Makers of Modern India

by Ramachandra Guha

  Another work which is most necessary for India to read is one on political economy. Political economy was formerly known to us, but none of the works on it of our ancient authors are now extant … Besides, even if they were [available], Europe has so perfected this science as to have made them comparatively useless. From a want of knowledge of it, the natives of India are utterly in the dark as to the principles on which the government of their country is carried on. They do not know that the revenue is collected for their own benefit, and not for that of Government. Millions are under the idea that the rupees, as fast as they are collected, are hurried on board ship, and carried off to England! Why is this? Only through their ignorance of political economy. Their own immediate prosperity is also seriously impaired by this ignorance. They do not know how to manage their affairs, how to so apply their present wealth that it may increase tenfold, and at the same time relieve other countries by letting loose their capital, and not burying it in their houses. I would therefore recommend the translating little by little, so as not to interfere with smaller works, of Mill’s ‘Political Economy.’ There is this to be said against it, that it is very voluminous; but, gentlemen, this is also an argument in its favour, as unless a work be voluminous, this important science cannot be treated of as it deserves. Again, against it might be advanced that there are certain portions of it which are not applicable to this country, but only to England or Europe. But this is exactly what ought to be put clearly before us natives, in order that we may comprehend what Europe is doing …

  The Two Eyes of India

  In January 1883 Syed Ahmad Khan delivered a speech in Patna, emphasizing the need for cordial relations between Hindus and Muslims. Excerpts from this speech follow.7

  Friends, in India there live two prominent nations which are distinguished by the names of Hindus and Mussulmans. Just as a man has some principal organs, similarly these two nations are like the principal limbs of India. To be a Hindu or a Muslim is a matter of internal faith which has nothing to do with mutual relationship and external conditions. How good is the saying, whoever may be its author, that a human being is composed of two elements—his faith which he owes to God and his moral sympathy which he owes to his fellow-being. Hence leave God’s share to God and concern yourself with the share that is yours.

  Gentlemen, just as many reputed people professing Hindu faith came to this country, so we also came here. The Hindus forgot the country from which they had come; they could not remember their migration from one land to another and came to consider India as their homeland, believing that their country lies between the Himalayas and the Vindhiyachal.8 Hundreds of years have lapsed since we, in our turn, left the lands of our origin. We remember neither the climate nor the natural beauty of those lands, neither the freshness of the harvests nor the deliciousness of the fruits, nor even do we remember the blessings of the holy deserts. We also came to consider India as our homeland and we settled down here like the earlier immigrants. Thus India is the home of both of us. We both breathe the air of India and take the water of the holy Ganges and the Jamuna. We both consume the products of the Indian soil. We are living and dying together. By living so long in India, the blood of both have changed. The colour of both have become similar. The faces of both, having changed, have become similar. The Muslims have acquired hundreds of customs from the Hindus and the Hindus have also learned hundreds of things from the Mussulmans. We mixed with each other so much that we produced a new language—Urdu, which was neither our language nor theirs. Thus if we ignore that aspect of ours which we owe to God, both of us, on the basis of being common inhabitants of India, actually constitute one nation; and the progress of this country and that of both of us is possible through mutual cooperation, sympathy and love. We shall only destroy ourselves by mutual disunity and animosity and ill-will to each other. It is pitiable to see those who do not understand this point and create feeling of disunity among these two nations and fail to see that they themselves will be the victims of such a situation, and inflict injury to themselves. My friends, I have repeatedly said and say it again that India is like a bride which has got two beautiful and lustrous eyes—Hindus and Mussulmans. If they quarrel against each other that beautiful bride will become ugly and if one destroys the other, she will lose one eye. Therefore, people of Hindustan you have now the right to make this bride either squint eyed or one eyed.

  Undoubtedly, what to say of Hindus and Mussulmans, a quarrel among human beings is a natural phenomenon. Within the ranks of the Hindus or Mussulmans themselves, or even between brothers as also between fathers and sons, mothers and daughters there are dissensions. But to make it perennial is a symptom of decay of the family, the country, and of the nation. How blessed are those who repent, and step forward to untie the knot which has by chance, marred their mutual relations and do not allow it to get disrupted. O! God, let the people of India change to this way of thinking.

