Re: The Nation and Its Fragments, by Partha Chatterjee
Posted: Tue May 25, 2021 1:35 am
Part 1 of 2
CHAPTER FIVE: Histories and Nations
THE CONSTRUCTION OF A CLASSICAL PAST
The first sentence of Bharatbarser itihás is striking: "India [bharatavarsa] has been ruled in turn by Hindus, Muslims and Christians. Accordingly, the history of this country [des] is divided into the periods of Hindu, Muslim and Christian rule [rájatva]" (BI, p. 1).
This sentence marks the passage from the "history of kings" to the "history of this country." Never again will Rájábali be written; from now on, everything will be the "history of this deš." This history, now, is periodized according to the distinctive character of rule, and this character, in turn, is determined by the religion of the rulers. The identification here of country (deš) and realm (rájatva) is permanent and indivisible. This means that although there may be at times several kingdoms and kings, there is in truth always only one realm which is coextensive with the country and which is symbolized by the capital or the throne. The rájatva, in other words, constitutes the generic sovereignty of the country, whereas the capital or the throne represents the center of sovereign statehood. Since the country is bharatavarsa, there can be only one true sovereignty that is coextensive with it, represented by a single capital or throne as its center. Otherwise, why should the defeat of Prithviraj and the capture of Delhi by Muhammad Ghuri signal the end of a whole period of Indian history and the beginning of a new one? Or why should the battle of Plassey mark the end of Muslim rule and the beginning of Christian rule? The identification in European historiography between the notions of country or people, sovereignty, and statehood is now lodged firmly in the mind of the English-educated Bengali.
On the next page follows another example of the modernity of this historioghaphic practice. "All Sanskrit sources that are now available are full of legends and fabulous tales; apart from the Rajataraitgini [Rajatarangini] there is not a single true historical account" (BI, p. 2). The criteria of the "true historical account" had been, of course, set by then by European historical scholarship. That India has no true historical account was a singular discovery of European Indology. The thought had never occurred to Mri-tyunjay. But to Tarinicharan, it seems self-evident.
We then have a description of the inhabitants of India:
There were others who were the products of the mixing of sampraday. Thus, the first three varna among the Hindus are said to be twice-born, but the Sudra are not entitled to that status. "This shows that in the beginning the former were a separate sampraday from the latter. The latter were subsequently included in the former community, but were given the status of the most inferior class" (BI, p. 4).
The notion of the gradual spread of "the Hindu religion" from the north of the country to the south is also introduced. This spread is the result of the expansion of the realm.
The image of the hero of the Ramayana holding aloft the modern symbol of national sovereignty came easily to the mind of this English-educated Bengali Brahman a hundred years ago, although the votaries of political Hinduism today would probably be embarrassed by the suggestion that Rama had subdued the inhabitants of southern India and established a colonial rule.
Since there is a lack of authentic sources, the narrative of ancient Indian history is necessarily fragmentary. Gone is the certitude of Mrityunjay's dynastic lists; Tarinicharan states quite clearly the limits to a rational reconstruction of the ancient past.
The narrative he does construct is not particularly remarkable, because he follows without much amendment the history of ancient India as current among British writers on the subject. The only interesting comment in these chapters of Tarinicharan's book is the one he makes on Buddhism:
The reasonableness of the religious views of Buddhism is not denied. On the contrary, Buddhism is presented as a rationalist critique from within "the Hindu religion." Otherwise, in accordance with the criterion of periodization, the period of the Buddhist rulers would have had to be classified as a separate period of ancient Indian history. Now it is given a place within the "Hindu period."
Although the historical sources for the ancient period are said to be fragmentary and unreliable, on one subject there seems to be no dearth of evidence: "the civilization and learning of the ancient Indians." This is the title of chapter 6 of Tarinicharan's book. The main argument is as follows:
Ancient glory, present misery: the subject of this entire story is "us." The mighty heroes of ancient India were "our" ancestors, and the feeble inhabitants of India today are "ourselves." That ancient Indians conquered other countries or traded across the seas or treated other people "with contempt" is a matter of pride for "us." And it is "our" shame that "the descendants of Aryans" are today subordinated to others and are the objects of the latter's contempt. There is a certain scale of power among the different peoples of the world; earlier, the people of India were high on that scale, while today they are near the bottom.
Not only physical prowess but the achievements of ancient Indians in the field of learning were also universally recognized.
Note that the opinion of European scholars in this matter is extremely important to Tarinicharan. In fact, all the examples he cites on the excellence of ancient Indian learning—In the fields of astronomy, mathematics, logic, and linguistics—were discoveries of nineteenth-century Orientalists. By bringing forward this evidence, Tarinicharan seems to be suggesting that although Europeans today treat Indians with contempt because of their degraded condition, Indians were not always like this, because even European scholars admit that the arts and sciences of ancient India were of the highest standard. This evidence from Orientalist scholarship was extremely important for the construction of the full narrative of nationalist history.
That Tarinicharan's history is nationalist is signified by something else. His story of ancient glory and subsequent decline has a moral at the end: reform society, remove all of these superstitions that are the marks of decadence, and revive the true ideals of the past. These false beliefs and practices for which Indians are today the objects of contempt did not exist in the past because even Europeans admit that in ancient times "we" were highly civilized.
Ancient India became for the nationalist the classical age, while the period between the ancient and the contemporary was the dark age of medievalism. Needless to say, this pattern was heartily approved by European historiography. If the nineteenth-century Englishman could claim ancient Greece as his classical heritage, why should not the English-educated Bengali feel proud of the achievements of the so-called Vedic civilization?
