Professional Documents
Culture Documents
SHSS 2009
SHSS 2009
HUMANITIES AND
SOCIAL SCIENCES
Journal of the Inter-University Centre
for Humanities and Social Sciences
VOL. XVI, NUMBER 1& 2, 2009
Editor
MANAS RAY
CONTENTS
Editorial
RESEARCH ARTICLES
Satyagrahi as Sthitpragnya:
Gandhijis Reading of The Gita
TRIDIP SUHRUD
Translating Gt 2.47 or
Inventing the National Motto
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
31
95
119
147
165
201
SPECIAL ESSAY
Back to the Land of the Past
SUMANTA BANERJEE (translated by NIVEDITA SEN)
219
REVIEW ARTICLE
Between Determination and Responsiveness:
a third space in Foucault?
MANAS RAY
269
BOOK REVIEWS
Vinay Gidwani, Capital, Interrupted:
Agrarian Development and the
Politics of Work in India
PRIYA SANGAMESWARAN
281
288
293
Contributors
299
STUDIES IN
HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
Editor
MANAS R AY
Book Review Editor
G ANGEYA M UKHERJI
Editorial Board
PETER R ONALD DE SOUZA
Director, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla
U MA C HAKRAVARTHI
Anand Niketan, H.No. 4
Dhaula Kuan, New Delhi
G.C. TRIPATHI
National Fellow, IIAS
A KHTAR UL WASEY
Zakir Hussain Institute of Islamic Studies
Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi
R AJEEV B HARGAVA
CSDS, 29 Rajpur Road,
New Delhi
S ASHEEJ H EGDE
Head, Sociology Department
Central University, Hyderabad
TEJASWINI N IRANJANA
Centre for Study of Culture and Society
Bangalore
PULAPRE B ALAKRISHNAN
A-4, Laxmi Apartments
P.O. Chalappuram, Kozikode
HARSH S ETH
Seminar, New Delhi
TRIDIP SUHRUD
Satyagrahi as Sthitpragnya: Gandhijis Reading of The Gita
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
Translating Gt 2.47 or Inventing the National Motto
GANGEYA MUKHERJI
Gandhi: Non-violence and Pragmatism
MAYA JOSHI
Rahula Sankrityayans Journeys of the Self:
Nation, Culture, Identity
KANCHANA NATARAJAN
Entering the Universe of fire and light:
the life and philosophy of Pokar from Pokar Elayiram
ENAKSHI MITRA
Wittgenstein on the Foundations of Language:
A Non-Foundational Narration
FRANSON MANJALI
Towards a Philosophy of Image
SUMANTA BANERJEE (translated by Nivedita Sen)
Back to the Land of the Past
MANAS RAY
Between Determination and Responsiveness:
a third space in Foucault?
ISSN: 0972-1401
EDITORIAL
This issue of Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences carries a
distinction. As per ongoing talks, in all possibility Sage India
will take up the responsibility of publication and distribution
of the journal from the next issue onwards, when it will also
have a different look and format. As such, the present
number is both a swansong and a harbinger of the new. We
have put in our best efforts to commemorate what was by
offering a wide range of topics from a chosen set of
contributors. The collection genuinely represents some of
the very best of current scholarship in India. Regardless of
the large spectrum of interests, the themes at times overlap
but seldom do the viewpoints. In keeping with the mandate
of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, we believe that
Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences should be the platform
for disseminating scholarship engaged with the large
questions of human existence from a variety of perspectives.
All entries went through the refereeing process. The
following is a synoptic account of each article.
The collection begins with Tridip Suhruds deliberation
on M K Gandhis deep and abiding engagement with the
Gita, a spiritual guide-book for the philosopher-politician
and the ashram community. In its attempt to understand
the nature of this engagement, Suhruds short essay gives a
new spin to this well known understanding. The author
explores, in a mode of speculation, the embedded nature
of this ancient text in Gandhis life and experiments, and
the role this relationship played in shaping a community of
values. The essay also highlights Gandhis translation of the
Gita and his need to be a satyagrahi and a shitpargnya.
The second essay is also on the Gita but placed against a
more elaborate canvas. In this paper, Translating Gt 2.47
or Inventing the National Motto, Sibaji Bandyopadhyay
embarks on a truly ambitious project: a conceptual
EDITORIAL
EDITORIAL
EDITORIAL
EDITORIAL
EDITORIAL
RESEARCH ARTICLES
SATYAGRAHI AS STHITPRAGNYA:
GANDHIJIS READING OF THE GITA
Tridip Suhrud
10
TRIDIP SUHRUD
SATYAGRAHI AS STHITPRAGNYA
11
12
TRIDIP SUHRUD
SATYAGRAHI AS STHITPRAGNYA
13
14
TRIDIP SUHRUD
SATYAGRAHI AS STHITPRAGNYA
15
16
TRIDIP SUHRUD
SATYAGRAHI AS STHITPRAGNYA
17
18
TRIDIP SUHRUD
her soul and that is the reason why the nation has come to
this pass.26 At the root of this failure was Tilaks desire that
India should be like Europe. Gandhiji said that Tilak Maharaj
had undergone six years of internment to to display a
courage of the European variety.27 He likened Tilak
Maharajs internment to the great men of Russia who were
wasting their whole lives in Siberia. Gandhiji was saddened
that our greatest treasure was expended to no purpose. He
felt that if Tilak Maharajs imprisonment had spiritual
promptings and spiritual motives its results would have been
far different.
It was this absence of spiritual motive that Gandhiji
wanted to convey to Tilak Maharaj. Gandhiji had written
and spoken about this to him with greatest of respect. But it
was not something that could be captured in some words,
though Gandhiji was certain that with his sharp intellect
Tilak Maharaj had understood Gandhijis criticism. Gandhiji
wanted to convey the true meaning of the soul of India and
of spiritual suffering to him. Gandhiji said; This is, however,
no matter to be explained orally or in writing. To give him
first-hand experience of it, I must furnish a living example.
Indirectly, I have spoken to him often enough but, should I
get an opportunity of providing a direct demonstration, I
should not miss it, and here is one.28
Pandit Malaviya was of holy character was learned and
well informed on points of dharma. But, he too had failed
to understand spiritual basis of India. Gandhiji said of him,
he has not, it seems to me, properly understood the soul of
India in all its grandeur.29 Gandhiji felt that Pandit Malaviya
with whom he was tied with bonds of affection and had for
that reason frequent wranglings with him might get very
angry with him and consider him swollen-headed for having
said so. But it had to be said because what he had said was
quite true. The fast was an opportunity to convince Pandit
Malaviya regarding the truth of India. I have this opportunity
to provide him, too, with a direct demonstration. I owe it to
SATYAGRAHI AS STHITPRAGNYA
19
20
TRIDIP SUHRUD
SATYAGRAHI AS STHITPRAGNYA
21
22
TRIDIP SUHRUD
duty to strive for this state as it was possible to become fit for
moksha; in the sense that one would attain deliverance after
death and one would not be born again. Therefore Gandhiji
made this quest central to his life. He said; What I want to
achieve-what I have been striving and pinning to achieve
these thirty years- is self-realisation, to see God face to face,
to attain moksha. I live and move and have my being in pursuit
of this goal.47 The path shown to him by the Gita to attain
moksha consisted of unattached, selfless action; control over
the senses, faith, devotion and constant vigil.
Gandhiji knew that according to the Gita, when a man
starves his senses, the objects of those senses disappear for
him, but not the yearning for them. 48 The yearning
disappears when one has a vision of the Supreme Truth.
Gandhiji argued that this verse in fact advocated fasting for
self-purification. Fast as self-purification is Upvas (to dwell
closer to Him), upvas can be done only when fasting of senses
is accompanied by a desire to see God; as there is no prayer
without fasting and there is no real fast without prayer.49
The path of Gita was neither contemplation, nor
devotion; the ideal was a sthitpragnya, a yogi, who acts without
attachment either to the action or the fruits thereof. Gandhiji
adopted two modes of self-practice to attain this state where
one acts, and yet does not act. These two modes were yajna
(sacrifice) and satyagraha.
