Social Scientist

History in the Present Tense: On Sumit Sarkar's 'Modern India'

Author(s): Arvind N. Das
Source: Social Scientist, Vol. 12, No. 10 (Oct., 1984), pp. 42-67
Published by: Social Scientist
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3520182
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History
in the Present Tense: On Sumit Sarkar's
'Modern India'
IN THE RECENT
YEARS,
as several universities have
gone through
the motions of
revising
their
syllabi
for
under-graduate
and
post-
graduate
students,
there has been considerable discussion on the availa-
bility
of
adequate
text-books. The discussion
has, however, mainly
veered round the
question
of the
language
of the
text-books,
their
physical availability
and, only occasionally,
on their
quality. Rarely,
if at
all,
has there been much discussion on the
very
role of
text-books,
such as
they
are,
in
under-graduate
and
post-graduate
education in
Indian universities. Are text-books mere
starting points
of education or
do
they represent
the
very
end of education-veritable
encyclopaediae
on
particular subjects-meant
to tell students
all,
omitting
no detail howso-
ever
slight
? What is the
relationship
between the teacher and the
text-book ? Do text books become substitutes for the teacher ?
Since the role of text-books has never been
adequately
discussed,
the
purveyors
of
packaged knowledge
have made
hay. Bearing
the
heavy
burden of unfiltered
knowledge,
the clients in the educational
system-
the students--have been forced to
accept
as common
currency
the 'Bazaar
Notes' which have
encapsulated
the information and
analysis required
of them to
pass
out
through
the narrow
gates
of academe.
And,
as the
numbers of such
'Guides',
'Notes' and
'Keys'
have
proliferated,
inculcation
of
logical thinking,
the
honing up
of the scientific investi-
gation,
critical
analysis
and even
good reading
have been
pushed
inexorably
to the
edges
of the academic scene.
In
supplying
such
packaged knowledge,
which saves the
young
student the trouble of
reading anything
else,
or
thinking
for
himself,
private
enterprise
has to date
played
the most
important
role. In the
field of
history,
the
prolific
L
Mukherjee,
the redoubtable V D
Mahajan
or the
partnership
of Grover and
Sethi, etc,
have
helped
thousands
of
students
in
passing
examinations.
Recently,
however,
the State Text
Book
Corporations,
the National Council of Educational Research and
Training
and the National Book Trust have made the
production
of
packaged
knowledge
a
public
sector
activity
also.
HISTORY IN PRESENT TENSE
The
publication
of Sumit Sarkar's Modern
India,* undoubtedly
one
of the
significant
occurrences in the
production
of
text-books,
is an
important
milestone in this
process
of
encapsulating
information and
analysis
"for the benefit of students".
Hence,
although
this book
by
itself is an
extremely
valuable addition to
history-writing
as
such,
discussion on it must start with
taking
into account the role such a
signi-
ficant
publication
is
likely
to
play
as a text-book or as a
very
valuable
and
very
convenient handbook on the
history
of modern India to be used
by
students.
According
to the
author,
"The
present
work has a twofold aim.
It
attempts
a
synthesis
of the massive data unearthed in recent
years by
a flood of
monographs
on
specific problems
in
political,
social and
economic
history.
At the same time it
explores,
in the
light
of
my
own
research
interests,
the
possibilities
of a
'history
from below' as distinct
from the usual
tendency
in the
historiography
of Indian nationalism to
concentrate on the
activities,
ideals or factional manouevres of leaders"
(p vii).
What this means for students who can
stop worrying
and start
loving
moders Indian
history
examinations is that
they
can
get every-
thing
the examiners want to ask about the
subject
at one
place
without
the trouble of
going
to the
orginal
authors. In different educational
contexts,
this is
going
to have serious
implications.
For
one,
this is
perhaps
the first
good
text-book on
history
for
post-secondary
school
students
going through university systems
which
expect
them to either
read more than one book for a
subject
or to make
analysis
and
concep-
tualisation for
themselves,
or
ideally,
both. But the
book,
by
the
very
virtue of the fact that it is so
good, may
well defeat the
purpose,
In a
situation as in some
metropolitan
universities where able teachers and
supplementary reading
meterial are available to the
students,
the book
may
serve to
ignite
the need for further
investigation
and
independent
analysis.
In other
situations,
like
mofussil colleges
where total
holdings
in libiaries
may
not exceed a few hundred
books,
reading
this
particular
book could
encompass
the
totality
of
learning history
of "modern
India",
uncritically
and
perhaps uncomprehendingly,
as there would be no
opportunity
for cross-reference. This last
aspect
is
quite significant as,
and this is one of the
qualities
of the
book,
it is not a mere
compendium
of fact and
opinion
like various earlier 'text-books'
allowing
the reader
to take his
pick
from various conclusions recored but an
original piece
of reasearch
admittedly
and
self-consciously attempting
to take a
parti-
cular
approach.
As
such,
it is
only
fair to
compare
it with similar
publications by Christopher Hill,
Eric Hobsbawm etc. It can be said
about Sumit Sarkar as was said about Hobsabwm
that, "under
guise
of
a text book he has
produced
an
orginal
and
masterly reinterpretation
of
*Sirlit
Sarkar,
Modern India:
1885-1947,
Macmillan India
Limited,
New
Delhi,
1933, pp
xiv
&486,
Rs 26.50
("subsidized by
the Government of
India,
through
the
National Book
Trust, India,
for the benefit of
students").
43
SOCIAL SCIENTIST
(Western)
economic
(not
to
speak
of social and
political) history".1
Such books
certainly
have more than one use and Sumit Sarkar's book
too will be read and used
by people
other than those
preparing
for exa-
minations.
However,
as it has been
published
in its
present
form "for
the benefit of
students",
first examination of its content must be carried
out from their
point
of
view,
that is, from the
point
of view of someone
who is not
already grounded
in the facts and controversies which are
current
knowledge among professional
historians but one who is
reading
history probably
for the first time. Such a
person may
well
get
confused
with
names, dates, events, etc,
poppoing up suddenly
at him without
adequate background
information. This is not to
say
that the
style
or
cantext of the book should have been diluted with additional informa-
tion on each
aspect
covered but a
chronology, glossary,
an
adequate
index,
a few
maps
and some
degree
of
background biogarphical, geo-
political, sociological
and other information would be of immense use
to students. On the other
hand,
if the book is aimed at a wider reader-
ship
than
only students,
it should have recorded a caveat to this effect
as Hobsbawm has done with
regard
to his own work: "This book will
certianly
be read
by
some who wish to
pass
one or other of the numer-
ous examinations in economic and social
history
which face students
today,
and I
naturally,
hope
that it will
help
them to do so.
However,
it is not
designed simply
as a text
book,
nor can it be used
very profita-
bly
as a book of reference....
(What
it
covers)
should be of interest to
any
intelligent
citizen,
and I have therefore tried to write in as non-technical
a
way
as
possible
and to assume no
prior knowledge
of
any
of the social
sciences in the reader. This does not mean that the
questions
asked
here in
ordinary prose
could not be reformulated in the more technical
language
of the various
disciplines.
However,
I have assumed an ele-
mentary knowledge
of the outlines of British
history...
It would be
helpful
if readers who
happen
not to know what the
Napolionic
Wars
were,
or are
ignorant
of names such as Peel and
Gladstone,
were
pre-
pared
to find out on theis own."2
But Sumit Sarkar's book has
been
publised
without such an
assumption expltcitly
stated and we shall take it for what it
is,
much
more than a text book: "it
explores
..the
possibilities
of a
'history
from
below' as distinct from the usual
tendency...."
It is on this last
aspect
that the book needs to be
critically
examined,
precisely
because it is an
exceptionally good
book in
many
ways
and, further,
it is
likely
to be the book for
many
students of
history
and,
as
such,
the
example
of
'history
from below'. The
very
fact that
Sumit Sarkar has authored this volume will also make the book
impor-
tant for
many
readers who are familiar not
only
with his earlier work
which is of
exceptional quality
but also with him as an
inspiring
teacher,
an
outstanding
scholar and an unorthodox
analyst
who is a
challenge
to
any 'grey
eminence' in the
history
trade in India
today.
That such a
scholar also
acknowledges
"with
particular gratitude
and
pleasure
a
44
HISTORY IN PRESENT TENSE
nightlong
discussion with
Ranajit
Guha
(the
trend setter in Subaltern
Studies)...which
modified
many
of
my
ideas..."
(p viii)
will make
many
others look
eagerly
to this
'history
from below'.
It is with this realisation of the
significant place
which the book
will
occupy
that it needs to be studied
carefully
and
critically.
II
Conventional
historiography
"eddies round obscure dates and
deservedly
obscure
biographies
of
kings
and
prophets".3
In recent
times,
various
attempts
have been made to
get
a new
perspective
on
history,
asserting
that "the more
important question
is not who was
king,
nor
whether the
given region
had a
king,
but whether its
people
used a
plough, light
or
heavy,
at the time".4 Such
attempts
at a new under-
standing
of
history
take as their
point
of
departure
the view that
"history
must reflect man's
progress
at
satisfying
his needs in
cooperation
with
all his fellow
men,
not the success of a few at
satisfying
them at the
expense
of most of their fellow men. ... To maintain that
history
has
always
been made
by
such
backward,
ignorant,
common
people,
and
that
they,
not the
high priest, glittering aristocrat, war-lord, financier,
or
demagogue,
must
shape
it better in
future,
seems
presumptuous
for-
malism.
Nevertheless,
it is true."5
Further,
the new
historiography
is
action-oriented: it
questions
the
inequities obtaining
in
present-day
society
and concerns itself with
changing
the situation for the better:
"the answer has to be worked out
by
correct
thinking,
for which the
study
of
history
is
quite indispensable.
But the solution has then to be
made a
reality by
correct
action,
which means a
step beyond
mere
study
of the
past."6
It is with this
perspective, looking
not on the
past
nor even on the
'given' present
but on a desirable
future,
a future based on the
aspira-
tions of
today's oppressed people,
that new
historiography challenges
conventional wisdom.
