PART 1
Edward Said wrote an important book called ‘Orientalism,’ where he noted Western representation of Eastern cultures as an exercise in exaggerating the differences, presuming Western superiority. Orientalism is the source of inaccurate cultural representations and its principal characteristic is a “subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arab-Islamic peoples and their culture”, which derives from Western images. These cultural representations usually depict the ‘Orient’ as primitive, irrational, violent, despotic, fanatic, and essentially inferior to the westerner, and hence, ‘enlightenment’ can only occur when “traditional” and “reactionary” values make way for “contemporary” and “progressive” western ideas. Saidian Orientalism (1978) proposes that much of the Western study of Islamic civilization was not an objective intellectual enquiry of Eastern cultures. Orientalism was a discriminatory method applied to non-European societies and peoples to establish European imperial domination. In justification of empire, the Orientalist claims to know the Orient more than the Orientals. (Sourced from Wikipedia)
Distinguished author and Professor of Comparative Religions, Arvind Sharma applies the Saidian lens in analysing the British and Muslim rule over India and the distortions they inflicted. Sadly, there has been a gross internalization of many of these narratives by Indians, so much so that, there is persistent refusal to believe alternative versions about ourselves. This book is a fantastic attempt to correct our colonized minds. The author sets the tone in the beginning of the fantastic book saying, ‘Knowledge is power and later, power becomes knowledge.’ Edward Said’s ‘Orientalism’ questioned the cultural representation of the Arab and the Eastern world purely from a western intellectual perspective. A ruler’s study of a ruled culture is likely to be highly distorted and without objectivity. The ruled are primitive and uncultured; and the rulers, the civilizing influence. This will bring into question the entire intellectual motive of constructing another culture by ‘outsiders,’ more so if they happen to be the rulers. Finally, the rulers would be justifying their presence in a foreign land. Though Edward Said applied his thesis to the study of Arab world, the present book uses the same idea to study the narratives produced by the British on India. The author thus tests the Saidian hypothesis of knowledge production with regards to British rule over India.
Arvind Sharma proposes that the British had changing equations with India during the years of its association. Initially, they were traders, later became rulers, and finally we are in a post-colonial world. The literatures produced by the British during these three eras were very different. A cultural representation of a primitive and uncivilized nation in all respects replaced the initial sense of awe and wonder. The post-colonial period produces a more favourable literature of India as it grows in power.
British Rule over India: A Discursive History
The British started as small trading colonies in the port areas of Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta. Their naval power overpowered the Portuguese, French, and Dutch powers to gain access to the central part of the country, Delhi, as the Mughal rule was crumbling in the early part of 18th century.
British rule gradually established itself over India from 1757 to 1858. There were four important chronological markers of this era. 1813, when missionaries could function from the company’s territories; 1818, when the British rose to a prominent power by defeating the Marathas; 1835, when English became a language of instruction; and finally, 1857, when a chaotic Indian Mutiny failed to dislodge the British and led to the replacement of the Company by the Crown.
Till the early part of 20th century, they looked irreplaceable. In 1905, the first stirrings of an Independence movement started. Gandhi emerged on the national scene in 1920. The world wars broke the back of Britain, which set the stage for Indian independence finally in 1947. The Independence of course came with a heavy price of partition and a permanent problem of Kashmir.
The early British representatives like William Jones, Charles Wilkins and Warren Hastings seemed to have great respect for Indian culture and literature. They were no paradigms of virtue either because they indulged in some massive distortions of Indian history as they could not handle the enormous timelines of Indian past which clashed directly with their biblical ideas of creation. The Asiatic Society, formed by William Jones, promoted the translations of Kalidasa’s works, Bhagwad Gita, Manusmriti, and Hitopadesha. Though the Asiatic Society was itself out of bounds for Indians, the initial admirers had great respect for its scholars, its works, and the language of Sanskrit. This started changing with Charles Grant in the latter part of the 18th century, who started pushing for the presence of missionaries in India. He argued that Britain had an ‘obligation to attend to the happiness, general welfare, and moral improvement of the people under its rule in India, and the only way to do this was to accept that empire must legitimate itself through Christian principles, and by seeking to promote those principles through education and conversion.’ Charles Grant was quick in labelling Indians as ‘degenerate, obstinate, malevolently passionate, corrupt in manners, and sunk in misery by their vices.’ He thought Hindu religion as the most despotic in the world.
1813 saw the admission of Christian missionaries for a civilizing mission in India. This connected directly to the consolidation of British political power in India. A landmark book published in the year 1818- The History of British India by James Mill, became a ‘philippic’ against Hinduism. Hindus became backward and primitive, limited to mere animal functions. The contempt of James Mill was glorious as this remark shows- ‘in truth the Hindu, like the Eunuch, excels in the quality of the slave.’ As one author said that between 1750 to 1818, the Englishman’s attitude towards India transformed from a plus sign to a minus sign with respect to Hinduism, and pluses attached increasingly to British power. William Jones, in 1787 thought that India is ‘invisible through dark glasses from Europe but needs the strong light of being in India to write about India.’ James Mill never visited India and did not know any Indian language; and he went through extreme and mostly ludicrous arguments that it was not a necessary requirement. This was a remarkable transition of the equation of power translating into knowledge production.
Unfortunately, even a supposedly great supporter of Hinduism or Indian culture like Max Mueller never set his foot in India. James Mill thought India was simply static and the past simply reflected its present. Max Mueller thought the past was great, but the present was in ruins and the people needed a civilizing mission from Europe. We all know about Macaulay. He introduced English as a language of instruction replacing Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic because he thought the dead language of Sanskrit was ‘barren of useful knowledge.’ He thought it full of monstrous superstitions, false history, false medicine being in the company of a false religion. Macaulay, by making English the language of instruction, simply had the purpose of creating a class of interpreters, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, opinions, and morals.