The Gita declared that; Together with the sacrifice did
the Lord of beings create,50 and the world would sustain so
long as there was sacrifice, as sacrifice produced rain.51
Gandhiji found the word yajna full of beauty and power.
He interpreted the word to mean sacrifice, an act of service.
He saw this idea of sacrifice as basis of all religions. His ideal
was of course Jesus Christ. It was he who had shown the path,
Gandhiji said that the word yajna had to be understood in
the way Jesus lived and died. It was not sacrifice when other
lives were destroyed, the best sacrifice was giving up ones
own life. He wrote; Jesus put on a crown of thorns to win
SATYAGRAHI AS STHITPRAGNYA
23
24
TRIDIP SUHRUD
SATYAGRAHI AS STHITPRAGNYA
25
26
TRIDIP SUHRUD
SATYAGRAHI AS STHITPRAGNYA
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
27
62, 63. Desai, Mahadev; The Gospel of Selfless Action or The Gita According to
Gandhi, (Ahmedabad: Navajivan, 1946, 2004), p. 163.
The translation was done in 1926-1927, he wrote the introduction to
the translation two years later at Kosani in Almora. The introduction
was finished on 24 June, 1929. The Anasakti Yoga was published on 12
March 1930, the day he left the Ashram at Sabarmati on his historic
march to Dandi. It was translated in Hindi, Bengali and Marathi almost
immediately. Mahadev Desai translated the Anaskti Yoga as The Gospel
of Selfless Action in English. This translation was done during his
imprisonment in 1933-1934. The translation could not be published till
January 1946, as Gandhiji could not read the translation. Mahadev
Desai died as a prisoner in the Aga Khan Palace prison on 15 August
1942, and as a tribute to his memory Gandhiji hastened the publication
soon after his release from prison.
CWMG, vol. 21, p. 116.
Ibid, vol. 37, p. 77.
This debate took place on 24 October 1909 on the Dussehra day in the
Nizamuddin Restaurant in London.
On 1 July 1909, Madanlal Dhingra assassinated Sir William Curzon-Wyllie,
political aide-de-camp to Lord Morley, Secretary of State for India,
while he was at the reception hosted by the National Indian Association
at the Imperial Institute in South Kensington, London.
CWMG, vol. 37, p. 82.
Ibid, vol. 28, p. 47.
Desai, Mahadev; The Gospel of Selfless Action or The Gita According to Gandhi,
p. 125.
The Gujarat Mahavidyalaya was established on 18 October 1920 and
functions till date. It is now called Gujarat Vidyapith, which in 1963 was
notified as a Deemed University, the University Grants Commission of
India.
CWMG, vol. 21, p. 482.
Desai, Mahadev; The Gospel of Selfless Action or The Gita According to Gandhi,
p. 126.
Ibid, p. 128.
CWMG, vol. 33, p. 32.
Ibid, vol. 58, p. 9.
Ibid, vol. 70, p. 116.
Desai, Mahadev; The Gospel of Selfless Action or The Gita According to Gandhi,
p. 133.
Ibid.
CWMG, vol. 33, p. 87.
Ibid, p. 85.
Desai, Mahadev; The Gospel of Selfless Action or The Gita According to Gandhi,
p. 127.
28
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
TRIDIP SUHRUD
SATYAGRAHI AS STHITPRAGNYA
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
29
PREAMBLE
32
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
33
34
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
35
36
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
37
38
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
39
Author
Title
Advaita
(non-dualism)
1. Gt- bhya
2. Gt-bhya-bibechan
3. Subodhin
4. Gudrthadpik
5. Brahmandagiri
aibdvaita
(Saivik nondualism)
Viitdvaita
(qualified
non-dualism)
Dvaitdvaita
(doctrine of
dual non-dual)
1. Gt-bhya
2. Prameyadpik
1. Tattva-dpik
2. Amta-taragi
40
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
41
42
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
Text
Stated adhikr
Unstated adhikr
akara
Gt - bhya
adhikr
t[craving /
grasping36]
kman
[desire]
kma[desire]
adhikr
Jayatrtha
Prameyadpik
adhikr
Vekantha
Brahmandagiri
adhikr
Puruottama
Amta-taragi
adhikr
adhikr
abhila [urge]
kma[lust]
bhoktabya
[the wish to
consume and
gratify senses]
km-kartabya
[desire-motivated]
bhoktabya
[the wish to
consume and
gratify senses]
kma[appetite]
43
44
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
45
46
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
Particle of Prohibition
Particle of Negation
English
13
54
Bangla
12
17
Hindi
33
Marathi
Gujarati
Latin
33
106
Translator
Year
Stated adhikra
Charles Wilkins49
1785
motive
John Davies50
1882
charge
1882
business
1883-1896
concern
Mohini M. Chatterji 53
1887
right
1900
power
Jogindranath Mukharji54
Annie Besant and Bhagavan
Das55
47
1905
business
Franklin Edgerton56
1925
interest
W. Douglas P. Hill57
1928
rightful interest
1931
task
Mahadev Desai59
1946
province
S. Radhakrishnan60
1948
right
Juan Mascar61
1962
R. C. Zaehner62
1966
proper business
1967
control
Morarji Desai64
1974
J. A. B. Buitenen65
1981
entitlement
1989
(be) intent
Hans Harder67
2001
(are) entitled
2002
domain
2008
authority
Boris
Marjanovic68
Laurie L. Patton69
48
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
III
One has to understand what karma is, and likewise one has to understand
what is wrong karma [or vikarmaa] and one has to understand about nonkarma [or akarma]. Hard to understand is the way of karma.
The Bhagavadgt, 4.1770
Translator
Year
Karma
Charles Wilkins85
1785
deed
J. Cockburn Thomson86
1855
action
John Davies87
1882
work
1882
action
1883-1896
actions
Edwin Arnold90
1885
right deeds
1887
action
Mohini M. Chatterji91
Annie Besant and Bhagavan
Das92
1905
action
W. Douglas P. Hill93
1928
work
1931
act
1935
work
Mahadev Desai96
1946
action
S. Radhakrishnan97
1948
action
1960
prescribed duty
Juan Mascar99
1962
work
M.R. Sampatkumaran100
1969
rite
1970
works
J. A. B. Buitenen102
1981
rite
1989
action
2002
action
2008
action
Boris
Marjanovic104
Laurie L. Patton105
49
50
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
51
52
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
53
54
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
55
56
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
57
58
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
59
factions such as, Saivik non-dualism, qualified nondualism, dualism, dual non-dualism and pure nondualism, do not write off 2.47 as a materially insignificant
sloka, none of them attach any special importance to it
either. One of the first commentators to be over-awed
by it was BankimchandraWilliam Quan Judge (18511896), one of the more prominent theorists of New York
based Theosophical Society was another. While, in his
book Essays on the Gt, written exactly at the time (188788) Bankim was composing his bhya (1886-88), Judge
declares, This advice (2.47) and the direction to see
the Spirit in all things and all things in It express the gist
of the Bhagavad- Gts teaching 150, Bankim in his
commentary, musing over the intricacies of 2.47
confesses, I am not saying that I have understood it
completely151.]
5. Bankims deletion of ev from 2.47 extends beyond the
re-conceptualization of karmabeside ridding karma of
the haunting presence of jna and thus making its
interchangeability with action logically convincing, the
deletion also helps in re-defining the relationship
between nikm karma or disinterested karma and
sannys or renouncement. Even before he officially
announced in his Commentary that 2.47 was the great
sentence of the Gt and such an elevated, holy
utterance of dharma, beneficial for man and of great
dignity, has never again been proclaimed on earth,152
Bankim had re-thought the relationship. The New
Thought, which is also Bankims second major
proposition, is voiced in the section called Sannys in
Dharmatattva. To put it in right perspective let us place
the proposition along with those put forward by akara
and Rmnuja on the same issue. The picture then
becomes:
akara: Whatever else it may be, nikm karma is
definitely not sannys; hence, karmayoga is the perfect
60
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
anti-thesis of jnayoga.
Rmnuja: Cultivation of nikm karma is the surest way
of attaining the beatitude aspired by the sannys; hence,
karmayoga is superior to jnayoga.153
Bankim: Doubtless, nikm karma alone is sannys
for, what else is there in sannys?;154 hence, karmayoga
has the same valence as jnayoga.
