The Coronation …

“By the beginning of 1673 the idea of a public coronation began to materialize, and when preparations were fully completed, the event took place at fort Raigad, on Saturday 5 June 1674, the day of the sun’s entering the constellation Leo.

The orthodox Brahman opinion was not favourable to Shivaji’s claim to be recognised as a Kshatriya by blood, although he had proved this claim by action. More than a thousand years had passed since such a ceremony was last performed, and on that account men’s memories had been entirely dimmed. All ancient learning of the Deccan had migrated to Benares after the invasion of Ala–ud–din Khilji and the Muslim conquest of the Deccan.

Ancient families noted for hereditary learning like the Devs, the Dharmadhikaris, the Sheshas, the Bhattas, the Maunis, had left their hearths and homes at Paithan, with all their sacred books, and opened their new university of letters on the bank of the holy Ganges. The ignorant unthinking folks of Paithan had now no voice of authority left in them. Benares now began to dominate Hindu thought and learning. So Shivaji had to negotiate with Gaga Bhatt of Benares, a learned representative of that school of Hindu law–givers. He was invited to Raigad to arrange the details in such a way as to suit the needs of the present moment as much as to conform to ancient usage.”

(New History of The Marathas, Govind Sakharam Sardesai).

(Archived from the October 2001 issue of Communalism Combat)

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(In March 1994, as part of our campaign to track the parochial processes that deter even ‘secular’ governments from fair explorations into history, we had interviewed Dr Arvind Deshpande, then chairman of the Maharshtra State Text Book Board. We reproduce excerpts from that exchange)

Since its inception in 1980–81, the main objective before the Maharashtra State Text Book Bureau that we were part of was that the ‘secular element should be jousted up in our history books…’ Shivaji, for example, has always been depicted as a Hindu hero. But the moment you do this, unknowingly, unconsciously, the bias creeps in.

For the first four to five years we were extremely conscious of this. So we did our utmost to remove these biases in order to prevent their creeping into the curriculum. Soon enough, we were faced with the consequences — opposition either from the minority or the majority community.

This was our bitter experience with a Std. IV textbook. In 1986, with the introduction of the New Education Policy, the entire syllabus was revised. In history, too, new elements were added: Regional History, Indian Culture and Civics. In preparing and publishing textbooks, we are severely restricted by the cost factor. As they have to be affordable for lakhs of SSC students throughout the state, the books are restricted to 96 pages. Now, while looking at the Std. IV history textbook, we found that 80 of these 96 pages dealt with Shivaji alone. This left little room for any other element that we wanted to
introduce.

In keeping with our objective of introducing a new value system, in the revised draft we had to rewrite portions of it, reduce the section on Shivaji. Professor Bhosale (RR Bhosale, another bureau member) also agreed. Paragraphs were changed, some re–drafted. Meanwhile, someone leaked information to the press. Even before the re–drafted book was released or published, merely on surmises and guesswork, we had to face a vicious media campaign led by Kesari (Marathi daily). We were charged with “removing the inspiring part of history and making it insipid.” Until then, we had only had a trial reading of the book for three days with 60 teachers, two from each district in Maharashtra. During this, no one seemed to have any objection. But suddenly, after the vicious campaigns in the press, the same government that had entrusted us with the task of “jousting the secular and humanist element in history” completely backed out.

This was in 1991, when the Sudhakarrao Naik–led minority government was in power. Defending our work on the floor of the house, the state education minister said that we were only trying to de–individualise history, that all of Indian history had been personality-oriented, that history should focus attention on the social forces at work and not only on individual personalities. But the chief minister succumbed and promised the agitated legislators, who cut across all party lines, that not one word in the 25–year–old textbook would be changed. As a result, the communal overtones remain; the incitement to violence is still there. All the work that we had put in for the revised draft is lost forever. We were all asked to surrender our copies to the government.

The key question is, why are issues of history being raked up again and again?

(Dr Deshpande spoke to co-editor Communalism Combat, Teesta Setalvad in 1994; this account has been archived from the earlier editions of Communalism Combat, March 1994 and October, 2001)

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The Shiv Sena threatens to disrupt an experiment at familiarizing school students with a more balanced understanding of Shivaji. Instead of assuring protection to a pioneering institute, the Mumbai police bulldozes the school management into making a written apology when none is due

While the entire country has been privy to an intense debate on the issue of partisan and narrow readings and interpretations of the past (see CC, August September 2001, January 2001, October 1999 ), Maharashtra in western India  at present ruled by the ‘secular’ Congress–NCP combine but shackled by the rabid Shiv Sena – recently saw brazen attempts at intimidation and unreasoned rhetoric over the introduction of a handbook for history teachers that deals with Shivaji in a balanced and rational manner.

The issue is, the introduction, on an experimental basis, of a handbook to enhance the understanding and learning of history, authored by Teesta Setalvad (through KHOJ — the secular education programme running in several schools) in three institutions run by the Don Bosco group of schools in Mumbai. The handbooks were the result of a ten- month long collaboration between history teachers and the author, aimed at re–working and enhancing the syllabus in history.

The section on Shivaji, among other things, also dealt with the caste background of Shivaji and his rise to power and glory despite these restrictive factors. The handbook also deals with the character of Afzal Khan in a balanced manner. These are the sections that have raised the hackles of the self–styled
custodians of our common history.

The experiment was being conducted with the full knowledge and consent of the parent–teacher associations in two of the three schools since June this year. But in the third school, Don Bosco’s, Borivali, some parents, clearly unhappy with the rational and logical reasoning in the handbook, approached the local shakha of the Shiv Sena after failing to intimidate the principal at a parents’ meeting, into withdrawing the book. Predictably, the Shiv Sena was more than happy to step in!

Shivaji, a Maharashtrian figure, has been selectively valorised by a parochial and downright communal element in Maharashtra, especially over the past two and a half decades. These elements have consistently used threats, bullying and intimidation tactics to stall any effort to improve upon the orientation of the official textbooks. Even the attempt of the Maharashtra State Text Book Board to re–work the history textbooks in tune with the New Education Policy of 1986 was subverted.

The narrow worldview that these forces represent would prefer to hide the bitter struggle of Shivaji with the entrenched Brahminical hierarchy of the time. The story of his coronation detailed by eminent historians (see boxes) is a sorry tale of how even a man who gained such tremendous success and popularity in his lifetime had to find a Brahmin priest from Benaras to perform the ‘purification’ and thread ceremony necessary to legitimise his coronation. The services of the Brahmin priest who consented to perform the ritual had to be compensated with significant monetary largesse.

