By Mohammad Sajjad
Hitendra Patel, Communalism and the Intelligentsia in Bihar, 1870-1930: Shaping Caste, Community and Nationhood, Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan, 2011 (hardbound), ISBN 978 81 250 4206 8. Pages X + 253. Price Rs. 595.,
The theme of communalism and the inter-community relationship carry extraordinary importance in the life of the modern South Asia. This has been reflected in the academic output though Bihar, the eastern province of India, which remained under the administrative appendage of the Bengal till 1912, however has remained a relatively less explored region. The two adjacent provinces, viz., the Bengal, and the United Provinces (besides the Punjab) attracted greater attention from the historians. Vinita Damodaran (1992), and various well-researched essays of Papiya Ghosh (1953-2006), posthumously compiled in a volume (2008), attempted to fill this gap.
Hitendra Patel has moved ahead of all these to explore the origin of communalism and nationalism in colonial Bihar during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The factual as well as interpretative contents of this book are impressive. In fact, factual narratives proceed in such a way that the interpretative aspect keeps opening up in an effortless way. It traces the origins of majoritarian communal nationalism, more particularly with reference to the Hindi intelligentsia, and underlines ‘the process by which the Hindi intelligentsia became social leaders’ (p. 2). It delves into a large volume and wide range of hitherto untapped Hindi sources he has attempted to enrich the historical literature on the ideology of nationalism and communalism. Patel outlines his objectives very clearly: ‘We need to go into the processes of the development of these two ideologies at two levels- the popular and the literary… It is in the development of these modern languages and in the writings of the vernacular intelligentsia that we can study the process of the development of nationalism [and communalism] at the popular level’ (p. 11), as the vernacular regional [Hindi] intelligentsia, who were ‘dharmik (religious) intelligentsia’ who ‘had actively supported and popularized nationalism’ (pp. 12-13), with considerable influence on the Congress also. In this analysis he draws upon a recent work of Jenny White on ‘vernacular politics’ informed by religious ideologies in Turkey (2002).
Patel’s chapter on the Hindi (Nagri) movement in the nineteenth century is highly informative and goes on to enrich the historiography on Hindi-Urdu conflict where the protagonists of Hindi-Nagri received ‘crucial support from the Government’ at least from the 1860s in Bihar, and the colonial state did its best to ‘ethnicize’ the language (with two scripts) along the communal lines of Hindu-Muslim divide. Having collected significant archival evidences, Patel elaborates that the Hindi movement ‘turned into a hostile anti-Urdu campaign. As a result, an environment was created in which Urdu was being identified with Muslims’ (p. 55), and that it was ‘anti-Muslim’ (p. 63). Muslim ‘preponderance’ in public employment was one of the prime considerations behind replacing Urdu with Hindi in Bihar [e.g., Dalton, the Commissioner of Chhhotanagpur was particularly concerned about the fact that the Muslims constituted 58.3% of the police forces in Chhotanagpur (p. 69)].
In Bihar, ‘Hindi became an issue largely because of government initiatives. The first serious effort to introduce Hindi in the Nagri script was made in 1862 by Dalton, the Commissioner of Chhotanagpur, who opposed an outright substitution of Urdu with Hindi’(p. 69). Patel further reveals, ‘Hindi supporters and writers always remained courteous while approaching the government but exhorted readers extensively to write about Urdu in derogatory terms’ (p. 80). In this chapter, besides archival evidences, he also makes use of the Hindi works of Shivpujan Sahay (1963) and of Dhirendra Nath Singh (1986)-the latter has documented the Kharagvilas Press and the newspaper Bihar Bandhu,/em>, the two most important agencies of the Hindi-Nagri movement in Bihar. This chapter derives interpretational and theoretical inputs from Vasudha Dalmia (1997), Christopher King (1994), and Francesca Orsini (2002), but produces evidences for so many empirical details with cogent and lucid analysis pertaining to the issue in Bihar, as the three influential works on the subject had almost completely overlooked Bihar, so much so that “crucial information (like the help Bhartendu Harishchandra got from the Bihari people and institutions, without which he would not have gone bankrupt and his books would not have reached the public as effectively as they did; or that larger financiers of both the Congress and the Sanatan Sabhas came from Bihar) have strangely been ignored by the scholars” (p. 160).
The subsequent chapter focuses on the creation of communal stereotypes of Muslims by the Hindi press, and also briefly makes content analysis of the school text-books which were produced along those communally divisive and polarizing lines, which went a long way in determining the Hindu-Muslim relations during the popular phases of nationalism. This chapter has made it almost inevitable for the author to verbatim produce relevant, explanatory, and corroborative texts in Hindi; it makes the presentation objective, and in order to avoid the articulation to become cumbersome for the readers, he gives the gist in English. Patel interprets a conceptual category, Jatiyata, as ‘national consciousness’ (p. 96). This certainly is contentious required some qualification.
In chapter Five, Patel turns to the question of ‘how the intelligentsia was addressing the questions of community, nation, and caste’ (p. 157). It examines the contest and cooperation between the more orthodox, Sanatan Hindu, the reformist/revivalist, Arya Samaj, and the Congress, and deriving from Dalmia’s ‘nationalization of Hindu tradition’, he underlines the ‘Hinduization of the national tradition’(p. 159). These myriads of communalizing organizations were patronized by the leading landlords, like the maharaja of Darbhanga (p. 164). This chapter provides micro details pertaining to the proliferation of the communal organizations like the Hindu Sabhas and Dharm Sabhas even in mofussil areas, due to which ‘by 1923, communal tensions had become common in many parts of Bihar’. Then the author says, “The ‘Shudhi movement’ could not make much headway but it worsened Hindu-Muslim relations.” (p. 174). It seems a bit difficult to accept as Papiya Ghosh (2008: 104) has argued that the Shudhi movement was fairly strong in Bihar in the 1920s, and one of the most important leaders to have pitched the Shudhi campaign in Bihar was Jagat Narayan Lal, belonging to both the Hindu Mahasabha and the Congress.