[But, this much has to be granted. After a great deal of
intellectual jugglery, Bankims notion of disinterested
action took on a rather complex characterit turned
into nikm kmya karma or desireless desirous
action.155 But, as Gt gained in political currency and
Bankims Gospel of Action got increasingly embedded
in the political unconscious of the English-educated, the
middle term kmya or desirous in Bankims novel
construction went out of circulation. This vanishing may
be regarded as a collateral damage in the complex
process of harnessing popular support. Thus, wading
through the mires of colonial imposition to chalk out a
nationally respectable counter-discourse, the only
effective analytic tool the enlightened vanguards were
left with was desireless action.]
Conceptual transformations of key-terms crucial to precolonial Brahminical speculations initiated by Bankim (and
a few of his distant compatriots) really mature when the
equation karma = kj = action combines with the equation
(stated / unstated) adhikar = right.
IV
You have the Gt and yet people go searching for dharma in the Veda, Smti,
Bible, or the Quran!
Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay,
Dharmatatva156 [1888]
61
62
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
63
64
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
65
66
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
67
68
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
2.
3.
4.
5.
69
70
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
71
72
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
73
74
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
75
76
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
77
78
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
Postscript
The swadeshi spokesman, the rajas-sparkling karmayog Sandip
of Rabindranaths Ghare-Baire, the novel that has
immortalized [the] grandeur and pettiness, [the] triumphs
and...tragedies [of] the swadeshi age226, proclaims in a
thunderous speech: This is not the moment to ponder over
dharma-karma or moral conductthe need of the hour is to
act cruelly, unjustly with no consideration or hesitation
whatsoever.227 Indranath is another swadeshi thinker who
appears in Rabindranaths novel Char Adhyay [Four
Chapters: 1934]. Mocking the faint-hearted sentimental
ones, he says, This is what Ka taught Arjuna...[on the
field of battle]: Dont be cruel but be dispassionate in matters
of Duty...And, what after that? Karmay ev dhikras te m
phaleu kadcana. 228 The first-person narrator of
Rabindranaths short-story Namanjur Galpo [The Rejected
Story: 1925]the story written immediately before
Samskar (1928)is an ex-swadeshi who nonetheless stands
behind the footlight when prompted by Gandhi, khaddarclad chark-turning political players occupy the centre-stage.
The narrator believes himself to be in the same company
with swadeshi stalwarts like Ullaskar [Dutta]-Kanai[lal Dutta]Barin[drakumar Ghosh]-Upendra[nath Banerji].229 But,
after being sent to jail for participating in the Civil
Disobedience Movement, the erstwhile swadeshi now a
Gandhian, seeks solace not in Gt 2.47 but in 2.45he keeps
chanting to himself, do thou become free, O Arjuna, from
the three-fold modes [of tamas, rajas and sattva].230
Perhaps it is not for nothing that Gora, the hot-headed
mercurial hero of Rabindranaths novel Gora [published in
a journal: 1907 to 1909; published fully in book-form: 1910],
the young man who can go to extremes to counter the daily
ordeal of facing racist humiliation and discrimination from
the colonial masters, finds himself defeated in executing
one of his cherished plans. To give a fitting reply to an
English missionarys criticisms of Hindu scriptures and
79
80
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
81
82
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
83
84
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
85
86
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
87
88
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
89
90
156.
157.
158.
159.
160.
161.
162.
163.
164.
165.
166.
167.
168.
169.
170.
171.
172.
173.
174.
175.
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
176.
177.
178.
179.
180.
181.
182.
183.
184.
185.
186.
187.
188.
189.
190.
191.
192.
193.
194.
91
Ibid., p. 13
Ibid., p. 13
Ibid., p. 15
G.W.F. Hegel, Second Article, On the Episode of the Mahbhrata known
by the name Bhagavad-Gt by Wilhelm von Humboldt, ed. cit., p. 51
Ibid., p. 47
G.W.F. Hegel, First Article, On the Episode of the Mahbhrata known by
the name Bhagavad-Gt by Wilhelm von Humboldt, ed. cit., p. 15
G.W.F. Hegel, Second Article, On the Episode of the Mahbhrata known
by the name Bhagavad-Gt by Wilhelm von Humboldt, ed. cit., p. 59
Ibid., p. 59
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, The Message of the Gita, The Gospel
of Action or the Gita According to Gandhi, tr. Mahadev Desai, Ahmedabad:
2001, p. 134
akara, Sutra number 1.2.6, Commentary on Vednta-Sk tras, The
Sacred Books of the East (volume 34), ed. F. Max Mller, Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass Publishers, 1998, pp 112-113
Rmnuja, Sutra number 1.2.6, Commentary on Vednta-Sutras, The
Sacred Books of the East (volume 45), ed. F. Max Mller, Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass Publishers, 2003, p. 263
J. A. B. Van Buitenen, Introduction, Rmnuja on the Bhagavadgt,
ed cit., p. 7
Rammohun Roy, Translation of an Abridgement of the Vedant, The English
Works of Raja Rammohun Roy (Part II), ed. Kalidas Nag and Debajyoti
Burman, Calcutta: Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, 1995, p. 57
B. R. Ambedkar, Krishna and His Gita, The Essential Writings of B. R.
Ambedkar, ed. cit. p. 193
Sri Sitaram Omkarnath, 2.47, Srimadbhagavadgt (volume one),
Kolkata: Akhil Bharat Jaiguru Sampradai, 1996, p. 69
Srijib Nyayatirtha, Introduction, rmadbhagavadgt (volume one)
by Sri Sitaram Omkarnath, ed. cit., p. [10] (emphasis added)
B. R. Ambedkar, Krishna and His Gita, The Essential Writings of B.R.
Ambedkar, ed. cit. p. 195
For a detailed discussion on the ideological and political ramifications
of the philosophical position adopted by Satis Chandra and his
sympathizers see:
Sibaji Bandyopadhyay, Introduction to The Dawn and Dawn Societys
Magazine, Volume XII, edited by Madhabendra Nath Mitra, Kolkata:
Jadavpur University in association with National Council of Education, Bengal,
June 2009, pp. 35-70
Rabindranath Thakur, Samskar, Rabindra-Rachanabali (Sulabh
Sangskaran), Volume 12, Kolkata: Viswa-bharati, 1995, p. 403
Aurobindo Ghosh, The Doctrine of Passive Resistance and The
92
195.
196.
197.
198.
199.
200.
201.
202.
203.
204.
205.
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212.
SIBAJI BANDYOPADHYAY
213.
214.
215.
216.
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This paper seeks to explore Gandhis concept of nonviolence which had been originally given shape in Hind Swaraj
and from which Gandhi can be said to have not deviated till
the last day of his life, barring perhaps one exception, (and
to a lesser extent another) which however could be read in
accordance to what he had theorised in Hind Swaraj. The
statement of his ideas occasionally invited critical comment
perhaps none more so than when he advised Jews living in
Germany to offer non violent resistance in the face of Nazi
persecution. This paper will focus on the significant aspects
that can be culled over from this episode.
This episode is significant for a number of reasons. The
Holocaust constitutes one of the most horrific chapters of
human history and Gandhis suggestion that the Jews offer
their lives to awaken world opinion was greeted in most
quarters with incredulity and derision. This episode
embodies to a great degree not only the question of the
ultimate validity of Gandhian non-violence but it also holds
within itself the contours of the debate as to whether non
violent protest can succeed against despotic regimes and
therefore, provides an opportunity to examine its relevance
for our times.
Is non-violence endowed with an abiding intrinsic validity
existent only on its own set of conditions on the plane of
praxis, or is it perpetually dependent upon its other to
whom it is directed? Is the source of its validity intrinsic or
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97
they relish the idea of being forced to leave the other parts of the
world in which they are settled? Or do they want a double home
where they remain at will? This cry for the national home affords
a colourable justification for the German expulsion of Jews. But
the German persecution of the Jews seems to have no parallel in
history. The tyrants of old never went so mad as Hitler seems to
have gone. And he is doing it with religious zeal. For, he is
propounding a new religion of exclusive and militant nationalism
in the name of which any inhumanity becomes an act of humanity
to be rewarded here and hereafter. The crime of an obviously
mad but intrepid youth is being visited upon this whole race with
unbelievable ferocity. If there ever could be a justifiable war in
the name of humanity, a war against Germany, to prevent the
wanton persecution of a whole race, would be completely justified.