In recent years, sectarian and divisive outfits like the Hindu Mahasabha, the RSS and the Shiv Sena have frequently resorted to intimidation to gloss over these historical facts. But a rich, alternate tradition in Maharashtra has, through the works of Jayant Gadkari, NR Pathak, Govind Pansare and Sharad Patil, periodically resurrected the real Shivaji. As far back as the late 1950s, [1]veteran trade unionist, SA Dange’s famous lecture Tyanche Shivaji, Aamche Shivaji delivered to workers, protested against the manipulation of Shivaji into a ‘Hindu’ ruler, deliberately ignoring significant efforts made by him within his kingdom to give equal status to persons of different religious persuasions.

For the Shiv Sena, through it’s crude but popular audio cassettes of Marathi povadas (folk songs), the battle between Shivaji and Afzal Khan is a metaphor for (and justification of) their current politics – demonisation of the Muslim minority and legitimisation of the violence used against them. Every time individuals and groups have challenged this parochial rendering of the past to suit crude present-day political ends, intimidation and threats have been used to nip such attempts in the bud.

In the light of this background, it is particularly educative to see how the organs of the state — both the police and the state education department — functioned after the SS delivered its threat to the Don Bosco school management recently.

On the morning of September 17, 2001 after one or two parents had failed to intimidate the school into withdrawing the handbooks — a Shiv Sena Board displayed outside the school threatened a morcha to protest against the ‘derogatory remarks against Shivaji by calling him a Shudra’ and hurting Hindu religious sentiments!

The moment the school contacted me, the author of the handbook, I said we should offer to refer the ‘controversial’ part to a committee of experts but that intimidation and threats to the school should be withdrawn. At the same time, given the violent antecedents of the SS, I approached the police on September 18, requesting protection to the school.

However, instead of supporting the reasonable stand for dialogue and rationality taken by the school management, the local police led by the zonal DCP put relentless pressure on the school management to apologise and withdraw the handbook in order to pre-empt the Sena’s protest. The result: on the morning of the threatened protest, September 19, local Shiv Sainiks assembled in front of the school and publicly distributed xeroxed copies of the apology letter the DCP had forced out of the school management before dispersing in a ‘victorious’ mood. Only the police can tell us how a letter from the school addressed to the police got into the hands of the Shiv Sainiks. If this is not police complicity, English dictionaries would need revision.

No less interesting is the role played by the state education department under a ‘secular’ combine on that day. Representatives of the department descended on the school and extracted an immediate assurance that the handbook would be withdrawn.

Two major issues related to the conduct of public servants arise from the controversy and both have become the subject matter of complaints by the management and the author before the Maharashtra State Human Rights Commission and Maharashtra State Minorities Commission.
One is the conduct of the police, both visible and behind the scenes. Second, is the action of the state education department in seeking to control alternate and dynamic renderings of history.

Throughout the day on Monday, September 17, despite repeated efforts by the school management to contact the local police station for protection from the Shiv Sena, zonal DCP SS Khemkar did not respond. The matter cannot be seen in isolation without considering the fear and terror that an outfit like the SS generates in Mumbai.

Only weeks before this incident, Shiv Sainiks showed their true colours, completely destroying the only hospital of its kind in neighbouring Thane. But for the hospital doctors who did all they could to save patients, several of whom were on life support systems, there is no saying how many may have died in addition to the two patients who could not survive the ordeal. The provocation? The Thane chief of the Sena, Anand Dighe, admitted to the hospital following a road accident, had died due to a massive heart failure. The Thane police commissioner and his police force are now facing an enquiry before the State’s Human Rights Commission for their failure to act against the Sainiks who reduced Rs 9 crore worth of hospital property and equipment to rubble in next to no time. The hospital has since closed down and several hundreds of its employees rendered jobless.

These were the immediate antecedents of the outfit, the Shiv Sena which was threatening Don Bosco, Borivali, with an agitation. Even as the Don Bosco agitation was hanging fire, women Shiv Sainiks had stormed into the chambers of the Mumbai municipal commissioner and roughed him up.
What does the police do in these circumstances to reassure a school management which assumes responsibility for hundreds of young children?

Despite it being made repeatedly clear, by the school management and the author, that the issue was open for dialogue and discussion, the Borivali police through the local DCP SS Khemkar brought enormous pressure on the school to withdraw the handbook completely . Worse still was the conduct of the city’s commissioner of police, MN Singh, whom I contacted on his mobile phone at 9 am on Tuesday, September 18, after trying in vain to get through to him the day before.

The result of the call to the commissioner was the conduct of DCP Khemkar, intimidation and threats made to the school. Behind the scenes, Singh used the Christian connections of former supercop, Julio Ribeiro, to advise the school to “steer clear of controversies”.

At the time, Section 142 (order against assembly with weapons) was in force due to the tensions following the terror attacks in the USA. In view of the sensitive situation and the antecedents of the Shiv Sena, the law and order machinery would have been well within its powers to assume a no-nonsense attitude vis–à–vis the SS. Instead, the commissioner, through DCP SS Khemkar, chose to bulldoze the management of a premier and pioneering educational institution into penning a here–and–now apology and withdrawal of the handbook.

The same approach was followed by the second state institution that entered the picture, the state education department. Under law and the codes governing the SSC school board, there is nothing to prevent schools from using educational material to enhance the syllabus; yet the state government responds to the SS intimidation with uncharacteristic promptness.

Maharashtra, like other states in the country, has seen the mushrooming of several thousand institutions run by the RSS/VHP that freely use supplementary texts that, simply put, spread hatred and division. Does the state government, even under ‘secular’ dispensations, ever ‘dare’ to make any inquiries? Why is it that efforts to rationalise history learning and cleanse it of the cobwebs of bigotry and hatred are such a challenge to our institutions, and not those that blatantly promote bigotry and stereotypes?

The matter presently lies before the Maharashtra State Human Rights Commission. The next date for hearing is November 29. Meanwhile, in a parallel move, the Borivali police station has instituted an investigation under section 153 c (hurting the religious sentiments of a section) against the author of the book. 

