Further Finishing touches to History
C. Kambhampati
Chandrasekhar
Note: I do not necessarily subscribe all of the opinions.
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OUR GOLDEN AGE LIES IN THE FUTURE -- IN 1917 !
The double standard is as much a hallmark of the books of these eminent
historians as invention and conjecture. For the very things on
account of which they extol Islam, for which they are in raptures about
the Soviet Union, for those very things they condemn Hindus,
their texts, their teachers, their rulers!
Bhakti is just a reflection of the subservience of the hapless tenant to
the landlord under feudalism. The very word "Islam" means
"surrender", they teach us in the same breath; such an exalted
sentiment, they exclaim -- total submission to the will of Allah.
The taxes imposed by the Maurya kings were oppressive exactions for
maintaining an ever-expanding coercive apparatus of the State, D.
N. Jha insinuates in his Ancient India. But the jaziya exacted by the
Sultans was, these historians insist when they write about the
Sultanate, a little something by paying which Hindus were able to lead
normal lives ! When Aurangzeb revived it, it was not, they insist,
meant to put any economic pressure on Hindus to convert to Islam, it was
not imposed to help the Empire deal with financial difficulties
either. Its incidence was meant to be light, and care was taken to
ensure that it would be collected by honest, Allah-fearing Muslims! And
there were many exemptions, don't forget -- "women, children, the
disabled, the indigent, those whose income was less than the means of
subsistence" were exempted, as were those who were being useful to the
Empire by being in its service !
The Mauryas instituted a centralized, overbearing State, Jha says. Their
army was an instrument for maintaining domination, it was the
coercive arm of the State. Their legal and judicial system was, as such
systems are, "an important weapon of coercion in the hands of the
ruling class." The standard line : from the textbook for Class III
students in West Bengal to this college guide. Now, that being their
standard, firmly held, so oft-repeated thesis, how come our eminencies
never come to say of Islamic law, the armies of the Sultans and of
the Mughal rulers that they too are weapons of coercion, domination,
control ?
The laws enacted by the Republican States of ancient India extended the
State's tentacles to such an extent that it came to control the
private life of individuals and families, charges our author. But
Aurangzeb's orders to destroy temples, why they left a great deal of
latitude to local officials, these historians maintain, in any case they
were not anything new, in any case they were not enforced after
1679, in any case no general order to destroy temples seems to have been
given, in any case Hindus were left free to worship in the
privacy of their homes.... !
Propositions from Kautilya and Patanjali are cited by Jha -- invent
cults so as to exact money from the ignorant, stage sudden miracles to
garner money from the credulous, break up hostile tribes by using spies,
prostitutes, soothsayers, poison, cash.... -- as proof that this was
the pattern of life. This is what Kautilya has written, therefore this
is what must have been happening -- that is the reasoning. But when I
cite the Quran, the hadis, the fatwas, when I adduce five hundred pages
of evidence from them, the standard retort is, "But who follows
these texts ?"
The pattern works the other way too. Affirmations which do not fit The
Theory -- for instance, the clearest possible statements in the
texts that a person is a Brahmin not by virtue of his birth but by
virtue of living up to the duties and norms which have been prescribed
--
are brushed aside : "But they are just desiderata," our theoreticians
argue. "There is no proof that life was lived in accordance with these
statements of good intentions." The statements in Manu that provide
discriminatory punishments for identical offences are, of course,
proof that differential justice was meted out in practice ! As the
provision in Stalin's 1937 Constitution granting the right of
self-determination to nationalities -- a provision which these textbooks
invariably cite -- is proof that the Soviet State in fact granted
such an option to nationalities ! As the fact that none of the
nationalities exercised the option between 1917 and 1985 is proof that
the
Soviets had solved the nationalities problem !
In this textbook as in others, Hinduism is charged with assimilating
local cults. This is a doubly useful charge -- on the one hand it is
used to argue that there is nothing original in Hinduism, that it is
just a piling up of practices taken from local, animist, fertility
cults, the
emphasis being on the last ! And, on the other, to argue that it is a
Boa-Constrictor which does not let any other religious tradition
survive. The point is also made that the older traditions and beliefs
have survived none the less, that the people continued to retain, as
they
retain today, beliefs in malevolent spirits and the like. Have you ever
seen a book by any of these scholars which points out, as Ali Dashti
and others do, that the entire ritual associated with the haj, for
instance, is a carry-over of pagan practices from pre-Islamic periods ?
Or
that the Quran is full of verses about malevolent djinns and the like ?
Ashoka's tolerance is put to his compulsions -- he had to adopt this
posture of tolerance because of the need to maintain the unity of his
Empire, Jha maintains. But those two sentences in the Quran -- "To you
your religion, to me mine," and "There is no compulsion in
religion" -- which are flatly over-run by the text itself, to say
nothing of the entire history of Islamic rule over 1400 years, those two
sentences are flaunted as proof-positive of Islam being not just
committed to peace and tolerance, it is proof that it is The Religion of
Peace and Tolerance !
