The 'Modern' in Modern Indian History

The 'Modern' in Modern Indian History
Author(s): B. Surendra Rao

Source: Social Scientist , May - Jun., 2001, Vol. 29, No. 5/6 (May - Jun., 2001), pp. 3-32
Published by: Social Scientist
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/3518296
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B. SURENDRA RAO*
The 'Modern' in Modern Indian History
I am extremely grateful to the executive committee of the Ind

History Congress for asking me to preside over the Modern In
History Section of its sixty-first annual session. For someone wh
no more than an unfatigued student of history, this comes as a h
and unexpected honour. I take this less as a recognition of my m
or status than as a gesture of encouragement from my peers in
field. I have accepted it, and the big responsibility which it enta
with a sense of proud humility.
In this address, I propose to take a look at the 'modern' in moder
Indian history and its implications for an understanding of our colo
experience. The theme suggests itself in a somewhat perverse wa
the ambivalent context of our excitement about and resentment
frenetic globalisation and our desperate keenness to leave behin
battered old millennium which seemed to have grown stale by ov
acquaintance and roll out the red-carpet to the new.' This triump
hope over experience notwithstanding, the charming, subjugat
ways of modernity have produced a creeping feeling of fear an
nervousness. For, modernity is associated with the West, the W
with colonial empires and, even after political decolonisation, w
new avatars of polite and not-so-polite controls and domination.
modernity as progress seems irresistible, like the predicament o
compulsive smoker who does not dispute the statutory warn
printed it gives a sense of deja vu, a feeling that history some
clings to us, and that the evolved present tells as much about its pas
While interrogating the 'modern', however, I do not wish to rev
a dialogue on the vexed question of periodisation of history. We
know that historians do periodise history while philosophers h
* Historian at Mangalore University, Karnataka

** Presidential Address to Modern Indian History Section at 61st Session of the I
History Congress, Calcutta
Social Scientist, Vol. 29, Nos. 5 - 6, May-June 2001

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4 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
solemnly proclaimed the unity of historical exper

at the continuous, if moody, flow of the stream of
it is suggested that such idealistic abstraction as t
of history is something which philosophers can
expatiate on, so long as they are assured that the
what happened in history is assigned to somebody
on his part, accustomed as he is to the naive d
virtues of objectiyity, had once claimed that peri
convenient, legitimate, though provisional, way of g
otherwise too vast and unwieldy a subject. But to-da
among historians know that they live in a slightly m
and that any masterful or tinkering act of perio
carries with it a defined or yet-to-be defined ideo
awareness of its implication and its intended
consequences would enable the historian to situa
world which he seeks to comprehend and explai
interrogating the 'modern' in Indian history is not
or resettle its chronological boundaries; nor do
the idea of acquiescing in the label of 'modern' fo
Indian history. Such acquiescence is a fact, and w
that it is crucial fact for the understanding of mod
The 'modern' in Indian history is associated
subjugation of the country - subjugation not in
and-trumpet conquest, but as a vigorous pro
permeation and osmotic take-over. The strategies of
which the British unfolded from time to time, wer
nervous, turbulent feudal world. Whether they had
or in a fit of absent-mindedness is not a matter
be submitted for adjudication. Nor does Seeley's
there was no real British conquest of India since the
army was not directly involved in it - merit anot
logic apparently made sense to his audience in En
conquered it meant little, either as logic or as a
were conquered felt indeed dispossessed, wh
contested, sword in hand, while others merel
acquiescence. Contesting the British arms could be a
or patrotic affair; but it was not yet a nationalist o
which the nationalist historiography has express
of unity or cohesion among those who fought th
the betrayals and quislings that had smoothened t
does not reckon with the inapplicability of a pa

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THE 'MODERN' IN MODERN INDIAN HISTORY 5
criterion to a context of a nation-yet-to-be. Nor does it seem

appropriate to equate the cases of anti-British resistance with an
colonial struggles.s The latter would have to be based on an awaren
of the nature, workings and the implications of colonialism as a form
of domination, control and exploitation. Even before such an
awareness grew or was articulated in India, the British had
encountered opposition of xenophobic or elemental kind or from
contesting chiefs.6 Denying the externality of the British aggress
as is done in some volumes of the New Cambridge History of In
may occasion a profitable discussion of the social, economic, polit
and regional dynamics which made the British conquest possible
but that does not sponge out the myriad modes of British aggres
under the auspices of the East India Company and the various act
resistance of those who felt the brunt of that aggression. Conce
like 'primary resistance' and 'post-pacification revolt' help us to deco
the complex situation to some extent;8 but they were essentiall
individual, and occasionally coalitional, efforts at self-preservat
in the face of threat from a technologically superior, economica
resilient and morally cynical practitioners of realpolitik. Some of th
confronted the danger by borrowing the technological and econo
tools of modernisation in war or diplomacy,9 while others trus
their elemental passion to defy it.10 They all went into the making
a saga of heroism and martyrdom. But its terrain was feudal and
agenda, restorative. It is significant that after the convulsions of 18
and after Queen Victoria unwittingly parodied Asoka's post-Kalin
syndrome, there were no substantial attempts to eject the British ou
One can put it down to the lingering fear psychosis which
reconquering British arms and angry reprisals unleashed, or to t
political, military and attitudinal reorganisation of the British r
designed to prevent any recurrence of 1857.12 But what is mor
significant is that those who had resented and resisted the Bri
aggressions now suddenly seemed to acquiesce and becom
subordinate partners in a newly ordered system of paramountcy. On
assured of immunity from annexation, the 'native states' becam
willing satellites in the imperial system and play the courtier to
new Queen. The baubles and titles which their rulers periodical
received seemed to have enough power to co-opt them into a sys
which they had dreaded not long ago.'3 This transition from patriot
of self-preservation to subordinate partnership was as smooth a
was natural.
But the colonial subjugation was a much more complex process

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6 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
than the one which involved the domestication of

It was about the permeation of a powerful an
economic order and culture of modernity, which
and negotiate with ever since. Colonialism was basically. the
globalisation of capitalism.14 Its triumph as well as its unabashed
confidence gave it a rare seductive power. The colonial conquest of
India was taking place when Europe was in an effervescent mood of
the Enlightenment.15 It was a huge bourgeois celebration announcing
the hopeless obsolescence of feudalism, heralding the new age of
science'6 and progress,17 and new faith in human reason and
omiscience.18 These and other revolutionary and Whig ideas of
Pufendorf, Locke and Rousseau, which gave the new middle class the
power to spurn the past and grab the future, were also looked upon
as being meant for the whole mankind. Expanding Europe could
initiate this globalisation. In fact, the West conquered as much with
gun and ships as with ideas.19 If the 'native powers' succumbed to the
former, the new clonal middle class was won over by the conquering
ideas of the West.
When one talks about colonialism as a conquest through
knowledge which was preceded by a conquest of knowledge,20 the
other idioms of functioning power and domination need not be
discounted or by-passed. Force is immanent in colonialism. But often
the mailed fist prefers to stay inside its velvet glove and exploitation
masquerades as improvement. British conquest in India offers an
amazing collage of a fawning, greedy merchant, of a scheming broker
and a military adventurer, of a bully and a conquistador, an agent of
order and improvement, and a herald of a new culture. It is suffused
with an arrogance and self-righteousness that a conqueror finds it
hard not to parade. But colonial conquest is not just about the
conqueror and his ways; it is also about how it impinged on those
who were conquered and taken over. It is also about a network of
control and hegemonising strategies. The eloquent and contestary
historiographic critique which Ranajit Guha unleashed in his
'Dominance without Hegemony'21 does not reckon with the powerful
mix of the two or the one transforming itself into the other according
to situation. Conquest through knowledge was itself a process of
hegemonisation insofar as the colonial knowledge permeated the
country and set the terms on which India would henceforth negotiate
with itself or its rulers, with its past, present and the future. This was
not a consipracy but a process, and a making of a culture. India was
not Europeanised; but the West colonised the Indian mind, moulding

