Excerpt from "The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories"
by Partha Chatterjee
Edited by Sherry B. Ortner, Nicholas B. Dirks, Geoff Eley
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A PURANIC HISTORY
The first three books of narrative prose in Bengali commissioned by the Fort William College in Calcutta for use by young Company officials learning the local vernacular were books of history. Of these, Rajabali (1808) by Mrityunjay Vidyalankar was a history of India—the first history of India in the Bengali language that we have in print.7 Mrityunjay (ca. 1762-1819) taught Sanskrit at Fort William College and was the author of some of the first printed books in Bengali. When he decided to set down in writing the story of "the Rajas and Badshahs and Nawabs who have occupied the throne in Delhi and Bengal," he did not need to undertake any fresh "research" into the subject; he was only writing down an account that was in circulation at the time among the Brahman literati and their landowning patrons.8 His book was; we might say, a good example of the historical memory of elite Bengali society as exemplified in contemporary scholarship.
The book starts with a precise reckoning of the time at which it is being written.
In course of the circular motion of time, like the hands of a clock, passing through the thirty kalpa such as Pitrkalpa etc., we are now situated in the Svetavaraha kalpa. Each kalpa consists of fourteen manu; accordingly, we are now in the seventh manu of Svetavaraha kalpa called Valvasvata. Each manu consists of 284 yuga; we are now passing through the one hundred and twelfth yuga of Vaivasvata manu called Kaliyuga. This yuga consists of 432,000 years. Of these, up to the present year 1726 of the Saka era, 4,905 years have passed; 427,095 years are left. (R, pp. 3-4)
The calendrical system is also precisely noted. For the first 3,044 years of Kaliyuga, the prevailing era (saka) was that of King Yudhisthira. The next 135 years comprised the era of King Vikramaditya. These two eras are now past.
Now we are passing through the era of the King called Salivahana who lived on the southern banks of the river Narmada. This saka will last for 18,000 years after the end of the Vikramaditya era. After this there will be a king called Vijayabhinandana who will rule in the region of the Citrakuta mountains. His saka will last for 10,000 years after the end of the Salivahana era.
After this there will be a king called Parinagarjuna whose era will last until 821 years are left in the Kaliyuga, at which time will be born in the family of Gautabrahmana in the Sambhala country an avatara of Kalkideva. Accordingly, of the six eras named after six kings, two are past, one is present and three are in the future. (R, p. 8)
Whatever one might say of this system of chronology, lack of certitude is not one of its faults.
Mrityunjay is equally certain about identifying the geographical space where the historical events in his narrative take place.
Of the five elements—space [akasa], air, fire, water and earth—the earth occupies eight ana [half] while the other four occupy two ana [one-eighth] each.... Half of the earth is taken up by the seas, north of which is Jambudvipa.... There are seven islands on earth of which ours is called Jambudvipa. Jambudvipa is divided into nine varsa of which Bharatavarsa is one. Bharatavarsa in turn is divided into nine parts [khaifda] which are called Aindra, Kaseru, Tamraparna, Gavastimata, Naga, Saumya, Varuna, Gandharva and Kumarika. Of these, the part in which the varnasrama [caste] system exists is the Kumarikakhanda. The other parts [of Bharatavarsa] are inhabited by the antyaja people [those outside caste]. (R, pp. 4-6)
Thus Rajabali is the history of those who ruled over the earth, in which there are seven islands, of which the one called Jambudvipa has nine parts, of which Bharatavarsa is one, and so forth, and so on.
Where does this history begin?
In the Satyayuga, the Supreme Lord [paramesvara] had planted in the form of an Asvathva tree a king called Iksaku to rule over the earth. The two main branches of this tree became the Surya and the Candra vanisa. The kings born in these two lineages have ruled the earth in the four yuga. Of these, some were able to acquire the greatest powers of dharma and thus ruled over the entire earth consisting of the seven islands. Others had lesser powers and thus ruled over only Jambudvipa or only Bharatavarsa or, in some cases, only the Kumarikakhanda. If a king from one lineage became the emperor [samrata], then the king of the other lineage would become the lord of a mandala. The accounts of these kings are recorded in the branches of knowledge [sastra] called the Purana and the Itihasa. (R, pp. 6-7)
A few things may be clarified at this point. In Mrityunjay's scheme of history, the rulers on earth are, as it were, appointed by divine will. They enjoy that position to the extent, and as long as, they acquire and retain the powers of dharma. By attaining the highest levels of dharma, one could even become the ruler of the entire earth. In order to distinguish this variety of history writing from that we are more familiar with today, Mrityunjay's narrative can be called a Puranic history. Mrityunjay would not have quarreled with this description, not because he was aware of the distinction, but because puranatihasa was for him the valid form of retelling the political history of Bharatavarsa.