(Archived from the October 2001 issue of Communalism Combat)

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Shivaji is a great icon in Maharashtra. Different sections of society have given him very high status, though for diverse reasons. Folklores about him abound in the state. His statues, popular songs on him are very prevalent. These folk songs (Powadas) praise his multifarious actions. So it was no surprise that when Jayabhagwan Goyal, released his book, ‘Aaj ka Shivaji: Narendra Modi’, at religious-cultural meet organized by Delhi BJP, there was a strong resentment in Maharashtra. Various leaders from Maharashtra were furious. The Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut challenged the Shivaji’s descendent, Sambhaji Raje who is in BJP and is member of Rajya Sabha, to resign on the issue. Sambhaji Raje in turn stated that “We respect Narendra Modi, who was elected as the prime minister of the country for the second time. But neither (Narendra) Modi nor anybody else in the world can be compared with Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj,”

Not to be left behind Jitendra Awhad of NCP felt Modi-BJP are insulting the pride of Maharashtra. It is not the first time that controversy is erupting around the Maharashtra warrior of medieval period. Earlier we had seen Sambhaji Brigrade demanding the ban on James Laine book, Shivaji: ‘A Hindu King in an Islamic Kingdom’, for its objectionable content. Bhandarkar Institute in Pune, which had helped James Laine in his research, was also vandalized. At another level there was a talk that Babasaheb Purandare, a Brahmin, who has written some popular material on Shivaji will be made as the Chairman of the committee for statue of Shivaji. Maratha Mahasangh and Shiv Dharm officials objected to a Brahmin heading the committee for a statue for the Maratha warrior. The caste angel in Shivaji’s case is coming to the fore from quite some time.

While there is no dearth of controversies around Shivaji, it is also true that each political tendency has created Shivaji’s image from their political point of view. Who was the real Shivaji, is the question. One can see two clear streams of projection in this matter. On one hand there is an attempt to present Shivaji as the anti Muslim King, a king who was respecting Cows and Brahmins (Go Brahman pratipalak). This view was brought forward from the times of Lokmanya Tilak and picked up by Hindu nationalists, who have been looking for icons in history to suit their political agenda. Nathram Godse, while criticizing Gandhi says that Gandhi’s nationalism was dwarf in front of the one of Shivaji or Rana Pratap.

In tune with this the Hindu nationalists are promoting both these as icons of Hindu nationalism and giving anti-Muslim slant to the whole discourse. This discourse also hides in this the Brahmanical agenda of Hindu nationalism as Cows and Brahmins are presented as the central object of veneration by Shivaji. This image of Shivaji fits well into the current agenda of Hindu nationalists, being spearheaded by RSS Combine.

It is because of this that for seeking votes in Mumbai Narendra Modi on the eve of 2014 elections stated that Shivaji attacked Surat to plunder the treasury of Aurangzeb. This also presents Shivaji-Aurangzeb, Shivaji-Afzal Khan interactions as battle between Hindus and Muslims. The truth is that Surat was plundered for its wealth as it was a rich port city and Bal Samant’s book on the topic gives in depth description of the same. It is noteworthy that Shivaji began his real career of conquest in 1656 when he conquered Javli from the Maratha Chief Chandra Rao More. He took over the treasures of this kingdom. That it was not a Hindu Muslim battle becomes clear when we know that in confrontation with Aurangzeb it was Mirza Raja Jaisingh who was negotiating and engaging with Shivaji on behalf of Aurangzeb. And Shivaji had Muslim officers like Kazi Haider as confidential secretary and many Muslim Generals in his army.

Darya Sarang was chief of armor division, Daulat Khan was in-charge of his naval division; Ibrahim Khan was another general of significance in his army.  This mixed up administration just shows that the kings were not having Hindu or Muslim administration depending on their religion. In the confrontation between Shivaji and Afzal Khan, Rustam-e-Jaman was Shivaji’s side and Afzal Khan had Krisnaji Bhaskar Kulkarni on his side.

As far as Shivaji’s popularity is concerned it was due to his being a King with welfare of his subjects in his mind. He lightened the burden of taxation on the average peasants, and reduced the domination of landlords over the serfs. This picture of Shivaji is well documents in the booklets by Com. Govind Pansare (Who was Shivaji) and Jayant Gadkari (Shivaji: Ek Lok Kalyankari Raja– Shivaji: King doing People’s Welfare). He did not belong to the warrior caste so Brahmins had refused to coronate him, for which purpose Gaga Bhatt a Brahmin from Kashi was brought in with heavy fees. Teesta Setalvad’s hand book on History for teachers underlined this fact.

Today while BJP-Brahmanical forces want to present Shivaji as worshipper of Brahmins and cows, the non upper caste have seen through the game. As such it was Jotirao Phule who brought forward the caste angel of Shivaji as he wrote Powada (Poem) in his honor and today dalit Bahujan are not toeing Hindu Nationalist projection on the issue.

The likes of Jayabhagwan Goyal of BJP as such are trying to give two messages through such attempts. One hand they want to paint Shivaji in anti Muslim and Brahmanical color, they also want to give the subtle message of similarity of this presentation of Shivaji with what Modi is doing. Non BJP forces have seen this game and want to present the other picture of Shivaji, which was highlighted by the likes of Jotirao Phule and which today many of those standing for rights of dalit-Bahujan are trying to articulate. The criticism of the said, book, since withdrawn is on these twin aspects. One about the picture of Shivaji who was concerned about welfare of the farmers, and two his respect for people of all religions.  

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I appeal to all the Shudra/OBC/SC/STs to celebrate the Indian English Day on 5 October, 2018 as we have no significant place in the world of English even after 200 years of English education in India. We need to own the language as ours and learn it with vengeance. We have never been allowed to learn any Pan Indian or global language for millennia. Even now, the conspiracy of English educated Brahmin/Bania intellectuals is to deny this language of power and glamour to us. 
 
English teaching for the Indian Brahmin children started in the year 1817 on 5 October, which coincided with my birthday, much later in 1952. I was born in a shepherd family which had no right to education in any language. However, I went to Telugu medium school in the early sixties and learned the English language I speak and write on my own with an undaunted struggle. I then realized this language has the power to liberate education starved SC/ST/OBC/Shudras for centuries.
 
The Indian Christians taught English only to Brahmins and Banias but not to the Shudra/OBC/SC/STs for a long time. Now scores of world-class English medium private schools, colleges and universities are coming up with the tacit support of the ruling Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party.
 
