars
while discussing individual works.
Apart from historical texts a number of other Persian works are available for the
period. Abdu’r Razzaq’s Matla’us Sa’dain (travelogue), Tutsi’s Siyasatnama
(administration & polity), Fakhr-i Mudabbir’s Adabu’l-Harb wa’as- Shuja’at
(warfare), are a few important ones. A few Arabic works are also available for
the period. Ibn Battuta (Rihla) and Shihab-al Din al-Umari (Masalik al-absar
Mamalik al-Ansar) have provided excellent travel accounts. Here we will study
the historiography for the whole Sultanate period in separate subsections.

13.2.1 The Pioneers

The pioneer in history-writing was Muhammad bin Mansur, also known as Fakhr-
i Mudabbir. He migrated from Ghazna to Lahore during the later Ghaznavid period.
In Lahore he compiled Shajra-i-Ansab, the book of genealogies of the Prophet
of Islam, his companions and the Muslim rulers, including the ancestors of Sultan
Muizuddin Muhammad bin Sam (commonly known as Sultan Shihabuddin Muhammad
Ghuri). The compiler wanted to present it to the sultan but the latter’s assassination
on his way from the Punjab to Ghazna in 1206, led him to append a separate portion
as Muqidimma (Introduction) to it. This introduction narrates the life and military
exploits of Qutbuddin Aibak since his appointment in India as Sipahsalar of Kuhram
and Sunam in 1192 upto his accession to the throne in Lahore in 1206. This is
the first history of the Ghurian conquest and the foundation of an independent Sultanate
in India.
It opens with the description of the noble qualities of Sultan Muizuddin Muhammad
bin Sam. But the credit of the conquest made in India is given to Qutbuddin Aibak.
The Sultan is not mentioned as victor even in the details of the expeditions led by
him. However, the details furnished by Fakhr-i Mudabbir about the conciliatory
policy followed by Qutbuddin Aibak towards the Hindu chiefs even before his
accession to the throne are interesting. Aibak set an example that inspired his
successors. All the chiefs who submitted to Aibak’s authority were treated as friends.
No doubt, Fakhr-i Mudabbir composed the work in the hope of getting reward
by eulogising the reigning Sultan, nonetheless, the selection of historical material
by him demonstrates the historical sense he possessed. Along with administrative
reforms introduced by Aibak after his accession to the throne in Lahore, he also
provides details of rituals that had symbolic significance. For instance, he is the
first historian who informs us about the ceremony of public allegiance paid to the
new Sultan on his accession to the throne in Lahore. He states that on Qutbuddin
Aibak’s arrival from Delhi to Lahore in 1206, the entire population of Lahore came
out to pay allegiance to him as their new Sultan. This ceremony, indeed, implied
operational legitimacy for Sultan’s claim to authority. Equally important is the evidence
about the administrative reforms introduced by Sultan Qutbuddin Aibak. He renewed 145
Indian Historiography land-grants made to the deserving persons and fixed maintenance-allowance to
others. The collection by the officers of illegal wealth accrued through peasants
or forced labour were abolished. The compiler also informs us that the state extracted
one-fifth of the agricultural produce as land revenue. In short, it is the first history
of the Ghurian Conquest and Qutbuddin Aibak’s reign compiled in India. It was
in view of its importance that in 1927, the English scholar, E. Denison Ross separated
it from the manuscript of Shajra-i Ansab and published its critically edited text
with his introduction (in English) under the title Tarikh-i Fakhruddin Mubarak
Shah.
Another important work compiled by Mudbbir is the Adabu’l-Harb wa’as- Shuja’at,
dedicated to Sultan Shamsuddin Iltutmish. It is written in the episodic form of
historiography. It contains chapters on the duties of king, the functioning of state
departments, war tactics, mode of warfare, war-horses, their treatment, etc. The
compiler, in order to illustrate his point, has incorporated important events that occurred
during the period. Most of them are related to historical events of the Ghaznavid
period.
The second important history of the Ghurian conquest and the Sultanate is Tajul
Ma’asir. Its author, Hasan Nizami migrated from Nishapur to India in search of
fortune. He took abode in Delhi, sometime before Aibak’s accession to the throne.
In Delhi, he set to compile the history of Qutbuddin Aibak’s achievements after
his accession to the throne in 1206. The motive behind writing was to gain royal
patronage. Being a literary genius and a master of the conceits of Arabic and Persian
poetry, Hasan Nizami makes abundant use of metaphors, similes and rhetoric for
the sake of literary ornamentation. The work abounds in unnecessary verbiage.
Sans verbiage and unnecessary details, the historical material could be reduced to
almost half of the book’s size without any loss of the content.
As for his approach, he begins his narrative describing the vicissitude of time he
went though in his hometown of Nishapur, his journey to Ghazna where he fell ill
and then his migration to India. The preface is followed by the description of the
second battle of Tarain (1192). No mention has been made of the first battle of
Tarain in which Prithvi Raj Chauhan had defeated Sultan Muizuddin Mohammad
bin Sam. However, from the year 1192 upto 1196 all the historical events are
described in detail. Thereafter Hasan Nizami takes a long jump leaving off all the
battles fought and conquests made by Qutbuddin Aibak till 1202 A.D. Probably
the disturbances that broke out as a result of Aibak’s accidental death in 1210
disappointed the author who seems to have stopped writing. Later on, when Iltutmish
succeeded in consolidating his rule, he again decided to resume his work. This
time he commenced his narrative from the year 1203 because Iltutmish, whom the
work was to be presented, had become an important general and was taking part
in all the campaigns led by Qutbuddin Aibak. No mentions has been made by the
Compiler of Aibak’s conquest of Badaun in 1197 and the occupation of Kanauj
and Chandwar in 1198. It is, however, to be admitted that, in spite of all hyperbolic
used in praise of Iltutmish, it is to the credit of the compiler that he was able to
collect authentic information about every event that he describes in his work. Besides
the gap, Hasan Nizami also fails to describe the friendly treatment meted out by
Aibak to the local chiefs who submitted to his authority. His description is often
very brief and at times merely symbolic. For example, when he refers to the Hindu
146 Chiefs attending the Sultan’s court, he simply states, “the carpet of the auspicious
court became the Kissing place of Rais of India”. It contains no biographical details Indo-Persian Historiography
in Medieval India
of the nobles, though many of them were the architects of the Sultanate. All the
manuscript copies of Tajul Ma’asir available in India and abroad come to a close
with the capture to Lahore by Iltutmish in 1217.
The compilation by Minhaj Siraj Juzjani of his Tabaqat-i Nasiri was epoch making
in the history of history-writing. Minhaj Siraj Juzjani (hereafter mentioned as Minhaj)
was also an emigrant scholar from Khorasan. His approach to the history of Islam
and Muslim rulers from the early Islamic period upto his own time, the year 1259
A.D., seems to have been influenced by his professional training as a jurist and
association with the rulers of central Asia and India. He belonged to a family of
scholars who were associated with the courts of the Ghurid Sultans of Firozkuh
and Ghazna. He himself served under different Ghurid Princes and nobles before
his migration to India. In 1227, he came to India and joined the court of Nasiruddin
Qubacha. He was appointed the head of the Firuzi Madrassa (government college)
in Ucch, the Capital of Sultan Nasiruddin Qubacha. In 1228, he joined the service
of Sultan Iltutmish after Qubacha’s power had been destroyed and his territories
of Sind and Multan were annexed to the Delhi Sultanate. He served as Qazi (Judicial
officer) of Gwalior under Iltutmish. Sultan Razia (1236-40) summoned him to Delhi
and appointed him the head of Madrassa-i Nasiri in Delhi. Later on, he rose to
the position of the Chief Qazi of the Sultanate during the reign of Sultan Nasiruddin
Mahmud.
It was during the reign of Sultan Nasiruddin Mahmud that he decided to write the
history of Islam upto his own time. In an attempt to distinguish his work from
those of Fakhr-i Mudabbir and Hasan Nizami, Minhaj adopted the Tabaqat System
of history-writing. The first two writers had produced their works in unitary form,
in which each reign was treated as a unit. In the Tabaqat form, each dynasty of
rulers is presented in a separate tabaqa (i.e. section) and was brought to completion
in 1259.
The last five sections are very important from the point of view of history. In these
we find valuable information about the rise and fall of the ruling dynasties of central
Asia, Persia, India and the Mongol irruption under Chingis Khan. Undoubtedly,
Minhaj is our earliest and best authority on the ruling house of Ghur. His account
of the rulers of Ghur is characterised by objectivity in approach. Likewise, the
section devoted to the history of the Khwarizm shahi dynasty and rise of Mongol
power under Chingis Khan and his immediate successors supply information, not
available in the works of Ata Malik Juvaini and Rahiduddin Fazlullah who wrote
under the patronage of the Mongol princes. Minhaj’s purpose was to supply the
curious readers of the Delhi Sultanate with authentic information about the victory
of the Mongols over the Muslim rulers and the destruction of Muslim cities and
towns. He drew on a number of sources, including the immigrants and merchants
who had trade relations with the Mongol rulers. Moreover, before his migration
to India, he had first hand experience of fighting against the Mongols in Khurasan.
Therefore, the last tabaqa of the work is considered by modern scholars invaluable
for its treatments of the rise of Mongol power and the dissolution of the Mongol
Empire in 1259 after the death of Emperor Monge Qaan.
The sections (tabaqat) twentieth and twenty-first devoted to India, describe the
history of the Sultans from Aibak to Sultan Nasiruddin Mahmud Shah and careers
of the leading nobles of Iltutmish respectively. In both the sections he displays his 147
Indian Historiography ability to convey critical information on issues. Conscious of his duty as a historian,
he invented the method of ‘conveying intimation’ on camouflaging the critics of the
reigning Sultan or his father either by giving hints in a subtle way or writing between
the lines. As Sultan Iltutmish could not be criticised directly because his son,
Nasiruddin Mahmud happened to be the reigning Sultan, Minhaj builds Iltutmish’s
criticism through highlighting the noble qualities of Iltumish’s rivals Sultan Ghayasuddin
Iwaz Khalji of Bihar and Bengal or Sultan Nasirudin Qubacha of Sind and Multan.
Likewise, he also hints at policy of getting rid of certain nobles. Praising Malik
Saifuddin Aibak, he says that being a God-fearing Musalman, the noble detested
the work of seizing the assets from the children of the nobles killed or assassinated
by the order of the Sultan. It is really Minhaj’s sense of history that led Ziauddin
Barani to pay him homage. Barani thought it presumptions to writing on the period
covered in the Tabaqat-i Nasiri. He rather preferred to begin his account from
the reign of Sultan Ghiyasuddin Balban.

13.2.2 The Fourteenth Century Historiography

Many scholars seem to have written the 14th century histories of the Khalji and
the Tughlaq Sultans. Ziauddin Barani mentions the official history of Sultan Alauddian
Khalji’s reign by Kabiruddin, son of Tajuddin Iraqi but it is now extant. Amir Khusrau
also compiled the Khazainul Futuh, devoted to the achievements of Alauddin Khalji.
Khusrau also composed five historical masnavis (poems) in each of which historical
events are described (in verse). It may, however, be recalled that neither Ziauddin
Barani nor modern scholar, Peter Hardy regards Khusrau as a historian. They
consider Khusrau’s works as literary pieces rather than a historical work. Of the
surviving 14th century works, Isami’s Futuh us Salatin(1350), Ziauddin Barani’s
Tarikh-i Firuzshahi(1357), anonymous Sirat-i Firuzshahi (1370-71) and Shams
Siraj Afif’s Tarikh-i Firuzshahi (c.1400) are important historical works. A few
of these 14th century historical works need to be analysed separately.
Isami’s Narrative
The Futuh-us Salatin of Isami is a versified history of the Muslim rulers of India.
It begins with the account of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna’s reign (999-1030 A.D.)
and comes to a close with that of the foundation of the Bahmani Sultanate in the
Deccan by Alauddin Bahaman Shah, a rebel against Sultan Muhammad Tughluq,
in 1350. Though much is not known about the author, yet it may be added that
his ancestors served the Delhi court since the time of Sultan Iltutmish. Ziauddin
Barani includes one of the Isami family in the list of the leading nobles of Sultan
Balban. Isami, himself was brought up by his grandfather, Izuddin Isami, a retired
noble. He was still in his teens when his family was forcibly shifted to Daulatabad
in 1327. His grandfather died on the way and the young Isami was filled with
hatred against Sultan Muhammad Tughluq. The hostility towards Sultan Mohammad
Tughluq is quite evident in his account and needs to be treated with caution.
The early part of Isami’s narrative is based on popular legends and oral traditions
which had reached to him through the time. His account of the early Sultans of
India is also based on popular tales with historical facts available to him through
earlier works. But the details of historical events from the reign of Sultan Alauddin
Khalji are much more authentic and can be of corroborative and supplementary
importance. In this part Isami supplements the information contained in Barani’s
148 Tarikh-i Firuzshahi about the siege operations conducted by the military
commanders of the Delhi Sultanate in different regions during the Khalji and the Indo-Persian Historiography
in Medieval India
Tughluq period. Isami’s description of the foundation of Daulatabad by Muhammad
bin Tughluq as the second most important city and his account of socio-economic
growth of Delhi under Alauddin Khalji and other cities is graphic and insightful.
Barani has precedence on Isami only in his analysis of cause and effect, connected
with historical events.
Ziauddin Barani’s Tarikh-i-Firuzshahi
Barani is, no doubt, the doyen of the Indo-Persian historians of medieval India.
Born in an aristocratic family and associated with the royal court of Delhi for
generations, he was obviously concerned with the fate of the Delhi Sultanate. He
seems to have believed that it was his duty to present through his Tarikh-i Furuzshahi
an intellectual composition for the enlightenment of the ruling elite of his times.
Barani’s Tarikh begins with the accession of Sultan Balban to the throne of Delhi
in 1266 and comes to a close with the account of first six years of Sultan Firuzshah
Tughluq’s reign, i.e. the year 1356. Barani’s Tarikh is unique to the Persian history
writing tradition prevalent till his times. It is for the first time that he tries to analyse
the cause and effect of the events and developments taking place in polity and
economy. In his account of the economic policies and measures of Alauddin Khalji
he provides an analysis with causes and formulation of the policies and their impacts.
Barani also elaborates the purpose of writing history in explicit terms :
‘The mean, the ignoble, the rude, the uncouth, the lowly, the base, the obscure,
the vile, the destitute, the wretched, the low-born and the men of the market-
place, can have no connection or business with History ; nor can its pursuit
be their profession. The above-mentioned classes can derive no profit at all
by learning the science of History, and it can be of no use to them at any time;
for the science of History consists of (the account of) greatness and the
description of merits and virtues and glories of the great men of the Faith and
State… The (Pursuit of the) science of History is (indeed) the special preserve
of the nobles and the distinguished, the great men and the sons of great men.’
Barani also declares that the job of the historian is not only to eulogise the deeds
and good works of the rulers but also to present to readers a critical account of
the shortcomings and drawbacks of policies. Moreover, the scope of history is
considerably widened by Barani with the inclusion of details about the cultural role
performed by intellectuals, scholars, poets, and saints. Barani’s style of history
writing inspired the historians of the subsequent period, many of whom tried to
follow his ideas.

13.2.3 Late Fourteenth Century Histories

Other major works of history from the second half of the 14 th century are the
anonymous Sirat-i Firuzshahi, Futuhat-i Firuzshahi, composed by the Sultan
Firuz Tughluq himself and Shams Siraf Aifif’s Tarikh-i-Firuzshahi.. The rare
manuscript copy of the Sirat-i Firuzshahi, available in the Khuda Bakhsh library,
Patna, does not contain the name of its author. It reads as an official history of
Firuz Shah’s reign up to the years 1370-71. It contains, besides the details of
military and hunting expeditions led by Sultan Firuzshah, interesting information about
religious sects, sufis, ulema, socio-ethical matters, science and technology such as
astronomy, medicines, pharmacology, etc. It is really a compendium of many-sided 149
Indian Historiography activities, accomplishments and contribution made by the Sultan to the works of
public utility. The construction of canals and water reservoirs, the foundation of
the new cities with forts and repair of old monuments are described in detail.
The Futuhat-i Firuzshahi was originally an inscription fixed on the wall of the
Jama Mosque of Firuzshah’s capital. Later on, it was copied and preserved in
the form of a book. Through this, the Sultan wanted to disseminate to general
public about reforms and projects he undertook for public welfare.
Shams Siraj Afif, another historian of the period seems to have served the Sultan
during the last years of Firuzshah’s reign. He tells us that his great grand father,
Malik Shihab Afif worked as revenue officer in the province of Dipalpur under
Ghazi Malik during the reign of Ala-Uddin Khalji. His father and uncle supervised
the management of Firuzshah’s karkhanas. As Chaos and anarchy began to prevail
after the death of Firuzshah (1388), he seems to have retired and devoted himself
to writing the history of the Sultanate from the reign of Sultan Ghiyasuddin Tughluq
Shah (1320-1324). He refers to many volumes of his works, each devoted to
the reigns of the individual Sultans. Of these only one, devoted to the reign of
Firuzshah has survived the ravages of time. It seems to have been completed after
the sack of Delhi by Timur in 1398. This work of his is full of nostalgia and portrays
Firuzshah as a saintly ruler whose presence on the throne saved Delhi from every
calamity. Because of this reason, he has written this volume in the form of manaquib
(collection of virtues) like that of the spiritual biography of a saint. The name Tarikh-
i Firuzshahi has been given to it by the editors of the Text.
The book is divided into five qism (parts) each containing eighteen muqaddimas
(chapters) of unequal length. The last (fifth) qism of the printed text comes to an
end with the fifteenth chapter. The last three chapters seem to have been destroyed
by the Mughal Emperors probably because they contained vivid details of the sack
of Delhi by Timur, the ancestor of Babur. This volume of Afif is important for the
information about socio-economic life and prosperity that resulted from the state-
policies followed by Firuzshah. The details about the foundation of new urban
centres, construction of canals, water reservoirs and the administrative reforms are
invaluable. Similarily, mention made by him of the agrarian reforms introduced by
Firuzshah casts light on his interest in revenue matters. It may also be pointed out
that Afif does not fail to mention the abuses and corruption that had crept in the
administration; and says that officials in every ministry became corrupt. In the diwan-
i arz (military department) the officials took one tanka per horse as bribe from
the horseman at the time of annual muster. He also provides us with hints about
the degeneration of the central army that was considered the best fighting force
which could successfully defend the frontier against the Mongol invaders. On the
whole it is, an important source of information about the life and culture in the Sultanate
of Delhi during the later half of the fourteenth century.
After the dissolution of the Delhi Sultanate, a number of regional Sultanates and
principalities arose. The capitals of these regional Sultanates replaced Delhi as
the main centre of learning and culture. Delhi, which was reduced to the size of a
town, was seized by Khizr Khan (Saiyid) the founder of a new dynasty. Khizr
Khan (ruled from 1414 to 1421) and his son and successor, Sultan Mubarkshah
(1421-1434) tried to rebuild the power of the Delhi Sultan but could not succeed.
The latter was assassinated by his own nobles in the prime of his life. One of his
150 officials Yahya bin Ahmad Sirhindi, composed the history of the Sultanate and named
it after the Sultan as Tarikh-i Mubarakshahi in 1434. It begins with an account Indo-Persian Historiography
in Medieval India
of Sultan Muizuddin Mohammed bin Sam, who led the Ghurian conquest of India
and the account closes with the accession of Mohammad Shah in 1434. The compiler
seems to have drawn information from a number of histories written in India at
different times. Some of the sources utilised by Yahya are now extant but bits of
information on them survived through information collected and incorporated in the
Tarikh-i Mubarakshahi. It enhances its importance. The historian of Akbar’s
reign utilised the Tarikh in the preparation of their volumes devoted to the history
of the Delhi Sultanate.

13.2.4 The Fifteenth Century Histories

In the fifteenth century a number of historical accounts were compiled about individual
kingdoms and were dedicated to the regional rulers. Shihab Hakim compiled the
history of Malwa and named if after Sultan Mohammed Khalji as Maasir-i
Mahmudshah. Abdul Husain Tuni, emigrant scholar from Iran who had settled
in Ahmadabad (Gujarat) wrote Maasir-i Mahmudshahi during the reign of Sultan
Mahmud Shah Begara. Both the works are extant. Another worth-mentioning
history is the Tarikh-i Muhammadi, compiled by Muhammad Bihamad Khani,
resident of Kalpi. It is written in the Tabaqat form beginning with the rise of Islam
in Arabia. It is a summary of the Tabaqat-i Nasiri, Barani’s Tarikh-i Firuzshahi
and similar other works to cover history of Firuzshah and his successors. But his
account of the rise of Kalpi as a centre of culture and learning under the fostering
care of its Sultans is original. He narrates the circumstances in which Mahmud
Khan Turk founded the principality of Kalpi and assumed the title of Sultan after
the return of Timur in 1398. The information about the nature of relationship between
the Sultans of Kalpi, Jaunpur and Malwa is also of historical interest.

13.3 HISTORIOGRAPY UNDER THE MUGHALS

The most dominant feature of the historiography of the Mughal period is the tradition
of history writing by official chroniclers appointed by almost all Mughal emperors
till the reign of Aurengzeb. These chroniclers were appointed by the emperors
and all official records were provided to them for the purpose. Another salient feature
of the period is the autobiographical accounts written by emperors themselves. Tuzuk-
i Baburi (in Turkish and not Persian) by Babur and Tuzuk-i Jahangiri (in Persian)
by Jahangir are important works in this genre. Apart from the official works, which
had obvious constrains, a number of independent works were written by independent
scholars which provide a critical appraisal of the policies and events of the period.
In this section, we have discussed the historiography of the period during the reigns
of individual emperors.

13.3.1 The Early Writings

Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur who invaded India and supplanted the Lodi rule by
his own in 1526, was a prolific writer. He wrote both in his mother tongue Turkish
and in Persian. His autobiography Tuzuk-i Baburi, written in Turkish is a literary
masterpiece, containing the history of the decline and fall of the Timurid power in
central Asia, his own biography, the description of life and culture in India and the
diary of events that took place in the course of campaigns he led against his rivals
in eastern India. Babur’s account of central Asia and Khurasan is marked by 151
Indian Historiography objectivity. However, his account on his dealings with the ruling elite in India lacks
objectivity. This is obvious because of the hostility towards those against whom
he was waging war. Babur wrote in anger against the Indian ruling elite. He calls
the Indian nobles untrustworthy, although he himself had deceived them. The Afghans
had invited him to help them in their struggle against their own Sultan, Ibrahim Lodi
thinking that he would go back after taking treasure. Babur is full of praise of
India’s resources and the availability of skilled craftsmen and artisans in the towns
and cities. ‘For any work or any employment’, says he, ‘there is always a set
ready, to whom the same employment and trade have descended from father to
son for ages’. Babur also mentions the list of sarkars (territorial units) with the
annual revenue yields. Further, the description of towns and cities with their respective
topography is interesting. The geographical details in his biography further enrich
its importance. Moreover, the Tuzuk-i Baburi is not merely a political narration
but is also considered as a naturalist’s journal. His description of fauna and flora
of the region he visited is graphic and insightful.
Babur’s son and successor, Humayun (1530-1555) was also interested in history.
He commissioned a renowned scholar, Khawandmir, to compose the history of
his reign. In compliance with the royal order, Khwandmir prepared a brief account
of Humayun’s reign from his accession upto the year 1535 and named it Qanun-i
Humayuni. It sheds interesting light on Humayun’s state policy, particularly towards
the Indian nobles and landed aristocracy. He refers to Humayun’s efforts to win
over Indian chiefs to his side.

13.3.2 Akbar’s Reign: Official Histories

With the accession of Akbar (1556-1605) to the throne, important change took
place in the concept of history writing and the class of history writers. Since the
history of a dynasty served as a memorial to the dynasty, Akbar proposed to have
a written history of the Muslim rulers from the death of the prophet upto his own
time on the completion of the first millennium of Islam, i.e., a history of one thousand
years, called Tarikh-i Alfi. For providing information about the lives and times of
Babar and Humayun, all the officials, the nobles and relatives were asked to write
their reminiscences in book form. At Akbar’s instance, Gulbadan Begum, the daughter
of Babur, Bayazid Biyat (an official of Humayun) and Jauhar Aftabchi (a personal
attendant of Humayun) put down their reminiscences in book form. Gulbadan Begum’s
memoirs entitled Humayunnama is an important source as it sheds light on the
lives and culture of the royal harem. It is considered unique as it reflects a woman’s
perception of the events of the period. After Humayun’s death, Bayazid Biyat served
under Munim Khan Khan-i Khanan in Jaunpur and Bengal and was asked by
Emperor Akbar to keep a watch on the governor and secretly inform the king about
all developments. He has narrated the event of Humayun’s life in Iran, Kabul and
Later in India. Most of these he himself had witnessed. His work is entitled Tazkirat-
i Humayun wa Akbar. Jauhar Aftabchi who had served Humayun also furnishes
useful information about Humayun’s life and times in his Tazkirat-ul Waqiat. Like
collections of reminiscences of Gulbadan Begum and Bayazid Biyat, his work also
does not distinguish between trivia and the historical facts. Nevertheless, all these
works served as sources of information for the compilers of Tarikh-i Alfi and other
histories of Akbar’s reign including Abul Fazl’s Akbarnama.
Akbar constituted a board of seven scholars to compile Taikh-i Alfi. Each member
152 of the board was assigned a period to write its history in chronological order. As
per this scheme the events are described year by year. However, the accounts Indo-Persian Historiography
in Medieval India
of certain Indian rulers have been compiled separately in different sections. This
pattern has been followed in providing the history of Muhammad Tughluq, the
Lodis, fifteenth century regional kingdoms emerging after the decline of Sultanate,
Sher Shah Sur, Islam Shah and Adil Shah Sur. Its concluding part is devoted to
the reign of Akbar upto 1585. Not satisfied with the account of his reign in the
Tarikh-i Alfi, in 1589-1590, Akbar ordered Abul Fazl to compile the history of
his reign, beginning with an account of Babur and Humayun. A bureau was
established in which competent people were employed to assist Abul Fazl. The
entire archival material was placed at the compiler’s disposal. It may be stressed
that Abul Fazl was selected for this task because he had identified himself with
Akbar’s views and religious inclination. He portrays Akbar’s own view about
his status and role in history as conceived by emperor himself. Akbar was led
by his courtiers to think of himself as the perfect representation of the spiritual
profile of his age. He wanted to be remembered in history as the Insan-i Kamil
(perfect man), gifted by God with full knowledge of Divine Unity. Therefore, in
compiling the Akbarnama, Abul Fazl was able to come up to his royal patron’s
expectations. He presents Akbar as cosmic man, entrusted by God with sway
over outward form and inner meaning, the exoteric and esoteric. His mission is
said to liberate people from taqlid (tradition), lead them to truth and create an
atmosphere of concord, so that people following different sects could live in peace
and harmony. He was shown as “a light emanating from God.”
Despite flattery, Abul Fazl was able to produce a history of Akbar’s reign that is
considered an important contribution to Indo-Persian historiography. It was
brought to completion after five revisions that involved strenuous labour of seven
years, the completion of the work was indeed epoch making. Abul Fazl did not
believe that Indian history should concern itself only with the achievements of the
Muslim rulers in India, nor did he try to establish any relation with the past of Islam.
In his treatment of Akbar’s military expeditions against the Rajputs, he emphasises
on the point that there was no justification for any chief, Hindu or Muslim not to
join the imperial confederation in view of the reconciliatory policy of Akbar. He
feels that Akbar’s state policy was calculated to bring unity, stability and economic
prosperity to the country. In fact, Abul Fazl’s secular interpretation of history gained
ground during the subsequent century.
The Akbarnama and the Ain-i Akbari provide exhaustive details of the events
and policies introduced by Akbar till the year 1602. However, Abul Fazl fails to
mention or raise any issue which cast any aspersion on Akbar. It is true that the
Ain-i Akbari abounds in economic details, but these details do not tell us anything
about the life and conditions of the mass of peasantry or working class. The Ain-
i Akbari contains statistical details which are valuable source for the study of economic
history with no parallel with any historical accounts prior to it or till the 18th century.
But artisans or peasants are completely absent. The Ain-i Akbari, the third part
of the Akbarnama is a unique compilation of the system of administration and
control through the departments of government. It also contains an account of the
religious and philosophical systems of the Hindus. However, Abul Fazal’s identification
with Akbar’s views and religious beliefs prevented him from presenting a picture
in different hues, reflecting the currents and cross currents in society. Abul Fazl
does not mention Shah Mansur or his successor Todarmal’s contribution while
153
Indian Historiography dealing with revenue reforms and portrays Akbar as the genius who evolved key
reforms including Ain-i Dahsala (ten years settlement) and revenue dasturs. The
reader does not find the spirit of Akbar’s age in Akbarnama that was successfully
depicted by Abdul Qadir Badauni or even Nizamuddin Ahmad.

13.3.3 Akbar’s Reign : Non-official Histories

Nizamuddin Ahmad and Abdul Qadir Badauni are two important historians of the
period. Motivated by the popularity of the discipline of history, both the scholars
have written history of the Muslim rule in India and have also recorded achievements
of men of learning in different fields. Their works run into several volumes. Let us
deal with each one separately.
Nizamuddin was the son of Khwaja Muqim Harawi, a noble of Babur and Humayun.
A well-educated man, he was interested in the study of history and literature. When
he look up the project of writing history of India in three volumes, he employed
men like Masum Bhakkari to assist him and provide information about different
regions of the empire.
A man who had gained experience in the government after having served on important
positions in the provinces and at court as well, he was able to make substantial
contribution through his scholarly work. His first-volume deals with the history of
the Muslim rulers of India upto the fall of the Lodi dynasty in 1526. The second
volume contains the account of the Mughal rulers of India upto 1593. The third
volume deals with the rise and fall of the regional kingdoms in India. It is to the
credit of Nizamuddin Ahmad that he mentions all the important events that took
place during Akbar’s reign including the controversial Mahzar which is omitted
by Abul Fazl. However, being the mirbakshi (the incharge of the department of
army) of the empire, he does not provide any critical evaluation. Still, it helps us in
filling the gap left by Abul Fazl not only on this issue but in several other areas.
His work Tabaqat-i Akbari was regarded by all the later writers as an authentic
work and they borrowed from it.
Abdul Qadir Badauni was also a keen student of history and literature. He tells us
that from his student life, he spent hours in reading or writing history. He also learnt
Sanskrit and classical Indian music along with Islamic theology. Akbar employed
him to translate Muhabharat from Sanskrit into Persian. The first volume of his
history entitled Muntakhabut Tawarikh is related to the history of the Sultanate
of Delhi. The second covers Akbar’s reign while in the third volume we find the
biographical notes on the scholars, poets and Sufi saints of Akbar’s reign. His account
is very readable bringing out the important facts of the period. Brevity is the beauty
of Badauni’s style. The first volume contains information culled from miscellaneous
sources, many of which are not extant today. Moreover, Badauni possessed an
analytical independent mind with different views than the official line. In fact Badauni’s
objective was to present a frank account of his times. It is Badauni’s second volume
that needs to be studied along with Abul Fazl’s Akbarnama to have a proper
understanding of Akbar’s reign. Badauni does not gloss over any uncomfortable
question on Akbar’s ability as an administrator. For example, Badauni records
the failure of the karori experience and the disaster it caused. Badauni is corroborated
in essentials by Nizamuddin Ahmad also. Unlike Abul Fazl and even Nizamuddin
Ahmad, Badauni’s account of the religious discussions held in Akbar’s Ibadat Khana,
154
the origin of Akbar’s differences with the Muslim orthodoxy that led to religious Indo-Persian Historiography
in Medieval India
controversies is vivid depicting the currents and cross currents of thought. It certainly
has precedence on Akbarnama, in a number of areas especially the controversial
issues. It gives an impression to the readers that it is free from the official constraints,
catches the realities of the time and reflect the magnitude and intensity of conflicts
of the period.

13.3.4 Histories During Jahangir’s Reign

Akbar’s son and successor Jahangir decided to write autobiographical history of
his own reign in the traditions set by Babur. Besides, he persuaded other scholars
also to write the history of his reign. He requested Shaikh Abdul Haque to add in
his Tarikh the account of his reign also. But the Shaikh was too old to take up the
work, yet his son Qazi Nurul Haque compiled the history, Zubdatu’t Tawarikh
and closed it with the account of Jahangir’s reign. Like the Tarikh compiled by
his father, Shaikh Abdul Haque, the Zubdatu’t Tawarikh also narrates the history
of the Muslim rulers of India. Another writer, who compiled the voluminous History
of the Afghan tribes and the Afghan rulers, the Lodis and the Surs also incorporated
a chapter on early ten years of Jahangir’s reign. This Tarikh-i Khan-i Jahani was
compiled by Nemat Allah Harawi under the patronage of Khan-i Jahan Lodi, the
noble of Jahangir. As regards Jahangir’s own memoirs Tuzuk-i Jahangiri, it is a
major source for his reign.
The emperor wrote the Tuzuk himself upto the 17th regnal year till his health permitted
him. Later, he dictated it to his trusted officer, Mutamad Khan. It presents to a
great extent the picture of Jahangir’s reign. The principal events connected with
rebellions, the role of the imperial officers, their promotions and punishments as
well as diplomatic relations between India and the foreign powers are described
in a lucid style. It contains a year-by-year narrative. Further, we find insights into
the culture of the Mughal empire as well as Jahangir’s aesthetic taste, learning and
his interest in nature.

13.3.5 Histories During Shahjahan’s Reign

Mutamad Khan set to write the history Iqbalnama-i Jahangiri after Shahjahan’s
accession to the throne. His aim was to Justify Shahjahan’s rebellion against his
father because Nur Jahan Begum wanted to harm him and clear the way for
Shaharyar’s accession to the throne. It is divided into three parts: the first part
covers the history of Babur and Humayun, the second part contains the account
of Akbar’s reign while the third is devoted to Jahangir’s reign. In the last part the
first nineteen years are merely an abridgement of the Tuzuk-i Jahangiri. The account
of the last years of Jahangir’s reign is almost an eye witness account.
Like Mutamad Khan, Khwaja Kamgar Husaini also came from a family associated
with the Mughal court. He served under Jahangir and Shahjahan both. In the
preparation of his Maasir-i Jahangiri, he also drew on Tuzuk-i Jahangiri. His
account from the 19th year of Jahangir’s reign is his original work and is an important
source for the events that took place during the last years of the reign. He started
compiling his work in 1630. It may be pointed out that the compiler also
supplemented information about certain events that took place before Jahangir’s
accession to the throne. For example, he furnishes details about the role played
155
Indian Historiography by prince Khusrau’s supporters to secure the throne for him leaving Jahangir aside.
No other historian supplies this information. He also portrays Jahangir as a naturalist,
describing Jahangir’s interest in fauna and flora, animal breeding, etc. In short,
Maasir-i Jahangiri is one of the major histories on Jahangir’s reign.
Impressed with Abul Fazl’s style of prose writing and the richness of details in
the Akbarnama, Shahjahan desired to have the history of his reign compiled by
a master of Persian prose. First he tried Mohammed Amin Qazvini and suggested
him to write Badshahnama, i.e. the history of his reign on the lines of Abul Fazl’s
Akbarnama. Like Abul Fazl, Amin Qazvini was provided with assistants and
given permission to have access to the royal library and the state archives for
the collection of material. In nine years Qazvini was able to complete the first
volume covering the first ten years of Shah Jahan’s reign. It seems that he had
planned to compile a separate volume on every decade but he was stopped from
working on the project. Although the volume was rich in details, his style was
not liked by the emperor. According to Mohammed Saleh Kamboh, the author
of the Amal-i Saleh (or Shahjahannama), Qazvini was transferred to the
intelligence bureau. Abdul Hamid Lahori, another Scholar was appointed as the
official historian in his place. Abdul Hamid was found competent enough to emulate
Abdul Fazl’s Persian prose-style. Saleh Kamboh says that Abdul Hamid was
celebrated for the beauty of his style. Like Akbarnama, the Badshahnama is
also full of outbursts of laboured rhetoric.
Abdul Hamid’s Badshahnama contains an account of twenty years of history of
Shahjahan’s reign. It is divided into two parts, each covering ten years of the reign.
The events have been arranged chronologically year-wise. It also contains separate
sections on the Princes, Princesses and the nobles of the empire. The latter have
been listed in accordance with the descending order of their mansabs from 9000
to 500 horses. Lastly the author devotes a section on the leading Sufi saints, scholars,
physicians and poets of the reign of Shahjahan.
Owing to old age, Abdul Hamid Lahori was retired and his pupil Mohammad Waris
was ordered by the emperor to continue the work. Waris’s volume contains ten
years account from the beginning of the twentieth year to the thirtieth year when
Shahjahan had to abdicate the throne. Waris’s Badshahnama bears resemblance
to his teacher’s Badshahnama both in style and details.
Two other writers who produced histories of Shahjahan during the early years of
Aurangzeb’s reign were Sadiq Khan and Muhammad Saleh Kamboh. The former’s
work is known as Badshahnama, while the latter history is popularly called Amal-
i Saleh (or Shahjahanama). Both these works furnish important details about the
war of succession between Shahjahan’s sons and the last years of Shahjahan’s life.

13.3.6 Histories During Aurangzeb’s Reign

The emperor Aurangzeb also followed the tradition of Akbar and Shahjahan. He
appointed Muhammad Kazim the son of Muhammad Amin Qazvini to write the
history of his reign. An order was also issued to the officers incharge of the royal
records to make over to the official historian all such state papers as were received
from the news writers and other high functionaries pertaining to important events.
On the completion of the account of first ten years of the reign, its writing was
156
stopped. The volume produced was called Alamgir Nama (1568). This volume Indo-Persian Historiography
in Medieval India
reads as a panegyric in prose, portraying the emperor as a special recipient of
divine grace and endowed with super-natural powers. Disgusted with flattery and
exaggeration, Aurangzeb banned history writing, saying that ‘the cultivation of inward
piety was preferable to the ostentatious display of his achievements’. The curtailment
of state expenditure seems another reason for stopping the writing of chronicle.
Later on, Inayatullah Khan Kashmiri, a trusted noble of Aurangzeb’s son and
successor, Bahadur Shah persuaded Saqi Mustaid Khan to compile the history of
Aurangzeb’s reign. Hence the compilation of the Maasir-i Alamgiri was brought
to completion in 1711. This fills a wide gap in the official history of Aurangzeb’s
reign.
Like Akbarnama of Abul Fazl and Badshahnama of Abdul Hamid Lahori, Maasir-
i Alamgiri has been composed in the form of annals, each year has been marked
off. Its style is free from literary conceits, but the work reads like a dry list of
official postings, promotions, armies deputed for the conquest of forts, etc. However,
the interesting bits of information are found at places where the compiler makes
observation and reflection on events and particularly biographical sketches. It may
be pointed out that the account of first ten years of Aurangzeb’s reign in the Maasir-
i Alamgiri is a concise summary of Kazim’s Alamgirnama but the account from
the eleventh year onwards is based on his personal knowledge and the state archives.
it is however, almost devoid of details about the social life and the deteriorating
economic conditions in the Empire. This was the last official history of the Mughal
empire. Thereafter, Khafi Khan and other historians of the 18th century composed
histories but their approach was partisan, each historian wrote according to his
allegiance to certain group of nobles at court.
Apart from these historical works a number of other works like Maasir-ul Umara,
by Shahnawaz Khana collection of biographies of nobles, treatise on Administration
like Diwan-i Pasand of Rai Chhatar Mal; Amamullah Hussain’s work Ganj-I
Badawurd (on Agriculture) Baharistan-i Ghaybi of Mirzanathan (1623) are a few
other important works of history for the Mughal period.

13.4 SUMMARY
Among the Muslim elite, history was considered as the third important source of
knowledge after the religious scripture and jurisprudence. Therefore, the study and
writing of history were accorded great importance after the establishment of the
Delhi Sultanate in the closing years of 12th century. The pioneers of history-writing
in the Indo-Persian tradition was Muhammad bin Mansur, popularly known as Fakhr-
i Mudabbir. His writings included a book of genealogies of the Prophet of Islam
and the Muslim rulers, including Qutbuddin Aibak. Minhaj Siraj Juzjani was another
important historian of the 13th century. However, the most important figure in the
Indo-Persian historiography was Ziauddin Barani in the 14th century. His Tarikh-i
Firuzshahi is a milestone in the tradition of history-writing in medieval India. It
was written for the enlightenment of the rulers of his times. Under the Mughals
this tradition of history-writing continued and reached new heights. Abul Fazl,
Nizamuddin Ahmad, Abdul Qadir Badauni, Khwaja Kamgar Husaini and Abdul
Hamid Lahori were some important historians of the Mughal period.
157
Indian Historiography
13.4 EXERCISES
1) Give a brief account of Minhaj’s style of history-writing.
2) Discuss the important works of history written during the 14th century.
3) Why is Ziauddin Barani considered as the most important historian of the
Sultanate period?
4) Compare the writings of Abul Fazl and Badauni on Akbar’s reign.
5) Write a brief note on the historical works during Jahangir’s reign.

158
 Colonial Historiography
UNIT 14 COLONIAL HISTORIOGRAPHY IN in India

INDIA*
Structure
14.1 Introduction
14.2 Influential Works of History in Colonial India
14.3 Some Other Historiographic Developments
14.4 Colonial Ideology in Historiography
14.5 Impact of Historical Writings in Colonial India
14.6 Summary
14.7 Exercises

14.1 INTRODUCTION
When we talk of Colonial Historiography the first task is to remove a possible
source of confusion. The term ‘colonial historiography’ applies to (a) the histories
of the countries colonised during their period of colonial rule, and (b) to the ideas
and approaches commonly associated with historians who were or are characterised
by a colonialist ideology. In British India the term was used in the first sense and
only since independence the second meaning of the term has come into prominence.
Many of the front rank historians were British colonial officials, and the term colonial
history, when it was used at all, was meant to refer to the subject rather than to
the ideology embedded in that history. Today the ideology is the subject of criticism
and hence the term ‘colonial historiography’ has acquired a pejorative sense. In
this Unit, we shall use the term ‘colonial historiography’ in both of these senses
mentioned above.
In a sense colonial history as a subject of study and colonial approach as an ideology
are interconnected. The theme of empire building in the historical works of the British
naturally gave rise to a set of ideas justifying British rule in India. This justification
included, in different degrees in different individual historian, a highly critical attitude
towards Indian society and culture at times amounting to contempt, a laudatory
attitude to the soldiers and administrators who conquered and ruled India, and a
proneness to laud the benefits India received from Pax Britannica, i.e. British Peace.
We shall study this ideology in detail later but it is important to note here that lack
of consciousness of the ideological dimension was a characteristic of colonial history
writing. The influence of Leopold von Ranke and the positivist school of history
had, for the major part of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, created a belief
in the ‘objectivity of the historian’ and this made it difficult to perceive the possibility
of ideological leanings in historians’ discourse. The ideological dimension of colonial
historiography was brought to the surface only in the post-independence critique
of earlier historiography. This critique was launched mainly in India while, as late
as 1961, C H Philips of the School of Oriental and African Studies of London, in
The Historians of India, Pakistan and Ceylon, did not raise the issue at all in a
comprehensive survey of historiography.

*
Resource Person: Prof. Sabyasachi Bhattacharya 159
Indian Historiography
14.2 INFLUENTIAL WORKS OF HISTORY IN
COLONIAL INDIA
Before we take up the question of the colonial ideology in historiography, let us
try and get a clear idea of the historians we are talking about. In the eighteenth
century there were very few genuinely historical works. The British were perhaps
too busy fighting their way to the top pf the political pyramid in India to devote
much attention to history. One of the notable writers in the historical vein in the
eighteenth century was Charles Grant, who wrote Observations on the State
of Society among the Asiatic Subjects of India in 1792. He belonged to the
‘evangelical school’, i.e. the group pf British observers who believed that it was
the divine destiny of the British rulers of India to bring the light of Christianity to
India which was sunk in the darkness of primitive religious faiths and superstitions.
However, this kind of reflective writing on Indian society and history was rather
rare in till the early decades of the nineteenth century. By the second decade of
the nineteenth century British rule in India had stabilised considerably and was
about to enter a new period of expansion. By 1815 in Europe Britain was not
only established as a first class power after Britain’s victory over Napoleon and
France, but Britain had also undergone the first Industrial Revolution and had
emerged as the most industrialised country in the world. Britain’s confidence in
being at the top of the world was nowhere better displayed than in British writings
on India, a country she dominated and regarded as backward. This attitude is
reflected in the historical writings of the British from the second decade of the
nineteenth century.
Just about this time, between 1806 and 1818, James Mill wrote a series of volumes
on the history of India and this work had a formative influence on British imagination
about India. The book was entitled History of British India, but the first three
volumes included a survey of ancient and medieval India while the last three volumes
were specifically about British rule in India. This book became a great success, it
was reprinted in 1820, 1826 and 1840 and it became a basic textbook for the
British Indian Civil Service officrs undergoing training at the East India’s college at
Haileybury. By the 1840s the book was out of date and in his comments its editor
H.H. Wilson pointed that out in 1844 (Wilson also pointed out many factual errors
in the book); but the book continued to be considered a classic.
Mill had never been to India and the entire work was written on the basis of his
limited readings in books by English authors on India. It contained a collection of
the prejudices about India and the natives of India which many British officers acquired
in course of their stay in India. However, despite shortcomings from the point of
view of authenticity and veracity and objectivity, the book was very influential for
two reasons. One of these reasons is often recognised: James Mill belonged to an
influential school of political and economic thought, the Utilitarians inspired by the
philosopher Jeremy Bentham. As an Utilitarian exposition of history Mill’s history
of India was also at the same time implicitly an Utilitarian agenda for British
administration in India. The other reason for the immense influence the book exercised
has not been recognised as much as one might have expected. This book perfectly
reflected the cast of mind at the beginning of the nineteenth century which we have
noticed earlier, a cast of mind which developed in the wake of Britain’s victory in
160 the Anglo-French wars for hegemony in Europe, and Britain’s growing industrial
prosperity. James Mill broadcast a message of confident imperialism which was Colonial Historiography
in India
exactly what the readers in England wanted to hear.
While James Mill had produced an Utilitarian interpretation of history, a rival work
of history produced by Mountstuart Elphistone is more difficult to categorise in
terms of philosophical affiliation. Elphinstone was a civil servant in India for the
greater part of his working life and he was far better equipped and better informed
than Mill to write a history of India. His work History of Hindu and Muhammedan
India (1841) became a standard text in Indian universities (founded from 1857
onwards) and was reprinted up to the early years of the next century. Elphinstone
followed this up with History of British Power in the East, a book that traced
fairly systematically the expansion and consolidation of British rule till Hastings’
administration. The periodisation of Indian history into ancient and medieval period
corresponding to ‘Hindu’ period and ‘Muslim’ period was established as a convention
in Indian historiography as a result of the lasting influence of Elphinstone’s approach
to the issue. While Elphinstone’s works continued to be influential as a textbook,
specially in India, a more professionally proficient history was produced in the
1860s by J. Talboys Wheeler. The latter wrote a comprehensive History of India
in five volumes published between 1867 and 1876, and followed it up with a survey
of India Under British Rule (1886).
If one were to look for the successor to Elphinstone’s work as an influential text
book, one would probably turn to the History of India by Vincent Smith who
stands nearly at the end of a long series of British Indian civil servant historians. In
1911 the last edition of Elphinstone’s history of ‘Hindu and Muhammedan India’
was published and in the same year Vincent Smith’s comprehensive history, building
upon his own earlier research in ancient Indian history and the knowledge accumulated
by British researchers in the decades since Elphinstone, saw the light of day. From
1911 till about the middle of the twentieth century Vincent Smith’s was the authoritative
textbook on the syllabi of almost all Indian universities. While Vincent Smith’s book
approximated to the professional historians’ writings in form and was unrivalled as
a text book in summing up the then state of knowledge, in some respects his approach
to Indian history seems to have been coloured by his experience as a British civil
servant in India. The rise of the nationalist movement since 1885 and the intensification
of political agitation since the Partition of Bengal in 1905 may have influenced his
judgements about the course of history in India. For instance, time and again he
referred to the fragility of India’s unity and the outbreak of chaos and the onset of
general decline in the absence of a strong imperial authority. The disintegration and
decline experienced in ancient and medieval times at the end of great empires suggested
an obvious lesson to the Indian reader, viz. it was only the iron hand of imperial
Britain which kept India on the path of stability with progress, and if the British
Indian empire ceased to be there would be the deluge which will reverse all progress
attained under British rule. As regards the potentials of the nationalist movement
and the fitness of the Indian subjects to decide their own destiny, Vincent Smith
did not pay much attention to that ‘political’ question.
The political question, however, was assuming increasing importance in the last years
of British rule and a historical work more accommodative to the political outlook
of the Indian nationalist movement appeared in 1934. This work, Rise and Fulfilment
of British Rule in India was different from all the previously mentioned books in
that it was written from a liberal point of view, sympathetic to Indian national aspirations
161
Indian Historiography to a great extent. The authors were Edward Thompson who was a Missionary
who taught for many years in a college in Bengal and became a good friend of
Rabindranath Tagore, and G.T. Garratt, a civil servant in India for eleven years
and thereafter a Labour Party politician in England. Given their background, both
were disinclined to toe the line laid down by the civil servant historians of earlier
days. Thompson and Garratt faced very adverse criticism from conservative British
opinion leaders. On the other hand, many Indians found this work far more acceptable
than the officially prescribed textbooks. This book, published less than fifteen years
before India attained independence, is a landmark indicating the reorientation in
thinking in the more progressive and liberal circles among the British; it was in accord
with the mindset which made the transition of 1947 acceptable to the erstwhile
imperial power. From James Mill to Thompson and Garratt historiography had traveled
forward a great distance. This period, spanning the beginning of the 19th century
to the last years of British rule in India, saw the evolution from a Euro-centric and
disparaging approach to India towards a more liberal and less ethno-centric approach.