NARRATIVE BREAK
The chapter "The Civilization and Learning of the Ancient Indians" closes Tarinicharan's history of ancient India. He then takes the reader outside India—to Arabia in the seventh century. Why should it be necessary, in discussing a change of historical periods in twelfth-century India, to begin the description from seventh-century Arabia? The answer to this question is, of course, obvious. But implicit in that answer is an entire ensemble of assumptions and prejudices of nineteenth-century European historiography.
The ground is being prepared here for the next episode that will result from the clash of this distinct history of the Muslims with the history of Indians. This distinct history originates in, and acquires its identity from, the life of Muhammad. In other words, the dynasty that will be founded in Delhi at the beginning of the thirteenth century and the many political changes that will take place in the subsequent five centuries are not to be described merely as the periods of Turko-Afghan or Mughal rule in India; they are integral parts of the political history of Islam.
The actors in this history are also given certain behavioral characteristics. They are warlike and believe that it is their religious duty to kill infidels. Driven by the lust for plunder and the visions of cohabiting with the nymphs of paradise, they are even prepared to die in battle. They are not merely conquerors, but "delirious at the prospect of conquest" (dvijayonmatta), and consequently are by their innate nature covetous of the riches of India.
It is important for us at this point to note the complex relation of this new nationalist historiography to the histories of India produced by British writers in the nineteenth century. While James Mill's History of British India, completed in 1817, may have been "the hegemonic textbook of Indian history" for European Indology,1 for the first nationalist historians of India it represented precisely what they had to fight against. Mill did not share any of the enthusiasm of Orientalists such as William Jones for the philosophical and literary achievements of ancient India. His condemnation of the despotism and immorality of Indian civilization was total, and even his recognition of "the comparative superiority of Islamic civilisation" did not in any significant way affect his judgment that until the arrival of British rule, India had always been "condemned to semi-barbarism and the miseries of despotic power."2 Nationalist history in India could be born only by challenging such an absolute and comprehensive denial of all claims to historical subjectivity.3
Far more directly influential for the nationalist school texts we are looking at was Elphinstone's History of India (1841). This standard textbook in Indian universities was the most widely read British history of India until Vincent Smith's books were published in the early twentieth century. The reason why nationalist readers found Elphinstone more palatable than Mill is not far to seek. As E. B. Cowell, who taught in Calcutta and added notes to the later editions of Elphinstone's History, explained in a preface in 1866, a "charm of the book is the spirit of genuine hearty sympathy with and appreciation of the native character which runs though the whole, and the absence of which is one of the main blemishes in Mr. Mill's eloquent work."4 In this spirit of sympathy, Elphinstone wrote entire chapters in his volume called "Hindus" on "Philosophy," "Astronomy and Mathematical Science," "Medicine," "Language," "Literature," "Fine Arts," and "Commerce." He also began his volume on "Mahometans" with a chapter called "Arab Conquests A.D. 632, A.H. 11-A.D. 753, A.H. 136," whose first section was "Rise of the Mahometan Religion."
Another source often acknowledged in the Bengali textbooks is the series called The History of India as Told by Its Own Historians.5 Compiled by Henry Elliot, and edited and published after his death by John Dowson between 1867 and 1877, these eight volumes comprise translated extracts from over 150 works, principally in Persian, covering a period from the ninth to the eighteenth centuries. It was a gigantic example of the privilege claimed by modern European scholarship to process the writings of a people supposedly devoid of historical consciousness and render into useful sources of history what otherwise could "scarcely claim to rank higher than Annals." The technical qualities of the scholarship of Elliot and Dowson were to be questioned in subsequent decades,6 but with the substitution of English for Persian as the language of the state, it was through their mediation that the Persian sources of Indian history would now become available to the modern literati in Bengal.
The assumptions which regulated the selection and translation of these sources were quite explicitly stated by Elliot:7
The fact that even Hindu writers wrote "to flatter the vanity of an imperious Muhammadan patron" was, Elliot thought, "lamentable": "there is not one of this slavish crew who treats the history of his native country subjectively, or presents us with the thoughts, emotions and raptures which a long oppressed race might be supposed to give vent to." Elliot also drew for his readers the conclusions from his presentation of these extracts:
Ironically, when the young Brutuses and Phocions did learn Elliot's lessons on Muhammadan rule, their newly acquired consciousness of being "a long oppressed race" did not stop with a condemnation of Islamic despotism; it also turned against British rule itself.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, European Indological scholarship seemed to have agreed that the history of Hinduism was one of a classical age—for some the Vedic civilization, for others the so-called Gupta revival in the fourth to the seventh centuries—followed by a medieval decline from the eighth to the eighteenth centuries.8 For some, this decline was itself the reason why the country fell so quickly to the Muslim invaders. In any case, the theory of medieval decline fitted in nicely with the overall judgment of nineteenth-century British historians that "Muslim rule in India" was a period of despotism, misrule, and anarchy9—this, needless to say, being the historical justification for colonial intervention.