Even now the best Christian and Non-Christian private schools only teach Brahmin, Bania, Kayastha and Khatris as they have economic resources at their command. As a result, Delhi is being ruled by these four castes, no matter who is the Prime Minister of the country. Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, though non-English speaking Banias, rule politics. All the top industrialists, politicians, bureaucrats, economists, media men, women, educationists, mainly coming from those four castes with good command over English rule India.
 
The complete control of the RSS over central power structures has not changed the power position of the Bania, Brahmin English class of India. The English speaking and writing intellectuals (most of them are BJP spokespersons on English TV channels) cannot win elections, hence get into Rajya Sabha as Arun Jaitley, (earlier Arun Shourie did), Nirmala Sitharaman, Prakash Javadekar, Ravishankar Prasad, Smriti Irani, Swapan Dasgupta, Rakesh Sinha, GVL Narsimha Rao did and so on. They became rulers and policy makers. Hardly any Shudra/OBC/SC/STs exist in this crop of rulers.
 
During the Congress regime, Manmohan Singh, Jairam Ramesh, Abhishek Singhvi, Manish Tiwari, Janardhan Dwivedi and so on, used the same channel of entry to get power. This caste- class that controls the nerve centre of the nation is in every major national political party.
 
The present English speaking and writing intellectuals, who rule India through Rajya Sabha, are strong RSS army men and women. Hence it now says the “RSS is not opposed to the English language” and wants the English education to remain in the private sector but not in the state sector.
 
It is fully supporting the establishment of private schools, colleges and universities by the top 20 monopoly companies—including Reliance, Adani, Vedanta, Lakshmi Mittal, Bharti group, Azim Premji and so on. They are establishing rich private English medium schools and colleges and universities in which no SC/ST/OBC/Shudra from rural areas can get in.
 
Even though a section of Jats, Gujjars, Patels, Marathas that are fighting for reservation could afford it because of their hold on the agrarian economy, they never realized its importance. They were or are mad linguistic chauvinists of their regional language. This is what the Brahmin, Bania English educated elite want so that the power of English could remain in their hands.
 
The Shudra agrarian castes have never understood the link between English education and Delhi’s power. After four years of RSS/BJP rule, they seem to have realized that the Brahmin, Bania forces have become more powerful than ever before. Hence many are asking for reservation but the English educated forces in the top judicial system will not allow that to happen. It is this English educated class that interprets the constitution, mostly in the favour of its own self.         
 
The ST/SC/OBC/Shudra children and youth can never get into these institutions as they could not enter the best Catholic schools and colleges like St. Stephen’s of Delhi or St. Xavier’s of Mumbai for several decades. Now they cannot get into the rich private universities because they lack that kind of elite English and money.
 
The lower caste, community children have only one way to get the English medium education. They have to force the state governments of all states to make all government schools teach in English medium. For that, these castes and communities must overcome the hatred and fear of English education and fight for that language medium in government schools.
 
All the major public and private schools, colleges and universities run in English medium where the presence of Shudras like Marathas, Patels, Gujjars, Jats, Kammas, Reddys, Lingayats are marginal, leave alone that BC/SC/STs. Unless these castes take the initiative, the Government sector will not change the language policy in the provinces.    
 
The very same English educated Brahmin, Bania intellectuals injected anti-English culture into the psyche of lower castes. They also injected a fear that no first-generation school going children can learn English, as it is a foreign language. They never let the examples like Mahatma Phule, Ambedkar or this author, who not only learned but mastered English without even going to the Christian or Non-Christian English medium schools within one generational learning of reading and writing. They do not let them realize that English is the easiest language that the children from the productive castes and communities could learn.
 
The higher Shudras like Marathas, Patels, Jats, Gujjars and so on, realized, of late, that their position in the Delhi power structure, in the national and international markets, is very poor because of lack of English education and reservations. Their feudal estates, the landed properties, no longer allow them to control the power structures of Delhi or the massive capitalist industries and markets, both in India and abroad.
 
They are slowly realizing about the link between bureaucratic power and globalized English language-controlled market system. Their feudal estates are shifting into the hands of monopoly industrialists in the form of special economic zones. The old Shudra feudals have now become rich farmers without understanding modern markets and the new Mall Economy. They are just sellers of produce in that market.
 
In one of my recent interactions with one of the richest Private English Medium Universities, The Ashoka University Haryana, among the alumnae who have undergone high-end leadership training course, there was not a single Jat or Gujjar, or Patel. They were all Brahmin, Banias with sympathy for poor and lower castes. There are no organic English speaking and writing intellectuals from the agrarian Shudra communities. They need motivation for English medium education.                               
 
Each year, the Shudra/OBC/SC/ST exclusion from the main market of India is increasing. Top industries, both hardware and software, is run by the Banias and Brahmins who have international standard English education that is acquired both in foreign and Indian schools, colleges and universities. All ideological forces, the right, left and liberal Brahmin, Banias are comfortable with the present private English medium education and regional language ghettoized in government sector education.
 
The Shudra/OBC/SC/STs must break this monopoly of the caste/community elite. The lower caste forces must begin to celebrate English language education as Indian. The double standards of the Brahmin, Bania elite must be fought with the same weapon that they control the lower castes with: first with Sanskrit and now English. Therefore, the new slogan “Bahujan Bache English Pado, Brahmin Bache Sanskrit Pado,” makes sense.   
 
The youth from all the Shudra/OBC/SC/ST communities should not remain in the regional language trap and in the grip of the propaganda that English is a foreign language. English has become a very powerful Indian language that controls the power, industry and communication structures of India. It has survived here more than two hundred years. Hence, we must own it, learn it and rule the nation through it.
 
Therefore, celebrate the birth of that language on 5th October to motivate ourselves.        
 
Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is the Chairman, T-MASS and political theorist. He is the Director, Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad.
 

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Taj Mahal: Missing from Maharashtra’s history textbook on Medieval India. Image courtesy: Pinterest.

Following a meeting organized by the state’s Education Minister Vinod Tawde at the Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini, an RSS think tank, the Maharashtra Education Board has churned out history textbooks for students of Std VII and IX which are virtually “Muslim-mukt”, the Mumbai Mirror reports.

The Standard VII text book has expunged chapters from the previous edition on the Mughals and Muslim rulers in India before them such as Razia Sultana, Sher Shah Suri and Mohammed bin Tughlaq.