  Politics and Discord

  Two years after the above speech, the Indian National Congress was founded. Syed Ahmad Khan was from the first suspicious of the Congress, which he thought would promote rivalry between communities while alienating Indians from the British. The activities of the Congress were to radically alter his views on Hindu—Muslim relations, as witness the next excerpt, from a speech delivered to a Muslim audience in Meerut in March 1888. Provincial rivalries were also at work here—as a native of Delhi, and a resident of the United Provinces, Khan had reservations about the Bengalis who then dominated the Congress.9

  I think it expedient that I should first of all tell you the reason why I am about to address you on the subject of to-night’s discourse. You know, gentlemen, that, from a long time, our friends the Bengalis have shown very warm feelings on political matters. Three years ago they founded a very big assembly, which holds its sittings in various places, and they have given it the name ‘National Congress.’ We and our nation10 gave no thought to the matter. And we should be very glad for our friends the Bengalis to be successful if we were of opinion that they had by their education and ability made such progress as rendered them fit for the claims they put forward. But although they are superior to us in education, yet we have never admitted that they have reached that level to which they lay claim to have attained. Nevertheless, I have never, in any article, or in any speech, or even in conversation in any place, put difficulties or desired to put difficulties in the way of any of their undertakings. It has never been my wish to oppose any people or any nation who wish to make progress, and who have raised themselves up to that rank to which they wish to attain and for which they are qualified. But my friends the Bengalis have made a most unfair and unwarrantable interference with my nation, and therefore it is my duty to show clearly what this unwarrantable interference has been, and to protect my nation from the evils that may arise from it. It is quite wrong to suppose that I have girded up my loins for the purpose of fighting my friends the Bengalis: my object is only to make my nation understand what I consider conducive to its prosperity. It is incumbent on me to show what evils would befall my nation from joining in the opinions of the Bengalis: I have no other purpose in view …

  Gentlemen, what I am about to say is not only useful for my own nation, but also for my Hindu brothers of these [United] Provinces, who from some wrong notions have taken part in this Congress. At last they also will be sorry for it, although perhaps they will never have occasion to be sorry; for it is beyond the region of possibility that the proposals of the Congress should be carried out fully. These wrong notions which have grown up in our Hindu fellow-countrymen, and on account of which they think it expedient to join the Congress, depend upon two things. The first thing is this: that they think that as both they themselves and the Bengalis are Hindus, they have nothing to fear from the growth of their influence. The second thing is this: that some Hindus—I do not speak of all the Hindus but only of some—think that by joining the Congress and by increasing the power of the Hindus they will perhaps be a
ble to suppress those Mohammedan religious rites which are opposed to their own, and, by all uniting, annihilate them. But I frankly advise my Hindu friends that if they wish to cherish their religious rites they can never be successful in this way. If they are to be successful, it can only be by friendship and agreement. The business cannot be done by force; and the greater the enmity and animosity the greater will be their loss. I will take Aligarh as an example. There Mohammedans and Hindus are in agreement. The Dasehra and Moharrum fell together for three years, and no one knows what took place. It is worth notice how, when an agitation was started against cow-killing, the sacrifice of cows increased enormously, and religious animosity grew on both sides, as all who live in India well know. They should understand that those things which can be done by friendship and affection cannot be done by any pressure or force. If these ideas which I have expressed about the Hindus of these Provinces be correct and their condition be similar to that of the Mohammedans, then they ought to continue to cultivate friendship with us. Let those who live in Bengal eat up their own heads. What they want to do, let them do it. What they don’t want to do, let them not do it. Neither their disposition nor their general condition resembles that of the people of this country. Then what connection have the people of this country with them? As regards Bengal, there is, as far as I am aware in Lower Bengal, a much larger proportion of Mohammedans than Bengalis … Those Mohammedans are quite unaware of what sort of thing the National Congress is. No Mohammedan Rais11 of Bengal took part in it; and the ordinary Bengalis who live in the district are also as ignorant of it as the Mohammedans. In Bengal the Mohammedan population is so great that if the aspirations of those Bengalis who are making so loud an agitation be fulfilled, it will be extremely difficult for the Bengalis to remain in peace even in Bengal. These proposals of the Congress are extremely inexpedient for the country which is inhabited by two different nations, who drink from the same well, breathe the air of the same city, and depend on each other for its life. To create animosity between them is good neither for peace, nor for the country, nor for the town.