For Indian nationalists in the late nineteenth century, the pattern of classical glory, medieval decline, and modern renaissance appeared as one that was not only proclaimed by the modern historiography of Europe but also approved for India by at least some sections of European scholarship. What was needed was to claim for the Indian nation the historical agency for completing the project of modernity. To make that claim, ancient India had to become the classical source of Indian modernity, while "the Muslim period" would become the night of medieval darkness. Contributing to that description would be all the prejudices of the European Enlightenment about Islam. Dominating the chapters from the twelfth century onward in the new nationalist history of India would be a stereotypical figure of "the Muslim," endowed with a "national character": fanatical, bigoted, warlike, dissolute, and cruel.
MUSLIM TYRANNY, HINDU RESISTANCE
The story that begins with the birth of Islam in Arabia does, of course, shift to India, but this happens in stages. Tarinicharan gives long descriptions of the Arab invasions of Sind and the successive raids by Mahmud Ghaznavi into different Indian kingdoms, all of which take place well before the establishment of the so-called Slave dynasty in Delhi in the early thirteenth century. These descriptions trace a common pattern that can be clarified by looking at three examples: Tarinicharan's accounts of the invasion of Sind by Muhammad Ibn Kasim, of Mahmud Ghaznavi's attack on Punjab, and of the victory of Muhammad Ghuri at Thanesar.
Muhammad Kasim began his war on Dahir, the king of Sind, in 712.
It must be noted that what Tarinicharan calls "fortune" (daiva) and "misfortune" (durddaiva) are not the same as the daiva that was divine intervention in Mrityunjay's narrative. Misfortune here is mere accident, a matter of chance. There is no suggestion at all of retribution for immoral conduct. It is the misfortune not of kings, but of "Indians" that despite deserving to win, they have repeatedly lost because of accidents.
Similar stories of defeat in battle appear later. Two features are worth notice: one, the courage of Hindu women in resisting aggression, and the other, the death in battle of Hindu men as a ritualized form of self-sacrifice. Thus appear such narrative indexes as "everywhere, pyres were lit" and "completing their ablutions . . . killed by the Muslims." The corresponding index for Muslim soldiers is "driven by the prospect of cohabiting with doe-eyed nymphs . . . etc." The contrast is significant.
Tarinicharan tells another story about Kasim that is part of the same narrative structure.
To the courage of Hindu women is added another element: intelligence. And parallel to the story of self-sacrifice is created another story: vengeance on the enemy for the death of one's kin.
Let us move to the beginning of the eleventh century and the period of Mahmud of Ghazna. "Of all Muslims, it was his aggressions which first brought devastation and disarray to India, and from that time the freedom of the Hindus has diminished and faded like the phases of the moon" (BI, p. 41). Tarinicharan mentions some of Mahmud's qualities such as courage, foresight, strategic skill, and perseverance, but ignores the fact, discussed in Elphinstone, that Mahmud was also a great patron of arts and letters. "Although he was endowed with these qualities, he was also a great adherent, at least in public, of the Musalman religion, a bitter opponent of the worship of idols and an unyielding pursuer of wealth and fame" (BI, p. 42). This was another alleged trait of the Muslim character: where faith in Islam was a reason for war, it was not true faith but only an apparent adherence to religion.
Mahmud moved against King Anandapal of the Shahiya dynasty.
King Anandapal is unlikely to have had the historical foresight to anticipate that the fall of Lahore to Mahmud would lead to "the destruction of the independence of all of India." Needless to say, these are Tarinicharan's words. But by putting them on the lips of the ruler of Punjab, he turns this story into a war of the Hindu jati: "the kings joined with Anangapal," "the Hindu forces increased daily," "Hindu women from far away sent supplies," and so forth. But then came the inevitable stroke of misfortune. "A fire-ball or a sharp arrow flung from the Musalman camp struck the elephant of the Hindu commander Anangapal. The elephant, with the king on its back, fled from the field of battle. At this, the Hindu soldiers fell into disarray" (BI, p. 44).
This episode too ends with a story of vengeance, but this time of another variety: "The king of Kanauj, who had collaborated with Mahmud, became an object of hatred and contempt in the community of Hindu kings. Hearing this, the ruler of Ghazni entered India for the tenth time to help his protege. But well before his arrival, the king of Kalinjar performed the execution of the king of Kanauj" (BI, p. 46). Needless to say, this too was a ritual; hence, it was not just an execution, but the "performance of an execution."
On Muhammad Ghuri, Tarinicharan says that his soldiers were
Not only did the Hindu kings not submit without resistance, but after the first attack by Muhammad, they even "chased the Muslims away for twenty kros [forty miles]" (BI, p. 54). On his second attack, the treachery of Jaichand and the unscrupulousness of Muhammad led to the defeat of Prithviraj. This account by Tarinicharan bears no resemblance at all to the narratives of Mrityunjay. There is also a story of revenge at the end. A hill tribe Tarinicharan calls "Goksur" (Elphinstone calls them "a band of Gakkars") had been defeated by Muhammad; one night, some of them managed to enter his tent and kill the Sultan in revenge.
With the establishment of the Sultanate, the story of the oppression of Hindus by intolerant rulers will be repeated a number of times. For instance, Sikandar Lodi:
Tarinicharan's barbs are the sharpest when they are directed against Aurangzeb. "Aranjib was deceitful, murderous and plundered the wealth of others" (BI, p. 220). "His declaration of faith in the Musalman religion only facilitated the securing of his interests. ... In truth, Aranjib would never forsake his interests for reasons of religion or justice" (BI, p. 173). On the other hand, Tarinicharan has praise for Akbar, although his reasons are interesting,
Thus, it was not his impartiality in matters of religion but his use of the powers of the state to reform both the Hindu and the Muslim religions that makes Akbar worthy of praise.