And,
in
doing so,
it
rejects
the
perimeters
laid
down
by tradition,
convention and
'knowledge
from above'
regarding
both content and method of
study
of human
activity. Many professional
historians,
taking
this
perpective,
have
produced
new
insights
on the lives
and deeds of hitherto obscured sections of
society.
Even more
signi-
ficantly, many others,
who are as such not
practitioners
of the trade of
history
but have been active
participants
in social
change processes
based
among
the
people
at tlle bottom of the social
hierarchy,
have written
first-hand accounts of those movements.
Others,
scientists and
literati,
anthropologists
and
sociologists,
have been
paying
attention to different
aspects
of 'folk
activity',
invention and
adoption
of
technologies
related
to
production,
the accumulation of
'folk-memory',
the
development
of
'folk
consciousness',
the social articulation of the
understanding
of their
situation arrived at the
'popular'
level-all elements in a new
perspective
on the
past
and critical evaluation of the
present
directed towards the
appreciation
of the
possible
human futures from which the real future
45
SOCIAL SCIENTIST
will
emerge,
not
inevitably
or in a manner
pre-determined by
"historical
antecedents' but
by
conscious human
activity. History,
as Marx warned
us, provides
no answers and will not
fight
our bettles for us.
By
itself
history
does
nothing;
it is
men-'real, living
men'
fighting
for their
ideals-on whom the outcome will
depend. History
from below is thus
activist, popular
and
partisan.
And, writing 'history
from below' is not
easy.
The
concept
itself
is
revolutionary.
The
power
of socialisation exercised
by
conventional
wisdom is so
strong
that it is
extremely
difficult to break out of the
boundaries set from above and
creatively apply
the
concept
of
'history
from below'. The
process
brooks no
compromises:
one cannot serve
both 'the above' and 'below'
simultaneously.
It is
just
as
necessary
for
such an exercise to look down on the above from
below; rejecting
con-
ventional factual and
analytical knowledge,
as to find new facts and
interpretations. Unforunately,
in
many instances,
this
rejection
is not
carried out
strongly enough
and the
attempt
ends
up by
mere accretion
rather than innovation. There is still in much of this 'new'
writing
the
search for the absolute and
complete
historical 'truth' in
spite
of the
theoretical realisation that there are no absolutes. At best what is
admitted,
even
by
the
practitioners
of such 'new'
history-writing,
is that
the absolute truth has not been arrived at because
knowledge is,
to
date,
incomplete.
The
attempt
is, therefore,
restricted to
filling
in the
gaps
in the conventional
picture
of the
past by adding
to the
'history
from
above'
aspect
of
'history of
the below'. 'New'
historiography,
in
many
cases, merely
widens the frame of the conventional
picture
of
kings,
prophets, great
men,
mahatmas and
significant
events
(in
cinemato-
graphic parlance,
a
close-up
is
replaced by
a middle distance or even
long shot,)
finds
gaps
in the
picture,
and
attempts
to include mortals
lesser than
kings
and
prophets
into the
enlarged picture.
If there are
still blank
spaces
in the
picture, attempt
is made to fill in futher detail.
Within the
existing,
albeit
expanded,
framework are added a
struggling
tribal
here,
a rack-rented
peasant there,
an
emerging proletarian
else-
where.
The
picture
becomes more full and there are more details
to
notice. But the cainvas and the frame remain the
same,
bounded
by
'elite' events and dates. In such
cases,
subaltern studies become
more
sub-alternative
studies and
'history
from below' is
replaced by 'history
at the below'
or at
best, 'history of
the below'. As an eminent
professional
historian
Sabyasachi
Bhattacharya
has
pointed
out,
"The
history
of the
'oppressed',
or
'history
from below' is not
merely
the addition of
some
'radical'
topics
to the historians' stock in trade. ...
History
of the
poor
should
not be
just poor hirtory."7
In
spite
of the self-conscious
attempt
on the
part
of Sumit Sarkar
to
remedy
some of these
defects,
his book
too,
at least in some
respects,
suffers
from this limitation in
exploring
"the
possibilities
of
a
'history
from
below' as distinct from the usual
tendency
in the
historiography
of Indian nationalism to concentrate on the activities, ideals,
or
46
HISTORY IN PRESENT TENSE
factional manoeuvres of leaders".
Let us take one of the limitations of traditional
historiography
that Sumit Sarkar
places
on himself: his
points
of
beginning
and
ending
the book-1885 and 1947. The reader
may justifiably
ask the relvance
of these dates in
beginning
and
ending
a
'history
from below'. The author
states,
"The
sixty years
or so that lie between the foundation of the
Indian National
Congress
in 1885 and the achievement of
independence
in
August
1947 witnessed
perhaps
the
greatest
transition in our
country's
long history" (p 1; emphasis added).
Mark the final words. The
starting
point
of "the
greatest
transition in our
country's long history"
is indi-
cated not
by any
reference to
changes
in the forces of
production
obtaining
in
it,
nor of the
particularity
of relations of
production,
nor
of natural events which are
cataclysmic enough
to become
significant
points
of reference in
popular memory
nor a
major
occurrence of
popular upsurge,
nor,
for that
matter,
the enactment of the
Bengal
Tenancy
Act
(also
in
1885),
the first
legal recognition
of a
large
dent
made from below in the Permanent Settlement but "the foundation of
the Indian National
Congress",
an event when an
"attempt
launched
at the initiative
af
Allan Octavian Hume succeeded on a
permanent (sic)
basis,
and 72
largely self-appointed delegates
met for the first session of
the Indian National
Congress
at
Bombay
in December 1885"
(p 88,
emphasis added).
The author elaborates: "While 1885 was chosen
mainly for
convenience it can be
argued
that what is
recognizably
'modern' India
began
not with the
Mughal break-up
or with
Plassey,
but
during
the latter half of the nineteenth
century" (p
vii,
emphasis
added).
Two
significant
issues arise from this:
(i)
the
question
of the
historian's 'convenience' in
attempting
a
'history
from below' and
(ii)
the
quadri-partition
of
history
into the
water-tight compartments
of
'ancient', 'medieval', 'modern' and almost as an
after-thought,
'con-
temporary'.
The first
quality
which differentiates
'history
from below' from
conventional
historiography
is that
through 'history
from below' histo-
rical
learning
is transformed from an exercise in favour of
conservatism
to an active
struggle principally
directed towards
change through
"autonomous
popular
movements"
(p vii). And,
if this is the concern
of the
historian,
his
personal
'convenience' has no
place
in
determining
a
particular
event or
personality
to be of
significance. History
is what
specific people
in
specific
situations
collectively
and
actively
'recollect'
of their
past
in
understanding
their
present,
living
in it and in
attemp-
ting
to
change
it. As a
political exercise, therefore,
it
ought
not to be
left to be determined
merely by
the
pleasure
of the
ruling
classes or the
convenience of the
professional
historian.
"History
is much too
impor-
tant a matter to be left to the historian."8
Ruling
classes and
groups
have
always attempted
to control
history, invoking
the
secrecy
of the
archives,
controlling
historical
knowledge, practising
deliberate occulta-
tion and
falsification,
ruthlessly uprooting
and
destroying
evidence of
47
SOCIAL SCIENTIST
significance
in the
popular mind, selectively releasing
'facts' for the
amusement of the
professional
historian
and,
almost at
will, making
a
particular
event seem
significant,
or
insignificant,
for the convenience
of the historian. And
professional
historians have swallowed this
bait thrown
by
the
ruling
classes in the mistaken belief that the
boundaries of
history
are left to be drawn
according
to their
technical, specialised competence. Indeed, they
have
encouraged
narrow
professionalism
to such an extent that "the researcher is
tempted
to
magnify
the
importance
of his
(sic)
own
period".'
The technical division
of labour and the use of the historian's
specialised
know-how can be
justified only
on condition that such a division of labour be
collectively
determined
by
all concerned rather than claimed as a
right by
historians
alone.
And,
in the context of social demand
determining
not
only
the
need but also the method and content of historical
study,
there is little
value of the historian's 'convenience' in the creation of
'history
from
below'. 'Convenience' in terms of such new
historiography
is
merely
an
euphemism
for
compromise
with
bourgeois knowledge
and its sources and
acceptance
of
bourgeois
control over
history.
Bourgeois
control over
history
is also reflected in its
quadri-
partition. "Quadripartition
fulfils definite functions both
ideologically
and at the level of academic institutions".10 It serves as an official
ideological apparatus performing pedagogical,
institutional,
intellectual
and
political
functions. Since the
days
of
Voltaire,
the term 'Modern
Times' has consecrated the claim of the
rising bourgeoisie
in the West
to
bring
an end to
history,
and-in the name of 'modernism'-to
control the future of all mankind. Historians in India
adopt
the same
value-loaded term 'modern' with reference to India without
carefully
examining
its
import.
In the case of the
European
nineteenth
century
bourgeoisie,
its own
ambitions,
its own
interests,
its own future were
identified with the course of
history
itself. The
concept
of
progress
which
goes
hand-in-hand with claims of modernisation as an absolute
was the
ideological
foundation of
capitalism.
In the twentieth
century,
the idea of
progress
as the inherent forward movement of
human socie-
ties,
as a
superior
motive
force,
remains one of the exioms of
imperia-
lism's technicist
ideology.
'Modernism' and
'progress'
justify imperia-
lism and
provide
a
readymade
criterion
by
which to
judge
a
society
or a
social class in terms of the dominant model of
development.
On the
one
side,
expressions
like,
"You can't stand in the
way
of
progress!"
or "It's the law of modernisation!" constitute a
supposedly
unanswera-
ble
argument-one
that has been
sought
to be internalised
among
the
people
themselves,
even those who are the victims of such 'modernisa-
tion' and
'progress'.