14.3 SOME OTHER HISTORIOGRAPHIC

DEVELOPMENTS
Till now we have focused attention on histories which were most widely read and
attained the status of text books, and hence influenced historical imagination and
understanding. There were other historical works not of that kind but nevertheless
of historiographic importance.
In the middle decades of the nineteenth century two great authors wrote on India,
though India was really not in the centre of their interest. One was Lord Macaulay
whose essays on some great British Indian personalities like Robert Clive were
published in Edinburgh Review. Macaulay’s literary style made Indian history readable,
though his essays were flawed by poor information and poorer judgement about
the ‘native’ part of British India. It was a great change from the uncommonly dull
and censorious James Mill’s writings. Macaulay’s lasting influence was the
establishment of a tradition of writing history in the biographical mode; this was
widely imitated later and hence volume after volume of biographies of Viceroys
and the like and histories of their administration.
Sir Henry Maine’s contribution was of another kind. A great juridical historian,
Maine applied himself to the study of ancient Indian institutions while he was for a
short period the Law Member of the Governor-General’s Council in India. His
Ancient Law (1861) and his work on Indian village communities were path-breaking
works in history. Maine changed the course of European thinking on the development
of law by looking at laws and institutions beyond the domain of Roman law. There
were, however, few mentionable contributions by British Indian scholars to follow
up Maine’s tradition in legal and institutional history. His impact was limited to European
scholarly work in the late nineteenth century and perhaps even beyond in the
development of sociology in the hands of Max Weber and others.
In the area of legal history the works which British Indian authors produced were
of a level different to, indeed inferior to Maine’s. Thus for instance Sir James
Fitzjames Stephen, also a Law Member of the Viceroy’s Council, wrote a defence
of British administration under Warren Hastings. Edmund Burke, he argued, was
162
wrong in thinking that the punishment awarded to Nanda Kumar by Justice Elijah Colonial Historiography
in India
Impey was a case of miscarriage of justice. This was the subject of Stephen’s Story
of Nuncoomar and the Impeachment of Sir Elijah Impey (1885). In reaction
to this an I.C.S. officer, Henry Beveridge, wrote in support of the impeachment
and in condemnation of the trial and punishment of Nanda Kumar: Nanda Kumar:
a narrative of a judicial murder (1886). Similarly, again in defence of previous
British administration, Sir John Strachey of the I.C.S., wrote Hastings and the
Rohilla War (1892). Thus there were legal historical debates about a thing in the
past, Warren Hastings and his impeachment and Edmund Burke’s criticism of British
administration. The site of this kind of debate was history, but the hidden agenda
was contemporary – to present British conquest and administration of India as an
unsullied record which must not be questioned.
In the high noon of the Empire two very contrary tendencies of historical writing
were displayed by two prominent authors. One was Sir William W. Hunter, the
editor of a good series of Gazetteers and the author of a pedestrian work on the
history of British India. From 1899 he began to edit a series of historical books
called The Rulers of India. The series lauded the makers of empires in India –
mainly the makers of the British Indian empire, though one or two token Indians,
like Asoka and Akbar, were included. The series was endowed with government
sponsorship and the volumes found place in official libraries and syllabi. The object
was to present history in a popular form and very often included not only solemn
moments of resolve to do good on the part of an empire builder, but also cute
stories of incidents in their childhood back home. The ‘hard-boiled types’ of empire
builders were chosen for immortality in a biographical form – British civil servants
who sympathised with India were excluded — and it was a caricature of the
eighteenth century English tradition of writing history as biography.
Sir Alfred Lyall’s work, Rise and Expansion of British Dominion in India (1894),
offers a contrast because he showed great originality in his methodology and
interpretation, although one may disagree very fundamentally with the trend of his
interpretation. In methodology his originality consisted of the use, in the manner of
ethnographers, of his own observation and knowledge of contemporary Indian society,
customs, institutions, etc. in order to understand the past events and processes.
Thus he went beyond the textual evidence which most historians at that timer depended
upon. In his interpretation of Indian history Lyall projected the story on a very wide
canvas, looking at the incursion of the British into India in the light of the entire
history of the relationship between the East and the West from the days of the
Greeks and the Romans. This wide sweep of history, resembling in some ways
Arnold Toynbee’s wide-angled global vision of relationship between civilisations,
was different from that of most British Indian historians of the nineteenth century.
The third element of originality in Lyall was his theoretical position that India and
Europe were on the same track of development, but India’s development was arrested
at a certain point. This was also the view of Sir Henry Maine who wrote that
Indian society had a ‘great part of our own civilization with its elements…not yet
unfolded.” India as an ‘arrested civilization’ was an influential idea in Europe but
in India it had few takers. The nationalistically inclined intelligentsia rejected the
view that India was just a backward version of Europe; they believed that India
was radically different from Europe in the organisation of her society and state systems,
and that India must be allowed to work out a different historical destiny rather 163
Indian Historiography than try to imitate Europe. At any rate, while in some matters Lyall’s interpretative
framework may be questioned, his attempt to look at India as a civilisation merits
recognition.
Finally, a noteworthy historiographic development that occurred in the first two or
three decades of the twentieth century was the beginning of explorations in economic
history. A basis for that had already been laid in the work of many British civil
servants who examined economic records and formed broad conclusions about
the course of agrarian relations and agricultural history. This they did as district
collectors or magistrates responsible for ‘land revenue settlement’, i.e. fixation of
tax on agricultural income in order that Land Revenue may be collected by the
government. Among such civil servants an outstanding historian emerged: this was
W. H. Moreland who examined the economic condition of India at the Death
of Akbar, published in 1920. This work was followed up with another work of
economic history on the period From Akbar to Aurangzeb (1923) and finally a
history of The Agrarian System of Mughal India (1929). To some extent Moreland’s
approach was flawed by a preconceived notion that the economic condition of
India was better under British rule than what it was in medieval times. He tried to
prove this preconception by various means in his works, including his writings on
Indian economics in the twentieth century. Moreover, his response to the Indian
economic nationalists’ critique of British economic impact was far from being adequate.
One of his junior contemporaries was Vera Anstey who wrote on similar lines;
she taught at the University of London and wrote a standard textbook on The
Economic Development of India (1929). However, her work lacked the historical
depth which Moreland attained. Moreland’s outstanding contribution was to lay
the basis of a new discipline of economic history. However, economic and social
history remained marginal to the concerns of the typical colonial historians. This is
evident from the classic summation of all the British historians’ work on British India
in the volume in the Cambridge History of India (1929) edited by David Dodwell
as well as P E Roberts’ textbook, History of British India (reprinted often since
1907). Neither Indian economic and social conditions nor indeed the people of
India were in focus in such works, their history was all about what the British soldiers
and civil servants did in India.

14.4 COLONIAL IDEOLOGY IN HISTORIOGRAPHY

It will be an error to homogenise all of British historical writings as uniformly colonial,
since different approaches and interpretative frameworks developed within the colonial
school in course of the 19th and early 20th centuries. However, there were certain
characteristics common to most of the works we have surveyed till now. However
simplistic it may be, it may be useful to sum up these characteristics:
 An ‘Orientalist’ representation of India was common, promoting the idea of
the superiority of modern Western civilisation; this is a theme recently brought
into prominence by Edward Said and others, but the Indian nationalist intelligentsias
had identified and criticised this trend in British writings from James Mill onwards.
 The idea that India had no unity until the British unified the country was commonly
given prominence in historical narratives; along with this thesis there was a
representation of the eighteenth century India as a ‘dark century’ full of chaos
164 and barbarity until the British came to the rescue.
 Many late nineteenth century British historians adopted Social Darwinist notions Colonial Historiography
in India
about India; this implied that if history is a struggle between various peoples
and cultures, akin to the struggle among the species, Britain having come to
the top could be ipso facto legitimately considered to be superior and as the
fittest to rule.
 India was, in the opinion of many British observers, a stagnant society, arrested
at a stage of development; it followed that British rule would show the path of
progress to a higher level; hence the idea that India needed Pax Britannica.
 The mythification of heroic empire builders and ‘Rulers of India’ in historical
narratives was a part of the rhetoric of imperialism; as Eric Stokes has remarked,
in British writings on India the focus was on the British protagonists and the
entire country and its people were just a shadowy background.
 As would expect, colonial historiography displayed initially a critical stance
towards the Indian nationalist movement since it was perceived as a threat
to the good work done by the British in India; at a later stage when the
movement intensified the attitude became more complex, since some historians
showed plain hostility while others were more sophisticated in their denigration
of Indian nationalism. In general, while some of these characteristics and
paradigms are commonly to be found in the colonial historians’ discourse, it
will be unjust to ignore the fact that in course of the first half of the twentieth
century historiography out-grew them or, at least, presented more sophisticated
versions of them.
In essence colonial historiography was part of an ideological effort to
appropriate history as a means of establishing cultural hegemony and
legitimising British rule over India.
The basic idea embedded in the tradition if Colonial Historiography was the paradigm
of a backward society’s progression towards the pattern of modern European civil
and political society under the tutelage of imperial power. The guiding hand of the
British administrators, education combined with ‘filtration’ to the lower orders of
society, implantation of such institutions and laws as the British thought Indians were
fir for, and protection of Pax Britannica from the threat of disorder nationalism posed
among the subject people – these were the ingredients needed for a slow progress
India must make. Sometimes this agenda was presented as ‘the civilizing mission
of Britain’.
What were the intellectual lineages of the colonial ideology as reflected in
historiography? Benthamite or Utilitarian political philosophy represented Britain’s
role to be that of a guardian with a backward pupil as his ward. It may be said
that Jeremy Bentham looked upon all people in that light, European or otherwise.
That is partly true. But this attitude could find clearer expression and execution
in action in a colony like India. Another source of inspiration for the colonialist
historian was Social Darwinism, as has been mentioned earlier. This gave an
appearance of scientific respectability to the notion that many native Indians were
below par; it was possible to say that here there were victims of an arrested
civilisation and leave it at that as an inevitable outcome of a Darwinian determinism.
A third major influence was Herbert Spencer. He put forward an evolutionary
scheme for the explication of Europe’s ascendancy and his comparative method 165
Indian Historiography addressed the differences among countries and cultures in terms of progression
towards the higher European form. It was an assumption common among
Europeans, that non-European societies would follow that evolutionary pattern,
with a bit of assistance from the European imperial powers. This mindset was
not peculiar to the British Indian historians. In the heydays of mid-Victorian
imperialism the British gave free expression to these ideas while in later times
such statements became more circumspect. In the 1870s Fitzjames Stephen talked
of “heathenism and barbarism” versus the British as representatives of a “belligerent
civilization”. In 1920s David Dodwell’s rhetoric is milder, indeed almost in a
dejected tone: the Sisyphian task of the British was to raise to a higher level the
“great mass of humanity” in India and that mass “always tended to relapse into
its old posture …like a rock you try to lift with levers.” (Dodwell, A Sketch of
the History of India, 1858-1918).

14.5 IMPACT OF HISTORICAL WRITINGS IN

COLONIAL INDIA
The above ideological characterisation applies to the dominant trend in historical
thinking in the colonial school. But it will be inaccurate to apply this without
discrimination. It is well known that among the British officers of the government
of British India, as we all know, there were some like Thomas Munro or Charles
Trevelyan who were widely regarded as persons sympathetic to the subject people
although as officers they served an alien and exploitative regime; there were British
officers and British Missionaries (e.g. C F Andrews, author of Renaissance in India,
1925) who sympathised with the National Congress; and there were also those,
like say Garratt of the Indian Civil Service and later of the Labour Party in England,
or George Orwell of the Indian Police Service who were inveterate critics of the
empire. It was the same case with the historians. But the inclinations of lone individuals
were insignificant in the face of the dominant tradition among the servants of the
British Raj. Official encouragement and sponsorship of a way of representing the
past which would uphold and promote imperial might, and the organised or informal
peer opinion the dissident individual had to contend with. Our characterisation of
the ideology at the root of colonial historiography addresses the dominant trend
and may not apply in every respect to every individual historian. Such a qualification
is important in a course on Historiography in particular because this is an instance
where students of history must exercise their judgement about the range and the
limits of generalisation.
It must be noted that despite the colonial ideology embedded in historiography in
British India, the early British historians of India made some positive contributions.
Apart from the obvious fact that the colonial historians laid the foundations of
historiography according to methodology developed in modern Europe, their
contribution was also substantial in providing in institutions like the Asiatic Society
and Archaeological Survey of India opportunity for Indian historians to obtain entry
into the profession and into academic research. Further, despite an ethnocentric
and statist bias, the data collected by the British colonial historians as well as the
practice of archiving documents was and remains an important resource. Most
important of all, the teaching of history began from the very inception of the first
three universities in India at Calcutta, Bombay and Madras (1857-1858). This had
166 several unintended consequences.
The history that was taught under colonial auspices was highly biased in favour Colonial Historiography
in India
of the imperial point of view. The textbooks were those produced by the school
of colonial historiography. Nevertheless, there was a positive outcome. First, along
with the history of India by James Mill or Elphinstone, Indian students also read
histories of England and of Europe and thus were implanted in the minds of the
educated Indians the ideas of Liberty and Freedom and Democracy and Equity,
as exemplified in European history, the lessons of the Magna Carta, the Glorious
Revolution, the American War of Independence, the struggles of Mazzini and
Garibaldi in Italy, etc. Any one familiar with the early Moderate phase of the
development of nationalism in India will see the relevance these ideas acquired
through reading history. Secondly, professionally trained Indian historians began
to engage in writing history. Writing history on modern lines with documentary
research and the usual apparatus of scholarly work was no longer a monopoly
of the amateur historians of British origin. Indians professionally trained began
to engage in research, first in learned associations like the Asiatic Society, then
in the colleges and universities, and in the government’s educational services,
particularly the Indian Education Service.
Thirdly, and this is the important part, the history which the Indian students were
made to read, the books by British civil servant historians of the nineteenth century,
created a critical reaction against that historiography. The first graduate of an Indian
University, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, repeatedly reviled the British interpretation
and raised the question, When shall we write our own history? Rabindranath Tagore
put it most eloquently: in other countries, he wrote, history reveals the country to
the people of the country, while the history of India the British have gifted us obscures
our vision of India, we are unable to see our motherland in this history. This reaction
was typical of the intelligentsia in India and it led some of the best nationalist minds
to search for a new construal of history. Thus there developed a Nationalist
interpretation of Indian history, putting to an end the hegemony of British colonial
historiography. Writing history became a major means of building the consciousness
of a national identity. In the next Unit in this collection the Nationalist School of
historiography has been surveyed.

14.6 SUMMARY
The term ‘colonial historiography’ has been used in two senses. One relates to the
history of the colonial countries, while the other refers to the works which were
influenced by colonial ideology of domination. It is in the second sense that most
historians today write about the colonial historiography. In fact, the practice of writing
about the colonial countries by the colonial officials was related to the desire for
domination and justification of the colonial rule. Therefore, in most such historical
works there was criticism of Indian society and culture. At the same time, there
was praise for the western culture and values and glorification of the individuals
who established the empire in India. The histories of India written by James Mill,
Mountstuart Elphinstone, Vincent Smith and many others are pertinent examples
of this trend. They established the colonial school of historiography which denigrated
the subject people while praising the imperial country. In such accounts, India was
depicted as a stagnant society, as a backward civilisation and as culturally inferior
while Britain was praised as a dynamic country possessing superior civilisation and
advanced in science and technology.
167
Indian Historiography
14.7 EXERCISES
1) What is colonial historiography? Discuss some of the important works of historians
who are generally associated with colonial historiography.
2) Do you think that all the works written by colonial or the British historians on
India belong to the colonial school of history-writing? Answer with examples.
3) Discuss the basic elements of colonialist ideology contained in colonial
historiography.

168
 Nationalist
UNIT 15 NATIONALIST HISTORIOGRAPHY Historiography in India

IN INDIA*
Structure
15.1 Introduction
15.2 Colonial vs. Nationalist Historiography
15.3 Nationalist History of Ancient and Medieval Periods
15.4 Nationalist History of Modern Period
15.5 Summary
15.6 Exercises

15.1 INTRODUCTION
This is a simple presentation of a very complex problem, especially because
historiography is an aspect both of history and persons, and events and intellectual
history. It should also be kept in view that when discussing historical approach of
a historian, his or her sincerity and honesty is seldom in question. A historian worth
discussing does not write to order or to deliberately serve specific interests. Though
it is true that a historian’s work may reflect the thinking of a class, caste or a social
or political group, he basically writes through intellectual conviction or under the
impact of ideas and ideologies. This is why often a historian may transcend the
class, caste, race, community or nation in which he is born.
Thus concrete relationship of a historian to a particular approach to Indian history
– for example, colonial, nationalist, or communal approach is evolved not by analyzing
or ‘discovering his motives but by seeing the correspondence between his intellectual
product and the concrete practice of the colonialists, nationalists or communalists.
Quite often a historian – or any intellectual – is affected by contemporary politics
and ideologies.
Of course, it is an important aspect of intellectual history to study how and why
certain ideas, approaches and ideologies are picked up, popularised, debated –
supported and opposed – become dominant or lose dominance, or the ideas arising
in one milieu are picked up in another milieu.

15.2 COLONIAL VS. NATIONALIST

HISTORIOGRAPHY
Nationalist approach to Indian history may be described as one which tends to
contribute to the growth of nationalist feeling and to unify people in the face of
religious, caste, or linguistic differences or class differentiation. This may, as pointed
out earlier, sometimes be irrespective of the intentions of the author.
Initially, in the 19th century, Indian historians followed in the footsteps of colonial
historiography, considering history as scientific based on fact-finding, with emphasis
on political history and that too of ruling dynasties. Colonial writers and historians,

*
Resource Person: Prof. Bipan Chandra 169
Indian Historiography who began to write the history of India from late 18th and early 19th century, in a
way created all India history, just as they were creating an all-India empire.
Simultaneously, just as the colonial rulers followed a political policy of divide and
rule on the basis of region and religion, so did colonial historians stress division of
Indians on the basis of region and religion throughout much of Indian history. Nationalist
historians too wrote history as either of India as a whole or of rulers, who ruled
different parts of India, with emphasis on their religion or caste or linguistic affiliation.
But as colonial historical narrative became negative or took a negative view of India’s
political and social development, and, in contrast, a justificatory view of colonialism,
a nationalist reaction by Indian historians came. Colonial historians now increasingly,
day by day, threw colonial stereotypes at Indians. Basic texts in this respect were
James Mill’s work on Ancient India and Elliot and Dawson’s work on Medieval
India. Indian nationalist historians set out to create counter-stereotypes, often explicitly
designed to oppose colonial stereotypes thrown at them day after day. Just as
the Indian nationalist movement developed to oppose colonialism, so did nationalist
historiography develop as a response to and in confrontation with colonial
historiography and as an effort to build national self-respect in the face of colonial
denigration of Indian people and their historical record. Both sides appealed to
history in their every day speech and writing. Even when dealing with most obtuse
or obscure historical subjects, Indians often relied in their reply on earlier European
interpretations.
For example, many colonial writers and administrators asserted that historical
experience of Indian people made them unfit for self-government and democracy,
or national unity and nation-formation or modern economic development, or even
defence against invasion by outsiders. Colonial rule would gradually prepare them
– and was doing so – far all these tasks. Moreover, in the second half of the 19th
century, the need for permanent presence of colonial rulers and colonial administration
for the development of India on modern lines was sometimes implied and sometimes
explicitly asserted. While the utilitarians and missionaries condemned Indian culture,
the Orientalists emphasised the character of India as a nation of philosophers and
spiritual people. While this characterization bore the marks of praise, the accompanying
corollary was that Indians had historically lacked political, administrative and economic
acumen or capacity. Indians should, therefore, have full freedom to develop and
practice their spiritualism and influence the world in that respect, the British should
manage the political, administrative, and economic affairs and territorial defence
of India against foreign aggression, which had succeeded whenever India had an
Indian ruler. In fact, in the absence of foreign rule, India had tended to suffer from
political and administrative anarchy. For example, it was the British who saved
India from anarchy during the 18 th and 19th centuries. The colonial writers and
administrators also maintained that, because of their religious and social organisation,
Indians also lacked moral character. (This view was often the result of the fact
that British administration came into social contact only with their cooks, syces
and other servants or with compradors who were out to make money through their
relations with the Sahibs). Also, some of the European writers praised Indian
spiritualism, because of their own reaction against the evils of the emerging industrialism
and commercialism in their own countries.
Many colonial historians also held that it was in the very nature of India, like other
countries of the East, to be ruled by despots or at least by autocratic rulers. This
170 was the reason why British rule in India was and had to be autocratic. This view
came to be widely known as the theory of Oriental Despotism. Furthermore, Nationalist
Historiography in India
these writers argued that the notion that the aim of any ruler being the welfare
of the ruled was absent in India. In fact, the traditional political regimes in India
were ‘monstrously cruel’ by nature. In contrast, the British, even through autocratic,
were just and benevolent and worked for the welfare of the people. In contrast
with the cruel Oriental Despotism of the past, British rule was benevolent though
autocratic.
The colonial writers also held that Indians had, in contrast to Europeans, always
lacked a feeling of nationality and therefore of national unity, – Indians had always
been divided. Indians, they said, had also lacked a democratic tradition. While
Europeans had enjoyed the democratic heritage of ancient Greece and Rome,
the heritage of Indians – in fact of all people of the Orient or East – was that of
despotism.
Indians also lacked the quality of innovation and creativity. Consequently most good
things – institutions, customs, arts and crafts, etc. – had come from outside. For
example, it was colonial rule which had brought to India law and order, equality
before law, economic development, and modernization of society based on the ideas
of social equality.
All these colonial notions not only hurt the pride of Indian historians and other
intellectuals but also implied that the growing demand of the Indian intellectuals
for self-government, democracy, legislative reform, etc., was unrealistic precisely
because of Indians’ past history. After all, democracy was alien to their historical
character and therefore not suitable to them.

15.3 NATIONALIST HISTORY OF ANCIENT AND

MEDIEVAL PERIODS
Many Indians, affected by nationalism, and some Europeans, took up an examination
of colonial stereotypes virtually as a challenge from the second half of the 19th century.
They did so on the basis of detailed and meticulous research, which has created
excellent traditions of devotion to facts and details and of reliance on primary sources
in Indian historical discipline.
Indian historians tried to prove the falsity of colonial historical narrative on the basis
of analysis of existing historical sources, as also the hunt for fresh sources. Of
course, they also were moved by a feeling of hurt national pride. For decades,
their work was confined to ancient and medieval periods. The professional historians
did not take up the modern period though, as we shall see, the economists did,
basically because of two reasons: (a) most of them were working in government
or government-controlled schools and colleges, there was fear that any critique of
colonialism would affect their careers; (b) they accepted the contemporary British
historical view that scientific history must not deal with recent or contemporary
period.
The Indian historians proclaimed the colonial notion of India’s tradition of spirituality
as a mark of distinction and of India’s greatness and superiority over the West,
especially in terms of ‘moral values’ as compared to the essentially ‘materialistic’
character of Western civilisation. (Paradoxically, this formulation made an appeal
171
Indian Historiography to the Indians of middle classes who belonged to moneylending and trading families
who daily struggled for acquisition of material goods). At the same time, they
denied the Indians’ exclusive devotion to spirituality and stressed their prowess
in administration and statecraft, empire building, diplomacy, taxation structure,
and military organisation, warfare, agrarian, industrial and commercial development.
Many historians discovered in India’s past diplomatic and political institutions
analogous to those of contemporary Europe. They vehemently denied the notion
of ancient Indian being inefficient in running a state. They hailed the discovery
in the beginning of the 20th century of Arthashastra by Kautilya and said that it
proved that Indians were equally interested and proficient in administration,
diplomacy and economic management by the state. Many glorified Kautilya and
compared him with Machiavelli and Bismarck. Many also denied the dominant
influence of religion on the state and asserted the latter’s secular character. They
also contradicted the view that ancient Indian state was autocratic and despotic.
The Kings in ancient India dispensed justice to all, they said. Others refuted
the view that Indian rulers did not keep in mind the aim of the welfare of the
people. Some even asserted the strong presence of the popular element in the
state and went even so far as to say that in many cases the political structure
approached that of modern democracies. In any case, all of them argued that
government was not irresponsible and capricious. There were many limits on
autocracy or the power of the rulers. There were many channels through which
public opinion became effective. Some even argued that Indian monarchies were
limited and often approached constitutional monarchy. For example, the Mantri
Parishad described by Kautilya was compared with the Privy Council of Britain.
Above all, very often the existence of local self-governments was asserted and
the example of democratically elected village panchayats was cited. A few writers
went so fare as to talk of the existence of assemblies and parliaments and of the
cabinet system, as under Chandra Gupta, Akbar and Shivaji. Quite often, the
wide observance by the rulers of international law, especially in the case of war,
was also pointed out. They denied the charge that Indian rulers took recourse
to arbitrary taxation and argued that a taxation system virtually analogous to that
of a modern system of taxation prevailed. K.P. Jayaswal, a celebrated historian
of the first quarter of the 20th century, took this entire approach to the extreme.
In his Hindu Polity, published in 1915, he argued that the ancient Indian political
system was either republican or that of constitutional monarchy. He concluded:
‘The constitutional progress made by the Hindus has probably not been equalled,
much less surpassed, by any polity of antiquity.’ (This was to counter the European
view that Greece was the home of democracy).
Basically, the nationalist approach was to assert that anything that was politically
positive in the West had already existed in India. Thus R. C. Majumdar wrote in
his Corporate Life in Ancient India that institutions ‘which we are accustomed
to look upon as of western growth had also flourished in India long ago.’ Thus,
interestingly, the value structure of the west was accepted. It is not ancient Indian
political institutions which were declared to be, on the whole, greater, but western
institutions which were accepted as greater and then found to have existed in ancient
India.
Colonial historians stressed that Indians were always divided by religion, region,
language, and caste, that it was colonialism alone which unified them, and that their
172
unity would disappear if colonial rule disappeared. This also meant that Indians Nationalist
Historiography in India
lacked a sense of patriotism and national unity. Nationalist historians countered
the colonial view by claiming that cultural, economic and political unity and a sense
of Indian nationhood had prevailed in pre-colonial India. Kautilya, for example,
they said, had advocated in the Arthashastra the need for a national king. This
need to assert the unity of India in the past explains, in part, why Indian historians
tended to see Indian history as a history of Indian empires and their break up and
why they treated the period of empires as period of national greatness. In their
view Chandragupta Maurya, Asoka, Chandragupta Vikramditya and Akbar were
great because they built great empires. Interestingly, this led to a contradiction
in the nationalist approach during the Gandhian era. On the one hand India was
praised as the land of non-violence and, on the other hand, the military power of
the empire-builders was praised. One curious result was that Asoka was praised
for his commitment to non-violence by some historians, others condemned him for
the same as it weakened the empire against foreign invaders.
The nationalists wrote approvingly of India’s culture and social structure. In the
bargain they underplayed caste oppression, social and economic denigration of the
lower castes, and male domination. Moreover, while rightly emphasizing India’s
contribution to the development of civilization in the world, they tended to underplay
the impact of other cultures and civilizations on India’s development. Furthermore,
as in the case of political institutions, often the worth of social values and institutions
was accepted and then found to have existed in ancient India.
Apart from its historical veracity, which cannot be discussed here, the nationalist
historians’ approach towards ancient India had a few highly negative consequences.
(i) Nearly all achievements of the Indian people in different areas of human endeavour
were associated with the ancient period, (ii) It was Hindu culture and social structure
in its Sanskritic and Brahmanical form that was emphasised. (iii) Glorification of
the past tended to merge with communalism and, later, with regionalism.
In any case the high water-mark of the Indian historical writing on the ancient period
of Indian history was reached around early 1930s. Later, it became more and
more a caricature of the writings of the earlier period.
Nationalist historiography of medieval India developed mostly during the 1920s
and after, often to dispute the colonial and communal approaches. Nationalists
historians of medieval India repeated more or less the entire nationalist approach
towards ancient Indian history. In particular, they emphasized the development of
a composite culture in Northern India as a result of interaction among Hindus and
Muslims both at the level of the common people and the elite. They also denied
the colonial-communal assertion that Muslim rulers remained foreigners even after
settling down in the country or that they were inherently oppressive or more so
than their predecessors or counterparts in the rest of the world. Above all, they
denied that Hindus and Muslims lived in a conflictual situation, ever at each other’s
throats.
Despite their tendency to glorify India’s past and to defend Indian culture against
colonial denigeration, many of the nationalists historians also looked for an answer
to the question: how could a small trading company, backed by a small country
thousands of miles away, conquer such a large country as India with its hoary
173
Indian Historiography past and great civilizations. This indicated the beginnings of a critique of Indian
culture and social structure, which, in turn, led to initial steps being taken towards
the study of social history, especially pertaining to the caste system and the position
of women.
The contemporary nationalist critique of colonialism also led to first steps being
taken towards the economic history of pre-colonial India. Also as the national
movement developed as a mass movement, attention turned in the 1930s towards
a study of the role of the common people in history. This trend fructified, however,
only after the 1950s.
It may also be kept in view that the historians we are discussing were handicapped
by the limitation of their sources. They had to rely mostly on written sources, though
epigraphy and numismatics were beginning to make a major contribution.
Archaeology was still in its infancy, while the use of anthropology and sociology
was negligible. Economics too was seen as a preserve only of the economists.

15.4 NATIONALIST HISTORY OF MODERN PERIOD

Nationalist historiography flourished mainly in dealing with the ancient and medieval
periods. It hardly existed for the modern period and came into being mainly
after 1947, no school of nationalist historians of modern India having existed before
1947. This was in part because, in the era of nationalism, to be a nationalist
was also to be anti-imperialist, which meant confrontation with the ruling, colonial
authorities. And that was not possible for academics because of colonial control
over the educational system. It became safe to be anti-imperialist only after 1947.
Consequently, a history of the national movement or of colonial economy did
not exist. This is, of course, not a complete explanation of the absence of
nationalist historiography before 1947. After all, Indian economists did develop
a sharp and brilliant critique of the colonial economy of India and its impact on
the people.
A detailed and scientific critique of colonialism was developed in the last quarter
of the 19th century by non-academic, nationalist economists such as Dadabhai
Naoroji, Justice Ranade, G. V. Joshi, R. C. Dutt, K. T. Telang, G. K. Gokhale
and D. E. Wacha. Several academic economists such as K. T. Shah, V. C. Kale,
C. N. Vakil, D. R. Gadgil, Gyan Chand, V.K.R.V. Rao and Wadia and Merchant
followed in their footsteps in the first half of the 20th century. Their critique did
not find any reflection in history books of the period. That was to happen only
after 1947, and that too in the 1960s and after. This critique, however, formed
the core of nationalist agitation in the era of mass movements after 1915. Tilak,
Gandhiji, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel and Subhash Bose, for example, relied
heavily upon it. A few historians who referred in passing to the national movement
and nationalist historians after 1947 did not see it as an anti-imperialist movement.
Similarly, the only history of the national movement that was written was by nationalist
leaders such as R.G. Pradhan, A.C. Mazumdar, Jawaharlal Nehru and Pattabhi
Sitaramayya. Post-1947 historians accepted the legitimacy of nationalism and the
Indian national movement but seldom dealt with its foundation in the economic critique
of the colonialism. They also tended to underplay, when not ignoring completely,
other streams of the nationalist struggle.
174
Modern historians have also been divided between those, such as Tara Chand, Nationalist
Historiography in India
who held that India has been a nation-in-the-making since the 19 th century and
those who argue that India has been a nation since the ancient times. At the same
time, to their credit, all of them accept India’s diversity, i.e., its multi-lingual, multi-
religious, multi-ethnic, and therefore multi-cultural character. Nationalist historians
also have ignored or severely underplayed inner contradictions of Indian society
based on class and caste or the oppression of and discrimination against women
and tribes. They have also ignored the movements against class and caste oppressions.
They have seldom made an in-depth analysis of the national movement, and often
indulged in its blind glorification. While adopting a secular position and condemning
communalism, they do not make a serious analysis of its character or elements,
causation, and development. Quite often, it is seen merely as an outcome of the
British policy of ‘divide and rule’. They give due space to the social reform movements
but do not take a critical look at them, and often ignore the movements of the
tribal people and the lower castes for their emancipation. As a whole, historians
neglected economic, social and cultural history and at the most attached a chapter
or two on these without integrating them into the main narrative.
We may make a few additional remarks regarding nationalist historians as a whole.
They tended to ignore inner contradictions within Indian society. They suffered
from an upper caste and male chauvinist cultural and social bias. Above all they
tended to accept the theory of Indian exceptionalism that Indian historical development
was entirely different from that of the rest of the world. They missed a historical
evaluation of Indian social institutions in an effort to prove India’s superiority in
historical development. Especially negative and harmful both to the study of India’s
history and the political development of modern India was their acceptance of James
Mill’s periodisation of Indian history into Hindu and Muslim periods.

15.5 SUMMARY
Nationalist historians did, however, set up high tradition of scholarship. They based
their writings on hard research and commitment to truth as they saw it. They carefully
and meticulously footnoted all their statements. Consequently, their writing was
very often empirically sound. Their research advanced our understanding and
interpretation of the past. They also contributed to the cultural defence against
colonisation of our culture. Simultaneously, most of them contributed to the positive
aspects of the modernisation of our society. Many of them also uncovered new
sources and developed new frameworks for the interpretation of existing sources.
They raised many new questions, produced controversies and initiated active debates.
They also inculcated the notion that historical research and writing should have
relevance for the present. Even when not going far in their own research, they
accepted and promoted the notion that the role that the common people play in
history should be a major component of history writing.
Above all, nationalist historical writing contributed to the self-confidence, self-assertion
and a certain national pride which enabled Indian people to struggle against colonialism
especially in the face of denigration of India’s past and the consequent inferiority
complex promoted by colonial writers. Nilkanth Shastri and other historians also
helped overcome the regional bias – the bias of treating India as coterminous with
the Indo-Gangetic plane. In this respect, as in many others, nationalist historical 175
Indian Historiography writing in India became a major unifying factor so far as the literate Indians were
concerned.

15.6 EXERCISES
1) Discuss the differences between the colonial and nationalist historiography.
2) What are the specific features of nationalist historiography concerning ancient
India?
3) Write a note on the issues discussed by nationalist historians writing on the
modern period.

176
 Communalist Trends
UNIT 16 COMMUNALIST TRENDS*
Structure
16.1 Introduction
16.2 Dependence on Colonialist Historiography
16.3 Basic Constituents of Communal View of Indian History
16.3.1 Conception of Hindus and Muslims as Antagonistic Communities
16.3.2 View of Muslims as Rulers in Medieval India
16.4 Differences between Nationalist and Communalist Views
16.5 Critique of Communalist Historiography
16.6 Summary
16.7 Exercises

16.1 INTRODUCTION
A communal interpretation of Indian history has formed the core of communal ideology
as also a major instrument for the spread of communal consciousness. In fact, it
would not be wrong to say that the communal interpretation of history has been
the main constituent of communal ideology in India. This has been particularly true
of Hindu communalism. Muslim communalism too has used ‘history’, but it has
depended more on religion and minority feeling, which have been used to create a
fear psychosis. To create a similar fear psychosis, Hindu communalists have tried
to use an appeal to the medieval period of Indian history.
In particular, history teaching in schools played an important role in the spread of
communalism. Gandhiji, for example, pointed this out: ‘Communal harmony could
not be permanently established in our country so long as highly distorted versions
of history were being taught in her schools and colleges, through her textbooks.’
Similarly the “Foreword” to the Report of the Kanpur Riots Enquiry Committee,
appointed by the National Congress, pointed out in 1932 that the communal view
of medieval history found in school and other history books ‘is playing a considerable
part in estranging the two communities’ and that ‘an attempt to remove historical
misconceptions is the first and the most indispensable step in the real solution of
the Hindu-Muslim problem.’
The communal view of history has been, and is, spread through poetry, drama,
historical novels, popular articles in newspapers and magazines, children’s magazines,
pamphlets and public speeches. The historical veracity of such popularly disseminated
view of history was virtually zero, but it passed as history in popular mind. We
may also note that an integrated and conscious communal view of history at the
level of research or scholarship was rarely found among Indian historians before
1947 mainly because of secular nationalist influence among the intelligentsia.
Communal forces gained significant intellectual adherents in India and Pakistan only
after 1947. However, communal approach to history was openly preached by
communal political leaders and found reflection in school textbooks and popular

*
Resource Person: Prof. Bipan Chandra 177
Indian Historiography writing, etc., as we have pointed out earlier. Moreover, although the proponents
of the Hindu and Muslim communal views of history take up diametrically opposite
and hostile positions, they adopt basically the same historiographic framework,
premises and assumptions. Often the only difference in their approach is that the
opposite religious community is treated as the villain.

16.2 DEPENDENCE ON COLONIALIST

HISTORIOGRAPHY
Unlike nationalist historians who countered colonial stereotypes, communal historians
based themselves almost entirely on colonial historiography of medieval India and
colonial era textbooks. Most of the generalisations made by Indian communal
historians can be traced to the writings of British historians and administrators. Nor
were British motives innocent. From the late 1820s, the British rulers clearly realised
that India was too large to be ruled by force by the British and, therefore, they
had to follow the policy of Divide and Rule. They sought to divide Indians or
grounds of region, language and caste, but above all they took recourse to religious
divide. Secondly, aware of their own foreign status, they wanted to show that
Indians had always been ruled by foreigners. Muslim rule was foreign rule, therefore,
there was nothing wrong about British being foreigners. The British had only replaced
one foreign rule by another foreign rule, which was benevolent and humane compared
with the previous despotic and inhuman rule. Thirdly, they tried to show that Muslim
rulers had subjugated, oppressed and maltreated Hindus and that the British had
virtually liberated them. Hindus were, therefore, better off under British rule and
should, therefore, support and not oppose it. Fourthly, they asserted that Hindus
and Muslims had always been divided and had fought each other and could, therefore,
never live peacefully together unless a third party – the British were present as
rulers. Thus, the leading British historian of medieval India, H.M. Elliot, wrote in
1849 in his original preface to his History of India As Told by Its Own Historians
that of ‘the few glimpses we have, even among the short extracts in this single volume,
of Hindus slain for disputing with Mohammedans, of general prohibitions against
processions, worship, and ablutions, and of other intolerant measures of idols mutilated,
of temples razed, of forcible conversions and marriages, of proscriptions and
confiscations, of murders and massacres, and of the sensuality and drunkenness
of the tyrants who enjoined them .’ He also frankly confessed his motive in publishing
his history. It was to make ‘our native subjects more sensible of the immense advantages
accruing to them under the mildness and equity of our rule’ and to make the emerging
nationalist intellectuals – ‘the bombastic Babus’ as he called them – see the reality
of pre-British India and thus stop their incipient critique of British colonialism. In
this respect, it is important to keep in view that it was not M.A. Jinnah or V. D.
Savarkar who first put forward in 1937 the two-nation theory that led to the partition
of the country. Much before them the British writers had created the view that
Indian nation meant Hindu nation, that rule by Turkish, Afghan and Mughal rulers
was ‘foreign’ rule, while rule by Rajput Rajas or Maratha Sardars was Indian or
Hindu rule. But how could Mughal rule be foreign? Because they were Muslim.
Thus, to sum up, this aspect, communal interpretation of history, was a part of the
British policy of ‘Divide and Rule’.
One reason why the British writers and later Indian historians took such a communal
178 view was their reliance on medieval chronicles for reconstruction of medieval history.
Firstly, many of the writers of the chronicles and histories in medieval (as also, in Communalist Trends
fact, ancient society) were from the priestly classes who primarily constituted the
educated at the time. Their religious outlook and interests seriously distorted and
limited their writings. They often saw secular political events in religious terms. They
tended to depict rulers and chiefs as Divine agents. Moreover, the priestly as well
as other chroniclers lived on the patronage of the Kings, nobles, rajas and zamindars.
Therefore, they tended to show religious virtue in their most selfish actions. Brutal
wars, court intrigues, everyday politics and administrative policies were shown as
religiously motivated. Their efforts to conquer others, or expand their domains,
or to fight for their own zamindaris and kingdoms were seen as acts of religious
zeal, earning religious merits for them. Thus, for example, the administrative or
political actions of Asoka, Chandra Gupta, the Sultans, the Mughals, the Maratha
Chiefs, or the Rajput Rajas were often portrayed by contemporary writers in religious
terms.
This is, of course, true, not only of India. It is equally true of the medieval historians
of Europe. But European historians of the 19th and 20th centuries gradually discounted
this religious bias for example in the study of the Crusades or of the medieval Popes
and kings. Similarly, Portuguese and Spanish expansion in the 16th and 17th centuries
was portrayed at the time as motivated by the desire to spread Christianity. Today,
no European historian will accept this as the main factor in considering whether to
praise or to criticize the Portuguese or the Spanish regimes.
Unfortunately, the colonial and some modern Indian historians incorporated the
religious outlook of the ancient and medieval chroniclers in their own writings and
thus contributed to a communal interpretation of Indian history. For example, till
this day, the communal historians, whether Hindu or Muslim, go on portraying Mahmud
Ghazni’s invasions as religiously motivated and as throwing light on the character
of Islam. Similarly, they portray the political struggle of medieval India, for example
between Rana Pratap and Akbar or Shivaji and Aurangzeb as struggles based on
or motivated by religion. Moreover, invariably the literary sources of the ancient
and medieval periods deal primarily with the doings of the kings, princely courts
and upper classes and not with the society as a whole. In the military and diplomatic
affairs of the ruling groups religious considerations do appear important. When
wars are waged and alliances are made, many factors are balanced and appealed
to. Real issues are often kept disguised. Appeals are made to marriage ties, kinship,
language, caste, region, as well as religion. But the main factor is consideration of
interest, economic or political. It was very much the same in the past as today.
Today, every nation clothes even the most marked of its aggressions with some
decent motive. The difference is that a historian who accepts the official explanations
of today would be laughed at by fellow historians. But many historians have accepted
official explanations of the past rulers and of the official chroniclers.
It may also be pointed out that, just as in the case of colonial writing, contemporary
communal politics were, and are, projected into the past and the happenings of
the past so described and historical myths created as to serve contemporary
communal politics. Thus both communalists, Hindu as well as Muslims, adopted,
and continue to adopt, an interpretation of the past through which feelings of fear,
insecurity and schism could be aroused among their contemporary followers. In
this sense, if communal history produced and propagated communalism, in its turn
communal politics gave, and gives, a fillip to communal history writing and
179
Indian Historiography propagation. Another way of saying the same thing is to stress that it was not
medieval history as lived by the medieval people or the medieval historical
processes that generated communalism, it was the communal interpretation of history
that produced communalism as well as got produced by communalism – that is,
this interpretation was itself communal ideology.
Lastly, it may be noted that because of being subjected to communal view of history
from very childhood, elements of this view came to prevail even among many nationalists
and other secular persons, who were unaware of their communal implications. For
example, many talked of India having undergone a thousand years’ of foreign rule
or having suffered social and cultural decline during the medieval period or having
been ruled by Muslims or Muslim rule. Similarly, elements and themes of the communal
view of history are found in nationalist historical works.

16.3 BASIC CONSTITUENTS OF COMMUNAL VIEW

OF INDIAN HISTORY
In the following account, we will discuss some of the important aspects of the
communalist interpretation of Indian history.

16.3.1 Conception of Hindus and Muslims as Antagonistic

Communities
In communal view, India’s medieval history was one long story of Hindu-Muslim
conflict. Hindus and Muslims were permanently divided into hostile camps whose
mutual relations were bitter, distrustful, antagonistic and hostile. There existed distinct
and separate Hindu and Muslim cultures. Because of their belonging to different
religions, Hindus and Muslims formed distinct and exclusive and mutually hostile
cultural and political communities. Thus, for example, R.C. Mazumdar wrote in
1957 that medieval India remained ‘permanently divided into two powerful units,
each with marked individuality of its own, which did not prove amenable to a fusion
or even any close permanent coordination.’ Similarly, Ishtiaq Ahmad Qureshi wrote
in the 1950s that ‘at all times the Muslims of the sub-continent were resolute in
refusing to be assimilated to the local population and made conscious efforts to
maintain their distinctive character.’
This view found a more virulent form in the hands of the communal political leaders.
Thus, in his presidential address at the Lahore session of the Muslim League in
March 1940, M.A. Jinnah said: ‘The history of the last 12 hundred years had failed
to achieve unity and had witnessed, during the ages, India always divided into Hindu
India and Muslim India.’ V.D. Savarkar wrote in 1923 in his Hindutva that ‘the
day when Mohammad Gazani crossed the Indus…. that day the conflict of life
and death began’ which ‘ended shall we say with Abdali. In this conflict, all Hindus,
belonging to different sects, regions and castes, suffered as Hindus and triumphed
as Hindus.’ This struggle between Hindus and Muslims was then carried over to
the 19th and 20th centuries. This view was to form the basis of the communal view
that Hindus and Muslims have always lived in mutual antagonism. M.S. Golwalkar,
for example, condemned the nationalists for spreading the view by which Hindus
‘began to class ourselves with our old invaders and foes under the outlandish name
– Indian.’ And he added: ‘That is the real danger of the day, our self-forgetfulness,
180
our believing our old and bitter enemies to be our friends.’ The Muslim communalists Communalist Trends

readily accepted and propagated this view and based their two-nation theory on
it.
As a corollary of this view, the communal historians denied or underplayed any
other social tension or conflict in medieval society. For example, any caste or class
tensions were ignored and other political conflicts such as between Rajput and
Maratha chieftains or between Afghans and Turks were underplayed. The Hindu
communalists described the rule by medieval Muslim rulers as foreign rule because
they were Muslim. Muslims were, thus, not seen as integral parts of Indian society.
Instead they were seen as permanent foreigners in India. This was because they
practised Islam. In other words, any Indian, as soon as he changed his religion
from Hinduism, became, because of that act, a foreigner in the land. Because Islam
had been founded outside India, it was a foreign religion and anyone who practised
it became a foreigner.
The communalists bracketed rule by Muslim rulers and British rule as foreign. As
was pointed out earlier, they talked of ‘a thousand years of slavery.’ Golwalkar,
for example, repeatedly referred to Muslisms as foreigners who treated India not
as a home but as a sarai. He also warned Muslims and Christians: ‘There are
only two courses open to the foreign elements, either to merge themselves in the
national race and adopt its culture, or to live at the sweet will of the national race.’
The view that Muslim were permanent foreigners in India was accepted by the
Muslim communalists, though in an altered form. In their hands, the ‘foreigner’
view took the form of emphasising the complete separateness of Muslims from
Hindus. The Muslims, they said, could not be Indians in the same way as Hindus.
M.A. Jinnah, for example, asserted in 1941 that ‘a Muslim when he converted,
granted that he was converted more than a thousand years ago, belongs to a different
order, not only religious but social, and he has lived in that distinctly separate and
antagonistic social order, religiously, socially and culturally. It is now more than a
thousand years that the bulk of the Muslims have lived in a different world, in a
different society, in a different philosophy and a different faith.’ Similarly, Nawab
of Mamdot, a Muslim League leader, said in 1941 that ‘Pakistan had existed in
India for nearly twelve centuries.’
The theory of ‘historical antagonism’ led both Hindus and Muslim communalists
to claim that Hindus and Muslims formed two different nations. The Muslim
communalists demanded after 1937 that, since the ‘two nations’ could not live together,
Muslims should be given a separate state – Pakistan – after independence. The
Hindu communalists, on the other hand, argued after 1937 for the creation of a
Hindu state in which Muslims would live in a subordinate position.