The issue of the alliance of certain Hindu kings with Muslim rulers comes up again in the context of Akbar's policy. Thus, on the subject of the marriages of Rajput princesses with Mughals:
CHAPTER FIVE: Histories and Nations
THE CONSTRUCTION OF A CLASSICAL PAST
The first sentence of Bharatbarser itihás is striking: "India [bharatavarsa] has been ruled in turn by Hindus, Muslims and Christians. Accordingly, the history of this country [des] is divided into the periods of Hindu, Muslim and Christian rule [rájatva]" (BI, p. 1).
This sentence marks the passage from the "history of kings" to the "history of this country." Never again will Rájábali be written; from now on, everything will be the "history of this deš." This history, now, is periodized according to the distinctive character of rule, and this character, in turn, is determined by the religion of the rulers. The identification here of country (deš) and realm (rájatva) is permanent and indivisible. This means that although there may be at times several kingdoms and kings, there is in truth always only one realm which is coextensive with the country and which is symbolized by the capital or the throne. The rájatva, in other words, constitutes the generic sovereignty of the country, whereas the capital or the throne represents the center of sovereign statehood. Since the country is bharatavarsa, there can be only one true sovereignty that is coextensive with it, represented by a single capital or throne as its center. Otherwise, why should the defeat of Prithviraj and the capture of Delhi by Muhammad Ghuri signal the end of a whole period of Indian history and the beginning of a new one? Or why should the battle of Plassey mark the end of Muslim rule and the beginning of Christian rule? The identification in European historiography between the notions of country or people, sovereignty, and statehood is now lodged firmly in the mind of the English-educated Bengali.
On the next page follows another example of the modernity of this historioghaphic practice. "All Sanskrit sources that are now available are full of legends and fabulous tales; apart from the Rajataraitgini [Rajatarangini] there is not a single true historical account" (BI, p. 2). The criteria of the "true historical account" had been, of course, set by then by European historical scholarship. That India has no true historical account was a singular discovery of European Indology. The thought had never occurred to Mri-tyunjay. But to Tarinicharan, it seems self-evident.
We then have a description of the inhabitants of India:
In very ancient times, there lived in India two very distinct communities [sampraday] of people. Of them, one resembled us in height and other aspects of physical appearance. The descendants of this community are now called Hindu. The people of the other community were short, dark and extremely uncivilized. Their descendants are now known as Khas, Bhilla, Pulinda, Saontal and other primitive [jangla, "of the bush"] jati. (BI, p. 2).
There were others who were the products of the mixing of sampraday. Thus, the first three varna among the Hindus are said to be twice-born, but the Sudra are not entitled to that status. "This shows that in the beginning the former were a separate sampraday from the latter. The latter were subsequently included in the former community, but were given the status of the most inferior class" (BI, p. 4).
The notion of the gradual spread of "the Hindu religion" from the north of the country to the south is also introduced. This spread is the result of the expansion of the realm.
The south of the country was in the beginning covered by forests and inhabited by non-Hindu and uncivilized jati. Ramacandra was the first to hoist the Hindu flag in that part of India. ... To this day there are many popular tales of the ancient colonization of the south by the Hindus. (BI, p. 27)
The image of the hero of the Ramayana holding aloft the modern symbol of national sovereignty came easily to the mind of this English-educated Bengali Brahman a hundred years ago, although the votaries of political Hinduism today would probably be embarrassed by the suggestion that Rama had subdued the inhabitants of southern India and established a colonial rule.
Since there is a lack of authentic sources, the narrative of ancient Indian history is necessarily fragmentary. Gone is the certitude of Mrityunjay's dynastic lists; Tarinicharan states quite clearly the limits to a rational reconstruction of the ancient past.
European historians have proved by various arguments that the battle of Kuruksetra took place before the fourteenth century B.C. For a long period after the battle of Kuruksetra, the historical accounts of India are so uncertain, partial and contradictory that it is impossible to construct from them a narrative. (BI, pp. 16-17)
The narrative he does construct is not particularly remarkable, because he follows without much amendment the history of ancient India as current among British writers on the subject. The only interesting comment in these chapters of Tarinicharan's book is the one he makes on Buddhism:
[The Buddha] became a great enemy of the Hindu religion, which is why Hindus describe him as an atheist and the destroyer of dharma. Nevertheless, the religion founded by him contains much advice of the highest spiritual value. He did not admit anything that was devoid of reason [yukti]. No matter how ancient the customs of a jati, if stronger reasons can be presented against the traditional views, then the opinions of at least some people are likely to change. (BI, p. 17)
The reasonableness of the religious views of Buddhism is not denied. On the contrary, Buddhism is presented as a rationalist critique from within "the Hindu religion." Otherwise, in accordance with the criterion of periodization, the period of the Buddhist rulers would have had to be classified as a separate period of ancient Indian history. Now it is given a place within the "Hindu period."
