A 'Scientific' Historian

Author(s): D N JHA
Source: Economic and Political Weekly , SEPTEMBER 17-23, 2011, Vol. 46, No. 38
(SEPTEMBER 17-23, 2011), pp. 25-27
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly

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 RS SHARMA: TRIBUTES

mentioned in the textbook he wrote for Rama. In both these issues his views are the context of early India. His ideas have
the National Council for Educational been influential in giving shape to the
supported by a large number of historians.
Research and Training; and he wrote onR S Sharma not only withstood thesestudy of this history in the last few
That
critics
the site of the Babri masjid, contesting the but battled against them, gave decades. Hopefully the debates that his
claim that it had replaced a temple to
immense writing gave rise to will continue to
strength to those working towards
establishing
Rama commemorating the birthplace of secular history writing in
enrich the discipline.

A 'Scientific' Historian interaction with Pandit Karyanand Sharma,

who began his political career with the non
cooperation movement in 1920 and later
emerged as an important leader of the
D N JHA peasant movement and the Communist Party
of India. He also interacted with another
R S Sharma, historian, teacher famous peasant leader Swami Sahajanand

and founder chairperson of the Sharan Sharma got his early edu Saraswati who founded the Bihar provincial

Indian Council of Historical

Research was a Marxist who
was averse to the mechanical
application of Marx's ideas to the gree in history in 1943. After a brief stint
at the H D Jain College, Arrah and the tnb
Indian situation. He also used
his considerable scholarship on
ancient India to fight communal
propaganda and actions.
Borncation
on in1hisSeptember
village, Barauni, and 1920 Ram
later at Begusarai, then a subdivisional
town of Bihar. He joined Patna College in
1937 where he completed his Masters de
College, Bhagalpur, he became a lecturer
in Patna College from where his services
were requisitioned by the Bihar govern
ment for some time to prepare a report on
the boundary dispute between Bihar and
Bengal. In 1958 he took over as head of the
department of history, Patna University, a
position he held until 1972 when he became
the founder chairperson of the Indian
Council of Historical Research (ichr),
Kisan Sabha in 1929 and became the first
president of the All India Kisan Sabha in
1936. Sharmaji, as he was known to his
friends and students, shared with both of
them some personality traits like a spartan
way of life, and unpretentiousness. With
these qualities combined with his disarming
humility and unassuming manners.
R S Sharma could easily reach out to
people from different walks of life and win
their hearts. It was not an unusual sight to
see him sitting on the lawns of the Delhi
University talking to the non-teaching staff
discussing their problems and, negotiating
on their behalf in a situation of confronta
tion with the authorities.

New Delhi. In the following year he moved
to Delhi University which offered him
professorship and headship of its history
department. At Patna and Delhi he not
only expanded the departments of history
but, more importantly, modernised the
syllabi and freed history teaching from
the colonial influence. As chairperson of
the ichr he initiated many projects in
volving a large number of historians from
different parts of the country, thus pro
His simplicity was best reflected in his
classroom teaching and in all his writings.
His success as a teacher lay in his ability to
carry his erudition lightly and to explain
even the most difficult ideas and concepts
in a simple language to all his students. His
writings attracted a very wide readership
because they were free from jargon and
phrase-mongering. He spoke and wrote in
the language of the common people and
treated himself as one of them.

moting Indian historical studies at a

national level; such was his vision and Fighting Spirit
foresight that the agenda he set for the R S Sharma's association with peasant
ichr still continues. As an institution leaders and with the movements led by
them made him a man of robust optimism
builder he faced many difficulties but
R S Sharma never despaired. and steely will which was evident in all his
activities throughout his life. But I would
In his youth R S Sharma met the pro
like to recall three occasions when he fully
gressive polyglot and polymath Mahapandit
demonstrated his fighting spirit. In 1975
Rahul Sankrityayana and several promi
nent political personalities who played when
an he was the general president of the
D N Jha (jdnarayan@gmail.com) is former important role in the freedom struggle, Indian History Congress he persuaded its
professor of history, Delhi University, and one and peasant movements. In his private members to unanimously adopt an anti
of R S Sharma's closest students.
conversation he used to recall his closeEmergency resolution and gave it the