Along with these rulers, also missing from the new textbooks is the architectural heritage they left behind: Taj Mahal, Qutub Minar, Red Fort.

Meanwhile the revised history textbook for Std IX has sections on Bofors and the Emergency declared by Mrs. Indira Gandhi.

Till the last academic year the Std VII history textbook had described Akbar as “a liberal and tolerant administrator who was a patron of learning and art”. The emperor was also described as one who had abolished the jazia tax on non-Muslims, prohibited the practice of sati and tried promoting a new universal religion, Din-e-Ilahi.

The same Akbar is dealt with cursorily in the revised textbook: “Akbar was the most powerful king of the Mughal dynasty. When he tried to bring India under a central authority, he had to face opposition.
Maharana Pratap, Chand Bibi and Rani Durgawati struggled against him. Their struggle is noteworthy”.

With Shivaji and his life as the focal point of the revised textbook, his family members and other Maratha generals have also been accorded generous space.

Speaking to Mumbai Mirror, Sadanand More, chairman of the History subject committee of the Maharashtra State Bureau of Textbook Production and Curriculum Research justified the overhaul of the textbooks: “Why should we not change? We have looked at history from a Maharashtra-centric point of view. It is a natural course as we are from Maharashtra. What’s wrong in that? In fact the Central board books have very little about our state,” More said.

Read the full report in Mumbai Mirror.

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Sitting in Sarkar’s home city of Kolkatta as I write this piece, I recall moments, decades ago when I browsed through the works of Jadunath Sarkar, lucky as I was to find their works in my father, Atul’s eclectic and vast personal library.Navigating modern, medieval and ancient (early Indian) history even as the works of DD Kosambi became real-life companions, it was and is fascinating to see how regional and national histories have evolved, the former often received short shrift in our desire to evolve a uniform, conformist national narrative.

Today, December 10 is Sarkar’s 176^th Birth Anniversary. It is worth recalling through two historical figures, Shivaji and Aurangzeb, how Sarkar’s monumental work was, in a sense sidelined or some would say even marginalised.

What did Jadunath Sarkar say about Shivaji’s Coronation and his diversity-driven governance? And how would Indian Rulers of today react? Why is his monumental work on Aurangzeb dis-satisfying to the left, constructing as it does a comparative narrative between that rulers reign and the more inclusive Akbar’s?

In my research on his work, used extensively in schools and training workshops, I have asked two specific questions; was Shivaji himself a victim of the evils of caste, and was he not in every sense an inclusive and plural ruler as some of the Mughals, were too?
Here are some of the answers I found, from books by Jadunath Sarkar himself. One of the oldest authorities on the Marathas, with two meticulously researched books on Shivaji, the historian has dealt with the ticklish issue of caste that did affect Shivaji’s acceptance as a formal ruler.

Sarkar deals with the deep schisms of caste that prevented from Shivaji from being finally accepted (anointed religiously, by the Brahman) as the ruler despite his successful military campaigns and massive popularity.
 
Says Sarkar, “A deep study of Maratha society, indeed of society throughout India, reveals some facts which it is considered patriotism to ignore. We realise that the greatest obstacles to Shivaji’s success were not Mughals or Adil Shahis, Siddis or Feringis, but his own countrymen. First, we cannot be blind to the truth that the dominant factor in Indian life —even today, no less than in the seventeenth century — is caste, and neither religion nor country……

Personal Jealousy Hindering Shivaji

Shivaji was not contented with all his conquests of territory and vaults full of looted treasure, so long as he was not recognised as a Kshatriya entitled to wear the sacred thread and to have the Vedic hymns chanted at his domestic rites. The Brahmans alone could give him such a recognition, and though they swallowed the sacred thread they boggled at the Vedokta! The result was a rupture… Whichever side had the rights of the case, one thing is certain, namely, that this internally torn community had not the sine qua non of a nation.

Nor did Maharashtra acquire that sine qua non ever after. The Peshwas were Brahmans from Konkan, and the Brahmans of the upland (Desh) despised them as less pure in blood. The result was that the state policy of Maharashtra under the Peshwas, instead of being directed to national ends, was now degraded into upholding the prestige of one family or social sub-division.

Shivaji had, besides, almost to the end of his days, to struggle against the jealousy, scorn, indifference and even opposition of certain Maratha families, his equals in caste sub-division and once in fortune and social position, whom he had now outdistanced. The Bhonsle Savants of Vadi, the Jadavs or Sindhkhed, the Mores of Javli, and (to a lesser extent) the Nimbalkars, despised and kept aloof from the upstart grandson of that Maloji whom some old men still living remembered to have seen tilling his fields like a Kunbi! Shivaji’s own brother Vyankoji fought against him during the Mughal invasion of Bijapur in 1666. “

No wonder then, that truth telling is not a favourite activity of the extreme right. Those who march today under Shivaji’s name, brandishing the bright saffron flag of an illusive if exclusivist nationalist past, would like us to also forget the deeply practical pluralism that guided Shivaji’s governance. Says Sarkar of Shivaji’s religious toleration and equal treatment of all subjects:

“He stands on a lofty pedestal in the hall of the worthies of history, not because he was a Hindu champion, but because he was an ideal householder, an ideal king, and an unrivalled nation-builder. He was devoted to his mother, loving to his children, true to his wives, and scrupulously pure in his relations with other women. Even the most beautiful female captive of war was addressed by him as his mother. Free from all vices and indolence in his private life, he displayed the highest genius as a king and as an organizer. In that age of religious bigotry, he followed a policy of the most liberal toleration for all creeds.

“The letter which he wrote to Aurangzeb, protesting against the imposition of the poll-tax on the Hindus, is a masterpiece of clear logic, calm persuasion, and political wisdom. Though he was himself a devout Hindu, he could recognise true sanctity in a Musalman, and therefore he endowed a Muhammadan holy man named Baba Yaqut with land and money and installed him at Keleshi. All creeds had equal opportunities in his service and he employed a Muslim secretary named Qazi Haidar, who, after Shivaji’s death, went over to Delhi and rose to be chief justice of the Mughal Empire.