Although Kanishka convened the Fourth Buddhist Council, although great
Buddhist scholars and teachers were admittedly associated with
him, Kanishka's conversion to Buddhism is declared by our eminent
historian to have been "political". Kanishka went through no
profound experience, Jha says. Have you ever come across any of these
eminencies looking askance on this ground -- the absence of
"profound experience" -- at the lakhs of conversions which Islamic
invaders and rulers secured at the point of the sword ? Or at the
mass-conversions which Christian missionaries arrange even today ? Those
are a result of profound inner experiences, are they ?
"Simultaneously with the emergence of these gods," writes the eminent
historian, "Brahmanism was assimilating a variety of popular
cults. Animals, trees, mountains and rivers came to acquire divine
association. The cow became an object of worship; the seeds of modern
communal politics centering round the 'sacred' animal were thus
sown...." He would, of course, not see the seed in the fact that while
the
Quran does not require the sacrifice of cows, the text has been altered
by Islamic authorities in India; he would not see the cause in that
"Muslim divines" like Ali Mian instigate Muslims here to kill cows in
India precisely because cows are revered by the Hindus -- those
being their precise words.
In Jha's book as in others of this school, the Hindus are invariably
condemned for sacrifices "involving animal slaughter," they are
lampooned for getting their come-uppance in Buddhism and Ashoka who
weaned the people away from these sacrifices. Lakhs and lakhs
of animals -- cows, goats, and the rest -- are slaughtered every Id.
Ever heard any of these eminencies characterise these sacrifices as
"involving animal slaughter" ? And, of course, were a Hindu or Buddhist
at a dinner to request vegetarian fare, he would be sneered at as
a primitive by these jet-set progressives.
When Manu specifies different tasks for different sections, he is held
up as urging this on behalf of an exploitative order. Simultaneously
the Guptas are condemned for demanding the same work as compulsory
labour from all sections of society ! Our eminent historian fumes
: "In the Maurya period slaves and hired labourers were subjected to
forced labour; this was supervised by an officer and was paid for. But
in Gupta times it was extended to all classes of subjects, and it came
to include all kinds of work." Of course, that the Soviets demanded
"all kinds of work" from "all classes of subjects" -- specially in the
slave-labour camps - is proof-positive of their abolishing
class-distinctions, of their ushering in the egalitarian Paradise!
"The Kamasutra of Vatsayana informs us," our author continues, "that
peasant women were forced to perform unpaid work of various
kinds, such as filling the granaries of the village headman, taking
things in and out of the house, cleaning the house, purchasing of
cotton,
wood, flax, hemp and thread, and the purchase, sale and exchange of
various articles...." Not very onerous, I would think, compared to
what lakhs like Solzhnetsyn were forced to do in what has been to these
eminencies "The Only Fatherland." And if you point to either fact
-- either to their double standards in the two cases, or to the fact
that Soviet society was characterised by even sharper differences
between haves and the not-in-the-Party have-nots than free societies --
you are a reactionary-revanchist-communal-fascist !
Jha like the rest strains to ensure that every facet from which pride in
the past may be derived is tarred. Monarchies were replaced by
some Republics, and there was some democracy in these new formations,
you say ? A "glorified", "much trumpeted notion", scoffs our
historian. True, "all important issues were placed before the assembly,
and no decision was taken in the absence of unanimity among its
members," but the assemblies consisted mostly of kashatriyas -- and so
these republics were really oligarchies and not true democracies.
As the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Peoples Republic of
China surely were -- true democracies not oligarchies !
The final chapter is climactic. The nationalist historians have
portrayed the Gupta Age as a Golden Age, says Jha. That is a myth, the
period was nothing of the sort.
True, the Guptas extended the Empire, our historian cannot but
acknowledge. But it did not cover all of India, he says -- he is
requiring
"full democracy," he is requiring that the whole of India be one when
talking of 1500-2000 years ago! The fact that rulers in the South
paid tribute to the Guptas, the fact that a southern ruler sought
permission of the Gupta king to do something, these do not establish
that
the Guptas exercised suzerainty over the latter, he says.
Having denounced the Mauryas for setting up a centralized
administration, our eminence denounces the Guptas for decentralizing it.
True, he says, philosophy, art, literature flourished -- Ajanta, Ellora,
Kalidasa, Aryabhatta...., the poor man is forced to acknowledge. But
he is not the one to give up. The paintings of Ajanta fall to his
searching class-analysis ! "Although the theme of paintings at Ajanta is
religious," he pronounces, "one can see in them a dramatic panorama of
the life of princes, nobles, warriors and sages. The general
impression one gets is one of affluence of the upper classes; the normal
hardships of the village folk are not portrayed in the paintings."