Economic & Political weekly nran September 17, 2011 vol xlvi no 38

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R S SHARMA: TRIBUTES

unique distinction of being the onlytexts with the Harappans. What is re the position of the lower orders - shudras
organi
the about all his writings againstand untouchables - underwent changes
markable
sation of scholars to have opposed
in the or xenophobic view of India's over time which were inextricably linked
Emergency openly. Second, in 1977communal
post-Emergency period when the past is that, even if polemical at times,with their changing relations with the
Janata
Party came to power, the obscurantist theyand
are based on hard irrefutable evi means of production. In 1959, he published
communal elements launched a vicious at dence and are written in the best traditionhis Aspects of Political Ideas and Institu
tack on several National Council of Educa of historical scholarship. tions of Ancient India which questioned
tional Research and Training (ncert) text the national chauvinist and revivalist ap
books, including his own book Ancient India. A Pragmatic Marxist proach to the past as seen in the writings
But R S Sharma mobilised the support of his Coming as he did from a peasant back of K P Jaiswal and other nationalist histo
colleagues and history teachers and other ground R S Sharma had first-hand knowrians. More importantly, it underlined
social scientists throughout the country. He ledge of the hard realities of rural life andthe dialectical relationship between the
also wrote a booklet In Defence of Ancient its trials and tribulations. This was furthermaterial forces and - power structures in
India (1978). The demand for the restora enriched by his association with contemancient India - this theme later received
tion of his book took the form of a popular porary peasant leaders and naturally special attention in his Origin of the State
movement of academics in the country and drove him towards the Marxist ideologyin India (1989) and The State and Varna
ultimately the ban order had to be with and very close to the Communist Party ofFormations in the mid-Ganga Plains: An
drawn. Third, when the rabidly communal India whose leadership often turned toEthnoarchaeological View (1996).
Ram Janmabhoomi movement gathered him for advice. Far from the doctrinairism These studies taken together mark the
momentum, R S Sharma moved the Indian of many communists, his Marxism wasdifferent stages in the development of the
History Congress to pass a resolution year pragmatic and pervades all his researchancient Indian state and polity and, for
after year for the protection of the Babari work without drumbeating on Karl Marx.the first time, draw attention to many of
Masjid. He himself, along with his three Whether it was the choice of the themes their features. For example no one before
other colleagues and friends, participated as he wrote on or his understanding andhim had written about the Vidatha which
independent scholars in the parleys between treatment of them, there was nothing forwas the earliest folk assembly of the
the protagonists of the temple movement mulaic about it. Like D D Kosambi, he wasVedic Aryans.
and the Babri Masjid Action Committee. averse to the mechanical application of R S Sharma has also critiqued in some
R S Sharma also wrote extensively in the Marx's ideas to the Indian situation. detail the concept of oriental despotism,
newspapers and magazines on the commu R S Sharma began his research career which has been put to tendentious use by
by writing on the Indian social structure some western scholars (e g Wittfogel), but
nalist attempt to distort the history of Ayo
dhya. He authored a booklet Communal whose exploitative dimensions he saw his perception of the Mauryan state as cen
History and Rama's Ayodhya (1990) and, from close quarters. The first piece that he tralised has not gone down well with some
along with his colleagues, including my wrote in English dealt with some economic historians. His seminal work, Material
self, authored the Ramjanamabhumi-Baburi aspects of the caste system in ancient India Culture and Social Formations in Ancient
Masjid: A Historians' Report to the Nation (1952). He continued to pursue it in subseIndia (1983) has, however, generated more
(1991) focusing on the historical issues in quent years at Patna and published several academic heat than his studies of ancient
volved in the Ayodhya imbroglio. He was articles in Hindi magazines and journals Indian polity. Written within a "plain evo
thus in the forefront of secular academics on various aspects of caste, especially the lutionary framework based on the findings
combating the communal elements and servile position of those occupying the of Marx, Engels and Morgan and enriched
provided them with an ideological weapon lower ranks in the social hierarchy. He was by the generalisations of Gordon Childe
through his writings which were an anti the first professional historian to under and other investigators, who have ex
dote to communalist onslaught culminat take a comprehensive study of the shudras plored archaeology, anthropology and
ing in the demolition of the mosque. in ancient India - a theme on which he sociology more or less on the lines of his
torical materialism", the book seeks to
The demolition was condemned by the completed his monograph in 1956 at the
World Archaeology Congress m (1994) in School of the Oriental and African Studies,
analyse the transition from Vedic pastoral
the strongest terms on his initiative des London. The work earned him the doctor ism to sedentary agriculture in the later
pite vehement opposition from the Indian al degree of the University of London and Vedic and post-Vedic periods and to ex
archaeological establishment which has was published in 1958. It was based on aplain the formation of class, state, eco
been a citadel of communalism and reviv rigorous analysis of ancient Indian literarynomic surplus and the emergence of towns
alism. His crusade against Hindu commutexts and sought to examine the changingin the age of the Buddha. In his analysis
nalists and xenophobes continued una position of the lower orders up to the R S Sharma has highlighted the transform
bated and his two books, Looking for theGupta period and opened up new lines ofatory role of iron technology and for this
Aryans (1995) and Advent of the Aryans inenquiry pursued subsequently by some ofreason some scholars have bitterly criti
India (1999), convincingly refute the indihis students. The main thesis expounded cised him and have charged him of techno
genist propaganda of the Aryan autochin the book was that the institution of logical determinism. They have however
thony, identifying the authors of the Vedic caste was never static and, accordingly,
missed the point that far from treating the