But I do not believe in any war. A discussion of the pros and cons
of such a war is, therefore, outside my horizon or province.
Germany is showing to the world how efficiently violence can be
worked when it is not hampered by any hypocrisy or weakness
masquerading as humanitarianism. It is also showing how
hideous, terrible and terrifying it looks in its nakedness.
Can the Jews resist this organized and shameless persecution? Is
there a way to preserve their self-respect and not to feel helpless,
neglected and forlorn? I submit there is. If I were a Jew and were
born in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I would claim
Germany as my home even as the tallest gentile German might,
and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I
would refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminating
treatment. And for doing this I should not wait for the fellow Jews
to join me in civil resistance, but would have confidence that in
the end the rest were bound to follow my example. If one Jew or
all the Jews were to accept the prescription here offered, he or
they cannot be worse off than now. And suffering voluntarily
undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy which no
number of resolutions of sympathy passed in the world outside
Germany can. Indeed, even if Britain, France and America were
to declare hostilities against Germany, they can bring no inner
joy, no inner strength. The calculated violence of Hitler may
even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first
answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish
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who it was said, were always behind the times. It was only
six years later that the Nazis would actually compel the Jews
to wear the Star of David as a mark of inferiority. It is also the
psyche of the militant Jews that we speak of today, it is widely
known that the diabolical Nazi machine would have
embarked on its course anyway. However the degree of its
success would have to depend also on the state of the Jewish
mind, as in turn it would be the state of the Jewish mind on
which would depend the subsequent course of Jewish, and
to a great extent, world history. Robert Weltsch, who had
coined the slogan in 1933, was to say later that he would
never have issued his slogan if he had been able to forsee
developments. 20 In October 1938 Zindel Grynszpan, a
German Jew of Polish descent, along with thousands like
him was brutally evicted from Germany. On November 7,
1938 his seventeen year old son Herschel Grynszpan, living
in Paris, shot and killed a young German diplomat posted in
Paris, named Ernst Vom Rath. The assassination was the
immediate provocation for the Kristallnacht or the night
of the broken glass of November 9, when seventy five
hundred Jewish shop windows were broken, all synagogues
went up in flames, and twenty thousand Jewish men were
taken off to concentration camps.21
On the 26th of November Gandhi wrote his first statement
on the issue of Jewish persecution, referring to Herschel
Grynszpan as an obviously mad, but intrepid youth.
However Gandhis prescription of an altogether different
intrepidity for the Jews continues to be misunderstood with
the resultant denial of its relevance in human history. Gandhi
accepted the probability expressed by one of his
correspondents, that a Jewish Gandhi in Germany, should
one arise, would function for about five minutes until
the first Gestapo agent would lead him, not to a concentration
camp, but directly to the Guillotine.22 But for him that did
not disprove the efficacy of Ahimsa. He could imagine the
suffering and death of many more in such a course of action:
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29. Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, Chicago: 1961. However
Arendt was highly critical of some of Hilbergs later observations on the
Jewish psyche, such as the death wish of the Jews, and the relation
between them was hardly congenial.
30. Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem, op.cit., p. 61.
31. Ibid., p. 61.
32. M.K.. Gandhi, Non-violence in Peace & War, op.cit., p. 191
33. Joan Bondurant, Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict,
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988, p. 227.
34. Robert Pendorf, Morder und Ermordete. Eichmann and die Judenpolitic des
Dritten Reiches, Hamburg: 1961, cited in Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem,
op.cit., p. 117.
35. Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem, op.cit., p. 117.
36. Ibid., p. 295.
37. Peter Bamm, Die Unsichtbare Flagge, Munich, 1952, cited in Arendt,
Eichmann in Jerusalem, op.cit., p. 232.
38. Arendt, Eichmann in Jeruslam, op.cit., pp. 232-233.
39. M.K. Gandhi, Non-Violence in Peace & War, op.cit., vol. II, pp. 116-117.
The self has been an object of enquiry in the east and west
since the inception of philosophy. Certain forms of literature
add a phenomenological urgency to the enquiry,
autobiography being the most obvious one of them. As a
genre, autobiography brings into focus issues of identity and
selfhood in its philosophical and historical dimensions. That
this genre has enjoyed greater popularity in India only since
the 19th century is an interesting sociological fact that
requires a separate discussion. Since the 20th century,
however, the genre has gained popularity globally and
provides a rich cross-cultural corpus for theoretical analysis.
Arguably, certain historical moments provide richer soil
for studying the already complex set of thematic concerns
that autobiography highlights. While the genres popularity
with the hitherto marginalized, especially dalit and women
writers in the 19th and 20th century, has been well-studied,
my project focuses on autobiographies of some public
individuals in early 20th century in India, to analyse how the
genre becomes a site for the articulation of identities
individual and collective. The period is one of social
transition and political turmoil, when the familiar tensions
between tradition and modernity, the native and the
foreign, the local and the universal acquire piquancy due to
the urgencies of the anti-colonial movement and nascent
and conflicting versions of nationalism. Progressive agendas
that look westwards collide with nativism and cultural revival,
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MAYA JOSHI
the title and name that he died with and is known by,
Mahapandit Tripitakacharya Rahul Sankrityayan. This name
and title is itself a testimony to the distance he had traveled,
since no part of it was his by birth. While his titles
Mahapandita and Tripitakacharya indicated his mastery
of Sanskrit and Pali texts, the first name Rahul was chosen
for its Buddhist antecedents (being the name of Prince
Siddhartha Gautamas son) and Sankrityayan was created
out of the name of the gotra (caste lineage) that his family
belonged to. This name, of his own invention (Buddhist and
residually Brahmanical in its inclusion of the caste category),
bears the traces of all but the last and most powerful
ideological phase in his life: the Marxist.
The Buddhist phase had began with his growing distance
from the Hindu reformist movement Arya Samaj, of which
he was a fervent young exponent between 1914 and 1915,
during which he was required to study Buddhism along with
other heterodox schools of philosophy in order to counter
their premises, as was the practice amongst Arya Samajis.
Having already left home to start his regular travels by the
year 1910, at the age of 17, it was during his visit to Nepal in
1923, followed by one to Sri Lanka in 1927, that he
systematically studied Buddhism, acquiring the degrees and
titles mentioned earlier. Having Urdu, Hindi, Sanskrit,
Arabic and Persian and of course his native Bhojpuri already
at his command, he had by now acquired a knowledge of
Pali, Singhalese and Tibetan. He traveled to Tibet four times
disguised as a lama by the assumed name of Chhewang,
affecting madness and mendicancy to save himself from the
double hazard of ruthless local bandits and the British Police,
and brought back with him over 1600 Buddhist manuscripts
and texts on mules, translating some of them along the way.
He also visited Europe as a Buddhist missionary in 1932,
during which period he declined an invitation to travel to
America in the same role.
Rahula Sankrityayans Socialist phase began in 1935,
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MAYA JOSHI
musafir yadi apni jeevan yatra ko likh gaye hote, to mera bahut laabh hua
hotagyaan ke khayal se hi nahin, samay ke pariman mein bhi. Main
manta hoon hi koi bhi do jeevan yatraayen bilkul ek si nahin ho saktin, to
bhi isme sandeha nahin ki sabhi jeevano ko usi aantarik aur baihya
vishva ki tarangon main tairana parta hai. (I had often felt that I
would have gained considerably if others who had traveled this
path had left their accountsnot only in terms of knowledge
gained but also in terms of time. I agree that no two lives are
identical, still there is no doubt that all lives have to swim in the
same waters: whether internal or those of the external world.