Although the historical sources for the ancient period are said to be fragmentary and unreliable, on one subject there seems to be no dearth of evidence: "the civilization and learning of the ancient Indians." This is the title of chapter 6 of Tarinicharan's book. The main argument is as follows:
What distinguishes the giant from the dwarf or the mighty from the frail is nothing compared to the difference between the ancient and the modern Hindu. In earlier times, foreign travellers in India marvelled at the courage, truthfulness and modesty of the people of the Arya vamsa; now they remark mainly on the absence of those qualities. In those days Hindus would set out on conquest and hoist their flags in Tatar, China and other countries; now a few soldiers from a tiny island far away are lording it over the land of India. In those days Hindus would regard all except their own jati as mleccha and treat them with contempt; now those same mleccha shower contempt on the descendants of Aryans. Then the Hindus would sail to Sumatra and other islands, evidence of which is still available in plenty in the adjacent island of Bali. Now the thought of a sea voyage strikes terror in the heart of a Hindu, and if anyone manages to go, he is immediately ostracized from society. (BI, p. 32)
Ancient glory, present misery: the subject of this entire story is "us." The mighty heroes of ancient India were "our" ancestors, and the feeble inhabitants of India today are "ourselves." That ancient Indians conquered other countries or traded across the seas or treated other people "with contempt" is a matter of pride for "us." And it is "our" shame that "the descendants of Aryans" are today subordinated to others and are the objects of the latter's contempt. There is a certain scale of power among the different peoples of the world; earlier, the people of India were high on that scale, while today they are near the bottom.
Not only physical prowess but the achievements of ancient Indians in the field of learning were also universally recognized.
In ancient times, when virtually the whole world was shrouded in the darkness of ignorance, the pure light of learning shone brightly in India. The discoveries in philosophy which emanated from the keen intellects of ancient Hindus are arousing the enthusiasm of European scholars even today. (BI, p. 33)
Note that the opinion of European scholars in this matter is extremely important to Tarinicharan. In fact, all the examples he cites on the excellence of ancient Indian learning—In the fields of astronomy, mathematics, logic, and linguistics—were discoveries of nineteenth-century Orientalists. By bringing forward this evidence, Tarinicharan seems to be suggesting that although Europeans today treat Indians with contempt because of their degraded condition, Indians were not always like this, because even European scholars admit that the arts and sciences of ancient India were of the highest standard. This evidence from Orientalist scholarship was extremely important for the construction of the full narrative of nationalist history.
That Tarinicharan's history is nationalist is signified by something else. His story of ancient glory and subsequent decline has a moral at the end: reform society, remove all of these superstitions that are the marks of decadence, and revive the true ideals of the past. These false beliefs and practices for which Indians are today the objects of contempt did not exist in the past because even Europeans admit that in ancient times "we" were highly civilized.
Today we find Hindu women treated like slaves, enclosed like prisoners and as ignorant as beasts. But if we look a millennium and a quarter earlier, we will find that women were respected, educated and largely unconstrained. Where was child marriage then? No one married before the age of twenty-four. (BI, p. 33)
Ancient India became for the nationalist the classical age, while the period between the ancient and the contemporary was the dark age of medievalism. Needless to say, this pattern was heartily approved by European historiography. If the nineteenth-century Englishman could claim ancient Greece as his classical heritage, why should not the English-educated Bengali feel proud of the achievements of the so-called Vedic civilization?
NARRATIVE BREAK
The chapter "The Civilization and Learning of the Ancient Indians" closes Tarinicharan's history of ancient India. He then takes the reader outside India—to Arabia in the seventh century. Why should it be necessary, in discussing a change of historical periods in twelfth-century India, to begin the description from seventh-century Arabia? The answer to this question is, of course, obvious. But implicit in that answer is an entire ensemble of assumptions and prejudices of nineteenth-century European historiography.
Muhammad gave to his followers the name musalman, that is, the faithful, and to all other humans the name kafir or infidel. . , . Directing his followers to take the sword in order to destroy the kafir, he said that God had ordained that those Muslims who die in the war against false religion will go to paradise and live in eternal pleasure in the company of doe-eyed nymphs. But if they run away from battle, they will burn in hell. The Arab jati is by nature fearless and warlike. Now, aroused by the lust for plunder in this world and for eternal pleasure in the next, their swords became irresistible everywhere. All of Arabia came under Muhammad's control and only a few years after his death the Muslim flag was flying in every country between Kabul and Spain. Never before in history had one kingdom after another, one land after another, fallen to a conqueror with the speed at which they fell to the Muslims. It was impossible that such people, always delirious at the prospect of conquest, would not covet the riches of India. (BI, pp. 36-37)
The ground is being prepared here for the next episode that will result from the clash of this distinct history of the Muslims with the history of Indians. This distinct history originates in, and acquires its identity from, the life of Muhammad. In other words, the dynasty that will be founded in Delhi at the beginning of the thirteenth century and the many political changes that will take place in the subsequent five centuries are not to be described merely as the periods of Turko-Afghan or Mughal rule in India; they are integral parts of the political history of Islam.
The actors in this history are also given certain behavioral characteristics. They are warlike and believe that it is their religious duty to kill infidels. Driven by the lust for plunder and the visions of cohabiting with the nymphs of paradise, they are even prepared to die in battle. They are not merely conquerors, but "delirious at the prospect of conquest" (dvijayonmatta), and consequently are by their innate nature covetous of the riches of India.