The discipline of Puranic history cannot be accused of being sloppy in its counting of dynasties and kings. "In the 4,267 years since the beginning of the Kaliyuga, there have been 119 Hindus of different jati who have become samrat on the throne of Delhi" (R, p. 10). The count begins with King Yudhisthira of the Mababharata, who heads a list of twenty-eight Ksatriya kings who ruled for a total of 1,812 years. "After this the actual reign of the Ksatriya jati ended." Then came fourteen kings of the Nanda dynasty, starting with "one called Mahananda born of a Ksatriya father and a Sudra mother," who ruled for a total of 500 years. "The Rajput jati started with this Nanda."
After this came the Buddhist kings: "Fifteen kings of the Nastika faith, from Viravahu to Aditya, all of the Gautama lineage, ruled for four hundred years. At this time the Nastika views enjoyed such currency that the Vaidika religion was almost eradicated."
We then have a curious list of dynasties—nine rulers of the Maytira dynasty, sixteen of the Yogi dynasty, four of the Bairagi dynasty, and so on. Of course, there are "the Vikramadityas, father and son, who ruled for ninety-three years." We are also told of "thirteen kings, from Dhi Sena to Damodara Sena, of the Vaidya jati of Bengal who ruled for 137 years and one month"—from, let us remember, "the throne in Delhi"! The rule of the "Chohan Rajput jati" ends with
Prthoray who ruled for fourteen years and seven months. . . . This is as far as the empire [samrajya] of the Hindu kings lasted.
After this began the samrajya of the Musalman. From the beginning of the empire of the Yavanas to the present year 1726 of the Saka era, fifty-one kings have ruled for 651 years three months and twenty-eight days. (R, pp. 12-13)
What is interesting about this chronology is the way in which its dynastic sequence passes ever so smoothly from the kings of the Mahabharata to the kings of Magadha and ends with the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II, "of the lineage of Amir Taimur," occupying the throne in Delhi at the time of Mrityunjay's writing. Myth, history, and the contemporary—all become part of the same chronological sequence; one is not distinguished from another; the passage from one to another, consequently, is entirely unproblematical.9 There is not even an inkling in Mrityunjay's prose of any of the knotty questions about the value of Puranic accounts in constructing a "proper" historical chronology of Indian dynasties, which would so exercise Indian historians a few decades later. Although Mrityunjay wrote at the behest of his colonial masters, his historiographic allegiances are entirely precolonial.
It would therefore be of some interest to us to discover how a Brahman scholar such as Mrityunjay describes the end of "the Hindu dynasties" and the accession to the throne at Delhi of "the Yavana emperors." Curiously, the story of the defeat of Prithviraj Chauhan at the hands of Shihabuddin Muhammad Ghuri takes the form of a Puranic tale.
Prithviraj's father had two wives, one of whom was a demoness (raksasi) who ate human flesh. She had also introduced her husband into this evil practice. One day the raksasi ate the son of the other queen who, taken by fright, ran away to her brother. There she gave birth to a son who was called Prthu. On growing up, Prthu met his father. At his request, Prthu cut off his father's head and fed the flesh to twenty-one women belonging to his jati. Later, when Prthu became king, the sons of those twenty-one women became his feudatories (samanta). "Because Prthu had killed his father, the story of his infamy spread far and wide. Kings who paid tribute to him stopped doing so." In other words, Prithviraj was not a ruler who enjoyed much respect among his subjects.
It was at this time that Shihabuddin Ghuri threatened to attack Prithviraj.
When the King heard of the threatening moves of the Yavanas, he called a number of scholars learned in the Vedas and said, "Oh learned men! Arrange a sacrifice which will dissipate the prowess and the threats of the Yavanas." The learned men said, "Oh King! There is such a sacrifice and we can perform it. And if the sacrificial block [yupa] can be laid at the prescribed moment, then the Yavanas can never enter this land." The King was greatly reassured by these words and arranged for the sacrifice to be performed with much pomp. When the learned men declared that the time had come to lay the block, much efforts were made but no one could move the sacrificial block to its assigned place. Then the learned men said, "Oh King!- What Isvara desires, happens. Men cannot override his wishes, but can only act in accordance with them. So, desist in your efforts. It seems this throne will be attacked by the Yavanas."