Lord Macaulay, while pressing for English as a medium of instruction, said famously in his ‘Minute to Education’ (1835) that, ‘I have no knowledge of Sanskrit or Arabic. A single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia…. when we pass from works of imagination to works in which facts are recorded and general principles investigated, the superiority of the Europeans becomes absolutely immeasurable….’
After the mutiny, Englishmen started depicting Indians as creatures, half gorilla, half negro, sometimes standing over murdered women. Even Punch magazines had cartoons based on these themes strengthening the popular perception. Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) wrote his famous Jungle books and the highly recited poem called ‘If’. He was a blatant racist quite content to show the Indian population as primitive and uncultured. His stories always cultivated this impression of Europeans being fine gentlemen, and Indians generalized to certain categories like being cowards, duplicitous, and not really humans. And then we study him in our schools.
Katherine Mayo wrote a supposedly neutral book called ‘Mother India’ in the early part of the 20th century where she concluded that India cannot self-rule. Gandhi dismissed the book as a ‘drain inspector’s report.’ The Oxford History of India slowly changed its stand in 1923 as the Independence movement gained force. Post-independence, the writers started to depict India in a better light so that by 1972, India became spiritually important as it survived politically.
In summary, Indian historiography primarily emphasised throughout the British rule the differences between the ruler and the ruled- religious, cultural, political, linguistic, and so on. After Independence, as the Saidian hypothesis would predict, there was a downplaying of the difference. The colonialism came funnily to the description – ‘British rule through Indian collaboration.’ By a subtle twisting of arguments by scholars like Christopher Bayly, the colonial rule was more of an Indian project than a European one! A scholar would even put the reason of colonialism as a logical outcome of South Asia’s own history of capitalist outcome- almost showing that Britain rule of India was for the benefit of Indian capitalists! The economic figures which show that India was contributing 25% of the world GDP in 1700s but became 2% at the time of independence with a complete reversal of figures for the British from 2% to 20% gives some problems to this kind of reasoning, of course.
The Anomalous British Rule Over India
The British fought 111 wars to capture India according to one count and the author says that this supports the statement of Samuel Harrington who said, ‘the West won the world not by superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence.’
James Mill’s ‘History’ was unabashed in its condemnation of Hinduism holding it responsible for everything wrong in India. It was handed as a necessary copy to new Company officials embarking for India. The gulf between the ruler and the ruled; the difference between the civilized and the primitive needed exaggeration to justify the British rule in India. The secular orientalists carried this campaign in a brutal manner; however, the missionaries were subtler in their conversion agenda fearing a severe backlash for the rulers from the majority. In short, Hindus did not appear primitive, but had to be ‘primitivized’ to fit the picture.
The Indian mutiny of 1857-58 and Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory in 1859 brought drastic changes in the power equations. First, the British after quelling the mutiny became more exploitative and brutal; and second, pernicious Social Darwinism took roots. Though Darwin himself might not have been a racist, but his ideas came forcefully to social sciences. Perhaps, he was too mild to resist the wrong application of his theories, or perhaps he might have subtly approved. We do not know. Physical features became the basis for classification of people as primitive or advanced. India, China, ancient Egypt were ‘slave societies,’ above the ‘savage independents’ requiring an absolute ruler, with England lying at the top of the heap of civilizational progression, of course. It was a pernicious twist to Darwin. The Aryan theory- a fantasy creation of Max Mueller- in a twisted form became a justification of British rule in India. The Britishers being the brethren of the Aryan race of India-the Brahmins specifically- had come back to continue the civilizing mission of backward India.
The accentuation of racial differences post-mutiny led to legislations preventing Indian magistrates to have powers over European subjects. Indian judges could not prosecute and give punishments to Europeans. Rudyard Kipling wrote in his autobiography that parity of Indian judges to give punishments would mean trying white women by Hindus whose idea of women is ‘not lofty.’ A wife of a British ICS officer reacted on the proposed bill for equality of Indian judges to try European women by saying, ‘it is a proposal to subject civilized women to the authority of men who have done little or nothing to redeem the women of their race, and whose social ideas are still on the outer verge of civilization.’ By mid-19th century, the British became absolutely convinced of their right to rule a foreign country. The cause of this was twofold; the military successes which made them arrogant, and the rise of Evangelical Christianity which made the Europeans feel religiously exclusive and superior.
The irony which the author rues about is that during British rule, much ink flowed in justifying the British rule over India; after the end of British rule, very few from the West said anything to justify Indians ruling over their own country. It is a little surprising that the author does not talk about Will Durant, who was big time critic of British rule in India. The author finally states Western Indology to be an oxymoron, where for it to survive, somebody becomes a moron!
The British Depiction of Indian Society
Ruling a foreign land by force is an abnormality, and the major thrust of British discourse was to justify it. One of the methods adopted was to show as India as primitive, barbaric, regressive, and hence needing a civilizing force. The key subunits which were utilised to depict India thus were Sati, Thugee, slavery, legal inequality, female infanticide, dowry, illiteracy, and finally, the caste system.