Prakkathan, Meri Jeevan Yatra: I, p. 1)
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MAYA JOSHI
approval and satisfaction that the book has gone into a second
edition because of the support of young and old alike,
resulting in its being institutionalised within the university
system. So the advice proferred, to wander the world while
youth lasts, if somewhat subversive of social convention, is
yet brought firmly back within a safe frame. If it is so easily
absorbed into formal pedagogic systems, the text has already
become that safe thing, a classic in his lifetime, that can be
read for entertainment, its provocative overstatement of its
case merely a rhetorically satisfying embellishment.
The genealogy for the wanderer motif as it appears in
his Ghumakkar Shastra is mixed. In this proscriptive and
prescriptive text, Sankrityayan sets about convincing a
rhetorical audience of youth and their wards of the
desirability and hoary past of this way of life. It is the highest
duty he declares, of every traveler to benefit future
generations of roamers by putting their pens to paper. Of
course, writing, like photographs, can never capture the true
flavour of the experience (even the travails of travel are
likened to spice in food) and therefore first hand experience
is the only guarantee of authenticity. The shastras tell us,
he says, tongue in cheek, that we must cultivate curiousity
for that which is shreshtha (superior) and supremely
beneficial to the individual and society ( p.7) Having made
his claim that wandering is this supreme activity, he sets about
creating an appropriate tradition for it. One clear tradition
is that of the wandering sadhu, the holy sage, the greatest of
whom, he admits is the Buddha himself. Mahavira and
Shankaracharya follow, as do Nanak and Dayanand Saraswati.
This creed, and the language he deploys is quasi-religious,
is the highest, the only timeless, eternal creed in the world,
great as the sky, vast as the ocean (p.11), one that has been
followed by leaders of all the great world religions in their
hey-day.
However, in a characteristically modern twist, he is not
averse to including Christopher Columbus in this pantheon
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MAYA JOSHI
increasingly coloured by a growing involvement with the anticolonial nationalist struggle, and more specifically, with a
certain group which seeks to represent the rights of India
poorest, amongst them the peasants of Bihar, his chosen
karmabhoomi. The addition of this class angle to his analysis
of the ills of Indian society has a dual effect: it both draws
him towards Buddhism initially and also finally takes him
away from it.
For it is clear that this scholar-traveler found it necessary
to travel beyond Buddhism to arrive at Marxism a
philosophy and a practice that at first glance may appear to
the casual observer the polar opposite of Buddhism. At the
same time, his continuous and dedicated scholarly
engagement with Buddhism makes him a somewhat
contradictory and divided person politically Marxist, but
committed scholastically and academically to Buddhism to
the very end of his days.
However, beyond these simplistic binaries lies a more
nuanced Middle Way, if one may, that turns our attention
to the philosophical links between Buddhism and Marxism.
It is a link that this traveler in the realms of thought
articulated, as he did all his shifts of belief and conviction,
and his words are the best pointers to the continuities
between these apparently divergent streams of thought.
Indeed, it is precisely in the closeness of Buddhism to
Marxism that Rahula Sankrityayana finds meaning in it. This
necessarily involves an emphasis which underplays the ritual
aspect of Buddhism in favour of rational philosophy and
logic, that teases out the dharmas collectivist possibilities over
the individual ones, and finds value in those aspects of it
that are outward-looking and socially engaged rather than
inward-looking or meditative or detached. And, in so far as
Buddhism has deviated historically from these desirables
of being theoretically conducive to social change, collective
good and rational thinking he feels free to criticize it as
an inadequate answer to contemporary problems.
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137
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MAYA JOSHI
139
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MAYA JOSHI
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MAYA JOSHI
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MAYA JOSHI
145
Primary Works:
Gandhi, M.K., An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments
with Truth, (English)Ahmedabad: Navajivan Press,
1927.
Sankrityayana, Rahula, Akbar, Allahabad: Kitab Mahal, 1957.
, Bhadant Bodhananda Mahasthavir, in Rahul Vangmaya
- 2.2: Jeevani Sansmaran, Delhi: Radhakrishna
Prakashan, pp. 402- 406.
, Buddha aur Gandhi (n.d.), section Ateet se Vartaman
in Rahula Vangmaya - 2.2: Jeevani aur Sansmaran,
Delhi: Radhakrishna Prakashan, pp. 426-428.
, Buddha Charya,(1931, Kashi Vidyapeeth), Lucknow:
Bharatiya Bauddha Samiti, 1995 (third edition).
, Buddhist Dialectics, in Buddhism: The Marxist Approach
(1970), (English) New Delhi: Peoples Publishing
House, 1990.
,Gandhivaad in Dimaghi Ghulami, Allahabad: Kitab
Mahal, 1993, pp.8-15.
, Ghumakkar Shastra,(1948), Allahabad: Kitab Mahal,
1957.
, Meri Jeevan Yatra, Vols. I (1944), II (1950), III &IV
(1967), Delhi: Radhakrishna Prakashan, reprint,
2005.
, Sahitya Nibandhavali, (Collected Essays) Allahabad:
Kitab Mahal, 1949)
, Tibbat Mein Bauddha Dharma( 1948), Allahabad:
Kitab Mahal, 2005.
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KANCHANA NATARAJAN
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KANCHANA NATARAJAN
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KANCHANA NATARAJAN
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KANCHANA NATARAJAN
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
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KANCHANA NATARAJAN
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ENAKSHI MITRA
167
168
ENAKSHI MITRA
ABC
CDE
DEF
FGH
g1
g2
g3
g4
Fig. 1
(Using small g for games and capital letters for the overlapping
features like amusement, winning and losing, skill in chess, skill
in tennis etc.)
AEB
BCG
CGD
g1
g2
g3
g4
Fig. 2
and also in many other conceivably alternative tracks.
Wittgenstein has not only challenged the notion of a
unitary essence but also of a fixed essence. The process of old
fibres disappearing and new fibres cropping up is one of
continuous expansion, and not a permutation and
combination of a pre-given finite set.
Wittgenstein describes these overlapping features or
fibres as family-resemblances. (PI 67) Large families where
we can survey a number of siblings and cousins, their parents,
grandparents and their offsprings together, clearly exhibit
169
how features like build, shape of the eyes and nose, structure
of the jaws, curve of the lips, colour of the eyes, gait,
temperament, etc., overlap and crisscross in the same way.
None of the above features at any point can be attributed to
all the members in common. Thus though starting with the
instance of game, Wittgenstein privileges the case of family
as well, as an exemplary case to understand how other
concepts, i.e., concepts other than game too, are spun
through overlapping and crisscrossing fibres, and not on the
basis of a putative set of necessary and sufficient conditions.
And a family expands for ever, its new members continually
being born, and old members passing away, generating new
features to be added to the network and old features dying
out.
Since Wittgenstein warns us not to think that there must
be a singular identity behind all uses of general words and
instead wants us to look and see, we cannot now just stop
with two examples we have to examine some simple and
familiar concepts, specially those which unlike game, and
family, do seem to have an essence in common.
To take the example of gold a neat, scientific concept,
dressed up in a complete set of necessary and sufficient
conditions.2 A definite spectral line, a certain atomic number
(79), a certain atomic weight, a characteristic odour, a
certain degree of malleability, a certain melting point, and
entering into certain chemical combinations and not others.
Suppose something occurred with the same atomic number
but was not yellow but purple, not malleable, had a different
melting point, and produced a different series of spectral
lines. Many chemists who take the atomic number itself to
be the sole defining characteristic still call it gold. Others
who consider each of the above conditions to be necessary
cannot call it by the same name a position rather dubious
in view of the fact that an isotope has a different weight
from that normally characterising the element, yet chemists
call it X (X, but an isotope of X), as long as it has other
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ENAKSHI MITRA
g
A BC
g
A RE
g
FG E
g
ESU
g
Fig. 3
Here again we take g for individual games, houses or trees (this time
without being numbered); A, B, C as features; and the dotted lines as some
of the possible modes of expansion.
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islander pick out the characteristic feature of the boatbuilding trees, say, the maturity of wood, girth of the trunk
in isolation from the colour of the wood, its thickness or
texture? To take Wittgensteins own example in PI 47, how
can one alternately point to two exclusive features of the
tree first to its broken outline composed of straight bits
and then to the complexity of its colours? Any ostensive
technique that may be adopted would lead to words, and
words to further ostension, and neither can be privileged as
the originary foundation.