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its political hopes, structuring its economic order and throwing

blue-prints of social reconstructions. It set its agenda, produced
sighs and exasperation, and defined its victories. The West dec
that it was the West that India had to engage with, not just
dominant political imposition but as an idea and a pervading pres
India seemed to say, "When Caesar says 'Do this', it is perform
This process of hegemonisation carried with it forces of domina
strains of consent, moods of protest, points of dialogue and area
happy or sullen agreement. The British civilising mission in Indi
the fierce nationalists' idea of 'our own Indianness' or Kipling's "nev
the twain shall meet," were either announced on behalf of the
or had to contest it. None could henceforth ignore it.
One knowledge, which the British churned out with untiring ze
was history. They wrote about their own conquests; they wrote
the people they conquered - told them what they were before t
came under the protective British wings, and what they woul
The colonial rule gave India its past as well as its present. It was
the 'modern' India which would have its history, for, India
diagnosed as having no historical sense, or such sense of history
it had did not approximate to the modern understanding of his
In discovering India's past and making sense of it the colonial r
was setting up the norm as to what indeed qualified as authent
real history and what should be dismissed as 'myths' or 'farra
legendary nonsense'.22 It was, in fact, the enthronement of mo
and Western idea of history in India. It not only created the hi
for the colonised, but also presided over it. Its epistemology, struct
and identity were invented and prescribed. In so doing the ru
were truly taking possession of a people. In giving India its his
the British were not just restoring its memory, but were also craf
and ordering it. It was to become a decisive component in the pr
of India imagining itself to be a nation. In fact, the dialec
relationship between colonialism and nationalism was rooted i
historical epistemology so created.
This historical consciousness was based on the Western sen
modernity and Westernisation of time. Modern Europe, of
Enlightenment and of its persistent hang-over, achieved its m
spectacular and enduring triumph when it constructed the noti
universal time of Newtonian science, mechanical clocks and li
secular history.23 This "universal and universalising sense of time"
is rightly pointed out, "was ideally suited to the new age of Eur
imperialism".24 The idea of history which the British conferr

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8 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
India carried with it this project of epistemologica

of its powerful manifestations was an emphati
chronology. The Indian notion of time and eras was
ordered into the universalised Western Christian calen
conception of time and eras was declared either as
exaspertaingly varied and slippery, true to their lack
for, historical, and hence national, sense.25 Giving
also meant giving it a new chronological regime, of
were the sole purveyors. Anything else would be pron
historically illegitimate, and impossible to be pi
authentic time and space. In fact, it was in the fitn
the first clue to the resolution of the Indian chron
provided by what was termed as a profoundly con
invasion.26 It was as if only the West could initia
realm of history. It was also a process of sucking
people into an Euro-centric universe in which his
chronological sensibilities were linked to 'BC-AD' re
negotiable finality.27
This chronological conquest was further riveted by
act of periodisation, which the Modern West assoc
history with. It is the 'modern', which privileged itse
periodising history as a way of understanding itse
involved a series of judgements on the 'ancient' and
were based on the what the 'modern' thought abo
eloquent self-esteem of the Enlightenment, exp
modernity and progress, also pronounced its ju
'medieval' and the 'ancient' as expressions of t
institutions and civilisations. Although the Renais
the 'ancient' as 'classical', it was only discovering t
in the retireved heritage. But the 'medieval' was co
Enlightenment as a grimy, sombre world in which
submerged by faith and institutionalised irrationa
of the Romantic rehabilitation of the castle, the knig
the 'medieval' was to be eternally damned as a by-wor
hostility to progress, reason and freedom.29 This pre
itself to reach India and became an inseparable pa
construction of Indian history. After James Mill,
haughtiness, legislated on the Hindu-Muslim-Brit
were, its implied associations quickly congealed the
into the new historical consciousness of India.30 'Anci
a terrain of dispute between the admiring Orient

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hand and deriding Evangelicals and Philosophical Radicals on

other, before the nationalists took it over for celebration.31 This passi
and industry were harnessed to prove the 'modern' in the 'ancie
and show-case it as an eloquent certification for its maturity an
richness. But the 'medieval' was not so lucky. For the British, i
association with the Muslim rule was both necessary and helpful
show how they replaced a dark age of bigotry and medievalism
usher in progress and modernity. The Muslim rule got portrayed
quintessential 'Oriental Despotism' in which the interest of the ru
took the place of welfare of the subjects, individual caprice
equated with law and religious fanticism grabbed every secular space.
'Oriental Despotism' was a persistent European construction, visib
in the writings of Montesquieu and Gibbon, which could enter In
with cynical felicity to vindicate the colonial rule as the superb, sure
cure.
The historiographical regime of the 'modern' is revealed in the
way in which the imperialist and nationalist historians negotiated
with the various components of the emerging historical consciousness.
One of its presiding themes was the 'Empire' itself, with which the
British historians compulsively engaged with pride or in defence.33 If
it assured them their status of being the Herrenvolk, it was also their
prescription for India to realise itself as modern nation, albeit under
the benign gaze and protection of Britain. The Empire was a.cohesive
force, designed to redeem India out of its status as a geographical
expression. The response of the nationalist historiography to such a
claim was curiously ambivalent. The idea of 'Empire' remained
irresistible, though the British Empire spelt thraldom. It looked for
'empires' in the past, and found some, which were indeed more
extensive than the British Empire.34 They celebrated the Age of
Imperial Unity and the achievements of rulers who conquered to unify
petty chiefs and principalities under one umbrella of sovereignty.35
And the larger the empire, the better. In fact, neither the imperialist
nor the nationalist historian was a great admirer of small states; and
neither was willing to miss the virtue of expansion. The glory and
happiness of a people were guaranteed in a sprawling patch of colour
in the map rather than in its sprinkled confusion. Similar resonance
between the two is seen in their attitude to colonisation. If the word
was offensive to the nationalist historians as a synonym of alien
domination, it was yet dear to them if it suggested an overflow of its
cultural richness, transforming those eastern lands overseas.36 The
idea of 'Greater India' encapsulated the nationalist version of the

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10 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
imperialist claims about a 'good conquest', the influenc

on history, and the 'White man's Burden'. Nationalis
the same colonial discourse dubbed in a different lang
The hegemonic power with which colonialism o
historical consciousness of India is also indicated by t
of Whig ideas in the nationalist historiography. It sh
rulers who were solicitous of people's views and welfare;3
the republics, local self-governments and corporate
India38 and it projected the political thought and pre
which highlighted the in-built dharmic restraints on
colonial rulers had prescribed as to what was politica
India, although they were not sure if the Indians shou
a hurry, before they were trained to handle so preci
Indian nationalists agreed with the first part of the colo
but rejected the second in their claims that they already had a
marvellous political tradition of limited monarchy, representative rule
and democratic sensibility. India's hoary past, rich history and myriad
achievements, though they had to be reminded of them by the
inquisitive and exploring rulers, assured them that they could hold
their own with the best that the conquering West could offer. India
had its own Napoleon, Shakespeare and Machiavelli, and the better,
and the earlier, ones at that. Modern education was of course
necessary; but India had its own Universities which anticipated, in
nearly every detail, the ones in Oxford, Cambridge and London.40
European science was necessary for progress; but then, the nationalits
found that ancient India had its science too, fully evolved, far in
advance of the age.41 The British in India were only teaching the
grandmother how to suck eggs. This nationalist effort to look for,
and invariably find, the 'modern' in the past frequently strayed into
the realms of the bizarre and the comical. The assertions range from
anything like the antiseptic virtues of cow-dung to the therapeutic
qualities of human urine, from Vedic mathematics to atom bombs
and aviation technology.42 If ancient India did not quite have a
contraption called computer, the minds of sages more than made up
for it! Such and other claims, which were inducted into the nationalist
arsenal, were for some time propped up by the founders of the
Theosophical Society. They represented another kind of European
discovery of India. If the Orientalists like Jones and Max Mueller
had unravelled the philosophical and cultural riches of India, Madame
Blavatsky and her disciples advertised its mysticism, occult and special
science like clairvoyance and levitation.43 It was a heady potion which

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could pep up nationalist confidence as well as arouse Fascist arroganc