Sati (Suttee) is a remarkable example of the relation between power and the projection of virtue, says the author. British first formalized it in 1813; and Lord Bentick then abolished it in 1829 hailing himself as a protector of Indian women. It was an infrequent occurrence, and most women who committed Sati were older women above 40. The British painted themselves as saviours but this understanding is now problematized by the work of Indrani Chatterjee. She showed that in the pre-British India, the local rulers- Hindus, or Muslims supported the widows by land grants. The Company stopped this to maximize their profits; and the widows, many years after the husband’s death, self-immolated as a form of cultural protest to which the British were insensitive. The latter finally banned the practice but it appears more like a cover-up of rapacity rather than any humanitarian act.
The thugees were small time dacoits who were the product of the disturbed times. They were not as pervasive and ferocious as the British made them out to be. Fantastic stories revolving around the thugees, basically restricted to a small region of North India, became pervasive all over representing a treacherous and unreliable India. The thugees prayed to various deities; and that created a religious colour to the phenomenon of thugees. And after creating the problem, Bentick stepped in with reforms to suppress the thugees.
Lord Ellenborough’s government abolished slavery in 1843. It was never greatly prevalent in Indian society as commented by authors of the past galore. It restricted to domestic servants to a large extent; and brutal treatment was not the norm. There was however, a very intensive slave trade to various British and French colonies from India which was with the active involvement of nefarious Indians and Europeans. This included child labour. The accounts of Europeans harshly treating the slaves has been well documented. Here again, there was a reversal of discourse. The slave business being a great evil needed abolishment. But, it was the empire which opened all the slave markets in the first place.
Oxford History of India stated about the principle of equality:
The principle of equality of the subject before the law lies at the root of the whole body of English law. It was wholly absent from the body of Hindu custom with its special privileges for Brahmans and disabilities for the depressed classes…. Bentick went further. He modified the Hindu law of inheritance to make it possible for a convert from Hinduism to inherit the family property…
British policy was clear in painting Indian reality darker than it was and introducing the change in a manner which indicted Hinduism and/or benefitted Christianity. The secular cover condemned Hinduism overtly and promoted Christianity covertly. Selective readings of Hindu texts like Manusmriti and Purusasukta justified the discourse of the British that the various varnas were not equal before the law and that the brahmana class enjoyed a privileged position in this respect. A huge body of Hindu texts completely negated this. But the Britishers were either ignorant or chose to ignore them. It was more likely the former. Manusmriti gave a differential treatment to various varnas rather than preferential treatment. The higher castes would receive greater punishment for the same quanta of crime. This crucial point completely overlooked, made way for a malignant discourse showing Hindu law in a very poor light. But, the English law which replaced the previous law was heavily in favour of the Europeans.
Similarly, dowry system became depicted as a big scourge of Hindu religion; but the author shows that dowry was a cultural consequence of an economic phenomenon of the Company’s or Crown’s land revenue demands rather than the economic consequences of a religious phenomenon. The Saidian Orientalism of shifting blame is at play here, says the author. Female infanticide also came projected as a rampant phenomenon by a few writers and augmented by the writings of philosophers like Locke who wanted the Western world to believe that people of non-Western societies lack innate moral sense. They were more likely to believe sensational accounts of exotic rites in far-off lands based on unauthenticated travelogues. Contemporary thinkers have argued that ‘the naming of female infanticide from 1789 to 1857 was not a progression of the emancipation of Indian women sponsored by the British but part of British colonial expansion and the political rhetoric of colonial rule.’
It is worth spending some time on the two main ‘scourges’ of a Hindu country and the tremendous discourse created by the British in the blackest of pictures- the illiteracy and the caste system. The second part will deal with this narrative.
PART 2
Indian Illiteracy
A popular idea which is now inbuilt into the psyche of the colonized mind is that Indians were highly illiterate and education was the exclusive domain of high caste Brahmins and elite Muslims. In fact, the Brahmins prevented the other castes from obtaining education. A deep study of three reports commissioned by the British themselves by people like Dharampal is very useful to deconstruct this idea.
- Survey of Indigenous Education in Madras Presidency 1822-1826
- State of Education in Bengal 1835-38
- History of Education in the Punjab since the Annexation in 1882
There were about 1,00,000 village schools in Bengal and Bihar around the 1830s. Men like Thomas Munro thought that every village had a school. In Bombay too, the authorities noted that most villages had at least one school, the larger ones more. The proportion of those attending institutional schools in India in 1800 was not inferior to that of England. England was likely ahead in education of girls but this number offsets by the number of girls educated privately in India. Private education was 4-5 times more than institutional attendance.
The predominant castes in Madras schools were the Sudras. In Tamil speaking areas, the forward castes comprised of 13-23%. Muslims ranged from 3-10%. The Sudras and other castes formed 70-84% of the school going children. In Malabar areas, the twice -born forward castes were 20%, Muslims 27% and Sudras about 50%. In Bellary, Sudras were 33%. ‘All other castes’ accounted for almost 63% in some areas, which are the castes lower than the Sudras too. In Oriya speaking areas, Sudras and other castes formed 63.5% of the school going population. In Telugu areas, the proportion of Brahmins was between 24-46%, and that of Sudras between 35-41%. Brahmins filled the higher learning courses perhaps, but in astronomy and medicine, Brahmins were significantly less in proportion. In some areas the proportion of girls was high, like in Jeypore it was 29.7%. In Malabar, amongst Muslims, the proportion of girls was 35%.
William Adam said in his first report about Bengal and Bihar that every village had at least one school and that there were 1800 institutes of higher learning with at least 6 scholars in each of those. He clearly mentions that elementary education was accessible to all sections of the population.