On the
other,
in the name of this claimed
progress
and
modernity,
the
people
and the forces
they
are
subjected
to
are classified as
'primitive',
'backward', 'tribal', 'pre-modern':
"not
modernity,
but a consolidation of semi-feudal
relations,
was therefore
the hallmark of the colonial
impact
on our
agrarian
scene"
(pp 35-36).
48
HISTORY IN PRESENT TENSE
In the concrete situation of Indian
capitalism,
such a statement has
the
implication
that such relations are mere
'pre-modern'
remnants in
the
sweeping away
of which the 'national
bourgeoisie'
has an interest
and
significant
role. An
unquestioning adoption
of the
terminological
parameters
of
imperialism
thus leads the
author,
for
instance,
to make
this studied statement in
describing
a
process
in "what is
recognisably
'modern'
India"(p vii)!
The inherent contradication can
only
be
glossed
over if one takes a
bourgeois,
modernistic, narrowly
technicist view of
progress,
a view wherein the dominant actors are still above the
people
and not
participants
in a
'history
from below'.
The classification of a
period
of our
history
as that of
"recogniza-
bly
'modern' India"
springs
from the
compartmentalisation
of human
activity: progressive industry,
modern
technology,
semi-feudal
agri-
culture,
backward social
relations,
'tribal'
rituals,
ancient
caste-systems,
primitive bride-burning,
and
weaving
it all into a fabric created
by
early bourgeois
historical
optimism,
a certitude of
progressive
and
uninterrupted improvement
of
living
conditions of the human race-a
certitude in
linearity
shared with the
emergent bourgeoisie by
the
Stalinist strand within Marxism.
True,
historical
optimism
was not
absent from the
thinking
of Karl Marx
himself,
but what the
principles
of
progress
in Marx's
writings
mean is
that,
in the
long
run-and
only
in the
long
run-all human societies are
capable
of
progressively freeing
themselves,
which is
quite
different from the
conception
of automatic
progress regardless
of what
happens along
the
way.
"The modes of
production
and socio-economic forms of
organisation
as defined
by
Marxist
theory
are abstract models. And as abstract models
they
are
indispensable.
In
reality, however,
passage
from one
system
to another
is not a mechanical
process.
Concrete
history
is
unfinished, incomplete.
It consists of
detours,
gaps, obstacles, take-offs, shortcuts, survivals,
reversals-and even of
regressions
and retreats. The
study
of these
complex phenomena
has been
consistently
over-looked
by narrowly
specialised
historians.
They
have abandoned it to the
'philosophers
of
history'
in the worst sence of the word-the
practitioners
of
empty
rhetoric,
babbling
for
page
on end about the tumultuous March of
Tinme...."11 And,
the
unquestioning,
uncritical historian has taken
for
granted
that because the Indian
bourgeosie
is
recent,
its India has
to be
'recognizably
modern India'.
The historian of 'modern India'
having adopted
the
starting
date
of 1885 "for
convenience",
takes as the
ending date,
the
apocalyptic
midnight
in
August
1947: "the millions who
rejoiced throughout
the
sub-continent,
thrilled to Nehru's
midnight speech
on Indian's
'tryst
with
destiny'
and made of 15
August
an
unforgettable experience
even
for someone who was then
only
a
child,
and not been
entirely
deluded.
The Communists in 1948-51 learnt to their cost that the
slogan yeh
azadijhuta (sic)
hai
('this
freedom is a
farce')
cut little ice. Indian
freedom was the
beginning
of a
process
of decolonization which has
49
SOCIAL SCIENTIST
proved
irresistible...."
(p 453). Going
on to write on the achievements
of
post-independence
India in terms of
development
of "an
independent
foreign policy," promulgation
of "a
broadly
democratic constitution...
despite many limitations",
gradual easing
out of
princes
and zamindars,
imposition
of land
ceilings (seldom imposed,) achieving
"the old ideal
of
linguistic reorganisation
of
states", building up
of basic industries
through planned development
of a
public
sector,
considerable increase
in food
production (pp
3-4 and
454),
Sumit Sarkar himself
says:
"None
of this
happend automatically
due to
August
1947,
for much of it was
only
realised
through
bitter
popular struggles" (p 454).
Nevertheless,
he
ends his
attempt
at
'history
from below' at
1947,
an
example
of "the
heroic climax to which all earlier endeavours
inevitably
lead".'2 At
another
place, Sarkar,
commenting
on the
Cambridge
scholars,
says,
"Namierism tends in fact to
by-pass periods
of
big
movements: thus
Bayly's
otherwise valuable
study
of Allahabad ends
abruptly
in 1920"
(p 8).
Could not a similar criticism be made of the
present
otherwise
valuable
study
? Or does the
rooting
of the state "in the choice of a
broadly capitalist path
of
development" (whatever 'broadly' may signify)
represent enough
of an
apocalypse
to end an
attempt
at
"history
fiom
below" ?
Given that both the
beginning
has more to do with convenience
of the author and the exercise ends at
outlining
"a
complex process
of
change through struggle
which is still far from
complete" (p 454),
what
then is the
significance
of
"history
from below" ? A
rough page
count
indicates that if one-third of the book talks of
activity
at the
popular
level, nearly
twice as much
space
and attention is devoted to the "acti-
vities,
ideals of factional manoeuvres of leaders".
Analysis
of
space
distribution is of course not the
way
to arrive at the
approach
of an
author: 'above' can be studied from 'below' and vice
versa,
but if the
sections on the 'above' stand
by
themselves,
without reference to the
'below'
(e g
'The
Viceroyalty
of
Curzon',
'Business
Groups
and
Upper
Classes' 'The Mahatma's Finest
Hour')
then not much
distinguishes
such
history
from the "usual
tendency
in the
historiography
of Indian
nationalism".
Furher,
if activities of the
people
are
put
in the context
of the
actions,
ideals or factional manoeuvres of leaders
(e g,
the
peasant
movements at
Champaran
and Kheda and the workers'
struggle
at
Ahmedabad under the rubric of 'Mahatma Gandhi'
(pp 183-186)
or
under titles such as
'Congress
and
Labour', 'Congress
and Kisans'
etc)
the
attempt
becomes not so much to
explore
the
possibilities
of a
'history
from
below' but
merely
to estimate the
influence of popular 'pressures'
on
the decisions and actions
of
the elite. As Sumit Sarkar himself
says,
"...the
decisions and actions of
leaders,
British or Indian,
cannot
really
be
understood without the
counterpoint provided
by pressures
from below"
(pp 414).
Note the word
'counterpoint',
another value loaded term used
uncritically.
The
implication
of such a classification of
popular
action
is to make the
people appear merely
reactive, objects
of the actions of
50
HISTORY IN PRESENT TENSE
the
elite,
not
really capable
of
autonomy.
Hence,
the
emphasis
is not
on the
people,
not
'history
from below' but on the
elite,
British or
Indian,
in
power
or outside its formal structure.
Witness,
"The
British(!)
did build in India an
impressive railway
network..."
(p 64),
"The net
result
(of
Curzon's
administration)was
the
beginning
of
quite
a new
phase
in the
history
of Indian nationalism"
(p 101),
"...Nationalist
(!)
interest in labour
slumped suddenly" (p 119),
"student recruits to
Extermism...were also
quickly
drawn into
terrorism,
since
prospects
for
mass
politics
were
evidently (!)
poor"
(p 126),
"Indian Communist
groups
on the whole tried to work within the nationalist mainstream"
(p 249),
"...nationalist
collapse
of 1932-33"
(p
257,
"(Congress)
did
raise the
demand, however,
for universal
sufferage
for adult of both
sexes,
... a
significant comment, this,
on the
oft-repeated argument
that
the Indian nationalists were elitist
politicians,
white rulers were
seeking
to
protect
the interests of the masses"
(p 264),
"Nationalist
support
for
labour came easier in
Bengal
than elsewhere..."
(p 269),
"...it must be
emphasised
that the
anti-imperialist
movement in the world's
biggest
colony
did enter a
radically
new
phase
when at
midnight
on New Year's
Eve,
the
Congress
at
long
last
adopted
the creed of Puma
Swaraj..." (pp
283-284, emphasis added),
"...militant students
fanning
out from
centres.. and
leading
a veritable
peasant
rebellion..."
(p 395,
emphasis
added),
"The
strikes, however,
were all on
purely
economic
demands;
what remained
lacking
was a
sufficiently
influential
and determined
political leadership" (p
439,
emphasis added),
"The
historically
much
more
significant point surely
is that Nehru's
opposition
was sufficient to
make Mountbatten
abandon,
a
plan
.."
(p 448, emphasis added)
and so
on
Altogether
a
grin
list of
attributing popular
achievements to the
elite,
taking
an undifferentiated view of 'culture'
seeing
nationalism to be a
monopoly
of
only
a section at the
top, understanding popular pressure
as
the
doing
of
leading individuals, etc, scarcely
a
'history
from below' !
'History
from below' would
begin
with the
rejection
of the
rhetoric of the elite rather than its reinforcement and sanctification
through adept usage. Calling
on
'history'
to buttress its
position
is an
old trick of the rulers who invoke the
'Tryst
with
Destiny'.
The critical
historian,
attempting
a
'history
from below' sees
through
the charade
and asks not
only
what
history
is about but also what is
historyfor.
He
concerns himself with the uses of
history-by
the rulers and
by
the
people.
The
past
is
dead,
as dead as the human
beings
who made it. The
only
reason,
beyond
sheer
antiquarianism,
to be concerned with the
past,
is
to
gain insight
into the
present
and a
glimpse
into
possible
futures. Seen
in this manner
history
becomes an active
discipline,
used not
merely
to
understand
society
and to wait for the
logical,
'historical',
inevitable
culmination,
but indeed a
weapon
of
change. And,
as a
weapon
of
change, 'history
from below' becomes
live, vital,
uncompromising,
sharp,
even
insurrectionary (just
as
insurrectionary sociology
came
about in the late
'sixties).