Opacity of Acts of Ostension
The myth of bare particulars or of self-identical detachable
features out there in reality, waiting to be captured by proper
names, needed another myth of there being uniform acts
of putting labels on to each of these entities. On this view,
each of the acts - identifying colour as opposed to shape, or
shape as opposed to number or the angle of light exhibits a
characteristic essence. It just needs a little introspection to
expose the absurdity of such suppositions. We sometimes
attend to the colour by putting our hand up to keep the
outline from view, or by not looking at the outline of the
thing; sometime by staring at the object and trying to
remember where we saw the colour before. We identify the
shape sometimes by screwing up our eyes so as not to see
the colour clearly, and in many other ways. And even if there
were a characteristic process of attending to the shape say,
following the outline with ones finger or eyes, this by itself
would not constitute what we call identifying the shape in
contrast to its colour. (PI 33) It is weirder to talk of a single
act of identifying the common black and white coat of a
Dalmatian an act which brushes away the variant effects of
light and shade, variant sizes and shapes and configurations
of their spots. Can it possibly be by screwing our eyes to have
a blurred image of black and white, which will, so to speak
abstract from individual variations in colour and spot-patterns?
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185
modes of analysis popularized by Logical Atomism.(PI 4649) A chair can be seen as made of bits of wood, or of atoms
and molecules, or (normally) as composed of a back-rest
and seat propped up on four legs, or as a unitary design
resisting any analysis (PI 47). The visual image of this tree
can be looked upon as a complex of colour patches, or as a
broken outline composed of straight bits. A curved line can
be said to be composed of an ascending segment and a
descending segment. A chessboard is normally seen as a
unique composition made out of thirty two white and thirty
two black squares. But we can also see it as colours black and
white and a schema of squares. There is no inherent
simplicity in the respective elements of each mode of
complexity, say, of the chessboard. Is the colour of a square
of a chessboard simple, or is it composed of pure white and
pure yellow? And is white simple or does it consist of colours
of the rainbow? Is this length 2 cm simple or does to consist
of 1 bit 3 cm long and one bit 1 cm long measured in the
opposite direction? (PI 47). Is it unimaginable for someone
to see the group | | | | | (e.g.) as the group | | || | | with
the two middle strokes fused, and should accordingly count
the middle stroke twice? (True, it is not the usual case)
(RFM I 168). The question Is what you see composite?
makes good sense if it is already established what kind of
complexity - that is, which particular use of the word - is in
question. Asking Is the object composite? outside a
particular language-game is like asking whether the verb
to sleep meant something active or passive. (PI 47). The
phenomenon of seeing a tree for example in different ways
can be accounted for in two ways: Either we are baptising
the entire tree say by the proper name Terry in which case
Terry can internalize its reference in so many different
ways (two of which we have already cited). On the other
hand we can also say that we are not baptising the tree, but
baptising each of its so-called elements. To take another
example: Suppose there are some squares of different
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G G
W W
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they create space, they are space. And in this sense they create
a composition of forces, where the smaller area can be
said to be composed out of greater areas. One cannot look
upon matter or meaning as assorted out of smaller elements
inertly adding up to progressively larger ones, for the smaller
can only be understood as exploding into or creating bigger
space. Reference does not hark back on an inert, simple
quantitative identity underlying all modes of descriptions;
but the way in which that putative identity is invaded by its
other the space of description.
Language, Behaviour and Reality
What we have been trying to appreciate is that reference,
meaning and understanding consist in a plethora of activities,
which cannot be conceived in any fashion unless they are
seen to incorporate the reality into themselves, very much
in the same fashion as the mechanisms of a locomotive absorb
their seemingly external projections. (PG 20, PI 4) The acts
of uttering marks, writing signs or moving ones limbs
traditionally presuppose an immaculate object waiting out
there to be somehow linked, manipulated or maneuvered
by these acts. The Nyaya-Vaisesikas conceive behaviour or
actions as a cause of conjunction or disjunction say the act
of my walking away from this room to the next causes a
disjunction from one part of space and conjunction with
another part 13 (space figuring as an eternal and allpervading substance for this school). On this theory behaviors
or actions are envisaged as bridges conjoining the agent with
the object the two entities lying external to each other.
For Wittgenstein on the other hand behaviour does not
connect signs with the signified by making a bridge through
a supposed empty space in between. We have to appreciate
how it constructs the sign and the signified into a new space.
Conceiving the chair and my body in the normal fashion
amounts to bridging them up in the usual way sticking out
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11. Kripke holds that the concept of reference or reality is too rich to be
specified in terms of anything else (ostension or definite description)
and thus all circularities or regresses involved in specifying the identityconditions of an individual only shows the inadequacy of language in
capturing reality. This view as we have noted is flatly opposed to
Wittgensteins. On the other hand, Kripkes emphatic rejection of a
tertium quid (ostension or definite description) for reaching out to
reference brings him closer to Wittgenstein in certain respects. However,
for Kripke the referent causes the usage of rigid designators and repeats
itself as a unique transworld identity in all descriptions. For Wittgenstein
on the other hand, language internalizes reference in inexhaustively
different ways.
12. This analysis of measurement is derived largely from R.S. Jones, Physics
as Metaphor, pp. 18 30.
13. Prasastapada Bhasyam, Part I,5.
14. I am greatly indebted to C.E.M. Dunlops Wittgenstein on Sensation
and Seeing As in Synthese for the treatment of pain.
15. Frege, Gottlob, The Thought: A Logical Enquiry.
16. Norman Malcolms article The Relation of Language to Instinctive
Behaviour has helped me shape up this line of argument.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Wittgenstein, Ludwig
Texts
Remarks on Colour, ed. G.E.M. Anscombe, (trans.: Linda. L.
McAlister and Margaret Schattle), Oxford, Basil
Blackwell, 1950.
Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics, ed. G.H. Von Wright
(trans.: G.E.M. Ascombe), Oxford, Basil Blackwell,
1956.
Notebooks 1914 1916, ed. G.H. Von Wright and G.E.M.
Anscombe (trans.: G.E.M. Anscombe), Oxford, Basil
Blackwell, 1961.
The Blue and The Brown Books, ed. R. Rhees, Oxford, Basil
Blackwell, 1975.
Zettel, ed. G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. Von Wright (trans.:
G.E.M. Anscombe), Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1981.
Tractatus Logico Philosophicus (trans.: C.K. Ogden), London
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ENAKSHI MITRA
Other Readings
Baker, G.P. & Hacker P.M.S., Wittgenstein: Understanding and
Meaning, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1980, Vol. 1.
Bambrough R, Universals and Family Resemblances in
George Pitcher (ed.), Wittgenstein: The Philosophical
Investigations, London, MacMillan, 1966.
Dunlop, Charles, E.M., Wittgenstein on Sensation and
Seeing as, Synthese, Vol. 60, No. 3, 1984.
Frege, Gottlob, On Sinn Und Bedeutung(1892), in The
Frege Reader, (ed) Michael Beaney, Oxford, Blackwell,
1997.
Frege, Gottlob, The Thought: A Logical Enquiry in The
Frege Reader, (ed) Michael Beaney, Oxford, Blackwell,
1997.
Jones, Roger S., Physics as Metaphor, London, Wildwood
House Limited, 1982.
Kripke, Saul, Naming And Necessity, Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1980.
Malcolm, Norman, The Relation of Language to Instinctive
Behaviourin Investigating Psychology: Sciences of The
Mind After Wittgenstein, (Ed) John Hyman, Routledge,
1991.
Prasastapada, Prastapada Bhasyam, Prathama Bhaga, Tr:
Damodarasrama, Damodar Asrama, Kolkata.
Strawson, P F, On Referring in Ammerman R.R. ed. Classics
Of Analytic Philosophy, Routledge, London and New
York, 1994.