This creates a problem for British historiography because the literacy rate when they left India was about 12%. It also creates problems for the oft repeated formal accusation that the forward castes ‘exploited’ the lower castes in the access to education. However, the clear facts which emerge is that the replacement of the traditional and classical education system by the Anglicized education destroyed the literacy rates of India. The justifications used by the British however stuck in the collective Indian mind, with the result that even today, the same discourse is prevalent even amongst the educated. Yes, the British did indulge in a long-term damage.
Caste System
A caste represents a group of families who eat and marry among themselves and follow the same profession. Endogamy and craft exclusiveness follows the caste system. The last is the least strong marker and hence, a profession may not be restrictive to caste. Similarly, caste position is unaffected by belief of disbelief in creed, doctrine, philosophy, or religion. A breach of caste regulations leads to forfeiting the caste position however. Every Hindu has a caste, an estimate number is between 2000-4000.
‘Jati’ is the word in Hinduism for ‘caste proper,’ which is the social unit one is born in. Hinduism contains another word called ‘varna’ with which jati is confused with. Varna best translates as class and jati as ‘caste proper.’ The varnas are four in number: Brahmanas (priests), Kshatriyas (warriors), Vaishyas (traders), and Sudras (labourers).
Castes rise and fall on the social scale, the varnas are always stable which are always four in number; and their order of precedence has not altered over the last thousand years. The author says that all ancient Indian sources make a sharp distinction between the two. Much frequently varna has a mention and jati, rarely. Manusmriti mentions that the various jatis form by a process called ‘varna-sankara’ or intermixture of varnas. Members of the same varna are supposed to marry within themselves, but intermarriage between the varna gave rise to the various jatis. The Manusmriti mentions fifty castes but only four varnas.
V. Kane, a distinguished scholar of Hindu Law mentions that the numerous castes found in the country arose from the union of men with women of differing varnas. The social status of the several castes might have varied from region to region or from epoch to epoch. The smritis were composed in different parts of India and at different times and they were meant to supply a popular want, to guide the people, and to reflect the prevailing state of society. Vedic authority was important to recognize the infallible varnas described, but the smritis, which were composed later were more cognizant of the realities of societies and the emergence of castes and sub-castes.
However, the British administrators, either by ignorance or deep intent, depicted the Indian caste system as consisting of four varnas, with a new category of ‘untouchables’ below the ‘sudras.’ Also, there is no depiction of the various jatis as derived from the intermixture of the four varnas, but as wholly located within the varna. This had important consequences in the future which is persisting even today in the colonized minds. The jatis are simply a result of admixture of varnas, and one could clearly move across the various varnas. It is not ‘up or down’ as the varnas denote a professional qualification and are not inherently superior or inferior to each other. The British were very eager to depict the ‘untouchables’ as falling outside the Hindu domain, and their attempt to create a sperate electorate for them was effectively foiled by Gandhi who undertook a fast unto death. A similar plan implemented for the Muslims in 1909 effectively divided the country on religious lines. It is true that in some parts of India, the untouchables were the fifth (pancama) or even as outside varna (avarna). However, as seen in the texts of Manu and Patanjali, there was no fifth varna and these castes were the sudras. The untouchable or chandala were clearly a part of Hindu society as seen from the ancient texts like Mitasksara in 11th century, a well-known commentary on the Yajnavalkya smriti.
H.H. Risely carried an obnoxious large-scale census of India in 1901. He laid down the principle that caste hierarchy be determined by social precedence as recognized by native public opinion. The jamming of varnas and jatis together with involvement of social status produced a chart of a different type. It forced people to get into one or the other castes and gave rise to a huge number of petitions and representations so that classifying castes by status stopped in 1919.
The ancient texts linking varna and jati united the country and society, but Western Indology divided the society by creating separate castes by using a logic unknown in the ancient Indian texts. A major part of British discourse concentrated on showing India as barbaric, uncivilized, uneducated, and heathen so that the justification could come for the task of the West, Europe, and the missionaries. At the heart of it however is the fact that ruling another country by force and looking at a foreign culture through one’s own prism is very abnormal.
Us and Them: The Status of Sudras and the Aryan Invasion
Orientalism had at its core the reliance on the distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ and deliberately accentuating it. The difference between the Aryans and the Dravidians, the subjugation of women, and the status of sudras with respect to the other three varnas were the narratives played strongly by the British rule and Western Indology.
The first direct textual reference to the four varnas, and the only time vaisyas and sudras get a mention, is a hymn in the Rigveda, the Purusasukta, which says:
The Brahman was his mouth
Of his arms was made the warrior
His thighs became the vaisya
Of his feet the sudra was born.
The four varnas emerge from the various parts of the same ‘purusa’ in this hymn. The sun and the moon are this purusa’s two eyes in the next hymn. This hymn has undergone some serious interpretational problems by authors of the past and present (like Wendy Doniger). While depicting sudras based on this, words the like ‘dirtiest and the lowest,’ ‘afterthought,’ ‘outsiders’ came as a colourful interpretation to hugely exaggerate the differences when none existed. The problem is existing with present narratives too; and a strong bunch of self-sustaining academia who do not even know Sanskrit fight any attempt to correct the malignant interpretation.
Western translation of Ramayana by Robert Goldman adds an adjective ‘lowly sudra’ when no such qualification gets a mention in the original. Similar is the usage by AL Basham of ‘the humble sudra.’ These were all narratives of a Western Indology which attempted an accentuation of differences. Again, by giving examples of Ramakrishna Paramhansa, Radhakrishnan, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Tagore, Dayanand Saraswati, modern Hinduism became elitist and Brahmanical. There was however a deliberate downplay of non-Brahmanical figures like Swami Vivekananda or Gandhi.