As
such, history
from below throws
away
its
51
SOCIAL SCIENTIST
protective, apologetic
inverted commas
and, bursting
out of the
green-
house created for it "in the
light
of...research interests"
(p vii),
becomes social
praxis. History
from below
replaces history
from above
and does not
merely supplement
it. The search for
popular history
begins
with the
explicit
realisation that historical truth is
opposed
to
its
big ugly
sister,
historical
myth.
Between these there is no
golden
mean.
Participating
in such a
process,
the historian cannot
daily looking
for a "...
concord, (even if)
all but
unique
in its time... between
conscious
intelligentsia (sic)
nationalism and
plebian militancy" (p 48).
He has to
consciously
eschew ideas like "the mainstream of Indian life":
"The term 'tribe' should not
convey
a sense of
complete
isolatian from
the mainstream
of
Indian
life" (p 44).
And,
he has to
get
himself free
of the
terminological traps
laid
by
the
ruling
class: "... he
(Birsa Munda)
is revered
for different and sometimes
quite contradictory
reasons
-
as a
full-fledged
nationalist
(whatever
that
might mean!),
a
prophet
of a
separatist
Jharkhand,
or a hero of the extreme
left"
(p 48, emphasis
added).
The use of such
anti-popular,
value-loaded terms indicates the
degree
of
'unlearning'
which even as
accomplished
a historian as Sumit
Sarkar
(who
stands,
in the words of title of the
autobiography
of Andre
Gunder
Frank's
father,
"To the
Left,
where the heart
is")
needs to
go
through
in
exploring
the
possibilities
of a
history
from below.
For
long years
the
people
have suffered the loss of control over
their own
history
because
professional
historians have
played
the
game
of the
ruling
classes, depending
on their sources: their revenue
proceed-
ings,
their censuses,
their
records,
their
correspondence providing
the
information
they want, using
their
language,
their terms:
(separatist,
extremist,
mainstream
society etc.).
And,
when critical historians
have tried to shatter the shibboleths
through empirical investigation
and
rigorous
analysis,
their efforts have been undervalued as
constituting
"micro-studies"
(pp
31, 184, etc.)
not
measuring upto
"rounded
(sic)
general
studies
of
major
social
groups" (p
43, emphasis added).
It is
an
understanding
of
history
as
merely
a written record that leads to an
observation
like " ... there is ... no real
history
of zamindars or
peasants,
agricultural
labourers or artisans, industrial workers or
bourgeois
elements, analysing
the
changes
both in their conditions of living
and
in their consciousness"
(p
43).
To
say
that there is no real
history
of
such
groups
comes from the kind of attitude "exemplified
by that
possibly
apocryphal
story
of the Tsar of Russia who, when told of
Pushkin's
plans
of
writing
the
history
of the
peasant
leader Pugachev,
said
placidly:
'such a man has no
history'."13
Such an observation is strangely
reminiscent
of "the
light-hearted
sneer, India had some
episodes,
but
no
history, (which
was)
used to
justify
lack of study ... on the
part
of
foreign
writers
about India's
past...
we have to reconstruct a
history
without
episode...."'4
And,
in the construction of such a history
without
episodes,
veritably
a
history
from below, the historian must get rid
of
52
HISTORY IN PRESENT TENSE
the
1885-1905, 1905-1917,
1917-1927,
1928-1937, 1937-1945,
1945-1947
division which is
episodic
and
hinged
on
'apocalyptic'
events like the
founding
of the
Congress,
the
viceroyalty
of
Curzon,
the Montford
Reforms,
the
appointment
of the Simon
Commission,
the formation of
'popular'
ministries in the
provinces,
the Second World War
and,
of
course,
the famous
midnight
in 1947. If the mould is
elitist,
the cast-
ing
cannot be
popular.
A
non-episodic understanding
of
history
draws
the historian back from a futile search for "rounded
general
studies"
and
brings
him to the realisation that historical truth can be revealed
even
through
"microstudies" albeit "recent"
(e g,
Kathleen
Gough,
1974;
K Suresh
Singh,
1966;
etc).
Such a
history
from below would
certainly
not
"prefer
to
express patriotism through (a)
... vicarious but
safe medium"
(p 5) exhibited,
for
instance,
in remarks such as "The
very
use of the term 'elite' is dubious... as the one
genuine
and
truly
exclusive elite in colonial India consisted of the whites"
(p 67),
nor
would it
automatically accept
the term
"separatism" (p 255)
to chara-
cterise 'tribal' demands. Such
usage
makes for a
history
which is
neither from below nor
ostensibly
from above. But the "unstated or
unconscious bias
(which)
is the most
dangerous
of all"
(p 11)
lets it
hang uncertainly
in the
middle,
at the will of the
ruling
classes,
search-
ing
for the "true elite"
(p 67),
"mainstream of Indian life"
(p44),
"Indian
unity" (p 255), "continuity through change" (p 11).
III
To be fair to the
author, however,
it must be recorded that writ-
ing history
from below is not his main concern: "The sudden
expansion
of research on modern India over the last decade has made
existing
text
books and
general
studies
seriously
out of date.
Something
like a
synthe-
sis,
however
provisional
or
incomplete,
of this wealth of new material
has become
essential,
and that is the main
purpose of
this volume"
(p 8,
emphasisadded).
In this
task,
Sumit Sarkar has succeeded
admirably.
His
coverage
of the vast
quantities
of material.
supplemented
through
independent
research,
is
presented lucidly
without the
jerks
of
style
which ars difficult to avoid in academic
writing.
A
refreshing aspect
of the book is the non-use of that
irritating symbol
of
professional
acad-
emics,
the footnote.
Compared
to most other works on the
subject,
the
present
book is
outstanding
in its
scope
and
coverage.
The
warp
of
independent
research and the woof of recent
historiography
have
made for a smooth
fabric,
albeit shaded tricolour.
If, therefore,
on
account of some unanswered
questions jerks
are felt here and there
in
going through
the
book,
their
impact
seems so much more
exagger-
ated
just
because the rest makes for such smooth
reading. Precisely
because the book is so
comprehensive,
the reader
may expect
in it
answers to all
questions arising
from
reading it,
forgetting perhaps
that
some of those
questions may
have
appeared important enough
to the
professional
historian to
attempt
an
answer.
Nevertheless,
as some of
53
SOCIAL SCIENTIST
these
questions
seem to the
lay
reader to be
important
from
a
contemporary perspective-and history
does concern itself with the
present-it
is worthwhile
raising
some of those
questions.
One
prolem
which arises in
any
discussion of "what is
recogniz-
ably
modern India" revolves round the
heterogeneity
of
India,
its
uneven
development, regional
and sectional
disparities,
the
"unity
in
diversity"
that is often
upheld by
the
proponents
of "national
integration"
and centralised
socio-political
control. Such dis-
parities
are often recorded in the book but there is neither an
adequate explanation
of their occurrence in the
period
covered nor of
their
impact
in
subsequent
times. The most
important
of these
springs
to mind at the
very
end of the book.
If,
the
question
arises,
the
proce-
sses outlined in the
very
end of the book
historically
lead to what is
the India
today:
decolonised, pursuing
an
independent foreign policy,
non-aligned
and
friendly
towards socialist
countries,
with a
broadly
democratic
polity,
basic
industries,
planned development,
etc:
why
is it that the same
processes
had different results in India and Pakistan ?
Surely,
the commonness of historical
exprience
at least over the
period
covered, 1885-1947,
should have ensured not such dissimilar results.
Or,
is
history really
subservient to the
present
rather than the other
way
round? Has Pakistan come out of the same
continuity through
change
which characterises what is
recognisably
modern
India ?
This
unexplained
difference
apart,
there are
many
other
quest-
ions which also arise in the context of
regional disparities
in the
history
of India. For
instance,
a section on "Social Roots of the
Intelligentsia"
(pp 65-70) reports
that in 1886-87 there were 18,390
"educated
natives"
in
Madras, 16,639
in
Bengal,
7,196
in
Bombay (all
nodal
points
of
contact
with the
British),
but
only 1,944
in
Punjab,
608 in the Central
Provi-
nces and 274 in Assam. Yet in
spite
of this
disparity
of numbers
bet-
ween
the Presidencies and the hinterland a claim is made that
"Engilsh
education
gave
its beneficiaries a
unique capacity
to establish
contacts
on a
countrywide
scale" (p 66).
One wonders if such contacts
were
uniform
or of
equal
efficacy
on a ' country-wide
scale". Secondly,
what has been the result of these different numbers of 'educated
nati-
ves' in different
areas on the
subsequent
development
of the
areas
themselves?
Could the
present
events in
Punjab
and Assam be explai-
ned,
at least
partially,
in terms of the emergence
of middle
class
(madhyabitta-sreni)
consciousness and
politics" (pp 65-68)
in
those
areas later than in the
relatively quieter
Presidency areas? If so,
what
is the
explanation
for the situation in the Central Provinces (Madhya
Pradesh)
today
?
The
regional
unevenness
crops up again
the descriptions
and
analyses
of various 'nationalist' movements. For the period
1905-08
(pp 111-135)
there is no mention of what
happened
in 'Native
India'
and
hardly any
account of what
happened
even in British
India's
Hindi heartland'.
Did
nothing happen
there worth
noting
? If not,
what
54
HISTORY IN PRESENT TENSE
were the causes ? In Indian
history, analysing
what
happened
in some
areas is
only
as
important
as
explaining
what did not occur in other
areas because
together they
constitute the reasons for what exists in
today's totality
of the Indian
polity.
Indeed an
interesting
feature
recorded later
(pp 153-156)
relates to the areas where 'Movements from
Below' occurred
during 1905-1917;
it is curious that these
happened
in
areas where swadeshi and other such movements are not recorded.