True, there was an efflorescence of Sanskrit literature, Jha has to
admit. But this literature too falls -- by the same touchstone,
class-analysis ! "Sanskrit literature, like art," he declaims, "was
mainly enjoyed by the court, upper classes and the aristocracy. The
uneducated masses could have hardly understood and much less appreciated
the ornate court literature. Not surprisingly therefore the
leading male characters of high social status in the contemporary plays
speak polished Sanskrit, and those of low status and all women
speak Prakrit." And what proportion of "the uneducated masses", pray,
understood Lenin's Collected Works, to say nothing of Mao's
"philosophical essays" ?!
True, the astronomical works of Aryabhatta and Varahamihira were
noteworthy, our author admits. But their insights were not followed
up, he swiftly adds. In any case, progress represented in the writings
of such observers "owed, only in part, to indigenous tradition...." One
of the five astronomical systems dealt with by Varahamihira was Roman, a
second one was of Paul of Alexandria, says our author. What
of the other three ? What of Aryabhatta's insights -- among these that
the earth revolves around the sun, that it rotates on its axis ? The
thing that strikes our author about such insights is not that they were
so far ahead of Copernicus and Kepler but that they were "contrary
to the established Indian notion" !
So the notion of "the so-called Hindu renaissance", he says, rests on
the writings of Kalidasa alone. "But the works of Kalidasa," declares
our historian, "are not indicative of an intellectual rebirth or revival
of literary activity; they merely imply a further development of the
literary forms and styles which were evolving in the earlier period."
Not just Kalidasa, "The Puranas had existed much before the time of
the Guptas in the form of bardic literature, in the Gupta age they were
finally compiled and given their present form." Had the stories
Shakespeare used for his plays not existed before? Did his writing not
amount, does not virtually all writing amount to "merely.... a
further development of the literary forms and styles which were evolving
in the earlier period" ?
Even the growth of bhakti, the turning to gods and goddesses which these
historians usually adduce as evidence of increasing oppression in
society is now pooh-poohed lest it become grist for the nationalists.
"Nor does the growing popularity of Vaishnavism and Shaivism
mean any religious resurgence," our author declares. "The basic tenets
of the two religions [notice -- not the two sects of Hinduism, but
"the two religions" !] go back to earlier times; now in the context of
emerging feudalism they could attract a greater following."
What to talk of that "so-called Hindu renaissance", the term Hindu
itself is a misnomer, our historian declares. "It was first used by the
Arabs in the post-Gupta period," he says, "to describe the inhabitants
of Hindu (India). Ancient Indians never thought of themselves as
Hindus." What they thought of themselves as is, naturally, a detail so
minor that so eminent an authority cannot but leave it for others to
work out !
His role is to lay down the L ine, which he does with the air of
finality that we would expect from so exalted an authority : "The
much-publicized Hindu renaissance was, in reality, not a renaissance,
much less a Hindu one."
Jha's triumphal conclusion :
"Some Indian historians have been so enamoured of the Guptas as to
tirelessly speak [that is how those who these eminencies disapprove
of speak, never the eminencies; how do the latter speak ? Tiresomely ?]
of their rule as representing a golden age of Indian history. In an
emotionally surcharged multi-volume work [the other man's work is marred
by emotion, never their's !] we are told in a vein of romantic
lamentation : 'life was never happier'. Yet it was during the period of
the Guptas that in certain parts of the country [how much of the
country's area or population did these "certain parts" cover ?] serfdom
appeared leading eventually to the economic bondage of the
peasantry. Women became an item of property and came to live in the
perpetual tutelage of man, notwithstanding their idealization in art
and literature [what appears in art and literature, if it runs counter
to The Theory, is mere "idealization"; what appears in Manu, so long as
it can be yoked to shore up The Theory, is proof of the way things were
in real life!]. Caste distinctions and caste rigidity became sharper
than ever before; law and justice showed a definite bias in favour of
the higher castes. [That on the basis of such "evidence" as we have
seen. And now see what he does to the statement of one of his prime
witnesses which goes contrary to The Theory.] Fa-hsien, the Chinese
Buddhist pilgrim-scholar who came to India during the reign of
Chandragupta II, tells us that the people were generally happy. True,
the
upper classes were happy and prosperous, and lived in comfort and ease,
as can be judged from the contemporary art and literature. But
this could have been hardly true of the lower orders; the Chinese
pilgrim speaks of the plight of the chandalas. The untouchable class as
a
whole came to be degraded further in the social scale. Social tensions
continued. But religion was used as an instrument for maintaining
the varna divided society."
The lesson ?
"For the upper classes all periods in history have been golden; for the
masses none."
Hence, his eminence's final message for our woebegone masses :
"The truly golden age of the people does not lie in the past, but in the
future."
In 1917, perchance ?!
rama.pi...@asu.edu
posted by CSK below? Thanks.
C. Kambhampati (shsk...@reading.ac.uk) wrote:
: another amusing article from the Shourie stable. Its interesting.