The same Purusasukta hymn, from another perspective, easily shows that the association of various functions of the varnas with various parts of the same purusa is purely functional and not hierarchical in nature. It does not suppose an importance to any one part of the body as all of them are equally important. It represents rather a case of an attempt at egalitarianism rather than a justification of casteism; an attempt at fusion rather than fission. Justifying the feet as the other, the lowly, or the humble was a remarkable twist of a single hymn which set the course for almost a permanent battle in the name of caste.
If one looks at this hymn as an attempt to unite the four varnas to the parts of the same person, or recognizing the four main professions in society, or crystallization of an existing social set up, then one gets the perspective altogether different. It is simply a statement of fact and not hierarchy at all. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad is almost as old as the Rigveda which has also important ideas on the four varnas; however, most authors have ignored these.
It says (I.4.11-15): In the beginning was only Brahma. He created a superior form called Kshatra as he was undeveloped. Kshatra was undeveloped too, and hence created the Vis (commonality). Vis was undeveloped too and hence created sudra varna, for it nourishes everything else. He was undeveloped too and created an even better form- Dharma (law). Brahma appears as Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Sudra by means of various divine gods like Agni. Nothing is higher than the law or Dharma…
Similarly, this Upanishad talks about skin colour in a manner disturbing, but also very surprising. It says, ‘If a man wants a progeny of fair complexion, he should study the Veda. If he wants a son of tawny or brown complexion, he should study two Vedas. If he wants to obtain a son with dark complexion and red eyes, he should study the three Vedas.’ This is surprising because it counters the view the so-called superiority of the fair skinned Brahmins and the inferiority of the dark Sudras. Darker skin in children is the fruit of higher proficiency in the Vedas.
This scripture calls for a succession of castes created from the same Brahma, and Brahmana being the original caste in men. The others derive from the same Brahmana in succession, but in fact shows a superior progression. This Upanishad establishes that the Sudras do not emerge from the feet; it also says that there is a celestial form of the Sudra just as an earthly form; and that the god Pusan is associated with the Sudra. It is frequently argued that the Sudras is ineligible for a Vedic ritual as he was without a deity.
Mahabharata too says that, ‘there is nothing special about caste. The whole world is Brahmana. It was originally created by Brahma and then castes arose based on differences in action.’ Bharadvaja in reply to Bhrigu’s explanation of castes based on colour says,’ If different colours indicate different castes, then all castes are mixed castes.’ He also says, ‘We all are affected by desire, anger, fear, sorrow, worry, hunger, and labour; how do we have caste differences then?’
Western Indology accentuated the differences between ‘us’ and ‘them’: between the dvija (twice-born) and the sudras, and between the ‘egalitarian’ Westerners and the ‘caste-ridden’ Hindus. Cherry picking and selective interpretation of texts and by also erasure of a major alternative history of the caste system achieved this discourse. Brihadaranyaka gives successive progressive evolutions of castes (where sudras become the best) and similar is the case with Satapata Brahmana, but these accounts disappear as a case of classic Orientalism. Western Indology neglected the evidence of hierarchy reversal in context of the status of sudras. Shankaracharya gaining highest wisdom from a sudra; or Manusmriti giving the quantum of punishment depending on the caste with the highest to Brahmins for a similar crime, are some important debating points while considering caste. Manusmriti is more about duties of various varnas rather than their rights and this is a subtle point which has gone over the heads of most western Indologists. The Western Indology endeavour over the past two hundred years has been to inject race as driving wedge between the twice-born and the sudras.
PV Kane, an important scholar of Hinduism made the following observations:
- Several texts speak of all the four varnas in a sacrificial context, specifically including the sudra.
- Chandogya Upanishad implies the right to Vedic studies on the part of sudras.
- Bharadvaja Srauta Sutra and Katyayana Srauta Sutra refer to the sudra participation in Vedic ritual.
- Mimansasutra recognises this as a position of Badari.
- Hindu mythology preserves accounts of such access to sacrificial ritual on the part of the sudra.
- The Manusmriti provides for generational transformation of Brahmanas into sudras and vice versa through jatyukarsa and jatyapakarsa (or change in one’s varna status over generations through hypergamy or hypogamy).
- The Arthashastra explicitly acknowledges the sudra as an Arya.
The Aryan Invasion Theory and Dr Ambedkar
One of the most pernicious theories affecting the country’s unity and solidarity has been the Aryan Invasion theory. This has played havoc with our country at multiple levels. The classic Western view enforced on us and internalized too by majority of Indians without question is the Aryan-Dravidian theory.
As the narrative goes, around 1500 BC or so, horse riding invaders called the Aryans from Central Asia invaded North India. The natives of India were the Dasas and Dasyus who were racially different and dark in colour. The fair-skinned Aryans defeated the dark skinned Dasas and Dasyus and drove them South. The Dasas and Dasyus became the sudras in the varna system devised by the Aryans who wrote the Vedas in a remarkably short time after 1500 BC after creating the near perfect language of Sanskrit. The sudras also became slaves after capture. The original people driven South evolved into the Dravidians of today. This was based on linguistics and was a creation of people like Max Mueller. The problem with this narrative is that there is no evidence of this from any other source, archaeological, geological, historical, or otherwise. This paradigm came accepted as the great truth but there were people who seriously questioned this narrative. Dr Ambedkar was one.
He wrote scholarly articles on this issue completely refuting this idea. The differences were more cultural where the Dasas and Dasyus were more likely non-believers of Vedas, but clearly integrated into the society. The Dasa and the Dasyas are the non-Vedic Aryans. The slave system in India is also questionable. He researched deeply to show that there were no racial connotations in the Vedas, and he was convinced to show that there was egalitarianism in the Vedas rather than a hierarchy.