16.3.2 View of Muslims as Rulers in Medieval India

One of the basic constituents of communal ideology was the view that in medieval
India Muslims constituted the ruling class and the Hindus were the ruled, the dominated
or ‘the subject race.’ Thus, all Muslims, including the overwhelming majority among
them of rural and urban poor, the peasants and artisans and the lowly administrative
employees and soldiers were portrayed as rulers, and all Hindus, including the rajas,
chiefs, nobles, zamindars and higher officials as the ruled. Thus, addressing Lahore
students in 1941, M.A. Jinnah said: ‘Our demand is not from Hindus because Hindus
181
Indian Historiography never took the whole of India. It was the Muslims who took India and ruled for
700 years. It was the British who took India from the Mussalmans.’ The Hindu
communalists too readily accepted that Hindus were ‘slaves’ under ‘Muslim rule’.
For example, in 1937, V.D. Savarkar described the rule of Muslim rulers as a ‘veritable
death-warrant to the Hindu nation.’
As a corollary of this view, it was then argued that the 19th and 20th century Muslims
had the ‘happy’ and ‘proud’ ever present memory of having been the ruling class,
while Hindus had the ‘sad’ and ‘humiliating’ memory of having been the ‘subject
race’. Another corollary was the notion that politics and political power in India
had always been based on religion and religious differences and that too of and
among the rulers; thus, the character of the Indian state was determined by religion
and that too of the rulers. Furthermore, the basic objective of the medieval state
was the propagation and glorification of Islam, and that this was so because of the
inherent character of a state whose rulers were Muslims. As the Report of the
Kanpur Riots Enquiry Committee pointed out that the communalists regarded
the Muslims rulers ‘as zealous crusaders whose dominant motive was the spread
of Islam and whose method for achieving this object was the destruction of temples
and forcible conversions… The Muslim writers deplore the want of true religious
feeling in Muslim kings in permitting idolatry to persist in their dominion and the
unbelievers to prosper, while the Hindu writers bewail the weakness of the religious
sentiment in Hindu rulers and their want of patriotism in not combining effectively
against a foreigner in defence of their religion and their country.’
For the same reason, the autonomous states ruled by Hindu rajas and chiefs, such
as the Maratha empire and the states ruled by Maratha chieftains, Rajput rajas
and Jat zamindars were declared to be Hindu states whose rulers were the defenders
of the Hindu religion. At the same time, the communalists branded those rulers
who did not conform to the communal stereotypes as ‘bad’ Hindus or ‘bad’ Muslims
who were some sort of ‘traitors’ to their faith and their communities. Real or fictitious
incidents were narrated to prove this point. As pointed out earlier, such incidents
could be often dug up from the writings of the medieval chroniclers, court poets,
etc., who earned their livelihood by justifying, on religious grounds, the deeds or
misdeeds of their patrons.
Communalists also adopted a purely religion-based definition of cultures and that
too based solely on the religions of the upper classes. Hence, since Hinduism and
Islam were by definition different, there could be, and was, no common cultural
ground or even mutual interaction between the two. The Hindu communalists also
readily adopted and propagated the colonial view that Muslim rulers, and therefore
Muslims, had tyrannised Hindus during the medieval period. They depicted the
history of the medieval Indian society as one long tale of murder, rapine and
oppression, hostility to Hinduism and Hindus and the forcible spread of Islam through
temple destruction and forcible conversion by the Muslim rulers and their officials..
The examples of this view were, as in other aspects, found in non-academic writing.
M.S. Golwalkar, for example, in his booklet We or Our Nationhood Defined,
published in 1939, usually referred to Muslims as ‘murderous hoards’, ‘murderous
bands’, ‘despoilers’, ‘the enemy’, ‘forces of destruction,’ ‘old invaders and foes’,
and ‘our old enemies’. The ‘Muslim tyranny’ was moreover portrayed as being a
result not of the character of the rulers or the ruling classes but of the basic character
182
of Islamic religion itself. Indra Prakash, a Hindu Mahasabha leader, for example, Communalist Trends

wrote in Where We Differ in 1942 :

‘The Muslim religion exalts and heroworships an assassin. This religion encourages
its followers to kill men of other religions. According to the tenets of Islam
the killing of a Kafir or a man belonging to the fold of any other religion raises
the murderer or assassin in the estimation of his fellow-men or community;
nay, it makes him a shahid and facilitates his transport to heaven.’
The wide prevalence of the theory of ‘Muslim tyranny’ and its roots in Islam is
very well brought out in the following two passages from the Report of the Kanpur
Riots Enquiry Committee:
‘These stories of idol-breaking and forcible conversions give colour to the view
generally canvassed in our histories which represents the whole movement as
if it was a continued religious war between Hinduism and Islam extending over
eight centuries. Even those writers who seem to understand its political nature
by their general treatment of the subject, invariably leave upon the mind the
same impression.
‘Of the many wrong impressions prevailing at present one which is the most fruitful
source of bitterness and ill-will is the impression that Islam is inherently bigoted
and intolerant…. The theory that Islam has spread by the sword has been canvassed
so widely and so persistently that for the average Indian mind this proposition has
become almost an axiom…. (It) gives its edge to the Hindu-Muslim problem….’
Similarly, a note regarding the Panjab University examination question paper said:
‘Those who have examined university papers in history will know how Muslim
rulers and administrators are depicted as blood-sucking vampires and fiends
of cruelty. The general impression which they give is that the Muslim rulers
came to India simply to destroy the Hindus and their culture and to convert
the people to Islam at the point of the sword.’
Muslim communalists reacted to these views by defending the record of the medieval
Muslim rulers and chieftains, including that of a ruler like Aurangzeb, including his
religious bigotry, imposition of Jaziya and the destruction of temples. Many of them
hailed Aurangzeb as the builder of Dar-al-Islam in India. On the other hand, they
condemned Akbar for weakening Islam. To counter the theory of ‘Islamic destruction’
in India, they stressed the beneficial impact of ‘egalitarian’ Islam on the Hindu society,
“ridden with superstition, caste, untouchability, and inequality.”
Above all, the Hindu communal view of Indian history relied on the myth that Indian
society and culture—Indian civilization—which had reached great, ideal heights in
the ancient period fell into decay and decline during the medieval period as a result
of “Muslim intrusion and domination.” Consequently, to prove its great height, the
ancient period was viewed totally uncritically and was treated as sacrosanct; no
critical evaluation of any of its aspects was to be tolerated. Even its most negative
features were denied or defended. Moreover, Indian culture was identified with
ancient culture, which was, in turn, identified with Hinduism in its Sanskritic and
Brahmanical form. Thus, it was the Gupta Age which was declared to be India’s
Golden Age. Also ‘greatness’ of a civilization was often defined by military conquests,
strong monarchies, and the size of the empires. Furthermore, antiquity or ‘ancientness’ 183
Indian Historiography of a civilisation was seen as one sign of its greatness. Consequently, the communalists
proclaimed Aryan civilization to be the oldest in the world. Sometimes, to prove
this, they dated back the Vedic period by several centuries, sometimes by thousands
of years.
A basic component of the ‘rise and fall’ view of Indian history was the declaration
that the culture and civilisation of India underwent a ‘terrible fall’ during the medieval
period. Most of the social, cultural and economic ills of Indian society – indeed
all of its backwardness – were ascribed to the medieval period, ‘Muslim rule’
and the impact of Islam. The entire medieval period was characterized as a dark
age. Another Hindu communal theme was that of the ‘Hindu revival’ in the late
17th and early 18th century. The Maratha revolt under Shivaji, the establishment
of Maratha empire under the Peshwas, the rebellions by several Rajput rajas
against Aurangzeb and the struggle of Sikh gurus, against Mughal domination were
described as ‘Hindu revolts’ against Muslim ‘domination’ and Hindu struggle to
regain Hindu ‘honour’ and ‘glory’. The communalists described the rebellions,
revolts and struggles for territory and political power by petty zamindars, rajas
and Maratha chieftains as Hindu struggle and the states they founded as Hindu
Kingdoms. This entire approach was summed up by V.D. Savarkar in 1923
when he described the 18 th century Maratha struggle as “the Great Movement
of National Liberation” and wrote:
‘In this prolonged furious conflict our people became intensely conscious of
ourselves as Hindus and were welded into a nation to an extent unknown in
our history….Sanatanists, Satnamis, Sikhs, Aryas, Anaryas, Marathas and
Madrasis, Brahmins and Panchmas — all suffered as Hindus and triumphed
as Hindus… The enemies hated us as Hindus and the whole family of peoples
and races, of sects and creeds that flourished from Atak to Cuttack was suddenly
individualized into a single Being.’
Muslim communalists created their own Golden Age. But feeling that it was not
so easy to glorify India’s medieval past and unwilling to praise the ‘Hindu’, i.e.,
ancient period, they harkened back to the ‘Golden Age of Islam’ or to Arabic
and Turkish achievements of the middle ages. Thus the heroic myths, the great
figures and cultural achievements they appealed to belonged to medieval West
Asian history. They thus tended to put greater emphasis on their ‘Muslimness’
than their Indianness. The Muslim communalists also developed their own version
of ‘the decline and fall’ of the Muslims. While Hindus were going up during British
rule, they said, Muslims were ‘falling’ and getting ‘ruined’ not as a part of the
Indian people but as a community because they had lost their political power.
Their social condition, it was said, was becoming pitiable; their culture, religion
and economic interests were threatened with ruin. They were increasingly becoming
weak and helpless. This theme of ‘Muslim melancholy’, as Altaf Hussain Hali
put it, was picked up and used politically in support of the demand for Pakistan
by Muslim League leaders. One of the League’s major ideologues, Z.A. Suleri,
wrote in the 1940s that Muslims were facing the danger of being ‘drowned’ or
‘blotted out’. By the end of the 19th century, ‘the century – long prosperity and
patronage of the new power had made the Hindus solid, strong, educated.…on
the other hand, while the century-long suppression had thrown the Muslims into
184 the very mire of misery.’
 Communalist Trends
16.4 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN NATIONALIST AND
COMMUNALIST HISTORIOGRAPHY
The professional nationalist historians and many early nationalists contributed
unconsciously to communal historiography. They looked for heroes to inspire the
Indian people and found them in those medieval figures who had fought against
oppression and in defence of their own states and territories. This was because,
on the one hand, they wanted to express their nationalism and, on the other, academics
and early nationalists did not want to antagonize the British rulers who frowned
upon any effort to treat as heroes those who had fought against the British. For
example, the British immediately put a ban on any favourable writing on Siraj-ud-
daulah, Tipu Sultan, Tantia Tope or Rani of Jhansi. I have, in another place, described
this as ‘vicarious’ nationalism. Unfortunately, the communalists used this vicarious
nationalism to propagate their view of Indian history. Instead of treating Rana Pratap,
or Shivaji, or Guru Gobind Singh as fighters against oppression and for defence
of their people or territory or as local patriots, they were declared to be national
heroes because they fought against ‘foreigners’. But how were the Mughals
Foreigners? The latter could not described as foreigners by no other definition
except that they were Muslims. It is also important to note that the nationalists
not only declared Rana Pratap, Shivaji, and Guru Gobind Singh as national heroes
but also Asoka, Akbar, Tipu Sultan, Rani of Jhansi and all others, Hindu or Muslim,
who had fought against the British in 1857. Later, Khudi Ram Bose, Lokamanya
Tilak, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Mahatama Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhash
Bose, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Bhagat Singh and Chandra Shekhar Azad became
heroes of the nationalists.
There was another aspect in which nationalists differed from the communalists in
their treatment of the past. They too made a positive appraisal of ancient Indian
society, polity, economy and culture. But they also presented a positive picture of
the medieval period, while making a critique of the negative features of both ancient
and medieval periods. The nationalist glorification of the past was part of the effort
to bolster national self-confidence and pride, especially in the face of the colonial
ideological effort to undermine them and create a psychology of inferiority and
dependence. The Hindu communalists praised or idealised the ancient period in
order to contrast it with the fall and decline during the medieval period and thus
create anti-Muslim feelings. The nationalists went to the past looking for positive
features in order to prove India’s fitness for modern parliamentary democracy, modern
civic and political rights, popular representation through elections and self-government.
Nationalist historians like K.P. Jayaswal, P.N. Banerjee, B.K. Sarkar, U.N. Ghosal,
D.R. Bhandarkar and even the early R.C. Mazumdar emphasized the democratic,
constitutional, non-despotic and even republican, non-religious and secular, and
rational elements of the ancient Indian polity and social life. Thus, in nationalist
hands, the glorification of ancient Indian society was a weapon in the anti-imperialist
struggle. Despite its unscientific features and the potential for mischief in a multi-
lingual, multi-cultural, multi-religious and multi-caste country, it had a certain historically
progressive content. Moreover, the nationalists readily adopted and accepted
scientific criteria for the evaluation and the further development of their views. The
communalists, on the other hand, used the ancient past to create and consolidate
communal feelings. They also held up for praise some of the most negative features 185
Indian Historiography of ancient Indian society and polity. They would also not tolerate the scientific
treatment or criticism of any of its aspects.
The communalists tended to underplay the role of colonialism and put greater
emphasis on the adversarial relationship with the other religious community. They
were, in general, critical of the actual national movement and its secularism. While
the Hindu communalists declared it to be pro-Muslim, or at least indulging in ‘Muslim
appeasement’, the Muslim communalists accused it of being anti-Muslim or at least
of being Hindu controlled and therefore of being an instrument of Hindu domination.
The Hindu communalists were in particular critical of the Moderate nationalists of
late 19th century who had initiated the economic critique of colonialism and laid
the basis of modern secularism. The only major critique of colonialism that both
communalists made was that it had introduced modernity or modern thought based
on rationality and science and scientific outlook.
The communalists also defined nationalism not in economic or political terms, as
the national movement did, but in cultural terms or as cultural nationalism based
on Hindu or Muslim culture. Consequently, they traced modern nationalism to Bankim
Chandra or Swami Dayanand or Sayed Ahmed Khan rather than to early national
leaders, such as Dadabhai Naoroji, Justice Ranade and Surendranath Banerjea.

16.5 CRITIQUE OF COMMUNALIST

HISTORIOGRAPHY
The communal view of history is virtually dissolved if history is studied in its wider
sense. For example, economic history reveals class interests, class solidarity, and
class antagonisms which cut across religious frontiers. A Hindu peasant had much
more in common with a Muslim peasant than he had with a Hindu zamindar or
moneylender. A Muslim weaver of Agra had far more in common with a Hindu
weaver than with a Muslim noble or king. In other words, division of society between
those who produced economic surplus and those who appropriate it would form
multi-religious groups on both sides of the economic line.
Social and economic history reveals that basically there was no Muslim rule under
the Sultans or Mughals. All the Muslims did not form the ruling class, nor all the
Hindus the ruled classes. The Muslim masses were as poor and as oppressed as
the Hindu masses. Moreover, both of them were looked down upon as low creatures
by the rulers, nobles, chiefs, and zamindars, whether Hindu or Muslim. Social history
would show that if Hindus were divided by caste, among Muslims the Sharif Muslims
behaved as a superior caste over the Ajlaf or lower class Muslims. History of
administration would reveal continuity in the administrative structures of the Mughals
and Marathas, and so on. It would show how wrong it is to talk of Hindu or
Muslim character of ancient or medieval states. Social and cultural history would
bring out the forces of cultural cooperation and integration and the evolution of a
composite culture in medieval India as also in ancient India. They would also show
that in medieval as also modern times an upper class Muslim had far more in common
culturally with an upper class Hindu than he had with a lower class Muslim. Or
that a Punjabi Hindu stood closer culturally to a Punjabi Muslim than to a Bengali
Hindu. Social and cultural history would also reveal social divisions and diversities
other than those based on religion. For example, those based on sect or caste.
186 There was the fierce struggle between the Right-hand castes and the Left-hand
castes in 18th century South India. Would one be justified in describing this conflict Communalist Trends
in terms of a two-nation theory? Even a careful study of political history would
bring out that the politics of Indian states, as politics the world over, were moved
mainly by considerations of economic and political interests and not by considerations
of religion. Then, as today, rulers as well as rebels, used religious appeal as an
outer colouring to disguise the hard facts of material interests and ambitions.
Moreover, political events and movements should be placed in their basic social
and economic setting. We should ask such questions as who decides, who dominates,
who benefits from a political system? How does a system operate? Why are one
set of policies followed and not others? One should, for example, compare
Aurangzeb’s and Shivaji’s policies towards the peasants or merchants and bankers.
Or what political, social and economic relationships did the state systems of ancient
or medieval India support? How were economic gains, social prestige, and political
power distributed among different social classes and groups in ancient or medieval
period or, say, in Rana Pratap’s state. To what extent did the Turks or later Mughal
rulers disturb the existing patterns of political, social, and economic power? Even
such a simple demographic fact as that the population of the Rajputs in Rajputana
was only 6.4% in 1901 reveals many things. Similarly, social analysis of modern
political movements would show that the social base of the Hindu and Muslim
communalists was the same. Also they shared a common, basically pro-imperialist
political approach.

16.6 SUMMARY
To sum up, a scientific study of history would clearly show not only that communal
approach to history is factually and analytically wrong, but also that this communal
approach was and is the product of unscientific politics and was generated by the
foreign rulers and later used by the communalists for their own political purposes.
It is based on certain stereotypes which were created about the Indians by the
colonialist historians and commentators. It divided the Indian history along religious
lines, the ancient period supposedly belonging to the Hindus whereas the medieval
period to be considered as property of the Muslims. The communalist historians
and politicians – both Hindus and Muslims – accepted this interpretation of Indian
past and filled it with more stereotypes portraying the two antagonistic communities
facing each other for centuries. Such a view of history was responsible for creating
social tension and disharmony among the Indian people.

16.7 EXERCISES
1) Discuss the important features of communalist historiography.
2) What are the differences between nationalist and communalist historiography?
3) Discuss the relationship between communalist and colonialist views of history.

187
Indian Historiography
UNIT 17 INDIAN MARXIST HISTORY-
WRITING*
Structure
17.1 Introduction
17.2 Beginnings
17.3 D.D. Kosambi and Paradigm Shift
17.4 The Feudalism Debate
17.5 Indian Nationalism
17.6 Intellectual History : Debate on Indian Renaissance
17.7 Other Trends and Historians within Marxist Historiography
17.8 Summary
17.9 Exercises

17.1 INTRODUCTION
Marxism is a dominant presence in the field of Indian historiography in the post-
independence period. A lot of historians either come directly within its fold or have
been influenced by it in certain degrees. It has also influenced most of the trends
of Indian historiography in some way or the other. It is, therefore, not possible to
give a comprehensive account of all the trends in it and the historians associated
with this stream of historiography. However, in this Unit, we will try to cover some
of the important trends and provide information about some important historians
within Marxist tradition in Indian historiography.

17.1 BEGINNINGS
The two books which heralded the beginning of Marxist historiography in India
were India Today by R. Palme Dutt and Social Background of Indian Nationalism
by A.R. Desai. India Today was originally written for the famous Left Book Club
in England and was published by Victor Gollancz in 1940. Its Indian edition was
published in 1947. In the preface to a new edition of the book in 1970, the author
was aware of its limitations and realised that it ‘can now only be regarded as a
historical work of its period, constituting a survey from a Marxist standpoint of
the record of British rule in India and of the development of the Indian people’s
struggle, both the national movement and the working class movement, up to the
eve of independence, as seen at that time’. Despite its limitations, however, its
position as a foundational text of Marxist thinking on Indian history has not diminished
over time. It comprehensively covers most aspects of Indian society, economy and
politics under colonial rule. It applies Marxist analysis to various developments in
the colonial economy, to the problems of peasantry, to the national movement and
to the communal problems.
It, at many levels, reinforces the nationalist criticism of the economic impact of
colonial rule in India. Although strident in its criticism of the colonial rule, it looks

*
188 Resource Person: Prof. S.B. Upadhyay
at colonialism as both a ‘destructive’ and a ‘regenerative’ force, following Marx’s Indian Marxist
History-Writing
own comments on this issue. However, Dutt is quite categorical that this
‘regenerating’ role of colonialism was rather limited and the situation has been
reversed in his own times :

‘Today imperialist rule in India, like capitalism all over the world, has long outlived
its objectively progressive or regenerative role, corresponding to the period
of free trade capitalism, and has become the most powerful reactionary force
in India, buttressing all the other forms of Indian reaction.’

Dutt squarely holds colonialism and capitalism responsible for the poverty of the
country. The process of plundering the resources of the country started quite early
and was responsible for funding the capitalist development in Britain and other
countries of Europe :

‘The conquest of India by Western civilisation has constituted one of the main
pillars of capitalist development in Europe, of British world supremacy, and
of the whole structure of modern imperialism. For two centuries the history of
Europe has been built up to a greater extent than is always recognised on the
basis of the domination of India.’

Dutt divides the entire period of imperialist rule in India into three phases, a
periodisation which, with certain modifications, has now become conventional,
particularly among the Marxist historians. The first phase belonged to the merchant
capital ‘represented by the East India Company, and extending in the general character
of its system to the end of the eighteenth century.’ Then came the domination by
industrial capitalism ‘which established a new basis of exploitation of India in the
nineteenth century’. The third phase is that of financial capitalism which started in
the last years of the 19th century and flourished in the 20th century.

The phase of merchant capitalism was characterised by the monopolistic hold of

the East India Company over the Indian trade. This was facilitated by its increasing
territorial control from the second half of 18th century. Apart from this monopolistic
control, Indian wealth was also plundered directly by the colonial state and privately
by the servants of the Company. The massive wealth transferred through this plunder
made the Industrial Revolution possible in England. This started the search for a
free market for the products of English industries. Thus India had to be transformed
‘from an exporter of cotton goods to the whole world into an importer of cotton
goods’. The monopoly of the East India Company had to be abolished now and
this was achieved in phases and after 1858, the rule of India was transferred to
the British Crown. This started the process of turning India into an uninhibited market
for the British goods.

After the First World War (1914-1918), a new stage of imperialism was inaugurated
in India. Although the older forms of getting ‘tribute’ and seeking India as a market
British goods still continued, there was now an emphasis on capital investment in
India. According to Dutt, it was clear that ‘by 1914 the interest and profits on
invested capital and direct tribute considerably exceeded the total of trading,
manufacturing and shipping profits out of India. The finance-capitalist exploitation
of India had become the dominant character in the twentieth century’. He
189
Indian Historiography further talks about the ‘stranglehold of finance-capital’ and its rising volume and
concludes :
‘Modern imperialism … no longer performs the objectively revolutionising role
of the earlier capitalist domination of India, clearing the way, by its destructive
effects, for the new advance and laying down the initial material conditions for
its realisation. On the contrary, modern imperialism in India stands out as the
main obstacle to advance of the productive forces, thwarting and retarding
their development by all the weapons of its financial and political domination.
It is no longer possible to speak of the objectively revolutionising role of capitalist
rule in India. The role of modern imperialism in India is fully and completely
reactionary.’
Another area of Dutt’s concern was Indian nationalism. On the revolt of 1857 his
view is that it ‘was in its essential character and dominant leadership the revolt of
the old conservative and feudal forces and dethroned potentates’. This is a view
which is supported even today by several Marxist historians. Thus it is only from
the last quarter of the 19th century that Dutt traces the beginning of the Indian national
movement.
The premier organisation of this movement was the Indian National Congress which
was established in 1885. According to Dutt, although the Congress arose from
the ‘preceding development and beginnings of activity of the Indian middle class’,
it was brought into existence through British official initiative as a safety-valve. In
detail Dutt writes about the role of Hume and his alarm at the impending rebellion.
Hume then contacted the officials of the colonial government and pleaded with them
to help establish the Congress to stall the insurgency against the British rule. Dutt
is, therefore, sure that :
‘the National Congress was in fact brought into being through the initiative and
under the guidance of direct British governmental policy, on a plan secretly
pre-arranged with the Viceroy as an intended weapon for safeguarding British
rule against the rising forces of popular unrest and anti-British feeling.’
However, it soon grew out of its original subservient nature due to pressure of
populist nationalist feelings. Thus, from ‘its early years, even if at first in very limited
and cautious forms, the national character began to overshadow the loyalist character’.
It gradually became a strong anti-colonial force and started leading people’s movement
against colonial rule. Dutt based his analysis of nationalism on its varying class base
over the years. Thus ‘in its earliest phase Indian nationalism … reflected only big
bourgeoisie – the progressive elements among the landowners, the new industrial
bourgeoisie and the well-to-do intellectual elements’. Then rose the class of the
urban petty bourgeois who made its aspirations felt in the years preceding the First
World War. It was only after the War that the Indian masses – peasantry and the
industrial working class – made their presence felt.
However, the leadership remained in the hands of the propertied classes who were
quite influential in the Congress. These elements were against any radicalisation of
the movement and, therefore, tried to scuttle it before it could become dangerous
to their own interests. He is particularly harsh on Gandhi whom he castigates as
the ‘Jonah of revolution, the general of unbroken disasters … the mascot of the
bourgeoisie’ for trying ‘to find the means in the midst of a formidable revolutionary
190
wave to maintain leadership of the mass movement’. Thus the Non-cooperation Indian Marxist
History-Writing
Movement was called off because the masses were becoming too militant and a
threat to the propertied classes within and outside the Congress :
‘The dominant leadership of the Congress associated with Gandhi called off
the movement because they were afraid of the awakening mass activity; and
they were afraid of the mass activity because it was beginning to threaten those
propertied class interests with which they themselves were still in fact closely
linked.’
A similar fate befell the Civil Disobedience Movement which was ‘suddenly and
mysteriously called off at the moment when it was reaching its height’ in 1932.
Dutt thinks that this dual nature of the Congress could be traced to its orgins :
‘This twofold character of the National Congress in its origin is very important
for all its subsequent history. This double strand in its role and being runs right
through its history : on the one hand, the strand of co-operation with imperialism
against the “menace” of the mass movement; on the other hand, the strand of
leadership of the masses in the national struggle. This twofold character, which
can be traced through all the contradictions of its leadership, from Gokhale in
the old stage to his disciple, Gandhi, in the new … is the reflection of the twofold
or vacillating role of the Indian bourgeoisie, at once in conflict with the British
bourgeoisie and desiring to lead the Indian people, yet fearing that “too rapid”
advance may end in destroying its privileges along with those of the imperialists.’
This was the foundational statement of Marxist historiography on Indian National
Congress, the leading organisation of the Indian national movement, for quite some
time to come. Most of the subsequent works of the Marxist historians on nationalism
were in some measures influenced by it.
A.R. Desai’s book, Social Background of Indian Nationalism, has been a very
popular book and several editions and reprints of this book have been published
since its first publication on 1948. It has also been translated into many Indian
languages. It is another thoroughgoing account of the colonial period and the rise
of nationalism from a Marxist perspective. As Sumit Sarkar writes in the ‘Foreword’
to a new edition in 2000 :
‘For fifty years, it has served generations of students all over the country as
an introduction to modern Indian history, and one which for many also provided
a highly accessible illustration of Marxist historical method’.
In a single volume this book provides us a synoptic account of the various aspects
of economy, society and politics of colonial India. It particularly focuses on the
rise of nationalism in India. Desai traces the growth of the national movement in
five phases, each phase based on particular social classes which supported and
sustained it. Thus, in the first phase, ‘Indian nationalism had a very narrow social
basis’. It was pioneered by the intelligentsia who were the product of the modern
system of education. Desai considers Raja Rammohan Roy and his followers as
the ‘pioneers of Indian nationalism’. This phase continued till 1885 when the Indian
National Congress was founded. It heralded a new phase which extended till 1905.
The national movement now represented ‘the interests of the development of the
new bourgeois society in India’. The development in the modern education had
created an educated middle class and the development of the Indian and international 191
Indian Historiography trade had given rise to a merchant class. The modern industries had created a class
of industrialists. In its new phase, Indian national movement ‘voiced the demands
of the educated classes and the trading bourgeoisie such as the Indianization of
Services, the association of the Indians with the administrative machinery of the
state, the stoppage of economic drain, and others formulated in the resolutions of
the Indian National Congress’.
The third phase of the national movement covered the period from 1905 to 1918.
During this phase ‘the Indian national movement became militant and challenging
and acquired a wider social basis by the inclusion of sections of the lower-middle
class’. In the fourth phase, which began from 1918 and continued till the end of
the Civil Disobedience Movement in 1934, the social base of the national movement
was enormously enlarged. The movement ‘which was hitherto restricted mainly to
upper and middle classes, further extended … to sections of the Indian masses.’
However, according to Desai, the leadership of the Congress remained in the hands
of those who were under the strong influence of the Indian capitalist class :
‘It was from 1918 that the Indian industrial bourgeoisie began to exert a powerful
influence in determining the programme, policies, strategies, tactics and forms
of struggle of the Indian national movement led by the Congress of which Gandhi
was the leader.’
Two other significant developments during this period were the rise of the socialist
and communist groups since the late 1920s, which tried to introduce pro-people
agenda in the national movement, and the consolidation of communalist forces which
sought to divide the society.
The fifth phase (1934-39) was characterised by growing disenchantment with the
Gandhian ideology within the Congress and further rise of the Socialists who
represented the petty bourgeois elements. Outside the Congress various movements
were taking place. The peasants, the workers, the depressed classes and various
linguistic nationalities started agitations for their demands. Moreover, there was further
growth of communalism. However, according to Desai, all these stirrings were not
of much consequence and the mainstream was still solidly occupied by the Gandhian
Congress which represented the interests of the dominant classes.
These two books, particularly the one by R. Palme Dutt, laid the foundations of
the Marxist historiography on modern Indian history. The next break came with
the writings of D.D. Kosambi that we will discuss in the next section.

17.3 D.D. KOSAMBI AND PARADIGM SHIFT

Romila Thapar credits D.D. Kosambi (1907-66) for effecting a ‘paradigm shift’
in Indian studies. According to her, such paradigmatic changes had occurred only
twice before in Indian historiography. These were done by James Mill and Vincent
Smith. James Mill, whose book History of India (1818-23) set the parameters
for history-writing on India, was contemptuous towards the Indian society. He
considered the pre-colonial Indian civilisation as backward, superstitious, stagnant
and lacking in most respects as a civilisation. He was an unabashed admirer of the
British achievements in India and relentless critic of pre-British Indian society and
192 polity. He divided the Indian history into three parts – the Hindu, the Muslim and
the British. This division, according to him, was essential to demarcate three different Indian Marxist
History-Writing
civilisations.
Vincent Smith’s The Oxford History of India (1919) provided another break in
Indian historiography as it avoided the sharp value judgments and contemptuous
references to the pre-British period of Indian history contained in Mill’s book. He
instead tried to present a chronological account of Indian history and focused on
the rise and fall of dynasties.
Kosambi viewed history completely differently. For him, Mill’s religious periodisation
and Smith’s chronological accounts of dynasties were of no value. He believed
that the ‘Society is held together by bonds of production’. Thus he defines history
‘as the presentation, in chronological order, of successive developments in the
means and relations of production’. This, according to him, is ‘the only definition
known which allow a reasonable treatment of pre-literate history, generally termed
“pre-history”’ He further argues that history should be viewed in terms of conflict
between classes :
‘The proper study of history in a class society means analysis of the differences
between the interests of the classes on top and of the rest of the people; it
means consideration of the extent to which an emergent class had something
new to contribute during its rise to power, and of the stage where it turned
(or will turn) to reaction in order to preserve its vested interests.’
He describes his approach to history as ‘dialectical materialism, also called Marxism
after its founder’. However, Kosambi was flexible in his application of Marxism.
He argued that ‘Marxism is far from the economic determinism which its opponents
so often take it to be’. He further asserts that the ‘adoption of Marx’s thesis does
not mean blind repetition of all his conclusions (and even less, those of the official,
party-line Marxists) at all times’. He, instead, considered Marxism as a method
which could be usefully applied for the study of Indian society and history.
The paucity of relevant data for the early period of Indian history was one factor
which prompted him to analyse the broad social formations rather than small-scale
events. He thought that the use of comparative method would balance out the absence
of reliable historical sources. He, therefore, adopted an inter-disciplinary approach
in his studies of Indian society. This enabled him to view the reality from various
angles in order to get a full picture of it. These ideas are evident in his four major
books : An Introduction to the Study of Indian History (1956), Exasperating
Essays : Exercises in the Dialectical Method (1957), Myth and Reality : Studies
in the Formation of Indian Culture (1962) and The Culture and Civilisation
of Ancient India in Historical Outline (1965).
Kosambi’s non-dogmatic approach to history is clear when he rejected two key
Marxist concepts – the Asiatic Mode of Production and Slavery – as inapplicable
to ancient Indian society. Although he accepted the concept of feudalism in Indian
context, he denied the existence of serfdom. According to him, it would be more
rewarding to view the early Indian society in terms of the transition from tribe to
caste. He argues that the ‘pre-class society was organised … into tribes’. The tribes
were small, localised communities and ‘for the tribesman, society as such began
and ended with his tribe’. The beginning and development of plough agriculture
brought about a radical change in the system of production. This destabilised the 193
Indian Historiography tribes and the clans and gave rise to castes as new form of social organisation.
This was an extremely crucial development. Kosambi writes :
‘THE ENTIRE COURSE OF INDIAN HISTORY SHOWS TRIBAL
ELEMENTS BEING FUSED INTO A GENERAL SOCIETY. This
phenomenon, which lies at the very foundation of the most striking Indian social
feature, namely caste, is also the great basic fact of ancient history.’
Kosambi tried to relate the intellectual and cultural production with the prevailing
social and economic situation. Thus, according to him, the teachings of Bhagavad
Gita can be understood only with reference to the feudal society in which it originated.
It, therefore, preaches the ideology of the ruling class which emphasised ‘the chain
of personal loyalty which binds retainer to chief, tenant to lord, and baron to king
or emperor’. Similarly, he considers the Bhakti movement as preaching a sense of
loyalty to the lord which, in the earthly sense, translates into loyalty and devotion
to the rulers. His detailed study of the poetry of Bhartrihari, the 7th-century poet,
reflects a similar approach. He describes Bhartrihari as ‘unmistakably the Indian
intellectual of his period, limited by caste and tradition in fields of activity and therefore
limited in his real grip on life’. In his study of the myths, he contended that they
reflected the transition of society from matriarchy to patriarchy.

17.4 THE FEUDALISM DEBATE

As we have seen in the previous section, D.D. Kosambi argued that, contrary
to Marx’s own statements and to those of several Marxists, the Indian society
did not witness a similar progression of various modes of production as happened
in Europe. He said that the slave mode of production was not to be found in
India. He also rejected Marx’s own schema of the Asiatic Mode of Production
as inapplicable to India. He, however, thought that there was the existence of
feudalism in India, even though he conceived it differently. He was aware that
the medieval Indian society was quite different from that of Europe. One of the
important characteristics of European feudalism, i.e., manorial system, demesne-
farming and serfdom, were not to be found in India. But he explained it as a
result of the non-existence of the slave mode of production in the preceding period.
He further differentiated between two types of feudalism in India – ‘feudalism
from above’ and ‘feudalism from below’ :
‘Feudalism from above means a state wherein an emperor or powerful king
levied tribute from subordinates who still ruled in their own right and did what
they liked within their own territories – as long as they paid the paramount
ruler…. By feudalism from below is meant the next stage where a class of
land-owners developed within the village, between the state and the peasantry,
gradually to wield armed power over the local population. This class was subject
to service, hence claimed a direct relationship with the state power, without
the intervention of any other stratum.’
Kosambi’s lead on this issue was followed by R.S. Sharma who made a comprehensive
study of feudalism in India in his book entitled Indian Feudalism (1965) and in
various articles. According to him, there were a decline in trade and increasing
numbers of land grants to the state officials in lieu of salary and to the Brahmans
as charity or ritual offering in the post-Gupta period. This process led to the subjection
194
of peasantry and made them dependent on the landlords. Almost all features of Indian Marxist
History-Writing
west European feudalism, such as serfdom, manor, self-sufficient economic units,
feudalisation of crafts and commerce, decline of long-distance trade and decline
of towns, were said to be found in India. According to R.S Sharma, the most crucial
aspects of Indian feudalism was the increasing dependence of the peasantry on
the intermediaries who received grants of land from the state and enjoyed juridical
rights over them. This development restricted the peasants’ mobility and made them
subject to increasingly intensive forced labour. The decline of feudalism also took
the same course as in west Europe. Revival of long-distance trade, rise of towns,
flight of peasants and development of monetary economy were considered to be
the main processes responsible for the decline of feudalism in India. In this schema,
the process of feudalisation started sometimes in the 4th century and declined in
the 12th century.
This view of the medieval Indian society and economy has been questioned by
several historians who argue that the development of the Indian society did not
follow the western model. They further argue that such a model of development
cannot be universally applied to all societies. Harbans Mukhia, in a thought-provoking
article ‘Was There Feudalism in Indian History?’ (1981), questions these arguments
at several levels. He begins by arguing that there is no single, universally accepted
definition of feudalism. It is because feudalism was not a world-system. In fact,
capitalism was the first world-system and, therefore, all societies before that had
their own peculiarities and profound differences from each other. Thus feudalism
‘was, throughout its history, a non-universal specific form of socio-economic
organization – specific to time and region, where specific methods and organization
of production obtained’. Mukhia defines feudalism as ‘the structured dependence
of the entire peasantry on the lords’. Such a system was specific ‘to Western Europe
between the fifth or the sixth century and the fifteenth. Feudalism also developed
in its classic form in eastern Europe between the sixteenth and the eighteenth century
and possibly in Japan during the Togukawa regime in particular’. He considers
feudalism as a ‘transitional system’ which:
‘stood mid-way in the transition of the West European economy from a primarily
slave-based system of agricultural production to one dominated by the
complementary classes of the capitalist farmers and the landless agricultural
wage-earner, but in which the free peasantry also formed a significant element.’
On the basis of this definition of feudalism, Mukhia now argues against the concept
of feudalism in India. He says that even in Europe the relationship between long-
distance trade and the growth or decline of feudalism is not clear. In fact, the trade
had differential impact on various European societies. While at some places, as in
west Europe, it led to the dissolution of feudal bonds, in east Europe it provided
the lords with the power to reinforce and revitalise the feudal ties. In any case,
Mukhia argues, it is not sure that there was a very significant decline of trade and
towns in early medieval India. Secondly, while in Europe feudalism developed and
declined due to changes at the base of society, in Indian case the reason for the
emergence of feudalism is seen as the land grants from above. According to Mukhia,
it is difficult to accept that ‘such complex social structures can be established through
administrative and legal procedures’. About the most crucial aspect of feudalism –
the dependence of peasantry on the landlords – Mukhia thinks that there is no
evidence to prove it in Indian case. He argues that even though the exploitation of
195
Indian Historiography the peasantry might have increased, there is no evidence to prove that there was
any ‘extraneous control over the peasant’s process of production’. He thinks that
‘forced labour in India remained, by and large, an incidental manifestation of the
ruling class’ political and administrative power rather than a part of the process of
production’. He concludes that the ‘primarily free peasant form of agricultural
production gradually evolving from post-Maurya times, thus characterized the agrarian
economy of ancient and medieval India’. In such a scenario there was no possibility
of a feudal system of production in India.
Several of Mukhia’s arguments were criticised by Marxist and non-Marxist scholars
in this field. Although there was an acknowledgement of the significance of the questions
he raised, criticism related to his concept of feudalism, his understanding of the
west European experience, his interpretation of Indian history and, particularly, his
notion of a free peasant production in India.
R.S. Sharma, in his response, wrote an essay entitled ‘How Feudal Was Indian
Feudalism?’ (1985). While accepting the fact that feudalism was not a universal
phenomenon, he argues that this was not true of all the pre-capitalist formations.
Thus ‘tribalism, the stone age, the metal age, and the advent of a food-producing
economy are universal phenomena. They do indicate some laws conditioning the
process and pattern of change’. He, therefore, thinks that there was feudalism in
India, even though its nature was significantly different. According to him, ‘Just as
there could be enormous variations in tribal society so also there could be enormous
variations in the nature of feudal societies’. He questions the very notion of peasant’s
control over means of production, particularly land. He maintains that there were
multiple and hierarchical rights in the land with the peasant almost always possessing
the inferior right. In the areas where land grants were given the grantees enjoyed
much superior rights :
‘On the basis of the land charters we can say that in the donated areas the
landed beneficiaries enjoyed general control over production resources. Of
course they did not enjoy specific control over every plot of land that the peasant
cultivated. But there is nothing to question their control over the plots of lands
that were directly donated to them by the king, sometimes along with the
sharecroppers and weavers and sometimes along with the cultivators.’
He further argues that, contrary to Mukhia’s arguments, forced labour was also
prevalent in many parts of the country. On the basis of various evidences, he asserts
that there was feudalism during the early medieval period in India which ‘was
characterized by a class of landlords and by a class of subject peasantry, the two
living in a predominantly agrarian economy marked by decline of trade and urbanism
and by drastic reduction in metal currency’.
Irfan Habib introduces another significant element for identifying the predominant
mode of production in any social formation. He argues that although the social form
of labour defines a particular mode of production, it cannot be considered as the
sole determinant. Thus although ‘Wage-labour remains the basic form of labour in
socialism, but this does entitle us to identify the capitalist and socialist modes’. Similarly,
petty peasant production may be found in several social formations. Therefore, another
crucial element should be taken into account and that is ‘the form in which the
surplus extracted from the producer is distributed’. Although Habib is doubtful about
the existence of feudalism in pre-colonial India, he considers Mukhia’s arguments
196
a little far-fetched. He thinks that Mukhia’s points about the existence of a ‘free Indian Marxist
History-Writing
peasantry’ and ‘relative stability in India’s social and economic history’ are untenable.
Such conclusions, according to him, ‘presume a rather idyllic picture of pre-colonial
India … for which there is little justification’. In his opinion, ‘there were just as
intense contradictions here as anywhere else; but that these were different in nature
and consequence from the contradictions leading to capitalism in Europe’. Moreover,
he rejects the idea of ‘exceptionalism’ in Indian context. It was also a society with
deep internal contradictions, a stratified peasantry and class exploitation.
Burton Stein praises Mukhia for raising an important question, but he points out
several inadequacies in Mukhia’s arguments. According to him, only the absence
of serfdom may not determine the absence of feudalism in India because several
other characteristics existed. With focus on south India, he argues that these
characteristics were local control and private legal jurisdiction of various powerful
men, the existence of independent warrior groups which claimed tributes and weak
state forms. Secondly, he also questions Mukhia’s proposition about the ‘relative
stability’ of pre-colonial Indian society and economy. Such a notion about stability
assumes that for two thousand years there was no change in the means and relations
of production. This worries Stein : ‘This is indeed stability, not “relative”, but quite
absolute, a position which ought to trouble him as an historian; it troubles me!’ On
the role of the state, he rejects the notion of a centralised and bureaucratic state.
Instead, he forwards the concept of ‘segmentary state’, a state whose power was
limited. So far as the ‘free peasantry’ is concerned, he puts more emphasis on peasant
collectivities having a mastery over productive forces. He questions the notion of
free ‘individual peasants as productive agents’. In this sense of collective peasant
production and the segmentary, Stein thinks that the period from the 10th to the
17th centuries may be said to be a single social formation in south India.
In his response to these criticisms, Mukhia sticks to his point that capitalism was
the first world-system and all the earlier systems were specific to regions and ‘did
not possess the internal dynamism that would give them the hegemony’ over the
world. Only most general features such as agrarian economy and surplus
appropriation through non-economic coercion could be common about various pre-
industrial societies. But it does not take the specificities, such as production process
and social organisation of labour, into account. He reemphasises his concept of a
‘free peasantry’ in pre-colonial India ‘whose process of production was free of
extraneous control’.
We, therefore, encounter a wide variety of interpretations of the medieval Indian
society by the Marxist historians who differ quite significantly from each other. In
the course of this debate we also come across the rich variety of Marxist
interpretations relating to medieval Indian history.

17.5 INDIAN NATIONALISM

In the earlier section (17.2) we discussed the views of R.P. Dutt and A.R. Desai
on Indian nationalism. They analysed it as a movement which was mostly dominated
by the bourgeoisie. Although various classes, including the peasantry and the working
classes, participated in it, its basic character remained bourgeois. This view of national
movement remained quite common among the Marxist historians for quite some
time. However, over the years, several Marxist historians began to disagree with 197
Indian Historiography this paradigm for understanding Indian nationalism. Bipan Chandra mounted a major
critique of this view and this criticism became more comprehensive over the years.
In his very first book, The Rise and Growth of Economic Nationalism in India
(1966), he pleaded for according certain autonomy to the ideas as significant vehicle
of action and change. Even though he accepts that ‘social relations exist independently
of the ideas men form of them’, he feels that ‘men’s understanding of these relations
is crucial to their social and political action’. Moreover, he argues that the intellectuals
in any society stand above the narrow interests of the class in which they are born.
It is ‘sheer crude mechanical materialism’ to sort out the intellectuals only on the
basis of their class of origins. It is because the intellectuals are guided ‘at the level
of consciousness, by thought and not by interests’. Thus the Indian nationalist leaders
were also, as intellectuals, above the interests of the narrow class or group they
were born in. This does not mean, however, that they did not represent any class.
They did represent class interests, but this was done ideologically and not for personal
gain. As Bipan Chandra puts it :
‘Like the best and genuine intellectuals the world over and in all history, the
Indian thinkers and intellectuals of the 19th century too were philosophers and
not hacks of a party or a class. It is true that they were not above class or
group and did in practice represent concrete class or group interests. But when
they reflected the interests of a class or a group, they did so through the prism
of ideology and not directly as members, or the obedient servants, of that class
or group.’
On the basis of his analysis of the economic thinking of the early nationalist leaders,
both the so-called moderates and the extremists, Bipan Chandra concludes that
their overall economic outlook was ‘basically capitalist’. By this he means that ‘In
nearly every aspect of economic life they championed capitalist growth in general
and the interests of the industrial capitalists in particular’. This does not mean that
they were working for the individual interests of the capitalists. In fact, the capitalist
support for the Congress in the early phase was negligible. Nationalist support for
industrial capitalism derived from the belief of the nationalists that ‘industrial
development along capitalist lines was the only way to regenerate the country in
the economic field, or that, in other words, the interests of the industrial capitalist
class objectively coincided with the chief national interest of the moment’. Thus,
Bipan Chandra abandons the instrumentalist approach espoused by Dutt and Desai.
This was a major change in perspective in the historiography of the Indian national
movement.
However, despite this change in perspective, Bipan Chandra remained anchored
to several points within the paradigm developed by R.P. Dutt. In an essay presented
at a symposium at the Indian History Congress in 1972 and published in his book
Nationalism and Colonialism in Modern India (1979), his arguments come
remarkably close to the traditional Marxist perspective developed by R.P. Dutt
on Indian nationalism. In this article entitled ‘Elements of Continuity and Change
in the Early Nationalist Activity’, he still criticises the narrow perspective which
dubs the nationalist leaders as bourgeois in an instrumentalist sense that they were
following the commands of the capitalists. In his opinion, the early nationalist leaders
were trying to unify the Indian people into a nation. Their basic objective was ‘to
generate, form and crystallize an anti-imperialist ideology, to promote the growth
198 of modern capitalist economy, and in the end to create a broad all India national
movement’. This view corresponded with the perspective developed in his earlier Indian Marxist
History-Writing
book on economic nationalism.
But there were other points where his arguments resembled those of Dutt and Desai.
Firstly, he interprets the ‘peaceful and bloodless’ approach of struggle adopted by
the nationalist leadership as ‘a basic guarantee to the propertied classes that they
would at no time be faced with a situation in which their interests might be put in
jeopardy even temporarily’. This understanding of non-violence was the same as
that of Dutt and Desai. Secondly, the relationship between the Indian masses and
the nationalists always remained problematic. For the moderate leaders, the masses
had no role to play. Even the extremists, despite their rhetoric, failed to mobilise
the masses. Although the masses came into nationalist fold during the Gandhian
period, they were not politicised and the lower classes of agricultural workers and
poor peasants in most parts of country were never politically mobilised, ‘so that
the social base of the national movement was still not very strong in 1947’. And
even when they were mobilised, the masses remained outside the decision-making
process and the gulf between them and the leaders was ‘unbridged’. According
to Bipan Chandra :
‘Above all, the political activity of the masses was rigidly controlled from the
top. The masses never became an independent political force. The question
of their participation in the decision-making process was never even raised.
The masses were always to remain … “passive actors” or “extras” whose political
activity remained under the rigid control of middle class leaders and within the
confines of the needs of bourgeois social development. Herein also lay the
crucial role of the way non-violence was defined and practised by Gandhi.’
Thirdly, the nationalist leaders in all phases of the movement stressed that the process
of achievement of national freedom would be evolutionary, and not revolutionary.
The basic strategy to attain this goal would be pressure-compromise-pressure. In
this strategy, pressure would be brought upon the colonial rulers through agitations,
political work and mobilisation of the people. When the authorities were willing to
offer concessions, the pressure would be withdrawn and a compromise would be
reached. The political concessions given by the colonial rulers would be accepted
and worked. After this, the Congress should prepare for another agitation to gain
new concessions. It is in this phased, non-violent manner that several political
concessions would be taken from the British and this process would ultimately lead
to the liberation of the country. On the basis of his analysis of the social base, the
ideology, and the strategy of political struggle, Bipan Chandra concluded that the
nationalist movement as represented by the Congress was ‘a bourgeois democratic
movement, that is, it represented the interests of all classes and segments of Indian
society vis-à-vis imperialism but under the hegemony of the industrial bourgeoisie’.
This character remained constant throughout its entire history from inception to 1947.
Even during the Gandhian phase, there was no change. In fact, according to Bipan
Chandra, ‘the hegemony of the bourgeoisie over the national movement was, if
anything, even more firmly clamped down in the Gandhian era than before’.
In a later book, India’s Struggle for Independence, 1857-1947 (1988), Bipan
Chandra has decisively moved away from the views of Dutt and Desai on Indian
national movement. In this book, co-authored with some other like-minded scholars,
he applies the Gramscian perspective to study the national movement. Most of the 199
Indian Historiography propositions regarding the Indian National Congress developed in the earlier quoted
article are now dropped or revised. The Congress strategy is no longer seen in
terms of pressure-compromise-pressure. It is now viewed in terms of Gramscian
‘war of position’ whereby a prolonged struggle is waged for the attainment of goal.
As Bipan Chandra puts it :
‘The Indian national movement … is the only movement where the broadly
Gramscian theoretical perspective of a war of position was successfully practised;
where state power was not seized in a single historical moment of revolution,
but through prolonged popular struggle on a moral, political and ideological
level; where reserves of counter-hegemony were built up over the years through
progressive stages; where the phases of struggle alternated with “passive” phases.’
This struggle was not overtly violent because the nationalist leaders were seized
of the twin agenda of forging the Indian people into a nation and to undermine the
colonial hegemony. Through their prolonged struggle they wanted to expose the
two important myths about the British colonial rule that it was beneficial to the Indians
and that it was invincible. The Gandhian non-violence is also to be considered in
this light. According to Bipan Chandra,
‘It was not … a mere dogma of Gandhiji nor was it dictated by the interests
of the propertied classes. It was an essential part of a movement whose strategy
involved the waging of a hegemonic struggle based on a mass movement which
mobilized the people to the widest possible extent.’
The national movement was now conceived as an all-class movement which provided
space and opportunity for any class to build its hegemony. Moreover, the main
party, the Congress, which led ‘this struggle from 1885 to 1947 was not then a
party but a movement’. He criticises the various schools of historiography on India
for their failure to address the central contradiction in colonial India which was
between the Indian people and the British colonialism. Although he still considers
that ‘the dominant vision within the Congress did not transcend the parameters of
a capitalist conception of society’, he has made a clear break from the conventional
Marxist interpretation of the Indian national movement and it appears that any study
of Indian nationalism has to take his views into account.
Sumit Sarkar is another Marxist historian who is critical of Dutt’s paradigm. In his
first book, The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, 1903-1908 (1973), he terms it
as a ‘simplistic version of the Marxian class-approach’. Contrary to the assertion
by Dutt that the moderate phase was dominated by the ‘big bourgeoisie’ while the
extremist phase by the ‘urban petty bourgeoisie’, he thinks that ‘a clear class-differential
between moderate and extremist would still be very difficult to establish, and was
obviously nonexistent at the leadership level’. According to him, this version of
Marxist interpretation suffers from the ‘defect of assuming too direct or crude an
economic motivation for political action and ideals’. He instead prefers to analyse
the actions of the nationalist leaders by using Trotsky’s concept of ‘substitutism’
whereby the intelligentsia acts ‘repeatedly as a kind of proxy for as-yet passive
social forces with which it had little organic connection’. He also uses Gramscian
categories of ‘traditional’ and ‘organic’ intellectuals. According to Antonio Gramsci,
the famous Italian Marxist activist and thinker, the ‘organic’ intellectuals participate
directly in the production-process and have direct links with the people whom they
lead. The ‘traditional’ intellectuals, on the other hand, are not directly connected
200
with either the production-process or the people. However, they become leaders Indian Marxist
History-Writing
of particular classes by ideologically resuming the responsibility of those classes.
According to Sarkar, the leaders of the Swadeshi movement in Bengal ‘recruited
overwhelmingly from the traditional learned castes, and virtually unconnected after
the 1850s with commerce or industry … may be regarded perhaps as a “traditional”
intelligentsia in Gramsci’s sense’. This view is quite close to that of Bipan Chandra
in which he emphasises the role of ideology in the formation of the early nationalist
leaders. Sumit Sarkar, however, considers that even though the nationalist leaders
were not directly linked with the bourgeoisie, they ‘objectively did help to at least
partially clear the way for the independent capitalist development of our country’.
He emphasises this point further in his article ‘The Logic of Gandhian Nationalism’
(1985). Here the objective stance of the Swadeshi Movement in favour of the
bourgeoisie gets transformed into direct intervention by the bourgeoisie and the
subjective position in the interests of the capitalists by the leaders of the Civil
Disobedience Movement. By studying the social forces involved in the Civil
Disobedience Movement and the developments leading to the Gandhi-Irwin pact,
he concludes that there was ‘the vastly enhanced role of distinctively bourgeois
groups, both in contributing heavily to the initial striking power of Civil Disobedience
and ultimately in its calling off’. He qualifies his statement by saying that Gandhi
was ‘no mere bourgeois tool in any simplistic or mechanical sense’ and that he
can hardly be considered as ‘a puppet’ in the hands of the capitalists. He, however,
insists that the Gandhian leadership had ‘a certain coincidence of aims with Indian
business interests at specific points’ and ‘an occasional significant coincidence of
subjective attitudes and inhibitions with bourgeois interests’.