This acute love for the anachronistic discoveries of modern phenom
in the remotest possible past has its counterparts elsewhere too, wh
can make a thing called history exaspertaingly interesting.44 Bu
has persisted because the site of the dialogue or contest was cre
by the modern West, and bourgeoisie found it too convenient to re
it. Insofar as history as a form of knowledge was produced
instituted by the colonising West, it wielded a great hegemon
power. The Saidian notion of Orientalism might have expressed
power to create stereotypes and differences, as much of the We
of the East.45 But the power of the 'modern West' in the colo
context expressed itself best in the strategies for acquiescence e
while it accommodated fierce nationalist contestation. For, it
chose the terrain and set the terms of negotiation, which ensured t
any nationalist assertion or counter-plea perforce took place in
broad colonial discourse.
Such a hegemonising context also determined the nature of
historiographical debate on Indian nationalism. The British
constructions of the phenomena oscillated between its outright
rejection or impossibility and patronising assertion that it was their
own precious gift.46 They also included caricatured images of 'coraking
babus', bhadralok ambitions, their stampede for power or scramble
for ales and fishes.47 Their own lofty tutorial responsibility to give
Indians political training before trusting them to shoulder the
unfamiliar burden of self-rule was contrasted with the irritating, Oliver
Twist-like Indian demand for more. The nationalist response ranged
from passionate assertion of India's eternal nationhood to the cautious
but confident claims as being a nation-in-the-making. But it was
essentially predicated on India having those qualities which the British
rulers had prescribed as essential qualifications of a nation. Whether
it was "vicarious nationalism" as Bipan Chandra called it or "the
Persian Letters technique" which some nationalist academics
adopted,48 the parameters of exchange were those which the rulers
stipulated. If the West which the colonial rulers represented ordered
India's history and historical consciousness, it also conjured up the
trajectories of India's progress and destiny as its extension. Its
nationhood, capitalist development, - though occasionally packaged
with socialist demurring - and a keenness to join the comity of nations,
were all the parts of agenda which the modern West had issued to
those it had subjugated.
If history as retrospective destiny was a site of India's negotiation

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12 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
with the West, the early rendezvous were in the emergin

Presidency cities, particularly, Calcutta. Here devel
citadels of colonial power. Here the rulers - their epiderm
behavioural and cultural superiority or exclusiveness
most dazzlingly visible, and here developed the equatio
between the rulers and a special, articulate class of th
also here that the latter experienced the adolescent c
youthful passion for, and a vision of, living happily ev
the new rulers as did occasionally their frustration
perceived as unreciprocated enthusiasm or insufferable
fact, the 'modern' seemed to conjure itself up first in the
power, exchange and hope. The idea of 'Indian Renais
both the imperialists and the nationalists were eager an
a part of, expressed itself in this context and mood. Whil
rulers looked at that modern phenomenon as an eloquent
to their power to transform a people who were known no
the nationalists claimed it as proof that the Indians c
mainstream of progress as defined by the West and pr
their rulers. If the one posed himself as a successful i
learning in which both the syllabi and the mode of ev
prescribed by the ruler.
This thick engagement between the hegemonising W
absorbent crust of Indian metropolitan society has be
as 'intellectual history', suggesting both creativity and ex
When at a later stage, nationalism came to be judged le
than by its reach, the 'Renaissance' aspect of the phe
dismissed with a cynical smile, although the enchant
the text-books with quiet pertinacity. By the same evalua
expressions, the socio-religious movements of the ninetee
India, too, have been trimmed of their universalist cl
been projected as less-than revolutionary ripples of c
elite castes and groups.52 Yet, the engagement was rea
new knights of acquiescence deserve to be called 'real r
is a moot point.53 But they did represent a new orde
relationship with the rulers and their culture. Their dialo
however, had the constraints of a colonial equation. Th
were yet 'natives'S4 - a reminder that in the colonia
the ruled, whatever they thought themselves to be, w
different, inferior, clay. While the 'elites' were pushing
eligible to be inducted into the company of the rulers
their linguistic and intellectual abilities, they were fr

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where exactly they stood. Even in the best liberal tradition the deare
pupil cannot be equal to the teacher except as a proclaimed hope
as rhetoric, but the colonial context ensured that the equation i
imperiously loaded in favour of the ruler-teacher. The relation w
osmotic in which the colony, in its wisdom, should absorb the va
and conquests of the West and transform itself to modernity, wh
the colonising West should inoculate itself against the dangers o
Oriental infection."5 This in-built inequality of relationship wh
colonialism offered generated spasms of frustration even in the m
avowed enthusiasts for the culture of the rulers. Michael Madhusudan
Dutta was the best, but not the only, example of this coloni
predicament.56
Since the culture of the Western modernity rode into India on th
colonial saddle, it exuded powers of both seduction and dominatio
It also articulated itself in both the prescriptive and repudiative mod
The Evangelist fulmination against the primitive religions, and he
primitive civilisation, of India was premised on the superiority
West, which itself was provable by its curative and transformat
powers. However, as a definitive programme of augmenting
shepherd's flock the Evangelical project was not a huge succ
particularly in its dialogic strategies with the elite groups. Duffs
Careys, no doubt, could hold aloft a few trophies, and Calcu
acquired a sprinkling of high-profile converts, who were not ave
to taking on radical defenders of faith like Radhakant Deb. But th
who believed they could argue their way to success as proselytise
did not have statistics on their side. However, the missionaries co
claim that their influence was more decisive and enduring in the
Christian doctrines, ethical regime and organisational meth
influenced the 'modern religious movements in India'. J.N. Farquh
work (1915) was meant as an eloquent illustration as to how "Chri
parable of the leaven is proving itself true in India".57 Studder
Kennedy has recently shown that, when the Gramscian insight is us
the hegemonic Christian influence is seen permeating several oth
secular areas of thought and programme.58 The early Evangelic
ambition as it was soon realised, was handicapped by its own
belligerence to evict a strongly entrenched but strangely amorph
set of values, beliefs and practices called Hinduism. If their denuciat
postures could not win too many friends for them from among
'elite' Indians, their broad or specific critique of Indian society
indeed evoke varied responses of introspection, self-pride and reform
in the new parameters of values.59 The Evangelical project c

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14 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
justifiably claim to march to its fulfilment as an inst

and as a purveyor of light rather than merely as a
If religion was a difficult terrain of negotiation be
and the colonised India, education was less so. Indi
demand Christianity as they did English education.60
writers and the post-Independence mood to re-ena
struggle have anathematised Macaulay and condole
the 'Orientalists' in their gallant fight against the
Macaulay in the context of the 'Nineteenth Centu
was looked upon as a symbol of beckoning mod
Alexander Duff, the Hindu College, Raja Rammohan
Book Society or Henry Derozio. The pervading pas
was noted by one of its eminent promoters, Alex
with a sense of wonder and as a subject of good-n
The burgeoning demand for English education and
mirrored this passion.62 It has been variously present
symptom, bread-and-butter ambition of the bhadr
a simple capitualation to the colonial rule. It is true th
different things to different people, and the Brit
otherwise, used it as so many "masks of conquest".6
English education also meant getting sucked in
modernity of the West, a desire to partake of its
conquests in science, thought and politics. The-
Enlightenment Europe was a creation as much of its o
as of its indefatigable narration. In fact, it printed it
the public sphere.64 It entered India as a produced
triumphant West, drummming tirelessly about itself
space it could provide for its exclusive use. Pre-
capitalist forms of domination did indeed use kno
of power, but it could not be as decisive or far-reachi
of print culture. It is therefore not surprising that t
of the Indian intelligentsia turned to the West, hopin
brew of Enlightenment through English education.
danger of apostasy, as in having to accept the G
offered new knowledge, new hopes and new horizons
It also held out better prospects of communication
and better dividends. But the passion for English
language per se. Rammohan and other 'humanis
Renaissance saw it as a road to Western science and
would induct them to the orbit of on-going global
fact, explains their 'obsessive preoccupation with t

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The socio-religious movements of the nineteenth century

the label of being 'modern' precisely for the same reason. The
the expressions of having to respond to the Western presen
criticism. Projecting the Indian religious doctrines and prac
the new packages as 'rational' and 'humane' was, in fact, the
reformers' way of saying that the religion of India, in its essence,
conformed to civilised standards. It mereiy needed some thorough
refurbishing though, to remove the patina of corruption and uncritical
irrationality produced by the slothful tyranny of preisthood.
Polytheism and idolatry were but the ugly warts, which should be
scraped off to reveal the lustre of Hindu monotheism. Tuhfat-ul-
Muwabbiddin of Rammohan (1804) and Satyartha Prakash of
Dayananda (1875), for all their disagreement and cultural distance,
contain this refrain.67 Rammohan's life and writings straddled, though
not always comfortably, across the cultural divide between the East
and West. The founder of Brahmo Samaj was also the author of The
Precepts of Jesus; a friend of the Utilitarian sages and a firm believer
in the rational essence of the Upanishads. He is said to be the first
'modern Indian' because he boldly accepted Western modernism
without shedding his Hindu honour and dignity.68 In a way it was
appropriate that he laid his bones at Bristol. Dayananda Saraswati's
strident appeal for the Vedas as the pristine source of 'true religion',
his apparent animus against the West and the intruding alien faiths,
his crusade against the 'foreign' elements which were tenanting
Hinduism illegitimately, and his aversion to easy eclecticism present
a picture of a fierce and fighting conservative in a society which was
being grabbed by alien ways and values. However, his teachings and
organisation make sense only when seen in the context of India's
engagement with the West. It is obvious that even if we are not over-
eager to hear the missionary sotto voce that Dayananda's call to 'Go
back to the Vedas' was a propaganda strategy to cover up his sincere
private belief in the beneficial effects of Western civilisation on the
country.69
Ramakrishna's own figure, with his mystical, trans-rational
presence, appears exceptional. But he was a creation of his middle-
class disciples and a part of the religion of urban domesticity.70 His
rusticity and innocent spirituality could be invoked to vicariouslsy
quiz out the putative rationality of the West. Vivekananda's nationalist
Vedanta was eloquently used against what was seen as the 'conquest
of the West'. If the materialist West had much to offer in terms of
science and other avenues of advancement, India could offer in return