It is important for us at this point to note the complex relation of this new nationalist historiography to the histories of India produced by British writers in the nineteenth century. While James Mill's History of British India, completed in 1817, may have been "the hegemonic textbook of Indian history" for European Indology,1 for the first nationalist historians of India it represented precisely what they had to fight against. Mill did not share any of the enthusiasm of Orientalists such as William Jones for the philosophical and literary achievements of ancient India. His condemnation of the despotism and immorality of Indian civilization was total, and even his recognition of "the comparative superiority of Islamic civilisation" did not in any significant way affect his judgment that until the arrival of British rule, India had always been "condemned to semi-barbarism and the miseries of despotic power."2 Nationalist history in India could be born only by challenging such an absolute and comprehensive denial of all claims to historical subjectivity.3
Far more directly influential for the nationalist school texts we are looking at was Elphinstone's History of India (1841). This standard textbook in Indian universities was the most widely read British history of India until Vincent Smith's books were published in the early twentieth century. The reason why nationalist readers found Elphinstone more palatable than Mill is not far to seek. As E. B. Cowell, who taught in Calcutta and added notes to the later editions of Elphinstone's History, explained in a preface in 1866, a "charm of the book is the spirit of genuine hearty sympathy with and appreciation of the native character which runs though the whole, and the absence of which is one of the main blemishes in Mr. Mill's eloquent work."4 In this spirit of sympathy, Elphinstone wrote entire chapters in his volume called "Hindus" on "Philosophy," "Astronomy and Mathematical Science," "Medicine," "Language," "Literature," "Fine Arts," and "Commerce." He also began his volume on "Mahometans" with a chapter called "Arab Conquests A.D. 632, A.H. 11-A.D. 753, A.H. 136," whose first section was "Rise of the Mahometan Religion."
Another source often acknowledged in the Bengali textbooks is the series called The History of India as Told by Its Own Historians.5 Compiled by Henry Elliot, and edited and published after his death by John Dowson between 1867 and 1877, these eight volumes comprise translated extracts from over 150 works, principally in Persian, covering a period from the ninth to the eighteenth centuries. It was a gigantic example of the privilege claimed by modern European scholarship to process the writings of a people supposedly devoid of historical consciousness and render into useful sources of history what otherwise could "scarcely claim to rank higher than Annals." The technical qualities of the scholarship of Elliot and Dowson were to be questioned in subsequent decades,6 but with the substitution of English for Persian as the language of the state, it was through their mediation that the Persian sources of Indian history would now become available to the modern literati in Bengal.
The assumptions which regulated the selection and translation of these sources were quite explicitly stated by Elliot:7
In Indian Histories there is little which enables us to penetrate below the glittering surface, and observe the practical operation of a despotic Government. ... If, however, we turn our eyes to the present Muhammadan kingdoms of India, and examine the character of the princes, ... we may fairly draw a parallel between ancient and modern times. ... We behold kings, even of our own creation, slunk in sloth and debauchery, and emulating the vices of a Caligula or a Commodus.... Had the authors whom we are compelled to consult, pourtrayed their Caesars with the fidelity of Suetonius, instead of the more congenial sycophancy of Paterculus, we should not, as now, have to extort from unwilling witnesses, testimony to the truth of these assertions. . . . The few glimpses we have, even among the short Extracts in this single volume, of Hindus slain for disputing with Muhammadans, 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, show us that this picture is not overcharged, and it is much to be regretted that we are left to draw it for ourselves from out of the mass of ordinary occurrences.
The fact that even Hindu writers wrote "to flatter the vanity of an imperious Muhammadan patron" was, Elliot thought, "lamentable": "there is not one of this slavish crew who treats the history of his native country subjectively, or presents us with the thoughts, emotions and raptures which a long oppressed race might be supposed to give vent to." Elliot also drew for his readers the conclusions from his presentation of these extracts:
They will make our native subjects more sensible of the immense advantages accruing to them under the mildness and equity of our rule.... We should no longer hear bombastic Babus, enjoying under our Government the highest degree of personal liberty, and many more political privileges than were ever conceded to a conquered nation, rant about patriotism, and the degradation of their present position. If they would dive into any of the volumes mentioned herein, it would take these young Brutuses and Phocions a very short time to learn, that in the days of that dark period for whose return they sigh, even the bare utterance of their ridiculous fantasies would have been attended, not with silence and contempt, but with the severer discipline of molten lead or empalement.
Ironically, when the young Brutuses and Phocions did learn Elliot's lessons on Muhammadan rule, their newly acquired consciousness of being "a long oppressed race" did not stop with a condemnation of Islamic despotism; it also turned against British rule itself.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, European Indological scholarship seemed to have agreed that the history of Hinduism was one of a classical age—for some the Vedic civilization, for others the so-called Gupta revival in the fourth to the seventh centuries—followed by a medieval decline from the eighth to the eighteenth centuries.8 For some, this decline was itself the reason why the country fell so quickly to the Muslim invaders. In any case, the theory of medieval decline fitted in nicely with the overall judgment of nineteenth-century British historians that "Muslim rule in India" was a period of despotism, misrule, and anarchy9—this, needless to say, being the historical justification for colonial intervention.
For Indian nationalists in the late nineteenth century, the pattern of classical glory, medieval decline, and modern renaissance appeared as one that was not only proclaimed by the modern historiography of Europe but also approved for India by at least some sections of European scholarship. What was needed was to claim for the Indian nation the historical agency for completing the project of modernity. To make that claim, ancient India had to become the classical source of Indian modernity, while "the Muslim period" would become the night of medieval darkness. Contributing to that description would be all the prejudices of the European Enlightenment about Islam. Dominating the chapters from the twelfth century onward in the new nationalist history of India would be a stereotypical figure of "the Muslim," endowed with a "national character": fanatical, bigoted, warlike, dissolute, and cruel.