Hearing these words, Prithviraj was greatly disheartened and "slackened his efforts at war." His armies were defeated by Shihabuddin, who arrived triumphantly at Delhi. Then Prithviraj
emerged from his quarters and engaged Sahabuddin in a ferocious battle. But by the grace of Isvara, the Yavana Sahabuddin made a prisoner of Prthuraja. On being reminded that Prthuraja was son-in-law of King Jayacandra [Jaichand, ruler of a neighboring kingdom, had already collaborated with Muhammad Ghuri], he did not execute him but sent him as a prisoner to his own country of Ghaznin. (R, pp. 109-10)
Let us remember that in Mrityunjay's scheme of history, dynasties are founded by the grace of the divine power, and kingdoms are retained only as long as the ruler is true to dharma. The Chauhan dynasty was guilty of such heinous offenses as cannibalism and patricide. That Prithviraj had lost divine favor was already revealed at the sacrificial ceremony. His defeat and the establishment of "Yavana rule" by Muhammad Ghuri were, therefore, acts of divine will.
Half a century later, when Puranic history would be abandoned in favor of rational historiography, this account of the battle of Thanesar would undergo a complete transformation. English-educated Brahman scholars would not accept with such equanimity the dictates of a divine will.
Mrityunjay has a few more things to say about the reasons for the downfall of the Chauhan dynasty. These remarks are prefaced by the following statement: "I will now write what the Yavanas say about the capture of the throne of Delhi by the Yavana Sahabuddin" (R, pp. 112-13). Mrityunjay then goes back to the earlier raids into various Indian kingdoms by Nasruddin Sabuktagin, father of Mahmud Ghaznavi.
When Nasruddin came to Hindustan, there was no harmony among the kings of Hindustan. Each thought of himself as the emperor [badsah]; none owed fealty to anyone else and none was strong enough to subjugate the others. On discovering this, the Yavanas entered Hindustan. The main reason for the fall of kingdoms and the success of the enemy is mutual disunity and the tendency of each to regard itself as supreme. When Sekandar Shah [Alexander] had become emperor in the land of the Yavanas, he had once come to Hindustan, but seeing the religiosity and learning of the Brahmans, he had declared that a land whose kings had such advisers [hakim] could never be conquered by others. Saying this, he had returned to his country and had never come back to Hindustan. Now there were no more such Brahmans and, bereft of their advice, the kings of this country lost divine grace and were all defeated by the Yavanas. (R, pp. 121-22)
Mrityunjay's accounts of the Sultanate and the Mughal periods were very likely based on the Persian histories in circulation among the literati in late eighteenth-century Bengal. It is possible that some of these texts contained comments on the disunity among Indian kings and perhaps even the statement attributed to Alexander. But the argument that it was because of the failings of the Brahmans that the kings strayed from the path of dharma and thus lost the blessings of god was undoubtedly one formulated by Mrityunjay the Brahman scholar. It was the duty of the Brahmans to guide the king along the path of dharma. They had failed in that duty and had brought about the divine wrath which ended the rule of the Hindu kings and established the rule of the Yavanas. Later, as the role of divine intervention in history becomes less credible, this story of the fall acquires in the modern writings the form of a general decay of society and polity.
But this is anticipating. Note, for purposes of comparison, Mrityunjay's account of the destruction by Mahmud Ghaznavi of the temple at Somnath. The main details of the story are the same as those which would appear in later histories, for they all come from Persian sources such as the Tarikh-i-Firishta. But Mrityunjay mentions one "fact" about the idol at Somnath that is never to be mentioned again. "There was a very large sacred idol called Somnath which was once in Mecca. Four thousand years after the time when the Yavanas say the human race was born, this idol was brought by a king of Hindustan from Mecca to its present place" (R, p. 129). Mrityunjay's source for this information is uncertain, but it is never to be mentioned again by any Bengali historian.
Two Mughal emperors are subjects of much controversy in nationalist historiography, and Mrityunjay has written about them both. On Akbar, Mrityunjay is effusive. "Since Sri Vikramaditya, there has never been in Hindustan an emperor with merits equal to those of Akbar Shah" (R, p. 195). Apart from having a deep sense of righteousness and performing all his duties in protecting his subjects, Akbar also had, according to Mrityunjay, an additional merit:
Because of his knowledge of many sastra, his spiritual views were skeptical of the doctrines of Muhammad and were closer to those of the Hindus. The kings of Iran and Turan often complained about this. ... He did not eat beef and forbid the slaughter of cows within his fort. To this day, cow-slaughter is prohibited in his fort. (R, pp. 191, 194)
On Aurangzeb, on the other hand, Mrityunjay has this to say:
He became very active in spreading the Muhammad faith. And he destroyed many great temples. Many ceremonies of the Hindus such as the worship of the sun and of Ganesa had been performed in the fort of the Badshah since the time of Akbar; [Aurangzeb] discontinued these practices and issued new rules invented by himself.