These two
types of'regional responses'
seem unconnected. But were
they really
discrete
phenomena
? The
analysis
is
lacking,
as it is also
regarding why
in
1921-22,
"Bihar and the United Provinces"
during
Non-cooperation suddenly
became
"
...the
strongest
bases of the
Congress" (p 222). And,
where there is some
analysis,
e
g,
"Aram-
bagh
was
certainly
not an area of rich
peasant development, though
in
this it
may
not have been
typical
of most Gandhian rural bases"
(p 231);
the
analysis
is neither consistent nor
adequate.
Were "most
Gandhian rural bases"
really
"areas of rich
peasant development"
?
If
so, why?
On the other
hand,
discussing 1942,
the author
says,
"In
general,
one
may
hazard the tentative
hypothesis
that
regions
marked
by
some amount of
agricultural progress
and the
emergence
of a
prosperous
and broad rich
peasant upper
stratum tended to
keep away
from the 1942 rebellion"
(p 403).
On the face of
it,
these
generalisa-
tions
appear
far too facile to be
convincing.
There is not
only
an
element of
inconsistency
in these
analyses
but there are too
many
exceptions
recorded to make the
analyses
seem valid.
The
inadequacy
of
analysis
is
apparent
even if one considers
what is recorded about
just
one
typical region,
Bihar. The deindustriali-
sation of
Gangetic
Bihar between 1809 and
1901,
studied in detail
by
Amiya Bagchi,
is noted
by
Sumit Sarkar with the
remark, "The
sufferings
of artisans have to be
kept
in mind as a
significant
factor in
the
understanding
of
many
movements of our
period..." (p 30).
However,
there is no mention of the role of artisans or the effect of
their
suffering
in the
analysis
of
any
subsequent
movement in Bihar.
He records the
similarity
of land relations in
Bengal
and Bihar and
rightly
observes "a mass of intermediate tenures below
them(zamindaries)
providing
the
major
economic basis for the
Bengali
Bhadralok"
(p 33).
But there is no discussion of
why
a similar
bhadralok did not
develop
in Bihar and
play
a
comparable
role there in the 'nationalist'
movement.
Then there is the curious
understanding
of the
working class,
based on
giving card-of-membership
of the class
primarily
to male
wage
workers
in
organised
industries--the classical
limiting
of the
'proletariat'
numerically
and hence also
politically-exhibited
in statement such
as,
"East U
P,
Bihar and Madras
Presidency
constitued the main catch-
ment areas for the flow of labour to eastern Indian
plantations,
mines
and
factories,
and the
working
class of the Calcutta industrial area
thus became
predominantly non-Bengali" (p 41).
The effect of this
non-local
component
of the
working
class in
metropolitan
areas like
55
SOCIAL SCIENTIST
Calcutta in terms of its "trade union and
political consequences" (p 42)
is recorded: "... middle-class
philanthropy
died
away
in Calcutta in
the 1890s as
up-country immigrant
labour from eastern UP and Bihar
increasingly displaced Bengalis
in the
jute
mills"
(p 61,emphasis added).
What is not
analysed
in
depth
is the effect of this kind of
emigration
on the
agrarian
situation in estern UP and Bihar or its
impact
on
socio-political developments
in those
regions.
The
"carry-over"
of
community-consciousness
rather than a clear
recognition
of class
by
the
immigrant
workers and their
"popular
communalism"
(p 79)
is
recognised
but there is no mention as to whether
peasant
radicalism
in their 'home' areas had
any impact
on their new
being
and
consciousness
just
as artisan radicalism had affected the
making
of the
English working
class.
And,
if it had no
effect,
then
why
not ?
For the first
thirty years
of the
period
covered,
the focus of
attention is so much on
Bengal,
Madras, Punjab
and
Bombay,
that
significant regional
trends in other areas-of
fairly profound consequence
later on-are missed. For
instance,
the otherwise
comprehensive
account of the
partition
of
Bengal
and the
protest
movements
subseq-
uent to
it,
take no notice of what
happened
in,
for
example,
Bihar.
The
steady growth
of the
madhyabitta
shreni
(middle
class
intelligentsia)
there is
ignored,
as is the
anti.Bengali
movement in Bihar
(a precursor
of
today's tragic
events in
Assam)
which
began
then and
gathered
intensity
after the revocation of the
partition
of
Bengal,
creation of
Bihar and Orissa as a
province
and the transfer of a
very large
number
of clerical
government employees, lawyers
and other
professionals-the
backbone of
themadhyabitta
shreni-from Dacca to Patna
consequent
on their
being
rendered redundant in East
Bengal. Taking
notice of
such
phenomena
would
perhaps
not have been
important,
if
history
were to concern itself
exclusively
with
spectacular episodes
which
occurred in the
past.
But if
history
is a method to elucidate
significant
trends in the
present,
the
contemporary
lack of
integration among
peoples,
their division into
linguistic,
communal,
casteist and other
groups,
and their
deep
and
yet
"vicarious"
(pp
5,
84)
involvement in
narrowly regional
and sectional movements cannot be
ignored.
Their
historical antecedents must be
investigated
in
greater
detail than
by
merely recording,
for
instance,
that "The educated
Bengali
with his
lead in
jobs
and
professions
was
very unpopular among
his
neighbours"
(p 164).
Neither does there
apper
to be
any
element of
understanding
of the role of the
people
in
history
in a bland statment like "... in Bihar
an
agitation by Kayastha professionals
under Sachchidananda Sinha for
a
separate province...accompanied
and
followed
the
formation
of the
new
province
of Bihar and Orissa in 1911"
(p 164, emphasis added).
Its correctness or incorrectness
apart,
the 'internal
colony' argument,
manifesting
itself in the
Assam-type
movements,
the
popularity
of the
blatantly regionalist
sentimentst as
expressed throgh
the Shiva Sena
in Maharashtra and 'Sons of the Soil' demands elsewhere, needs to
56
SOCIAL SCIENTIST
revival ... of the
(large
and
spectacular)
anti-zamindar
peasant agitation
which had
plagued
the
Darbhanga
estate in
1920,
and from which the
Bihar
Congress leadership
had
firmly
dissociated itself"
(p 22).
For an
understanding
of what
happened
in
Bihar,
as in the case of other
areas,
the focus of attention must shift to the activities of
ordinary people
rather than of the leaders even
though they might
have been certified
by
the Mahatma himself.
Except
for brief references to the"more radical and more
genuinely
plebian
movements"
(p 243)
of the 'intermediate' castes in the 1920s for
the
improvement
of their social status and to the role of Subhas Bose
in the labour movement in
Jamshedpur (p 270)
the
story
of the labour
movement
having
been
gleaned
from the
correspondence
between
G D Birla and Purshottamdas
Thakurdas,
the
leading lights
of Indian
capital,
when Bihar next
emerges
in the
book,
it is as a "well established
Gandhian
stronghold" (p 291)
clubbed as such with
Gujarat,
U P and
coastal Andhra.
There
is,
of
course,
no
explanation regarding
how these areas in
general
and Bihar in
particular
become
part
of the "well-established
Gandhian
stronghold".
However,
facts
regarding
the
leading
role of the
Gandhian
approach
in the
politics
of Bihar are
produced
as evidence in
a
tautological
manner: "In the
countryside,
the
early
'official'
type
of
Gandhian Civil Disobedience had its natural
starting points
and
strongest
bases in
pockets
which had
already
witnessed some amount of Gandhian
rural constructive work
through
local asramas-Bardoli and Kheda in
Gujarat,
Bankura and
Arambagh
in
Bengal, Bihpur
in
Bhagalpur
district of
Bihar,
to
give only
a few better known
examples" (p 293).
The asramas in other
provinces may
have carried out Gandhian rural
constructive
work,
but the area around the one in
Bihpur
did not witness
much,
if
any,
of that sort of
activity.
There is
certainly
no
legacy
of
such rural "constructive" work in that area which is at the
meeting point
of the enormous
illegal
estates of three of the
notoriously largest
land-
owners in
today's
India. In 1931
too,
a
contemporary
official record
(verified by many villagers
around the area and even some inmates of
the
Bihpur asrama) says,
activities other than Gandhian rural contructive
work were
being
carried
out;
"In
Bhagalpur,
a
regular camp
had been
started at
Bihpur,
where volunteers were
lodged
in barracks and were
taught
drill and lathi
play,
the whole routine
being regulated by bugle
call"'5
a
set-up
not
quite
in
keeping
with the Mahatma's certificate to
Bihar's leaders that
they
"understand the true
spirit
of non-violence".
A whole series of
events,
described as "instances of lower-class mili-
ancy" (p 305)
show that
describing
Bihar as a "Gandhian
stronghold"
is
incorrect, just
as it is an incorrect
understanding
which is reflected in
the
observation,
"It is
significant
that the autonomous Kisan Sabha move-
ment which had started
developing
in Bihar under Swami
Sahajanand
in 1929 seems to have
totally disappeared
in the next
year, swamped by
the
atmosphere
of multi-class national
unity;
it would revive
only
after
58
HISTORY IN PRESENT TENSE
be considered
seriously. And,
for such a
consideration,
for a historical
understanding
of the
phenomenon,
it is
necessary
to reverse the
past-
present relationship
in historical
scholarship.
The reel must be wound
backwards.
But
sticking
for the time
being
to a
straight chronological
narrative
in the book with
particular
reference to
Bihar,
we find the
province
making
its next
appearance only
in the context of the celebrated
Champaran Satyagraha
of 1917. There
too,
the focus of attention has
only
been shifted downwards from
tile
Mahatma himself
through
the "small-
town
intelligentsia (vakils
like
Rajendra
Prasad
(how'he
can be classi-
fied as a member of the small-town
intelligentsia
is another
matter),
A N
Sinha,
or
Braj
Kishore
Prasad,
or the
Muzaffarpur College
teacher
J
B
Kripalani-the
'subcontractors' of
Judith Brown)"
to "a somewhat
lower stratum of rich and middle
peasants" (p 183).
There is no
explanation
as to how in
Champaran
where "..
psychological impact
(of Gandhi)
far
surpassed
the concrete activities..."