“There were many Muhammadan captains in Shivaji’s army and his chief admiral was an Abyssinian named Siddi Misri. His Maratha soldiers had strict orders not to molest any woman or rob any Muhammadan saint’s tomb or hermitage. Copies of the Quran which were seized in the course of their campaigns were ordered to be carefully preserved and then handed over respectfully to some Muhammadan.”
(From Jadunath Sarkar’s book, ‘House of Shivaji’).

If Sarkar’s rendering of Shivaji pricks the Hindu right, his voluminous work on the Mughals and especially Aurangzeb has made him the unfair target of some ‘left’ and ‘marxist’ historians too.

Sarkar wrote at the end of his vast, five volume study of Aurangzeb-
“Aurangzeb did not attempt such an ideal [of nation-making], even though his subjects formed a very composite population…and he had no European rivals hungrily watching to destroy his kingdom. On the contrary, he deliberately undid the beginnings of…a national and rational policy which Akbar had set on foot.” Akbar had successfully converted “a military monarchy into a national state”—not constitutionally but in effect—by remaining open both to talents of the Hindu Rajputs and to the “right type of recruits” from among the fortune seekers who came from Bukhara and Khurasan, Iran and Arabia.
Aurangzeb in particular failed precisely on this score. Whereas the “liberal Akbar, the self-indulgent Jahangir, and the cultured Shah Jahan had welcomed Shias in their camps and courts and given them the highest offices, especially in the secretariat and revenue administration”, the “orthodox Aurangzeb…barely tolerated them as a necessary evil”. The latter’s conflict with the Rajputs and “the hated poll-tax (jaziya) lent Shivaji the aura of a Hindu “national” leader in the eyes of his contemporaries."

Shivaji or Akbar, Aurangzeb or Babur, it is strange and telling how we pick, and exclude those aspects from the figures of the past that do not suit our own perceived contemporary realities.

It is when we as a society and people, are able, calmly and confidently to appreciate the works of scholars –whatever side of the ideological spectrum we may place them on—on the objective merit of their work, that a truly modern consciousness could be born.

Sarkar, once vice chancellor of Calcutta university, historian of India’s history from the 17^th to the 18^th century, a moving force behind the Indian Historical Records Commission (IHRC), and the forerunner of the National Archives of India (NAI), is undoubtedly one such. Not only was he instrumental in letting the British colonial authorities allow greater access to archival material for Indian scholars; his monumental five-volume History of Aurangzeb, and two crucial works on Shivaji are a must read for a generation so inundated with the here and now: What’s APP and Social Media.

A shorter version of this article has appeared today in The Indian Express and may be read here.
 

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In 1817, sometime in the month of October, English teaching was started in Calcutta by gathering together a few Brahmin male children both by British educationalists and Indians. Today, in 2017 we need to celebrate the 200^th year of English education in India.
 
For the last few years we Osmanians at the Osmania University, within the monumental arts college building built by the famous Osman Ali Khan, the last Nizam, celebrate October 5 as the ‘Indian English Day’. Everyone knows that October 5 is ‘International Teachers Day’. Some of us thought that it should also be celebrated as the Indian English Day.

As I said in 1817 the English teaching started by imparting English alphabets to some Brahmin children because in those days there was no scope for the Dalit-Bajujan or even the  upper Shudras to study in any school.  Even persons like Rajarammohan Roy who was associated with that initiative were casteists. Roy thought of reforming Brahmin women’s life but never took any initiative for educating the lower castes.

The first educated modern Shudra in India was Mahatma Jotirao Phule, who studied in a Scottish English medium school in Bombay province. That was much later in the 1840s as Phule was born in 1827. The Calcutta province was in the grip of both Britishers and Brahmins. No caste reform movement was initiated by the Bengali Brahmins. Because of a Shudra ruler like Shivaji  who resisted Brahmin hegemony in the Bombay region some changes began there. 

Subsequently his grandson Sahu Maharaj took a serious step towards the anti-Brahmin mobilisation of Shudras and Dalits. Thus, that land became the land of the Dalit-Bahujan English Education also. If Calcutta province represented the Brahminical English the Bombay province represented the Dalit-Bahujan English.

Dr.B.R.Ambedkar was the first Dalit to get education in an English medium school and later on world class higher education. Even the Muslims of India were pushed back from access to English education because they went in for education in the Persian and Urdu medium. Sir Sayyad Ahmmad Khan pushed the ideology of English education within the Muslim community. Now there are several English educated Muslims in India. But for their English education the Universities like Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia English medium universities would not have existed and because of these institutions there is a modern Muslim community emergent and resilient.

Today the Dalit-Bahujans and Muslims and other minorities have attained their present position because of English education, though they are the least educated among all. If a person like me having come from a totally illiterate shepherd family could challenge mighty Brahminism that controls state power, temple power, even the educational power it was because of my access to ‘their’ English (earlier Sanskrit), though learned under the tree schools, at a very late age in my village.

The celebration of the Indian English Day is also needed to checkmate Hindutva forces from confining the SC/ST/OBCs to regional languages while they educate the rich and the upper castes in private English medium schools with their money power. Our struggle is to establish common medium and syllabus based schools for all children—the rich and poor of any caste.

I appeal to all those lovers of equality to celebrate today, October 5, as the Indian English Day and send a message to the diabolical convent and foreign English educated people: you cannot stop us from accessing good English education in our village schools by selling the bogus theory that English is not Indian language. We declare that ‘English is Indian’. We study in English and preserve our buffalo cultural nationalism as against the unproductive cow nationalism which is for Brahmins alone.
 
 
 

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We reproduce below excerpts from the work of one of the oldest authorities on the Marathas, historian Jadunath Sarkar. In two books on the issue, the historian has dealt with the ticklish issue of caste which affected Shivaji’s acceptance as a formal ruler.