He then adds:
Although he destroyed many great temples, he was favored by the divine powers at Jvalamukhi and Lachmanbala and made sizable grants of land for the maintenance of those temples. He later lived at Aurangabad for twelve years and, on being cursed by a Brahman, died uttering horrible cries of pain. (R, p. 221)
Where kings acquire kingdoms and hold power by divine grace, the business of arriving at a verdict on the character of rulers has to be negotiated between kings and gods. The only role that the ordinary praja (subject) has in all this is in bearing the consequences of the actions of these superior entities. Of course, the praja knows the difference between a good king and a bad one, which is why he praises a ruler such as Akbar. And when Aurangzeb dies "uttering horrible cries of pain," perhaps the praja shudders a little at the ferocity of divine retribution, but is reassured in the end by the victory of dharma. In all this, however, the praja never implicates himself in the business of ruling; he never puts himself in the place of the ruler. In recalling the history of kingdoms, he does not look for a history of himself.
If it was ever suggested to Mrityunjay that in the story of the deeds and fortunes of the kings of Delhi might lie the history of a nation, it is doubtful that he would have understood. His own position in relation to his narrative is fixed—it is the position of the praja, the ordinary subject, who is most often only the sufferer and sometimes the beneficiary of acts of government. It is from that position that he tells the story of Prithviraj's misdeeds or of Akbar's righteousness. But the thought would never have occurred to him that because of the associations of "nationality," he, Mrityunjay Vidyalankar, a Brahman scholar in the employment of the East India Company in Calcutta in the early nineteenth century, might in some way become responsible for the acts of Prithviraj or Akbar. Rajabali is not a national history because its protagonists are gods and kings, not peoples. The bonds of "nation-ness" have not yet been imagined that would justify the identification of the historian with the consciousness of a solidarity that is supposed to act itself out in history.
THE PRESENT AS PURANIC HISTORY
It is in his telling of the recent history of Bengal that Mrityunjay's position becomes the clearest. Mrityunjay was born only a few years after the battle of Plassey. The history of those times must have been fresh in popular memory in the years of his boyhood and youth. His condemnation of the misrule of Siraj-ud-daulah is severe: "The violations of dharma multiplied when [the Nawab] abducted the wives, daughters-in-law and daughters of prominent people, or amused himself by cutting open the stomachs of pregnant women or by overturning boats full of passengers" (R, pp. 268-69).
When Siraj "attempted to destroy the clan" of Raja Rajballabh, the Raja sought the protection of the English in Calcutta. The English refused to hand him over to the nawab.
"Then Nawab Siraj-ud-daulah sowed the seeds of his own destruction by plundering the kuthi of the Company Bahadur and the town of Calcutta" {R, p. 270). The English were forced temporarily to leave Calcutta. After some time,
[the sahibs] returned to Calcutta and, accepting without a question the estimates of damages suffered in the raid by traders, shopkeepers and residents, compensated all of them. Then, after consulting through Khwaja Petrus the Armenian with leading men such as Maharaj Durlabhram, Bakshi Jafarali Khan, Jagat Seth Mahatabray and his brother Maharaj Swarupchandra, and collecting money and some soldiers, [the English], intending to defend their protege and holding aloft the flag of dharma, marched to battle at Palasi. (R, p. 271)
What happened in the battle is common knowledge. Siraj tried to flee, but was captured.
Then Miran Sahib, son of Jafarali Khan, without informing Maharaj Durlabhram or anyone else and ignoring the pleas of mercy from a terrified Siraj-ud-daulah, carved up the body of the Nawab with his own hands, and putting the dismembered body on top of an elephant, displayed it around the town. Thus, by the will of god, was demonstrated the consequences of such misdeeds as . . . the treacherous murder of Nawab Sarfraz Khan and the secret executions of Alibhaskar and other Maharashtrian sardars and the raping of women by Siraj-ud-daulah. (R, p. 276)
Thus, Miran acted in accordance with the divine will and Siraj faced the consequences of his misdeeds. But what happened to Miran in the end? "Thereafter, Nawab Miran was once coming from Azimabad to Murshi-dabad when at Rajmahal, as a consequence of his having betrayed Nawab Siraj-ud-daulah, he was struck by lightning. Even after his death, lightning struck twice on Nawab Miran's grave." And Mir Jafar? "Nawab Jafarali Khan, on resuming his subahdari for two years, died of leprosy after much suffering" (R, pp. 281, 289).
It is the force of divine will that acts in history, and in the end it is dharma that is vindicated. This belief frames Mrityunjay's description of the most recent events in the history of Bengal. At the conclusion of his story, he locates himself unhesitatingly as someone seeking the protection of the Company—the same Company that, flying the flag of dharma, had gone to battle with the promise to defend those under its protection.