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16 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
its spiritual strength to ensure that the world in pur

was not thrown off balance. Vivekananda had assured his Indian
disciples that he was going to the West "for the people and the poor."71
He indeed was, to tell his "brothers and sisters" of the free and richest
nation in the world, that a poor and politically subjugated people
were, in fact, spiritually freer and the richer. When poverty and
freedom were defined differently Indians suddenly looked different,
and worthy. Vivekananda's enduring fame in India, in his time and
since, lay in that he proudly addressed his Vedanta to the West. The
mystical, meditative and close-circuit spirituality of Ramakrishna
achieved its broadcasting mode in his most eminent disciple.
Henceforth the glory of Indian philosophy or spirituality would be
measured largely in terms of its export value and success in the West.72
The social reform movements of the nineteenth century,
notwithstanding their elite compass, have been described as 'modern'
because they threw the "woman question" to the public gaze and
debate, in which figured such vexed issued as sati, polygamy, child
marriage, widow-remarriage and women's education. They were
responding to the Western prescriptive view that the level and quality
of a civilisation are reflected in the status and freedom which woman
enjoyed in it.73 By this criterion the Indian civilisation was pronounced
as inferior by James Mill and other critics of unevolved India.74 The
social reformers of the nineteenth century responded first in defence
and then as leaders of change. None of the social evils, which the
modern West denounced, was sanctioned by the scriptures. 'In the
beginning' everything was good and fair; women enjoyed their
freedom, equality and power, but they had a fall somewhere on the
road.75 Some like Ranade traced the 'fall' to the age of smritis; while
many others put the blame on the 'dark age' of Muslim rule.76 Evil
customs were, therefore, later accretions, and reform would only mean
a return to the past. Although Rammohan Roy, Kesab Chandra Sen,
Pandit Vidyasagar, Justice Ranade, D.K. Karve and others had their
differences in the way they approached India's past, they all invoked
it in defence of 'modernising' woman, which was necessary to qualify
India to modernity. The limitations of these reformers have been
elaborately discussed, in both scholarly and polemical writings. Their
narrow class base, the hiatus between their precepts and practice and
the built-in traditional pulls that held back their radical departures
have all been highlighted.77 The feminist critics have contended that
the ideals and agenda of social reforms belonged to a bourgeois male-
universe, which allowed no new autonomous space to woman. Her

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cause had yet to be championed by man and, by doing so, he gra

the glory of being a liberal, a trailblazer and a modern.78 T
limitations were both real and natural. The reform movements wer
claiming, rather than instituting, modernity; and they were the wo
of spokesmen who, with confidence and pride, were keen
succumbing to the civilising mission of the West. But they created
opinion, an awareness and a belief that they were heralds of ch
and reform. The dialogue in the context of colonialism is never a fr
exchange of ideas; it is largely surrendering to the dominant, ev
it is constantly accompanied by disagreement, protest and repudiati
That was the way the dynamics of colonisation operated.
This perception of colonial subjugation will also help us to
India's national movement in a different light. Often the In
'National Movement' and 'Freedom Struggle' are spoken of in t
same breath, and their events are narrated genetically and rel
teleologically to their denouement of 1947. They have gone into
making of a grand modern epic, with all its agonies and ecstasie
vicissitudes of fortune, its heroes and villains, its martyrdoms
betrayals, in which good at last triumphs over evil, truth alone pre
and paradise is regained. And for the same reason it has been a site
political and ideological contest in independent India.79 Many
missed out being the part of the saga have gained admission t
since. While such a national epic can keep the agenda of nation-mak
alive, it should not claim any immunity from a critical review.
well and truly is Indian 'Freedom Struggle' integrated into the s
of its 'National Movement'? Their import and programmes
different but they seemed to coalesce because they were taking
in the context of colonialism. 'Freedom Struggle' sought to overthr
a foreign rule. Its ways varied in matters of intensity, techniqu
range. They could be Mazzinian, Garibaldian and - why not? -
Gandhian; they could operate in heroic secrecy and claim p
attention through compulsive martyrdom; they could co-ordina
be on their own; they could trust or distrust the masses. But
were all sure that foreign rule should end. But the 'Natio
Movement' was a positive programme of what India wished to
India was, to use the famous phrase of early nationalist leader
nation in the making. It was, no doubt, a bourgeois hope and ag
- not of the millions but on behalf of the millions. The cynical rul
called it elitist,80 and so did modern historians like Gallagher,
Gordon Johnson, Ranajit Guha and their many adjutants.81 It s
was, both as a description of its character and as a recognition o

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18 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
limitation. But then nationalism is not necessarily a pur

Its moods and prose have to be articulated by some
them. Even in the best of democracies leaders do not al
the views of the people. They package their own view
to the people for their ownership. Public opinion is
but is always claimed to be, the opinion of the peop
constituency where the real and the make-believe ap
fine resonance. But the nationalist mood grew in the nin
in the context of democracy, which theoretically trust
a voice, but in a colonial milieu. It grew in the comp
response to, an alien rule. At first, the Indian nation
was not irreconcilable with the British rule.82 The bluep
Indian nationhood were drawn from the Western ar
colonial rule was looked upon as the context and an
change. None thought of going back to the pre-
institutions, which increasingly became anachronistic,
what the raucous mutineers, in their contemptuou
Bahadur Shah II. The British at least treated the emasculated
pomposities of post-Mutiny Maharajas as so many curios in th
imperial show-case,83 but the bourgeois nationalists had no use for
them, except as gaudy symbols of a world they had turned their backs
on. In fact, Nehru's undisguised sneer, Patel's carrot-and-stick, Mr
Gandhi's polite coup de grace and the palaces turning into museum
and heritage hotels were not inconsistent with the attitude of th
early Indian nationalist leaderhip towards the Nawabs and Maharajas
New India was happy to consign monarchy to history books an
celebrate it there rather than have it for itself.84
Bourgeois nationalism did indeed seek freedom. But it sought
freedom in British rule before it thought of demanding freedom from
the British rule. Fawning loyalty, eagerness to collaborate and political
mendicancy, which were to embarrass some of its professors later
were but a part of this desire. The institutions and economic order
they hoped to build in India were the ones which the British liberalism
and capitalism offered. Popular sovereignty, representative
government, freedom of expression, secular vision of the world,
industrialisation as the road to development, access to new knowledge
and technology and sturdy individualism were some of the Western
bourgeois ideas which Indian nationalists looked up to, and hoped
that they would realise them under the auspices of the British rule.
But soon they also had to reckon with the fact that whatever the
British stood for at home, their rule in India was based on a well-