A deep study of Maratha society, indeed of society throughout India, reveals some facts which it is considered patriotism to ignore. We realise that the greatest obstacles to Shivaji’s success were not Mughals or Adil Shahis, Siddis or Feringis, but his own countrymen. First, we cannot be blind to the truth that the dominant factor in Indian life — even today, no less than in the seventeenth century — is caste, and neither religion nor country. By caste must not be understood the four broad divisions of the Hindus which exist only in the textbooks and the airy philosophical generalisations delivered from platforms. The caste that really counts, the division that is a living force, is the sub–division and sub–sub–division into innumerable small groups called shakhas or branches (more correctly twigs or I should say, leaves, they are so many!) into which each caste is split up and within which alone marrying and giving in marriage, eating and drinking together take place…
 
And each of these smallest sub–divisions of the Brahman caste is separated from the other sub–divisions as completely as it is from an altogether different caste like the Vaishya or Shudra, e.g., the Kanyakubja and Sarayupari Brahmans of northern India, the Konkanastha and Deshastha of Maharashtra.
Personal Jealousy Hindering Shivaji

Shivaji was not contented with all his conquests of territory and vaults full of looted treasure, so long as he was not recognised as a Kshatriya entitled to wear the sacred thread and to have the Vedic hymns chanted at his domestic rites. The Brahmans alone could give him such recognition, and though they swallowed the sacred thread they boggled at the Vedokta! The result was a rupture… Whichever side had the rights of the case, one thing is certain, namely, that this internally torn community had not the sine qua non of a nation. 
Nor did Maharashtra acquire that sine qua non ever after. The Peshwas were Brahmans from Konkan, and the Brahmans of the upland (Desh) despised them as less pure in blood. The result was that the state policy of Maharashtra under the Peshwas, instead of being directed to national ends, was now degraded into upholding the prestige of one family or social sub–division.

Shivaji had, besides, almost to the end of his days, to struggle against the jealousy, scorn, indifference and even opposition of certain Maratha families, his equals in caste sub-division and once in fortune and social position, whom he had now outdistanced. The Bhonsle Savants of Vadi, the Jadavs of Sindhkhed, the Mores of Javli, and (to a lesser extent) the Nimbalkars, despised and kept aloof from the upstart grandson of that Maloji whom some old men still living remembered to have seen tilling his fields like a Kunbi! Shivaji’s own brother Vyankoji fought against him during the Mughal invasion of Bijapur in 1666.

Shivaji’s religious toleration and equal treatment of all subjects
He stands on a lofty pedestal in the hall of the worthies of history, not because he was a Hindu champion, but because he was an ideal householder, an ideal king, and an unrivalled nation-builder. He was devoted to his mother, loving to his children, true to his wives, and scrupulously pure in his relations with other women. Even the most beautiful female captive of war was addressed by him as his mother. Free from all vices and indolence in his private life, he displayed the highest genius as a king and as an organizer. In that age of religious bigotry, he followed a policy of the most liberal toleration for all creeds.

The letter which he wrote to Aurangzeb, protesting against the imposition of the poll–tax on the Hindus, is a masterpiece of clear logic, calm persuasion, and political wisdom. Though he was himself a devout Hindu, he could recognise true sanctity in a Musalman, and therefore he endowed a Muhammadan holy man named Baba Yaqut with land and money and installed him at Keleshi. All creeds had equal opportunities in his service and he employed a Muslim secretary named Qazi Haidar, who, after Shivaji’s death, went over to Delhi and rose to be chief justice of the Mughal Empire.

There were many Muhammadan captains in Shivaji’s army and his chief admiral was an Abyssinian named Siddi Misri. His Maratha soldiers had strict orders not to molest any woman or rob any Muhammadan saint’s tomb or hermitage. Copies of the Quran which were seized in the course of their campaigns were ordered to be carefully preserved and then handed over respectfully to some Muhammadan.”
(From Jadunath Sarkar’s book, ‘House of Shivaji’).

The Coronation of Shivaji And After (1674-1676)

Why Shivaji wanted to be crowned

Shivaji and his ministers had long felt the practical disadvantages of his not being a crowned king. True, he had conquered many lands and gathered much wealth: he had a strong army and navy and exercised powers of life and death over men, like an independent sovereign. But theoretically his position was that of a subject; to the Mughal Emperor, he was a mere zamindar. He could not claim equality of political status with any king.

Then again, so long as he was a mere private subject, he could not, with all his real power, claim the loyalty and devotion of the people over whom he ruled. His promises could not have the sanctity and continuity of the public engagements of the head of a State. He could sign no treaty, grant no land with legal validity and an assurance of permanence. The territories conquered by his sword could not become his lawful property, however undisturbed his possession over them might be in practice. The people living under his sway or serving under his banners could not renounce their allegiance to the former sovereign of the land, nor be sure that they were exempt from the charge of treason for their obedience to him. The permanence of his political creation required that it should be validated as the act of a sovereign.

Shivaji recognized by Gaga Bhatta as a Kshatriya
But there was one curious hindrance to the realization of this ideal. According to the ancient Hindu scriptures, only a member of the Kshatriya caste can be legally crowned as king and claim the homage of Hindu subjects. The Bhonsles were popularly known to be neither Kshatriyas, nor of any other twice-born caste, but mere tillers of the soil, as Shivaji’s great–grandfather was still remembered to have been. How could an upstart sprung from such a Shudra (plebeian) stock aspire to the rights and honours due to a Kshatriya? The Brahmans of all parts of India would attend and bless the coronation of Shivaji, only if he could be authoritatively declared a Kshatriya.

It was, therefore, necessary first to secure the support of a pandit, whose reputation for scholarship would silence all opposition to the views he might propound. Such a man was found in Vishweshwar, nicknamed Gaga Bhatta, of Benares, the greatest Sanskrit theologian and controversialist then alive, a master of the four Vedas, the six philosophies, and all the scriptures of the Hindus, and popularly known as the Brahma–deva and Vyas of the age. 

After holding out for some time, he became compliant, accepted the Bhonsle pedigree as fabricated by the clever secretary Balaji Avji and other agents of Shiva, and declared that Rajah was a Kshatriya of the purest breed, descended in unbroken line from the Maharanas of Udaipur, the sole representatives of the solar line of the mythical hero-god Ramchandra. His audacious but courtierly ethnological theory was rewarded with a huge fee, and he was entreated to visit Maharashtra and officiate as high priest at the coronation of Shiva. He agreed, and on his arrival was welcomed like a crowned head, Shiva and all his officers advancing many miles from Satara to receive him on the way.

(From ‘Shivaji And His Times’ by Jadunath Sarkar).
 