When, because of the evil deeds of certain emperors and kings and nawabs, from Visarad of the Nanda dynasty to Shah Alam and from Nawab Munaim Khan to Nawab Kasemali Khan, this land of Hindustan was facing utter destruction, the Supreme Lord willed that the rule of the Company Bahadur be established. Thus ends this book called Rajataranga composed in the Gaudiya language by Sri Mrtyunjay Sarma, pandit in the school established by the bada saheb [governor-general] who is like the flower and the fruit of the tree which is the Company Bahadur. (R, pp. 294-95)
Let us remember, the Company rules by divine will in order to protect its subjects. It remains a constant implication that if that object is not fulfilled and if the subjects are oppressed, then, by divine intervention, the kingdom would pass to someone else and the truth of dharma would be vindicated once again.
MORE MYTHIC HISTORY
This was the form of historical memory before the modern European modes were implanted in the mind of the educated Bengali. In Mrityunjay, the specific form of this memory was one that was prevalent among the Brahman literati in eighteenth-century Bengal. What, then, was the form followed by Bengali Muslim writers? The court chronicles of the Afghan or the Mughal nobility are not of concern here because these were never written in Bengali. The examples of dynastic history written by Bengali Muslim writers show that notions of divine intervention, punishment for misdeeds, and the victory of righteousness are as prominent in them as they were in Mrityunjay. The following text is from 1875, a much later date than those of the Fort William College histories. But it is so prominently marked by the features of the puthi literature of the village poets of eastern Bengal and so completely devoid of the influence of modern historical education that we should have no difficulty in assuming that this poet from Barisal was in fact following a form that had been conventional for some time.10 The dynastic history begins thus:
How the name of Delhi became Hindustan
Can be learnt from its kings, from beginning to end.
However, Hindu writers cannot tell the full story.
The Hindus believe in the four yuga;
They cannot grasp the full significance.
Satya, Treta, Dvapar and Kali: these are the four yuga
In which the Hindus ruled with pleasure.
That, presumably, is the story that Hindu writers are best qualified to tell. This poet then gives his list of fifty-nine Muslim kings of Delhi ending with "Shah Alam Bahadur," the last Mughal emperor. It is only a list, composed in verse, with no descriptions of events and no comments on the rulers. Then comes a miraculous event.
Suddenly by a miracle [daiva], the English came to this land
And defeated the Nawab in battle.
The English occupied most of the kingdom:
Since then there is the rule of Maharani Victoria.
Putting to death Kumar Singh, the Company
Abolished all ijara and made the land khas of the Maharani.
It is curious that the only event of the Revolt of 1857 that is mentioned is the suppression of Kunwar Singh's rebellion. Then there is a panegyric to Queen Victoria and a list of the marvels of modern technology.
The people are governed with full justice.
In her reign, the praja have no complaints.
Cowries have been abolished; now
People buy what they need with coins.
People exchange news through the mail.
The towns are now lit with gaslights.
The steamer has vanquished the pinnace and the sailboat.
The railway has reduced a week's journey to hours.
In Calcutta they can find out what's happening in England
In a matter of moments—with the help of the wire.
If in court an injustice is done,
Then it is corrected in another court.
But even such a well-ruled kingdom as the Maharani's cannot last forever.
The praja is fortunate that the Maharani rules now.
What happens after this, I do not know.
In particular, if the British occupy Turkey, then all hell will break loose.
If the Queen comes to rule over Rum [Turkey],
Then only Mecca and Medina will be left.
There will be despair and anarchy in the land,
And all will lose jdt and become one jat.
And then, after a series of cataclysmic events, the day of judgment will arrive.
The Prophet Isa [Jesus] will come down from the sky,
And again the Musalmani faith will appear.
From the east to the west, and from north to south,
The world will be shattered by a terrible storm.
This is how it has been written in the Ayat Kudria
And explained clearly in the Hadis.
When the sun rises in the west,
All the doors of tauba will be closed thereafter.
The sun will rise only a few cubits
And will set soon after, and the night will be long.
Each night will stretch for six or seven nights,
And the people will rise only to sleep again. . . .
From the year 1300 Hijri,
And before 1400 is past, let it be known,
Those who are still alive
Will see many unnatural things in this world.
We might compare this with Mrityunjay's prediction: "After this there will be a king called Parinagarjuna whose era will last until 821 years are left in the Kaliyuga, at which time there will be born in the family of Gautabrahmana in the Sambhala country an avatara of Kalkideva" [R, p. 8). There does not seem to be much difference in the mode of historical thinking.
HISTORY AS THE PLAY OF POWER
This framework changed radically as the Bengali literati was schooled in the new colonial education. Now Indians were taught the principles of European history, statecraft, and social philosophy. They were also taught the history of India as it came to be written from the standpoint of modern European scholarship. The Orientalists had, from the last years of the eighteenth century, begun to "recover" and reconstruct for modern historical consciousness the materials for an understanding of Indian history and society. The English-educated class in Bengal, from its birth in the early decades of the nineteenth century, became deeply interested in this new discipline of Indology.