(p 184, emphasis
added),
"Gandhi
acquired
the
reputation
of a man who could take
up
local
wrongs
... and
usually manage
to do
something
concrete about
them"
(p
183, emphasis added).
The account adds to the notion of the
'magic' wrought by
Gandhi rather than
constituting any attempt
at de-
mystification.
It does not
explain why
this "area of rich
peasant
development"
where Gandh's
"indispensable" (p 156)
intervention
raised a local issue "to the level of all-India
politics" (pp 155-156),
where
Gandhi
personally
"left behind him a
group
... for constructive
village
work",
there did not
develop
a "Gandhian rural base":
"...only
three
village-level
workers were still active
by May
1918"
(p 184).
In
spite
of this
apparent
initial 'consumer resistance' in Bihar
towards the 'hard-sell' of Gandhian
mumbo-jumbo,
we find four
years
later
(1921)
that "Bihar won the Mahatma's
praise
as 'a Province in
which the most solid work is
being
done in connection with Non-
cooperation.
Its leaders understand the true
spirit of
non-violence "
(p
221,
emphasis added).
An
attempt
to
explain
the massive
participation
in
Bihar in the
anti-imperialist struggle
in terms of its
having developed
into a "Gandhian rural base" is not
satisfactory
in
spite
of the
Mahatma's own contentment with the
quality
of the
Congress leadership
in Bihar. The
explanation
has to be
sought,
outside the Gandhian
paradigm;
in the
"populist groundswell virtually forcing
more radical
courses"
(p 198),
in the
continuing peasant
unrest,
albeit
unspectacular,
and in
agitation by
other sections at the lower levels of the social and
economic
hierarchy.
In this
respect "sporadic
incidents
like...hat-looting
... the attack on Giridih ... an
epidemic
of illicit distillation ... wides-
pread
tension... over
appropriation
of traditional
village pastures by
zamindars
and
indigo planters
..
dispute(s) regarding grazing rights...
(possible)
no-tax movement ... and ... exodus from mines ..."
(pp 221-222)
are of much
greater significance
than either that "its
(Bihar's)
leaders
understand the true
spirit
of non-violence" or that "there was no
57
HISTORY IN PRESENT TENSE
the defeat of Civil Disobedience in 1933-34..."
(pp
304-305,
emphasis
added).
Even a
contemporary
official
publication,
concerned more with
the official Civil Disobedience than with
agrarian
movements,
noted
that "the lawless
spirit
born of civil disobedience was
always
liable
to drive tenants to violence when
any dispute
occurred between them
and the
landlord".l6
Non-official
publications
and
unpublished
records
and
many participants
in such
struggles testify
that tenants continued
to
agitate militantly
and
organised
themselves into Kisan Sabhas which
were formed in
Patna, Gaya, Mungher, Chemparan
and
Palamau,
"where the
genuine grievances
of the
raiyats gave
new life to the local
Kisan
Sabha,
but
agitators
used the
opportunity
to
preach non-payment
of rent and chowkidari
tax,
the wholesale
cutting
down of the
jungle,
and
physical
resistance to the landlords'
agents".17
Swami
Sahajanand,
who had
kept
himself aloof from the Civil Disobedience for a
large part
and was
certainly
not
"swamped by
the
atmosphere
or multi-class national
unity",
observed: "The
Satyagrah...brought unprecedented awakening
among
the Kisans ... their
problems
also came to the forefront".18
Clearly,
it is
wrong
to see the dominance of "multi-class national
unity"
over "lower-class
militancy"
in Bihar in this
period.
Coverage
of the
history
of the Kisan Sabha in Bihar in the
1930s,
the
largest
ever
organisation
of the
working people
in the
region,
is so brief in Modern India that the focus of attention is
only
on its
leadership,
in
particular
on
Sahajanand. "Sahajanand
was able to
quickly
mobilzie
large
sections of
peasants
..and the
membership
of
Ilis Kisan Sabha shot
up..." (p 33). Over-emphasis
on the role of
the CSP
(Congress
Socialist
Party) leadership
and on the formal
organisation (pp 333,
340) prevents
an
adequate appreciation
of the
force of radical
peasant
nationalism,
a continuous and
growing pheno-
nienon,
occasionally exhibiting
itself in the massive Kisan
support
extended to Subhas Bose in
organising
the
'Anti-Compromise
Conference' at the venue of the
Ramgarh Congress
Session in 1940 and
spectacularly revealing
itself in the
'August
Revolution' in 1942. It is
because this force is not taken into account
adequately
that
tlhe
author
can talk of "the relative weakness of the national movement between
1939 and 1941"
(p 383);
and the
description
of the
'Stirring
Events'
and 'Great Deeds' of 1942 once
again appear episodic, spectacular
and
wonderful, indeed,
one more instance when "nationalist
Inilitancy
probably
blunted to some extent the
edge
of social radicalism .."
(p403),
"the
very
extent of
anti-foreign sentiments,
as in
1857,
possibly
reduced internlal class tensions and social radicalism"
(p 398).
Once
again
the evidence
gleaned
from even 'official' sources
which have been referred to
by
Sumit Sarkar with
regard
to Bihar
does not
entirely support
this contention either in terms of the motive
forces behind the events in 1942 or what followed afterwards. Even
if the social radicalism of the industrial workers of
Jamshedpur
who
launched one of the most valiant
struggles
against
war-profiteering
is
59
SOCIAL SCIENTIST
not taken into
account, surely
it would seem that "the massive
upsurge
of the
peasantry", "essentially
an
upsurge
of
peasant
small holders"
(p 397)
could
only
have
sprung
from
underlying
social tensions and
not
merely
as an
expression
of abstract
"anti-foreign
sentiments."
Indeed,
in addition to militant
demonstrations,
wide-scale
disruption
of
communications,
attacks on the
police
and the
military,
a
very
significant aspect
of the movement in Bihar was that No-Rent
Campaigns
were launched in so
many places.19
The
government
could
only hope
that "a
good
monsoon will make for a
prosperous
harvest and less
agrarian
tension",20.
Although
the
'derring-do'
of
Jayaprakash Narayan
and his Socialist
comrades, through
the
operation
of their Azad
Destas,
fired the
imagination
of the urban
population
in
Bihar and
outside,
much more
important, longer lasting
and of much
greater impact
on the
peasantry
was the revolt of
grassroots
leaders
like Siaram
Singh,
Nakshatra
Malakar, Kanhaiya
Oraon, Jahoor
Ali,
Jayanarayan Singh, etc,
who have been
variously
described in official
and non-official
publications
as
'criminals',
'social bandits' and
'peasant
rebels'. Their
movement,
which continued at a
high pitch
for more than a decade in some of the worst landlord infested areas of
Bihar, may
not be noticed in conventional
history
of the 'national
movement' but a
history
from
below,
even if it does not make
explicit
mention of
them,
should at least be conscious of these 'sub-terranean'
tensions,
the "fires
underground".
Otherwise it will not be able to
reconcile conclusions like "1942
(like
earlier nationalist
upsurges)
was
essentially
an
upsurge
of
peasant
small holders" with
evidence,
albeit
based on
statistically insignificant samples,
of the caste
composition
of
those arrested
indicating
the
predominance
of the "forward Castes"
(pp 397-398),
more
likely
to be "substantial tenants" or even
petty
landlords than
peasant
smallholders.
Some other observations about 1942 in Bihar also
appear
to be
not
wholly
correct. For
instance,
there is no evidence which substanti-
ates that
"...(in Bihar)
the bulk of Kisan Sabha cadres had
swung
to
the side of the socialists
despite
the new
pro-war
stance of the
Communists and of
Sahajanand" (p 399).
On the
contrary,
in Bihar
the Communists were
strongly
entrenched in the Kisan Sabha and
Sahajanand
continued to be its
pre-eminent
leader till his death. If
in fact "the bulk of Kisan Sabha cadres" had
swung
on the side of
the
Socialists,
their Hind Kisan
Panchayat
set
up only
a few
years
later would not have been such an
organisational
disaster. Further,
at least in
Bihar,
neither Swami
Sahajanand
nor the Communists
"were branded in the
eyes
of a
big
section of nationalist
public
opinion
as collaborators and traitors"
(p 405).
On the
contrary,
many people
in Bihar even
today
remember that notables like Sir
Chandreshwar
Prasad Narain
Singh,
now Governor of Uttar Pradesh,
and the late Sachchidanand Sinha, the first chairman of the Constitunt
Assembly,
were
among
the advisors of the British Governor
who
60
HISTORY IN PRESENT TENSE
ulnleashed the 'Gorra
(white)
Terror' in 1942.
Repetition
of
Congress
inspired calumny
will not make it
true,
whatever "nationalist
public
opinion" may
refer to. Not
only
did a
large
number of
'Swami-ites'
and Communists at the
village
level
participate actively
in the
upsurge
in
1942,
but an official source even seems to indicate that
they
had
pre-meditated
this: "I have also seen a Police
report
from Bihar
which shows that the intention of the CPI is to
support
Gandhi's
movement and to
get
as
many
of their members as
possible
before the
movement
begins...
"2
Attempts by
the
government
to woo
Sahajanand
failed and that
crusty
old
fighter
was not silenced.
Although
he
supported
the war
against
Fascism
generally, Sahajanand spoke up
against
the
brutality
of the British
police
and
military.
The Governor
of Bihar
ruefully reported
"on the
Left,
Swami
Sahajanand
has
already
"ratted" on us
(by) denouncing
our
repression".22 And, very
soon,
the Kisan Sabha activists led
by Sahajanand
started
openly
agitating
once
again
on the
question
of bakasht
lands,
commutation
of
produce
rent into
cash, against
the
imposition
of restrictions on
the manufacture of
gur,
and
against
zamindari and
police repression
generally.23
In Bihar at least there was
hardly any
evidence of 'reduced
internal class tensions and social radicalism"
(p 398).