September 17, 2011 vol xlvi no 38 EGE3 Economic & Political weekly

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 = R S SHARMA: TRIBUTES

advent and dispersal of iron technology as exploitation as delineated by

of peasant parts of the country and remains much
a single factor of social transformation, he bear similarity with develop
R S Sharma more useful than the newfangled theories
has viewed it as one of the important
mentscata
in medieval Europe and hencethat have invaded the academia in the
lysts of change and as part of the he
general
seems to have been tempted to draw
wake of the postmodernist onslaught on
growth of productive forces. somewhat heavily on European parallels
history and other social sciences.
to construct his feudal model. But the Ram Sharan Sharma was a tireless
A Different View
crucial chain in R S Sharma's argument is researcher and published many more books
Of all his writings, R S Sharma's work on
the premise that around the middle of the than mentioned here. A new book on the
feudalism in India has generated the mostfirst millennium urban centres and com economic history of ancient India came out
heated debate among historians. Although modity production underwent a decline, just earlier this year when he was ailing.
and there was a marked downturn in
first mentioned in the early Indian context He was unorthodox in his approach and
by the Indian Marxist scholar Bhupendra
trade, leading to ruralisation of arts and made sharp departures from the colonial
Nath Datta as far back as 1944, it was in thecrafts. This created self-sufficient village historiographical legacy in several ways.
post-independence period that the discus economies in which metallic currency, in He shifted the focus of history writing from
sion on it gained momentum when Kosambi contrast to the pre-Gupta period, tended to the chronicle of kings and queens to the
asserted in 1956 that India passed throughbecome scarce so that the State was com history of the common people, especially
the phase of feudalism in two stages. More
pelled to make all payments to the priests the underprivileged and the marginal
or less at the same time R S Sharma wroteor to the government officials through ised. He took history away from the realm
on the subject and published an article in
assignments of land. of myth and legends and demystified it.
1958 which he developed into a book This portrayal of the economic scene He fought for a scientific history of India
called Indian Feudalism whose publication
around the fifth century tallies with the and did all that he could to maintain its
in 1965 marks a landmark in early Indian
perception of Kosambi who also speaks of secular social fabric. He gave the slogan
historiography. the emergence of the self-sufficient Indian "no theory, no history" but did not build
R S Sharma, unlike Kosambi but withvillage from the Gupta period onwards. theories in the air - they were firmly
out joining issue with him, producedBut R S Sharma, unlike Kosambi, has rooted in sources of which he had pro
epigraphic evidence which contradicted
made a phenomenal use of archaeological found knowledge.
Kosambi's two-stage theory of feudalism.
evidence to demonstrate the decay of towns R S Sharma made major methodologi
According to R S Sharma feudalism induring the period 5th to 9th century. His cal breakthroughs in his research. Unlike
India, unlike in Europe, began with theUrban Decay in India C400-1000 (1987) ad his predecessors who used inscriptions for
land grants made to brahmins, temples duces archaeological evidence from about writing dynastic history and for fixing
and monasteries for which the epigraphic 140 sites all over the country to show that the chronology of kings and their battles,
evidence begins from the first century bc de-urbanisation took place in most parts R S Sharma used them for reconstructing
and multiplies by the Gupta times when of the subcontinent. the social, economic and cultural history.
villages with their fields and inhabitants, Similarly on the basis of his study of Unlike the Indologists who depended on
with fiscal, administrative and judicial
coin collections in about a dozen muse coins to work out the minor details of
ums in India and abroad he has shown
rights and with exemption from the inter political history, R S Sharma fruitfully
ference of royal officials were given tothat the number of coins in circulation used them to write economic history.
religious beneficiaries. What was aban
during the period fourth-tenth century was Unlike the Indian archaeologists who
doned step by step in favour of the priestlyextremely limited (Early Medieval Indian used their artefacts and antiquities to sat
class was later given to the warrior class
Society: A Study in Feudalism, 2001, chap isfy their antiquarian appetite he used
ter 4). R S Sharma, however, has faced them as a source for the history of early
and in course of time religious as well as
secular land grants became popular. This,some captious criticisms from some histo Indian settlements and urban centres. His
R S Sharma argued, gave rise to the char rians who have failed to situate his feudal unusual mastery over different types of
acteristic economic feature of feudalism model in a correct chronological perspec sources coupled with his grasp over the
which consisted in the rise of a class of
tive. The massive archaeological evidence current anthropological and sociological
landed intermediaries, leading to the ser
of urban decay is thus sought to be coun theories gave R S Sharma an edge over his
vility of peasants by depriving them of
tered by the post-9th century epigraphical peers and shaped him into a social scien
their rights over communal resources like
references to towns; one critic even goes tist with an interest in a wide range of
pastures, forests, fisheries, etc, which wereto the extent of "imagining the urban" on disciplines. Not surprisingly, he founded a
transferred to the beneficiaries, through
the basis of literary descriptions. The idea journal called Social Science Probings in
mounting tax burden, increasing obliga of a relative paucity of metal currency is 1984 with the objective of providing a
similarly contested on the basis of later forum for interaction between scholars of
tion to perform forced labour (vishti) and,
equally importantly, through restriction
numismatic evidence. But despite criti different disciplines.
on their mobility. cisms R S Sharma's idea of feudalism has In R S Sharma's death the academic
The phenomenon of the rise of feudal
generated a vast amount of research on thecommunity has lost a historian who wrote
property and the mode and mechanism
social and economic history of differentscientific history but did not gild the lily.

Economic & Political weekly 0253 September 17, 2011 vol xlvi no 38

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