But, curiously enough, the new Indian literati, while it enthusiastically embraced the modern rational principles of European historiography, did not accept the history of India as it was written by British historians. The political loyalty of the early generation of English-educated Bengalis toward the East India Company was unquestioned, and in 1857, when most of northern India was in revolt, they were especially demonstrative in their protestations of loyalty. And yet, by the next decade, they were engaged in open contestation with the colonialist interpretation of Indian history. By the 1870s, the principal elements were already in place for the writing of a nationalist history of India. It is interesting to trace the genealogy of this new history of "the nation."
In 1857-58, with the inauguration of the University of Calcutta, a set of translations was produced in Bengali, for use in schools, of histories of India and of Bengal written by British historians. By then, fifty years had passed after the publication of Rajabali, written in Bengali for the instruction of English officers in the history of India. The new translations were meant for the instruction of Bengali students in the history of their country as written by the colonizer.
One volume of J. C. Marshman's History of Bengal was translated by Iswarchandra Vidyasagar (1820-91)." The other volume was translated at Vidyasagar's request by Ramgati Nyayaratna (1831-94).11 The latter contains sentences like "Sultan Suja arrived as the gabbarnar of Bengal" or "Murshid sent his son-in-law to Orissa as his deputi" betraying in its use of administrative terminology its source in an English history of Bengal. And at the point where the book ends with the Maratha raids on Bengal in the period of Alivardi Khan, Ramgati feels it necessary to indicate the miraculous transformation that was about to take place.
At that time the influence of the Marathas was so strong that everyone thought they would become the rulers of the country. But how ineffable is the greatness of the divine will! Those who had come to this country only as ordinary traders, those who were often on the verge of leaving this country for ever, those who had never even dreamed of becoming rulers of this country—they, the English, ousted Siraj-ud-daulah from the throne of Alivardi and have now become the virtual sovereign of all of India.13
Only ten years later, however, in 1869, a book of questions and answers based on the same English textbooks had the following entry:
Q: How did Clive win?
A: If the treacherous Mir Jafar had not tricked the Nawab [Siraj-ud-daulah], Clive could not have won so easily.
Or, the following question about the ethics of English officials:
Q: Was Nandakumar's execution carried out in accordance with justice?
A: His offenses did not in any way deserve the death sentence. It was at the request of the unscrupulous Hastings that Chief Justice Elijah Impey conducted this gross misdeed.14
A Bengali textbook of 1872 tells the story of the betrayal of Nawab Siraj-ud-daulah in much greater detail. Siraj, says Kshetranath Ban-dyopadhyay, was a tyrant, but, contrary to the canard spread by the English, he was not responsible for the "black hole of Calcutta." Yet it was against him that the English conspired. Siraj was suspicious of the loyalties of his genera] Mir Jafar and made him swear on the Koran. But Mir Jafar betrayed him at Plassey, although his other generals fought valiantly. "If this battle had continued for some time, then Clive would surely have lost. But fortune favored the English, and weakened by the betrayal of Mir Jafar, the Nawab was defeated and Clive was victorious." Kshetranath's hatred is directed particularly against Mir Jafar and Miran. "Mir Jafar was cruel, stupid, greedy and indolent. On becoming the Nawab, he sought to plunder the wealth of prominent Hindus." "Miran was stupid and cruel, a beast among men. He was such an evil character that his oppressions made people forget all the misdeeds of Siraj."15
Nawab Mir Kasim too was a victim of betrayal:
[Mir Kasim] scrapped the duties on all goods. Thus all traders, English or Bengali, were treated on an equal footing, and unlike before, when all except the English were discriminated against, now others began to prosper. This angered the English. They began to prepare for war. .. . Mir Kasim's army was undoubtedly the best in Bengal, and yet it never won a single battle. There was a hidden reason for this, which was the treachery of Gargin [Mir Kasim's Armenian general].16
Kshetranath also describes the condition of the emperor in Delhi:
The emperor at this time was in a pitiable condition. Even his capital was under the control of others. He had no throne to sit on. The table at which the English dined became his throne, from which the emperor of all of India offered to the English the diwani of three provinces and thirty million subjects. The Emperor of Delhi, whose pomp was once without limit and at whose power the whole of India trembled, was now reduced to a condition^ that was truly sad.17
Not only in gaining an empire, but even in administering one, the English resorted to conspiracy and force. In the period before and after Clive, says Kshetranath, "the English committed such atrocities on the people of this country that all Bengalis hated the name of the English." Because of his intrigues, Hastings "is despised by all and is condemned in history." In 1857, just as the soldiers committed atrocities, so did the English: "At the time of the suppression of the revolt, the English who are so proud of their Christian religion wreaked vengeance upon their enemies by cutting out the livers from the bodies of hanged rebels and throwing them into the fire." Even the end of the mutiny did not bring peace.