17.6 INTELLECTUAL HISTORY : DEBATE ON

INDIAN RENAISSANCE
The role of the intellectuals in shaping the public opinion and leading the people is
beyond doubt. What is more contentious is the extent of their influence and the
reasons for this limitation. One such phenomenon which attracted wide interests
among both the Marxist and non-Marxist scholars was the ‘Bengal Renaissance’
which is sometimes equated with the ‘Indian Renaissance’. It is because a cluster
of contemporary intellectuals became associated with various movements of ideas
mostly derived from western sources. Since the colonial presence in Bengal had
been the longest, we find there the earliest manifestations of such interests among
the local intelligentsia and their thoughts had countrywide influence over the years.
The point which is under debate is the nature of this intellectual movement which
is named after the Italian intellectual experience of the 15th and 16th centuries as
the ‘Renaissance’.
Among the Marxist historians Susobhan Sarkar was the first to analyse ‘this flowering
of social, religious, literary and political activities in Bengal’. In his essay, ‘Notes
on the Bengal Renaissance’, first published in 1946, he declared that the ‘role played
by Bengal in the modern awakening of India is thus comparable to the position
occupied by Italy in the story of the European Renaissance’. This ‘modern’ movement
arose because the ‘impact of British rule, bourgeois economy and modern Western
culture was first felt in Bengal’. Thus the modernity brought into India by the British
‘produced an awakening known usually as the Bengal Renaissance’. It generated
such intellectual force that ‘For about a century, Bengal’s conscious awareness of 201
Indian Historiography the changing modern world was more developed than and ahead of that of the
rest of India’.
Such a rosy picture of the 19th-century intellectual activities has now been seriously
questioned. The concept of Bengal, or Indian, Renaissance has come under criticism.
The critics point out that, unlike the European Renaissance, the range of the 19th-
century intellectual ferment was rather limited and its character was rather less
modernist than was earlier assumed. The ‘traditionalist’ and ‘modernist’ dichotomy
cannot be applied as the so-called ‘Renaissance’ intellectual was a deeply divided
personality. The break with the past was severely limited in nature and remained
mainly at the intellectual level. Most of the intellectuals did not have the courage
to implement even at their own individual levels the principles they preached. And
those, like Iswarchandra Vidyasagar, who publicly campaigned for their ideals faced
continuous failures. In most cases, the same traditional scriptural authority was sought
to derive sanction for their policies and practices against which the intellectuals launched
their ideological struggle. Moreover, this intellectual movement remained confined
within an elitist Hindu framework which did not include the problems and realities
of the lower castes and Muslims. The social forces, which could have given the
ideas a solid base and moved them in the modernist direction, were not present.
The colonial power remained the ultimate guarantee for the implementation of the
reforms proposed by the thinkers. However, the colonial state was not much interested
in taking radical measures for the fear of alienating the traditionalists who formed
the great majority. This led to frustration among the enthusiasts for the reforms and
the movement in general retreated and declined by the late 19th century. Some of
the Marxist historians who have criticised the concept of the ‘Renaissance’ in Indian
context are : Barun De in the articles ‘The Colonial Context of Bengal Renaissance’
(1976) and ‘A Historiographic Critique of Renaissance Analogues for Nineteenth
Century India’; Asok Sen in his book Iswarchandra Vidyasagar and His Elusive
Milestones (1977), Sumit Sarkar in his articles ‘Rammohun Roy and the Break
with the Past’ (1975), ‘The Complexities of Young Bengal (1973), and ‘The Radicalism
of Intellectuals’ (1977), all the three articles now collected in a book A Critique
of Colonial India (1985); and K.N. Panikkar whose various essays on this theme
from 1977 to 1992 have been collected in the book Culture, Ideology, Hegemony
(1995).

17.7 OTHER TRENDS AND HISTORIANS WITHIN

MARXIST HISTORIOGRAPHY
As we have pointed out earlier in the ‘Introduction’ it is impossible to deal with
the Marxist historiography on India in full detail within the space of this Unit. We
have so far covered a few trends and the ideas and historians associated with them.
Now in this section we will briefly discuss some other trends and historians.
In the study of early India, there are several historians working with Marxian methods.
R.S. Sharma, Romila Thapar, D.N. Jha, B.D. Chattopadhyay and Kumkum Roy
are some of them. Their researches have enriched our understanding of ancient
India. We have already discussed Sharma’s book on Indian Feudalism. Apart
from this, his study of the lower castes of ancient India, Sudras in Ancient India
(1958), his work on various topics such as marriage, caste, land grants, slavery,
202 usury, and women contained in his Light on Early Indian Society and Economy
(1966), his Material Culture and Social Formation in Ancient India (1983) Indian Marxist
History-Writing
and Urban Decay in India (1987) are the books which enormously enrich our
understanding of ancient and early medieval periods.
Similarly, Romila Thapar’s works on early India have expanded the scope of historical
research related to the period. She has approached the ancient period from several
angles and debunked several myths and stereotypes associated with it. Some of
these myths related to Oriental Despotism, the Aryan race, and Ashoka’s non-violence.
Her several books, like Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas (1963), Ancient
Indian Social History (1978), From Lineage to State (1984) and Interpreting
Early India (1992), have increased our knowledge of early Indian history in a
refreshing manner.
The history of medieval India has also attracted a fair number of Marxist historians.
Nurul Hasan, Satish Chandra, Irfan Habib and Athar Ali are some among them.
They have studied the medieval Indian society, polity and economy in detail. Among
them, the works by Irfan Habib are particularly remarkable in the range of scholarship
and imagination. His study of the Mughal economy, The Agrarian System of Mughal
India (1963), has acquired the status of a classic. In this book, he argues that the
basic contradiction in the late medieval period was between ‘the centralized ruling
class (state) and the peasantry’. But there were other contradictions also between
the state and the zamindars, between the untouchables and the rest of the society
and between the tribes and the encroaching caste peasantry. Among all these, Habib
argues, the ‘drive for tax-revenue may be regarded as the basic motive force. Land
revenue sustained the large urban sector; but the pressure for higher collection
devastated the country, antagonized zamindars whose own shares of surplus was
thereby affected, and drove the peasants to rebellion’. This book on medieval Indian
history was followed by other important contributions in the form of An Atlas of
the Mughal Empire (1982) and his edited book, The Cambridge Economic History
of India, Vol. I (1982). Apart from these, his several books and articles, including
Caste and Money in Indian History (1987), Interpreting Indian History (1988),
and Essays in Indian History : Towards a Marxist Perception (1995), explore
and comment on various periods of Indian history.
The Marxist historians have written on several aspects of modern Indian history
and the colonial economy. Apart from these, we can find a significant number of
the Marxist historians in the fields of peasant history, labour history and social history.

17.8 SUMMARY
The Marxist historians have contributed enormously to Indian historiography. In
all field of Indian history, whether we divide it by periods or by topics, the Marxist
historians have made significant contributions. In several areas, their works have
changed the course of historiography. The Marxist historians do not form a monolithic
bloc. As we have seen in our discussion of several trends, there are wide divergences
of views among the Marxist historians. However, there are certain common elements
among them.
The history of the dynasties was replaced by the history of the common people.
More emphasis was now given to the study of economy and society in preference
to the political history. The study of broad social and economic systems such as
203
Indian Historiography feudalism and colonialism were undertaken and the social, economic and political
changes were considered not in the light of the actions of individual statesmen, but
in terms of the working out of economy and conflicts between classes. At the level
of methodology, Kosambi’s works introduced an interdisciplinary approach to history
which encompassed literature, archaeology, linguistics, anthropology, numismatics
and statistics. Moreover, the Marxist historiography has made interpretation and
explanation more important than narration or description.

17.9 EXERCISES
1) Write a note on the Marxist historiography of Indian nationalism. Discuss the
differences between various Marxist historians on this issue.
2) What is the role of D.D. Kosambi in the development of Marxist historiography
in India?
4) Write a note on the conflicting views on ‘Indian Renaissance’.

204
 Historiographical
UNIT 18 THE CAMBRIDGE SCHOOL* Traditions in Early India

Structure
18.1 Introduction
18.2 The Background
18.3 The Emergence of the Cambridge School
18.4 The Major Works of the Cambridge School
18.5 Features of Cambridge Interpretation
18.6 The Scepticism of the Cambridge School
18.7 The Decline of the Cambridge School
18.8 Evaluation
18.9 Summary
18.10 Exercises

18.1 INTRODUCTION
The ‘Cambridge School’ is the name given to a group of historians in Cambridge
who reinterpreted Indian politics in the age of nationalism. They did not think that
there was any fundamental contradiction between imperialism and nationalism. In
their opinion, local interests and factional rivalries were prominent features of the
history of Indian nationalism. If Indian nationalism emerged despite such localised
rivalries, this happened because the British authorities simultaneously centralized
the government and introduced representation in the course of the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries. Government intrusion in local concerns forced local
politicians to turn to the centre. Paradoxically, Indian nationalism was the product
of the government impulse. Central to this interpretation of Indian nationalism was
the centrality of power. The thesis was set out in a collection of essays by Cambridge
historians which was entitled Locality, Province and Nation: Essays on Indian
Politics, 1870 to 1940. The collection was edited by John Gallagher, Gordon Johnson
and Anil Seal, and was published by the Cambridge University Press in 1973 both
as an issue of the Cambridge journal entitled Modern Asian Studies and as an
independent publication. Critics accused the authors of debunking Indian nationalism
and the group was dubbed ‘The Cambridge School’, or simply referred to as
‘Cambridge’. A hot controversy followed in the wake of the publication, and Marxist
and liberal historians in India sharply criticised the thesis. However, ‘The Cambridge
School’ undoubtedly made an impact on Indian historiography.

18.2 THE BACKGROUND

Earlier, two historiographical schools had emerged in course of the 1960s. One
favoured the Marxist view and the other advanced the elite theory of the West. It
was out of the latter camp that the Cambridge School emerged in 1973. To
understand the tenets of Cambridge requires knowledge of the earlier debates in
the 1960s. The debate involved the Cambridge School in due course.

*
Resource Person: Prof. Rajat Ray 205
Indian Historiography Briefly, the debate centred around three questions. First of all, what is the innermost
spring of the mechanics of modern politics in British India in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries? Was it economics that drove politics or was it the
institutional opportunity offered by English education, political representation, and
other institutional innovations of the British? The Marxists inclined towards the first
answer, the elite theorists preferred the second answer. The second question concerns
the most decisive territorial unit in which political change in the subcontinent was
to be studied – was it the nation as a whole, or was it the region? The Marxists
analysed the problem against the national canvas, but the elite theorists claimed
that the region was the true locus of political change in British India. Thirdly, the
debaters differed about the nature of the social group on which they should focus.
Should they focus upon class and class conflict, or upon the English-educated elite
and the conflict between various castes and communities competing for the rewards
of English education and political representation? Predictably, the Marxist historians
looked at class, and the elite theorists concentrated on caste, community and the
western-educated elite.
Since the Cambridge School emerged out of the elite theory and branched off from
it, the interpretation offered by the elite theorists is relevant in this context. Historians
from a number of Western universities, especially from Canberra, Sussex and
Cambridge, offered this interpretation in reaction to Marxist historiography in India
and the Soviet Union. Three influential works emphasizing the role of the English-
educated elite in Indian politics came out in quick succession: D. A. Low (ed.),
Soundings in Modern South Asian History (London, 1968); J.H. Broomfield,
Elite Conflict in a Plural Society. Twentieth Century Bengal (Berkeley and Los
Angles, 1968); and Anil Seal, The Emergence of Indian Nationalism : Competition
and Collaboration in the Later Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 1968). The
interpretation had three points to make against the Marxists. First of all, the main
motive force behind modern politics, including nationalist politics, was not economic
change, but on the contrary the institutional innovations introduced by the British.
Anil Seal emphasised the institutional opportunities offered by English education,
especially the new jobs available in the subordinate civil service and the modern
professions of law, western medicine, journalism and teaching. John Broomfield
for his part dwelt on the institutional opportunities offered to a growing band of
politicians by the new constitutional structure of elections and representatives in
the changing system of government. Secondly, the interpretation focused upon the
region, as against the nation, and upon the traditional cultures in each region; it
was against the backdrop of the region that the elite theorists traced the course of
political change set off by the institutional changes. Thirdly, the interpretation focused,
not upon class and class conflict, but upon the formation of an English-educated
elite, and upon the rivalries within each region between contending castes and
communities for securing the opportunities offered by English education and legislative
representation.

18.3 THE EMERGENCE OF THE CAMBRIDGE

SCHOOL
Anil Seal, whose thesis at Cambridge was supervised by John Gallagher and which
was subsequently published under the title Emergence of Indian Nationalism (1968),
206
subscribed to these views in his thesis. So did the first generation of Anil Seal’s The Cambridge School

students, especially Judith Brown, the author of Gandhi’s Rise to Power (Cambridge,
1972). In their view, the English-educated nationalist elite was originally the high
caste minority of Bengal, Bombay and Madras, and the politics of the backward
castes and regions was also a minority’s protest against this English-educated
nationalism. Subsequently, however, John Gallagher, Anil Seal and yet another batch
of their students radically modified their stand, and the Cambridge School was the
product of the modified standpoint.
John Gallagher, together with Ronald Robinson, had earlier written a book entitled
Africa and the Victorians (1961), which had made a critical impact on imperial
studies in the early 1960s. Briefly, Gallagher and Robinson had argued that imperialism
was not the product of the new economic forces in Europe, but was induced by
the political collapse caused by indigenous processes in Africa and Asia. Imperialism
was compelled to move into the political vacuum created by the internal conflicts
in native societies. Anil Seal, as a brilliant young pupil of Gallagher, had also dwelt
on the political rivalries within Indian society in his explanation of the emergence
of modern politics in India, focusing especially upon caste and the competition for
English education among various regions, communities and castes. In the early 1970s,
a new batch of research students gathered around John Gallagher, Anil Seal and
Gordon Johnson (the editor of Modern Asian Studies and an earlier student of
Anil Seal with a thesis on Maharasthra politics to his credit, a thesis very similar
to those of Anil Seal and Judith Brown). This was the Cambridge School, and it
distinguished itself from the earlier elite theory version by formulating new answers
to the questions posed in the ongoing debate. However, they still subscribed to
the view that nationalism was basically a play for power.
In the new version, the dynamic factor behind modern politics was no longer English
education and its opportunities, nor of course any broad economic change under
colonial rule. On the contrary, the dynamic factor was the increasing centralization
of government in the subcontinent and the growing element of representation within
its structure. This implied the increasingly great presence of government in the
countryside and the integration of the periphery to the centre through the new
mechanism of legislative representation. Government impulse fostered modern politics
in British India, and created the space for national politics in the country. Secondly,
the locality was now projected as the real base of politics instead of the region or
the nation. The ‘real’ interests involved in politics were local interests, not a mythical
national interest, or even a regional-cultural interest. Local interests sought to pass
themselves off as the cultural interest of the region or the national interest of the
whole country. Thirdly, the operating unit in politics was identified, not as caste
or community, not to speak of class, but as the faction based on the patron-client
linkage in the locality. The patron-client network was a pragmatic alliance cutting
across classes, castes and communities. The patrons in whose interest the networks
were formed were local magnates, either town notables or rural-local bosses,
depending upon the locality. The local notables were now projected as more influential
than the English-educated professional men who constituted the educated elite. The
dynamic factor that pulled the local networks of patronage into national politics
was the increased presence of government in the locality and the increasing presence
of the representative element in the government.
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Indian Historiography
18.4 THE MAJOR WORKS OF THE CAMBRIDGE
SCHOOL
The origins of the Cambridge School may be traced back to Robinson and Gallagher’s
Africa and the Victorians and Seal’s Emergence of Indian Nationalism in the
1960s, but the Cambridge School announced itself only in the 1970s with Locality,
Province and Nation. The tenets of the Cambridge School were set forth in a
number of works, among which may be mentioned John Gallagher, Gordon Johnson
and Anil Seal (eds.), Locality, Province and Nation (1973); Gordon Johnson,
Provincial Politics and Indian Nationalism: Bombay and the Indian National
Congress 1890 to 1905 (1973); C.A. Bayly, The Local Roots of Indian Politics:
Allahabad 1880 –1920 (1975); D.A.Washbrook, The Emergence of Provincial
Politics: Madras Presidency 1870 –1920 (1976); C.J. Baker, The Politics of
South India 1920 –1937(1976); B..R. Tomlinson, The Indian National Congress
and the Raj 1929 – 1942 (1976); and C. J. Baker, Gordon Johnson and Anil
Seal (eds.), Power, Profit and Politics (1981). The first and the last were collections
of essays by members of the Cambridge School; the rest were Cambridge and
Oxford Theses supervised by Anil Seal and John Gallagher.
These books may have differed in their tone and emphasis to some extent, but
they shared a number of common features. Collectively, they constituted the
Cambridge School. Some Cambridge theses, which Anil Seal supervised at around
the same time, did not share the same features. For instance, Mushirul Husan’s
Nationalism and Communal Politics in India 1916-1928 (1979), and Rajat Kanta
Ray’s Social Conflict and Political Unrest in Bengal 1875-1927 (1984), did
not share the emphasis on power play, but on the contrary dwelt on ideological
and economic factors. Despite guidance by Anil Seal, they did not belong to the
Cambridge School. What distinguished the historians of the Cambridge School was
their focus upon the search for power by individuals and factions. They pushed
their inquiries down from the nation (viewed as a whole by the Marxists) and the
region (regarded separately by the elite theorists) to the locality; and in the locality,
their attention focused, not upon social groups such as classes or castes, but on
‘connexions’ straddling these social categories. Their analysis concentrated on the
slow bonding together of these local factions and connections into an all-India political
structure by the increasing intrusion of the power at the centre into the affairs of
the periphery.
The gradual centralisation of the government, matched as it was by the growth of
a representative element within the centralised structure, pulled local politics outwards,
into politics with a national focus. Nationalism, in this view, was disguised collaboration
with imperialism.

18.5 FEATURES OF THE CAMBRIDGE

INTERPRETATION
The Cambridge interpretation began with the locality, and with the ‘connexions’ in
each locality. In C.A. Bayly’s analysis of mid-nineteenth century politics in Allahabad
town, local politics consisted of ‘a series of loose consortia of patrons each with
their clientelia to satisfy’. The town was dominated by commercial magnates who
208
locally enjoyed the status of rais or notable. He found it useful ‘to describe the The Cambridge School

various groups in clientage to the commercial raises as connexions’. A bunching

of economic functions around the magnates gave the connexions a cross-caste,
cross-community aspect. Later the same ‘connexions’ became the operative units
in nationalist politics in Allahabad.
In his study of Bombay politics, Gordon Johnson concurred with this. The most
obvious characteristic of every Indian politician was that each politician acted for
many diverse interests at all levels of Indian society, ‘and in doing so cut across
horizontal ties of class, caste, region and religion.’
Anil Seal put the same point forcefully in the introductory article on ‘Imperialism
and nationalism in India’ in Locality, Province and Nation. Politics was originally
a local affair and there it was a race for influence, status and resources. In this
race, patrons would regiment their clients ‘into factions which jockeyed for position.’
So these were not partnerships between the same sorts of fellows. They were rather
associations of big-wigs and their followers. In other words, the factions were ‘vertical
alliances, not horizontal alliances.’ The local rivalries were seldom marked by the
alliance of landlord with landlord, educated with educated, Muslim with Muslim,
and Brahman with Brahman. More frequently, Hindus worked with Muslims,
Brahmans were hand-in-glove with non-Brahmans.
According to the Cambridge interpretation, the roots of politics lay in the localities
– the district, the municipality, the village. There the town notables and the rural-
local bosses enjoyed the power to distribute resources without any interference
by the seemingly impotent imperial government. But things began to change in the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Motivated, according to David
Washbrook, by ‘the need to improve, to gather more wealth, to do more good’,
the imperial authorities carried out bureaucratic and constitutional reforms which
forced more and more local politicians to turn their attention from the local centres
of power to the government at the centre. This was John Gallagher’s ‘Government
impulse’ and it altered the working of Indian politics. ‘That is not to say’, he cautioned,
‘that Indian politics had been tidied up into parties with programmes, tailored to
fit the needs of coherent social groups. The main elements were still the links between
patrons and clients, the connections in localities and the shifting alliances between
factions; these continued to cut across the spurious unities which now seemed to
have emerged. Nevertheless, there had been an important change; more localities
had to be bonded together, and they had to be related to the politics of larger
arenas. The lessons of these electoral systems followed the logic of administrative
change’ (John Gallagher, ‘Congress in Decline: Bengal 1930 to 1939’, in Locality,
Province and Nation).
Anil Seal, in his introduction to Locality, Province and Nation, had the same thing
to say. As a centralised and increasingly representative government emerged, ‘it
was no longer enough for Indians to secure political benefits in the localities alone.’
The increasing power to be bargained for at the centres for government necessitated
the creation of provincial and then all India politics. Village, district and small town
politics ‘continued unabated in the undergrowth’, but political associations, such
as the Madras Native Association or the Indian National Congress, deployed a
different grammar of politics in the provinces and at the centre. ‘For the formal
structure of government provided the framework of politics, and it was only by
209
Indian Historiography operating within it that Indians could share and determine the distribution of power
and patronage’ (Anil Seal, ‘Imperialism and Nationalism’, in Locality, Province
and Nation).
According to C. J. Baker, local bosses, so long left on their own to strike local
bargains of power, found it necessary to match the new administrative and
representative structure of the British Raj with a national political structure built
upon organisations with broader constituencies, such as the Justice Party in Madras,
the Hindu Mahasabha, The All India Muslim League and the Indian National Congress.
Ascribing ‘spurious political change’ to administrative logic, the Cambridge School
denies any sudden transformation of elite clubs into mass movements on the advent
of Gandhi. In their view, successive doses of constitutional reform were the medicine
which revitalized the otherwise languishing all India politics in each phase: the Montford
reforms precipitated the Non-Cooperation movement, the Simon Commission
provoked the Civil Disobedience Movement, and the Cripps Mission brought on
the Quit India Movement. Whenever government proposed any reform at the centre
which would affect the distribution of patronage in the locality, the politicians found
it necessary to be active in the new national arena of politics. As Gordon Johnson
puts it, ‘There is no simple chronological growth of nationalism in India: nationalist
activity booms and slumps in phase with the national activity of the government.’

18.6 THE SCEPTICISM OF THE CAMBRIDGE

SCHOOL
What The Oxford History of the British Empire, Volume V, Historiography (1999)
has identified as the ‘Cambridge School’ questioning ‘the nationalist pretensions
of the Congress movement’ is marked above all by its sceptical tone towards Indian
Nationalism. Behind the scepticism lay an assumption about politics in general.
Politics is about the individual’s search for power, patronage and resources. It is
not a reflection of social sentiment or economic position, but a separate arena of
activity which possesses its own laws. Disputing the assumption that class, communities
or castes supplied the basis for political organisation, D.A. Washbrook claimed
that in the pursuit of power some men would do anything to obtain their goal. Power
is wanted for its own sake. The basic concern of the politicians is power, office
and place rather than a wish to transform society, particularly in a society like that
of the Madras Presidency where wealth was concentrated in a few hands and where
no important person wanted to change this scheme of things. In order to establish
power, politicians needed the support of various interests, classes and communities.
Merchants, landlords, lawyers, Brahmans, untouchables, Hindus, Muslims, in fact
all kinds of people were perfectly prepared to work with one another to obtain
the common goal – power. The pure scepticism of this view allows little room for
any fundamental social and economic conflicts of a general character. Above all,
the Cambridge School denies any deep-seated contradiction between imperial rule
and its native subjects.
Imperialism did not really control the vast and diverse subcontinent, and its subjects,
who were concerned for the most part with local issues, did not really oppose it.
As Anil Seal had earlier pronounced in The Emergence of Indian Nationalism,
Indians competed with one another, and collaborated with their British rulers. He
now went further and observed in the introduction to Locality, Province and Nation
210
that it was no longer credible to write about a nationalist movement grounded in The Cambridge School

common aims, led by men with similar backgrounds, and recruited from widening
groups with compatible interests. That movement seemed to him a ramshackle
coalition throughout its long career. ‘Its unity seems a figment. Its power appears
as hollow as that of the imperial authority it was supposedly challenging. Its history
was the rivalry between Indian and Indian, its relationship with imperialism that of
the mutual clinging of two unsteady men of straw. Consequently, it now seems
impossible to organize modern Indian history around the old notions of imperialism
and nationalism’ (Anil Seal, ‘Imperialism and Nationalism’, Locality, Province and
Nation).
This is a sceptical view of Indian nationalism in particular and of politics in general.
The Cambridge School follows a purely political approach to the study of Indian
politics, setting aside the inputs of economics or sociology. In this approach, the
individual behaves in politics, as does the man in the market. One seeks power,
the other seeks profit and both are guided by self-interest.

18.7 THE DECLINE OF THE CAMBRIDGE SCHOOL

John Gallagher, Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial and Naval History in
Cambridge University, died, in 1980. In his memory the Cambridge group brought
out a collection of essays: Christopher Baker, Gordon Johnson and Anil Seal (eds.),
Power, Profit and Politics: Essays on Imperialism, Nationalism and Change
in Twentieth Century Politics (Cambridge 1981). Among other essays it included
a joint article by Ayesha Jalal and Anil Seal entitled ‘Alternative to Partition: Muslim
Politics between the Wars’, which stimulated rethinking about partition, and later
led to a path breaking book by Ayesha Jalal entitled The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah,
the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan ( Cambridge, 1985), wherein
she showed that a confederation with Muslim consent had been a very real possibility
and an alternative to Partition. But Power, Profit and Politics was the last collective
statement of the Cambridge School. After that the group ceased to exist and the
individual authors went their individual ways. Under Anil Seal’s supervision, Ayesha
Jalal wrote The Sole Spokesman, and Joya Chatterji wrote Bengal Divided; Hindu
Communalism and Partition 1932-47 (Cambridge, 1994), but these were
individuals works and not part of a collective.
Another collective, Subaltern Studies, claimed public attention in 1982. It was
critical of the Cambridge School, but in some respects there was a similarity. The
Subalternists, too, denied the importance of class division in politics, and they gave
primacy to power relations rather than class relations. From the angle of power,
they set apart the elite from the subalterns, and accused the nationalist elite of
collaboration with imperialism. They, too, went back to the locality in their search
for the roots of subaltern politics. There was an echo of Cambridge here. All in
all, the Cambridge School left a visible trail in Indian historiography.

18.8 EVALUATION
Historians in India, Marxist, liberal and subalternist, sharply criticised the Cambridge
School’s sceptical views. They accused the Cambridge historians of ‘Namierism’,
recalling that the Oxford historian Lewis Namier, too, had reduced Parliamentary 211
Indian Historiography politics in Englnd to pure self interest and power play. The various critical reviews
in journals included a trenchant attack by Tapan Raychaudhuri in the Historical
Journal, Vol. XXII, 1979, entitled ‘Indian Nationalism as Animal Politics’. Summing
up the criticism in The Oxford History of the British Empire, Historiography
later on, Raychaudhuri conceded that it would not be quite fair to dismiss the
Cambridge School as a sophisticated restatement of the old colonial view which
saw Indian nationalism as nothing but a masquerade concealing a cynical quest for
material gain. Since British rule in India undoubtedly rested on the collaboration
of some and the indifference of many, the exploration of this side of Indian politics
by the Cambridge School ‘has certainly enriched understanding by the entire process.’
Raychaudhuri, however, is still critical of the view that genuine opposition to imperialism
was ‘no more than collaboration by other means’ or that nationalism was ‘a mere
make-believe in the Indian case.’ In his view, the Cambridge interpretation takes
no account of a pervasive feeling of humiliation, and the need for cultural self-assertion.
Looking back, it is possible to see that the Cambridge School provided historians
of India with two useful insights, which they could not afford to ignore even if they
were opposed to the over-all tone of the interpretation. In the first place, much
politics was, and still is, by its nature local, and there, patron-client linkages cutting
across caste, class and community were and still are an everyday truth. Secondly,
in a diverse subcontinent where life was lived in so many localities, the tightening
administrative-constitutional structure of the Raj did undoubtedly create a political
space for central and national concerns which allowed the nationalist movement,
psychical and ideological in its origin, to gain momentum. Needless to say, nationalism
cannot exist without a national arena of politics, and one consequence of British
imperialism in India was the creation of an all-India level in politics over and above
the local and regional levels. Acute and sophisticated as the Cambridge interpretation
of Indian nationalism is, it still, however, lacks the analytical framework for capturing
the fleeting psychical dimension of community and nation.

18.9 SUMMARY
The Cambridge School of Historians believed that the Indian society during the
colonial era was basically marked by horizontal and vertical divisions and that the
Indian politics was characterised by factional rivalries among the local and regional
bosses. Thus the fundamental contradiction under the colonial rule was not between
imperialism and the Indian people, but between the Indians themselves. Moreover,
according to these historians, the Indian nationalism was not the product of the
struggle of the Indian people against colonial exploitation, but between the Indians
for getting the benefits given to them by the British rulers. The leaders of the national
movement were not inspired by great ideals but were after power and material
benefits. Many historians have criticised this school of historiography on the grounds
that it takes mind out of human behaviour and reduces nationalism to ‘animal politics’.

18.10 EXERCISES
1) What do you understand by the ‘Cambridge School’? Which historians are
generally associated with it?
2) How did the Cambridge School emerge? Discuss the basic constituents of its
interpretation of Indian history.
212
 History from Below
UNIT 19 HISTORY FROM BELOW*
Structure
19.1 Introduction
19.2 Beginning and Growth
19.3 Main Trends
19.4 Problems of Writing History from Below
19.5 Indian Context
19.5.1 History of Peasant Movements
19.5.2 History of Working-class Movements
19.5.3 History of Tribal Movements
19.6 Summary
19.7 Exercises

19.1 INTRODUCTION
History from Below began as a reaction against the traditional histories which
concerned themselves almost exclusively with the political, social and religious elites.
It has been variously termed as ‘grassroots history, history seen from below or
the history of the common people’, ‘people’s history’, and even, ‘history of everyday
life’. The conventional history about the great deeds of the ruling classes received
further boost from the great tradition of political and administrative historiography
developed by Ranke and his followers. In opposition to this ‘History from Above’,
the History from Below was an attempt to write the history of the common people.
It is a history concerned with the activities and thoughts of those people and regions
that were neglected by the earlier historians. Peasants and working classes, women
and minority groups, unknown ‘faces in the crowd’, and the people lost in the past
became the central concern of this historiographical tradition. History from Below
is an attempt to make history-writing broad-based, to look into the lives of the
marginalised groups and individuals, and to explore new sources and to reinterpret
the old ones.

19.2 BEGINNING AND GROWTH

The beginning of the History from Below may be traced to the late 18th century.
In the classical western tradition, history-writing involved the narration of the deeds
of great men. The common people were considered to be beyond the boundaries
of history and it was beneath the dignity of the historian to write about them. In
any case, as Peter Burke points out, ‘until the middle of the eighteenth century,
the word “society” in its modern sense did not exist in any European language,
and without the word it is very difficult to have any conception of that network of
relationships we call “society” or “the social structure”’.
According to Eric Hobsbawm, such an approach to history became possible ‘only
from the moment when the ordinary people become a constant factor in the making

*
Resource Person: Prof. S.B. Upadhyay 213
Indian Historiography of such decisions and events. Not only at times of exceptional popular mobilization,
such as revolutions, but at all or most times. By and large this did not happen until
the era of the great revolutions at the end of the eighteenth century.’ In particular,
he traces the origin of this trend in the French Revolution which provided the impetus
and opportunity for writing such history by drawing the common people in the public
sphere and by creating documents related to their actions.
‘One of the reasons why so much modern grassroots history emerged from
the study of the French Revolution is that this great event in history combines
two characteristics which rarely occur together before that date. In the first
place, being a major revolution, it suddenly brought into activity and public
notice enormous numbers of the sort of people who previously attracted very
little attention outside their family and neighbours. And in the second place, it
documented them by means of a vast and laborious bureaucracy, classifying
and filing them for the benefit of the historian in the national and departmental
archives of France.’
The process basically started with the ‘discovery of people’ by the Romantics in
late-18th century Europe. They used the popular cultural resources like ballads,
folk songs and stories, myths and legends to reconstruct the past. Their emphasis
on passion as against reason, on imagination as against mechanical science formed
the basis for recovering the popular history. In Germany J.G. Herder coined the
term ‘popular culture’. The two early-19th century histories which used the word
‘people’ in their titles were the History of the Swedish People by E.G. Geijer
and the History of the Czech People by Palacky. In Germany, Zimmermann wrote
about the German peasant war. In Framce, it was Jules Michelet (1798-1874)
who, in his voluminous writing on French Revolution, brought common people into
the orbit of history-writing. His History of France (1833-67), History of the French
Revolution (1846-53) and The People (1846) are notable for taking the masses
into account. In England, the History from Below may be traced to the writings of
J.R.Green, Goldwin Smith and Thorold Rogers in the 1860s and 1870s. Green,
in the Preface to his book Short History of the English People (1877) criticised
the tendency to write the ‘drum and trumpet’ history, i.e., the history of wars and
conquests. He wrote :
‘The aim of the following work is defined by its title; it is a history not of English
kings or English conquests, but of the English People …. I have preferred to
pass lightly and briefly over the details of foreign wars and diplomacies, the
personal adventures of kings and nobles, the pomp of courts, or the intrigues
of favourites….’
Similarly, Thorold Rogers’s huge, seven-volume study, History of Agriculture and
Prices (1864-1902), was a major work on the social and economic history.
In the 20th century, the historian whose works inspired the left tradition of History
from Below was Georges Lefebvre. He empirically grounded the study of peasantry
in the context of the French Revolution. In his The Peasants of Northern France
during the French Revolution (1924), he made a detailed statistical examination
of the peasant life on the eve of the Revolution. He differentiated between various
groups of peasants and outlined their differential responses to the Revolution. He
further sought to comprehend the motives behind their actions. It was, however, his
214 other book, The Great Fear of 1789 (1932), which comprehensively described
the peasant mentality during the Revolution. It is considered among the first texts of History from Below
the new history from below which is basically concerned about delineating the thoughts
and actions of the common people. Eric Hobsbawm, writing in 1985, feels that ‘If
there is a single historian who anticipates most of the themes of contemporary work,
it is Georges Lefebvre, whose Great Fear … is still remarkably up to date.’ Thus it
may be said that the History from Below, as we know it today, began with Lefebvre.
Building on his work, his pupil and friend, George Rude, advanced this tradition
which had moved away for the ‘uncritically sentimental tradition’ of Michelet and
the Romantics. Rude was basically concerned with the study of ‘the lives and actions
of the common people… the very stuff of history’. In his many books, including
The Crowd in the French Revolution (1959), The Crowd in History (1964),
and Ideology and Popular Protest (1980), Rude discussed the participation of
ordinary people in the epoch-making event. He was not interested in the actions
and behaviour of the dominant classes. Rather, in the words of Frederick Krantz,
‘He sought … to understand the crowd action of craftsmen, small shopkeepers,
journeymen, labourers and peasants not as “disembodied abstraction and
personification of good and evil”, but as meaningful historical activity susceptible,
through meticulous and innovative research, to concrete re-creation’. The questions
he asked about the masses set the precedent for the later work on grassroots history:
‘how it behaved, how it was composed, how it was drawn into its activities, what
it set out to achieve and how far its aims were realized.’ He sought to understand
the crowd as a ‘thing of flesh and blood’ having its own ‘distinct identity, interests,
and aspirations’.
In Britain, during the 1920s and 1930s, there were many popular history books
published by the leftist Book Club. In the 1940s, the Communist Party Historians’
Group carried forward this tradition. Many of the figures identified with History
from Below, such as George Rude, E.P.Thompson, Eric Hobsbawm, Christopher
Hill, and John Saville were members of this group. This group was instrumental in
bringing out the famous journal Past and Present in 1952 and later on the Labour
History Review. Later on this tradition was carried forward by the History Workshop
Journal, founded in 1976, which remained devoted to publishing people’s history.
E.P. Thompson, in his essay ‘History from Below’, published in 1966, first provided
the theoretical basis to this tradition of history-writing. After that, according to Jim
Sharpe, ‘the concept of history from below entered the common parlance of
historians’. Thompson had already written his classic book, The Making of the
English Working Class (1963), in which he had explored the perspective of the
working classes in the context of the Industrial Revolution in England. In a famous
statement he stressed that his aim was to understand the views and actions of those
people who had been termed as backward-looking and had, therefore, been relegated
to the margins of history. He wrote :
‘I am seeking to rescue the poor stockinger, the Luddite cropper, the ‘obsolete’
hand-loom weaver, the ‘utopian’ artisan, and even the deluded follower of Joanna
Southcott, from the enormous condescension of posterity. Their crafts and
traditions may have been backward-looking. Their communitarian ideals may
have been fantasies. Their insurrectionary conspiracies may have been foolhardy.
But they lived through these times of acute social disturbance, and we did not.
Their aspirations were valid in terms of their own experience; and if they were
casualties of history, they remain, condemned in their own lives, as casualties.’ 215
Indian Historiography In one of his famous essays, ‘The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the
Eighteenth Century’ (1971), Thompson studied the crowd behaviour involved in
food riots. According to him, the food riots were ‘a highly complex form of direct
popular action’ where the people involved had rational and clear objectives.
Similarly, Cristopher Hill and Eric Hobsbawm sought to emphasise the importance
of the thoughts and actions of the lower classes in the making of history. Hill studied
the radical and democratic ideologies in the course of the 17 th-century English
Revolution. In his book, The World Turned Upside Down (1972), Hill argued
that the radical movements of the ordinary people, such as the Levellers, the Diggers,
the Ranters, had great revolutionary potential and was capable of subverting the
‘existing society and its values’. It is a history written from the point of view of the
radical religious groups involving ordinary people. Similarly, Hobsbawm wrote
extensively on the thoughts and actions of the modern workers and pre-industrial
peasants in books like Labouring Men (1964), Worlds of Labour (1984), Primitive
Rebels ( 1959) and Bandits (1969). John Foster’s Class Struggle and Industrial
Revolution (1974) and Raphael Samuel’s Theatres of Memory (1994) carries
forward this tradition. In the USA, the works on the slaves by Eugene Genovese
and Herbert Gutman belong to the same tradition.
Although the Marxist historians have mostly influenced the writing of History from
Below in the 20th century, there are others also whose writings can be said to
constitute this trend. Prominent among them are some of the historians of the Annales
School. Both the founders of the Annales, Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre, had
interests in popular mentalities. Bloch’s classic book, The Royal Touch (1924),
shows his interest in collective psychology and in people’s mentalities, ideas and
beliefs. Bloch explores the popular belief in the healing powers of the French and
the English kings and their capacity to cure the skin disease scrofula just by touching
the patient. This belief became a fundamental element in construction of royalty
and maintenance of its strength. Similarly Febvre’s Martin Luther (1928) and The
Problems of Unbelief in the 16 th Century (1942) were studies of mentalities.
These works stimulated the later generations of historians to explore the history of
mentalities.
It was, however, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie’s Montaillou : Cathars and Catholics
in a French Village, 1294-1324 (1975) that became one of the classic texts of
this genre. It is a study of the ideas and beliefs of a medieval Pyrenean peasant
community and offers valuable insights into the lives and activities of common people.
Ladurie used as his basic source material the inquisitorial records of the Catholic
church to explore the thoughts and beliefs of a small community.
Another classic work in the same tradition, though not of the Annales lineage, is
Carlo Ginzburg’s The Cheese and the Worms (1976). Here the author looks into
the intellectual and spiritual world of one individual, an Italian miller named Domenico
Scandella (also known as Menocchio). He was tried by the church authorities for
his heretic beliefs and was executed in 1600. The copious documentation dealing
with his case provided the basic source material to Ginzburg who is aware of the
conceptual and methodological problems involved in recreating the world of
subordinate groups and individuals in the pre-modern period. However, he thinks
that ‘the fact that a source is not “objective” (for that matter, neither is an inventory)
does not mean that it is useless…. In short, even meagre, scattered and obscure
216 documentation can be put to good use.’ Ginzburg’s other works, such as The Night
Battles : Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth History from Below
Centuries (1966) and Ecstasies : Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath (1989),
also strengthened the tradition of History from Below. His works, along with those
of Giovanni Levi, also created a new trend in history-writing known as ‘microhistory’
which we have discussed in detail in Unit 9. Peter Burke’s Popular Culture in
Early Modern Europe (1978), Robert Darton’s The Great Cat Massacre and
Other Episodes in French Cultural History (1984) and Natalie Zemon Davis’s
Society and Culture in Early Modern France (1975) and The Return of Martin
Guerre (1983) are some other works which explore the popular mentalities and
belong to this kind of historiography.

19.3 MAIN TRENDS

According to Raphael Samuel, the ‘term “people’s history” has had a long career,
and covers and ensemble of different writings. Some of them have been informed
by the idea of progress, some by cultural pessimism, some by technological humanism’.
There is a variety in the subject matter also. ‘In some cases the focus is on tools
and technology, on others on social movements, on yet others on family life.’ This
kind of history has also ‘gone under a variety of different names – “industrial history”
in the 1900s .., “natural history” in those comparative ethnologies which arose in
the wake of Darwin… “Kulturgeschichte” (cultural history) in those late-nineteenth-
century studies of folkways to whose themes the “new” social history has recently
been returning’.
It is, however, clear that this version of historiography has been dominated by the
Marxist historians. From Georges Lefebvre in France to Eric Hobsbawm and
E.P. Thompson in England to Eugene Genovese and Herbert Gutman in the United
States, the nature and method of History from Below in the West have been defined
by Marxist social historians. They have first used this term and delineated its features
in relation to the conventional historiography. Thompson, Hobsbawm and Raphael
Samuel have written about its concepts and contents and most of them have practiced
this kind of history-writing. In this version, politics of class struggle has been an
important presence. Whether it is the study of the 18th-century French peasantry
by Lefebvre, or the medieval English peasantry by Christopher Hill, or the working
classes of the 19th and 20th centuries by Thompson, Hobsbawm and John Foster,
the existence of classes and the class struggle is always noticeable. These historians
insist on the agency of the people and their own role in shaping their lives and
history. Some of them, particularly Thompson and Genovese also emphasise on
the lived ‘experiences’ of the people instead of abstract notions of class for
understanding their behaviour.
But the Marxist historians are not the only ones in this field. The historians belonging
to the Annales School such as Marc Bloch, Lucien Febvre and Emmanuel Le Roy
Ladurie have also studied the life and thoughts of the subordinate classes. However,
with them, it goes under the name of ‘history of mentalities’. Closely allied to this
is the new cultural history. Developed in the 1960s by Le Roy Ladurie, Robert
Mandrou and Jacques Le Goff who were part of the later Annales School in France,
this version of historiography had a more populist conception of history and was
critical of the ‘religious psychology’ approach of Febvre. These historians stressed
that the people were not passive recipient of the ideas imposed from above or
outside, but were creators of their own culture. Some other historians, such as 217
Indian Historiography Carlo Ginzburg, Robert Darnton and Natalie Zemon Davis, who are not allied with
the Annales, may also be classified as cultural historians. This kind of cultural history
is the history of popular ideas. It differs from the approach of the Marxist historians
in that it does not stress on classes or economic or political groups. Instead, they
focus on small communities or individuals, on everyday life, on routine work practices,
and on ceremonies and rituals. It is, therefore, a version of History from Below in
which the politics, though not absent, clearly plays a much less important role than
in the Marxist version.
These two trends, one associated with Marxism and the other with the ‘history of
mentalities’ and cultural history, have been the most important versions of History
from Below in the 20th century. However, there are other versions of this kind of
historiography. In the right-wing version of such history there is no place for politics.
It is a history of people in which there is no class struggle, no conflict of ideas and
there is a strong sense of religious and moral values. The institution of family is
idealised and there is a tendency ‘to interpret the social relationships as reciprocal
rather than exploitative’. Raphael Samuel states that the ‘characterstic location of
right-wing people’s history is in the “organic” community of the past…. The ideology
is determinedly anti-modern, with urban life and capitalism as alien intrusions on
the body politic, splintering the age-old solidarities of “traditional” life’. G.M.
Trevelyan’s English Social History (1944) and Peter Laslett’s World We Have
Lost (1965) are examples of this trend.
In the liberal version, the History from Below celebrates the spirit of modernity
and benefits of capitalism and material progress. It is optimistic in tone and is future-
oriented. It is critical of the pre-modern period which it considers synonymous with
superstition and warfare. Guizot, Mignet, Thierry and later Michelet were some of
the historians who represent this trend.

19.4 PROBLEMS OF WRITING HISTORY FROM

BELOW
Both the exponents and critics have pointed towards several problems involved in
the practice of History from Below. The most important problem relates to the
nature and availability of sources. Most of the records left by the past describe
the lives and deeds of the ruling and dominant groups. Even those records which
relate to the lives and activities of ordinary people were created by the dominating
classes or by those who were associated with them. This was done mostly for
administrative purposes. The records about the subordinate groups are more numerous
for the periods when they were resisting or rebelling against the authorities. Before
the late 18th century in Europe access to such sources is restricted. For other parts
of the world, particularly the Third World countries, the availability of such records
is even more difficult. Moreover, as most of these records were created by and
for the members of the dominant groups, they suffer from hyperbole, neglect and
misrepresentation. For example, the police records revealing the subversive activities
among the masses are often exaggerated. Similarly, they completely ignore those
areas in the life of people which were not in administrative interest.
The problem is compounded because the masses have generally not left much records
of their own. Popular culture is generally preserved through the oral medium and
not through written medium. The oral tradition, as Hobsbawm remarks, ‘is a
218
remarkably slippery medium for preserving facts. The point is that memory is not History from Below
so much a recording as a selective mechanism, and the selection is, within limits,
constantly changing’. The paucity of written sources left by the ordinary people is
a great hindrance in writing about their feelings and ideas.
At another level, there are problems related to conceptualisation also. Although
all practitioners of History from Below claim to write about people, the term ‘people’
itself is used with different, sometimes conflicting, meanings. Raphael Samuel states
that ‘In one version of people’s history – radical-democratic or Marxist – the people
are constituted by relations of exploitation, in another (that of the folklorists) by
cultural antinomies, in a third by political rule’. The problem is further complicated
by excluding certain groups from the category of people, while considering some
as more people than others. In one version it is the proletariat which constitute the
real people, in another it is peasantry. Herder, the German Romantic scholar, did
not include the urban masses in the category of ‘people’. For him and his followers,
the ‘people’ were the peasants who lived close to nature and were innocent. The
term sometimes also adopts racist connotations in which people speaking other
languages or following different faiths are not counted among the real people. At
the left radical level, the exclusion takes another form. Peter Burke, while praising
the histories written by British Marxist historians, points out :
‘Edward Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class comes quite
close to excluding working-class Tories from the people. As for The World
Turned Upside Down [by Christopher Hill], it deals alternately with radical
ideas and with the ideas of ordinary people, so that an incautious reader may
very well be led to equate the two. However, in seventeenth-century England,
not all ordinary people were radicals and not all radicals were ordinary people.’
The History from Below has also been criticised for not taking theoretical issues
into account and for romanticising and idealising the people. Its rank and file approach
ignores the fact of institutional influence on industrial relations. Moreover, its neglect
of quantitative analysis and overemphasis on narrative has also been criticised.

19.5 INDIAN CONTEXT

The main problem in writing the History from Below in India, apart from the
conceptual problems discussed above, is the absence of relevant sources. The records
pertaining to the lower classes were almost exclusively produced by those not
belonging to that stratum of society. The relevant sources are a big problem even
in advanced countries where the working-class literacy was much higher. Even there
the sources related to the peasants and other pre-industrial groups come to us through
those in authority. In India, most of the members of the subordinate classes, including
the industrial working classes, are not literate. Therefore, direct sources coming
from them are extremely rare, if not completely absent. Given this scenario, the
historians trying to write history from below have to rely on indirect sources. As
Sabyasachi Bhattacharya points out, ‘Given the low level of literacy we have to
depend on inferences from behaviour pattern, reports on opinions and sentiments
(often involving a distorting refraction in the medium), on oral testimonies (best when
exactly recorded as in trial proceedings) etc.’ Oral traditions also have their problems.
They cannot be stretched back too far and one has to work within living memory.
These problems are outlined by one of the great practitioners of History from Below, 219
Indian Historiography Ranajit Guha, the founder of the Subaltern Studies about which we will read
more in the next Unit. Guha, in his book, Elementary Aspects of Peasant
Insurgency in Colonial India (1983), talks about the elitist origins of most of
the evidences which the historians use for understanding the mentalities behind
the peasant rebellions :
‘Most, though not all, of this evidence is elitist in origin. This has come down
to us in the form of official records of one kind or another – police reports,
army despatches, administrative accounts, minutes and resolutions of
governmental departments, and so on. Non-official sources of our information
on the subject, such as newspapers or the private correspondence between
persons of authority, too, speak in the same elitist voice, even if it is that of
the indigenous elite or of non-Indians outside officialdom.’
To overcome these elitist biases, it is often supposed, folk traditions may be used.
But, according to Guha, ‘there is not enough to serve for this purpose either in
quantity or quality in spite of populist beliefs to the contrary’. Firstly, there are not
much of such evidences available. Moreover, ‘An equally disappointing aspect of
the folklore relating to peasant militancy is that it can be elitist too.’ Guha’s suggestion
for capturing the insurgent’s consciousness is to read between the lines, ‘to read
the presence of a rebel consciousness as a necessary and pervasive element within
that body of evidence’.
However, Sumit Sarkar finds a much deeper problem which may be the cause
of this non-availability of evidences. It is the continued subalternity of the lower
classes :
‘Above all, “history from below” has to face the problem of the ultimate relative
failure of mass initiative in colonial India, if the justly abandoned stereotype
of the eternally passive Indian peasant is not to be replaced by an opposite
romantic stereotype of perennial rural rebelliousness. For an essential fact surely
is that the “subaltern” classes have remained subaltern, often surprisingly dormant
despite abject misery and ample provocation, and subordinate in the end to
their social “betters” even when they do become politically active.’
It is with these constraints that the historians have worked on Indian people’s histories.