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defined notion of superiority, which institutionalised the pro

felicitous exploitation while yet claiming to be an ordained age
improvemeht. Things, which were so wonderful about the Bri
Britain, were not quite available to the Indians. The natio
indignation at the 'un-British rule in India' which exposed the
side of colonial reality was also an anger at high hopes cruelly
The elaborate economic critique of colonialism which highlig
the gulf between the myth and reality of the British rule and unm
the in-built contradiction between the interests of the rulers and
of the colony, provided the most reasoned argument fo
repudiation of that imposed relationship of inequality and
exploitation.85 The logic of economic nationalism was also an
impeachment of an idea and an institution of domination claiming to
be an instrument of progress and civilistion. An enchantress of infinite
seductive skills was shown to possess the sharp fangs of a vampire.
The critics of colonialism were essentially the devotees of capitalism,
in whose redemptive powers they had an unshakeable faith.86 But
they also knew that what India was experiencing was not the
emancipatory benefits of capitalism but the shackling, thwarting ways
of its sinister colonial version. It was as if the British rule was betraying
its Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde syndrome.
A beckoning idea of modernity and progress was perverting itself
into a promoter of poverty and underdevelopment. The implication
of 'economic nationalism' was that once you overcome or transcend
the colonial relationship the larger and wholesome benefits of
capitalism and industrialism would reach and transform India into a
modern developing nation. The subverting economic critique, which
undermined the moral basis of the colonial rule, however, was broadly
based on the acknowledged loyalty to capitalist ideology. When even
Karl Marx, the most famous critique of the swaggering capitalism,
thought that it would be an instrument of regeneration in India, it is
not surprising that the Indian intellectual leaders succumbed to its
overpowering attraction. But they also knew that capitalism without
freedom was only a splendid travesty. 'Economic nationalism' was,
therefore, as much a critique of colonial capitalism as it was an
affirmation of faith in the bourgeois project of development. When,
at a later stage, some of the leaders began to court socialism after its
high-profile success in Russia, the new ideology did indeed question
the old nationalist faith. But while it created an awareness of the
dangers and pitfalls in the capitalist road to development, it did not
quite give up the faith.87 In the post-Independence India, the Nehruvian

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20 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
model of development accommodated cynicism a

the capitalist agenda, and sought to have the be
Whether what was conjured up was finally a mo
scarecrow socialism is a political opinion, which w
vote. But high-flown eclecticism lends to sway t
has greater compulsions.
However, if India was uneasy with capitalism because of its
colonial association, it had no such problem when it came to
envisaging or organising its political future. Its architecture was indeed
conceived on Western models but its spirit was informed by its own
authentic historical experience. It is pointed out that the new
constitution which was hammered out for free India was, in fact, a
careful expansion and suitable modification of the Constitution of
1935.88 While it is true that the founding fathers of New India were
all fine students of the various democratic constitutions of the modern
world, and particularly admirers of the British model, what they finally
produced was not a quilt of borrowed rags, but a genuine statement
of the new nation's confidence and aspirations. The Indian national
movement had not only highlighted the 'primary contradiction'
between the interests of the colonial rule and colony but also had
brought to the centre stage several 'secondary contradictions' in the
colonial society. If the first ended with the termination of the British
rule, the other had yet to be addressed in the new agenda for India's
social and economic reconstruction. In fact, it is this spirit of "many
more freedoms to be won" which permeated the new Constitution.
Its visions of rational and humane progress, its plans for social and
economic justice, its charters of hope and ultimatum of fight were
rooted as much in its experience as in its confidence to surmount it.
Pandit Nehru and Dr. Ambedkar, whose ideas had the most influence
on the new blueprint of Indian nationhood were not the ones to invoke
the past as the sole, infallible guide to its future. Neither of them
found history an inebriation. Nehru loved it as a presence with which
he could engage in both a romantic and critical dialogue, and in the
process, discover India and himself.89
To Ambedkar, on the other hand, it was a long, recurring
nightmare, which should be exorcised from the nation's psyche by a
radical programme of re-ordering society. Neither was willing to put
up with the cobwebs of history as accrued heritage. Instead they were
to be judged by the concerns of the present and hopes for the future.
The Indian reconstruction, as it was mirrored in the Constitution,
was thus based not on a sentimental indulgence with its past but on

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a critical engagement with it. It was also based on the belief tha
more daring act of making history is more important than getti
marooned in the past.
India's serious courtship with the Western modernity was, n
doubt, facilitated by the fact that the latter was hugely advertised a
both colonial knowledge and power. It had its implications in
inferiorising the colony, its history, religion, racial composition,
science, medicine, its attitudes and character, and evrything which go
into constituting the colony.90 It is an insidious process of
Calibanisation and dispossession of personality.91 But what makes
colonisation real is that even in its rejection there is an implicit
acceptance of the standards set by the coloniser. Modernity and
civilisation get defined and accepted once and for all. Some
surrendered to it in a Faustian way, spurning the 'native' ways and
knowledge as symbols of primitivism, while the Swadeshis insisted
on 'doing their own thing' because they were sure they had all the
virtues of modernity. The dialogue between the champions of 'modern
medicine' and the 'Indian Systems'92 or between the advocates of
modern science and those of the Indian science93 followed this tenor.
Even the dyed-in-the-wool 'revivalist' operates under the shadow
of Western modernity, which he despises and rejects. Decolonisation
does not change the situation entirely. Colonial rule ends and new
rulers are installed. The momentum of the anti-colonial struggle is
symbolically maintained, to savour the success for some more time.
Rejecting the linguistic legacy, renaming the country, its monuments,
roads and cities, and other acts of erasing the blighted memories and
creating fresh ones are aspects of post-decolonisation reflexes. But
these celebratory triumphs carry with them a realisation that colonial
experience inscribes itself deep into the country's psyche, and that its
personality is, after all, formed by, and as a response to, that
experience. In fact, a post-colonial predicament is about a gnawing
feeling of defeat that a people who had thrown off the colonial yoke
are unable to erase its inscriptions, that the free nation's mind is yet
under mortgage.94 The anger and rhetoric, which go into expressing
this frustration, have inflamed politics and enriched literature.95 And
the predicament flourishes. Perhaps a possible counsel to prevent the
attendant hypertension would be a realisation that a nation's
personality is a palimpsest of inefficient erasures and frequent
overwritings, which have to be continuously read anew. It cannot be
laundered to its pristine cleanliness.
The 'modern' in modern India is a composite legacy of India's

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22 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
response to, and fight against, its colonial experience,

itself in its national movement and freedom strug
fascination for some of its legacies, imbibed them
transform itself accordingly, while it rejected its s
its freedom. Either way, modern India was constit
awareness of its recent, transforming, historic
Understanding, interrogating and a reasoned reject
were expression of modern Indian consciousness.96
was pitting itself - its present and future, and theref
- against a huge, encompassing presence. And it wa
in a context of both negotiation and rejection.
colonialism was not an academic or an organised id
but an expression of lived experience. Its spokesmen w
themselves and their classes to speak for the nation, a
they were establishing the bases of a democratic et
time people seemed to matter; their poverty and p
registered, however inadequately. The charge that
empathy for the poor was either non-existent or was
more facile than fair,97 for the middle-class leadersh
plans to mobilise the hungry, angry masses to thei
The democratic order that 'modern' India chose for
just a simple invocation of the masses, but was based
and freedom. Fight for freedom of press and expr
civil liberties, which occupy a substantial space in
making India were, no doubt, some of glittering tr
Liberalism. But in the colonial context they were n
to the Indians. The strident demand and a long f
them are also an important aspect of India's journ
and nationhood. For, these acquisitions were the si
dignity and honour. This legacy of the national m
preserved as the basis of a civilised democratic
independent India planned for itself.
Modern India's independence is also marked by
pursue an independent foreign policy. It was ro
repugnance to be subordinated to the interests of
makers in war and peace. The national leadership was acutely
conscious of the fact that anti-colonial struggle was more than just
naitonal; it also involved a moral struggle for the creation of world
opinion against colonialism. India's pursuit of independence influenced
its foreign policy under its founder, Pandit Nehru. Nonalignment was
a natural response of India in its post-decolonisation convalescent

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mood to a world of contending forces of global domination. I

claim that a liberated colony had yet a strong enough vertebral c
to enable a firm stand on its own behalf.
Another feature which 'modern' India would like to be known
by is the idea of secularism. A nation claiming to represent all logically
had to accept the idea of secularism. But the idea had to fight a long
and not a successful political battle because 'nation' was defined as
something which need not necessarily represent all. But this bruised
and battered ideal of secularism heroically survived in India as a
precious legacy of the national movement. Secularism today is a proud
plank of India's modernity. It is a national choice, which the other
side of the Wagah border did not make. Within India, which is a
gorgeous multicultural and multireligious society, a broad consensut
on secularism has developed, although it has been clumsily besieged
by a group of throwbacks to the days of Pope Urban II and Peter the
Hermit. In the normal political disputations, however, the issue is
not so much the rejection of the idea as its definition or who has
patented this acclaimed national virtue.
Modern India has also declared its option in favour of industrial
and technological development as the road to progress. It straddles
the worlds of Raja Rammohan Roy, R.C. Dutt and Pandit Nehru.
Although the timeless innocence of the Indian village was cherished
as an ideal, and condoled for its loss, the dominant mood of the
national movement was in favour of industrialisation. Nehru, and
not Gandhi, was to become the prophet of 'modern' India. This was
acknowledged by the author of Hind Swaraj himself, as he, not
ironically, moved the Karachi Resolution (1931) which announced
industrialisation as India's chosen road to development.99 The
Gandhian misgivings on modern idioms of progress were to become
relevant as a caution against, or as speed-breaker to, the runaway
industrialisation, which would vandalise nature and dehumanise
society. India also proclaimed its ambition to achieve universal literacy
and promote modern education to ensure that its democracy was
founded not on the herd instincts of the masses but on the strength of
their knowledge and awareness. Higher education was conceived as
a vast strategy for the country to conceive and realise its hopes to be
honourable associate in the comity of industrialised nations. It
reflected its eagerness to extricate itself from the colonial legacy of
underdevelopment and join the race for modern industrial and
technological progress. Sometimes independent India has squirmed
at the prospect of having to concede precedence to modern idioms