If Aryans are the originals coming to India, the Europeans by being distant cousins of the same Aryans perhaps had a moral justification to continue their civilizing mission. The Europeans adopted it as a model to justify their rule in India; and the Brahmins identified with the Aryans in this model identifying their proximity to the fair-skinned rulers. Dr Ambedkar strived to show that the Aryan invasion theory should die. He was batting for a solidarity amongst all the castes and dreamt of a day when the majorities and minorities could merge into one. He said significantly, ‘the moment the majority loses the habit of discriminating against the minority, the minorities have no ground to exist. They will vanish.’
The author explores the scholarly work of Dr Ambedkar in great depth. It is quite a revelation too, as our historians largely ignore Dr Ambedkar, especially his views on the Aryan theory. Nehru and the left dominated history in the post-independence period had no qualms accepting the invasion theory and the general narrative reinforced by Western Indologists. Hence, this model was in force for almost two generations, and with some sad consequences. The fact is there were powerful voices against this narrative, but we were simply not aware. His ideological differences with Nehru and the conviction that the liberation of Dalits no longer lay within Hinduism but rather away from Hinduism made him into a Buddhist.
For colonized minds before the independence, the Aryan discourse might have been acceptable. A significant archaeological finding of the Harappan civilization discovered much before the independence flew in the face of the Aryan invasion theory; and here it becomes unacceptable that the left dominated historians, deriving their power from Nehruvian philosophies, and trying to fit everything historical into the paradigms of exploiter and the exploited, did not offer an alternative narrative of the obviously erroneous Aryan-Dravidian theory.
In the final part, we will summarize the author’s thesis on ancient Greek, modern European, and Islamic accounts of India in support of the Saidian hypothesis as applicable to India. Ancient Greece could not rule India as they were effectively repulsed; however, Muslims and the Britishers were successful. This has very interesting implications in the depiction of India by these three sources.
PART 3
Ancient Greek and Modern European Accounts of India
The author says that it is difficult to understand the difference in Indian civilization narrative between the ancient Greeks and the modern Europeans. In terms of civilizational genealogy, Europeans consider themselves descendants of ancient Greeks, yet their respective assessments of Indic civilization are a study in contrast.
For modern Europe, abject poverty pervaded India; and for the Greeks, it was a land of plenty. The Europeans wrote of the country as a land of ‘oriental despotism,’ a land of horrible Sati practice, a land of pagan religion at odds with Christianity, as an inegalitarian society, and as having a philosophy irrelevant in the modern scheme of things. However, the Greeks wrote of India as a land of republicanism with the heroic system of Sati. India’s religion was like the Greek theological tradition; and India constituted an outstanding example of egalitarianism. India’s philosophy was extremely inspiring and there are reasons to even suspect that many Greek ideas in philosophy originated from Upanishidic thoughts. This contrast in representing the same civilization is curious, and the author sets out the reasons for them in a detailed manner.
Megasthenes (4th century BC) in his ‘Indica’, Diodorus, and other Greek accounts ascribe a high level of material prosperity to India, including a lack of famines. The latter was probably not completely true. They wrote of India with high principles in warfare where the non-combatants like tillers were unmolested by the winning armies. The Manusmriti and the Arthashastra were clear in fair-play rules of war. The latter texts distinguish between righteous conquest (dharmavijaya), larcenous conquest (lobhavijaya), and demonic conquest (asuravijaya). The Greeks were impressed by the abundant Indian agricultural and mineral resources, the skill and industry of its inhabitants and the flourishing cities.
The English were convinced that India had no history prior to the Muslim rule and were always in abject conditions. Their narrative firmly established the permanent poverty of India, just as the Greeks though that India was permanently rich! The Greeks spoke highly of the Indian republic systems well collaborated by Indian accounts too. At the same time, they spoke of the ancient genealogies of Indian kings extending for 6000 years. The Muslims rulers, Christian influenced Britishers, Marxists of today and Western Indologists have no hesitation in painting India as an inegalitarian society, but the Greek accounts called India even more egalitarian than Greek society. Greek sources describe India as a land without slavery. Slavery did exist but in a much milder form which the Greeks did not notice. It is also significant that the Greek accounts did not find the caste system as compromising egalitarianism in the manner or the extent it did, as represented by the future Europeans and Western Indologists. The modern West was initially impressed and later obsessed with the caste system in contrast.
The Greeks drew deep parallels between their own gods Dionysus and Heracles with the Hindu pantheon of gods like Shiva and Krishna respectively. The latter was sometimes associated with Indra. Polytheism tends to be more tolerant and accepting than monotheism, and the author feels that Greek polytheism was at play here when accepting Hindu religious rituals, mythologies, and even philosophies. Europeans condemned Hinduism directly except at the very beginning ‘honeymoon’ period of Jones and Hastings. The Greeks, despite their criticism of Hindu religion were willing to see it as a representation of their own; however, the British were content to see no parallels at all from a now extinct civilization. They vehemently denied any comparability between Hinduism and Christianity.