19.5.1 History of Peasant Movements

A general history of peasant movements by Barrington Moore Jr., Social Origins
of Dictatorship and Democracy (1967), puts the Indian peasant movements in a
comparative perspective. In Moore’s account, the Indian peasantry lacked
revolutionary potential and were comparatively docile and passive in the face of
poverty and oppression. Thus peasant rebellions in India were ‘relatively rare and
completely ineffective and where modernization impoverished the peasants as least
as much as in China and over as long a period of time’. This view of the Indian
peasant was challenged by many historians. Kathleen Gough, in her article on ‘Indian
Peasant Uprising’ (1974), counted 77 peasant revolts during the colonial period.
Her conclusion is that ‘the smallest of which probably engaged several thousand
peasants in active support or combat’. And the largest of these ‘is the “Indian Mutiny”
of 1857-58, in which vast bodies of peasants fought or otherwise worked to destroy
British rule over an area of more than 500,000 square miles’. Ranajit Guha, in his
220 book, states that ‘there are no fewer than 110 known instances of these even for
the somewhat shorter period of 117 years – from the Rangpur dhing to the Birsaite History from Below
ulgulan’. A.R. Desai is also against this view of the docility of the Indian peasantry
and asserts that ‘the Indian rural scene during the entire British period and thereafter
has been bristling with protests, revolts and even large scale militant struggles involving
hundreds of villages and lasting for years’. It is, therefore, clear that, at least during
the British period, the quiescence of the Indian peasantry is a myth and a large
number of works explode this myth.
There are many studies undertaken on Indian peasant movements. Apart from
Kathleen Gough’s work, A.R.Desai’s (ed.) Peasant Struggles in India (1979)
and Agrarian Struggles in India after Independence (1986), Sunil Sen’s Peasant
Movements in India – Mid-Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (1982), Ranajit
Guha’s Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India (1983),
Eric Stokes’s The Peasants and the Raj : Studies in Agrarian Society and Peasant
Rebellion in Colonial India (1978), and D.N.Dhanagare’s Peasant Movements
in India, 1920-1950 (1983) are some of the all-India studies.
On Bengal, Suprakash Roy’s pioneering work in Bengali published in 1966, and
translated into English as Peasant Revolts and Democratic Struggles in India
(1999), looks at these revolts basically in terms of class struggles of peasants against
the imperialist and landlords’ exploitation and oppression. He also linked these
rebellions to the fight for a democratic polity in India. Muinuddin Ahmed Khan’s
History of the Faraidi Movement in Bengal (1965) sought to interpret this peasant
movement basically as a religious movement against the non-Muslim gentry. However,
Narhari Kabiraj, in his A Peasant Uprising in Bengal (1972) and Wahabi and
Farazi Rebels of Bengal (1982) refuted this thesis and emphasised on economic
factors as the cause of the rebellion. His conclusion was that during this movement
the ‘agrarian aspect took precedence over the communal one’. Blair King’s study
of the indigo rebellion in Bengal (The Blue Mutiny : The Indigo Disturbances in
Bengal 1859-1962 (1966)) also reaches the conclusion that it was a secular
movement which combined all sections on Indian society. However, Ranajit Guha
views the Indigo rebellion differently and argues that there were contradictions between
various sections of the peasantry.
Some of the other important regional studies on peasant movements are : Girish
Mishra’s study on Champaran movement, Agrarian Problems of Permanent
Settlement : A Case Study of Champaran (1979), and Stephen Henningham’s
Peasant Movements in Colonial India, North Bihar, 1917-1942 (1982); Majid
H. Siddiqi’s Agrarian Unrest in North India : The United Provinces, 1918-32
(1978), and Kapil Kumar’s Peasants in Revolt : Tenants, Lanlords, Congress
and the Raj in Oudh (1984) on U.P.; works by Stephen Dale, Robert Hardgrave,
Sukhbir Chaudhary and Conrad Wood on the Moplah rebellion in Malabar, Kerala.
Apart from these there are also several works on peasant movements in other parts
of India.

19.5.2 History of Working-class Movements

Until about twenty-five years ago, the history of Indian labour was almost synonymous
with the history of trade unions. Writing in 1982, Sabyasachi Bhattacharya commented
that ‘Till now in our labour history the Trade Union movement has been the subject
of the largest number of published work’. Besides this, the focus was on the worker
as an economic being, which did not take into account his/her social and cultural 221
Indian Historiography existence. Since the 1980s, however, this situation began to change. Several studies
have appeared which view the working class history from a broader perspective.
For one thing, the trade unions are no longer considered as synonymous with the
working class. It is true that the trade unions represent a highly organised form of
working class activities. However, trade unions are only one of the forms in which
the workers organise themselves. Working class movement, on the other hand, is
a much broader phenomenon and covers various mobilisations of all kinds of workers.
Secondly, the recent studies have pointed out that economic motivation is not the
sole determinant of working class action. The making of the working class and its
movement derives from various sources in which the cultural, the social and the
political are as important as the economic. Thirdly, it is indicated that the industrial
workers, whom the trade union studies take as their basic staple, form a rather
small part the entire working class which includes within its ambit the rural workers,
urban workers in informal sectors, and service sector workers. Moreover, gender
questions are also coming to the fore for an understanding of the attitude and behaviour
of the workers, the employers, the public activists and government officials.
The studies which take into account these aspects of the changing scenario include
E.D. Murphy’s ‘Class and Community in India : The Madras Labour Union, 1918-
21’ (IESHR, IV, 3, 1977) and Unions in Conflict : A Comparative Study of
Four South Indian Textile Centres, 1918-1939 (1981), R.K. Newman’s Wokers
and Unions in Bombay, 1918-29 : A Study of Organization in the Cotton Mills
(1981), S. Bhattacharya’s ‘Capital and Labour in Bombay City, 1928-29’ (EPW,
XVI, 1981), Dipesh Chakrabarty’s Rethinking Working-Class History : Bengal,
1890-1940 (1989), Rajnarayan Chandavarkar’s The Origins of Industrial
Capitalism in India : Business Strategies and Working Classes in Bombay, 1900-
40 (1994), Janaki Nair’s Miners and Millhands : Work, Culture and Politics
in Princely Mysore (1998), Samita Sen, Women and Labour in Late Colonial
India : The Bengal Jute Industry (1999), and Nandini Gooptu’s The Politics of
the Urban Poor in the early Twentieth-Century India (2001).

19.5.3 History of Tribal Movements

Several scholars treat tribal movements as part of the peasant movements. It is
because over the years the tribal society and economy have started resembling
those of the peasants and the agrarian problems of the tribals are same as those
of the peasants. Kathleen Gough, A.R. Desai and Ranajit Guha have dealt with
the tribal movements as such. Moreover, many scholars like Ghanshyam Shah, Ashok
Upadhyay and Jaganath Pathy have shown the changes in the tribal society and
economy which have pushed them in the direction of the non-tribal peasants. However,
K.S. Singh, one of the authorities in the field, is of the opinion that such an approach
is not justified because it ‘tends to gloss over the diversities of tribal social formations
of which tribal movements are a part, both being structurally related’. Singh puts
more emphasis social organisation of the tribals than on their economic grievances.
He argues that :
‘while the peasant movements tend to remain purely agrarian as peasants lived
off land, the tribal movements were both agrarian and forest based, because
the tribals’ dependence on forests was as crucial as their dependence on land.
There was also the ethnic factor. The tribal revolts were directed against zamindars,
moneylenders and petty government officials not because they exploited them
222 but also because they were aliens.’
In contrast to this view, some scholars have questioned the very category of the History from Below
tribe itself. For example, Susana Devalle, in Discourses of Ethnicity : Culture
and Protest in Jharkhand (1992), argues that the category ‘tribe’ was constructed
by the European scholars in India and the colonial officials in their effort to understand
the Indian reality. Andre Beteille also thinks that there are a lot of similarities between
the tribals and the peasants and, therefore, it would be a mistake to consider them
as two distinct structural types.
However, the fact remains that a large part of the tribal societies, particularly until
the 20th century, possessed several specific features which put them apart from
the mainstream peasant societies. For one, social and economic differentiation within
the tribal society was much less than among the peasantry. Secondly, the great
dependence of the tribes on the forests also separates them from the peasants whose
main source of survival was land. Thirdly, tribal social organisation and the spatial
concentration of the tribes in certain areas kept them relatively isolated. These factors
made them particularly sensitive to the changes brought about by the colonial rule
and imparted more militancy to their rebellion.
The colonial administrators were the first to write about the tribals. This attention
was due to the recurring tribal revolts as a result of colonial intervention. The earliest
writings were an attempt to understand the tribal societies for better administration.
W.W. Hunter’s Annals of Rural Bengal (1868), E.T. Dalton’s Descriptive
Ethnology of Bengal (1872), and H.H. Risley’s Tribes and Castes of Bengal
(1891) were some of these early works which described the tribal society. One
of the earliest works by an Indian is Kali Kinkar Datta’s Santal Insurrection (1940).
According to Datta, the main reason for the rebellion was the oppression and
exploitation by the outsiders. Three of his students also focused on Chotanagpur
region for their initial studies on the tribes. J.C. Jha’s The Kol Insurrection of
Chotanagpur (1964), S.P. Sinha’s Life and Times of Birsa Bhagwan (1964) and
K.S. Singh’s The Dust Storm and the Hanging Mist : A Study of Birsa Munda
and his movement in Chota Nagpur, 1874-1901 (1966) were pioneering efforts
on these themes. The three volumes edited by K.S. Singh on Tribal Movements
of India (1982, 1983 and 1998) are a big contribution to deal with the subject at
the all-India level. John MacDougall’s Land or Religion ? The Sardar and Kherwar
Movements in Bihar, 1858-95 (1985), D.M. Praharaj’s Tribal Movement and
Political History in India : A Case Study from Orissa, 1803-1949 (1988), David
Hardiman’s The Coming of the Devi : Adivasi Assertion in Western India (1987),
David Arnold’s article on Gudem-Rampa uprisings in Andhra Pradesh (in Subaltern
Studies, vol. I, 1982), S.R. Bhattarcharjee’s Tribal Insurgency in Tripura : A
Study in Exploration of Causes (1989) are some of the regional studies.

19.6 SUMMARY
History from Below, as we have discussed in this Unit, is to introduce the perspective
of the common people in the process of history-writing. It is against that concept
of historiography which believes in Disraeli’s dictum that history is the biography
of great men. Instead, the History from Below endeavours to take into account
the lives and activities of masses who are otherwise ignored by the conventional
historians. Moreover, it attempts to take their point of view into account as far as
possible. It this venture, the historians face a lot of problems because the sources
are biased in favour of the rulers, administrators and the dominant classes in general. 223
Indian Historiography In countries like India, this problem becomes even more acute due to low level of
literacy among the masses. Despite these constraints, however, the social historians
have tried their best to bring the people from the margins to the centre.

19.7 EXERCISES
1) What is History from Below? Discuss its beginning and growth.
2) Write a note on the History from Below in the context of history-writing on
India.
3) Discuss the important trends in the writings of People’s history.
4) What are the main problems associated with writing History from Below?

224
 Subaltern Studies
UNIT 20 SUBALTERN STUDIES*
Structure
20.1 Introduction
20.2 Beginning of the Idea
20.3 Development of the Project
20.3.1 First Phase : Elite vs. Subaltern
20.3.2 Second Phase : Discourse Analysis
20.4 Critique
20.5 Rejoinder
20.6 Summary
20.7 Exercises

20.1 INTRODUCTION
The Subaltern Studies is the title given to a series of volumes initially published
under the editorship of Ranajit Guha, the prime mover and the ideologue of the
project. He edited the first six volumes of the Subaltern Studies. The next five volumes
are edited by other scholars associated with the project. Right from the beginning
the Subaltern Studies took the position that the entire tradition of Indian historiography
before it have had elitist bias. The historians associated with the Subaltern Studies
declared that they would set the position right by writing the history from the point
of view of the common people. In this Unit we will discuss the various positions
taken by the writers associated with the Subaltern Studies as well as the criticism
of the project by historians and others working in the area of Indian studies.

20.2 BEGINNING OF THE IDEA

The Subaltern Studies was proclaimed by its adherents as a new school in the
field of Indian history-writing. Some of the historians associated with it declared it
to be a sharp break in the tradition of Indian historiography. A group of writers
dissatisfied with the convention of Indian history-writing became part of the collective
and contributed for the volumes. It, however, also involved historians and other
social scientists not formally associated with the subaltern collective. Besides the
articles published in the volumes of Subaltern Studies, these writers also wrote
for many other journals and edited volumes as well as published monographs which
are today associated with subaltern themes and methodology. Starting the venture
with the help of those whom Ranajit Guha termed as ‘marginalised academics’,
the Subaltern Studies soon acquired vast reputation both inside and outside India
for the views they professed as well as for intensive research on subaltern themes.
Initially planned as a series of three volumes, it has now become an ongoing project
with eleven volumes in print till date. Apart from these volumes, Ranajit Guha has
also edited one volume of essays taken from the various earlier volumes for the
international audiences. In some of the recent volumes the Subaltern Studies has
included themes from non-Indian Third World countries also.

*
Resource Person: Prof. S.B. Upadhyay 225
Indian Historiography The term ‘subaltern’ has a rather long history. It was initially applied to the serfs
and peasants in England during the Middle Ages. Later, by 1700, it was used for
the subordinate ranks in the military. It, however, gained wide currency in scholarly
circles after the works of Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), an Italian Marxist and
Communist Party leader. Gramsci generally used the term in a broader connotation
of ‘class’ to avoid the censorship of the prison authorities as he was in jail and his
writings were scanned. Gramsci had adopted the term to refer to the subordinate
groups in the society. In his opinion, the history of the subaltern groups is almost
always related to that of the ruling groups. In addition, this history is generally
‘fragmentary and episodic’.
Ranajit Guha, however, in the Preface to Subaltern Studies I, did not mention
Gramsci’s use of the term, even though he referred to Gramsci as an inspiration.
Instead, he defined it as given in the Concise Oxford Dictionary:
‘The word “subaltern” in the title stands for the meaning as given in the Concise
Oxford Dictionary, that is, “of inferior rank”. It will be used in these pages
as a name for the general attribute of subordination in South Asian society whether
this is expressed in terms of class, caste, age, gender and office or in any other
way.’
A little later, at the end of his opening essay in the volume, he further clarified this
term:
‘The terms “people” and “subaltern classes” have been used synonymously
throughout this note. The social groups and elements included in this category
represent the demographic difference between the total Indian population and
all those whom we have described as the “elite”.’
The Subaltern historians made a radical departure in the use of the term from
that of Gramsci. Even while accepting the subordinated nature of the subaltern
groups, they argued the their history was autonomous from that of the dominant
classes.

20.3 DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROJECT

Now there is a general and clear acknowledgement of basically two phases in the
career of the Subaltern Studies. Phase I consists of :
a) concern with the subaltern, i.e., lower, exploited classes;
b) criticism of the elite, i.e., exploiting classes; and
c) influence of Gramscian thought and Marxist social history and an attempt to
work within broader Marxist theory.
In the second phase, there is a clear shift from these concerns. Now :
a) there is an increasing engagement with textual analysis, a shift away from exploring
the history of the exploited people, and more engagement, even though critical,
with elite discourses; and
b) Marx and Gramsci are jettisoned in favour of Michel Foucault, Edward Said,
226 and other postmodernists and postcolonialists.
20.3.1 First Phase : Elite vs. Subaltern Subaltern Studies

The Subaltern Studies asserted itself as a radically new form of history-writing in

the context of Indian history. It was initially conceived as a series of three volumes
to be edited by its eldest protagonist and the prime mover of the idea, Ranajit
Guha. The idea was seemingly informed by Gramscian thought. A deliberate attempt
was made to break from both the economic determinism of a variety of Marxist
theory as well as the elitism of bourgeois-nationalist and colonialist interpretations.
A group of writers similarly dissatisfied with the convention of Indian historiography
joined the collective and contributed essays for the volumes. It, however, also involved
historians and other social scientists not formally associated with the subaltern
collective.
Although basically concerned about India, the Subaltern Studies project was first
conceived in England by some Indian academics, Ranajit Guha being the principal
motive force behind it. Right from the beginning it was set against almost all existing
traditions of Indian historiography. In what can be called as the manifesto of the
project, Ranajit Guha, in a vein reminiscent of the opening line of The Communist
Manifesto (‘The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggle’),
declared in the very first volume of the Subaltern Studies, that ‘The historiography
of Indian nationalism has for a long time been dominated by elitism – colonialist
elitism and bourgeois-nationalist elitism.’ Both types of historiography was said to
derive from the ideological discourse of the British rule in India. Despite their
differences, both shared certain things in common and the most important of these
was the absence of the politics of the people from their accounts. In his view, there
was now an urgent requirement for setting the record straight by viewing the history
from the point-of-view of the subaltern classes. This standpoint as well as the politics
of the people was crucial because it constituted an autonomous domain which ‘neither
originated from elite politics nor did its existence depend on the latter’. The people’s
politics differed from the elite politics in several crucial aspects. For one, its roots
lay in the traditional organisations of the people such as caste and kinship networks,
tribal solidarity, territoriality, etc. Secondly, while elite mobilisations were vertical
in nature, people’s mobilisations were horizontal. Thirdly, whereas the elite mobilisation
was legalistic and pacific, the subaltern mobilisation was relatively violent. Fourthly,
the elite mobilisation was more cautious and controlled while the subaltern mobilisation
was more spontaneous.
The Subaltern Studies soon became the new ‘history from below’ which did not
try to fuse the people’s history with official nationalism. It, therefore, attracted the
attention of the scholars who had become disenchanted with the nationalistic claims
as embodied in the post-colonial state. Largely influenced by Gramsci in its initial
phase in trying to discover the radical consciousness of the dominated groups, it
was pitted against the three main trends in Indian historiography – colonialist, which
saw the colonial rule as the fulfillment of a mission to enlighten the ignorant people;
nationalist, which visualised all the protest activities as parts of the making of the
nation-state; and Marxist, which subsumed the people’s struggles under the progression
towards revolution and a socialist state.
The aim of the project was manifold :
a) To show the bourgeois and elite character of Congress nationalism which was
said to restrain popular radicalism; 227
Indian Historiography b) To counter the attempts by many historians to incorporate the people’s struggles
in the grand narrative of Indian / Congress nationalism; and
c) To reconstruct the subaltern consciousness and stress its autonomy. Considering
the non-availability of evidences from subaltern sources, it was a difficult task.
To overcome this, the subaltern historians endeavoured to extract their material
from the official sources by reading them ‘against the grain’.
Subaltern Studies was conceived in an atmosphere where Gramsci’s ideas were
making significant impact. Eric Hobsbawm, Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall were
incorporating Gramsci’s ideas into their works. Perry Anderson and Tom Nairn,
on the other hand, were developing a favourable critique of Gramsci. Other influences
were that of the new social history, written by Western Marxist historians such as
Henri Lefebvre, Christopher Hill, E.P.Thompson, Eugene Genovese and others,
who emphasised the necessity for considering people’s point of view. Thus the
objective of the Subaltern Studies was proclaimed to ‘promote a systematic and
informed discussion of subaltern themes in the field of South Asian studies and thus
help to rectify the elitist bias characteristic of much research and academic work
in this particular area’. (Ranajit Guha, ‘Preface’ to Subaltern Studies I.) Guha, in
the Preface to vol. III, stated that what brought the subaltern historians together
was ‘a critical idiom common to them all – an idiom self-consciously and
systematically critical of elitism in the field of South Asian studies’. He further
asserted that it was in the opposition to this elitism that the unity of the subaltern
project lay:
‘We are indeed opposed to much of the prevailing academic practice in
historiography and the social sciences for its failure to acknowledge the subaltern
as the maker of his own destiny. This critique lies at the very heart of our project.
There is no way in which it can express itself other than as an adversary of
that elitist paradigm which is so well entrenched in South Asian studies. Negativity
is therefore the very raison d’etre as well as the constitutive principle of our
project.’
On the political side, the international and national scenes of the late 1960s and
early 1970s had become radicalised and questions were being raised on the
established and conventional ideas. The conventional political parties, from the Right
to the Left, came for criticism and much emphasis was placed on the non-conventional
political formations and activities.
The Subaltern historians, disenchanted with the Congress nationalism and its
embodiment in the Indian state, rejected the thesis that popular mobilisation was
the result of either economic conditions or initiatives from the top. They claimed
to have discovered a popular domain which was autonomous. Its autonomy was
rooted in conditions of exploitation and its politics was opposed to the elites.
This domain of the subaltern was defined by perpetual resistance and rebellion
against the elite. The subaltern historians also attributed a general unity to this
domain clubbing together a variety of heterogeneous groups such as tribals,
peasants, proletariat and, occasionally, the middle classes as well. Moreover, this
domain was said to be almost completely uninfluenced by the elite politics and
to posses an independent, self-generating dynamics. The charismatic leadership
was no longer viewed as the chief force behind a movement. It was instead the
228
people’s interpretation of such charisma which acquired prominence in analysis Subaltern Studies
of a movement or rebellion.
Shahid Amin’s study of the popular perception of Mahatma Gandhi is a revealing
example. In his article, ‘Gandhi as Mahatma’, deriving evidences from Gorakhpur
district in eastern UP, he shows that the popular perception and actions were
completely at variance with the Congress leaders’ perception of Mahatma. Although
the mechanism of spread of the Mahatma’s message was ‘rumours’, there was an
entire philosophy of economy and politics behind it – the need to become a good
human being, to give up drinking, gambling and violence, to take up spinning and
to maintain communal harmony. The stories which circulated also emphasised the
magical powers of Mahatma and his capacity to reward or punish those who obeyed
or disobeyed him. On the other hand, the Mahatma’s name and his supposed magical
powers were also used to reinforce as well as establish caste hierarchies, to make
the debtors pay and to boost the cow-protection movement. All these popular
interpretations of the Mahatma’s messages reached their climax during the Chauri
Chaura incidents in 1922 when his name was invoked to burn the police post, to
kill the policemen and to loot the market.
Earlier historians were criticised not only for ignoring the popular initiative but, equally
seriously, accepting the official characterisation of the rebel and the rebellion. Ranajit
Guha, in his article ‘The Prose of Counter-Insurgency’, launched a scathing attack
on the existing peasant and tribal histories in India for considering the peasant rebellions
as ‘purely spontaneous and unpremediated affairs’ and for ignoring consciousness
of the rebels themselves. In his opinion:
‘Historiography has been content to deal with the peasant rebel merely as an
empirical person or member of a class, but not as an entity whose will and
reason constituted the praxis called rebellion. The omission is indeed dyed into
most narratives by metaphors assimilating peasant revolts to natural phenomena:
they break out like thunder storms, heave like earthquakes, spread like wildfires,
infect like epidemics.’
He accused all the accounts of rebellions, starting with the immediate official reports
to the histories written by the left radicals, of writing the texts of counter-insurgency
which refused ‘to acknowledge the insurgent as the subject of his own history’.
Gyan Pandey, in ‘Peasant Revolt and Indian Nationalism, 1919-1922’, argued that
peasant movement in Awadh arose before and independently of the Non-cooperation
movement and the peasants’ understanding of the local power structure and its alliance
with colonial power was more advanced than that of the urban leaders, including
the Congress. Moreover, the peasant militancy was reduced wherever the Congress
organisation was stronger.
In Stephen Henningham’s account of the ‘Quit India in Bihar and the Eastern United
Provinces’, the elite and the subaltern domains were clearly defined and distinct from
each other. Thus, ‘the great revolt of 1942 consisted of an elite nationalist uprising
combined with a subaltern rebellion’. Their motives and demands were also different :
‘Those engaged in the elite nationalist uprising sought to protest against government
repression of Congress and to demand the granting of independence to India.
In contrast, those involved in the subaltern rebellion acted in pursuit of relief
from privation and in protest against the misery in which they found themselves.’ 229
Indian Historiography He further contends that it was this dual character of the revolt which led to its
suppression.
David Hardiman, in his numerous articles, focused on subaltern themes and argued
that whether it was the tribal assertion in South Gujarat, or the Bhil movement in
Eastern Gujarat, or the radicalism of the agricultural workers during the Civil
Disobedience Movement, there was an independent politics of the subaltern classes
against the elites.
Similarly, Sumit Sarkar, in ‘The Conditions and Nature of Subaltern Militancy’,
argued the Non-cooperation movement in Bengal ‘revealed a picture of masses
outstripping leaders’. He stated that the term ‘subaltern’ could refer to basically
three social groups: ‘tribal and low-caste agricultural lablurers and share-croppers;
landholding peasants, generally of intermediate caste-status in Bengal (together with
their Muslim counterparts); and labour in plantations, mines and industries (along
with urban casual labour).’ These groups might have divisions among themselves
and include both the exploiters and exploited in their ranks. However, he argued
that:
‘the subaltern groups so defined formed a relatively autonomous political domain
with specific features and collective mentalities which need to be explored,
and that this was a world distinct from the domain of the elite politicians who
in early twentieth century Bengal came overwhelmingly from high-caste educated
professional groups connected with zamindari or intermediate tenure-holding’.
Thus we see that in these and in many other essays in the earlier volumes, an attempt
was made to separate the elite and the subaltern domains and to establish the
autonomy of subaltern consciousness and action. Although there were some notable
exceptions, such as the writings of Partha Chatterjee, this phase was generally
characterised by emphasis on subaltern themes and autonomous subaltern
consciousness.

20.3.2 Second Phase: Discourse Analysis

Over the years, there began a shift in the approach of the Subaltern Studies. The
influence of the postmodernist and postcolonialist ideologies became more marked.
While the emphasis on the subalterns may be associated with Guha, Pandey, Amin,
Hardiman, Henningham, Sarkar and some others, the postcolonialist influences were
revealed in the works of Partha Chatterjee right from the beginning. His influential
book, Nationalist Thought and Colonial World (1986), applied the postcolonial
framework of Edward Said which viewed the colonial power-knowledge as
overwhelming and irresistible. Such themes were also evident in Chatterjee’s articles
in the volumes of the Subaltern Studies even earlier. His later book, The Nation
and its Fragments (1995), further carries this analysis. Many other writers in the
Subaltern Studies slowly abandoned the earlier adherence to Marxism. There was
a bifurcation of intellectual concerns in their ranks. While some of the Subaltern
historians still stuck to the subaltern themes, a larger number began to write in
postcolonialist modes. Now there was a clear move from the research on economic
and social issues to cultural matters, particularly the analysis of colonialist discourse.
Subalternity as a concept was also redefined. Earlier, it stood for the oppressed
230 classes in opposition to the dominant classes both inside and outside. Later, it was
conceptualised in opposition to colonialism, modernity and Enlightenment. The Subaltern Studies
researched articles on themes concerned with subaltern groups decreased in number
in later volumes. So, while in the first four volumes there were 20 essays on the
subaltern classes like peasants and workers, in the nest six volumes there were
only five such essays. There was now an increasing stress on textual analysis of
colonial discourse. Consequently, the discourse analysis acquired precedence over
research on subaltern themes. The earlier emphasis on the ‘subaltern’ now gave
way to a focus on ‘community’. Earlier the elite nationalism was stated to hijack
the people’s initiatives for its own project; now the entire project of nationalism
was declared to be only a version of colonial discourse with its emphasis on
centralisation of movement, and later of the state. The ideas of secularism and
enlightenment rationalism were attacked and there began an emphasis on the
‘fragments’ and ‘episodes’.
There is also an attempt to justify this shift and link it to the initial project. Thus
the editors of Vol. X of Subaltern Studies (Gautam Bhadra, Gyan Prakash and
Susie Tharu) proclaim that ‘Nothing – not elite practices, state policies, academic
disciplines, literary texts, archival sources, language – was exempt from the effects
of subalternity’. Therefore, all the elite domains need to be explored as the legitimate
subjects of Subaltern Studies.
Gyan Prakash has argued that since the Indian subalterns did not leave their own
records, the ‘history from below’ approach in imitation of the Western model was
not possible. Therefore, the Subaltern Studies ‘had to conceive the subaltern differently
and write different histories’. According to him, it is important to see the ‘subalternity
as a discursive effect’ which warrants ‘the reformulation of the notion of the subaltern’.
Thus,
‘Such reexaminations of South Asian history do not invoke “real” subalterns,
prior to discourse, in framing their critique. Placing subalterns in the labyrinth
of discourse, they cannot claim an unmediated access to their reality. The actual
subalterns and subalternity emerge between the folds of the discourse, in its
silences and blindness, and in its overdetermined pronouncements.’
The subalterns, therefore, cannot be represented as subjects as they are entangled
in and created by the working of power.
Dipesh Chakrabarty goes even further in denying a separate domain not only for
the subaltern history, but the history of the Third World as a whole :
‘It is that insofar as the academic discourse of history – that is, “history” as a
discourse produced at the institutional site of the university – is concerned,
“Europe” remains the sovereign, theoretical subject of all histories, including
the ones we call “Indian”, Chinese”, “Kenyan”, and so on. There is a peculiar
way in which all these other histories tend to become variations on a master
narrative that could be called “the history of Europe”. In this sense, “Indian”
history itself is in a position of subalternity : one can only articulate subaltern
subject positions in the name of this history.’
The second phase of the Subaltern Studies, therefore, not only moves away from
the earlier emphasis on the exploration of the subaltern consciousness, it also questions
the very ground of historical works as such, in line with the postmodernist thinking
in the West. 231
Indian Historiography
20.4 CRITIQUE
There has been wide-ranging criticism of the Subaltern Studies from many quarters.
Right from the beginning the project has been critiqued by the Marxist, Nationalist
and Cambridge School historians, besides those who were not affiliated to any
position. Almost all positions it took, ranging from a search for autonomous subaltern
domain to the later shift to discourse analysis, came under scrutiny and criticism.
Some of the earlier critiques were published in the Social Scientist. In one of them,
Javeed Alam criticised Subaltern Studies for its insistence on an autonomous domain
of the subaltern. According to Alam, the autonomy of the subaltern politics is
predicated on perpetuity of rebellious action, on ‘a consistent tendency towards
resistance and a propensity to rebellion on the part of the peasant masses’. Whether
this autonomous action is positive or negative in its consequences is of not much
concern to the subalternists :
‘The historical direction of militancy is … of secondary consideration. What
is primary is the spontaneity and an internally located self-generating momentum.
Extending the implications of the inherent logic of such a theoretical construction,
it is a matter of indifference if it leads to communal rioting or united anti-feudal
actions that overcome the initial limitations.’
In another essay, a review essay by Sangeeta Singh and others, Ranajit Guha was
criticised for presenting a caricature of the spontaneous action by peasant rebels.
In Guha’s understanding, it was alleged, ‘spontaneity is synonymous with reflexive
action’. Since ‘Spontaneity is action on the basis of traditional consciousness’, Guha’s
whole effort is said to ‘rehabilitate spontaneity as a political method’. Moreover,
Guha, in his assertion about the centrality of religion in rebel’s consciousness, approves
the British official view which emphasises the irrationality of the rebellion and absolves
colonialism of playing any disruptive role in the rural and tribal social and economic
structures.
Ranjit Das Gupta points out that there is no precise definition of the subaltern domain.
Moreover, the subaltern historians ‘have tended to concentrate on moments of conflict
and protest, and in their writings the dialectics of collaboration and acquiescence
on the part of the subalterns … have by and large been underplayed’.
The rigid distinction between the elite and the subaltern, ignoring all other hierarchical
formations, was criticised by others as well. David Ludden, in the Introduction to
an edited volume (2001), writes that :
‘Even readers who applauded Subaltern Studies found two features troubling. First
and foremost, the new substance of subalternity emerged only on the underside of
a rigid theoretical barrier between “elite” and “subaltern”, which resembles a concrete
slab separating upper and lower space in a two-storey building. This hard dichotomy
alienated subalternity from social histories that include more than two storeys or
which move among them;… Second, because subaltern politics was confined
theoretically to the lower storey, it could not threaten a political structure. This alienated
subalternity from political histories of popular movements and alienated subaltern
groups from organised, transformative politcs….’
Rosalind O’Hanlon offers a comprehensive critique of earlier volumes of Subaltern
232 Studies in her article ‘Recovering the Subject’. She argues that, despite their claims
of surpassing the earlier brands of history-writing, ‘the manner in which the subaltern Subaltern Studies
makes his appearance through the work of the contributors is in the form of the
classic unitary self-constituting subject-agent of liberal humanism’. Among the Subaltern
historians, particularly in the writings of Ranajit Guha, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Stephen
Henningham and Sumit Sarkar, there is ‘the tendency to attribute timeless primordiality’
to the ‘collective traditions and culture of subordinated groups’. She finds an
essentialism at the core of the project ‘arising from an assertion of an irreducibility
and autonomy of experience, and a simple-minded voluntarism deriving from the
insistence upon a capacity for self-determination’. This leads to an idealism, particularly
‘in Guha’s drive to posit an originary autonomy in the traditions of peasant insurgency.
He does at times appear to be approaching a pure Hegelianism’.
Christopher Bayly, in ‘Rallying around the Subaltern’, questions the project’s claim
to originality. According to him, the Subaltern historians have not made use of ‘new
statistical material and indigenous records’ which could substantiate their claim of
writing a new history. Their main contribution seems to be re-reading the official
records and ‘mounting an internal critique’. Thus, the only distinguishing mark which
separates the Subaltern Studies from the earlier and contemporary ‘history from
below’ is ‘a rhetorical device, the term ‘subaltern’ itself, and a populist idiom’. Bayly
thinks that ‘the greatest weakness of the Subaltern orientation’ is that ‘it tends to
frustrate the writing of rounded history as effectively as did “elitism”’.
Sumit Sakar, who was earlier associated with the project, later on criticised it for
moving towards postcolonialism. In his two essays, ‘The Decline of the Subaltern
in Subaltern Studies’ and ‘Orientalism Revisited’, he argues that this shift may have
been occasioned due to various reasons, but, intellectually, there is an ‘attempt to
have the best of both worlds : critiquing others for essentialism, teleology and related
sins, while claiming a special immunity from doing the same oneself.’ Moreover,
such works in Indian history have not produced any spectacular results. In fact,
‘the critique of colonial discourse, despite vast claims to total originality, quite often
is no more than a restatement in new language of old nationalist positions – and
fairly crude restatements, at that.’ The later subaltern project became some sort
of ‘Third World nationalism, followed by post-modernistic valorisations of “fragments”’.
In fact, the later Subaltern Studies ‘comes close to positions of neo-traditionalist
anti-modernism, notably advocated … by Ashish Nandy’. Even earlier, according
to Sarkar, there was a tendency ‘towards essentialising the categories of ‘subaltern’
and ‘autonomy’, in the sense of assigning to them more or less absolute, fixed,
decontextualised meanings and qualities’. Sarkar argues that there are many problems
with the histories produced by the subaltern writers and these arise due to their
‘restrictive analytical frameworks, as Subaltern Studies swings from a rather simple
emphasis on subaltern autonomy to an even more simplistic thesis of Western colonial
cultural domination’.
Such criticism of the Subaltern Studies is still continuing and the Subaltern historians
have responded to it with their own justification of the project and counter-attacks
on critics.

20.5 REJOINDER
The subalternists took some time before reacting to the critiques. In vol. IV, Dipesh
Chakrabarty’s reply to some of the critiques was published. But before that, in 233
Indian Historiography the Preface of the same volume, Ranajit Guha railed against the criticism by those
whom he called ‘the vendors of readymade answers’ and academic ‘old rods’ who
supposedly posed as the ‘custodians of official truth entrenched within their liberal
and leftist stockades’. He peremptorily dismissed the criticism by those scholars
‘who have lived too long with well-rehearsed ideas and methodologies’. He also
derisively referred to what he termed as ‘the manic reaction’ of a ‘Delhi critic who,
on the publication of each volume, has gone round the block waving his review
copy and shouting, like the mad watchman in Tagore’s story, “sab jhuta hai! Sab
jhuta hai!”’

Chakrabarty’s reply was more detailed and well-argued. He questioned the intentions
of some reviewers. For example, the charge of both Hegelianism and positivism
against Guha seemed contradictory. It was because, he says, ‘ “Idealism”, “positivism”,
etc. are not used in the essay as simple, descriptive terms; they are terms of
condemnation as well’. In reply to the charge of ignoring the colonial contexts or
any outside influences on the politics and consciousness of the subalterns, he said
that ‘this alleged “failure” is actually our conscious refusal to subordinate the internal
logic of a “consciousness” to the logic of so-called “objective” or ‘material” conditions’.
He further asserted that :

‘The central aim of the Subaltern Studies project is to understand the

consciousness that informed and still informs political actions taken by the
subaltern classes on their own, independently of any elite initiative.’

It was because, as shown by subaltern historians, ‘in the course of nationalist struggles
involving popular mobilization the masses often put their own interpretations on
the aims of these movements and proceeded to act them out’.

Besides Dipesh Chakrabarty, Gyan Prakash has been a most vocal defender of
the project. He praises the project as part of the ‘post-foundational’ and ‘post-
Orientalist’ historiography of India. He argues that the Subaltern historians have
been able to rescue their writings from the clutches of elite historiography :

‘the significance of their project lies in the writing of histories freed from the
will of the colonial and nationalist elites. It is this project of resisting colonial
and nationalist discursive hegemonies, through histories of the subaltern whose
identity resides in difference, which makes the work of these scholars a significant
intervention in third-world historiography’.

In another article, Gyan Prakash outlines the reason for a shift in the position as
the Subaltern Studies project developed and he defends this chnage. He supports
the later developments as it ‘has turned into a sharp critique of the discipline of
history’.

Gyan Pandey, writing ‘In Defense of the Fragment’, argues against most of the
writings on communal riots in India. He states that in these versions, ‘The “fragments
of Indian society – the smaller religious and caste communities, tribal sections, industrial
workers, and activist women’s groups, all of which might be said to represent “minority”
cultures and practices – have been expected to fall in line with the “mainstream”
… national culture’. It is because since the nineteenth century the state and the
234 nation have been the ‘central organizing principles of human society’.
Similarly, Ranajit Guha, in ‘The Small Voice of History’, accused the modern Subaltern Studies

historiographical tradition of being statist. He argues that,

‘the common sense of history may be said generally to be guided by a sort
of statism which thematizes and evaluates the past for it . This is a tradition
which goes back to the beginnings of modern historical thinking in the Italian
Renaissance.’
Dipesh Chakrabarty, in his ‘Radical Histories and Question of Enlightenment
Rationalsim’, criticises the Marxist historiography for being influenced by ‘a certain
form of hyper-rationalism characteristic of colonial modernity’. He further argues
that now ‘post-structuralist and deconstructionist philosophies are useful in developing
approaches suited to studying subaltern histories under conditions of colonial
modernities’. The fact that there was a shift in the position is also sometimes denied.
Dipesh Chakrabarty argues that from the very beginning, the Subaltern Studies
was different and ‘raised questions about history writing that made a radical departure
from English Marxist historiographical tradition inescapable’. He says that right since
its inception the Subaltern Studies followed the postcolonial agenda and was not
in tune with the ‘history from below’ approach :
‘With hindsight it could be said that there were broadly three areas in which
Subaltern Studies differed from the “history from below” approach of
Hobsbawm or Thompson…. Subaltern historiography necessarily entailed
(a) a relative separation of the history of power from any universalist histories
of capital, (b) a critique of the nation-form, and (c) an interrogation of the
relationship between power and knowledge…. In these differences … lay
the beginnings of a new way of theorizing the intellectual agenda for postcolonial
histories.’
Thus, in their responses to the critics, the writers associated with the Subaltern
project sought to defend their works as part of the post-Marxist, post-colonial
and post-structuralist streams of historical thinking.

20.6 SUMMARY
The Subaltern Studies began in the early 1980s as a critique of the existing
historiography which was accused by its initiators for ignoring the voice of the
people. The writers associated with the project promised to offer a completely
new kind of history in the field of Indian studies. Judging from the reactions from
the scholars and students in the early years, it seemed to have fulfilled this promise
to some extent. It soon received international recognition. In the early years,
encompassing six volumes, edited by Ranajit Guha, the Subaltern Studies made
efforts to explore the consciousness and actions of the oppressed groups in the
Indian society. However, there was another trend discernible in some of the essays
published in it. This trend was influenced by the increasingly important postmodernist
and postcolonialist writings in the Western academic circles. In the later years,
this trend came to dominate the works of the writers associated with the Subaltern
Studies. This trend was marked by a shift from the earlier emphasis on the subaltern
themes. Sometimes the scepticism became so extreme that it questioned the need
for the writing of history itself.
235
Indian Historiography
20.7 EXERCISES
1) What do you understand by the term ‘subaltern’? How did the ‘Subaltern Studies’
begin in India?
2) Discuss the two phases in the development of the project of Subaltern Studies.
Do you think the differences between the two phases are fundamental in nature?
Answer with examples.
3) What are the basic points of criticism directed towards the Subaltern Studies?
What is the response of the Subalternist historians?

236
 Gender in Indian
UNIT 21 GENDER IN INDIAN HISTORY- History-Writing

WRITING*
Structure
21.1 Introduction
21.2 History as the Narrative of Power
21.3 Absence of Women in Modern Historiography
21.4 Women’s Movement and Gender Sensitive History
21.5 Features of Feminist Historiography
21.6 Summary
21.7 Exercises

21.1 INTRODUCTION
Women have a dual relationship with history in India as they are simultaneously
present and absent in the historical accounts that have come down to us. The women
are invisible especially from a feminist standpoint, and they are relatively visible
from the point of view of the concerns of nationalist history, especially in the context
of ancient India. Thus the task of the feminist historian today is doubly difficult.
Unlike many other parts of the world where women have had to be inserted into
history, here history has, in a sense, to be ‘re’written. Further, rewriting history
from a woman inclusive standpoint requires historians to not only explore (and re-
explore) sources and social processes, uncover evidence (which has been ignored
or marginalised because of existing biases) and thereafter insert issues of gender
into new historical writing, such writing has also to uncover the many histories of
suppression, resulting in history having become a flattened, and one-dimensional
account of a few men. Historians writing in the last twenty years or so in India
have therefore necessarily had to shift the focus onto the neglected segments of
our society, thereby broadening its ambit. Under this new focus, a gender sensitive
history is now beginning to be possible, although we need to note that this new
field was not an automatic consequence of a shift of focus but the conscious product
of feminist interventions. What also needs to be noted is that among the first tasks
to be addressed by feminist scholars, even before launching into the writing of a
new kind of history was the attention that had to be paid to analysing what had
gone before: a feminist historiography has therefore preceded a feminist rewriting
of the past. And finally, when the new feminist history began to be written it had
to go beyond the concerns of colonialists and nationalists to explore the structures
and ideologies that have contributed to the particularities of south Asian patriarchies.

21.2 HISTORY AS THE NARRATIVE OF POWER

Despite the surfacing of new concerns and a new will amongst a section of historians,
there are many inherent problems in writing a history that is genuinely inclusive of
women. The sources of history, here as elsewhere, reflect the concerns of those
who have wielded power. It is sometimes argued, with justification, that the notion

*
Resource Person: Prof. Uma Chakravarti 237
Indian Historiography of time, and therefore of history, in the dominant Indian tradition, which may also
be called the Brahmanical tradition, has been cyclical and not linear, making for a
crucial difference in the understanding of history. One implication of this view is
that the contemporary discipline of history in India is a derivative of the western,
linear, tradition and violates the spirit of the ‘authentic’ Indian tradition. The further
implication is that, therefore, it cannot be subjected to certain kinds of scrutiny.
What is ignored in this argument is that the cyclical notion of history is as much
the product of those who have wielded power as the linear view of history is. It
might be useful to note that unlike archaeological evidence, which may be loosely
described as the ‘garbage’ of history, as the incidental remnants of material culture,
and therefore not associated with the conscious decision to leave something to
posterity, written records are self conscious products and are closely tied to those
who have exercised power. The Rajatarangini, the Harshacharita or the Itihasa
portions of the Puranas are unambiguous narratives of power even if they may
reflect a cyclical view of history.
It might also be argued that these sources constitute only a small fraction of the
sources we have for ancient India and the bulk of the sources are not conventional
historical sources at all but a variegated collection of myths, religious texts, and
other types of literary productions. Nevertheless the textual sources that have come
down to us, even when they are ‘religious’, ‘cultural’, ‘social’, or concerned with
the political economy, are products of a knowledge system which was highly
monopolistic and hierarchical and thus narrowly concentrated in the hands of a few
men — a group that was even narrower here than elsewhere.
In this context it might be useful to explore the manner in which scholars have tried
to break out of the limited concerns imposed by the ‘recorders’ of history who
have, in a sense, refracted history for us. In contemporary times it is possible to
use oral history as a way of countering the biases of ‘official’ history. But the
relationship of orality to textuality is very complex in the case of our early history.
In a sense, all ‘texts’ were orally transmitted and then `written’ up much later. Though
these texts only ultimately became prescriptive, or were regarded as sacred, they
were treated as authoritative and therefore worthy of formal handing down in the
traditional way which was oral precisely because it could be carefully controlled.
‘Oral’ texts are not in and of themselves counter hegemonic. Further, certain oral
traditions which had been brought into the ideological field of the religious literati
but nevertheless circulated largely among the humbler folk, and were therefore more
widely shared as they were narrated to a heterogeneous audience, such as the Jatakas
or the Panchatantra, though significant in terms of yielding a different kind of
evidence on women and the lower orders, are not necessarily the compositions of
such sections, at least in the versions that have come down to us. The Jatakas for
example, comprise a rich repertoire of narratives and often describe the experiences
of ordinary women and men with great poignancy; they are, nevertheless, firmly
located within a Buddhist world-view. As they stand, the Jatakas are the product
of mediations between high culture and `low’ culture; framed by the bhikkhus (the
Buddhist monks) these narratives cannot be termed ‘folk’. While they are an alternative
to the Brahmanical texts they cannot be regarded as the dichotomised ‘other’ of
elite texts. Similarly, the Therigatha, verses or songs of the bhikkhunis (the Buddhist
nuns), a work that is probably one of the earliest compilations of women’s poetry
anywhere in the world, while very definitely the compositions of women, have not
238 escaped the editorial hand of the Buddhist monastic compilers. These factors have
complicated the use of oral sources and the writing of a gender sensitive history Gender in Indian
History-Writing
from below. There are further problems because of the difficulties of dating oral
texts, which therefore cannot easily be collated with other evidence available for
specific periods; while we gain from the point of view of the richness of the data
we lose from the point of view of specificity of time and region. Nevertheless, despite
the many problems inherent in the sources the newer generation of historians, writing
from a ‘history from below’ standpoint including feminists, have begun to use these
sources creatively. Using strategies such as reading against the grain and between
the lines, especially in the case of prescriptive texts, or looking at the way myths
and narratives change in a diachronic context they are raising new questions and
bringing in fresh insights. We will further discuss these issues in later sections.

21.3 ABSENCE OF WOMEN IN MODERN

HISTORIOGRAPHY
It might be useful at this point to examine the factors that led to a shift in the writing
of history and thus acted as a catalyst for gender history. In the Indian context
nationalist history dominated the scene until the late 1950s. Nationalist history was
primarily focussed on political history (kings, conquests, invasions, as in the case
of the earlier colonial history; liberal and imaginative administrators, political institutions
and so on) and cultural history — mainly a detailing of achievements on the cultural
front. Apart from an obsessive concern with locating and outlining idealised images
and golden ages, there was almost a conscious steering away from examining internal
contradictions, hierarchies along different axes, and oppressive structures. This point
may be illustrated by seeing the numerous works of R.K. Mukherji, R.C.Majumdar
and K.P. Jayaswal among others. This trend in the writing of Indian history found
its most systematic formulation in the Indian History and Culture volumes edited
by R.C. Majumdar and published by the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay between
1956 and 1963. This was part of a move to present the imperial government with
a united front but also a product of middle class myopia obsessed with a single
axis of deprivation, between the colonial power and the nation’s bhadralok in relation
to them. Tilak, the militant nationalist, for example, argued that the distinctions
between labourers and masters was false; all Indians were labourers or rather shudras
and slaves, and the British were the only masters.
Meanwhile, going back to the late colonial period, social history made its appearance.
Here as elsewhere, in the early stages, social history was a kind of residual history
with politics and economics left out. Some of the issues explored under this rubric
were the history of social reform, and religious and revivalist movements, mostly
within the framework of biographical narratives of the men spearheading the
movements. Finally in the decades after independence and under the influence of
Marxist approaches, social history became the history of social formations. D.D.
Kosambi pioneered this field with two brilliant and wide-ranging books and a series
of imaginative papers published from the mid fifties onwards. His formulations were
the basis for detailed analyses on various epochs of Indian history and the relationship
between modes of production and other political and social institutions. By the late
1970s and 1980s there were raging debates on whether or not there was feudalism
in India, and while the issues thrown up in the course of this debate were important,
there was absolutely nothing on what happened to women in the feudal mode of
production, or where they figured in the new relations of production. The underlying 239
Indian Historiography presumption was that history for women was the same as history for men. No attempt
was made to move into the field of the modes of social reproduction while continuing
to explore modes of production where class and gender could be combined making
for a connection between gender structures, ideologies, and social and economic
power structures. Similarly, although there was a welcome shift towards exploring
the history of the lower orders, such as the dasa-karmakaras, shudras, and
chandalas, bringing in issues of caste and class and unequal power relations, this
did not include an examination of unequal gender relations. In any case a shortcoming,
in my view, of the history of social formations is that human beings as individuals,
whether men or women, and their experience of different social processes, seemed
to be missing from it. Since it centred on modes of production the primary issues
that were explored were the ways in which surplus was extracted, the particular
forms of labour exploitation, and the role of technology in transforming relations
of production, human experiences, mentalities, and emotions tended to be left
unexplored. In some ways then, such a history was as distant as the earlier dynastic
or administrative histories had been. This lacuna has to some extent been rectified
by new trends in history writing under the label of ‘subaltern’ studies but these
scholars too have neglected women as a category. While they brought into the frame
of history the lives and struggles of ordinary people such as peasants and tribals,
they too focussed on peasant men and tribal men without even being conscious
that there could be subalterns within subalterns. Their writing was as male centred
as earlier nationalist or Marxist history had been. It is ironical that even as a certain
space was opening up for a history of the ‘powerless’ the most powerless among
the powerless remained outside the framework of new historical trends.