(Archived from the October 2001 issue of Communalism Combat)
 

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‘India cries out at the barbarism of the cowardly, Islamic Pakistan’
‘Enough is enough’ 

(Reproduced below, in full, is an English translation of the editorial in the June 20, 1999 issue of Panchjanya):

This has been going on for centuries now. Bharat’s northern borders have always been assaulted by Islamic invaders. The cause for the long chain of evil deeds from Mohammed Bin Qasim to Nawaz Sharif were never that we had occupied their land, attacked or looted them. The only reason for the animosity has always been that Bharat has always been a peace–loving land, wealthy and loyal to its faith. This was intolerable for them. To loot our land of its wealth, to change our faith and to shatter our peace — that is why these attacks have always taken place. These people have always come under the garb of looters and barbarians. From the story of Raja Dahit to squadron leader Ajay Ahuja and lieutenant Saurabh Kaliya, we can see the imprint of the same barbarism and inhumanity of these invaders. These invaders have always been ruthless and devious. They have always attacked us stealthily in the dark of the night.

They have always fought in the name of religion and given their deception the name of jihad. Even when they kill animals, they bleed it to a tortuous death and then call it halaal. Forget granting life to men, how can one expect from them even a dignified death? This is their way, this is their nature. And they never change their ways except when the hands of brave soldiers goes for their jugular. This inhuman lot can never forget 1971! Like bleating goats, 94,000 jihadis had then stood their heads bowed in abject surrender before our brave soldiers. Had it been some Islamic country in our place, it would have beheaded the entire lot and despatched 94,000 skulls to Islamabad. But true to our own civilised values and culture, we even fed milk to these 94,000 snakes. Fed on our generosity, they all returned well fattened to their homeland.

Look at them, now! So "brave" are they that when they encountered six of our soldiers on patrol, they would not fight them like men would. Instead, they were encircled, disarmed and then, crossing all limits of bestiality, tortured in such inhuman ways that even hearing or reading about it is intolerable. The blood of every Indian is on the boil today. From Ladakh to Kanyakumari, the entire nation is raising only one demand — Revenge! Revenge!

The time has come again for India’s Bheema to tear open the breasts of these infidels and purify the soiled tresses of Draupadi with blood. Pakistan will not listen just like that. We have a centuries’ old debt to settle with this mindset. It is the same demon that has been throwing a challenge at Durga since the time of Mohammed Bin Qasim. Arise, Atal Behari! Who knows if fate has destined you to be the author of the final chapter of this long story. For what have we manufactured bombs? For what have we exercised the nuclear option? The courageous give their enemy time to retreat. In the beginning, they even forgive. But if the perverse and incorrigible are bent on inviting his own death, the brave never disappoint them.
 

just recall, with what crookedness and violence Pakistan has responded to our magnanimity since 1947. In 1948, it sent its soldiers dressed as tribals and through deception captured a large part of our Kashmir. And this, when only a few months earlier, Mahtama Gandhi had used the ‘weapon’ of fasting to get India to grant Rs. 52 crore loan to Pakistan. The very money that we loaned them was used by Pakistan to attack us and grabb our territory. It perpetrated atrocities on our Hindu brethren, violated Hindu women, forcibly converted them, demolished our temples and has persisted in constantly provoking Bharat.

In 1965, they attacked us but faced a humiliating defeat when our jawans unfurled the triocolour right to the Haji pir. Then it groveled and we had the Tashkent agreement. But India again made the mistake of showing its magnanimity and returned the captured Haji Pir.

But Pakistan turned around from Haji Pir only to war against us yet again. After 1965, 1971. Bangladesh was born, and the story of India’s victory echoed through the world. Pakistan went down on its knees and begged for mercy. That’s when the Shimla agreement was signed. We again showed magnanimity and without resolving the issue of Kashmir once and for all, we returned the 94,000 captured serpents!

Even then Pakistan did not change. Zia–ul–Haq launched ‘Operation Topak’ in a bid to deal a serious blow to India. The bloody game of terrorism and militancy in Kashmir is a direct result of this. Of how many Indian lives are you going to ask Pakistan to account for? Is there any count of how many thousand Indian lives have been taken by these cowardly jehadis in Kashmir? And will you forget the terrorist assault on Punjab? Even today, blood–stained Punjab is unable to forget the slaughter of thousands of its innocent sons and daughters. Pakistan has spread the ISI’s web all over India. From the far east to the far south, from the deserts of Jaisalmer to the Terai region of Nepal, ISI is hell bent on killing Indians and crippling the Indian political system. Every day, hundreds of kilograms of RDX, AK–47 rifles, bombs and other ammunition are intercepted in Delhi and in every nook and cranny of the country.

And this only shows us that Pakistan’s animosity towards India is forever on the increase. Yet, behold the extent of our magnanimity! Despite all this, we took bus all the way to Lahore, the peace flag aflutter in ourhands! The Lahore Declaration was made. With what warmth the Pakistanis had greeted us! On one side they were embracing us, on the other the dynamite was being laid, bunkers were being erected. This is their character, this is their culture.

Enough is enough. To tolerate any more would be sheer cowardice. To teach them a lesson now is the only dharam now.

The over 1,000 years of our struggle with barbarians and religious bigots and their vandalism is written with the blood of martyrs who were subjected to the most inhuman torture unparalleled in history. The terrorist state of Pakistan is the continuation of that gory past.
— Seshadri Chari, editor, Organiser, in a signed article in the Organiser, June 20, 1999.

The barbaric and cruel behaviour of Pakistan with Indian soldiers is a good indicator of their mindset and their ‘civilisation’. The same mindset was at work during the time of Guru Tegh Bahadur; his colleagues, too, were martyred in the same cruel way. Killing a person in the normal fashion is alien to their culture. By behaving with Indian soldiers today with the same bestial as in case of Bhai Matidas, Bhai Satidas, Bhai Dayala etc., Pakistan clearly shows that even today its outlook is anything but humanitarian.
— Rajendra Singh, RSS sarsanghchalak (chief), in the Organiser, June 20, 1999.

The celebration of Hindu rule is being observed this year at a time when through treachery and deceit Pakistan has intruded into Indian territory.And coward–like, they have chosen to give this back–stabbing the label, "Islami Jihad’. This reminds us of those chapters of Indian history which are full of revolting accounts of the deceit and ill–will of Islamic marauders. While remembering Shivaji on this occasion, the best way to finish off the crooked ‘jehadis’ is the way Shivaji dealt with Afzal Khan.
— Narsinh Pandit, in an article titled, ‘Pursuing Shivaji’s Afzal policy is the way to teach the croooked Pakistanis a lesson’, in Panchjanya, June 20, 1999

Archived from Communalism Combat, July 1999, Year 6  No. 51, Cover Story 4

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