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24 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
and strategies of progress over what were perceived as

non-negotiable virtues. Yet it has made its choice. B
and periodical progress-reports may be disputed; but th
about the road taken.
Perhaps the most decisive and crucial feature of modern India is
its nationhood. The idea of nation-in-the-making, which grew in the
context of its colonial experience, has stayed, and notwithstanding
several bouts of self-doubts, India is a nation. That is, it feels that it
is something more than the aggregate of the things which constitute
it. Whether it is unity in diversity, as the cliche goes, or a way of
acknowledging and accommodating diversity, the idea of a nation
informs the construction of modern India. There have been doubts
expressed as to whether the bourgeoisie could speak for the nation or
whether they were merely announcing false pregnancies.100 While one
can acknowledge the limitations of bourgeois nationalism, its
historical role or contingencies cannot be wished away. But the
question as to whether the Indian nation was finally made assumes
that the 'nation' is a product or a destination. Nation is a process
rather as a product, the notion of a condition rather than the condition
itself. Nation is never made; it is always in the making.T01 Once it
ceases to be in the making, it ceases to be itself, and stands petrified
as a fossil of history.
India's tryst with 'modernity' is a product of the colonial rule. It
is easy to be embarrassed at the thought of its enforced dalliance
with the West. But it had evolved its own responses and made its
own choices. After Independence, it has, in frequent spasms of self-
pity, cried over the deep gashes, which its colonial association has
left behind. But it has generally stood by the choices it had made. In
its long encounter with the globalising West, which colonialism indeed
was, India had shown its strength not only to survive but also to
define itself. In the context of the new wave of globalisation, it needs
to have greater strength of will to survive it and make its own choices.
It has to find that strength not by summoning pre-modern attitudes
and inheritance or by frittering away the legacies of its colonial
engagement, but by a new interrogation with the new modernity.
NOTES
This address owes an immense debt to Kesavan Veluthat, from whose

academic strength and personal friendship I have drawn my dividends
liberally.

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1. The world, and with it India, ushered in the new millennium with high deci
enthusiasm. The preparation was as elaborate as it was infectious, in spite
the chronological riddle associated with it. The historian suddenly fou
himself in demand to take stock of things, to survey the road traversed. Th
the rest took over, to frame the agenda for the new millennium. Everythin
from politics to genetics, culinary projects to sartorial creations, was conceiv
in terms of the beckoning brave new world. The burgeoning world of
consumerism regaled itself by making millions of millennium offers. T
session of the Indian History Congress, too, we are reminded, is a millenniu
affair, misspelt though. In the hands of the historians at least such an
engagement with a chronological phenomenon appears the least anachronist
or comical.
2. For a magisterial statement on the flow of history see Michael Oakeshott,
Experience and its Modes (London, 1933).
3. Methodologists concede the need for periodisation, but debate over the fallacy
of "false periodization". For a lively and provocative analysis, if in a rebuking
tone, see D.H. Fischer, Historians' Fallacies (New York, 1970), pp. 144-146.
Periodisation as an ideological strategy is discussed with passion in Jean
Chesneaux, Pasts and Futures or, What is History For? (London, 1978).
4. J.R. Seeley, The Expansion of England 883, (Reprint, London, 1914), pp.
228-250.
5. Referring to any anti-British resistance as an anti-colonial stance seems to
a scholarly predilection. See for example, Irfan Habib (ed.), Resistance and
Modernization Under Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan (New Delhi, 1999),
publication on behalf of the Indian History Congress, which has
superscribed title Confronting Colonialism.
6. S.B. Chaudhuri, Civil Disturbances During the British Rule in India, 1765
1857 (Calcutta, 1955) is a useful survey.
7. For example, C.A. Bayly, Indian Society and the Making of the British Emp
(Cambridge, 1988); P.J. Marshall, Bengal the British Bridgehead: Eastern
India 1740-1828 (Cambridge, 1987). Also C.A. Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen
and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion 1770-
1870 (Cambridge, 1983).
8. T.O. Ranger, 'African Reaction to the Imposition of Colonial Rule in East
and Central Africa' and J.D. Hargreaves, 'West African States and th
European Conquest',in L.H. Gann and P. Duignan (Eds.), Colonialism
Africa 1870-1960 (Cambridge, 1969). For a useful discussion on th
applicability of the idea to the Indian context, Eric Stokes, Peasant and th
Raj, Studies in Agrarian Society and Peasant Rebellion in Colonial India
(New Delhi, 1980), pp. 120-126.
9. Tipu and Ranjit Singh are perhaps the finest examples of these response
Both were aware of the superiority of, and the dangers from, the British; an
Tipu would have certainly endorsed the grim prediction of Ranjit Singh
"sab lal ho jayega ". But their responses were different. One trusted his valou
and the other, his discretion, each with a different result.
10. The Revolt of 1857 certainly had the passion. However, the conspiracy theo
which many imperialist and nationalist historians subscribed to with differen
implications, has had a long tenancy in the historiography of 1857. It ca
yet be debated.
11. There were many peasant and tribal movements, though. They no doubt

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26 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
give a lie to the putative imperialist idea of Pax Britannic

were sporadic, uncoordinated, and as such no big threat to
12. S. Gopal, British Policy in India 1958-1905 (Cambridg
13. Literature on the Maharajas is copious. The British historia
to look upon them as spectacular symbols of imperial co
not disguise their sneer at these anachronisms.
14. This assertion appears to be a truism after the works of
A.G. Frank, Wallerstein and others. But critics point out t
"insufficiently defined" and "applied with too much general
explanatory power. See P.J. Cain and A.G. Hopkins, Brit
Innovation and Expansion 1688-1914 (London, 1993), PP.
better word to replace it, sans its despised Marxist odour, h
15. Preserved Smith, Enlightenment 1687-1776 (New Yor
21-25.
16. Newton was to become the mascot of the new age of science. None suggested
it better than Alexander Pope:
"Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night:
God said, Let Newton be! and all was light."
17. The idea of progress has enticed many to enthusiastic or cynical introspection.
The list includes Bury, Morris Ginsberg, Carl Becker, W.R. Inge, Hannah
Arendt, Sidney Pollard, and many others. After World War I profound voices
of doubt were heard and the most stentorian of them was Oswald Spengler's.
But the faith has persisted. If the idea cannot quite be vindicated in history,
it can certainly be a plan for action. See F.S Marvin (Ed.) Progress and History
(London, 1919). Another response after another War was to marvel at the
idea of historical recurrence. See G.W. Trompf, The Idea of Historical
Recurrence in Western Thought (Berkeley, 1979). The Post-modernist
skepticism is certain about nothing though, except uncertainties.
18. "The eighteenth century is perhaps the last period in the history of Western
Europe when human omniscience was thought to be an attainable goal",
Isaiah Berlin, Age of Enlightenment (1962, 1980), p. 14.
19. E.J. Hobsbawam, The Age of Revolution (Loneon, 1962, 1980), p. 15.
20. Foucauldian intervention has yielded rich harvest. The works of Bernard
Cohn, Thomas Metcalf, Nicholas Dirks, Gauri Vishwanathan, Ashis Nandy,
Ronald Inden, et al., have been particularly significant. Thomas Metcalf's
Ideologies of the Raj, in the New Cambridge History of India series (1995)
is a fine introduction. So is Bernard Cohn's Colonialism and its Forms of
Knowledge (Princeton, 1996).
21. Ranajit Guha, Dominance Without Hegemony: History and Power in
Colonial India (Delhi, 1998). Also his 'Dominance Without Hegemony and
its Historiography', Subaltern Studies, Vol VI, (Delhi, 1989).
22. This is the refrain in most of the imperialist writings from James Mill to
William Hunter. Apart from the difficulties in making sense of ancient Indian
literature, it carried with it a heavy ideological burden of European superiority
of knowledge. The colonial conquest reinforced the belief in that superiority.
For the statement in quotation, see William Logan, Malabar, Vol, I, (Madras,
1886), Chapter on "Traditionary History".
23. Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt and Margaret Jacob, Telling the Truth About
History (New York, 1994), pp. 53-54.
24. Ibid., p. 55.