Indian systems of philosophy include the six systems of thought and doubles up as a way of life. The philosophy ultimately transcended life to reach the unity. The relation of the one with the many and the final path to achieve a unity is the overriding theme of Indian philosophy. The ancient Greeks welcomed ancient Indian philosophy and tried to integrate it at some level. There are accounts of their attempts to study the Indian systems and the role of various varnas in the scheme of things. In contrast, the intellectual history of modern Europe (Rationalism, Enlightenment, and so on) and influential philosophers like Hegel, Kant ignored or went to extraordinary limits to deny any Indian contribution to philosophy. There was no doubt some dissenting voices and there were some changes of stance after more information; but the overriding message perpetuated by the European accounts and permeated into the psyche of Westerners and the English educated Indians is that Indian philosophy is inconsequential. This is sad because even today most Indians are simply unaware of the strength of ancient Indian philosophy. Indian philosophy significantly asked and sorted many of the existential questions a few thousand years before the European schools of philosophy in the 16th or 17th centuries. Recent timelines based on astronomy suggest a still ancient tradition of Upanishads in India stretching before 10,000 BC (Nilesh Oak); this may perhaps show that ancient Greek were undoubtedly rooted in Indian philosophy.
When it came to science, again India did not seem to have anything useful to offer. Even Al Basham who wrote ‘The Wonder that was India,’ perpetuated the two great Western exclusions in dealing with Indic civilization- philosophy and science. Europeans and Islam considered India as primitive and Greek as the initiator of scientific method, but what did the Greeks themselves think of India? And what did the Indians think of the Greeks? The feelings were of mutual admiration; but the author strives to show that Indians applauding the Greeks for astrology and the Greeks applauding Indians for yoga; both antithetical to modern science! Indians implicitly believe in astrology, according to Europeans, but most Europeans overlook the fact that astrology is Greek in origin! Perhaps, the reason for this may be that Europeans presume Greeks to be rational, and hence hesitate to hold Greek influence responsible for the growth of astrology in India. The author is very emphatic about this point.
While Greeks excelled Indians in science as defined in modern times, Indian excelled in other ways. The value given by Aryabhata expressed it in the form of a fraction 62832/20000 which gave the value 3.1416, accurate up to four decimal places. It was more accurate than the value assigned by the Greeks. Seidenberg, a historian of science, clearly asserts that the Satapatha Brahmana clearly had knowledge of the famous Pythagoras theorem. The author quotes the Syrian astronomer Severus Sebokht who says:
‘I shall speak of the knowledge of Hindus…of their subtle discoveries in the field of astronomy-discoveries even more ingenious than those of the Greeks and the Babylonians-of their rational system of mathematics, or of their method of calculation which no words can strongly praise enough-I mean the system using the nine symbols. If these things were known by the people who think that they alone have mastered the sciences because they speak Greek they would perhaps be convinced, though a little late in the day, that other folk, not only Greeks, but men of a different tongue, know something as well as they.‘
Similarly, if the term phonology gets an inclusion as science, then devising Sanskrit, the most scientific alphabet in the world (in the sense of being most phonetic), was an accomplishment of Hindu civilization. The Vedas recited in pristine purity by the oral route since times immemorial show a lot of importance to the science of sound production. The ancient rules of grammar in Sanskrit laid by Panini are the most perfect for any language.
How do we account for the differences in Greek and European perceptions about India? First, conditions in 4th century BC were different from the 18th century India. However, as an aside, Angus Maddison has clearly shown that India was a top economy contributing to almost 25-30% of the world GDP when the East India Company landed on its shores to begin the story of loot and plunder. Second, the Greeks never won over the country like the Muslims or the Britishers. Maybe, that helped in giving them a sense of awe and respect towards India. The position of a ruler distorts the representation of the ruled civilization as we go back to our Saidian hypothesis. India aborted and repulsed Alexander and his Greek successors successfully. They were partially successful in conquering India. If Indian mutiny defeated the British in 1857, would their depiction of India later be different? This is a very significant question raised by the author in the light of all the Greek accounts we have about India.
Greeks tried to conquer India and failed. They had mutual feelings of both contempt and admiration at some levels. But, it was an unpredictable impact which the Greeks had on India. However, the British were very successful in conquering and ruling India and their impact forceful and long-lasting. The Indian reaction to Greeks ascribed religion, greed, and ambition as the motives. For the British, the motives translated as Christian evangelization, territorial ambition, and economic plunder. Charles Grant advocated the evangelization well ahead of the British rule.
Finally, true to Saidian thesis, in contemporary times, Percival Spear at the end of his book, ‘India: A Modern History,’ says, ‘In the past, light came from the East; in the future it will come again.’ India, on the other hand, has happily adopted the English language and the legal system. The author summarizes by saying, ‘India has become a part of the extended Western civilization because of British successes in India. By contrast, because of the Indic success against the Greeks, the Greeks who remained in India got Indianized.’
British and Muslim Accounts of India
Power and knowledge has an intimate connection as Saidian hypothesis suggests. If that is the case then a proposition follows that since both Muslims and the English ruled India, their attitudes towards the ruled Indians should be similar. The author examines this in the last chapter in relation to Indian language, religion, sexual habits, social relations, sense of history, and the sense of mission the ruling power may have felt towards the ruled. If there is a divergence of opinions then the Saidian hypothesis may itself come into question.
The initial Muslim writers like Albiruni (973-1048) and English people like William Jones praised the language for its depth and range; however, with increasing power accumulation, in no time Sanskrit came to be a deficient language. The British even held it responsible for the class exploitations in Hinduism based on the language. For example, James Mill (1773-1836) severely criticized William Jones for his high praise of Sanskrit when the British power was firmly in place. An abridged version of ‘The History of British India’ notes: A language that had thirty words for the sun must lack philosophical precision and backward. The perfection of a language would consist in having one name for everything which required a name, and no more than one… It is difficult to deny that barring a few exceptions, both Muslims and the British rulers shared negative feelings about Sanskrit. Some over-generalizations about the language became popular by people even without knowing the language; and surprisingly, presently too the same trend continues by the likes of Sheldon Pollock and Wendy Doniger about the dead status of Sanskrit, without knowing the language in the latter example.