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204
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206
FRANSON MANJALI
207
***
The second part of Roland Barthes Camera Lucida (1980)
a work that is written in homage to Sartres LImaginaire
begins with a discussion of the photographs of the then
recently deceased mother of author. What characterizes the
photographic image, according to Barthes, is its property of
that-has-been. This image, unlike the artistic or the
cinematic image, is ultimately intractable, that is: what I
see has been here, in this place which extends between
infinity and the subject (operator or spectator); it has been here,
and yet immediately separated; it has been absolutely,
irrefutably present, and yet already deferred. (Ibid., p. 77)
The referent of this image was really present in some place
and at some time to some consciousness, which may be either
the operator (of the camera) or the spectator (of the
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***
Photography, as we know was a technological invention of
the 19th century marking a major transformation in the
history of the image. The epoch was also characterized by
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3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
215
relating to the anatomy of the brain (MRI, X-ray) but with the aid of
techniques such as electroencephalography (EEG), positron emission
tomography (PET), functional magnetic resonance imagery (fMRI) or
the magneto-encephalography (MEG) to observe in vivo the brain
involved in cognitive activities, such as, notably that of imagery. (text
translated from French by the present author) (Internet site, http://
www.lemonde.fr/savoirs-et-connaissances/article/2004/06/30/
claudine-tiercelin-le-concept-d-image_371085_3328.html)
This notion of the intractable has been questioned since the advent of
the digital images, which allows for distortion and manipulation of the
image shot by the camera. See especially, criticism by B. Stiegler, The
Discrete Image in Echographies of Television (2002).
Limage, peut-elle tuer? (Paris, Bayard, 2002) is the French title of
Mondzains book. Quotations from this text are translated by the present
author.
The first six chapters of Nancys The Ground of the Image (New York,
Fordham University Press, 2005) are a translation of Au fond des images
(Paris, Galile, 2003). We shall be referring to only the first two chapters
of the English version, viz., The Image the Distinct and Image and
Violence.
Mondzain, Marie Jos, Homo Spectator, Paris, Bayard, 2007, p. 13.
Ibid, p. 13.
Mondzain, Marie Jos, Limage peut-elle tuer ? Paris : Bayard, 2002, pp. 3132.
Ibid., p. 59.
Nancy, Jean-Luc, The Ground of the Image, (Tr.) Jeff Fort. New York,
Fordham University Press, 2005, p. 18.
Ibid., p. 18.
Ibid., p. 23.
REFERENCES
Barthes, Roland, 2000 edn. Camera Lucida (tr.) R. Howard.
London: Vintage. Fr. Orig. published in 1980.
Benjamin, Walter, 1999 edn. Illuminations. (ed.) Hannah
Harendt, (tr.) H. Zorn. New York: Pimlico.
Bergson, Henri, 1962 edn. Matter and Memory. (tr.) Nancy
M. Paul and W. S. Palmer. Londaon: George Allen
and Unwin. Fr. Orig. published in 1908.
Blanchot, Maurice, 1982 edn. The Space of Literature. (tr.)
Ann Smock. Lincoln: the University of Nebraska Press.
Fr. Orig. published in 1955.
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SPECIAL ESSAY
When I woke up, I saw the train entering the station. The
name of the station was written on a yellow signboard. I knew
now that I would have to get down. The pillars on the platform
were red in colour, the doors of the office were painted
green. When it stopped, I alighted. I saw Baba, Ma and Boudi
(my sister-in-law) waiting at the furthest corner of the
platform. There was nobody else anywhere, I was the only
passenger to disembark at this station.
Ma rushed forward. I hope you had no trouble, she
said, welcoming me affectionately. No, only the last few days
were a little strenuous, I replied. Boudi smiled and said,
Come lets head home.
When we crossed the gate of the platform and came
and stood outside, I looked all around to see that many
people had come. Robi-da (Robi Sen) was standing at a
distance. Behind him was Dhritin Chakraborty; rubbing
shoulders with him were my colleagues from the Statesman
Murali-da (Muralijiban Ghosh), Prashanta Sarkar, Ashim
Ray, Shyamadas Basu. Where was Bhabani Choudhury? I
didnt spot him in the crowd ! Even further away, I saw,
through something of a blur, my Delhi friends- Rajinder
Paul, Dilip Chaudhury, Subba Rao, Sudesh Vaid. On seeing
me, they greeted me with a wave of their hands.
Robi-da was the only one to come forward. Come over
*translated from Bengali by Nivedita Sen
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that boys like Bagha would be in the front line of that battle.
Putting on a kurta over my pyjamas, I then got ready to
go out. I would have to go to Samarbabus. Samar Sen. The
avant garde poet of the 1930-40 period, who stopped writing
poems, gave up a comfortable job in the Anandbazar Patrika
establishment, and opted instead to start the radical journal
Frontier to give voice to dissenting views during the tumultuous
days of the Naxalite movement. His home used to be the
haunt of young admirers of his I being one of them.
Ma sensed that I would spend the evening at the adda
of old friends. Youre going there to drink that horrid stuff
again? Ma rebuked me. Why dont you drink it sitting at
home? She then affectionately added, Dont be late.
As soon as I stepped out from the house, I slipped into
those familiar streets. After crossing the tram line, I took
Cornfield Road and then turned into Swinhoe Street. There
was a light burning downstairs in Samar Sens house. As I
knocked on the door, Samarbabu came out, sporting a kurta
and a lungi. He wore glasses, and had that gentle smile on
his face. On entering the drawing room, I saw Robi-da,
Pradyot-da, Dhruba-da (Mitra), Kiran Raha and a few others.
A bottle of whiskey had been opened. As soon as I entered,
Robi-da yelled, Here comes the bastard ! Where else can
he go? Hed have to come back here !
When did you arrive?, Samarbabu asked.
Robi-da answered on my behalf. This morning. I went
to the station. In fact, I told him then to come along in the
evening.
Who else has come today? Dhruba-da enquired.
I didnt see anybody else getting down at the station I
replied. I was the only one.
After this, the discussion veered in another direction.
The gathering did not air views on politics. They became
immersed instead in conjectures about all the people known
to them who had stayed back in Kolkata to date, the ailments
that they were suffering from, and forecasts of how long
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Mrinal Sen used to say, Robi Sen is the Durbasha of this era.
Nobody dare stand face to face with him.
Robi-da was going to say something, but Dhruba-da shut
him up, sidled up to me and asked me in a suppressed voice,
Is Suchitra still singing?
I saw her at a gathering at Rabindra Bhaban the other
day, I replied. But the singing was done by her students.
I wonder how she is, Dhruba-da seemed to say to
himself.
It seemed like a veiled entreaty: When will she return?
In the midst all this, I noticed that Samarbabu was just as
he was before - calm and steady. He was listening quietly,
expressing a few opinions from time to time, at times
exceedingly sarcastic even at his own expense. In the very
middle of all this, he turned to me once and enquired about
how my wife Bizeth was. His question reached straight into
Robi-das ever attentive auditory cavity. Immediately, Robida pointed a finger at me and asked, His wife Bizeth...?
Talking about her? That young woman even cast a spell on
Frontier. It was a Bhanumatis feat!
Somebody who possibly kept track of my wifes birthplace
said in a stuttering voice, Why Robi ? Do-nt-yo-u-kno-w?
Bhanumati was, in fact, born in Hyderabad!
I realized that under the trance of alcohol, a historian
among the group of scholars present here was confusing
Bikramadityas wife, Bhanumati the expert magician, with
another Bhanumati who in a much later period acquired
fame in Hyderabad as a danseuse and the mistress of a nawab
of the Asafzahi dynasty there. But then, this Bhanumati also,
one has to admit, was a specialist in another form of magic!
However, in a bid to manage the situation, and in order
to calm down Robi-da, I protested: Ah! Why are you drawing
Bizeth into matters regarding Frontier? She was always nonpolitical! She had never bothered her head about these
things.
Indeed! Robi-da now gave me a dirty look and
exclaimed. Looking at the others, he then said with a
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I laughed and said, No. I will not bother you any more.
I have given up painting. And I dont do reporting any
more.
Youve done a sensible thing, SB said. You never
managed to do much with either of these. Then he
pondered a little and added, However, I thought a few of
your pictures werent bad - I had written so in the Statesman
then. When was it that your exhibition took place?