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25. The Indian notion of yugas, kalas,and Manvantras in which time is

on an immense scale both fascinated and repelled European schola
William Jones sought to reconcile the Indian digits of time to the
categories. In making sense of the Hindu constructs he was legitimi
European knowledge. See Thomas Trautmann, Aryans and British Ind
Delhi, 1997), pp. 57-59.
26. Vincent Smith's The Early History of India (1904) contains, as the
himself claims, "a disproportionately large space to the memorable
of Alexander the Great" due to the "exceptional interest of the sub
27. A recent work on the chronological regimes of the world is E.G. R
Mapping Time: The Calendar and its History (Oxford, 1988). India
of historical time was to be linked to the European construct, an
scholarly example of Indian acquiescence is L.D. Swamikkannu Pill
author of Indian Chronology (Madras, 1922) and Indian Ephemeris (
1922).
28. The preening idea of the "modern" emerged in the European Renaissance,
and acquired its famous conceit in the Enlightenment. Pousin of Friege is
said to have invented the terms "ancient", "medieval", and "modern" in his
book Feodium (1639) and Christopher Cellarius or Keller (1634-1701) of
the University of Halle advocated it. Arthur Marwick, The Nature of History
(London, 1975), p. 169. The dark 'medieval' trough was conceived by the
humanists and writers like Petrarch and Flavio Biondo. Denys Hay, Annalists
and Historians (London, 1977), pp. 88-92. Also, see Ernst Breisach,
Historiography: Ancient, Medieval and Modern (Chicago, 1983).
29. The Romanticist restoration of the 'Medieval' had the services of Savigny,
Chateaubriand, Goethe, Winekelmann, Walter Scott, and others. The richness
of reaction against reason's tyranny notwithstanding, the 'medieval'
connotation has not shown any prospect being exonerated.
30. James Mill has generally been accused of starting the whole nasty business
of communal division of Indian history. He did so because he depended on
the knowledge produced by the intrepid Orientalists and the translation of
Ferishta's work. His was not a conspiracy; his scheme was later used as a
tool of imperialist strategy in India.
31. Trautmann's phrase 'Indomania vs. Indophobia', is useful, though a bit too
evocative. Trautmann, op. cit., pp. 62-130.
32. Elliot and Dowson, Stanley Lane-Poole and other British historians
institutionalized the prejudice against the Muslim rule in India, which the
Indian scholarship carried forward with great relish. In the process they
produced and participated in the vicious communal divide, which has blighted
the country since.
33. The Imperialist 'defence' of the Empire always seemed to accompany the
sense of pride. While the latter was a natural response, the defence of the
Empire was needed as its moral basis. The 'Empire' was as much a creation
of the conquest as of the interminable dialogue of the British with themselves.
34. R.K. Mookerji, especially in Asoka (London, 1928) and HCIP, Vol. 2, The
Age of Imperial Unity (Bombay, 1951).
35. The idea that the 'imperial' Mauryas, Guptas, Harsha and others conquered
to 'unify' the country was a way in which the nationalists unwittingly paid
homage to the imperialist ideology.
36. R.C. Majumdar, Ancient Indian Colonies in the Far East (Dacca, 1927).

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28 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
37. Asoka's edicts and roayl prasastis have been freely inv
'ideal ruler' in Indian history who is steadfastly dharmi
people's welfare.
38. Particularly K.P. Jayaswal's Hindu Polity (1924), R.
Government in Ancient India (1920), and K.A. Nilakanta
Cola History and Administration (1932) and Colas (1934
39. Scholars like Beni Prasad, V.R.R. Dikshitar, D.R. Bhandar
U.N. Ghoshal and others who have written about ancie
ideas and institutions have persistently harped on the n
bridle to tyranny.
40. R.K. Mookerji, Education in Ancient India (Delhi, 19
41. Ancient India's record in scientific thinking and practice is extremely
impressive. But sometimes the nationalist fervour overeaches itself in making
certain claims at which it would blush in its sober moments.
42. That the first instance of bird-hit had occurred in India's aviation history in
the age of Ramayana none had pointed out though!
43. Madame Blavatsky was irresistible in her appeal, and she seemed to have
some special powers of a hypnotist, thought-reader and that of a great
storyteller. But some found her equally repulsive, and she was a subject of
endless speculation and gossip. For some very juicy and unsympathetic
comments on her, see J.N. Farquhar, Modern Religious Movements in India
(1915).
44. Afrocentrists like Chancellor Williams, Yosef Ben-Jochanan, Martin Bernal,
Ivan van Sartima, and many others have installed the blacks as the makers
of history and modernity with comical ferocity. For a useful and interesting
discussion, see Dinesh D'Souza, The End of Racism (New York, 1995), pp.
367-388.
45. Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York, 1978).
46. Attitude and pronouncements of Viceroys like Dufferin and Curzon, or of
bureaucrats like John Strachey, J.D. Rees and Verney Lovett, and other
spokesmen of the Empire like Valentine Chirol, hovered between contempt
and condescension for Indian 'nationalism', which was also synonymous
with 'unrest'.
47. The skepticism of Valentine Chirol about Indian nationalism had been well
and truly bequeathed as a historiographical legacy. It acquired degrees of
sophistication in Anil Seal, The Emergence of Indian Nationalism (London,
1968), J.H. Broomfield, Elite Conflict in Plural Society: Twentieth Century
Bengal (London, 1968), Judith Brown, Gandhi's Rise to Power: Indian Politics
1915-1922 (New Delhi, 1972), Eugene Irschik, Politics and Social Conflict
in South India, 1926-1929 (Bombay, 1969) and many others. The so-called
'Neo-traditional' historians of the 1960's and the 'Cambridge historians'
who pranced about in Namierite badges were the scholarly purveyors of the
old imperialist cynicism.
48. Bipan Chandra, 'Historians of Modern India and Communalism' in Romila
Thapar, Harbans Mukhia and Bipan Chandra, Communalism and the Writing
of Indian History (New Delhi, 1977), Communalism in Modern India (New
Delhi, 1984).
49. Percival Spear, The Nabobs (London, 1963), Also, Kenneth Ballhatchet, Race,
Sex and Class Under the Raj (New Delhi, 1979).
50. The Bengal Renaissance has been sometimes criticised for its parochialism.

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But in the context of the British rule, the authentic Indian response could
have been possible except in the Presidency. Calcutta evolved as the hu
colonial relation.
51. K.N. Panikkar, Culture, Ideology, Hegemony: Intellectuals and Social
Consciousness in Colonial India (New Delhi, 1995). Also his Presidential
Address, Section III, Indian History Congress, 36th Session, Aligarh, 1975.
Edward Shills, The Intellectual Between Tradition and Modernity: The Indian
Situation (The Hague, 1961).
52. For example, Sumit Sarkar, A Critique of Colonial India (Calcutta, 1985),
particularly articles on Bengal Renaissance.
53. Percival Spear, India, Pakistan and the West (Oxford, 1952), p. 182.
54. The Indians sinking to the status of 'natives' from that of "undisputed rulers",
as the impact of British conquest is an unconvincing picture. What they
became was clear; what they were before, is a doubtful, if very flattering,
hypothesis. Kenneth W. Jones, Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British
India (New Delhi, 1994), p. 25.
55. Montesquieu's idea that climate was decisive in the making of 'Oriental
Despotism' had influenced many early writers on India. Luke Scrafton, for
example, writing in 1763, was convinced that the hardy Mughals of Central
Asia were transformed to slothful degeneracy by the enervating climate of
the subcontinent. It, no doubt, made the British conquest easy; but it also
meant that India would have its revenge on the new conquerors too. Kate
Teltscher, India Inscribed (New Delhi, 1997), pp. 111-114.
56. The man.who sighed for "Albion's distant shore" found himself unacceptable
in the ruler's culture, though he was willing to lose everything in order to
gain entry there. The feeling of estrangement Michael Madhusudhan felt in
his social and intellectual life sprang from some of the built-in incongruities
in the colonial relationship. Arabinda Poddar, Renaissance in Bengal, Quests
and Confrontations, 1800-1860 (Simla, 1970), pp. 194-217.
57. J.N. Farquhar, op. cit., p. 445.
58. Gerald Studdert-Kennedy, British Christians, Indian Nationalists and the
Raj (Delhi, 1991); Providence and the Raj: Imperial Mission and Missionary
Imperialism (New Delhi, 1998).
59. J.N. Farquhar, op. cit., pp. 430-445. Sushoban Sarkar, Bengal Renaissance
and other Essays (New Delhi, 1981), pp. 7-8.
60. Rammohan Roy's 'A Letter to Lord Amherst on English Education' was also
a manifesto of the new Indians on modern education.
61. George Smith, The Life of Alexander Duff (London, 1879), pp. 141-142.
62. P.N. Bose, A History of Hindu Civilization During British Rule (1895), Vol.
III, pp. 154-189. Also, Arabinda Poddar, op. cit., pp. 88-98. The Moderate
Indian leaders introspected their national awareness as being the result of
Western education R.G. Pradhan, India's Struggle for Swaraj (1930).
63. Gauri Vishwanathan, Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule
in India (London, 1989).
64. For a very incisive account of culture-ideology-print relationship, Roger
Chartier, The Cultural Uses of Print in Early Modern France (Princeton,
1987). In the context of the French Revolution, The Cultural Origins of the
French Revolution (Durham, London, 1995), pp. 38-66.
65. K.N. Panikkar, Culture, Ideology, Hegemony: Intellectuals and Social
Consciousness in Colonial India (New Delhi, 1998), p. 148.