These were not
only continuing phenomena
but there was an
organic linkage
between
"anti British
militancy"
and
anti-landlordism. An amateur
application
of
categories
of
political
economy (e g
"...
regions
marked
by
some
amount of
agricultural progress
and the
emergence
of a
prosperous
and
broad rich
peasant upper
stratum tended to
keep away
from the 1942
rebellion'
(p 403,
emphasis added)
does not
provide adequate explana-
tion,
for
precisely
those areas of Bihar "marked
by
some amount of
agricultural progress"
like
Bhojpur, Patna, Saran, Purnea,
etc,
were
the
major
locales of the.1942 rebellion. Nor does uncritical
acceptance
of the
myths perpetuated by
'mainstream nationalist
historiography'
which lurks behind statements like "In the
country-side, too,
Kisan
Sabha and
share-cropper
or
agricultural
labourer
organisations
advanced in areas where the bitter
legacy
of 1942 was not so
evident",
explain
the massive
emergence
of such movement in
post-second
World
War Bihar.
And,
of
course,
only
if the
integral
connection between
the nationalist movement and
peasant struggle
is sundered will in Bihar
in
1945-46,
the scene of
great peasant
turmoil
against
one of the
strongest pillars
of British rule in India-the zamindari
stystem,
a
peasant struggle
which unsettled the Permanent Settlemet made
by
the
British,
will be seen as
having
been
away
from 'mainstream nationali-
sm': "It is
significant
that
Bihar...played
little or no
part
in the
anti-imperialist upsurge
of 1945-46"
(p 405).
This rather
lengthy
discussion of the
coverage
of Bihar in the
book is not meant
only
to
say
that Bihar
(or,
for that
matter,
any
other
region)
should have been
given
more
space.
(Given the fact that it
covers 'Modern India' it is
only
to be
expected
that the book should
61
SOCIAL SCIENTIST
merely
deal with
regional specificities
in a
general way. However,
the
point
is that in
writing
such a
history
"for the benefit of
students",
if
the
approach
is
episodic, dealing only
with 'Great
Events', 'Stirring
Deeds',
'Finest
Hours', etc,
the basic tendencies such as the assertion
of radical
peasant
nationalism,
contiuning working
class
struggle against
State and
Capital,
or for that
matter,the
coming
of
age
of the
bourgeoisie,
such as it
is,
in India
get submerged
under the discussion of 'the main-
tream nationalist movement' identified with the
Congress
in
general
and
in
particular
with the actions of its leaders under the
sway
of Gandhi.
The author does realise that
"intensively moving
and
heroic,
the
Gandhian
way
in 1946-47
(as
at other
times,
we
suppose)
was no more
than an isolated
personal
effort with a local and often rather short-lived
impact.
It is futile and
dangerous
to
speculate
about what
might
have
been,
but one
might
still
argue
that the
only
real alternative
lay along
the
path
of united militant mass
struggle against imperialism
and its
Indian allies-the one
thing
which ... the British
really
dreaded"
(p 438).
But the
alternative, according
to the
author,
was not real
as, among
the
masses,
the
largest component,
"the
peasants
still needed to be
repre-
sented
by
a saviour from above ..."
(p 182).
In the
end,
what
emerges
out of this
extremely painstaking
endeavour is
tracing
the thread woven
by
such a 'saviour from above'
through
"elemental,
often violent and
radical,
popular
outbursts"
(p 183).
This is the result of an otherwise
potentially
brilliant exercise
in
exploring
the
possibilities
of a
history
from below into a mere tale
of
"drawing-in
the
masses,
while at the same time
keeping
mass acti-
vity strictly pagged
down to certain forms
predetermined
by
the leader..."
(p 179).
In the
end,
like "conventional
nationalist, communalist,
Cam-
bridge
and even some Marxist
historiography...(which) despite
all their
obvious mutual
opposition...share
a common elitist
approach" (p 11),
Sumit Sarkar
too, although recognising
that there were "fires under-
ground", gives
little
weight
to autonomous
popular
action but seen in
the
process
of
anti-imperialism
in our
country
the
pre-eminence
of
"Mahatma Gandhi
(who)
would
forge
an all-India Movement
precisely
round the
(popular)
issues"
(p 11).
Otherwise
why
would he
classify
popular
movements
merely
as
'pressure
from below' and activities
of
the elite as the nationalist movement?
Not that there is
clarity
about who constituted the 'elite'.
At one
place
Sumit Sarkar
says categorically,
"...the one
genuine
and
truly
exclusive elite in colonial India consisted of the whites"
(p
67,
emphasis
added).
He has
strong disagreement
with the Cambridge
scholars'
descriptions
of the
English-educated
as 'elite
groups'
defined
basically by
their
upper
caste
status,
a
disagreement
in
spite
of the
fact
that he himself uses
categories
like "traditional
'literary'
castes"
(p 66)
to describe the
preponderance
of certain
groups among
the
English-
educated.
His
objection
to the use of 'elite' is that "the ideology
of
the
English-educated
was seldom one of conscious defence or restriction
of
62
HISTORY IN PRESENT TENSE
its
privileges,
whether educational or caste-which is what one would
have
expected
of a true elite..."
(p
67,
emphasis added).
The untrue
or
spurious
elite that then obtained in India is further sub-divided
into 'Business
Groups
and
Upper
Classes'
(p 63)
and 'Middle
Class',
the latter with a "self
image (placing it)
below the zamindars but above
the toilers"
(p 67).
This
English-educated madhyabitta
section
emerges
in
specific regional
situations as a further
disintegrated
'commercial
elite',
'administrative
elite', 'professional
elite'
etc,
albeit not of absolute
purity.
The confusion in this
regard
is never
cleared,
for
very
soon we
come across this self-same section mentioned
simply
as 'elite': "Elite
'revolution' did make substantial contributions to the national
struggle"
(p
124),"...elite
action
postponed
efforts to draw the masses into active
political struggle" (p 125),
etc.
Having
earlier demostrated that the
uncritical
acceptance
of the term
bhadralok-"currently
so fashionable
among
western
historians,
no doubt
partly
because it seems to
keep
Marxism in its
place"24-interchangeably
with 'elite
group'
with refer-
ence to
upper
castes in
Bengal
is
making
"truisms of the
Raj"
into
"dogmas
of historians"
(pp 66-67),
Sarkar himself
explains
the elite
nature and social limitations
of,
for
instance,
Bengali
bhadralok revoluti-
onary
terrorism
only
in terms of its
predominant upper
caste
composition
(p 125)!
In other
places, however,
he uses different
analytical categories:
"The bhadralok's distance from the
peasantry
... had
fairly
clear class
roots,
rather than mere aversion to manual labour"
(p 110).
He differan-
tiates them from others wlio took to
revolutionary
activities: "The
lowly
Ghadr
peasants
and
sepoy
heroes
(who)
have been much less remembered
than the bhadralok
Bengal
terrorists..."
(p 148).
And
yet
he writes of a
situation of the
spread
of torrorism in
Bengal
when "a
really frightened
British
government
went in for draconian methods of
repression,
imposing
a
night
curfew on all Hindu bhadralok
youth
between 16 and 25
in
Chittagong
town..." under the
heading
"Pressures from Below
(p 314).
The confusion arises out of the inconsistent use of unclear
analy.
tical
categories
like caste and class. The author
points
out that the assum-
ptions
of an
absolutely rigid
and
unchanging hierarchy
of castes has been
rightly rejected by
recent
sociological
work and the
expressi
on of socio-
economic tensions
through
caste
solidarity,
caste
rivalry,
and
movements
for Sanskritisation
represented
"false consciousness"
(pp
54-55). He
talks of the economic and social intra-caste differentiation and
appro-
vingly
recommends Andre Beteille's
warning
that caste
mobility might
often
represent
no more than the
upthrust
of small
groups
of 'notables'
(p 9).
But,
having
said all
this,
he
goes
on to use
membership
of
particular
castes to indicate the
composition
of both the bhadralok
(pp 66-67)
and
peasant
smallholders
(pp 397-398).
Contradictions involved in
descriptions
such as "clear-cut
Brahmin domination" in Maharashtra and
Madras
(p 56), "narrowly
Brahmincal character" of revivalism in
Maharashtra
(p 73) etc,
are
glossed
over.
And,
notwithstanding
the
warning
of Andre
Beteille,
'Cast Movements'
(pp
242-244)
in
general
are
lumped
under
63
SOCIAL SCIENTIST
the rubric of
'Emergence
of New Forces'
(pp 237-253).
The use of class
categories
is
similarly
unclear. We have
already
encountered the "consolidation of semi-feudal relations"
(pp 35-36).
Add to that the
compounding
of
"early capitalist
industrialisation...
by
numerous
'pre-capitalist'
survivals". The 'middle-class'
(madhyabitta-
sreni)
intelligentsia (p 67),
which raises its head in the discussion of its
true or un-true character as
part
of the elite is characterised
by
its
"broadly bourgeois
ideals-and a
predominantly non-bourgeois
social
base"
(p 67).
The
bourgeoisie proper (true?)
is described under
'Business
Groups' (p 63)
and attention is drawn both to the
"long-term
objective
contradictions between a 'national
bourgeois' development
and the colonial
political
and economic structure"
(p 64)
and "consi-
derable
regional
variations in attitudes and
repeated
conflicts between
short-term and
long-term
interests"
(p 260).
However,
the
process by
which "the crucial role
(in
determining
the course of Civil
Disobedience,
Gandhian
politics
and the fortunes of the
Congress Party)
was
played
by
business
pressures" (p 311)
is not made clear. The author does not
get
into the mire of
debating
whether the Indian
bourgeoisie
was
'national'
'comprador', 'capitulationist',
etc,
and a clear
summing up
of its character
appears only
towards the end of the book
(p 407)
through
a
quotation
from the
writing
of D D Kosambi. But then it
seems that for the author definitional
clarity
is not
really important
in
this
history
because
by
mere
aggregation
of the interests of different
sections of the
population
he can arrive at an
understanding
of the
'national interest': "If the 11
points
(of
Gandhi in his 1930 ultimatum
to
Irwin)
were a kind of retreat
they
also concretised the national
demand...