21.4 WOMEN’S MOVEMENT AND GENDER

SENSITIVE HISTORY
How then did the shift occur in terms of the writing of women’s history? We may
attribute this to the women’s movement of the 1970s which provided the context
and the impetus for the emergence of women’s studies in India. As Tanika Sarkar
has recently pointed out, women’s history as a sustained and self-conscious tradition
developed from the 1970s since many feminist scholars were themselves involved
in the vigorous and turbulent movements against rape, dowry and domestic violence.
It was here that the contours of the multiple forms and structures of patriarchies,
and the cultural practices associated with them began to be outlined through the
experiences of women on the ground. These years, during the heyday of an explicitly
political women’s movement, and the insights derived therein, provided feminist
scholars with the experiential material on the basis of which they formulated gender
as a category of analysis. (The recent phenomena of mainstream scholars cashing
in on the space created for women’s history, without addressing the existence of
patriarchies in their writing, is an explicitly anti-political and deflective agenda, marking
a sharp break from feminist scholarship.) And since the 70s also witnessed other
political movements of peasants, workers, and tribals turning our attention onto
the marginalised and the oppressive conditions under which they lived and struggled,
historians were forced to broaden the ambit of history; the content of history has
thus been dramatically democratised and we are now happily moving in a direction
which is making history the most dynamic discipline in the social sciences. But it is
important to recognise that historians, and only some of them at that, respond to
240
grass-roots assertions: they do not lead the new trends but merely follow the agendas Gender in Indian
History-Writing
set by our people, which is why a gender sensitive history had to wait for the women’s
movement and was not an automatic or logical trend following from Marxist history
or subaltern history.

21.5 FEATURES OF FEMINIST HISTORIOGRAPHY

In a moment such as this, it is apt that a review of the main trends in women’s
history is undertaken. Beginning with tentative formulations and simple re-readings
it is by now fairly evident that despite a weak institutional base women’s history
has taken off. During the last decade some very fine work has appeared in the
field of women’s history forcing mainstream historians to recognise and sometimes
even cash in on the ‘market’ created by feminist scholarship. Among the first major
moves made by feminist scholars was that of dismantling the dominant nationalist
narrative of the glory of Hindu womanhood during the ancient past, specifically
during the Vedic period. By breaking up the Hindu / Vedic woman into the ‘Aryan’
and the dasi woman attention was drawn to the differing histories of women according
to respective social locations. This corrective was important because while it was
necessary to insert gender as an axis of stratification it was equally necessary, perhaps
more so, to outline the stratification that existed within women. The suppressions
entailed in the homogenised product of the nationalists, the ‘Hindu’/ Vedic or ‘Aryan’
woman, became evident. At the same time the need to outline the distinctive social
histories of women was highlighted. Thus while the major tendency during these
early years was to write a complementary, or supplementary, history of women,
to accompany the narratives of mainstream history, by plotting the history of women
in different arenas and in different types of struggles the distinctive experiences of
women in the context of class was built into the analysis of gender.
A second feature of the thrust in writing women’s history was the painstaking
uncovering and compiling of an archive of women’s writing. Given the male biases
of the sources normally relied upon by mainstream history, and the difficulties
experienced by feminist historians in finding alternative sources, the putting together
of this archive has been very significant. It has helped to break down the canonisation
of certain sources which are no longer invariably regarded as more reliable but,
more correctly, as having achieved authoritative status through their closeness to
power. A parallel and no less significant development has been the appearance of
some extremely rich and sensitive readings of women’s writing.
An overview of women’s history and the insights derived from the new writing lead
directly to the recognition that gender as a tool of analysis has been very unevenly
used to explore the three conventional chronological phases of ancient, medieval
and modern India. The bulk of the new writing is being done for colonial and post-
colonial India and there is very little of such writing for ancient and even less for
medieval India. This is in part due to the need for a knowledge of the classical
languages in which the sources are available for these phases but it is also partly
attributable to the dominant contemporary theoretical concerns which are focussed
solely on colonial and post colonial Indian society. In practice this has also meant
the abandonment of these phases to the continuing domination of the Indological
framework which is locked into a high classical and consensus approach, unwilling
to recognise that there could be other histories. 241
Indian Historiography However, there have been pioneering works heralding a breakthrough in more ways
than one. A recent study by Kumkum Roy on the emergence of monarchy in early
India is significant because it uses precisely those sources that the Indologists have
always relied upon, the Brahmanical texts relevant for the period, but opened them
up to a totally different line of inquiry. The study also links the inter-relatedness of
the different axes of stratification to outline the processes by which hierarchies were
established and legitimised through the use of Brahmanical rituals. Once the structure
was in place the king was regarded as the legitimate controller of the productive
and reproductive resources of the kingdom. At the same time the yajamana, on
whose behalf rituals were performed, came to be regarded as the controller of the
productive and reproductive resources of the household. The most significant aspect
of Roy’s work is that it breaks down the false, but perhaps for the moment
operationally necessary, divide between gender history and mainstream history. It
demonstrates how our understanding of the past is expanded and enriched when
gender is included as a category of analysis.
Other issues that have been probed at the conceptual level include the relationship
between caste, class, patriarchy and the state, and the dynamics of the household
in early India. Apart from these studies which are attempts at exploring women’s
histories at the level of the relationship of gender to other institutions there are studies
of the changing versions of myths and other narratives, prostitution, motherhood,
labouring women, property relations, women as gift givers, and women as rulers.
These accounts have helped to gradually build up a base for further conceptualisations
and to break the hold of the Altekarian paradigm, which has dominated the field
of women’s history in the case of ‘ancient’ India. A major lacunae that continues
to restrict our understanding is the way in which gender shapes, and is in turn shaped
by, other structures within a given social formation.
While a beginning has been made from the point of view of using a gender-based
framework in the case of early Indian history there is a singular paucity of works
using gender as a category of analysis in medieval Indian history. Even a women’s
history which complements or supplements mainstream history is far from being
systematically written. Perhaps this is because there has been a slow response to
engage with gender as a category of analysis from scholars with a mastery over
Persian in a situation where Persian sources continue to dominate the field of medieval
Indian history. A slow beginning has been made recently but the works tend to be
episodic rather than conceptual. The most sustained output is coming from south
Asia specialists from American academies but these are usually narrowly empirical
and steer clear of making broader analytical points. The lack of a strong gender
based standpoint is unfortunate because it is not as if the sources for medieval India
are peculiarly disadvantaged; in fact the situation is quite the reverse. It is just that
the sources have never been systematically explored from the point of view of gender.
Kumkum Sangari’s finely nuanced and elaborately analysed study of Bhakti poetry
and within that of Mira’s location is an example of historicising literature, and
indivduals during the medieval period. Sangari’s analysis of the family, kinship and
the state is a pointer to the direction that a gender sensitive history could fruitfully
take. Happily, studies are now underway on a range of themes such the genderedness
of language, landownership, inheritance, the politics of the royal household, women
against women in polygamous households, and the changing narratives that produced
242 the model of the virtuous and chaste virangana. Perhaps these studies and others
can be linked together, and others can be undertaken, leading to broader Gender in Indian
History-Writing
understanding of gender relations in medieval India.
An important lacuna in the gender history of both ancient and medieval India is
the absence of region-based studies. With the exception of a few explorations of
Tamil literature and inscriptions of early and medieval south India we have very
little by which we can make connections between the social formations of different
regions and the ways in which these would have shaped gender relations in their
respective regions.
More wide-ranging explorations have been possible in the field of women’s history
during the colonial and post-colonial period. More accessible from the point of
view of the languages in which the sources are available, these sources are also
better preserved. Consequently, feminist scholars have been able to not only insert
women into history but also examine the relationship between various social and
economic processes and gender. They have also been able to explore certain themes
in some depth and have made a dent in historical debates about nationalism, class
formation and the operations of caste.
Among the more rigorous areas of research in women’s history during this period
has been the analysis of the way in which new colonial structures especially in the
field of law shaped the lives of women. An impressive body of writing has examined
the working of specific laws such as the Widow Remarriage Act, the impetus and
the forces behind the creation and codification of laws, the contradictions between
the applications of different sets of legal systems such as customary law and statutory
law, statutory law and ‘personal’ law, and the general move towards homogenising
the diversity of social customs and cultural practices. One of the most exhaustive
and significant studies by Bina Agrawal has focussed on the way law shapes gender
relations by denying women access to productive resources in the form of land.
She has thus provided us with an understanding of the political economy of the
vulnerarability of women. While some of these studies have been empirical others
have examined the historical context, class dynamics and the relationship of law to
colonialist and nationalist ideologies at given moments. These studies have also been
able reveal the possibilities and limitations of a colonialist (and nationalist) hegemonic
agendas.
The issue of women’s education has been the subject of numerous writings. Initially
scholars tended to plot the different stages by which opportunities for women’s
education were created and expanded in the context of the movement for social
reform, taking for granted its ‘positive’, liberatory and transformative potential. Men’s
spearheading of the campaign for women’s education then appeared to be genuinely
‘liberal’; perhaps it was paternalistic but it was presumed that it was a means by
which women would be emancipated from an earlier deprivation. These studies
have now been taken much further to examine the crucial role of education, or
rather ‘schooling’, in the agendas of new patriarchies and the relationship of schooling
for women to processes of class formation. Men’s stake in women’s education
and power over them, women’s agency and resistance in a conflict-ridden household
in the process of many kinds of transition have also been outlined. Some of these
analyses have been made possible through a close examination of women’s writing.
As women were drawn into literacy and education, mostly at the instance of their
menfolk (to make them companionate wives and fitting mothers), but sometimes
243
Indian Historiography against their approval, they took to writing. Letters, memoirs, essays, biographies,
poetry, stories, travelogues, and, on occasion, social critiques of patriarchy appeared
by the end of the 19th century and continued into the 20th century. Feminist scholarship
on this alternative archive has been significant in fine tuning our understanding of
social reform, but also in revealing to us what was suppressed in the accounts of
mainstream history. It is to be expected that the social critiques written by 19 th
century women would be regarded as significant markers in the history of women’s
resistance to the ideologies and practices of male domination; women like Pandita
Ramabai and Tarabai Shinde have thus become known in the world of feminist
scholarship. What is important is that through a sensitive reading of a seemingly
conformist piece of writing, by Rashsundari Devi, too one can uncover an oblique
but moving critique of upper caste cultural practices.
The history of labouring women too has been sought to be included in the rewriting
of history. Accounts of their participation in agrarian struggles, issues that were raised
and others that were suppressed and the perception of the women of those ‘magic’
days, as some of them put it, have been important not only to balance out the accounts
of ‘peasant’ struggles but also in exploring the complicated relationship between
issues of class and gender, and the strategies of left wing groups in highlighting class
oppression and suppressing gender oppression. Feminist scholars discovered that
in their recuperation of earlier histories of women’s political activism, questions of
sexual politics and its complicated relations with broader struggles were of central,
absorbing importance: struggles that needed women, mobilised them, conferred a
political and public identity upon them, and yet subtly contained them and displaced
their work for their own rights.
Women’s place in the organised labour force especially in the textile and jute industries
have been the subject of monographs, and currently there are a number of studies
underway on women in the unorganised sector, especially in the context of globalisation
and the structural adjustment programme. These studies, being the first of their kind,
have however retained a largely empirical approach. Perhaps with more studies
documenting the daily lives of labouring women we might be able to write an account
of the making of the working class from a woman centred point of view. However,
history is changing so rapidly in the new era of globalisation that the working class
may be transformed beyond recognition even before we can write their history!
Among the more significant researches in writing an account of women’s labour
within an historical frame is the issue of domestic labour. This has been a central
issue in feminism resulting in a considerable body of scholarship, in the west as
well as the third world. Its relationship to capitalism has been repeatedly stressed
in western feminist scholarship. In India studies have analysed domestic labour in
its relationship to caste, class, widowhood, hierarchies within the household, and
the capacity of households to buy domestic services. At the conceptual level, the
relationship of domestic labour to the labour market and the proliferation of the
sexual division of labour in waged work, even as it might appear to be outside the
realm of market, has also been highlighted. The fact that ‘domestic labour exists
within a system of non-dissoluble, non-contractual marriage permeated by ideologies
of service and nurture has meant that domestic labour and domestic ideologies not
only co-exist but are also jointly reproduced even in a rapidly changing economic
and social system’ has also been pointed out by Sangari.
244
Earlier on in this paper it has been suggested that feminist scholarship has had Gender in Indian
History-Writing
to be innovative in its use of sources as well as in their reading of them. One of
the recent works that has been extremely successful in such an approach has
used a range of sources including conventional sources such as statistics and
government reports, but has balanced these off by folk literature, proverbs and
fieldwork to locate women’s perception of their own lives. The framework of
the political economy of gender used by Prem Chowdhry has yielded an important
study of the everyday experiences of labouring women of a peasant caste over
a hundred year period.
The use of oral history by feminist historians to explicitly critique the inadequacies
and biases of official and mainstream/malestream and elitist histories has been
extremely significant in the field of partition history. Here women have been the
pioneers in writing an alternative history written from the point of view of the
marginalised: women, children, and dalits. They have raised crucial questions
about the ideologies of the state in the context of notions of community, and honour
in the recovery and rehabilitation of ‘abducted’ women and the doubled dimensions
of violence experienced by women first at the hands of men, and then at the
hands of a patriarchal state which denied women agency as it sought to align
boundaries with communities. It is significant that feminist scholarship has provided
a systematic critique of nationalism at the very moment of the birth of a new nation.
Far from a recognition of their pioneering work even their critique of nationalism
and of the post-colonial Indian state is yet to be taken seriously by mainstream
historians. This is perhaps an outcome of the territoriality of mainstream/malestream
historians entrenched in the academy, with personal stakes in retaining their hold
on historical writing. Further, in my view, these are part of an agenda of once
more marginalising, or even erasing, women’s pioneering of a new field, thereby
claiming both originality and monopoly over theory. Given the backlash against
feminist scholars in terms of appointments to Universities at the highest level,
currently underway, the political dimensions of such marginalisations need to be
seriously noted.
The issue of women’s agency is part of a larger set of issues in feminist scholarship
and it is at the moment often being simplified. The desire to write a different kind
of history has led feminist scholars to explore the histories of resistance by women,
individually and collectively, and also their use of strategies such as subversion and
manipulation of men’s power over women. While it is important to document acts
of resistance, subversion and manipulation, it is somewhat simplistic to celebrate
all instances of ‘subversion’ and ‘manipulation’; these may certainly be examples
of women’s agency but particular instances of subversion such as the strategies
used by the tawaifs of Lucknow cannot be regarded as subversive as they work
within, and therefore reinforce, patriarchal ideologies. It is useful to bear in mind
the political consequences of actions as well as of theoretical formulations especially
in the context of feminist writing in India, which owes its originary impulse to a
political agenda, as pointed out earlier. Recent writings have tried to provide a
perspective for exploring women’s agency. The dialectical relationship between
structure and agency requires examining and it may be useful to look at structure
and agency as processes that pre-suppose each other: there is also a need to bear
in mind that social systems set limits and put pressures upon human action. Agency
does not exist within a vacuum as women have come to understand.
245
Indian Historiography
21.6 SUMMARY
The preceding sections of this paper have tried to outline some of the issues in
writing history from a gender sensitive standpoint and mark some of the major
conceptual advances within the field of women’s history. There are huge areas that
still need to be explored such as the histories of dalit women and many issues are
under theorised, an example being the relationship between caste and gender. There
is an urgent need for a rigorous outlining of the structures in which women’s oppression
is located. In this context I consider it important for feminist scholars to be wide-
ranging in their research and not restrict themselves to theoretical approaches that
may dominate academies in particular locations. I would even argue that it is necessary
for feminist scholars to resist the tendency to take over their agendas by currently
fashionable theories such as post-modernism. Its use in the Indian context has tended
to valorise pre-colonial society, as well as the ‘community’ and the ‘family’ as pre-
modern indigenous institutions which have remained outside the realm of colonial
power and are therefore ‘authentic’. It may be noted that we have a long tradition
of examining the community and family in women’s scholarship. The direction of
these early works has been overtaken by works that are restricted to the modern
pre-modern paradigm. The new focus is also almost entirely on culture. Scholars
using the post-modernist framework appear to be antagonistic to any project that
is engaged in locating the structures that are the sources of the oppression of women.
Perhaps the focus on ‘women’s culture’ enables some of these scholars to highlight
the happy spaces for women in the family and obliterate everything else. But for
those who experience, or are sensitive to the workings of multiple forms of patriarchies
it is crucial to understand social and economic processes and the hierarchical
institutions that have put systems of oppression into place. For feminist scholars
an unqualified or uncontextualised concentration on culture as an autonomous realm,
or discussions of agency without a look at its relationship to structure, will be disastrous.
It will push us back, not take us forward in theorising patriarchies and the complex
ways in which they work in India.

21.7 EXERCISES
1) Discuss the various features of feminist historiography.
2) What is the relationship between women’s movement and gender-sensitive history?
3) Why have women been generally absent in the traditional historiography?

246
 The Idea of Race in
UNIT 22 THE IDEA OF RACE IN INDIAN Indian History-Writing

HISTORY-WRITING*
Structure
22.1 Introduction
22.2 Race as Political and Social Construct
22.3 Race and Science
22.3.1 Concept of Evolution within Racial Science
22.3.2 Eugenics and Racial Science
22.4 Race in Relation to Colonialism
22.5 Race and the Discipline of Anthropology
22.6 Racial ‘Research’ and the Politics of Domination
22.7 Popularising Racial Concepts
22.8 India and the Idea of Race
22.9 Summary
22.10 Exercises

22.1 INTRODUCTION
One of the depressing predictions about the twentieth century was made by the
black American scholar W.E.B. Du Bois back in 1903 when he asserted that ‘the
problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the colour line – the relation of
the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and in the
islands of the sea’. It is perhaps with these words in mind that another black scholar
Stuart Hall, this time British, asserted a few years ago that ‘the capacity to live
with difference is, in my view, the coming question of the twenty first century’.
The abolition movement against slavery of the 18th and early 19th centuries had
provided a context for the emergent science of human races in the twentieth century.
It is important to remember here that while for scholars of Du Bois’s generation
the ‘colour line’ was an everyday reality based on institutional patterns of racial
domination, in recent times questions about race and racism have been refashioned
in ways that emphasise cultural difference. The shifts in conceptual language
that have become evident in the past three decades are symptomatic of wider debates
about the analytical status of race and racism, as well as related shifts in political
and policy agendas.

22.2 RACE AS POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CONSTRUCT

Serious study of race and race relations as important social issues can be traced
back to the early part of the twentieth century. The expansion of research and
scholarship in this area, however, happened around the 1960s, in the aftermath of
the social transformations around questions of race that took place during that decade.
This was a time when social reforms implemented in the aftermath of the civil rights

*
Resource Person: Dr. Meena Radhakrishna 247
Indian Historiography movement, urban unrest, and the development of black power ideas and forms of
cultural nationalism. These helped enormously to reshape the politics of race not
just in America, but in other parts of the world, as well.
It was also during the 1960s that the ‘race relations problematic’ as Michael Banton
put it, became the dominant approach in this field. Seeing race as a fact which
transforms social relations also grappled with ideas on ‘ethnicity’ and social boundaries
between different groups in a given society. The idea of race has been utilised to
comprehend processes of migration and settlement as well. They are sometimes
posed as a minority, ethnic or an immigrant problem.
John Rex’s analytical model in race relations asserts that reading social relations
between persons as race relations is encouraged by the existence of certain structural
conditions:
1) existence of unfree, indentured or slave labour
2) unusually harsh class exploitation
3) strict legal distinctions between groups and occupational segregation
4) differential access to power
5) migrant labour as an underclass fulfilling stigmatised roles in a metropolitan
setting.
In this context, Rex, in studies conducted by him, explored the degree to which
immigrant populations shared the class position of their white neighbours and white
workers in general. His analysis outlined a class structure in which white workers
won certain rights through the working class movement, through the trade unions
and the Labour Party. The non-white workers, however, were found to be located
outside the process of negotiation that has historically shaped the position of white
workers. They experience discrimination in all the areas where the white workers
had made significant gains, such as employment, education, and housing. Thus
the position of migrant, non-white workers placed them outside the working class
in the position of an ‘underclass’.
Robert Miles has also looked at the condition of migrant communities, but he has
done so within the context of ‘real economic relationships’. Thus there is a contradiction
between ‘on the one hand the need of the capitalist world economy for the mobility
of human beings, and on the other, the drawing of territorial boundaries for human
mobility.’
His greatest contribution is the proposition that races are created within
the context of political and social regulation, and thus race is above all is
a ‘political’ construct.
The first proposition for our purposes is that idea of race is a human construct, an
ideology with regulatory power within society. The use of ‘race’ and race relations,
as analytical concepts, disguise the social construction of difference, presenting it
as somehow inherent in the empirical reality of observable or imagined biological
difference. Racialised groups are produced as a result of specific social processes,
or specific social actions such as the defense of domination, subordination and
privilege.
248
The terrain of anti-racist struggle today is no longer that of social equality but of The Idea of Race in
Indian History-Writing
cultural diversity. Equality has come to be redefined from ‘the right to be equal’
to mean ‘the right to be different’. In the sixties and seventies, the struggle for
equal rights meant campaigns against immigration laws or against segregation through
which different races were treated differently. Today it means campaigns for separate
schools, demands to use different languages, the insistence of maintaining particular
cultural practices. The black rights activists have argued that in the past civil rights
reforms reinforced the idea that black liberation should be defined by the degree
to which black people gained equal access to material opportunities and privileges
available to whites – jobs, housing, schooling etc. This strategy could never bring
about liberation, because such ideas of equality were based on imitating the life
styles, behaviour are most importantly, the values and ethics of white colonizers.
To locate the concept of race, racism and racial relations in contemporary times,
and be able to comprehend the twentieth century attempts to understand these terms,
we will have to go back to the nineteenth century when Charles Darwin provided
one of the first important frameworks for this task. His ideas are important as they
immediately gave rise to self appointed Social Darwinists, who are largely responsible
for both distorting the science component of Darwin’s theory and for using it for
justification of colonialism and imperialism.

22.3 RACE AND SCIENCE

As Nancy Stepan points out, it was the early travel literature on human groups by
explorers which tended to get transformed into scientific texts on race. When it emerged
on its own, racial science was ‘scavenger science’ which fed on whatever materials
lay at hand. Such racial science had a national character as well (depending on the
influence of religion, for instance.) To a large extent, history of racial sciences is a
history of a series of accommodation of the sciences in general to the demands of
deeply held convictions about ‘naturalness’ of the inequalities between human groups.
The racial science of the 1850s was less dependent on bible, more scientific, but
also more racist. It drew upon physical types, on racial worth, permanence of racial
types and the like. Skull became the arbiter of all things racial in most of 19th century,
and early 20th century, because of alleged mental differences which different skull
shapes or sizes supposedly indicated.

22.3.1 Concept of Evolution within Racial Science

Darwin was the originator of the evolutionary theory, and his main argument was
for continuity between animals and humans, separated by not kind but degree.
However, the distance between the technical, industrial, highly civilised Europeans
and animals seemed too vast. So Darwin turned to ‘lower’ races or ‘savages’ to
fill the gap between humans and animals. Later scientists used this argument to
form an evolutionary scale of races. Racist science picked this point up and used
it to show that racist hierarchy as well as other social hierarchies were real aspects
of nature’s order. In retrospect, Darwin did not conceive of races in new terms
for his arguments on evolution of man, but old terms. In essence, thus, Darwin
himself carried out the task of accommodating the new evolutionary science to the
old racial science. Evolutionism was also compatible with the idea of fixity and
antiquity of races.
249
Indian Historiography However, it should be remembered that as far as a social position on slavery was
concerned, Darwin was an abolitionist, not a racist. This ambivalence manifested
itself with other thinkers as well. For instance, Prichard shared the racial prejudices
of his time, but his ethnocentrisms were also tempered by moral disgust for slavery,
his belief in the essential humanity of the African, his Christian faith in the psychic
unity of all the peoples of the world.
Evolutionary thought was compatible with the hierarchy of human races, and rather
than dislodging old racial ideas actually strengthened them, and provided them with
a new scientific vocabulary of struggle and survival (‘struggle for existence’, ‘survival
of the fittest’, two of the most well known Darwinian tenets).
Darwin applied natural selection to cultural, intellectual and moral development.
Natural selection had brought certain races like the European race to the highest
point of moral and cultural life. He agreed with Wallace that after the appearance
of intelligence, struggle between races became primarily a moral and intellectual
one. Morally and intellectually less able of the races were extinguished and the
reverse rose to spread themselves across the globe. It was natural struggle that
had produced the “wonderful intellect of the Germanic races”. Darwin took up
the view that natural selection worked on individual and racial variations to select
the fittest races and to raise them up in the scale of civilisation.To Darwin, then, it
seemed reasonable to believe that just as natural selection produced Homo Sapiens
from animal forbears, so natural selection was the primary agent for producing civilised
races out of barbarity.
Incidentally, here it might be mentioned that the development of the field of medicine
was seen as a great onslaught on natural selection, as it allowed the biologically
unfit to survive and to pass on their unfitness to the next generations. At any rate,
development of medicine made natural selection on physical bases redundant, and
led to a situation where it was possible to propose natural selection on the basis
of morality and intellect of human groups, instead.
The developing disciplines of comparative anatomy and animal biology gave validity
to prevailing ideas about the hierarchy of human races. The challenge for an evolutionary
anthropologist was to endorse a materialist, evolutionary view of man, based on continuity
between man and animals, without relying on hierarchy of human races or retreating
to theology. It was Wallace who first insisted on the gulf between animals and humans
and was then able to see that human progress is not inevitable, but depended on
favourable social and political conditions. He put forward the radical, original theory
that the immense variety of racial civilizations were because of different experiences
and history, not biological differences between different groups of people.
Darwin’s ideas took root all over the world in some form or the other. The widely
prevalent mid 19th century belief on the part of leading figures like Vogt in England
and Topinard in France was also that racial traits emerged by selection in struggle
for life. They further proposed that with time, traits became fixed by heredity, and
became permanent. Thus the false idea of the fixity and unchangeability of races
became a widespread belief. Even though no individual could be found who was
not a mixture, faith in the ‘type’ remained. More and more precise instruments
were invented to measure the differences between the ‘types’. It was forgotten
that essentially, the human species being a migratory and conquering species is bound
to be a mixed one, and hence has to be a constantly changing one.
250
In spite of Wallace’s important intervention, races came increasingly to be seen as The Idea of Race in
Indian History-Writing
natural, but static chains of excellence, formed on the basis of nervous organisation,
skull shape or brain size. Colour was a traditional and convenient criterion of race,
not the least because it did not require the permission of the individual for it to be
assessed by the anthropologist, which head measurement, for instance, did! The
smallness of differences separating the presumed types (as far as the head size or
shape of the nose were concerned) led to the use of more and more precise
instruments, and to the subdivision of types. The results were never in doubt, and
a vigorous analysis of the racial types which made up a family always followed
after varied results in terms of the shape of the head were found, for instance, and
it was assumed that different racial types had got mixed, instead of doubting the
veracity of the measurements themselves.
The science which involved measuring human measurements was called
Anthropometry, though it never did rise above ideological considerations to prove
a hierarchy of races, and hence became a pseudoscience for all practical purposes.

22.3.2 Eugenics and Racial Science

In order to be a purposeful discipline, science was expected to play a role in planning
and managing human existence and human affairs, including cohabitation. The word
eugenics itself was introduced into science for the first time in 1883 by Charles
Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton. He defined eugenics as the ‘study of agencies
under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations
either physically or mentally’.
In its essence, eugenics was a science and a social programme of racial improvement
through selective breeding of the human species. Though slow to win approval in
Britain, by the first years of the twentieth century, eugenics had established itself
institutionally in England. By the 1920s, it had grown into a worldwide movement,
with active eugenic or ‘race hygiene’ societies in Russia, Germany, Japan and the
United States.
The initial German nazi plan was to improve the racial stock – weed out the mentally
deficient, hereditary criminal, hereditary unfit. A new age of racial thinking, however,
had come into being that was to last until the 1930s, when the horrors of compulsory
sterilization and the mass murder of the Jews and Gypsies in Nazi Germany (at
least partly in the name of eugenical science) caused worldwide revulsion.
Eugenics in Nazi Germany was uniquely barbaric. It is worth mentioning here that
not just in Germany but all over the world, adherents to this repugnant social
programme were drawn mainly form the progressive middle class: doctors,
psychologists, biologists and social reformers, and not politicians or businessmen.
In its heyday, eugenics succeeded in drawing into its fold directly or indirectly a
surprising number of the leading scientists of the day, and provided one more channel
for the transmission of the racialist tradition. For the student of race science and
racism, eugenics is important because it linked race with hereditarianism, and the
new science of genetics.
Socially and politically, several factors favoured eugenics by the beginning of the
twentieth century. The social optimism of the mid nineteenth century had given
way by the end of the century to a pessimism which Galton’s eugenics perfectly
251
Indian Historiography expressed. The 1880s had been a particularly hard period, with economic
depression, unemployment, strikes, and growing political radicalism. It was clear
from political events and sociological studies that poverty, alcoholism and ill health
had not disappeared in Britain, despite what seemed to many to be decades of
social legislation. The early military setbacks of the British in the Boer War in South
Africa in 1899-1900 raised the spectre of a physically degenerating British people,
and increased concern that the imperial mission of Britain would be harmed unless
the population could be unified and made fitter. Most importantly, the declining
birth rate, and especially the differential in the birth rate between the middle class
and the working class, raised the possibility in some people’s minds that Britain
was about to be swamped by the biologically ‘less fit’.
Eugenics rested on the belief that the differences in mental, moral and physical traits
between individuals and races were hereditary. Such a belief had of course been
implicit in race biology since the early nineteenth century. What gave eugenics its
force in the modern period was its association with Darwinian evolution. Eugenics
thus obtained its scientific credential from the new science of heredity. It obtained
its support and its notoriety as a social and political movement from the many new
and often explosive subjects it introduced into the biological and social debate,
such as the biological roots of ‘degeneracy’ in human society, or the sterilization
of the ‘unfit’. At a time of heightened nationalism, imperialistic competition, and
social Darwinism, such ideas for a while proved dangerously attractive to those
looking for social change.
Under the banner of eugenics, the science of human heredity received a clear
programme – the goal was to explore the hereditary nature of traits in human
populations that seemed desirable or undesirable, and to establish their variability
in individuals or classes of individuals, or ‘races’. Mental ability, moral character,
insanity, criminality and general physical degeneracy, were all studied diligently.
On the social and political side, the task of the eugenists was to publicise the
findings of science, to discuss schemes to encourage the fit, and to discourage
the unfit, to breed, and to air generally the social and political significance of
such a programme.
Eugenics was seen to be not merely a power that humans now had over future
generations; it was seen to be a quasi-religious obligation because in the conditions
of modern civilization, the biologically sick and unfit were not eliminated by natural
selection but allowed to live and to breed. Man had, in consequence, to weed
out where nature did not any more. The Eugenists’ first legislative success occurred
in 1913, when the Houses of Parliament passed the Mental Deficiency Bill, which
the Eugenics Education Society had urged as a means of segregating mentally
backward individuals from the rest of society so as to prevent their breeding.
Recent studies of eugenics in Britain have identified it primarily as ‘class’ rather
than a ‘race’ phenomenon. The chief preoccupation of the eugenists was with the
biological fitness of the working class. Most eugenists assumed that social class
was a function of hereditary worth, and the social policies they contemplated were
often directed against the ‘unfit’ lower classes, especially the social residuum or
social problem group – the permanent alcoholics, paupers and persistent criminal
offenders.
252
 The Idea of Race in
22.4 RACE IN RELATION TO COLONIALISM Indian History-Writing

Once human behaviour was seen as an outcome of structure of the mind fixed
by heredity, it was not difficult to stretch it and see human groups differently
endowed and so destined for different roles in the history of human society. The
hierarchy of races was believed to correspond to and indeed to be the cause of
what most people took to be the natural scale of human achievement. The general
public agreed because it coincided with the Europeans’ image of themselves in
the world.
Around the mid-nineteenth century, in fact, there existed a number of schools of
thought, occupying themselves with the fundamental question of proving the inherent
superiority of one people over another. A possible reason for their coming into
existence was search for some popular explanation to account for the fact of
imperialism, and to rationalise it in the public mind.
The aptitude of a race to colonise and the tendency of another to be colonised
was already reflected in a number of earlier philosophical thinkers’ categories, devised
mostly on racial lines. Gustav Klemm and A. Wuttke had designated the so-called
civilised races as active, and all others as passive in 1843. Carus divided mankind
into “peoples of the day, night and dawn” in 1849, depending on their place in the
scale of civilisation, and implicitly marking out the ones who needed help to be
pulled out of the continuing ‘night’. Nott and Gliddon ascribed animal instincts
only to the ‘lower’ races, and it was deduced from this by their supporters that
conquest by the civilised races would slowly cure such instincts of the conquered.
In all these categories, however, the supposed racial attributes, which made one
race the perpetual conqueror and another doomed to conquest forever, had not
been linked to any identifiable cause as yet.
Writings of the 1850s became more specific and pointed in their search. Why were
a people ‘active’ (progressing, colonising) or ‘passive’ (stagnating, conquered)?
Why would some inevitably belong to the day, others to the night? The first
identifiable reasoning was in terms of alleged superior mental capacity of a people
as compared to another: one would then naturally rule over another. These mental
characteristics, moreover, seemed to clearly stem from some fixed attribute, which
must be pinned down.
Climate was a part of the unchanging environment surrounding any given set of
people, and provided, in a number of creative ways, a ready explanation for the
lower races’ possession of lower mental faculties. A.H. Keane, one of the vice
presidents of the Anthropological Institute at Cambridge proposed that in excessively
hot and moist intertropical regions, in the struggle for survival by the inhabitants,
the animal side of a human being is improved at the expense of the mental side.
(It was, predictably, the opposite in the temperate zones where the white population
lived).
Another interesting point of view was that mental development suffered in regions
where food was easily and abundantly available e.g. in the tropical regions. On
the other hand, it was claimed that wherever men have been involved in a strenuous
conflict with a cold climate, they have acquired heroic qualities of character: energy,
courage, and integrity. It is important to note here that “struggle for existence”
vis-à-vis the climate was held to have different consequences for the whites and 253
Indian Historiography the non-whites. In the former it developed virtues of character, in the latter animal
like physical development at the cost of the mental.
A transition from ‘mental qualities’ to the category of ‘racial qualities’ was certainly
an advance as far as popular rhetoric was concerned: new assertions could now
be made without any reference to a constant factor like physical environment/climate
as the earlier authors were impelled to do. One race, for instance, could be simply
asserted to be more moral than another, a totally new input into the argument,
requiring no evidence whatsoever. E.B.Tylor was the originator of this reasoning:
“There is a plain difference between the low and high races of man, so that the
dull minded barbarian has not the power of thought enough to come up to the civilised
man’s moral standard.”
Soon the fact of colonisation will not need any explanation at all: “It is only necessary
to look at the physique of the Hindoos in order to account for their subjection to
alien races...” Weak physical bodily traits led to weak morality, and both the
weaknesses (separately as well as together) adequately explained colonialism.
It is worth mentioning that E. B. Tylor, the supposed father of evolutionary
anthropology, picked up for his academic researches the general trend of the above
arguments. He could confidently assert that “it was reasonable to imagine as latest
formed the white race of the temperate region, least able to bear extreme heat or
live without the appliances of culture, but gifted with the powers of knowing and
ruling”. Clearly a particular race was constituted of mental qualities, via climate,
which either condemned it to slavery, or the power of ruling. This strain of reasoning
was sufficiently influential for Emerson to ask, “It is race, is it not, that puts the
hundred millions of India under the dominion of a remote island in the north of
Europe?”
At some point, however, the genetically determined physical traits (manifested in
the physical appearance of the body) become more important than the physical
environment/climate as the determinant of mental capacities of the colonised races.
All along, there was a parallel school of research working on the physical person
of the colonised, attempting to reach the same conclusion, viz. the colonised needed
to be colonised.

22.5 RACE AND THE DISCIPLINE OF

ANTHROPOLOGY
Much debate took place in the late nineteenth century, around the theory of social
Darwinism. There were, in principle, two ways found of locating a particular race
on the scale of social evolution :
i) by examining the physical development of the race in question, and
ii) by analysing the social component of the society which that particular race
had built for itself.
The second was mostly ignored, and the first became the scientific problem of the
day. As far as the scientific community was concerned, the physical development
of a race was not to be judged in terms of physical beauty - that was for the layperson.
254 The scientist was interested in proving evolution of the ‘internal’ parts — the skull,
the brain, the nasal bone, and so on. This strain of research had its own trajectory. The Idea of Race in
Indian History-Writing
In the initial phases of social evolutionism, it was attempted to relate the mental
capacity of the race in question (the direct determinant of social achievement) to
some measurable physical attribute. The concept of `cranial capacity’ (related to
the brain size) was an early and enduring one.
A clear formulation of the concept of cranial capacity is given by one of its proponents,
Keane. This author asserted that ‘mental gradations’ – a scale of mental capacity
— could be shown between various races, based on the principle of cranial capacity.
In fact, Darwin himself observed that there did exist a relation between the size of
the brain and development of the intellectual faculties. It was with the intent of proving
this point that he presented the following data: “The mean internal capacity of the
skull in Europeans is 92.3 cubic inches, in Americans 87.5, and in Australians only
81.9 cubic inches”. The fact that Franz Boas challenged this, and pointed out as
late as 1922 that both Europeans and Mongols have the largest brains, and not
Europeans alone, shows the currency of these ideas well into the twentieth century.
Later in the nineteenth century, another popular notion which gained influence was
that “the black is a child and will long remain so”. Investigations were done to
show that this was because of the “sudden arrest of the intellectual faculties at the
age of puberty (due) to premature closing of the (cranial) sutures”. It was claimed
that studies showed that upto the age of puberty, a negro child learnt remarkably
well, but after that became `incurably stupid’. Moreover, there was no religious,
intellectual, moral or industrial advancement in the negro who was also a political
idiot. It is significant how explicitly the supposed lack of political acumen or industrial
development is being attributed to a fixed incurable cause, i.e. the so-called cranial
sutures!
The above details have been given to show a particular trend in supposed scientific
research as far as determining the potential of a race was concerned. These
‘researches’ continued in many more directions than just on the skull of individuals.
It will suffice here to record that slowly, but relentlessly, the parameters of
civilisation changed from the size of the skull to size of the jaws, to size
and shape of the nose, to the length of the arms etc. reflecting the then
current concerns of the sciences of anthropometry and anthropology of the
period in relation to racial differences.
With work going on in the opposite direction, however, it soon became clear that
there was no relationship between low mental development and the size and shape
of any part of the body. Franz Boas cited research done by Karl Pearson, Manouvrier
and so on to contradict views of older authors like Gobineau, Klemm, Carus, Nott
and Gliddon who assumed characteristic mental differences between races of humans.
More importantly, he identified the reason for revival of these older views (now in
the garb of science) to the growth of modern nationalism.
The professed relationship between the physical type and mental capacity had run
into dangerous ground by the end of the century. By 1896, while still insisting that
whites did represent the highest type of mental development, it was admitted that
“mental differences are independent of the general body structure”. How else could
one explain that intellects like Alexander Pope’s “dwelt in a feeble frame, while
the stupid Negroes of Senegambia are endowed with Herculean bodies?” As a
255
Indian Historiography result of researches done by the likes of Franz Boas, it got established by the early
decades of the twentieth century that mental activity followed the same laws
in each individual of whatever ‘race’, and its manifestations depended almost
entirely upon the character of individual social experience.
There was another direct offshoot of rhetoric which derived from evolutionary ideology:
there was frequently an attempt to compare, albeit favourably, the ‘lower races’
with animals, and not always with apes: the distance between the representatives
of the two races was so much that one race was closer to animals than to humans.
An author wrote of the Australians that
“the difference between the brain of a Shakespeare and that of an Australian savage
would doubtless be fifty times greater than the difference between the Australian’s
brain and that of an orang-utan. In mathematical capacity the Australian who cannot
tell the number of fingers on his two hands is much nearer to a lion or a wolf than
to Sir Rowan Hamilton, who invented the method of quarter ions. In moral
development, this same Australian whose language contains no words for justice
and benevolence is less remote from dogs and baboons than from Howard ...The
Australian is more teachable than the ape, but his limit is nevertheless very quickly
reached. All the distinctive attributes of man, in short, have been developed to an
enormous extent through long ages of social evolution”.
The imagery of animals to describe such people was a frequent occurrence in
ethnology/anthropology books. So, while in the Andaman Islander, the peculiar
goat like exhalations of the Negro were absent, the Yahgan’s intelligence is inferior
to that of a dog’s as “unlike a dog, they forget in which hole they hid their remaining
food after a feast”. Just like the wild animals of Australia were peculiar and always
of a low type, so were its dark coloured natives with their coarse and repulsive
features. Francis Galton’s researches with South African communities became classics
in anthropological literature and were universally quoted as exhibiting the great `mental
intervals’ between the higher and the lower races. According to Galton, taking
the dog and the Damara, the comparison reflected no great honour on the man.
By contrasting the most undeveloped individuals of one race with the most highly
developed of another, and in fact, by relegating the former a category closer to
animals, the (European) reader was made to identify with an idealised, unusual
specimen of his/her own race as the collective norm. Visually, too, the standards
of European beauty were considered the norm, and to emphasise the difference,
the most degraded specimens were chosen for taking photographs - “the ugliest
and the weirdest looking” of an otherwise handsome race” for use in ethnology
books.
This kind of research was supplemented if not started with accounts showing
similarities between these communities and various species of animals, other than
monkeys and apes: “among the rudest fragments of mankind are the isolated Andaman
Islanders... the old Arab and European voyagers described them as dog-faced man-
eaters. As mentioned earlier, Hunter described the “Non-aryans” of India as “ the
remains of extinct animals which palaeontologists find in hill caves...”
Something was being said, in the era of evolutionary anthropology, when the rung
on the scale assigned to some communities was even lower than that of apes, which
would evolve at some point of time into humans.
256
 The Idea of Race in
22.6 RACIAL ‘RESEARCH’ AND THE POLITICS Indian History-Writing

OF DOMINATION
What was the impulse behind the researches that were done on certain groups of
‘uncivilised’ people? The ethnographic material of the period shows a marked
tendency to represent the aborigines belonging to the lowest rung of the world
evolutionary scale. There is a distinct tendency to overemphasise their barbaric
practises. John Lubbock, an eminent anthropologist of his time, and one of the
early Presidents of the Anthropological Institute published his popular “Prehistoric
Times” in 1865. Here he studies `modern savages’ like the Andaman Islanders,
Australians and Maoris with the message that they needed to be colonised. These
statements were significant in a context where a section of European political and
public opinion had begun to challenge the rightness of colonial presence all over
the world. Racially motivated research provided ample data from this time onwards
well into the twentieth century to show the barbarism of the subject races in general.
In retrospect, the people of the colonies were presented by the evolutionary theorists
as curiosities and specimens of a bygone era. This emphasis on the Asians or Africans,
Australians and Native Americans as relics of the past served an important purpose:
to dull the reader’s sensibilities as far as their current situation was concerned.
Seeing them from the point of view of anthropological science detracted from the
fact of them as politically active people. India, for instance, was posed as a great
museum of races — this particular view denied the people concerned a legitimate
place in the present. More important, it robbed them of any recognition as a society
in a state of flux like any other by fixing them in a dead mould — the unchanging
relics of the past. Remnants of earlier long dead generations, they were going to
be studied, analysed, classified and exhibited.
It is not a coincidence that spectacles of these specimens were so popular in England
and even in the colonies, in the form of great colonial exhibitions in the second
half of the 19th century, with anthropological displays an important and popular
part. What was propagated during such exhibitions was that “taking him all in all,
the Australian aborigine represents better than any other living form the generalised
features of primitive humanity”.
While working on the issue of ‘ancestorhood’ represented by the current aborigines,
another possible link was explored: that between scale of civilisation and moral/
ethical progress. It was asserted here that European morality was more perfect
and “the ancestors” were immoral in their disposition. Thus not only earlier societies
were deemed to be less ethical, but also those supposedly the relics of earlier ones,
existing in the form of African or Australian societies. This sort of reasoning served
to justify the immense scale of massacres of aborigines and native American populations
in order to colonise their land. In fact, it was explicitly said of the black republic
of Hyati that in the absence of the coloniser’s civilising influence, the free people
of Hyati had reversed back to pagan rites, snake worship, cannibalism.
Once Darwin’s Descent of Man appeared in 1858, it was not long before social
Darwinism became a fashionable and influential school of thought in British society
and politics. There were commonsensical reasons for this from a practical view-
point: the doctrine of survival of the fittest justified political conquest of weaker
‘races’ and their elimination if necessary; there was also affinity between this doctrine
257
Indian Historiography and the economic policy of laissez faire at home. In addition, by implication, this
doctrine provided scientific reasons for denying protective legislation for factory
workers, the poor, the elderly and the weak in society in general: if they could not
struggle sufficiently to survive, they deserved to perish. Herbert Spencer and Henry
Maine advocated this doctrine as a key to social problems of welfare and state’s
role at home; the imperialists grasped it as a useful theoretical guideline in defence
of expansionism and colonialism.
However, “survival of the fittest”, the basic tenet of the theory of evolutionism, seemed
to come under challenge with events like the Boer war at the end of the 19th century.
This doctrine had not prepared the imperial powers to be resisted so tenaciously
by the supposedly less fit races, and survive a war! There were also other challenges
emerging to the definitions of civilisation, morality and ethics. The essence of morality
was claimed by some contemporary European thinkers to exist not in the forms of
European social organisations, but the ones which aborigine societies had evolved
for themselves, ensuring protection for its young or the aged, or giving rights to its
individual members. The third quarter of the 19th century was also the time to begin
to speak in terms of protection to the weak as the hallmark of an ethical society.
Thus the theory of ‘survival of the fittest’ while dominating European politics and
public opinion was also beginning to increasingly come under attack. Progress was
being defined in terms which were now not so smug, and increasingly controversial.
A few like Huxley directly challenged social Darwinism and pointed out that the
mark of a really civilised society is one in which competition to survive is cut down
to the minimum and one which is premised on protection of the weak, not survival
of the fittest.
It is also an interesting fact that in principle, there was contradiction between the
evolutionist’s view of colonial societies and the fast delivering reforms of the imperial
rule. So while the evolutionary ethnographers focussed on the essential unchangeability
of societies like India – except very gradually, almost imperceptibly, over a period
of a few thousand years – the administrators continued to emphasise the changes
that had been brought about by the British in a relatively short time.
There was one more area of conflict: between the theory of racial evolutionism
and the immediate interests of the British traders, in fact, a crucial political reason
for ultimate decline of the evolutionary theory. The nineteenth century saw an
interest in the aborigines from a new section apart from the missionaries and the
colonial administrator - the merchants. Competition from Germany over colonial
markets in particular provided the impetus for ‘study’ of such races from a political
and commercial, apart from a scientific point of view. The science of the earlier
decades, in the shape of Darwin’s guidelines, however, had to be abandoned. If
the people at the bottom of the evolutionary scale needed a long span of time to
civilise, how could they be expected to use these goods?

22.7 POULARISING RACIAL CONCEPTS

It became then the duty of authors of ethnology books to inform the general public
of the commercial interests of the Europeans in ‘lower races’. The editor of the
Native Races of the British Empire Series wrote that since Anthropology textbooks
were too technical and bulky, the series in question were an attempt to supply in a
258 readable form information about the uncivilised races of the empire, and the peoples
of the lower stages of culture. This genre of literature became the staple of popular The Idea of Race in
Indian History-Writing
reading material on the question of ‘races’, and served to a very large extent the
political-economic purposes for which it was written.
Ethnology books of the period borrowed from fiction, and managed to project
quite effectively the image of an animal, and sometimes even a criminal native. This
theme had several variations. Kipling’s fantasy tale of a wolf-reared child inspired
an ethnographer to find evidence of a supposedly real case of the same kind, which
is quoted in the above book. He even published the article in the Journal of the
Anthropological Institute in a paper with a generalised title “jungle life in India”
giving the impression that such half humans were an integral part of Indian wild
life. This contribution was quoted by the author of Living Races, complete with
references and page number of the concerned journal, giving the impression of scientific
analysis. Moreover, the author of the article was mentioned to be an official of
the Indian Geographical Survey, again adding to the authenticity of the report. All
this served to confound fantasy with research.
In any case, the axis between travel books, popular ethnology works, anthropologists
and fiction writers had an interlocking, mutually reinforcing impact on the readers’
mind. One source made the other respectable and recycled the data in a selective
and often exaggerated form. The scientific layout gave the impression of authenticity,
validating the fiction of Kipling and others. While these fiction writers and cartoonists
drew from anthropology, popular ethnology borrowed from fiction. The line between
fact and fiction, as far as the ‘races’ of the world were concerned, gradually grew
blurred by the circular nature of information.