MUSLIM TYRANNY, HINDU RESISTANCE
The story that begins with the birth of Islam in Arabia does, of course, shift to India, but this happens in stages. Tarinicharan gives long descriptions of the Arab invasions of Sind and the successive raids by Mahmud Ghaznavi into different Indian kingdoms, all of which take place well before the establishment of the so-called Slave dynasty in Delhi in the early thirteenth century. These descriptions trace a common pattern that can be clarified by looking at three examples: Tarinicharan's accounts of the invasion of Sind by Muhammad Ibn Kasim, of Mahmud Ghaznavi's attack on Punjab, and of the victory of Muhammad Ghuri at Thanesar.
Muhammad Kasim began his war on Dahir, the king of Sind, in 712.
Fortune favored him. A ball of fire thrown by his soldiers struck King Dahir's elephant which panicked and fled from the battlefield. Dahir's troops, thinking that their king had given up the battle, fell into disarray. Later it will be seen that even when Indians had every chance of victory, similar misfortunes often led to their defeat at the hands of the Muslims. (BI, p. 38)10
It must be noted that what Tarinicharan calls "fortune" (daiva) and "misfortune" (durddaiva) are not the same as the daiva that was divine intervention in Mrityunjay's narrative. Misfortune here is mere accident, a matter of chance. There is no suggestion at all of retribution for immoral conduct. It is the misfortune not of kings, but of "Indians" that despite deserving to win, they have repeatedly lost because of accidents.
Finally, after displaying much heroism, [King Dahir] was killed at the hands of the enemy. His capital was besieged, but Dahir's wife, displaying a courage similar to her husband's, continued to defend the city. In the end, food supplies ran out. Deciding that it was preferable to die rather than submit to the enemy, she instructed the inhabitants of the city to make necessary arrangements. Everyone agreed; everywhere, pyres were lit. After the immolations [of the women], the men, completing their ablutions, went out sword in hand and were soon killed by the Muslims. (BI, p. 38)11
Similar stories of defeat in battle appear later. Two features are worth notice: one, the courage of Hindu women in resisting aggression, and the other, the death in battle of Hindu men as a ritualized form of self-sacrifice. Thus appear such narrative indexes as "everywhere, pyres were lit" and "completing their ablutions . . . killed by the Muslims." The corresponding index for Muslim soldiers is "driven by the prospect of cohabiting with doe-eyed nymphs . . . etc." The contrast is significant.
Tarinicharan tells another story about Kasim that is part of the same narrative structure.
On completing his conquest of Sind, Kasim was preparing to drive further into India when the resourcefulness of a woman became his undoing. Among the women who were captured in war in Sind were two daughters of King Dahir. They were not only of high birth but were also outstandingly beautiful. Kasim thought they would make appropriate presents for the Khalifa and accordingly sent them to his master. The ruler of the Muslims was bewitched by the beauty of the elder daughter and began to look upon her with desire. At this, she burst into tears and said, "It is a pity that I am not worthy of receiving the affections of someone like you, because Kasim has already sullied my dharma." Hearing of this act of his servant, the Khalifa was enraged and ordered that Kasim be sown in hide and brought before him. When this order was carried our, the Khalifa showed Kasim's corpse to the princess. Eyes sparkling with delight, she said, "Kasim was entirely innocent. I had made the allegation only in order to avenge the deaths of my parents and the humiliation of their subjects." (BI, p. 39)12
The punishments are pretty drastic but they seem to suit the mentality of the population. I was told of a man who had stolen a golden butter-lamp from one of the temples in Kyirong. He was convicted of the offence, and what we would think an inhuman sentence was carried out. His hands were publicly cut off and he was then sewn up in a wet yak-skin. After this had been allowed to dry, he was thrown over a precipice.
-- Seven Years in Tibet, by Heinrich Harrer
Capital punishment is carried out solely by immersion in water. There are two modes of this execution: one by putting a criminal into a bag made of hides and throwing the bag with its live contents into the water; and the other by tying the criminal’s hands and feet and throwing him into a river with a heavy stone tied to his body. The executioners lift him out after about ten minutes, and if he is judged to be still alive, down they plunge him again, and this lifting up and down is repeated till the criminal expires. The lifeless body is then cut to pieces, the head alone being kept, and all the rest of the severed members are thrown into the river. The head is deposited in a head vase, either at once, or after it has been exposed in public for three or seven days, and the vase is carried to a building established for this sole purpose, which bears a horrible name signifying “Perpetual Damnation.” This practice comes from a superstition of the people that those whose heads are kept in that edifice will forever be precluded from being reborn in this world.
-- Three Years in Tibet, by Shramana Ekai Kawaguchi
To the courage of Hindu women is added another element: intelligence. And parallel to the story of self-sacrifice is created another story: vengeance on the enemy for the death of one's kin.
Let us move to the beginning of the eleventh century and the period of Mahmud of Ghazna. "Of all Muslims, it was his aggressions which first brought devastation and disarray to India, and from that time the freedom of the Hindus has diminished and faded like the phases of the moon" (BI, p. 41). Tarinicharan mentions some of Mahmud's qualities such as courage, foresight, strategic skill, and perseverance, but ignores the fact, discussed in Elphinstone, that Mahmud was also a great patron of arts and letters. "Although he was endowed with these qualities, he was also a great adherent, at least in public, of the Musalman religion, a bitter opponent of the worship of idols and an unyielding pursuer of wealth and fame" (BI, p. 42). This was another alleged trait of the Muslim character: where faith in Islam was a reason for war, it was not true faith but only an apparent adherence to religion.