(six)
issues of
general
interest... three
specific bourgeois
demands... and two
basically peasant
themes."
(pp
284-285, emphasis
added).
If
simple
addition suffices in
analysis,
what is the
point
of
delving
into
division,
class contradictions,
etc ? That "the
struggle
of the
whole
people against
colonialism is not
necessarily
a
strugglefor
the
whole
people"25
is
something
which Sarkar considers
only inconsistently.
"Both the current Marxist
interpretations
and their elitist alter-
natives... suffer from the common defect of
assuming
too direct or
crude
an economic motivation for
political
action and ideals... On the metho-
dological
level,
it seems
necessary today
to break out of the
bog
of
narrow
positivism,
which
arbitrarily
denies to historical
personalities
the
ability
to see
beyond
their noses...",26
rightly
observes
Sumit
Sarkar in his earlier
outstanding
contribution to
historiography.
In the
present
work too he
suggests
that "a more fruitful
way
of
studying
the
intelligentsia
is
through
a simultaneous
analysis
of its ideas and
its
socio-economic roots"
(p 67)
rather than
by
a crude correlation
between
its economic situation and
political
action.
Thus,
the
possible autonomy
of individuals and
groups
in terms of their social behaviour is correctly
asserted and the fallacies of
analysis solely
on the basis of
economic
determinism
are
rejected.
But Sumit Sarkar is
prepared
to follow
this
64
HISTORY IN PRESENT TENSE
methodology only
in relation to the
bhadralok,
the non-true elite. When
it comes to
description
of the actions of
others,
in almost
every
instance
he cites there is a one-to-one relation between economics and
politics:
"The
(price rise)
curve in fact was
steepest
between 1905 and 1908-
precisely
the
years
of maximum
political
unrest"
(p 109);
"...the War
affected Indian life
through
massive
recruitments, heavy
taxes and war
loans,
and a
very sharp
rise in
prices,
and
may
be
directly
related to the
two-fold extension of the national movement-towards considerable
sections of the
peasantry
and towards business
groups...
The result
was... 'a sort of
epidemic
strike fever'
", (p 174, emphasis
added);
"...nationalism in 1921
neatly
coincided with short-term business
interest..."
(p 207);
"The mass
upsurges
of the 1930s were
closely
related
to decisive economic
changes" (p 257); "...deepening
rural discontent
as
prices
touched a record low"
(p 315);
"The relative weakness of the
national movement between 1939 and 1941
probably
also had certain
economic roots. A war which was still a distant affair
brought,
on
balance,
gains
rather than losses for substantial sections of the
popula.
tion. The rise in
agricultural prices
was not as
yet very sharp,
and
came as a relief for the bulk
(!)
of the
peasantry..." (p 383);
etc. But
then, perhaps
in
mitigation,
Sumit Sarkar does
say
at one
place,
"It
would be
quite
inaccurate, however,
to relate the
post-war
mass awake-
ning
to
specific
economic
factors,
alone. We cannot afford to
forget
that what was
happening
in India was in the broadest sense a
part
of a
world wide
upsurge, anti-capitalist
in the
developed
countries and anti-
imperialist
in the colonies and semi-colonies"
(p 176.)
Such was the
irmpact
of this
anti-imperialist (as
distinct from
anti-capitalist) upsurge
that
among
its achievements-Sumit Sarkar counts
even a
major progress
in women's
liberation,
regardless
of
glaring
his-
torical and
contemporary
evidence and
regardless
even of the test of
statistical
significance
in the evidence he himself
quotes:"...of
the
29,054
prisoners
on 15
November,
1930 ... 359 were women. Civil Dis-
obedience marked in fact a
major step
in the
emanicipation
of Indian
women..."
(p 290).
Does the
burning
of women
today
constitute
"continuity through change"
?
But let us end textual critism here and
go
back to some funda-
mental issues.
IV
Is
history writing
a mere academic exercise "for the benefit of
students" or does it also
play
a
political
and
ideological
role ? "Histo-
rians in our
country
still
occasionally
claim for themselves the
imparti-
ality
of
judges (itself,
one would
feel,
hardly
an
unquestionable
absolute)
.
,",27
correctly
observed Surnit Sarkar
only
a few
years
earlier.
Today
the "academic snobishness of
preceding generations"28
is under
attack,
'Impartiality'
and
'objectivity'
are not worn on the sleeves and
concern does seem to be to add to the
study
of the
doings
of
kings (or
65
SOCIAL SCIENTIST
viceroys)
and
prophets (or mahatmas)
accounts of mass
activity.
Through
this
process
of addition a
new,
more
complete,
history
covering
"both a
relatively
elite and a more
populist
level... the
complex
inter-
action of these levels"
(p 11)
is
sought
to be
porduced.
But the mere
expansion
of historical
craftmanship
to include the
masses in its
scope
of interest is democratic
only
in form. In the name
of academic
custom, professional expertise
and a concern with examin-
ing complex
interactions,
such
historiography
too excludes active
commitment to the mass
struggles
of the
present.
The mandarin voca-
bulary, sounding insignificant
in
itself,
is in fact an
ideological
and
political expression:
'tribal
separatism',
'extreme
left', 'terrorism',
'disobedience'- civil or
otherwise,
et al.
"During
the era of liberal
capitalism,
there is a
specific relationship
between the demands of the
prevailing
mode of
production
and the
political
function of historical
knowledge.
The
relationship
is
not, however,
direct or mechanical. It
consists both of
open
intervention
by
the state and of diffuse
ideological
pressure.
The historians are convinced that
they enjoy
'freedom of
expression'
but in their
professional
work
they
exhibit behaviour which
is charactertstic
of
capitalist society
as a whole".29 Conventional his-
torians with a
pose
of
objectivity
and a claim to be
arriving
at
syntheses
of
complex
interactions who view
history
as an autonomous
intellectual
activity moving
in a kind of closed circuit where reference is confined
mainly
to other historians, perhaps
unknowingly provide
the smoke-
screen behind which lurks the
terminology
and
ideology
of the
police,
the
upholders
of 'law and order'.
For the mass of
people,
however,
the
past
is
meaningful only
at
the
opposite
and of social existence-where
it becomes involved
directly
in their activities and
struggles.
But,
what is
really
meant
by
the
decep-
tively simple saying:
"It is the masses who make
history"
? How
do
they
make their influence felt? In the first
place by working.
But there
are few
professional
historians who concern themselves with the
un-
spectacular
routine of the
people working. Generally,
when work
is
considered
at all it is taken for
granted
as
legitmate
social activity-the
obligation
of the
people-and
only disruption
in its routine through
strikes,
hartals,
bandhs,
and
'non-cooperation',
draws the attention
of
the
professional
historian to
something having gone 'wrong'
and
hence
having
become
noteworthy.
However,
the role of the
people
in
history
is not limited to
spec-
tacular
outbreaks. And no
history
can be
prepared
from below
without
discussion
of the
people's
continuous
capacity
to influence the course
of
events
through day-to-day
resistence
just
as much as through uprisings
and revolutions.
A
knowledge
of the
past gives
rise to both
nostalgia
and wrath,
and it is
upto
the historian
to decide for himself which he wants
to
emphasise.
He can
join
the chorus of the
ruling
class and wail that
"the
spirit
of the freedom
movement needs to be revived"or he can
express
66
HISTORY IN PRESENT TENSE 67
searing anger
that "the
passions
of
youth
have become the lusts of
aging
men". The
specialist
still has an intellectual and
political option.
ARVIND N DAS
Senior
Fellow,
Public
Enterprises
Centre for
Continuing Education,
New Delhi.
The author is
grateful
to Dr Basudev
(Robi) Chatterjee
and Dr Shahid Amin for
detailed discussion of Modern India
during
which
many
ideas and
expressions
in the
present
review article
emerged.
1
EJ Hobsbawm, Industry
and
Empire, Harmondsworth,
Pelican
Books,
1968.
2
Ibid, p
9.
3 D D
Kosambi,
The Culture and Civilisation
of
Ancient India in Historical
Outline,
London, Routledge
and
Kegan Paul,
1970.
4 D D
Kosambi,
An Introduction to the Study
of
Indian
History,
Bombay, Popular
Prakashan,
1975.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7
Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, "History
from
Below",
Social
Scientist,
Vol
1i, No
4,
April
1983.
8
Jean Chesneaux,
Pasts and Futures or What is
History for? London,
Thames and
Hundson,
1978.
9 Sumit
Sarkar,
The Swadeshi Movement in
Bengal, 1903-1908,
New Delhi,
People's
Publishing House, 1977, p
473.
10
Chesneaux, op
cit.
11 Ibid.
12 Sumit
Sarkar, op cit, p
3.
13
Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, op cit,
14
Kosambi,
An
Introduction..., op cit.
15
I'
T
Mansfield,
Bihar and Orissa in
1930-31, Patna,
Govenment of Bihar and Orissa,
1932,
pi.
16 R A E
Williams,
Bihar and Orissa in
1931-32, Patna,
Govenment of Bihar and Orissa,
1933,
p
18.
17 Ibid, pp 15, 16.
18 Swami
Sahajanand,
Mera Jeevan
Sangharsh
(Hindi), Patna, Sitaram Ashram,
1952, pp
376-377.
19 N
Mansergh (ed),
The
Transfer of Power,
London
1971,
Vol
II,
pp
658-660.
20 Ibid.
21
Ibid, p440.
23
Ibid, p
389.
24
See, Hunkar,
December
20, 1942,
January 3, 10, 17, 1943, February
7,
1943 etc.
24
Sarkar,
Swadeshi
Movement, op cit, p 509,
25 S
Bhattacharya, op
cit.
26
Sarkar, op cit, p
512.
27
Ibid,
p
2.
28
Chesneaux, op cit, p
107.
29 Ibid.