In no age do the poor and the weak have anyone to protect them. When the disorder died down at other places, a huge commotion began in Bengal. In the areas of Bengal where indigo is grown, the English planters became truculent. The cruelties they perpetrated on the poor tenants will prevent them for all time from being counted among human beings.18
It was in fact in the course of writing the history of British rule in India that English-educated Bengalis abandoned the criteria of divine intervention, religious value, and the norms of right conduct in judging the rise and fall of kingdoms. The recent history of Bengal demonstrated that kingdoms could be won and, what was more, held by resorting to the grossest acts of immorality. The modern historiography seemed to validate a view of political history as simply the amoral pursuit of raison d'etat.
The popular textbook of Krishnachandra Ray portrayed the political success of the British in India as the result of a cynical pursuit of power devoid of all moral principles. On Clive's intrigues, he said, "Most people criticize Clive for these heinous acts, but according to him there is nothing wrong in committing villainy when dealing with villains." The new revenue arrangements of 1772 are described as follows:
"The land belongs to him who has force on his side." It is from this time that the Company stopped being a revenue collector and really became the ruler. If the Emperor [in Delhi] had been strong, there would have been a huge incident over this. But there was nothing left [to the Empire]. Whatever Hastings decided, happened.
The deep hatred we saw in Mrityunjay of Siraj's misrule has disappeared completely in Krishnachandra. In its place, there is a political explanation of his actions. For instance, when the English strengthened their fortifications in Calcutta, Siraj ordered the new constructions demolished. "Which ruler can allow foreigners to build forts within his territory? . . . [Siraj] could not accept any longer that this bunch of traders should suddenly arrive in his kingdom and defy his commands. Humiliated, his anger was now boiling over." Or his role in the so-called black hole incident is explained as follows:
It must have been an inauspicious moment when Siraj-ud-daulah entered Calcutta. He knew nothing of the black hole deaths and did not order the imprisonment of the English captives. Yet, that became the source of his downfall. Intoxicated by power, he had stepped on a tiger thinking it was only a cat. In the end, it was this error of judgment which led to the loss of his kingdom, his death and the endless misery of his family. Indeed, it was the black hole deaths which created the opportunity for the rise of the English power in India.
The downfall of Siraj is not seen any more as the consequence of immoral acts. It is now the result of an error of judgment: mistaking a tiger for a cat.19
History was no longer the play of divine will or the fight of right against wrong; it had become merely the struggle for power. The advent of British rule was no longer a blessing of Providence. English-educated Bengalis were now speculating on the political conditions that might have made the British success impossible.
If this country had been under the dominion of one powerful ruler, or if the different rulers had been united and friendly towards one another, then the English would never have become so powerful here and this country would have remained under the Musalman kings. Perhaps no one in this country would have ever heard of the English.
The book ends with a list of the benefits of British rule. And yet it is clearly implied that this does not establish its claims to legitimacy: "In any case, whatever be the means by which the English have come to acquire this sprawling kingdom, it must be admitted that infinite benefits have been effected by them to this country."20 We have almost reached the threshold of nationalist history.
Kshirodchandra Raychaudhuri's book, published in 1876, had this announcement by its author in the preface: "I have written this book for those who have been misled by translations of histories written in English." The extent to which European historiography had made inroads into the consciousness of the Bengali literati can be judged from the following comment on relations between the European colonial powers:
The English and the French have always been hostile towards each other. Just as the conflict between the Mughals and the Pathans is proverbial in India, so is the hostility between the English and the French in Europe. Thus it was beyond belief that in India they would not attack each other and instead drink from the same water.
The book ends with the following sentences:
Having come to India as a mere trader, the East India Company became through the tide of events the overlord of two hundred million subjects, and the shareholders of the Company, having become millionaires and billionaires, began to institute the laws and customs of foreign peoples. In no other country of the world has such an unnatural event taken place.21
ELEMENTS OF A NATIONALIST HISTORY
Earlier I spoke of Mrityunjay's position with respect to the political events he was describing as that of an ordinary subject. The same could be said of the authors of the textbooks I have just mentioned. But these "subjects" were very different entities. In the seventy years that had passed, the creature known as the educated Bengali had been transmuted. Now he had grown used to referring to himself, like the educated European, as a member of "the middle class." Not only was he in the middle in terms of income, but he had also assumed, in the sphere of social authority, the role of a mediator. On the one hand, he was claiming that those who had wealth and property were unfit to wield the power they had traditionally enjoyed. On the other hand, he was taking upon himself the responsibility of speaking on behalf of those who were poor and oppressed. To be in the middle now meant to oppose the rulers and to lead the subjects. Our textbook historians, while they may have thought of themselves as ordinary subjects, had acquired a consciousness in which they were already exercising the arts of politics and statecraft.