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30 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
66. Tapan Raychaudhuri, Europe Reconsidered: Perception

Nineteenth Century Bengal (New Delhi, 1989), p. 332.
67. Kenneth Jones, op. cit., p. 30, 96. Also J.T.F. Jorden,s Da
His Life and Ideas (Delhi, 1978).
68. The indigenous moorings of Rammohan Roy have been p
where he is said to have moved out to admire the West, whe
Tilak and Nehru are seen as moving in the reverse order. K
cit., pp. 65-67. The contrast cannot be, however, sustained
Vivekananda and Nehru, in different areas of concern, in
their gaze turned Westward.
69. J.N. Farquhar, op. cit., pp. 118-120.
70. Partha Chatterji, 'A Religion of Urban Domesticity: Sri
the Calcutta Middle Class', Subaltern Studies, Vol VII (Ne
pp. 40-68. Sumit Sarkar, 'Kaliyuga, Chakri and Bhakti: R
his Times' in Writing Social History (New Delhi, 1998), pp
Raychaudhuri says, "Perhaps Ramakrishna met a felt ne
intelligentsia not traceable to the insecurity of their cultur
hiatus in their social-political aspirations." Tapan Rayach
p. 236.
71. Quoted in Tapan Raychaudhuri, op. cit., p. 256.
72. S. Radhakrishnan's academic interpretation of Indian Ph
for its ability to address the Western audience and its mas
juxtapose the Indian philosophy with the Western. At anoth
men and other vendors of Indian spirituality measure their
of the number of white-skinned (now even yellow would d
claim to have.
73. Geraldine Forbes, Women in Modern India (New Delhi, 1
74. See Dipesh Chakrabarty, 'Postcoloniality and the Artific
Speaks for 'Indian pasts'? Representations 37 (Winter, 19
in Padmini Mongia (ed.), Contemporary Postcolonial The
2000), p. 233; see also H.H. Risley, The People of India, R
1969), p. 171.
75. For example, A.S. Altekar, Position of Women in Hindu Ci
1938).
76. Ramabai Ranade (ed.) Miscellaneous Writings of the Late H
Ranade, Reprint (Delhi, 1992), pp. 71-77.
77. For some incisive feminist critique on the theme, Lata
Traditions: The Debate on Sati in Colonial India," Kum
Sudesh Vaid (ed.) Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial Hist
Vina Mazumdar, "Social Reform Movement in India - From Ranade to
Nehru", in B.R. Nanda (ed.), Indian Women: From Pardah to Modernity
(New Delhi, 1976).
78. In Adam's world the woman's question is taken up as a concession,
condescension, and as a proof of male generosity. It is the man who discusses,
and decides on, the status of the woman. How autonomous she is or should
be becomes his concern and decision. It was so with reformers of the
nineteenth century, and is not much different now.
79. Fierce historiographical contests over India's Freedom Struggle are either
frank political struggles or have good stakes in them. Its leaders gain entry
into its pantheon or are shown the door, depending on the political fortunes

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they face or create for themselves.

80. Macaulay's 'filtration' theory presupposed a target group, which would
through education, imbibe the virtues of British civilisation, and pass on t
same to others. But when such a group emerged it became an object of sne
British liberalism and bureaucratic attitudes often ran on parallel lin
glancing at each other, but unable to meet.
81. The post-independence dialogue over India's road to independence has
accommodated a rich variety of skepticism. The limitations of its class
composition, socio-political goals, the locale of its operation are highlighted;
the difference between what it claimed to be and what it really was is harped
on. But the wizardry of it all is the way cynicism can do the vanishing trick
on the phenomenon of nationalism itself.
82. The loyalist refrain in the early nationalist eloquence has been variously
explained as pusillanimity, a strategy of stooping to conquer, or as the way
of a comprador class. Often the admiration for the British rule was genuinely
felt. Though its 'un-British' character was soon revealed, the dilemma of
response was not easily resolved.
83. By 1858 the British had both pacified and emasculated the 'native rulers'.
the Delhi Durbar was designed not only to proclaim the glory of the empire
in India but also to co-opt the 'native rulers' to the gravitational orbit of
imperialism. They needed each other. For the British it was like collecting
antiques; for the 'native rulers' it was a token compensation for the loss of
their identity.
84. However, new India has no qualms about encashing the repudiated royalty
as a symbol, nostalgia or as a dream. If a palace were not at hand to offer to
the customers, even the name would do. It can be anything from aircrafts to
auto-rickshaws and bars to barber's shops.
85. Bipan Chandra, Rise and Growth of Economic Nationalism in India (New
Delhi, 1966).
86. Ibid. Also his 'Colonialism and Modernization' (Presidential Address, Modern
India Section, Indian History Congress, 1970).
87. Nehru's economic ideas lend themselves to a profound sense of betrayal.
The capitalists feared his socialist rhetoric and the socialists, his capitalist
postures.
88. Percival Spear, op. cit., pp. 214-216.
89. Nehru's tete-a-tete with history is well known. Sometimes his fascination for
history is compared with Churchill's. While their fondness for history was
real, their attitudes were different. Nehru conversed with history; Churchill
explored it.
90. The Saidian idea of 'Orientalism' has been very productive, not withstanding
the problems it raises. The construction of the Orient was a project of its
inferiorisation. It was also a way of subjugation.
91. 0. Mannoni, Prospero and Caliban: the Psycbology of Colonization (New
York, 1956).
92. The 'imperialism of medicine' has been explained at length by scholars like
David Arnold, Poonam Bala, Mark Harrison, D.R. Headrick, I.D. Illich,
K.N. Panikkar, Anil Kumar, R. Ramasubban and others. It was a powerful
moral stance of a colonial power insisting on doing good to the conquered
people of its own terms.
93. Science as a lever of colonisation has also been studied by scholars like Deepak

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32 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
Kumar, Satpal Sangwan and others.

94. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin, The
Reader (London, 1995), p. 2.
95. Anger and anguish are the dominant moods of post-Co
Fanon or Aime Casaire has expressed the mood in theo
96. Bipan Chandra, Rise and Growth of Economic Nation
Delhi, 1966).
97. R. Palme Dutt was somewhat uncharitable to the middle-class leadership,
The Subaltern Studies has been even more.
98. Bipan Chandra, Freedom Movement's Vision of Independent India (New
Delhi, 1998), pp. 8-12.
99. Ibid., pp. 14-15.
100. Dipesh Chakrabarty, "Invitation to a Dialogue", Subaltern Studies, Vol. IV
(New Delhi, 1990), p. 373.
101. The statement attributed to Count Cavour, "We have made Italy; now we
have to make the Italians", was suggestive of nationalism as an on-going
project. Renan's idea of a nation as "a daily plebiscite" is significant. E.J.
Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780 (Cambridge, 1992), p. 7.
I 4 I= h = I Xis:WIUih
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