Mahmud moved against King Anandapal of the Shahiya dynasty.
"The Muslims are determined to destroy the independence of all of India and to eradicate the Hindu religion. If they conquer Lahore, they will attack other parts of the country. It is therefore a grave necessity for all to unite in suppressing the mleccha forces." Saying this, the King [Elphinstone writes the name as Anang Pal, as does Tarinicharan] sent emissaries to all the principal Hindu kings. His appeal did not go unheeded. The kings of Delhi, Kanauj, Ujjain, Gwalior, Kalinjar and other places joined with Anangapal. Masses of troops arrived in Punjab. Worried by this sudden increase in the strength of the opposition, Mahmud decided, for reasons of safety, to halt near Peshawar. The Hindu forces increased daily. Hindu women from far away sold their diamonds, melted down their gold ornaments and sent supplies for war. (BI, pp. 43-44)13
King Anandapal is unlikely to have had the historical foresight to anticipate that the fall of Lahore to Mahmud would lead to "the destruction of the independence of all of India." Needless to say, these are Tarinicharan's words. But by putting them on the lips of the ruler of Punjab, he turns this story into a war of the Hindu jati: "the kings joined with Anangapal," "the Hindu forces increased daily," "Hindu women from far away sent supplies," and so forth. But then came the inevitable stroke of misfortune. "A fire-ball or a sharp arrow flung from the Musalman camp struck the elephant of the Hindu commander Anangapal. The elephant, with the king on its back, fled from the field of battle. At this, the Hindu soldiers fell into disarray" (BI, p. 44).
This episode too ends with a story of vengeance, but this time of another variety: "The king of Kanauj, who had collaborated with Mahmud, became an object of hatred and contempt in the community of Hindu kings. Hearing this, the ruler of Ghazni entered India for the tenth time to help his protege. But well before his arrival, the king of Kalinjar performed the execution of the king of Kanauj" (BI, p. 46). Needless to say, this too was a ritual; hence, it was not just an execution, but the "performance of an execution."
On Muhammad Ghuri, Tarinicharan says that his soldiers were
inhabitants of the hills, hardy and skilled in warfare. By comparison, the Hindu kings were disunited and their soldiers relatively docile and undisciplined. Consequently, it was only to be expected that Muhammad would win easily. But that is not what happened. Virtually no Hindu ruler surrendered his freedom without a mighty struggle. In particular, the Rajahputa were never defeated. The rise, consolidation and collapse of Muslim rule have been completed, but the Rajahputa remain free to this day. (BI, p. 53)
Not only did the Hindu kings not submit without resistance, but after the first attack by Muhammad, they even "chased the Muslims away for twenty kros [forty miles]" (BI, p. 54). On his second attack, the treachery of Jaichand and the unscrupulousness of Muhammad led to the defeat of Prithviraj. This account by Tarinicharan bears no resemblance at all to the narratives of Mrityunjay. There is also a story of revenge at the end. A hill tribe Tarinicharan calls "Goksur" (Elphinstone calls them "a band of Gakkars") had been defeated by Muhammad; one night, some of them managed to enter his tent and kill the Sultan in revenge.
With the establishment of the Sultanate, the story of the oppression of Hindus by intolerant rulers will be repeated a number of times. For instance, Sikandar Lodi:
Sekendar prohibited pilgrimage and ritual bathing in the Ganga and other sacred rivers. He also destroyed temples at many places. A Brahman who had declared that "The Lord recognizes every religion if followed sincerely" was called before Sekendar, and when he refused to discard his tolerant views was executed by the cruel ruler. When a Musalman holy man criticized the ban on pilgrimage, the king was enraged and shouted, "Rascal! So you support the idolaters?" The holy man replied, "No, that is not what I am doing. All I am saying is that the oppression by rulers of their subjects is unjust." (BI, p. 83)14
Tarinicharan's barbs are the sharpest when they are directed against Aurangzeb. "Aranjib was deceitful, murderous and plundered the wealth of others" (BI, p. 220). "His declaration of faith in the Musalman religion only facilitated the securing of his interests. ... In truth, Aranjib would never forsake his interests for reasons of religion or justice" (BI, p. 173). On the other hand, Tarinicharan has praise for Akbar, although his reasons are interesting,
Akbar attempted to eradicate some irrational practices prescribed in the Musalman religion. He also tried to stop several irrational practices of the Hindus. He prohibited the ordeal by fire, the burning of widows against their wishes and child-marriage. He also allowed the remarriage of widows. . . . Orthodox Muslims were strongly opposed to him because of his liberal views on religion. Many called him an atheist. [BI, p. 141)
Thus, it was not his impartiality in matters of religion but his use of the powers of the state to reform both the Hindu and the Muslim religions that makes Akbar worthy of praise.
The issue of the alliance of certain Hindu kings with Muslim rulers comes up again in the context of Akbar's policy. Thus, on the subject of the marriages of Rajput princesses with Mughals:
The Rajahputa who consented to such marriages became particular favorites of the emperor. Far from regarding such marriages as humiliating and destructive of jati, all Rajahputa kings, with the exception of the ruler of Udaipur, felt themselves gratified and honored by them. But the king of Udaipur broke off all ties with these Yavana-loving kings. For this reason, the lineage of Udaipur is today honored as the purest in caste among the Rajahputa. Other kings consider it a great privilege to have social transactions with him. (BI, pp. 125-26)