22.8 INDIA AND THE IDEA OF RACE

During the last quarter of the 19th century, especially after the 1857 events, there
was a great desire on the British administrator’s part to ‘understand India’. This
was the era of classifications and categories like warrior or martial races; criminal
tribes; cultivating or professional castes and so on. Thus while India found its due
place in the scale of evolution in societal terms on a world basis, within India the
evolutionary theory was applied to sort out the loyal from the disloyal, the respectable
from the criminal, the malleable from the obstinate — the dasyu from the potential
dasa.
W.W. Hunter seems to have contributed conceptually to the hierarchisation of the
Indian people by proposing an evolutionary scale within India itself, which it was
claimed was a “great museum of races in which we can study man from his lowest
to his highest stages of culture....” The Aryans in India with whom the British felt
political affinity by now were not only fair skinned, but of noble lineage, speaking
a stately language, worshipping friendly and powerful gods. The others were the
original inhabitants whom the lordly newcomers — the Aryans — had driven back
into the mountains or reduced to servitude on the plains. “The victors called the
non-Aryans, an obscure people, Dasyu (enemies) or Dasa (slaves)”. These creatures
were the subject matter of Edgar Thurston’s studies twenty years later, with a similar
evolutionary hierarchy in mind.
In the ethnographical writing of the period, there is a curious mix of the Hindu religious
texts passing as history, and Darwin’s scientific terminology. The reinforcing of the
arguments from the Vedas with evidence from Darwin was an ingenious way of 259
Indian Historiography reading of Indian history by the British anthropologists. Some particularly daring
samples are quoted here:
“Speaking generally of the aborigines of India, we have sacred traditional accounts
which represent them to have been savages allied to the apes. ...In the existing
aborigines we find here and there marked peculiarities which point to a possible
descent from some lower type of animal existence — the frequently recurring earpoint
of Darwin, peculiar to certain apes, the opposable toe, characteristic of the same
animal; the long stiff hair of bipeds or quadrupeds in unusual parts of the body;
the keen sight, hearing and smell of some of the lower animals, coupled with mental
qualities and habits...which can hardly be called human”.
Further, “A comparison of the accounts that are given of (dasyus) in the Vedas
with the Indian aborigines of today shows conclusively that some of them must
have been possessed of a very low bodily and mental organisation — indeed, that
they were a more debased type of beings than what is now called mankind.
“The Aryans called them Dasyus, or enemies....in fact, their description is almost
identical with that of some of the Andaman Islanders of the present day. They
called them eaters of raw flesh, without gods, without faith, lawless, cowardly,
perfidious and dishonest...The Brahmins described the Dasyus or aborigines as
Bushmen or monkeys...in Ramayana, the monkey general Hanuman...plays a prominent
part.” Hunter’s classification of the ‘non Aryans’ into potential criminals was
something Thurston borrowed later. The aboriginal races of the plains, according
to him, had “supplied the hereditary criminal classes, alike under the Hindus,
Mohammedans and the British. The non-aryan hill races also appeared from vedic
times downwards as marauders”.
There is a subtle shuttling between the past and the present by this writer, and the
two merge imperceptibly fairly quickly: the aborigines of today are aborigines of
yesterday; there seems to have been no evolution in this case. In fact, these who
exist today have some of the characteristics of apes that Darwin described — not
only the Brahmin would describe them as monkeys, Darwin would call them apes.
Here it is interesting to find the convergence of the existing Andaman Islanders
into monkey/ape/aborigine of yesterday at one level, and views of Aryans of yesterday
(Brahmins)/Aryans of today (British) and Darwin on the other. It appeared that
there had been identical reading of this section of the population all along from the
time of the vedas upto Darwin. In other words, the theory of evolutionism was
put to quite creative use by the British ethnographer/administrator in that he completely
brahminised a Darwinian concept!
In this framework for analysis of the aborigines of the late 19th century, the scientific
component was an important link of the past to the present. The vedas helped to
justify conquest of the aborigines in an earlier era, and Darwin was used to support
their subsequent subjugation through the concept of the ‘survival of the fittest’. This
mode of analysis was given a coherent form for the first time by Hunter. He, through
the indirect agency of Darwin, identified the convergence of the concepts of the
Brahmin of the vedas and those of the British coloniser: both found the aborigines
akin to either the Dasyu (enemy) or Dasa (slave).
Invocation of Darwin in description of an evolving section of mankind, thus invites
the reader to consider the natural trajectory of the aborigines in general: like the
260 Aryans did, they ought to be ‘conquered’ first. The British felt an affinity with the
Aryan as both had a superior God, and a superior civilisation which could be rightfully The Idea of Race in
Indian History-Writing
imposed on the Godless inferior race of aborigines. Hunter could be writing of British
imperialism in eulogistic terms when he wrote with admiration that “The stout Aryan
spread...(They) had a great trust in themselves and their gods. Like other conquering
races, they believed that both themselves and their deities were altogether superior
to the people of the land and their poor, rude objects of worship. Indeed, this
noble confidence is a great aid to the success of a nation.
The ‘history’ of the apish aborigines was, then, gleaned from the vedas and merged
into the future that Darwin promised: they shall evolve into mankind at some point,
albeit with help from the evolved.
There was a sound historical reason for the British regarding aborigines as Dasyus.
Through the 19th century, expansionist desires now extended from the plains to the
hills, as also need for land for plantations pressed on the administration. The hill tribes
increasingly came to be seen as a political and administrative problem as they resisted
the encroachment on their land by the planters, or recruitment as plantation workers,
or interference by missionaries with their social institutions. There was trouble with
the Nagas in 1878, the Santals in 1855 for several years. Earlier, in 1835, on the
moral grounds of suppressing the custom of human sacrifice practised by the Kondhs,
the British army burned down their villages and had to remain deployed for long periods
to check further resistance. A regular pacification programme to deal with the tribes
had been launched by the British, and this made them see a parallel between their
own situation and that faced by the Aryans centuries ago. Through these devices,
the British hoped that incorrigible Dasyus could successfully be turned into the Dasa
mould, either as workers or soldiers in British armies.

22.9 SUMMARY
Racism, then, is an ideological force which in conjunction with economic and
political relations of domination locates certain populations in specific social/
class positions and therefore structures the social relations in a particular
ideological manner. As we did a historical survey of general ideas on race, it
emerged that the word ‘race’ is used in a different way in different societies, and
at different historical junctures. It is in this context important to remember that whatever
the changing terms of language used to talk about race and ethnicity in the present
day environment, we have in practice seen growing evidence of forms of racial
and ethnic conflict in many parts of the globe.
The idea of race and racism today is alive and well in its myriad monstrous forms.

22.10 EXERCISES
1) What is the relationship between colonial domination and the idea of race?
2) Discuss the ways in which the sciences helped to promote the notion of racial
difference.
3) How did the idea of race originate in India?
4) What is the role played by the discipline of anthropology in promoting racial
theories? 261
Indian Historiography
UNIT 23 PEASANTRY, WORKING CLASS,
CASTE AND TRIBE*
Structure
23.1 Introduction
23.2 Historiography before 1947
23.3 The Left Paradigm and its Critics
23.4 The Longer Term Perspective
23.5 Peasant Movements
23.6 Labour History
23.7 The Discovery of Caste
23.8 Colonial Ethnology and the Tribes
23.9 Low Caste and Tribal Protests
23.10 Are Caste and Tribe Real?
23.11 Summary
23.12 Exercises

23.1 INTRODUCTION
The Leftist movement in twentieth century Indian politics bought the focus to bear
upon peasants, workers and their movements during the freedom struggle. Attempts
to write the histories of these movements involved a closer study of class relations
in Indian society, especially peasant-landlord relations and worker-capitalist relations.
There had been earlier studies of related aspects, especially a voluminous historical
literature on industry. The aim of radical historiography, however, was to treat the
peasants and workers as historical subjects in their own right. Soon, it became
evident that the history of workers and peasants might not be grasped fully without
taking their evolving relationship with the superior classes into account. As these
realisations dawned, the new labour historians emphasised the importance of treating
labour and capital together. By the very nature of the subject, moreover, the older
colonial historiography had tended to treat agrarian relations as a whole, keeping
in view the mutual relations of tenants and landlords in any investigation of the condition
of peasants.
The terms ‘peasant’ and ‘worker, it may be noted in this context, were somewhat
novel terms in Indian history. Colonial historiography had usually used the terms
‘tenant’ and ‘ryot’ rather than the ‘peasant’. The term ‘ryot’ was a distortion of
the Persian term ‘raiyat’, which meant, literally, ‘subject’. In Mughal times, all
subordinate classes of villagers, including the tillers of the land who were liable to
pay the land tax, were referred to as ‘ri’aya’ (plural of raiyat) or subjects. While

*
262 Resource Person: Prof. Rajat Ray
the peasants were very much there in the pre-colonial period, the class of industrial Peasantry, Working Class,
Caste and Tribe
workers did not exist then. The people who did exist were the artisans, farms
servants, field labourers, tanners, distillers, and the miscellaneous class of the labouring
poor including sweepers, scavengers, palanquin bearers and so on. The industrial
proletariat was a new class that emerged along with the rise of large-scale industry
in the later nineteenth century. The conceptualisation of the peasant as a
separate class and the emergence of the workers as a distinct new class
led to the emergence of peasants’ and workers’ history in the course of
the twentieth century. The Marxist concept of the class and the spread of the
communist ideology in India constituted a factor in the emergence of the radical
historiography relating to workers and peasants.
When modern anthropological and historical writings on Indian society began, the
close relationship between caste and tribe became evident. Colonial historians and
anthropologists saw that the peculiarity of Indian society lay in caste. They also
saw that there was a section in Indian society, namely the aboriginal tribes, which
had not been brought into caste society. The constitution of caste society differed
from tribal society in many respects. It is not merely that the tribal economy differed
from that of castes. It is also true that the marriage systems differed radically in
the two types of society. The polarity of purity and pollution, which characterised
caste society, was absent among the tribes. The tribes were no part of ritual hierarchy.
And in a related way, the gender system of the tribes also differed from the marriage
structure of caste society.
The historical and anthropological literature on caste is voluminous and of long standing.
There is also a new and burgeoning literature on gender studies and women’s history.
The tribes do not figure so importantly in Indian historical writing. There is, however,
a considerable body of anthropological literature on the tribes which includes some
historical material. The dalits or untouchables have become an important force in
Indian politics. It is not a matter of surprise, therefore, that historical inquiries into
their condition have attracted several researchers. The adivasis or aboriginal tribes
do not have that sort of importance in politics, except in the north-eastern hill states.
There are, consequently, fewer researchers in tribal history.

23.2 HISTORIOGRAPHY BEFORE 1947

It would be a mistake to think that peasant and workers constituted an entirely
new subject, nor would it be right to say that there was no interest in the subject
before the emergence of socialism. That there was an early interest in the conditions
of the poor is shown by Revered Lal Behari Day’s English language fictional work,
Govinda Samanta (2 vols., 1874). It was brought out in a new edition entitled
Bengal Peasant Life (1878), which contained important material on the peasantry
of the nineteenth century. Furthermore, the Brahmo social reformer, Sasipapda
Banerjee, launched the Bengali magazine Bharat Sharmajibi (The Indian Worker)
as early as 1874, and this magazine contained important historical material.
One may, indeed, go back to the eighteenth century, and find English and Persian
accounts of agriculture and the agriculturist. H.T. Colebrooke, a senior East India
Company servant, wrote his Remarks on the Husbandry and Internal Commerce
of Bengal in 1794 (new ed. Calcutta 1804). Recently, historians have traced an
important Persian manuscript entitled Risala-I-Zirat (Treatise on Agriculture), written 263
Indian Historiography by a late Mughal official of Bengal for a company servant in 1785, in which he set
out four distinct categories of cultivators; (1) muqarrari cultivator, a tenant with a
permanent deed (2) khudkasht cultivator, a tenant with understood rights in his
own village, (3) paikasht cultivator, a tenant residing in a village other than the
one in which is field was located, and (4) kaljanah, or ‘one who tilled land as the
subordinate of another cultivator’, (see Harbans Mukhia, ‘The Risala-I-Zirat [a
Treatise on Agriculture]’, included in Harbanbs Mukhia, Perspectives on Medieval
History (New Delhi, 1993). From later records, it becomes clear that the fourth
type of agriculturist might be an under-tenant, a sharecropper or a plain farm servant.
The distinction between the resident (khudkasht) peasant and the migrant (Paikasht)
peasant slowly disappeared during the colonial period due to increasing population
pressure, but the same factor kept alive the more fundamental distinction between
the peasant and the agricultural servant. The latter was entered in the censuses of
colonial India as farm servant or field labourer, and he was a man even below the
sharecropper, who still had the status of a peasant.
Because of the British authorities’ dependence on the land revenue, the colonial
administration kept the ryot constantly in its view and therefore in its records. The
same cannot be said of the agricultural labourer, for he was not a tenant and was
not liable to pay land revenue from any tenancy. Only the ryot, therefore, is treated
along with the zamindar in B. H. Barden-Powell’s Manual of Land Revenue System
and Land Tenures of India (Calcutta, 1882), later republished in the well-known
three-volume Land Systems of British India (Oxford, 1892). Another official,
W.H. Moreland, drew up the Notes on the Agricultural Conditions and Problems
of the United Provinces, Revised up to 1911 (Allahabad, 1913), and later on
he produced the classic Agrarian System of Moslem India (Cambridge, 1929).
From the works of Baden Powell and W.H. Moreland, it emerged clearly that the
land revenue of the state and the rent of the landlord had been the traditional
mechanisms of the appropriation of the peasant surplus, not only in the colonial
period but also in pre-colonial times. Yet another traditional mechanism of surplus
appropriation, indebtedness and the charges upon it, assumed a novel importance
in the colonial period, and drew the attention of the British officials in due course.
As the ryot began to lose land, and riots broke out against the money-lender, two
Punjab officers wrote important works on the ryot’s indebtedness, and on the social
tensions generated by money-lending operations: S.S. Thorburn, Musalmans and
Money-lenders in the Punjab (1866) and Malcom Darling, The Punjab Peasant
in Prosperity and Debt (London, 1932).
The colonial administration also generated works on labour employed in cottage
and small-scale industries. Two important official works relating to Uttar Pradesh
were William Hoey, A Monograph on Trade and Manufactures in Northern India
(Lucknow, 1880), and A.C. Chatterjee, Notes on the Industries of the United
Provinces (Allahabad, 1908). Logically, a mid-day point in the transition from
the cottage to the factory was the workshop employing several artisans, and this
important development was touched on in an unofficial work: N.M. Joshi, Urban
Handicrafts of the Bombay Deccan (Poona, 1936).
The emergence of large-scale industry produced two new social forces: labour and
capital. Among the works of the colonial period relating to these new developments
may be mentioned S.M. Rutnagar, Bombay Industries: the Cotton Mills (Bombay,
264
1927); D.H. Buchanan, The Development of Capitalistic Enterprise in India Peasantry, Working Class,
Caste and Tribe
(New York, 1934); and Radhakamal Mukherjee, The Indian Working Class
(Bombay, 1945). It will be evident that by the late colonial period the worker
had found his place beside the peasant as a force to reckon with in the economic
life of the country. The involvement of these types of people in the growing political
unrest included the UK Government to dispatch two royal commissions that generated
important reports on their conditions: The Royal Commission on Agriculture in
India, Report (1928) and The Royal Commission on Labour in India, Report
(1931). The colonial period generated great body of evidence on the peasant and
the worker for research after independence.

23.3 THE LEFT PARADIGM AND ITS CRITICS

The left identified the working class as the vanguard of the class struggle and the
most progressive political force in Indian society. The overwhelming mass of the
population still lived off agriculture, and the leftist historians were therefore induced
to pay some attention to the peasantry. They came up with a paradigm, or framework
of understanding, in order to make sense of change in agrarian society during the
colonial period. The paradigm was worked out soon after independence in such
works as S.J. Patel, Agricultural Workers in Modern India and Pakistan (Bombay,
1952) and Ramkrishna Mukherjee, The Dynamics of a Rural Society (Berlin,
1957). On this view of the matter, colonial rule in India produced a series of related
changes in agrarian society: the creation of landed property by law; forced
commercialisation of crops; land brought to the market as a commodity; the spread
of peasant indebtedness and land alienation; the disintegration of the peasantry into
rich peasants and poor peasants; depeasantisation, landlessness and the emergence
of a pauperised class of landless labourers; the collapse of the village community
of self-sufficient peasants and a far reaching process of social stratification in the
countryside.
Subsequent research revealed that these notions were misinformed, and based on
an inadequate acquaintance with the vast documentation in the colonial archives.
The work of serious historical investigation and revision began with Dharma Kumar’s
pioneering work, Land and Caste in South India, Agricultural Labour in Madras
Presidency during the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 1965). She proved with
rich documentation that pre-colonial and early-colonial India already possessed a
vast agrarian under-class of bonded labourers who traditionally belonged the
untouchable castes. Landlessness here was function of caste and not of the market.
Rajat and Ratna Ray followed with an article in The Indian Economic and Social
History Review (vol. 10, 1973), entitled ‘The Dynamics of Continuity in Rural
Bengal under the British Imperium: a study of Quasi-Stable Subsistence Equilibrium
in Underdeveloped Societies in a Changing World’, in which they contended that
a group of rich peasants who had their lands cultivated by sharecroppers and bonded
labourers existed even at the beginning of colonial rule, and were beneficiaries of
economic change in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Yet another attack on the Marxist paradigm of polarisation between rich and poor
peasants during the colonial period came from a contrary direction. There had earlier
been a debate in Russia between V.I. Lenin and A.V. Chayanov on stratification
with the peasantry. As against Lenin’s thesis that growth of agrarian capitalism 265
Indian Historiography and the emergence of a class of kulaks (rich peasants) had permanently stratified
the Russian peasantry into rich and poor, Chayanov contended that the Russian
peasantry remained a homogeneous and subsistence-oriented community of small-
holders among whom differences of farm size were cyclical and not consolidated
into permanent distinctions. Eric Strokes, in his contribution to The Cambridge
Economic History of India, vol.2, C.1757-c.1970, edited by Dharma Kumar
(Cambridge, 1983), expressed the opinion that there was no agrarian polarisation.
If divisions did occur in the countryside, it was ‘more because of the slow
impoverishment of the mass than the enrichment of the few’ (contribution entitled
‘Agrarian Relations: Northern and Central India’). Opinion on this complex issue
has remained divided. Did the peasants remain an undifferentiated class of poor
small holders? Neil Chalesworth, in Peasants and Imperial Rule: Agriculture
and Agrarian Society in the Bombay Presidency, 1850 – 1935 (Cambridge, 1985)
contended that a certain degree of commercialisation of agriculture in colonial India
had the effect of pushing up a number of peasants. Sugata Bose, on the other
hand, maintained, in Agrarian Bengal: Economy, Social Structure and Politics
1919-1947 (Cambridge, 1986), that rich farmers were to be seen only among
reclaimers of land in a few frontier areas. In the more settled districts of East
Bengal, the egalitarian peasant small holding system remained intact for most of
the colonial period. More recently, Nariaki Nukazato, in Agrarian System in
Eastern Bengal C. 1870-1910 (Calcutta, 1994), has found that even there, at
least a quarter of the land had come under the unequal relationship of cultivating
employers and share-cropping under-tenants. He lends support to an earlier thesis
to this effect in Binay Bhushan Chudhuri, ‘The Process of Depeasantization in Bengal
and Bihar, 1885-1947,’ Indian Historical Review, Vol. 2, 1975. Chaudhuri’s
article made the important point that the growing number of sharecroppers among
the peasants indicated an incipient process of depeasantisation even while outwardly
the small-holding system appeared to be intact.
Historians, moreover, came to concede that class was not the only factor in
differentiation among the peasantry. Studies such as M.C.Pradhan, The Political
System of the Jats of Northern India, David Pocock, Kanbi and Patidar: a
study of the Patidar Community of Gujarat, and Stephen F. Dale, Islamic Society
on the South Asian Frontier: The Mappilas of Malabar 1498-1922 (1980)
showed that caste and community were capable of producing important rural
solidarities among the members, setting them apart from other peasants.

23.4 THE LONGER TERM PERSPECTIVE

W.H. Moreland had set the agenda for a long-term visualisation of the role of the
state in the life of the rural population. Marxists historians at Aligarh, following in
his footstep set about exploring aspect of agrarian life and the state formation in
both the pre-colonial and colonial periods. In the early 1960s, Irfan Habib, a
formidable Aligarh historian, demonstrated the overwhelming presence of the Mughal
state in the life of the heavily taxed peasantry in The Agrarian System of Mughal
India 1556-1707 (Bombay, 1963) He depicted several peasant rebellions that
occurred in the reign of Aurangzeb. The two ends of the spectrum, the state and
the village, were also portrayed with the help of rich Marathi documentation by
the Japanese historian Hiroshi Fukazawa, whose essays were collected together
266 in The Medieval Deccan; Peasants, Social Systems and States, Sixteenth to
Seventeenth Centuries (New Delhi, 1991). The American historian, Burton Stein, Peasantry, Working Class,
Caste and Tribe
maintained that the state, rooted in the life of the peasant community, had a weaker
and more segmented character that Irfan Habib had allowed, at least in the south.
This non-Marxist perspective was set forth in Stein’s Peasant State and Society
in Medieval South India (New Delhi, 1980). Another American historian, David
Ludden, undertook a long-term study of local rulers and villagers in Tirunelveli district
in the deep south. The micro-stuty spanned the pre-colonial and colonial periods
and was entitled Peasant History in South India (Princeton, 1985). The history
of peasants now had a broader perspective than the initial Marxist studies of peasant
movements.

23.5 PEASANT MOVEMENTS

The above perspective lent a growing sophistication to the study of peasant struggles.
A growing brand of non-Marxist historians entered the field with new concepts.
The pioneer in this sophisticated new variety of history was Eric Strokes, whose
essays on the conditions and movements of peasants paid due attention to caste,
markets, tax burden and a variety of other factors. His essays were collected together
in The Peasant and The Raj: Studies in Agrarian Society and Peasant Rebellion
in Colonial India (Cambrige, 1978). The sociologist D. N. Dhangare’s Peasant
Movements in India (Delhi, 1983) represented another breakaway from the older
one-dimensional Marxist perspective. Ranjit Guha, at the same time, brought a
subalternist perspective to bear on the subject in Elementary Aspects of Peasant
Insurgency in Colonial India (New Delhi, 1983). He showed that peasant actions
were typically circumscribed by the locality, based on caste or communal ties, and
oriented towards an inversion of existing hierarchy rather than a revolutionary break-
through on the Marxist model.

23.6 LABOUR HISTORY

The older leftist history of the trade union movement in India assumed, uncritically,
that the working class in India was practically the same, in its social constitution
and outlook, as the European working class. Closer examination of the sources
by the historians threw doubt on the revolutionary potential and socialist outlook
of the so-called ‘proletariat’. It was demonstrated by the new labour historians
that the mentality and the consciousness of the industrial workers did not differ all
that much from the outlook of the poor who depended on the casual labour market
in town and country. Among the works that revised labour history substantially
may be mentioned Morris David Morris, The Emergence of an Industrial Labour
Force India: A Study of the Bombay Cotton Mills 1845-1947 (Berkeley and
Los Angles, 1965); R.K. Newman, Workers and Unions in Bombay 1919-29:
a Study of Organisation in the Cotton Mills (Canberra, 1981); Sujata Patel,
The Making of Industrial Relations. The Ahmedabad Textile Industry 1918-
1939 (Delhi, 1987), a study of the Gandhian model of trade unionism based on
the cooperation of capital and labour; Dipesh Chakrabarty, Rethinking Working
Class History: Bengal 1890-1940 (Princeton, 1989), a study of jute mill labour
from the Subalternist point of view; and Rajnarayan Chandavarkar, The Origins
of Industrial Capitalism in India: Business Strategies and the Working Classes
in Bombay 1900-1940 (Cambridge, 1994). Dipesh Chakrabarty noted that the 267
Indian Historiography ‘hierarchical precapitalist culture’ of the workers made them prone to communal
violence and inclined them to dependence on the ‘Sardars’ who recruited them.
Rajnarayan Chandavarkar, in his wide ranging study, noted the dependence of the
workers on the ‘Dadas’ in the neighbourhood. Instead of organising themselves
into effective modern trade unions, the rural migrants to the mill towns depended
on jobbers and on communal solidarities. They were prone to unorganised easily-
suppressed violence. Communal riots displaced prolonged, successful strikes all
too often in labour unrest.
In a book entitled Village Communities in the East and West (London, 1871),
Sir Henry Maine conceived old Indian society in terms of status and community,
as against contract and class. The picture of isolated, self sufficient village communities
might have been overdrawn even then. As colonial rule progressed, so did the
understanding of Indian society, and this is reflected in the title of a recent work:
Kapil Kumar (ed.), Congress and Classes: Nationalism, Workers and Peasants
(New Delhi, 1988). The long-term effect of colonial rule was to bring the classes
into play in a new national area.

23.7 THE DISCOVERY OF CASTE

The colonial British administration in India used the concept of caste in a principal
way to understand the society it administered. The British derived the term ‘caste’
from the Portuguese word casta. The Portuguese observation of a social institution
called casta during early maritime voyages led in due course to the elaboration of
the concept of ‘caste system’. This happened in the nineteenth century, in course
of which the colonial administration came to understand the entire social formation
(minus the tribes) in terms of the caste system. Colonial administrators commented
on the existence of the institution of caste, in an imperfect form, even among the
Muslims and Christians.
The Portuguese travelogue, The Book of Duarte Barbosa An Account of the
Countries Bordering on the Indian Ocean and their Inhabitants. Written
by Durate Barbosa and completed about the year 1518 A.D., trans M.L. Dames
(London 1916) was among the first works to touch upon the institution. But
the first to conceive ‘the caste system’ was the French Missionary, Abbe Dubois.
In a work of 1816, entitled ‘Description of the Character, Manners and Customs
of the People of India, and of their Institutions, Religious and Civil’, (translated
by Henry K. Beauchamp subsequently as Hindu Manners, Customs and
Ceremonies (Oxford 1906)), he referred to the caste system of India. He said,
‘I am persuaded that it is simply and solely due to the distribution of the people
into castes that India did not lapse into a state of barbarism and that she preserved
the arts and sciences of civilization whilst most other nations of the earth remained
in the state of barbarism.’ Other Christian missionaries did not share his favourable
view of the civilisational value of caste and the Madras Missionary Conference
of 1850 held caste to be ‘one of the greatest obstacles to the progress of the
gospel in India.’ Indian social reformers, while unwilling as yet to condemn the
caste system as a whole, also dwelt on some of the harmful social consequences
of the institution.
Colonial social ethnology debated the origin and function of caste extensively in
268 the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. On the basis of the census of
1881, two colonial administrators speculated in their reports from the Punjab and Peasantry, Working Class,
Caste and Tribe
North-Western Provinces and Oudh that caste was basically a frozen occupational
system. These early official reports are Denzil lbbetson, Report on the Census
of the Punjab (1883), subsequently re-published as Punjab Castes (Lahore 1916),
and John C. Nesfield, Brief View of the Caste System of the North-Western
Provinces and Oudh, together with an Examination of Names and Figures
Shown in the Census Report (Allahabad, 1885). A brilliant Bengal official named
H.H. Risley disagreed with this view and put forth the influential contention that
caste had a racial origin, to be found in the Aryan conquest of India’s darker original
inhabitants. Not all colonial officials agreed with this view which was set forth in
Risley’s The Tribes and Castes of Bengal, 2 vols. (Calcutta 1892), and The People
of India (Calcutta 1908). William Crooke, an official in sympathy with lbbetson
and Nesfield in his matter, argued against Risley’s race theory, and emphasised
occupational criteria for understanding caste in The Tribes and Castes of the North-
Western Provinces and Oudh, 4 vols. (Calcutta 1896). Risley and Crooke based
their official reports on the census of 1891. Whatever their difference on the origin
of caste, the colonial census had by then officially established caste as the principal
concept for analysing Indian society. Risley’s attempt to establish the social ranking
of caste through the census set off a keen competition among various caste groups
about matters of rank.

In due course the colonial administration fostered political rivalries among the various
castes and the proposal for separate legislative representation of ‘the depressed
classes’ led to Mahatma Gandhi’s fast unto death and a compromise between the
caste Hindus and the untouchable leader B.R. Ambedkar. The keen interest regarding
caste at this time is reflected in works by both Indians and foreigners: Nripendra
Kumar Dutt, Origin and Growth of Caste in India (London, 1931); J.H. Hutton,
Caste in India: Its Nature, Function and Origins (Cambridge, 1946); and G.S.
Ghurye, Caste and Class in India (Bombay, 1950). Though none were professional
historians, all three speculated about the origin and meaning of caste. Hutton, who
was the Census Commissioner of 1931, was dissatisfied with the race and occupation
theories of caste. He speculated:

‘The fact is, many roads of migration have led to India - and have ended there.
This has resulted in the accumulation of a large number of societies of very different
levels of culture and very varying customs in an area in which they have neither
been mutually inaccessible nor without some measure of individual isolation. The
mere inescapable necessity of finding a modus vivendi on the part of a number
of different cultures has probably played a not unimportant part among the various
factors that have combined to cause the caste system to develop.’

Speculation about the nature of caste continued in the period after independence.
Louis Dumont’s modern sociological classic, Homo Hierarchicus: Essai sur les
systems des castes (1967, English translation 1970) argued that the purity-pollution
hierarchy, by which all castes are placed in relation to each other, was the central
feature of the caste system. Morton Klass, in his Caste, The Emergence of the
South Asian Social System (1980), argued on the other hand that a caste, in its
irreducible essence, was a marriage circle, common occupation or other features
being secondary to the system.
269
Indian Historiography
23.8 COLONIAL ETHNOLOGY AND THE TRIBES
Colonial speculation about the origins of the caste system included the assumption
that various tribes had at different times been given a specific caste ranking and
had thus been absorbed into the caste system. The colonial administration also
discovered, however, that several aboriginal tribes had not been so absorbed and
had maintained a separate existence of their own. These tribes, which had remained
apart from the rest of society, were thought to be dependent on forest produce
and shifting cultivation, and were supposed to be simple, backward people prone
to violence. Closer acquaintance with the tribes showed, however, that their conditions
varied, and that many had taken to settled agriculture. Early colonial ethnology
included speculations about the origins and history of the tribes. Colonel E.T. Dalton,
who was Chota Nagpur Commissioner and had close acquaintance with that wild
country which today constitutes, along with the Santhal Parganas, the new state of
Jharkhand, was among the first to venture into the history and present condition
of the tribes. His work was entitled Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal (Calcutta,
1872). It was a pioneering work.
After Colonel Dalton, an amateur Bengali ethnologist who lived in Bihar became
interested in the tribes of the same area where Dalton had served as Commissioner.
His name was Sarat Chandra Roy. His inquiries were more detailed and he showed
a remarkable academic grasp of the new discipline of anthropology. He wrote a
number of works on the tribes of Chota Nagpur. It may be noted that the area,
along with the Santhal Parganas, was included in his time in the province of Bihar
and Orissa. In Colonel Dalton’s time, the whole area, today the state of Jharkhand,
had been part of the huge Bengal Presidency. In whatever administration the area
might be included at different times, it had a distinctive habitat. It was a wild plateau,
and the caste system had not developed there into a predominant social system.
Some of the wild tribes had their own Rajas, some lived under their local chiefs.
The Santhals of the Santhal Parganans and the Mundas of the Chota Nagpur division
were numerically large population blocs. In a famous work on agrarian history,
The Annals of Rural Bengal (1868), W.W. Hunter had earlier touched on the
Santhal insurrection of 1855. Sarat Chandra Roy turned his attention to the Mundas,
and produced an anthroplogical work on them entitled The Mundas and their
Country (Calcutta, 1912). He went on with his detailed researches and produced
two more works: The Oraons of Chota Nagpur: Their History; Economic Life
and Social Organisation (Ranchi, 1915); and The Birhors: a Little – known
Jungle Tribe of Chota Nagpur (Ranchi, 1925). Dalton had commented on the
joyous life of the tribals. Roy added that every bachelor had his sweetheart among
the maidens.
It was clear by this time that the sexual organisation of society was very different
among the tribals compared to the more familiar caste society. A missionary named
Verrier Elwin who had developed empathy with the tribals of Central India turned
his attention to the matter. He touched on an institution called the ghotul which
permitted free mixing. ‘Throughout tribal India’, he said, ‘divorce is easy and generally
the wife has the same rights as her husband’. Among his works may be mentioned
The Baiga (1939), The Muria and their Ghotul (Bombay, 1947) and the Bondo
Highlander (London, 1950). A novel feature of his work was the use of tribal
270
songs as primary material for depicting their condition and mentality. A Baiga song Peasantry, Working Class,
Caste and Tribe
which he collected runs as follows:
In some houses there is food
In other houses there is money
But in every house there is youth and desire.
There is a hint here that the material condition of the tribals might not be easy, but
their social organisation left scope for the natural joys of life.
Some of the early colonial anthropologists speculated about the history of the tribes,
but actual historical materials were not forthcoming from a non-literate society. A.R.
Radcliffe Brown, in his influential anthropological work entitled The Andaman
Islanders (1922), disapproved of such speculative history and urged that tribal
society should be studied as it appeared in the present before the anthropologist.
The inherent difficulties in constructing the history of the tribals meant that the main
body of research work regarding them was anthropological. The work of the
Anthropological Survey of India accentuated this tendency. However, these same
anthropological reports on current conditions among the tribals became valuable
historical documents when, as it happened in independent India, their condition
changed beyond recognition, and for the worse.

23.9 LOW CASTE AND TRIBAL PROTESTS

When historians turned to studying the conditions of low castes and tribals, they
devoted a good deal of attention to the question of oppression and protest during
the colonial period. Both groups were marginal, and were discriminated against.
Yet from time to time ideological leadership emerged from amongst them and there
were movements of protest which figured in the colonial archives. Among the low
castes at least, statements of their own point of view were also sometimes available.
Two recent works which have made interesting use of such material, telling the
story from the point of view of the group concerned, are: Rosalind O’ Hanlon,
Caste, Conflict and Ideology: Mahatma Jotirao Phule and Low Caste Protest
in Nineteenth Century Western India (Cambridge, 1985); and Shekhar
Bandyopadhyay, Caste, Protest and Identity in Colonial India: the Namasudras
of Bengal 1872-1947 (Richmond, 1997). The gender mores of the low castes
and the tribals differed from the high caste ethic, and in their studies of protest.
O’Hanlon and Bandopadhyay did not forget the gender factor. They also showed
how the Non-Brahman movement in Maharashtra and the Namasudra movement
in Bengal negotiated terms with the broader issues of social reform and political
nationalism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
It should be noted that the Non-Brahman movement in the peninsula of India,
especially as it developed in the Maharashtra region and the Tamil country, did
not necessarily represent the lowest of the low. The distinction between the Non-
Brahman movement and the Dalit movement has become clearer in the historical
literature relating to the matter. Eugene F. Irschik, an American historian, who
suggested that caste played an important role in colonial Indian politics, dealt with
the Non-Brahman castes, as distinct from the untouchable Adi Dravidas, in Politics
and Social Conflict in South India: the Non-Brahman Movement and Tamil
271
Indian Historiography Separatism (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1969). He showed that the Non-Brahman
movement in Tamil country was a protest movement of the middling castes against
the Brahman-dominated nationalist movement of the Congress. Below the middling
Non-Brahman castes, which suffered from a sense of discrimination, there were
untouchable castes that were even more oppressed. It is from this section of society
that the Dalit movement emerged in late colonial India under the leadership of B.R.
Ambedkar. The Maharashtra region witnessed both the Non-Brahman movement
and the Dalit movement and the distinction stands clear in two separate works,
both by Gail Omvedt, Cultural Revolt in a Colonial Society: The Non-Brahman
Movement in Western India, 1873-1930 (Bombay, 1976); and Dalits and the
Democratic Revolution: Dr. Ambedkar and the Dalit Movement in Colonial
India (New Delhi, 1994). Another work dealing with the Dalit movement is Eleanor
Zelliot, From Untouchable to Dalit: Essays on the Ambedkar Movement (New
Delhi, 1992).
Movements of protest turned violent more readily among the tribals, at least among
those tribes living in the remoter jungle regions. The tribals were not integrated
with the rest of the society, and they did not fully comprehend the might of the
colonial state. Invariably their rebellions were drowned in blood. We have seen
that W.W. Hunter left an account of the Santhal rebellion in his Annals of Rural
Bengal, written not long after the event happened. Tribal movements of protest
did not draw much attention afterwards. The focus was upon the more organised
politics of nationalist and low caste protest. The focus upon history from below
has resulted in greater attention to tribal revolts in more recent years. Among such
studies may be mentioned K.S. Singh, Dust Storm and Hanging Mist: The Story
of Birsa Munda and His Movement (Calcutta, 1966); and J.C. Jha, Tribal Revolt
of Chota Nagpur, 1831-32 (Patna, 1987). Dealing with the Munda and Kol
rebellions respectively, both works related to the Chota Nagapur plateau. Historians
of India have paid little attention to the tribes of the north-eastern hill states. Many
years ago, the anthropologist Christophe von Furer-Haimendrof wrote the well-
known work, The Naked Nagas: Head Hunters of Assam in Peace and War
(Calcutta, 1946). Recently research in the history of the north-eastern hills has
begun in the north-east itself, and in pace with the trends in current research, social
factors such as gender have begun to figure in this research. For instance, there is
Frederick S. Downs, The Christian Impact on the Status of Women in North
East India (Shillong, 1996).

23.10 ARE CASTE AND TRIBE REAL?

Post-modernist historians have recently questioned whether categories such as ‘caste’
and ‘tribe’ are real. In their opinion, colonial administrators invented these categories
in their discourses upon India and Africa. The argument that ‘tribe’ is a figment of
the colonial imagination appeared in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds.),
The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge 1983). Terence Ranger, a historian of
Africa, argued this in relation to the Dark Continent, but there were resonance of
‘the invention of tribalism’ in the Indian subcontinent, too. That caste, too, was a
product of colonial discourse and not a natural growth of pre-colonial history, was
argued by Ronald Inden, Imagining India (Oxford 1990), and by Nicholas B.
Dirk, Castes of Mind : Colonialism and the Making of Modern India (Princeton
2001). These arguments have not found general acceptance outside post-modernist
272
circles. Historians are aware of the dangers of ‘essentializing’ categories such as Peasantry, Working Class,
Caste and Tribe
tribe, caste and religious community, and are also conscious of the constructed
element in the colonial ethnology regarding these groups. Nevertheless, they have
not been able to dispense with ‘tribalism’ or ‘casteism’ in interpreting Indian history.
That tribal society is a real social category has been reasserted by Binay Bhushan
Chaudhuri in his essay, ‘Tribal Society in Transition: Eastern India, 1757-1920’,
in Mushirul Hasan and Narayani Gupta (eds.), India’s Colonial Encounter : Essays
in Memory of Eric Stokes (New Delhi 1993). That caste assumed new forms in
colonial India was recognised several years ago by Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susan
H. Rudolph, The Modernity of Tradition: Political Development in India (Chicago
1967). Thus there was recognition that caste might have ‘re-invented’ itself in colonial
India. That it was often a smoke-screen for others interests in the politics of the
colonial period is an argument that figures in John Gallagher, Gordon Johnson and
Anil Seal (eds.), Locality, Province and Nation: Essays in Indian Politics, 1870
to 1940) (Cambridge 1970). But that caste became a real factor in politics, at
least in the colonial period, is not denied even by post-modernist historians such
as Dirks. The point is not to essentialise these categories too readily. Dirks observes,
‘Caste as we know it today is not in fact some unchanged survival of ancient
India...Rather...Caste... is a modern phenomenon, that is specifically the product
of an historical encounter between India and Western Colonial rule’. However,
feminist historians, in their studies of pre-colonial Indian society, have found caste
to be very much an oppressive presence in the lives of women even them. Uma
Chakravarti in Rewriting History: The Life and Times of Pandita Ramabai (New
Delhi 1998) found this to be the case with regard to Maharashtra in the age of
Peshwas, as well as in the time of Pandita Ramabai in the late nineteenth century.
This takes us to the question of gender.

23.11 SUMMARY
The land and the peasantry had been an object of attention by the colonial officials
since the early days of colonial rule. Land revenue was the most important source
of government’s income and the peasants were the people who worked the land
and occasionally rose in rebellion against the landlords and the government. The
dependence of the colonial government on land revenue necessitated that the
peasantry was kept under close scrutiny. Several early works, therefore, focused
on the land-revenue systems. However, in the course of time, academically oriented
and impartial studies about the land settlement and the peasantry, both for the colonial
and pre-colonial periods, began to appear.
The industrial working classes were of more recent origins. The establishment of
modern factories and their ancillaries, the railways, ports and construction activities
were the source of the new working class. Studies related to the themes of the
modern industries and the modern working class began to appear since the early
20th century. The evidences generated by the colonial government on various aspects
of labour in different regions of the country helped the scholars in this field.
Caste was probably the most important category used by the colonial administration
to understand the Indian society. The entire Indian society, including the Muslims
and Christians, though barring the tribes, was viewed in terms of the caste system.
While some of the early writers viewed caste as the occupational system, H.H.
Risley, a colonial official posted in Bengal, put forward a radically different view 273
Indian Historiography which contended that the caste system had a racial origin, dating since the Aryan
conquests of the early inhabitants of India.
In the early days of colonial rule, the tribes were also considered as part of the
caste system by the colonial administrators. However, they later realised that the
social organisation of the tribes was quite different from that of the caste society.
The academic exploration of the tribes initiated the new discipline of anthropology
in India. Several anthropological studies were undertaken by both the Indian and
foreign scholars on the Indian tribes. The non-Brahman and Dalit movements have
also attracted the attention of the historians and many important books, particularly
by Rosalind O’Hanlon, Eugene Irschik, Gail Omvedt and Eleanor Zelliot, have been
published on them.

23.12 EXERCISES
1) How did the peasant and working class histories begin? Discuss the histories
related to these classes before independence.
2) Give an account of the histories of peasants and working classes after
independence.
3) How will you define caste? Discuss the writings of various scholars on caste.
4) Give an account of the colonial understanding of tribe.

274
 Religion and Culture
UNIT 24 RELIGION AND CULTURE*
Structure
24.1 Introduction
24.2 Pre-colonial and Colonial Historiography
24.3 Post-colonial Research in Religion
24.4 The Study of Indian Culture
24.5 Culture Studies and Religious Identities
24.6 Mentality and History of Culture
24.7 Summary
24.8 Exercises

24.1 INTRODUCTION
The nationalist movement in colonial India led to an important reconstruction of
the concept of history. History at the time was understood to be a history of the
British state in India. The history of the pre-colonial period was understood to be
a political narrative of the dynasties and their wars and alliances. For Mohandas
Karamchand Gandhi, this was a history of violence. There was no history of ‘soul-
force’, or non-violence. He put the matter quite explicitly in Hind Swaraj (1909).
Rabindranath Tagore made the same point somewhat differently. In his view, the
true history of India was not a catalogue of its dynasties, warfare and the resultant
bloodshed, but rather its inner history. It lay in the quest for the accommodation
of differences, and in the synthesis of diverse elements, including clashing religious
beliefs. The history of India’s unique culture, in his view, was evolution of harmony
out of variety. Religious history was on this analysis central to the inner history of
the country’s culture. It was a history of syncretism.
British Orientalism had also regarded religious history as the most important part
of India’s cultural history. Nor was this a colonial view alone, for there was an
earlier recognition of the importance of religion in the cultural heritage of the country.
Badauni’s Muntakha-ut-Tawarikh, bearing upon the reign of Akbar, devoted
considerable space to religious matters and Sufi doctrines.
There was also a recognition, however, that not all of India’s culture was religious
culture. British Orientalism had a keen appreciation of secular Sanskrit poetry, and
earlier, Badauni had devoted many pages of his history to Persian poetry in India,
not all of which was religious. However, Indian historiography was quick to recognise
that there was no hard and fast distinction between the religious and the secular in
the history of India. Even in the modern period, it was recognised that the Indian
awakening had an important component of religious reform / revival.

24.2 PRE-COLONIAL AND COLONIAL

HISTORIOGRAPHY
What P.J. Marshall calls ‘the British discovery of Hinduism’ was preceded long
ago by the Muslim discovery of Hindu sacred and secular learning. As early as

*
Resource Person: Prof. Rajat Ray 275
Indian Historiography C.1030, the Muslim scholar of Ghazni, Al Biruni, had written extensively and
sufficiently on Hindu beliefs in Kitab -ul- Hind. The Tibetan lama, Taranatha, wrote
a history of the Buddhist faith in India, rGya - gar - chos - ‘Gyun (The History
of Buddhism in India), around 1608, by which time Hinduism had already triumphed
over Buddhism. In the same century, the Mughal Prince, Dara Shikoh, sought to
show that the monotheistic fundamentals of both Hinduism and Islam were capable
of mingling together. His work, entitled Majma - ul - Bahrain (Mingling of Two
Oceans), was based on inquiries into authoritative texts much as the Upanishads
and the Sufi work Gulshan Raz. It was written in a philosophical vein, but yet
another important work of the seventeenth century, the Dabistan - l Mazahib of
Mushin Fani, clearly exhibited the historical and comparative method. This work,
translated as The Dabistan or School of Manners. The Religious Beliefs,
Observances, Philosophical Opinions and Social Customs of the East by David
Shea and Anthony Troyer (Washington, 1901) treated the major faiths and sects
of India comprehensively.
The work of the British Orientalists on the ‘great traditions’ of Hinduism and Islam
resulted in the codification of ‘Hindoo law’ and ‘Anglo Muhammadan law’, but at
least one major Orientalist, H.H. Wilson, pushed his researches into areas beyond
the orthodox religious traditions. His ‘Sketch of the Religious Sects of the Hindus’,
published in Asiatic Researches (Vol. 16, 1828, Vol.17, 1832), recorded the history
of various bhakti sects, including obscure ones. Following Wilson, the Brahmo
reformer Akshay Kumar Datta wrote in greater historical detail on a large number
of unorthodox popular sects in his Bengali work, Bharatbarshiya Upasak
Sampraday (2 parts, 1870 and 1883). It is the same popular cults, such as the
Bauls, that Rabindranath Tagore brought into the limelight in his Hibbert lectures
at Oxford, published as The Religion of Man (London, 1931). He drew upon
the historical work of a colleague at Santiniketan whom he had asked to research
the subject. The Santiniketan teacher, Kshitimohan Sen, wrote an important work
in Bengali, entitled Bharatiya Madhya Yuge Sadhanar Dhara (1930), which he
translated subsequently as Medieval Mysticism in India (London, c. 1935). Later
on, Sashi Bhushan Dasgupta dwelt on the unorthodox sects of early colonial Bengal
in Obscure Religious Cults (Calcutta, 1946). The development of the Sufi cult
in Bengal was treated in a thesis of the 1930s by Muhammad Enamul Huq, who
subsequently published it in independent Bangladesh as A History of Sufi - ism
in Bengal (Dacca, 1975). Yet another important work of the colonial period
covering the history of an important sect was George Weston Briggs, Gorakhnath
and the Kanphata Yogis (Calcutta, 1838). The Jogis were an unorthodox sect
and were found from Bengal right up to the Punjab. The works of Wilson, Datta,
Tagore and other established that there was, at the popular level, a number of
heterodox sects, both Hindu and Muslim, which represented a radical syncretistic
religious tradition going back to late antiquity. In other words conflict between
antagonistic religions was not all there was to the religious tradition of the subcontinent.
Even as research into the obscure aspects of Indian religion made important advances
in the colonial period, religious and social reform was changing the tradition in several
aspects. This was a new area of investigation, and a pioneer in this field was J.N.
Farquhar. A sympathetic Christian Missionary, he wrote a work entitled Modern
Religious Movements in India. First published in 1919, it still remains an important
reference work with first hand information. After 1947, the subject would become
a major topic of research, but Farquhar’s sympathetic account still retains its fresh
276 quality.
 Religion and Culture
24.3 POST-COLONIAL RESEARCH IN RELIGION
Research in both the orthodox and unorthodox aspects of the religions of the
subcontinent made major advances after Partition, and there was a new focus on
Islam in its specific South Asian context. Comprehensive surveys of Islam in India
emerged from different perspectives: S.M. Ikram’s History of Muslim Civilization
in India and Pakistan (Lahore, 1961) and Muhammad Mujeeb’s The Indian
Muslims (London, 1967) presented the Pakistani and Indian perspectives respectively,
while Anne-Marie Schimmel’s Islam in the Indian Subcontinent (London, 1980)
presented an external perspective on the subject. On the Sikh community, W.H.
McLeod, a sympathetic historian from New Zealand, wrote the widely accepted
and objective work, The Evolution of the Sikh Community (Delhi, 1975). The
southern peninsula was the focus of new community studies such as Stephen Frederic
Dale, The Mappilas of Malabar 1498-1922: Islamic Society on the South Asian
Frontier (Oxford, 1980) and Susan Bayly, Saints, Goddesses and Kings: Muslims
and Kings: Muslims and Christians in South Indian Society 1700-1900
(Cambridge, 1989). These works showed the distinctive regional forms of Islam
and Christianity. The syncretic local forms imported to Islam by popular Fakirs
were imaginatively explored by Richard M. Eaton in The Sufis of Bijapur: Social
Roles of Sufis in Medieval India (Princeton, 1978), and by Asim Roy in The
Islamic Syncretistic Tradition in Bengal (Princeton, 1983).
The Research in the esoteric and popular forms of Hinduism made a major advance
with Mircea Eliade’s classic study for Yoga in French : Le Yoga: Immortalité et
Liberté (Paris, 1954). Other important books that explored forms of Hinduism
outside the orthodox Brahmanical mould included : Edward C. Dimock, The Place
of Hidden Moon : Erotic Mysticism in the Sahajiya Vaishnva Cult of Bengal
(Chicago, 1966); Wendy Doniger O’Flahery, Asceticism and Eroticism in the
Mythology of Siva (Oxford, 1973); Sanjukta Gupta, Dirk Jan Hoens and Teun
Goudriaan, Hindu Tantrism (Leiden, 1979); and Charlotte Vaudeville, A Weaver
Named Kabir: Selected Verses with a Detailed Biographical and Historical
Introduction (Delhi, 1993).
The religious and social movements of reform in colonial India emerged as an important
focus of research after independence. The movement of Islamic revival went back
to the eighteenth century and was studied by S.A.A. Rizvi in Shah Wali-allah and
His Times (Canberra, 1980). The Brahmo movement in Bengal, one of the most
important reform movements in the nineteenth century, was treated by David Kopf
in The Brahmo Samaj and the Shaping of the Modern Indian Mind (Princeton,
1979). The movement of reform in Islam in the nineteenth century was treated by
Christian W. Trall in Sayyid Ahmad Khan: a Reinterpretation of Muslim Theology
(New Delhi, 1978). More generally, themes of religious reform were treated in
synthetic general works such as Charles H. Heimsath, Indian Nationalism and
Hindu Social Reform (Princeton, 1966), and Kennath W. Jones Socio-Religious
Reform Movements in British India: The New Cambridge History of India 3.1.
(Cambridge, 1994). The movements of revival and reform fostered a new kind of
politics of religious identity. In Pakistan, Ishtiaq Husain Qureishi claimed, in The
Muslim Community of the Indo-Pakistan Subcontinent 610-1947: A Brief
Analysis (The Hague, 1962), that the Muslims had always constituted a separate
nation in the subcontinent. Religion tended to become a matter of politics in the
twentieth century historiography. 277
Indian Historiography
24.4 THE STUDY OF INDIAN CULTURE
The colonial period produced important studies of Indian culture, beginning with
the Orientalists. Sir William Jones discovered the Indo-European language group
and thus transformed notions of Indian culture. There was a keen Orientalist interest
in Indian art, evident in such works as James Ferguson, History of Indian and
Eastern Architecture (1876). The Orientalists were sometimes unjustly critical
of early Indian historiographical efforts in this direction, as is evident in Ferguson’s
criticisms of Rajendralal Mitra’s highly original study of the temples of Orissa in
The Antiquities of Orissa (1868-69). This did not stop Indian intellectuals and
in due course Ghulam Yazdani wrote a wonderful account of Ajanta paintings entitled
Ajanta (1930). Around this time Indian historians exhibited an interest in the culture
of people as distinct from the chronicles of the Kings. Muhammad Habib wrote
Hazrat Amir Khusrau of Delhi in 1927, and K.M. Ashraf wrote an account of
popular culture during the Delhi Sultanate in Life and Condition of the People
of Hindustan (1935).
By this time English education had brought about an important change in the mentality
of the middle class, a theme explored by the American intellectual B.T. McCully
in English Education and the Origins of Indian Nationalism (1940). Indian
intellectuals themselves studied the impact of the West on the new vernacular
literatures, for instance, Sushil Kumar De, Bengali Literature in the Nineteenth
Century (1919), and Sayyid Abdul Latif, The Influence of English Literature
on Urdu Literature (1924). One of the intellectual achievements of this time was
Surendranath Dasgupta’s History of Indian Philosophy, 5 vols. (1922).
Independence and Partition brought a renewed interest in the subcontinent. The
synthetic surveys of the time deserve mention: A.L. Basham, The Wonder that
Was India: A Survey of the History and Culture of the Indian Subcontinent
before the Coming of the Muslims (1954), and S.M. Ikram, History of Muslim
Civilization in India and Pakistan (Lahore, 1961). In recent years, the Western
cultural impact has been studied in new and sophisticated ways, for instance, Meenakshi
Mukherjee, Realism and Reality: The Novel and Society in India (New Delhi,
1985), and Partha Mitter, Art and Nationalism in Colonial India (Cambridge,
1994). Such works explore the emergence of modern Indian culture from fresh
perspectives and have broadened our understanding of the process dubbed the
Indian Awakening. The phenomenon is now studied from a more critical angle of
vision and culture is now more closely related to the emerging forms of consciousness
and society.