Both Muslim and British accounts focus heavily to denounce Hindu religion. Muslims and Christians had a pre-invasion contact with Hinduism when there were hardly any denunciations and conflicts. However, as political domination ensued, Hinduism became a target. Both began taking a low view of the Hindu’s calibre- moral or martial. They came described as degenerates and slaves. Both compared the Hindus in their writings and attitudes to the pre-Islamic Arabs and the pre-Christian Romans, whom Islam and Christianity had been successful in converting. Both assaulted the symbols of Hinduism to undermine it; the Muslims concentrated on monuments and the British on human beings. The famous Nand Kumar assassination, a Brahmana, was to show that their caste was not inviolable. Both thought that Hinduism as a religion which does not accept converts. Both considered Hindus as effeminate, perhaps because their own virile race had militarily triumphed over them. The rulers in a very similar fashion perpetuated and consolidated the image of the Hindu as a coward, a loser, and a slave. And their accounts were firmly in place that they had a civilizing mission in India. Both the Muslim rulers and Europeans felt that they had a serious mission to civilize the backward nation, either in terms of culture, religion, or otherwise. The fact remains that they failed. Perhaps there could be another book to understand the reasons why the civilizing missions always failed. For example, James Mill wrote that India gained considerably by passing from a Hindu to a Mohammedan government and Muslim scholars like Aziz Ahmed identified the role of Muslims in readying Hindus for British rule. Thus, both the Muslims and the British could slap each other’s backs, while riding on the Hindus backs, says the author!
Sexual depravity in Hindus was a common theme of both accounts and both rushed to show the Shiv linga as a phallic symbol. In assessing social relations, both the Muslim rulers and the British identified equally caste as a barrier preventing a foreigner to know a Hindu. For Albiruni, who accompanied Mahmud Ghazvi in his conquests, the flipside of Hindu theological tolerance is Hindu social tolerance. Also, science plays an important role in Saidian discourse. Accordingly, the subjugated culture does not have the cultural capacity to scientifically advance on its own and whatever science it has is because of the subjugating cultures or a foreign influence (like the Greeks for us). This theme played to a fullest extent by both the Islamic rulers and the British rulers with remarkable parallels.
The author notes with wonder that a great historian called Vincent Arthur Smith in his ‘Early History of India from 600 BC to the Mohammedan Conquest’ devotes a seventh of the book to the invasion of India by Alexander. There is hardly any mention of Alexander surprisingly in Indian sources. Vincent writes of the ‘inherent weakness of Asiatic armies when confronted with European skill and discipline.’ One modern Indian historian however says, ‘…The only permanent result of Alexander’s campaign was that it opened a channel of communication between Greece and India. Despite the halo of romance weaved around Alexander, the historian of India can regard him only as a precursor of the recognized scourges of humankind (like Tamerlane, Nader Shah, Ghazni) …’ The Orientalist construction would show Alexander in glowing terms, but a significant Indian version would be possibly he had to beat a retreat. The defeat and disastrous retreat of Alexander however finds a mention in modern historical accounts, like an article of Robert Kaplan in 2009. This would have been impossible in British India. All the accounts of British and the Muslim rulers is not India as such but the India as it matters to the conquerors.
There is a remarkable convergence of thought on India’s sense of lack of its own history by the British and Muslim rulers. This is the general Western perception about India’s sense of history. Sadly, the narrative was continued by our own ill-informed historians who failed completely to create a grand narrative for our country. The strange underdog and subjugated theme characterisation continued unabatedly for almost two generations in an amazing fashion. Unfortunately, so strong is the hold of the popular left generated narrative that any attempt to correct the narrative or inject some pride in our heritage and history becomes ‘saffronisation.’
In the concluding chapter, the author discusses the limitations and extensions of Saidian Orientalism. There were exceptions to the narrative, people who were genuinely interested- both in the Muslim and the European world. Their voices however never reached important levels. Orientalism operates by dehumanizing the others, but the fact remains that both the parties are still humans. Sometimes, true facts in the accounts may become denied by looking only through the Saidian lens. Saidian hypothesis also does not mean that only the insiders have a right to study a culture. The author notes significantly that as an extension of Saidian Orientalism, ‘what the Orientalist has to say about the target culture or religion may tell us more about the Orientalist’s culture and religion than about the target culture.’ And this is interesting.
This book is a must read for every Indian for the scholarly assessment of British rule in India. Thankfully, the book generates no passions against anybody; only extreme sadness at the mistakes we have made in the immediate past and continue presently, without learning from the past. The cultural and historical distortions of our country have been significant and the sad aspect is we have internalized all of them. We lost sixty years after Independence in failing to create a grand narrative for ourselves, as rued by Rajiv Malhotra. Europe, UK, USA are very firm in their historical narratives so that a student who finishes school has a justified pride in his or her own country. Each country has its flaws but selective white-washing helped in creating a default mode of pride in one’s own heritage. The history of US is only 300 years. Unfortunately, our default mode is of shame and denial of our own heritage, culture, and history. The rulers had a purpose of demeaning India, but why our own historians? Why did they have to continue with the previous interpretations and failed so badly in creating an alternative narrative?
FIRST PUBLISHED IN INDIAFACTS
Deadly distortions of Colonial Rule- Notes from ‘A Ruler’s Gaze’ by Arvind Sharma- II
Deadly distortions of Colonial Rule- Notes from ‘A Ruler’s Gaze’ by Arvind Sharma- III
RANDOM MUSINGS 