Patel complaints that caste associations have not been analyzed ideologically, and argues that during his period of study (1870-1930) ‘the intelligentsia could dwell effortlessly in the three domains of religious, national, and caste spaces’ (p. 158). There were hundreds of caste magazines in Hindi-Nagri promoting and rigidifying caste consciousness (p. 5). Yet rather than elaborating upon the issue, he earmarks only few words for the subject (pp. 177-79), and even those few words have been derived substantially from one particular work of K. K. Verma (1979). It may be added that two well-researched volumes in Hindi have already been published on the political mobilization of the backward castes and Dalits of Bihar, by Prasanna Kumar Chaudhry and Shrikant: (a) Bihar Mein Samajik Parivartan ke Kuchh Aayaam, 1912-90, Delhi: Vaani, 2001; and (b),Swarg Par Dhawa: Bihar Mein Dalit Andolan, 1912-2000, Delhi: Vaani, 2005. As the sub-title of the book under review claims to speak on the issue of caste, it is disappointing that only few words have been given to the issue.
Citing some comments from an Urdu periodical, Al Punch of Patna, Patel concludes that there was a strong disgust of the Bihar Muslims against the Congress (pp. 179-80). Patel however does not contrast and contests this with the works of Md. Muzaffar Imam (1987), Kamta Chaubey (1990). These two works more specifically, and the three volumes on the freedom movement of Bihar by K. K. Datta (1958), which have produced ample evidences to the effect that the top leadership of the early Congress in Bihar came mainly from the Muslim elites. G. McDonald’s unpublished Ph D work (1978) on the polity of Bihar, 1908-37, used by Patel for other kinds of references, also corroborates it. Imam (1987) and Chaubey (1990) dealt with the role of the Bihar Muslims in the freedom movement, testifying proportionately large participation of the Muslim elites, along with their Kayastha counterparts in the national movement at least till the 1920s. McDonald’s conclusion however does assert:
“The Congress was in no way supportive of ‘Hindu’ view of nationalism, but nonetheless, Hindu nationalism exerted a pressure on the Congress-led nationalist ideology. On two major issues which served as rallying points for the intelligentsia- the Hindi-Urdu controversy and Cow protection- many leaders of the Congress in Bihar held views similar to those of the Hindu nationals”(p. 228).
A somewhat similar conclusions has drawn by Damodaran (1992) for Bihar, and by Gould (2005) for U. P, besides Joya Chatterji (1995) for Bengal.
The lack of citation of sources at some places in the book creates confusion. On p.43, for example, it has been mentioned that in April 1878, the Bihar’s first Arya Samaj was established at Danapore which became the nucleus of the Arya Samaj movement; here a votary of the movement has also been mentioned, but his name appears in two ways: Janakdhari Lal, and Janakdhari Prasad. It confounds those who know that there was another Congress man from Muzaffarpur bearing the name Janakdhari Prasad who has also published his Hindi autobiography, Kuch Apni Kuchh Desh Ki (1970).
In his overall remarkably meticulous exploration of untapped archival evidences, significant Hindi sources, and marshalling of these evidences with cogent and gripping analysis, the chapters of the book proceed in a logically structured way with an engaging prose. This work creates a temptation to explore such theme with the help of Urdu sources which may add to our knowledge and understanding about the attitude of the Urdu intelligentsia [or essentially Muslim elites] towards evolving notions of various shades/strands of nationalism, in different regions and localities.
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This review was first published in Biblio: A Review of Books, November-December 2012, vol. 17. Nos. 11-12, pp. 30-31. Mohammad Sajjad is Assistant Professor at Centre of Advanced Study in History, Aligarh Muslim University.
References:
Chatterji, Joya, Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932-47, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Chaubey, Kamta; Muslims and the Freedom Movement in India 1905-28, Allahabad: Chugh, 1990
Dalmia, Vasudha, The Nationalization of Hindu Traditions: Bharatendu Harishchandra and Nineteenth Century Banaras, Delhi: OUP, 1997.
Damodaran, Vinita, Broken Promises: Popular Protest, Indian Nationalism and the Congress Party in Bihar 1935-46. OUP, Delhi, 1992.
Ghosh, Papiya, Community and Nation: Essays on Identity and Politics in Eastern India, Delhi: OUP, 2008.
Gould, William; Hindu Nationalism and the Language of Politics in Late Colonial India, Delhi: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2005.
Imam, Md. Muzaffar, Role of Muslims in the National Movement, Bihar 1912-1930, Delhi: Mittal, 1987.
King, Christopher,R., One Language, Two Scripts: The Hindi Movement Nineteenth Century North India, Bombay: OUP, 1994.
McDonald, G., ‘Bihar Polity, 1908-37: Bihar Congress and Political Development of the Region’, Ph D thesis, Univ. of Western Australia, 1978.
Orsini, Francesca; The Hindi Public Sphere, 1920-40: Language and Literature in the Age of Nationalism. Delhi: OUP, 2002.
Sahay, Shiv Pujan; Hindi Sahitya aur Bihar, 2 vols, Patna: Bihar Rashtrabhasha Parishad, 1963.
Singh, Dhirendranath, Aadhunik Hindi Ke Vikas Mein Khadagvilas Press Ki Bhumika, Patna: Bihar Rashtrabhasha Parishad, 1986
Verma, K. K., Changing Role of Caste Associations, Delhi: National Publishing House, 1979
White, Jenny, Islamist Mobilization in Turkey: A Study in Vernacular Politics, Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 2002.