Simultaneously, the modern European principles of social and political organization were now deeply implanted in their minds. The English-educated middle class of Bengal was by the 1870s unanimous in its belief that the old institutions and practices of society needed to be fundamentally changed. It is useful to remind ourselves of this fact, because we often tend to forget that those who are called "conservative" or "traditionalist" and who are associated with the movements of Hindu revivalism were also vigorous advocates of the reform and modernization of Hindu society. Whatever the differences between "progressives" and "conservatives" among the new intellectuals in the nineteenth century, they were all convinced that the old society had to be reformed in order to make it adequate for coping with the modern world.
This becomes clear from reading the most commonplace writings of minor writers in the second half of the nineteenth century. A completely new criterion of political judgment employed in these writings is, for instance, the notion of "impartiality." An 1866 text by an author who is undoubtedly a "traditionalist Hindu" recommends in a chapter titled "The Treatment of Young Women" that "whether indoors or out, no young woman should at any time be left alone and unwatched." Yet, he is opposed to polygamy and the practice of dowry. In another chapter, "The Subject of Political Loyalty," this traditionalist, Tarakrishna Haldar, writes:
In the days when this country was under the rule of the Hindu jati, the arbitrariness of kings led to the complete domination by a particular jati over all the others. That jati wielded the power to send others to heaven or hell. . . . When the kingdom was in the hands of the Yavanas, they treated all Hindus as infidels. In all respects they favored subjects belonging to their own jati and oppressed those who were Hindu. . . . The principles of government followed by the British jati do not have any of these defects. When administering justice, they treat a priest of their own jati as equal to someone of the lowest occupation in this country, such as a sweeper. . . . No praise is too great for the quality of impartiality of this jati.22
One step further and we get the next argument in nationalist history: the reason Hindu society was corrupt and decadent was the long period of Muslim rule. The following is an extract from a lecture by a certain Bholanath Chakravarti at an Adi Brahmo Samaj meeting in 1876:
The misfortunes and decline of this country began on the day the Yavana flag entered the territory of Bengal. The cruelty of Yavana rule turned this land to waste. Just as a storm wreaks destruction and disorder to a garden, so did the unscrupulous and tyrannical Yavana jati destroy the happiness and good fortune of Bengal, this land of our birth. Ravaged by endless waves of oppression, the people of Bengal became disabled and timid. Their religion took distorted forms. The education of women was completely stopped. In order to protect women from the attacks of Yavanas, they were locked up inside their homes. The country was reduced to such a state that the wealth of the prosperous, the honor of the genteel and the chastity of the virtuous were in grave peril.23
Half of nationalist history has been already thought out here. In the beginning, the history of the nation was glorious; in wealth, power, learning, and religion, it had reached the pinnacle of civilization. This nation was sometimes called Bengali, sometimes Hindu, sometimes Arya, sometimes Indian, but the form of the history remained the same. After this came the age of decline. The cause of the decline was Muslim rule, that is to say, the subjection of the nation. We do not get the rest of nationalist history in this lecture I have just cited, because although Bholanach Chakravarti talks about the need for the regeneration of national society, he also thinks that its possibility lies entirely in the existence of British rule.
[/quote]There are limits to everything. When the oppressions of the Musalman became intolerable, the Lord of the Universe provided a means of escape. . .. The resumption of good fortune was initiated on the day the British flag was first planted on this land. Tell me, if Yavana rule had continued, what would the condition of this country have been today? It must be loudly declared that it is to bless us that Isvara has brought the English to this country. British rule has ended the atrocities of the Yavanas.... There can be no comparison between Yavana rule and British rule: the difference seems greater than that between darkness and light or between misery and bliss.24
However, even if Bholanath Chakravarti did not subscribe to it, the remainder of the argument of nationalist history was already fairly current. Take, for example, the eighteenth edition, published in 1878, of "The History of India," by Tarinicharan Chattopadhyay.25 Tarinicharan (1833-97) was a product of colonial education, a professor at Sanskrit College, and a social reformer. His textbooks on history and geography were extremely popular and were the basis for many other lesser-known textbooks. His History of India was probably the most influential textbook read in Bengali schools in the second half of the nineteenth century.
In the next chapter, I will recount some of the stories from Tarinicharan's history in order to point out how the materials of Hindu-extremist political rhetoric current in postcolonial India were fashioned from the very birth of nationalist historiography.