  After this long preface, I wish to explain what method my nation, nay, rather the whole people of this country, ought to pursue in political matters. I will treat in regular sequence the political questions of India, in order that you may have full opportunity of giving your attention to them. The first of all is this—In whose hands shall the Administration and the Empire of India rest? Now, suppose that all the English and the whole English army were to leave India, taking with them all their cannon and their splendid weapons and everything, then who would be rulers of India? Is it possible that under these circumstances two nations—the Mohammedans and the Hindus—could sit on the same throne and remain equal in power? Most certainly not. It is necessary that one of them should conquer the other and thrust it down. To hope that both could remain equal is to desire the impossible and the inconceivable. At the same time you must remember that although the number of Mohammedans is less than that of the Hindus, and although they contain far fewer people who have received a high English education, yet they must not be thought insignificant or weak. Probably they would be by themselves enough to maintain their own position. But suppose they were not. Then our Mussalman brothers, the Pathans, would come out as a swarm of locusts from their mountain valleys, and make rivers of blood to flow from their frontier on the north to the extreme end of Bengal. This thing—who after the departure of the English would be conquerors—would rest on the will of God. But until one nation had conquered the other and made it obedient, peace cannot reign in the land. This conclusion is based on proofs so absolute that no one can deny it. Now, suppose that the English are not in India and that one of the nations of India has conquered the other, whether the Hindus the Mohammedans, or the Mohammedans the Hindus. At once some other nation of Europe, such as the French, the Germans, the Portuguese, or the Russians, will attack India. Their ships of war, covered with iron and loaded with flashing cannon and weapons, will surround her on all sides. At that time who will protect India? Neither Hindus can save nor Mohammedans; neither the Rajputs nor my brave brothers the Pathans. And what will be the result? The result will be this—that foreigners will rule India, because the state of India is such that if foreign powers attack her, no one has the power to oppose them. From this reasoning it follows of necessity that an empire, not of any Indian race, but of foreigners, will be established in India. Now, will you please decide which of the nations of Europe you would like to rule over India? I ask if you would like Germany, whose subjects weep for heavy taxation and the stringency of their military service? Would you like the rule of France? Stop! I fancy you would, perhaps, like the rule of the Russians, who are very great friends of India and of Mohammedans, and under whom the Hindus will live in great comfort, and who will protect with the tenderest care the wealth and property which they have acquired under English rule? (Laughter). Everybody knows something or other about these powerful kingdoms of Europe. Everyone will admit that their governments are far worse, nay, beyond comparison worse, than the British Government. It is, therefore, necessary that for the peace of India and for the progress of everything in India the English Government should remain for many years—in fact for ever! …

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  Chapter Three

  The Agrarian Radical

  Jotirao Phule

  Running through Syed Ahmad Khan’s work to modernize Muslims was an undercurrent of rivalry: with the Hindus, who had taken earlier and in larger numbers to Western education and to employment in the schools, colleges, offices, law courts and factories that were established under colonial rule. The point of departure for our next maker of modern India was not so much the advance, under the Raj, of Hindus in general, but of upper-caste Hindus in particular.

  Jotirao Phule1 was born in 1827, less than a decade after the advent of the East India Company in his native Maharashtra. He belonged to the caste of Malis, who had traditionally cultivated fruits and vegetables. Phule’s family had supplied flowers to the court of the Peshwas, these grown on a holding of thirty-five acres granted them by the rulers. They were thus not poor, but not really affluent either.

  Jotirao studied in a school in the town of Poona (now called Puné), run by Scottish missionaries. Here he mixed with boys of other castes, including Untouchables. As a young man, he visited and was powerfully impressed by a school for girls run by American missionaries in the town of Ahmednagar. These experiences inspired him, then still in his twenties, to start a school for girls of low castes himself. He also opened several other schools, which admitted children from the Untouchable castes of Mangs and Mahars.

  An autodidact, Phule seems to have been influenced by Thomas Paine as a young man. In 1855 he wrote a play about the inequities of the caste system. (In view of the dominance of Brahmins over book production and publishing in western India, the play was published only after the playwright’s death.) By now Phule was convinced that Western education, with its rationalist outlook, could play a key role in the emancipation of the low castes and the concomitant undermining of Brahmin power.

  Although his teachers seem to have seen a potential convert, Phule resisted the pressure to become a Christian. As with Rammohan Roy, the encounter with missionaries helped him fashion a critique of orthodox Hinduism. Like Roy, again, he came to profess a deism which held that there was a single Creator who provided the moral touchstone for society as a whole.

  From the 1860s, Phule’s interest shifted from managing his schools to wider programmes of social reform, such as widow remarriage. Meanwhile, he was also active in business, selling hardware to factories in and around Poona. He was also successful as a contractor for roadworks and bridges. The money he made from these enterprises was ploughed back into his social activities.

  By the 1870s, Phule was a figure of some influence and importance in Maharashtra. His profile was enhanced by a series of powerful tracts that he published, which spoke out against the stranglehold of Br
ahmins over the social, economic, political and spiritual life of western India. These were sometimes written in the form of a dialogue between the reformer and one of his adversaries. Through innovative readings of Hindu legends, he presented the Brahmin as a wily and unscrupulous operator who acted always to exploit and suppress the peasant and the labourer. Likewise, in a reinterpretation of the career of the warrior-king Shivaji, he represented the warrior as relying, in his campaigns and for his victories, on his peasant armies rather than (as the conventional historiography had it) on his Brahmin ministers and advisers.

  In 1873 Phule helped found the Satyashodak Samaj, the Society of Truth-Seekers. To qualify as a member, an individual had to get fifty letters of support and nomination. Some of the rules of the society were typical of reformers of the time—the vow not to consume alcohol, for example. Others were daringly precocious, such as the obligation to spread education among women and low castes. The samaj also promoted marriages that would take place without the involvement of Brahmin priests.

  Phule’s status and achievements were recognized by his nomination to the Municipal Council of Poona in 1876. He, in turn, looked with favour upon the British Raj, which held the balance of power between the different communities, and which—so he thought—could be persuaded to recognize that it was not the Brahmins but the more numerous cultivating castes who were the real representatives of Indian society and the real carriers of its history.