24.5 CULTURE STUDIES AND RELIGIOUS

IDENTITIES
Post-modernism, colonial discourse analysis and culture studies have focused attention
on the question of religious and cultural identities in Indian history. Post-colonial
theory questions such identities and argues that they are ‘constructed’ by colonialism,
nationalism and other motivated forces. The validity of religious identities, especially
Hinduism, has been doubted by the post-colonial deconstructionists. Poststructuralist
literary criticism, deriving from such intellectuals as Jacques Derrida and Edward
278 Said, has been a key factor in such deconstructionism.
The deconstructionists contend that the British Orientalists constructed Hinduism Religion and Culture
out of diverse religious practices, and that even Islam in British India was too diverse
to be the basis of one Muslim community across the subcontinent. As an instance
of Orientalism and the fictitious identities it created, the post-colonial critics point
to such works as Sir Monier Monier — Williams’s Hinduism (1877). He spoke
of Hinduism as one religion despite its many sects because of the fact that there
was ‘only one sacred language and only one sacred literature, accepted and revered
by all adherents of Hinduism alike.’ Indian nationalists, too, as for instance K.M.
Sen, who wrote the standard work Hinduism (Penguin, 1961), are thought to have
followed in the footsteps of the Orientalists in relating the history of a non-existent
single religion.
In a typically post-modernist vein, Brian Smith contended in Reflections on
Resemblance, Ritual and Religion (New York, 1989): ‘Just who invented “Hinduism”
first is a matter of scholarly debate. Almost everyone agrees that it was not the
Hindus.’ In his opinion it was the British who did this in the early part of the nineteenth
century, ‘to create and control’ a diverse body of people. This made it possible
to speak of ‘a religion when before there was none or, at best, many.’ Among
other works which have dwelt on the constructed nature of religious boundaries in
India may be mentioned Harjot S. Oberoi, The Construction of Religious
Boundaries: Culture, Identity and Diversity in the Sikh Tradition (Chicago,
1994); and Vasudha Dalmia and Heinrich von Stietencron (eds.), Representing
Hinduism: the Construction of Religious Traditions and National Identity (New
Delhi, 1995). Barbara Metcalf has argued, for her part, that identities such as the
‘Indian Muslims’ are neither primary, nor of long standing, and are, in fact, the
products of colonial history (Barbara Daly Metcalf, Perfecting Women: Maulana
Ashraf Ali Jhanawi’s Bihishti Zewar (Delhi, 1992). In an article entitled ‘Imagining
Community: Polemical Debates in Colonial India’, she goes so far as to say that
‘India’, ‘Hindus’ and ‘Muslims’ are not just imagined communities, they are, in her
view, ‘imaginary communities’ (in Kenneth W. Jones, ed., Religious Controversy
in British India: Dialogues in South Asian Languages, Albany, NY, 1992).
Not all historians accept these arguments, and they have continued to write religious,
cultural and social history in terms that imply the real existence of such communities
from pre-colonial times. As instances of this contrary view may be cited: C.A.
Bayly, ‘The Pre-history of “Communalism”? Religious Conflict in India, 1700-1860'
(Modern Asian Studies, Vol.19, 1985); Cynthia Talbot, ‘Inscribing the Other,
Inscribing the Self: Hindu-Muslim Identities in Pre-colonial India’ (Comparative
Studies in Society and History, Vol. 37, 1995); Rafiuddin Ahmed, The Bengal
Muslims 1871-1906: a Quest for Identity (Oxford, 1981); Stephen Dale, The
Mappilas of Malabar 1498-1922: Islamic Society on the South Asian Frontier
(Oxford, 1986); Richard M. Eaton, The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier
1204-1706 (Delhi, 1994); David Lorenzon (ed.), Bhakti Religion in North India:
Community Identity and Political Action (Albany, NY, 1995). Not surprisingly,
the disagreements among the scholars have given rise to a wide-ranging controversy
on the nature of identities in colonial and pre-colonial India, and on the question
whether patriotism and communalism have deep roots in Indian history. The
development of the controversy may be followed through the following works:
Gyanendra Pandey, The Construction of Communalism in Colonial North India
(Delhi, 1990); C.A. Bayly, The Origins of Nationality in South Asia: Patriotism
and Ethical Government in the Making of Modern India (Delhi, 1998); Brajadulal 279
Indian Historiography Chattopadhyaya, Representing the Other? Sanskrit Sources and the Muslims
(New Delhi, 1998); Rajat Kanta Ray, The Felt Community: Commonalty and
Mentality before the Emergence of Indian Nationalism (New Delhi, 1003).
Whereas Pandey and Chattopadhyaya have emphasised the construed nature of
the identities in Indian Society, Bayly and Ray have seen religious and patriotic
loyalties in old India as more real.
A solid body of research in religious and cultural history has emphasised that identities
and loyalties in Indian society must not be seen as hostile and monolithic blocs.
Richard Eaton’s work on the Sufis of Bijapur and Asim Roy’s work on the Islamic
syncretistic tradition in medieval Bengal, referred to earlier, have brought out the
very large extent to which Islam in the subcontinent was shaped by syncretic interaction
with the Hindu religion. The Bhakti movement, which also made an extremely significant
contribution to the syncretic tradition, has been studied, among other works, in
Karine Schoemer and W.H. McLeod (eds.), The Sants: Studies in a Devotional
Tradition of India (Delhi, 1987) and Friedhelm Hardy, Viraha-Bhakti: the Early
Hisotry of Krishna Devotion in South India (Delhi, 1983). Apart from the spiritual
Sufi and Bhakti movements, there was a persistent Lokayata tradition, with a
materialistic and popular orientation, which worked against the hardening of religious
identities into antagonistic blocs. This significant tradition is explored in D.P.
Chattopadhyaya, Lokayata: a Study in Ancient Indian Materialism (New Delhi,
1959). The continuation of this materialistic tradition among the Bauls of Bengal,
who set aside the Hindu-Muslim divide as false spiritualism, has been traced to
recent times by Jeanne Openshaw in Seeking Bauls of Bengal (Cambridge, 2002).
Such movements were more radical in nature than the Sufi and Bhakti movements
and they undermined gender, religious, caste and class distinctions even more
thoroughly. Miranda Shaw, in her Passionate Enlightenment: Women in Tantric
Buddhism (Princeton, 1994), has dwelt on this radical strand, too. The atheistic
strand in the Indian religious tradition, it has been demonstrated, has tended to
subvert the existing distinctions in Indian society.
Notwithstanding all this, modern India has experienced a distinct tendency towards
religious polarisation. Peter van der Veer has dwelt on this theme in Religious
Nationalism: Hindus and Muslims in India (Berkeley, 1994). The public life
of the emerging nation(s) has been influenced to a large extent by religious controversy.

24.6 MENTALITY AND HISTORY OF CULTURE

Cultural history has been enriched by the study of mentalite or mentality, a term
coined by he Annales School of Historians in France. This goes beyond conventional
intellectual history and explores the popular attitudes and subconscious categories
of thought. A related area of research, also exploring the mind, is psycho-history,
which seeks to uncover the unconscious level of the mind with the help of Sigmund
Freud’s technique of psycho-analysis. This kind of history is not concerned with
the conscious emotions of the individual or the group. Psycho-history probes repressed
impulses rather than open sentiments. The study of emotion in cultural history, including
conscious sentiment, is a wider field that may be called emotional history. Historical
studies of mentality in India’s culture and civilisation have come to embrace these
different strands of history. They include popular attitudes and symbols of thought,
unconscious mental processes, and the history of culturally shaped sentiments and
280 emotions.
At the same time, intellectual history continues to flourish. An important study of Religion and Culture
the interaction of European and Indian thought from the pre-colonial period onwards
is Wilhelm Halbfass, India and Europe : an Essay in Understanding (Albany,
New York, 1988). There is also a huge literature on how the West affected the
mind and thought of India in the colonial period. This keen interest among scholars
is reflected in such works as Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the
Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse? (Delhi, 1986). This is a Subalternist
work by a political scientist. Another work is Tapan Raychaudhuri, Europe
Reconsidered: Perceptions of the West in Nineteenth-Century Bengal (New
Delhi, 1988). This is a study of the thought of Bhudev Mukhopadhyay, Bankimchandra
Chattopadhyay and Swami Vivekananda by an eminent liberal historian.
Studies of mentality going beyond strict intellectual history began to appear from
around the 1970s. The wide range of works include: David Kopf, The Brahma
Samaj and the Shaping of the Modern Indian Mind (Princeton, 1979); Kenneth
Ballhatchet, Race, Sex and Class under the Raj (New York, 1980); Judith Walsh,
Growing up in British India (New York 1983); Carol Breckenridge and Peter
van der Veer (eds), Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament: Perspectives
on South Asia (Philadelphia, 1983); Mrinalini Sinha, Colonial Masculinity: the
‘Manly Englishman’ and the ‘Effeminate Bengali’ in the Late Nineteenth Century
( Manchester, 1995); Rajat Kanta Ray (ed.), Mind, Body and Society: Life and
Mentality in Colonial Bengal (Calcutta, 1996); Sumit Sarkar, Writing Social History
(Delhi, 1997); and Sudipta Kaviraj, The Unhappy Consciousness: Bankim
Chandra Chattopadhyay and the Formation of a Nationalist Discourse in India
(Delhi, 1998). What these works have done is to bring out some of the tensions
embedded in the emerging mental formation during the colonial period.
Psycho-history, with its use of insights from Freudian psycho-analysis, is a more
technical and closely focused exercise. In relation to India, it may be said to have
started off with the famous psycho-analyst Erik Erikson’s Gandhi’’s Truth: On
the Origins of Militant Non-violence (New York, 1968). In India, Sudhir Kakkar,
a practising psycho-analyst, has specialised in this kind of history, and has written
such works as Intimate Relations: Exploring Indian Sexuality (Chicago, 1989).
Another writer who has made psycho-history his field and has demonstrated its
relevance to Indian culture is Ashis Nandy. He has explored the colonial impact
on the unconscious mind in The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self
under Colonialism (Delhi, 1983). The discipline of psycho-history, established
by Erikson, is now applied to specific subjects by non-specialists. This is especially
notable in the subjects of religion, eros and sexuality. For instance, here are two
highly controversial psycho-analytical studies of Ramakrishna Paramhamsa’s mind
and life: Jeffrey J. Kripal, Kali’s Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life
and Teachings of Ramakrishna (Chicago, 1995); and Narasingha P. Sil,
Ramakrishna Revisited: A New Biography (Lanham, Md, USA, 1998). In their
studies of religion and culture, they have focused on the psycho-sexuality of the
saint. Psycho-analysis is so well-established in India from the time of Freud himself
that there are now histories of it. The Austrian author Christiane Hartnack has
written Psychoanalysis in Colonial India (New Delhi, 2001), where she examines
the birth and growth of psycho-analysis in India from the angle of culture theory.
As opposed to the psycho-analysts and psycho-historians, there is a group who
call themselves ‘social constructionists’ (of post-modernist persuasion), who approach
emotion from the angle of poststructural anthropology, critical theory and culture 281
Indian Historiography studies. They hold that emotion is totally relative to culture and have rejected Freud.
In relation to Indian society, we may mention here Owen M. Lynch (ed.), Divine
Passions: the Social Construction of Emotion in India (Delhi, 1990). Lynch
argues that in India the conception of emotions and emotional life itself differ so
radically from what prevails in the West that Westerners may never understand
‘an Other, such as India.’ This position has been rejected by some historians who,
while locating emotion in primary impulses, trace its impact on culture as a real
factor. Their treatment of emotion in history is broader than that of the psycho-
historians in the sense that they explore not merely unconscious emotion, but also
conscious sentiment. This newly emerging emotional history may be seen in Tapan
Raychaudhuri, Perceptions, Emotions, Sensibilities: Essays on India’s Colonial
and Post-Colonial Experiences (New Delhi, 1999); and Rajat Kanta Ray, Exploring
Emotional History: Gender, Mentality and Literature in the Indian Awakening
(New Delhi, 2001).

24.7 SUMMARY
Contending schools, such as psycho-history, social constructionism, history of
mentalite, emotional history, and so on, have added many strands to the historical
explorations of religion, culture and mentality in India. The history of the mind is
no longer simply the old intellectual history. The study of culture, religion and the
mind, relating them to their broader contemporaneous societal context, has enriched
Indian history. This has broadened it out beyond the sort of historiography that at
one time equated general history with the history of the state alone. In the process,
intellectual history itself has been transformed. It is no longer confined simply to
the ideas of the elite. The perceived identities and unconscious symbols of the
mass of the population, and the emotional drives in whole societies, are being taken
into consideration by historians.

24.8 EXERCISES
1) Discuss recent trend of using the history of mentality for the study of Indian
culture.
2) Write a detailed note on the historical writings on Indian religion and culture.

282
 Environment, Science
UNIT 25 ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE AND and Technology

TECHNOLOGY*
Structure
25.1 Introduction
25.2 Early Historiography
25.3 Recent Historiography
25.4 Role of Technology in Modern History
25.5 Summary
25.6 Exercises

25.1 INTRODUCTION
In the history and the historiography of modern India, science, technology and
environment are closely related subjects. Massive demographic change, aided by
science and technology, has changed the landscape beyond recognition. Neither
Babur nor Warren Hastings would be able to tolerate the present aspect of the
country. The transformation has recently attracted the attention of historians of India.
It is not that technology, science and ecology as fundamental factors in Indian history
escaped the notice of the past generations of historians. Nevertheless, it is only in
the 1990s that a fair number of historians in India took these themes up as independent
topics of research. However, there is no agreement among them about the impact
of science and technology on the welfare of the population and the climate of the
country. Their disagreements reflect deep divisions within public opinion, and in
the government and politics of the country. There is science lobby, an economics
and planning lobby, and an environment lobby. There are cries of coming disaster,
and hot denials that there is cause for alarm. It is said that because of greenhouse
effect of global industrialisation, the glaciers from which our rivers descend are
receding fast. Historians have been sensitised to the problems of science and
environment by these public debates. From the 1990s, independent historical
monographs on these subjects have begun to appear. Even before that, however,
certain historical questions had figured in their discussions as regards science and
technology : was modern science and technology distorted by the phenomenon of
colonial rule? What were the state of the sciences and the level of technology before
the establishment of British supremacy? Such questions have been renewed recently.

25.2 EARLY HISTORIOGRAPHY

The British rule over India found a moral justification for itself by virtue of the benefits
of reason and modern science it had extended to the colony. The British view of
Indian civilisation was that it was long on religion and short on science. Seven centuries
ago, early Muslim visitors to the country had a different view of the civilisation
then prevailing in the land. Al Beruni gave equal and serious attention to both the

*
Resource Person: Prof. Rajat Ray 283
Indian Historiography religion and science of Hind around 1025. The Muslims themselves brought with
them several new technical products, such as paper and the Persian wheel. Europe,
which at that time borrowed several techniques from China and the Islamic world,
later strode ahead in course of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century
and the industrial revolution in the eighteenth century. This constituted, upon the
British conquest of India, the ground for the European claim of scientific and
civilisational superiority. The Indian scientists who emerged during the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries in the colleges and universities of British India did
not deny the positive role the British had played in bringing modern science to India.
At the same time, they maintained that India had an ancient scientific tradition. This
dual attitude is reflected in the work of the Chemistry Professor of the Presidency
College of Bengal, Dr. P.C. Ray, who, besides making major chemical discoveries
in the field of nitrates, wrote a work on The History of Hindu Chemistry. Published
in two volumes in 1902 and 1908, this was a world–renowned scientist’s historically
substantiated refutation of the imperialist idea of science as the achievement of Western
enlightened thought alone. That science had multi-civilisational origins would be
argued by many other historians in the future, including Joseph Needham of Science
and Civilization in China.
Within the leadership of the nationalist movement in India, two distinct attitudes
crystallised at about this time as regards modern science and its historical effect
on Indian civilisation. Mohan Das Karamchand Gandhi denounced railways, lawyers
and doctors, and declared machinery to be a ‘great sin’. He said in Hind Swaraj
(1990) : ‘It is machinery that has impoverished India’. Jawaharlal Nehru, his disciple,
could not agree with this view of the matter. In a tract entitled The Unity of India
(1941), he declared: ‘Politics led me to economics, and this led me inevitably to
science and the scientific approach to all our problems of hunger and poverty.’ As
Prime Minister he transformed the landscape of India by means of the Five Year
Plans, the great dams and the steel plants. Modern day radical environmental historians
invoke Gandhi rather than Nehru in the debate about science, technology and the
ecological question.
In the later colonial period, an ecological query emerged: how far had the face of
the country changed over time? The economist Radhakamal Mukherjee, who wrote
a work on Social Ecology (London, 1942) in this period, examined historical
evidence of riverine and ecological change in an interesting work entitled The
Changing face of Bengal: a Study in Riverine Economy (Calcutta, 1938). Nor
was he the first to record ecological evidence of change. Even in the early nineteenth
century, the British official D. Butter, in a report entitled An Outline of the Topography
and Statistics of the Southern Districts of Oudh (Calcutta, 1839), had reported
the ‘unremitting advance’ of the hot summer wind (loo) in recent decades. It may
be noted that the northern Gangetic plains, the area he reported on, had experienced
large-scale deforestation from the Mughal period onwards. But in the other areas,
agriculture was still considerably mixed with jungle in the early nineteenth century,
a fact commented on, for instance, by James Taylor in the A Sketch of the
Topography and Statistics of Dacca (Calcutta, 1840). Colonial officials showed
an interest in historical geography, and a pioneering work in this respect was Alexander
Cunningham, The Ancient Geography of India (London, 1871). Later Jadunath
Sarkar wrote The India of Aurangzeb (Topography, Statistics and Road), (Calcutta,
1901) Such works recorded evidence that even before modern science and
284
technology intervened, demographic and commercial factors had been changing Environment, Science
and Technology
the face of the country over time. It is only recently, however, that this issue has
been explored by historians in a self conscious ecological manner.

25.3 RECENT HISTORIOGRAPHY

In the new historical studies of science, technology and environment that emerged
in the 1990s several key themes and questions provided a sophisticated framework
of discussion. What was the politics of science and technology? Were they the
means of imperial domination and / or national reconstruction? What was the
technological impact upon the economic organisation of life – to enrich or impoverish?
What was the popular reception of science – acceptance or resistance? What
was the impact of ecological change upon the question of welfare – partially beneficial
or wholly negative?
Commentaries on recent historical writings have pointed out that the above-
mentioned concerns were not entirely new. In fact, the same issues had implicitly
formed a part of imperial, nationalist and popular discussions and sayings. Let
us take a few instances. For one, imperial planners who laid down the railways,
among them Bartle Frere of Bombay in 1863 proclaimed clearly that the railways
would quadruple the British Military strength in India. For another, one strand
of nationalist opinion, represented by Gandhi in 1908, declared openly: ‘Railways,
lawyers and doctors have impoverished the country, so much so that, if we do
not wake up in time, we shall be ruined.’ To take a third and rather interesting
instance, there had been attempts to study the popular response to the innovations
of the modern age among the nineteenth century folk songs collected by William
Crooke. One was on the train and it ran as follows: ‘Eating no corn, drinking
water / by the force of steam it goes / it goes on no plain road, on rods of iron
it goes / In front of the engines, behind the cars, bhak, bhak they go.’ The attitude
reflects neither approval nor rejection, just a strange new addition accepted as
part of the landscape, it has been argued. What was new about the new
historiography was that it dealt with all these questions in a connected way, in
analytical frame. Earlier discussions of science and technology had not always
shown good, critical sense. On the one hand, patriotic Indians sought to upstage
Western Science and Technology by claiming to have discovered everything in
the Vedas. On the other hand, colonial statements on scientific and technological
progress were simply and approvingly reproduced by some historians without
examining the motives behind those statements.
Among recent works on science and technology which have all focused in one
way or the other on the question of power and politics may be mentioned Dipak
Kumar, Science and The Raj (New Delhi, 1995); David Arnold, Colonizing the
Body: State Medicine and Epidemic Disease in Nineteenth Century India
(Berkeley, 1993), Gyan Prakash, Another Reason : Science and The Imagination
of Modern India (Princeton, 1999); David Arnold, Science. Technology and
Medicine in Colonial India (Cambridge, 2000). Arnold and Prakash, both belonging
to the Subalternist school, regarded science as an integral part of the political sphere.
Arnold brought science under the technique of colonial discourse analysis; Prakash
on the other hand, treated science as part of the discourse of imagining the nation
as a modern, rational body of people. Both saw the new technology as a means
of forging ‘a link between space and the state’ (Prakash, Another Reason), and 285
Indian Historiography science, therefore, as very much a matter of power and domination. In the name
of science, the colonial administration pursued policies of domination biased towards
maintaining imperial authority and not the welfare of the colonised. In the name of
science again, the nationalist movement and the Indian scientists sympathetic to
that movement sought an alternative centre of power, an imagined community called
the nation that would liberate itself by means of the modern spirit of scientific rationality.
As for the colonised themselves (the so-called subalterns), the subalternists speculated
that popular resistance to colonial domination might arise from the people’s mental
association of railways and telegraphs with calamities such as famines and epidemics.
There emerged historical studies of the mortality caused by plague, malaria, small-
pox, cholera and the influenza epidemic of 1918; the political unrest and administrative
chaos caused by disease; and the popular response to harsh colonial public health
policies.
Ecological history, which emerged as a separate branch of history in the 1990s,
was a response to the world-wide environmental movement. In 1987, C.A. Bayly
declared in Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire, New Cambridge
History of India, Vol II, (Cambridge, 1987): ‘Ecological change in India is the
coming subject, but no overview has appeared.’ Bayly himself concluded that the
hundred years following 1780 witnessed ‘the beginnings of extensive deforestation
in the subcontinent. The first work of the new ecological history, Ramchandra Guha’s
The Uniquiet Woods. ; Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance in the
Himalaya (Delhi, 1991), concerned itself with the Sublternist theme of domination
and resistance rather than with the actual tracking of environmental change over
the long duration. It was a study of the emergence of a popular movement in the
Himalayan foothills against the commercial exploitation of the forest resources of
the Himalayas. The next work, Ramchandra Guha and Madhav Gadgil’s This Fissured
Land: an Ecological History of India (Delhi, 1992), was wider in scope, and it
took the following position: ‘In India the ongoing struggle between the peasant and
industrial modes of resource use has come in two stages: colonial and post-colonial.
It has left in its wake a fissured land, ecologically and socially fragmented beyond
belief and, to some observers, beyond repair.’ Other works, which focused on
conservation and the adverse ecological consequences of colonial policies, included
Richard H. Grove, Green Imperialism : Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island
Edens, and the Origins of Environmentalism 1600 – 1860 (Cambridge, 1994)
and Mahesh Rangarajan, Fencing the Forest: Conservation and Ecological
Change in India’s Central Provinces 1860-1914 (New Delhi, 1996). The loss
of the rights of the forest–dwellers was a principal theme of ecological history, as
was the development of resistance and of efforts at conservation.
More conventional economic histories had already focused on the impact of colonial
rule on the environment. The advance of the agricultural frontier and irrigation canals,
with the attendant problems of salination, water-logging and spread of disease, were
studied, among others, by Elizabeth Whitcombe, Agrarian Conditions in Northern
India: the United Provinces under British Rule, 1860-1900 (Berkeley, 1972);
Ian Stone, Canal Irrigation in British India: Perspectives on Technological
Change in a Peasant Economy (Cambridge, 1984); and M. Mufakharul Islam,
Irrigation, Agriculture and the Raj: Punjab 1887-1947 (New Delhi, 1997). It
emerged that the roads and canals interrupted the natural watercourses, yet on balance
it could not be denied that irrigation increased agricultural productivity. A study of
286 the impact of the railways, by Robert Varady among others, shows that the railways
depleted the Himalayan timber region, wiped out the remaining jungles on the plains, Environment, Science
and Technology
and could carry on only because of the advent of cheap coal. Roads and railways
formed disease–laden puddles, spread epidemics and speeded up soil erosion.
Nevertheless, economic historians such as John Hurd and Mukul Mukherjee, have
concluded that the railways promoted internal trade, reduced seasonal fluctuations
and inter–market price differentials for grain and cotton, and integrated the market
in bulk commodities.
Economic historians, rather than ecological historians, have mapped the long-term
recession of forest and pasture under the onslaught of agriculture in Indian history.
Shireen Moosvi, in her Man and Nature in the Mughal Era (Symposium paper,
Indian History Congress, 1993), established that cultivation doubled between 1601
and 1909 at the expense of pasture and waste in Northern India.
A balanced picture emerges when we take together the work of the mainstream
economic historians and the new historians of science, technology and environment.
New dimensions of history have emerged, the harmful effects of modern science
and technology on environment have been highlighted, yet the benefits have also
been stressed.

25.4 THE ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY IN MODERN

HISTORY
The emergence of environmental history has induced historians to rethink the role
of science and technology in modern Indian history. This is because environmental
historians have drawn attention to the manner in which technological progress has
affected the natural environment, sometimes quite adversely in certain areas, during
the colonial and post-colonial periods. The earlier uncritical attitudes to technological
progress have given way to a more critical treatment of the theme of science and
technology.
British colonial historians were quite certain that British rule in India had worked
to the betterment of the lot of the Indians through the introduction of science and
technology. They were also convinced that Indians, at least initially, were resistant
to the radical technical innovations such as railways and telegraph. This formed
part of J.H. Kaye’s explanation of the revolt of 1857 in his famous book, A History
of the Sepoy War in India (London, 1867). The Hindu priesthood, said Kaye,
were confounded by the railways cars, which travelled, without horses or bullocks,
at the rate of thirty miles an hour, and the electric wires, which in a few minutes
carried a message across a whole province. The prodigious triumphs over time
and space achieved by these ‘fire carriages’ and ‘lightning posts’ put to shame the
wisdom of the Brahmans and, in his view, produced a reaction resulting in the revolt.
The British colonial view was that, after the suppression of the revolt, there was
genuine progress brought about by the improvements in technology, communications
and transport. In the well-known book Modern India and the West: a Study of
the Interactions of their Civilizations (London, 1941), the editor, L.S.S.O’ Malley,
who was a colonial official, devoted a whole chapter to ‘Mechanism and Transport’.
In this chapter he surveyed the new forms of communication, including railways,
broadcasting and films, and his estimation of the consequences for India were clearly
positive.
287
Indian Historiography It took some time after Independence for studies of technology to acquire an analytical
historical perspective. A preliminary venture in this direction was a series of lectures
by leading scientists and technical educators at the Nehru Memorial Museum and
Library, edited by B.R. Nanda as Science and Technology in India (New Delhi,
1977). Here, too, the impact was judged in somewhat uncritically positive terms,
with an emphasis on the progressive leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru. Technology
was treated in such preliminary works as part of the history of science. It took
some time to give more complex and critical attention to technological history on
its own. Many historians in the West continued to emphasise the progress brought
about by technology transfer from the West to non-Western societies. Daniel R.
Headrick’s The Tentacles of Progress: Technology Transfer in the Age of
Imperialism, 1850-1940 (New York, 1988) dwelt on the transfer of a range of
new technologies, such as railways, botany, urban infrastructures, metallurgy, technical
education, etc., with special attention to India.
A more critical assessment for India specifically was made in Roy McLeod and
Dipak Kumar (eds.), Technology and the Raj (New Delhi, 1995). An important
article in this collection, ‘The Building of India’s Railways: the Application of Western
Technology in the Colonial Periphery’, by Ian Derbyshire, pointed out that railway
development in India, unlike UK, secured few direct, ‘backward linkage’ benefits.
Labour market conditions discouraged greater mechanisation. Technical development
remained ‘colonial-dependent’. In comparative terms, India lagged behind not only
the USA, but also Russia, where innovation in constructional, equipment and
operational spheres was conspicuously greater.
Backward linkage effects relate to the stimulation of activities in the economy that
ensure supply to a new line of production. Forward linkage effects, on the other
hand, mean the stimulation of demand for other products resulting from the new
product. In the case of railway construction in India, a forward linkage benefit
might have come about with the construction of locomotives. This hardly happened
during the colonial period on an appreciable scale. In a pioneering article entitled
‘Great Britain and the Supply of Railway Locomotives in India: a Case Study of
“Economic Imperialism”’, first published in The Indian Economic and Social History
Review (October, 1965), F. Lehmann calculated that during the entire period of
British rule in India, not more than 700 locomotives were built in the country, despite
the vast railway network that existed by 1947. All the other locomotives came
from aboard, and, predictably, most were constructed in Great Britain. Had the
railway authorities gone in for building locomotives in India on a bigger scale, this
might have laid the basis of a heavy engineering industry before Independence.
As it happened, such a development had to await the coming of the Nehru era.
One noted author who analysed the limited economic stimulus resulting from colonial
technological innovation was Daniel Thorner. He noted the limited effect of colonial
railway and steamship enterprise on India’s capital market in Investment in Empire:
British Railway and Steam Shipping Enterprise in India 1825-1849 (Philadelphia,
1950). In yet another notable contribution entitled ‘The Pattern of Railway
Development in India’ first published in Far Eastern Quarterly (1955), he went
even further, and noted: ‘India alone of the countries with great railway networks
is unindustrialized.’
It may be noted that such critical observations of the historical role of the transfer
of science and technology from Britain to India were still formulated in economic
288
rather than environmental terms. The emergence of environmental history added Environment, Science
and Technology
a new dimension to the existing criticism of the role of technology and science.
Both the economic and environmental arguments have been brought together by
Ian J. Kerr, the editor of an important anthology of articles on the railroads entitled
Railways in Modern India (New Delhi, 2001). Kerr has faithfully included the
criticisms of the railway network by both the new environmental historians and the
more conventional economic historians. At the same time, he has not forgotten to
emphasise the positive benefits of railways in particular and technology in general.
One aspect of science and technology is the import of Western medicine in India.
Here, too, recent research has highlighted not merely the positive effects, but also
some of the negative developments. Over all, however, the new research, even
when at its most critical (as in the works of David Arnold referred to above), has
still not dislodged the impression that technology brought important benefits. Without
science, technology and modern medicine, India’s vast and growing population would
have been more (and not less) vulnerable to famines and epidemics.

25.5 SUMMARY
The progress of research has established the history of science, technology and
ecology as viable branches of the discipline of history. This has added new and
important dimensions to general history. At the same time, detailed research has
demonstrated the close inter-relationship between the histories of science, technology
and environment. All this has altered the shape of history.

25.6 EXERCISES
1) Write a note on the role of technology in modern history.
2) What are the views of the nationalists on the nature and role of modern
technology?
3) Discuss some of the historical works on science and technology.

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Indian Historiography
UNIT 26 ECONOMIC HISTORY IN INDIA*
Structure
26.1 Introduction
26.2 Colonial and Nationalist Writings
26.3 Pre-colonial Economy and Colonial Trends
26.4 Statistical Inquiries
26.5 Town and Country
26.6 Industrialisation
26.7 Summary
26.8 Exercises

26.1 INTRODUCTION
The emergence of economics as a discipline in the eighteenth century led in due
course to the development of a new branch in history called economic history. The
progenitors of economics were Adam Smith and other classical economists. India
was very much in the vision of the classical economists, a group of thinkers in England
during the Industrial Revolution. They advocated laissez faire and minimising of
state intervention in the economy. Adam Smith, the foremost classical economist,
condemned the East India Company in its new role as the ruling power in India.
In his view, the Company’s trading monopoly ran counter to the principle of the
freedom of the market. In the classic work entitled An Inquiry into the Nature
and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), he said, ‘The government of an
exclusive company of merchants is perhaps the worst of all governments for any
country whatever.’
Economics underwent a theoretical transformation in the early twentieth century
under the influence of John Maynard Keynes, who advocated strategic economic
intervention by the government for promoting welfare and employment. Keynes,
too, thought deeply about India while developing his new economic theories, and
his earliest major work, Indian Currency and Finance (London 1913), illustrated
his notions of good monetary management of the economy. It is also noteworthy
that the early classical economists, such as Ricardo, influenced the thinking of a
group of Utilitarian administrators who set about reforming the administration of
India in the nineteenth century. Above all, the influence of Adam Smith is noticeable
in the end of the Company’s monopoly by the Charter Acts of 1813 and 1833.
Not surprisingly, therefore, historians have paid close attention to the connection
between the evolution of economic thought in England and the question of reform
of the colonial administration in India. This is evident in such works as Eric Stokes,
The English Utilitarians and India (Oxford 1959); S. Ambirajan, Classical
Political Economy and British Policy in India; and A. Chandavarkar Keynes
and India: A Study in Economics and Biography (London 1989). Classical

*
290 Resource Person: Prof. Rajat Ray
political economy in England laid the foundations for the laissez faire economics Economic History in India

of the Raj in the nineteenth century. Keynesian economics, on the other hand,
contained the germs of the development economics of the mid-twentieth century.
Both types of economics affected the state and the economy in India, and stimulated
debates in the economic history of India.

26.2 COLONIAL AND NATIONALISTIC WRITINGS

Early colonial writers about the economy of India did not have to reckon with a
critical Indian public and nationalistic opinion. Some of them were free and frank
in their criticisms of the effect of the British rule upon the indigenous economy
and they were sometimes critical of what they admitted to be a drain of wealth
from India to Britain. They did not deny what a contemporary Persian chronicler
named Saiyid Ghulam Hussain Khan observed in The Seir Mutaqherin (1789)
with regard to the English habit of ‘scraping together as much money’ in this country
as they can, and carrying it ‘in immense sums to the kingdom of England’. A
manuscript official report, entitled ‘Historical Review of the External Commerce
of Calcutta from 1750 until 1830’, commented freely on ‘the plunder of the country’.
After conquering Bengal, the East India Company ceased to import silver for
their purchases of Indian goods for export to Europe, and deployed the revenues
of Bengal for the purpose. According to the report, the unrequited exports became
the vehicle for the remittance of the fortunes made by individual Englishmen in
the country.

As critical Indian opinion emerged in the later nineteenth century, the colonial
administration became more concerned to show that economic progress was
happening in the country. The Madras administration commissioned a voluminous
statistical work by S. Srinivasa Raghavaiangar, entitled Memorandum on the
Progress of the Madras Presidency during the last forty years of the British
Administration (Madras, Govt. Press, 1893), which constituted a well-documented
apology for foreign rule in the country. The second century of British rule in India
was marked by an ongoing controversy between the critics and apologists of
empire. Indian nationalists, sympathetic Britishers and, at a later state, Marxists
intellectuals blamed the drain for the impoverishment of India. Colonial officials,
at the instance of Lord Curzon, contended that there was no impoverishment at
all, and rival estimates of national income were produced on both sides. Among
the works of the period may be mentioned, on the one side, Dadabhai Naoroji,
Poverty and Un–British Rule in India (London 1901), an earlier version 1873),
and William Digby, “Prosperous” British India: A Revelation from the Official
Records (1901); and on the opposite side, F.T. Atkinson, ‘A Statistical Review
of the Income and wealth of British India’, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society,
June 1902. Atkinson, an official under Lord Curzon, sought to show that the
national income of India was rising over the years, though somewhat slowly.
Naoroji who entertained contrary views, computed the annual drain from India
at around £30,000,000 in his own day, and estimated that earlier, around 1800,
the figure had stood at about £5,000,000.

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Indian Historiography The debate generated the first general work on the economic history of India. To
Curzon’s annoyance, a retired ICS officer who became President of the Indian
National Congress, Romesh Chunder Dutt, drew up a formidable critique of the
economic effect of British rule upon India in The Economic History of India under
Early British Rule (1757 – 1837) (London 1902) and The Economic History
of India under the Victorian Age (London 1904). Dutt dwelt on the heavy land
tax upon the peasants, the destruction of the handicrafts, the recurrence of famines,
and the annual drain to Britain in his economic critique of British rule. The British,
he said, had given India peace, but not prosperity. Colonial administration did
not accept his nationalist contentions, but one claim he made is indisputable: ‘No
study is more interesting and instructive in the history of nations than the study of
the material condition of the people from age to age.’ Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi,
before he became the Mahatma, wept as he read Dutt’s Economic History and,
in the next generation, the doctrine that the most fundamental impact of British rule
upon India was a destructive economic impact, became axiomatic with Marxist
intellectuals, such as R.P. Dutt. A member of the Communist Party of Great Britain,
he wrote a radical critique of colonial rule entitled India Today. Published by the
Left Book Club from London in 1940, it was promptly banned in India. In this
book, R.P. Dutt sought to show that the industrial imperialism which R.C. Dutt
had criticised in his day had since then made a transition to financial imperialism,
and that the drain had become more enervating for the economy in the latest phase
of imperialism in India.

26.3 PRE-COLONIAL ECONOMY AND COLONIAL

TRENDS
The debate on the colonial impact on the economy and the question of
impoverishment under British rule brought forth a new issue : what was the state
of the economy before British rule? Was India more prosperous then, and had
she already embarked on an endogenous path of development that was cut off
by the British ascendancy? Was national income higher at the time? Valuable official
reports on the state and structure of the indigenous economy had been written
in early colonial times, the most notable among these being the reports on eastern
and southern India by Francis Buchanan- Hamilton. His voluminous and statistical
surveys of agriculture, manufactures and inland trade were partially printed in
Francis Buchanan, A Journey from Madras though the Countries of Mysore,
Canara and Malabar 1801 (2nd ed. Madras 1870); and Francis Buchanan, An
Account of the Districts of Bihar and Patna in 1811 – 1812, 2 vols. (Bihar
and Orissa Research Society, n.d.). Later on, historians directed their curiosity
to the economic conditions in Mughal Times, some early studies being Edward
Thomas, The Revenue Resources of the Mughal Empire in India (1871) and
Jadunath Sarkar, The India of Aurengzeb: Topography, Statistics and Roads
(1901). It was, however, a British revenue official of UP, W.H. Moreland, who
first ventured into a general economic history of pre-colonial India in India at
the Death of Akbar (1920), From Akbar to Aurangzeb (1922), and the Agrarian

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System of Moslem India (1929). In Moreland’s estimate the national income Economic History in India

of India at the time of Todar Mal’s survey in Akbar’s reign was not perceptibly
higher than what it was at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Moreland concluded that a parasitic agrarian despotism had driven India to an

economic dead end, despite the considerable expansion of foreign trade that the
Dutch and English East India Companies brought about in the seventeenth century.
The conclusion that the foreign companies operating in Mughal India brought in
a lot of silver and stimulated textile exports was later confirmed by K.N.
Chaudhuri’s econometric study, The Trading World of Asia and the English
East India Company 1660-1760 (Cambridge, 1978). A soviet author named
A. I. Chicherov presented an argument in Indian Economic Development in
the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries (Moscow, 1971) which Moreland would
not have supported: that Mughal India was undergoing an endogenous capitalist
development which was cut off by the ascendancy of foreign monopoly capital
under the English East India Company. That this is unlikely to have been the
case is shown by the reputed Marxist historian Irfan Habib in ‘The Potentialities
of Capitalist Development in the Economy of Mughal India’, Journal of Economic
History, vol. XXIX, 1969. Habib demonstrated the sophistication of the Mughal
urban economy, but like Moreland he emphasized its parasitic relationship with
the heavily taxed rural economy.
For the colonial period, R.C. Dutt’s Economic History was followed by a series
of works: D.R. Gadgil, The Industrial Evolution of India in Recent Times (1924);
Vera Anstey, The Economic Development of India (1929); and D.H. Buchanan,
The Development of Capitalistic Enterprise in India (New York 1934). More
recently, there has been a collective two-volume survey; Tapan Raychaudhuri and
Irfan Habib (eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of India, Vol 1, C.1200
– C.1750 (Cambridge 1982); and Dharma Kumar (ed), The Cambridge Economic
History of India, vol. 2 C.1757 – C.1970 (Cambridge 1983). Daniel Houston
Buchanan, an American author, was of the opinion that other–worldly values and
the caste system inhibited economic development in India. D.R. Gadgil, who updated
his near classic work several times, emphasised, on the contrary, more strictly
economic factors: the difficulties of capital mobilisation on account of the absolute
smallness of capital resources in respect to the size of the population, the late
development of organised banking, and the seasonal fluctuations of a monsoon
economy. A dispassionate economist, he did not blame either foreign rule or the
Indian social structure for the absence of an industrial revolution in India; some of
the Western contributors to the second volume of The Cambridge Economic
History, on the other hand, showed a disposition to challenge R.C. Dutt’s vision
of the negative impact of colonialism, and they dwelt instead on the technological
backwardness of the Indian economy. This, in their view, inhibited industrial
development and capitalist enterprise during the colonial period.

26.4 STATISTICAL INQUIRIES

The colonial administration had produced vast body of annual official statistics. After
independence, economic historians utilized these statistics to interpret long-term
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Indian Historiography trends in national income and agricultural and industrial production. The two seminal
works in this respect were by George Blyn on agricultural production and by S.
Sivasubramonian on national income. Both authors based their conclusions on detailed
statistical information set out in tabular form, so that other historians might draw
their own conclusions from the tables. George Blyn’s work was entitled Agricultural
Trends in India 1891-1947: Output, Availability and Productivity (Philadelphia,
1966). S. Sivasubramonian’s thesis at the Delhi School of Economics. ‘National
Income of India 1900-01 to 1946-47, (1965) was later published in expanded
form, including the post-independence period, as The National Income of India
in the Twentieth Century, (New Delhi 2000).

Blyn discovered that agricultural production in India showed adverse trends after
1920. The negative trends were especially pronounced in what he called the
Greater Bengal region, which included Bihar and Orissa. There was declining
per capita food availability in the late colonial period. S. Sivasubramonian
demonstrated that the national income of India grew slowly in the period between
1900-1947, since agriculture, which was the principal sector in the economy,
did not perform well. Industrial production expanded more perceptibility, especially
because of the rapid growth of factory industry. On S. Sivasubramonian’s evidence,
there is no question of any ‘deindustrialisation’ having occurred in India between
1900-1947.

There is no comparable statistical series for the nineteenth century. The issue of
deindustrialisation is therefore very much alive as regards the nineteenth century.
Since factory industry did not account for an appreciable part of industrial production
at the time, the issue boils down to the question whether cottage industries declined
in that century. In a well-publicized controversy during the 1960’s, Morris David
Morris argued, against his opponents, that the cotton weavers benefited from the
cheaper threads from Britain, but since neither side could produce any statistical
series, the controversy, embodied in M.D. Morris et al, Indian Economy in the
Nineteenth Century: A Symposium (Delhi 1969), produced more heat than light.
In yet another controversy, later on, Amiya Kumar Bagchi, in an article entitled
‘Deindustrialization in Gangetic Bihar 1809 – 1901’, produced statistical evidence
from Buchanan Hamilton’s survey that the proportion of people employed in cottage
industries went down drastically in the nineteenth century. The article, published
in Barun De (ed.), Essays in Honour of Professor Susobhan Chandra Sarkar
(New Delhi 1976), provoked a critique by Marika Vicziany, who doubted the reliability
of the statistical data from Buchanan Hamilton. Her critique, entitled ‘The
Deindustrialization of India in Nineteenth Century: A Methodological critique of Amiya
Kumar Bagchi’, along with ‘A Reply’ by Amiya Kumar Bachi, came out in The
Indian Economic and Social History Review, vol 16,1979. Subsequently, J.
Krishnamurty, in ‘Deindustrialization in Gangetic Bihar during the nineteenth Century:
Another Look at the Evidence’, The Indian Economic and Social History Review
22, 1985, argued that the qualitative evidence was in favour of Bagchi’s decline
thesis. More recently, Tirthankar Roy, in Traditional Industry in the Economy
of Colonial India (Cambridge 1999), has once again argued against any decline
in the nineteenth century, but except for Bagchi, nobody else in this controversy
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has been able to adduce any statistical data from contemporary sources. As regards Economic History in India

the eighteenth century, when the East India Company imposed a monopoly on textile
exports, the Bangladeshi scholar Hameeda Hossein has produced evidence of terrible
coercion upon the weavers in The Company Weavers of Bengal: The East India
Company an and the Organisation of Textile Production in Bengal 1750 –
1813 (Delhi 1988).

26.5 TOWN AND COUNTRY

The beginnings of modern Indian business enterprise in the early 19th century have
been traced by Blair B. Kling in Partnership in Empire: Dwarkanath Tagore
and the Age of Enterprise in Eastern India (Berkeley, 1976), and by Asiya Siddiqui
in ‘The Business World of Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy’( Indian Economic and Social
History Review, vol 21 1982). Private European enterprise in the colonial port
cities of the nineteenth century has been sketched in Amales Tripahi, Trade and
Finance in the Bengal Presidency 1793-1833 (Calcutta 1979) and, for the
subsequent period, when managing agency houses became dominant, in Radhe Shyam
Rungta, The Rise of Business Corporations in India 1851-1900 (Cambridge
1970). Big Indian enterprise on the model of Dwarkantah Tagore and Jamsetjee
Jeejeebhoy suffered a setback in the colonial port cities as European capital became
gradually monopolistic, but as C.A. Bayly has shown in an influential work entitled
Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British
Expansion 1770 – 1870 (Cambridge 1983), Indian traders fared better in the inland
markets by adjusting to colonial rule.

Essays by several historians regarding the colonial impact upon the Indian economy
are collected together in K.N. Chaudhuri and C.J. Dewey (eds.), Economy ;and
Society (New Delhi, 1979), and C.J. Dewey and A.G. Hopkins (eds.) The Imperial
Impact: Studies in the Economic History of India and Africa (London 1978).
Some of these essays presented new conclusions, especially on markets, industrial
policy, and agrarian society. Many regional economic histories have appeared over
time, two well-known works being N.K. Sinha, The Economic History of Bengal,
3 vols. (Calcutta, 1965, 1970) and C.J. Baker, An Indian Rural Economy: the
Tamil Nad Countryside 1880 – 1950 (New Delhi, 1984). There is also one micro–
history of economic and social change in a single Punjab Village over time by Tom
Kessinger, entitled Vilayatpur 1848 – 1968: Social and Economic Change in
A North Indian Village (Berkeley, 1974).

The biggest British investments in the Indian economy, designed for imperial rather
than national benefit, were in railways and canals. These investments did not bring
about the sort of industrial growth witnessed in Germany, Russia and Japan in the
nineteenth century, and hardly improved per acre agricultural productivity over the
land as a whole. There were harmful ecological side effects, and famines continued
to visit the rural population time and again. These themes are explored in Danial
Thorner, Investment in Empire (Philadelphia, 1950); Daniel Thorner. ‘Great Britain
and the Economic Development of India’s Railways’, Journal of Economic History,
vol XI, 1951; Elizabeth Whitcombe, Agrarian Conditions in Northern India:
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Indian Historiography the United Provinces under British Rule, 1660 – 1900 (Berkeley, 1972); and
Amartya Sen, Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation
(International Labour Organisation, 1981), a brilliant essay by the Nobel Laureate
economist showing that famines could occur because of adverse movements in prices
and wages even when the food stocks were available.

26.6 INDUSTRIALISATION
The twentieth century in its first half witnessed a certain degree of industrialisation,
but there was no industrial revolution, nor any economic break-through despite an
appreciable growth of large-scale industry before 1947. Historians have differed
on why there was no ‘take-off. The Marxist economist Amiya Kumar Baagchi, in
Private Investment in India 1900 – 1939 (Cambridge 1972), and the non-Marxist
historian, Rajat K. Ray, in Industrialization in India: Growth and Conflict in
the Private Corporate Sector 1914 – 1947 (New Delhi 1979) both argued that
colonial policies were responsible for this. Morris D. Morris, an American economic
historian of note, argues, on the contrary, in his contribution to the second volume
of the Cambridge Economic History of India (1983), that the technological
backwardness of the Indian economic structure blocked the sustained growth of
investment in large-scale industry. Subsequently B.R. Tomlinson, a historian who
hardly took a side in the dispute, nevertheless observed, in his The Economy of
Modern India 1860 – 1970 (New Cambridge History of India, Vol III, Cambridge,
1993), that ‘a ruthless insistence by government on strategic priorities limited the
expansion’ of Indian industry during the Second World War, when there were new
opportunities. By then, there was a large Indian capitalist class locked in a struggle
with European capital in India. Its growth, and internal tensions, is studied in Claude
Markovitz, Indian Business and Nationalist Politics 1931-1939. The Indigenous
Capitalist Class and the Rise of the Congress Party (Cambridge, 1985). By
common consent, the explanation of backwardness is no longer sought in social
values and customs. The political factor in economic backwardness or growth is
still, however, a matter of dispute.

26.7 SUMMARY
The economic policies of the colonial rulers were at the centre of a controversy in
the late-19th century India. Whereas the colonial administration sought to project
its policies as beneficial to the country, the nationalist writers and sympathetic British
commentators attacked these policies as exploitative and oppressive. Dadabhai
Naoroji, R.C. Dutt and William Digby were some of the famous critics of government
policies. The economic history of India, as we know it, may be said to have begun
during this period. D.R. Gadgil, Vera Anstey and D.H. Buchanan followed in their
footsteps in taking up the economic history of the colonial period. Jaduanth Sarkar
and W.H. Moreland wrote about the Mughal economy. In the post-independence
period, economic history became an established field of study and several studies
were undertaken on various periods of Indian history covering several aspects of
economy.

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 Economic History in India
26.8 EXERCISES
1) Discuss the views of various authors on the economic history of pre-colonial
India.
2) What are the differences between colonialist and nationalist works on Indian
economic history? Answer with examples.
3) Write short notes on the following with reference to the economic history of
India :
a) Industrialisation
b) Town and country.

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