I scratched my head and tried to recall the year. Was it
1962 or 1963 when, along with the paintings of my friend
Moni Jana (now living in some obscure village in France
perhaps!), I had exhibited my paintings in the Academy of
Fine Arts? In those days, renting a hall for exhibiting paintings
was affordable. There were only a few galleries which one
could easily go and book for exhibitions - for instance, the
one behind the museum in Sudder Street, the Artistry House
adjacent to the office of the Asiatic Society in Park Street,
Chowringhee Terrace in Bhowanipore. And another that
was most popular and easily available was the Academy of
Fine Arts patronized by Lady Ranu Mukherjee the wife of
Sir Biren Mukherjee, an industrialist knighted by the British
Queen! who also happened to head the board of directors
of our newspaper Statesman.
I asked SB, Does the Academy of Fine Arts still exist
here?
Why wouldnt it? SB replied. Lady Ranu is present
here in person. Of course! I remembered that Lady Ranu
was a patron of art! Our Debu-da (artist Debabrata
Mukhopadhyay) who was my maternal cousin, used to banter
and say, Lady Ranu is no ordinary person! Our Lady Ranus
place is second only to that of Lady Gregorys of Ireland!
Walking down the corridor in a hurry with a bundle of
papers in his hand in the opposite direction, SB turned
towards me and said, I hope you are coming to the mosque
in the evening! We could talk then.
Mosque meant the place for reading the evening
235
namaaz for mullahs like us! In other words, it was our favourite
haunt the Olympia Bar!
Ashim, Shyama and I started walking. At the end of the
corridor, when we were at the head of the stairs, I suddenly
remembered something. I turned to the right and looked
at the two lavatories adjacent to each other. Lo and behold
The nameplate was still intact.
Whats up? Why have you stopped? asked Shyama.
Looking up at Ashim, I drew his attention to the board
on the womens lavatory and asked, Do you see - it still says
Ladies?
Getting restless, Shyama asked, So what? He was going
to utter an abuse when I interrupted him and said, Aha !
Ashim, dont you recall? In keeping with our Statesman
stylebook, there was a strict injunction against ever using
the word ladies in the Statesman newspaper - one must only
write woman.
Remembering it, Ashim gave a mischievous grin and said,
Yes. There would only be exceptions under two
circumstances. First, one would have to write Lady if one
had to report something about Lady Ranu Mukherjee,
because she was the wife of the chairman of our board, Sir
Biren. And the second condition...
Before he could finish, Shyama laughed out loud and
declared, Oh yes! I remember.
In those days, there was actually a joke doing the rounds
in our office - As soon as a woman sits on a commode in the
Statesman office, she becomes a lady!
The three of us got out of the Statesman office and came
onto the road. Come, lets do some groundwork before
getting off, said Shyama.
The term groundwork had been coined by Muralida.
It meant - after coming out from our office, and before going
out on our respective assignments, we should tarry for an
hour or so at Chhota Bristol - the Little Bristol bar in the lane
opposite the Statesman office and down a few pegs, to
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237
I still use the dark room there. Come along one day. We
could have an adda.
I suddenly recalled an incident one evening at that studio
of his. Remember? I asked, looking at Ashim. We were
chatting while in an adda at his studio one day. Dhritin
Chakraborty was also there. We were probably discussing
poetry. Suddenly Shyamadas, who had his stomach lined with
quite a few pegs by then, stood up and said, Damn your
habit of writing poems on the sky, the stars and the moon! If
you want to hear, listen to my poem. He then recited in a
serious voice: I could fuck your moonlight, as long as I have
a lantern in my hand!
Ashim and Shyama both burst out laughing. Shyama
patted me on my back and said, Wow Sumanta! Your
memory is great!
The day was getting on. It was time for Ashim and
Shyamadas to go and cover the meeting. We guzzled the
booze in one gulp and got up. After getting out on the road,
Ashim asked me, Why dont you come along with us? Its
not as if you have any other work.
What is this meeting all about ?, I asked.
What else?, Shyama replied. The CP(I)M.
But all their leaders are still... I said.
Why?, said Ashim. Kakababu and Promodebabu are
here. And Anil Biswas has just arrived. He then grinned in
his characteristic cynical manner and said, The gathering
at the Maidan is, in fact, to greet him with a warm welcome.
His comment stirred up old memories ...Kakababu (or
uncle) was the endearing term we used, during our days in
the united Communist Party of India (CPI), for Muzaffar
Ahmad, one of the founders of the Communist movement
in India, who later led the CPI(M); Promodebabu was
Promode Das Gupta, the veteran secretary of the partys
West Bengal unit, whom I had encountered both as a former
functionary of the CPI, and later as a journalist; and lastly,
his successor Anil Biswas who was the West Bengal CPI(M)s
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I struck Dipens hand hard and said, Damn, you ass! Its
po-mo not homo- meaning, the initial syllables of postmodernism.
Ok, I understand po-mo, Boudhayan said. But where
did sa-ban come from?
That is the abbreviated version of subaltern, I replied.
Sa-ban in other words, soap in Bengali! With the soap of
their theory, those guys are washing and bleaching history
to give it a spring-clean.
Boudhayan-da was going to ask some more questions. I
interrupted him and said, Look here, Boudhayan-da, if one
had to explain the state of Delhis academic world, one could
say in one sentence that it is now the empire of the three
Dadas.
What do you mean? Boudhayan-da asked, knitting his
brows.
Counting on my fingers, I said, Derrida, Foucault-da
and Ashis-da.
Forever hooked on his familiar mannerism, Boudhayan
now began to rub his thumb with his forefinger and wanted
to know, Derrida and Foucault I can understand. But who
is this Ashis-da?
Why? I retorted. Dont you remember Ashis Nandy?
Totally baffled by this, Boudhayan-da uttered in
amazement - Oh, my God! and got up from his chair.
I realized now that I shouldnt have brought up the
name, remembering the scrap that Boudhayan-da and Ashis
got into several years ago over issues like secularism,
scientific inquiry, etc.
As soon as Boudhayan-da left, a horde of poets, artists
and litterateurs came up at Dipens table. Among them, I
could recognize Purnendu Patri, the versatile poet and artist,
who among other things left behind before he departed, a
rich collection of his reportages and poems about the heroic
Tebhaga peasants movement in Bengal in the late 1940s.
He was just as preoccupied and serious as before. As if he
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His words brought me out of my stupor. Agnu was the teknamethe pseudonym given to me by the party during my
underground days. I realized only then that there was no
need to commemorate martyrs at todays meeting. I was
sitting in front of the martyrs themselves. I then remembered
a favourite song of those days, Well meet again in the world
of martyrs...
***
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REVIEW ARTICLE
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MANAS RAY
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BOOK REVIEWS
Priya Sangameswaran
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rate contracts where they can work at their own tempo, and
without constant interference and berating from the uppercaste Patel employers. Other households have found
alternative avenues of income generation.
A number of points are noteworthy in this chapter. Firstly,
the complex working of the development machine is very
much evident in the changing nature of the labour process
too, as the ability of labourers to challenge the terms and
conditions of work are augmented by favorable factors such
as increase in demand for labour because of changes in
cropping practices, which in turn clearly results from
particular developmental interventions. Secondly, the
articulation of work practices as being embedded in a cultural
universe is critical, because it brings in the idea of selfregulation within the labour process, thereby adding more
analytical potency to the concept of the government of
work. Thirdly, such an analysis of work practices also enables
one to go beyond a politics of labour that is essentially framed
in terms of an antagonism between capital and labour, and
instead focus on a politics of work that includes affirmative
forms of being (a point that is discussed in the fifth chapter
titled Interruption). Here Gidwani is drawing upon Diane
Elsons reading of labour, where labour itself is seen as the
object of Marxs theory of value, instead of just being a means
of explaining prices.2
However, there are two concerns that must also be
highlighted. Firstly, while the juxtaposition of the new
institutional economic, Marxist political economy and the
cultural logic of practice approaches is an interesting and
productive exercise, the fundamental nature of the
irreconcilability between them is under-estimated. This is
also a point that applies more generally at other junctures
in the book where different theoretical perspectives are
evaluated. Secondly, while the explanation of the logic of
distinction and how it feeds into a specific balance between
work and leisure for the Lewa Patels helps to understand
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Satish C. Aikant
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Mohinder Singh
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