Social Scientist

The Formation of India: Notes on the History of an Idea Author(s): Irfan Habib Source: Social Scientist, Vol. 25, No. 7/8 (Jul. - Aug., 1997), pp. 3-10 Published by: Social Scientist Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3517600 . Accessed: 24/06/2013 08:04
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IRFAN HABIB*

TheFormation ofIndiaNoteson the History ofan Idea* *

Marc Bloch, thegreatFrench historian and Resistance martyr, beganhislast book The Historian's to hisson's questionto him,"Of Craft by referring whatuse is History?" The boycouldwellhaveasked,"How muchcan Hisbe abused?" Forthemomentarily tory Nazis had thenappealed triumphant sameHistory, to thevery ofwhichBlochwas sucha careful to practitioner, their of racialpurity, justify of Nordicsuperiority theory and a Jewish conitdowntheages.Withall thedreadful spiracy against ofsuch consequences of History notions, readings of thissortdid not disappearwithHitler, or themorerecent ofApartheid with demise inSouthAfrica. Thesesurvive and revive becauseofa residue surely oftheparochial and irrational thatsubsists in all of us. We are gratified if someonetellsus thatwe have been great previously, we do nothaveas muchachievement and,ifcurrently to showas thenthefault we wouldlike, must lie with certain internal perverse or external saboteurs. Benedict Anderson's ImaginedCommunities (1983) drewattention to imagined reconstructions of the past on the basis of newlyacin modern consciousness quirednational times. Butparochialism is notjust nationalism. After distorted of religion, all, communities race,caste, and all constitute as muchof"imagined" tribe as thenation. phenomena In India thesevariousidentities whiere and interact, mix,contradict we have long beenfinding endeavours to reconstruct suchhistories as might one's justify attachments. particular At first sightit may seem thatif imaginary or one-sidedhistory gives a measure of people itwould be churlish self-confidence, to refuse suchmedicinal aid. Butone ought to remember thathistory is for a peopleas memory ofone'spastis fortheindividual. IfI buildup for in myown mindan myself imagined greatness whichtheworldhas failedto recognise becauseof the machinations ofcertain people, sucha viewis notlikely to assistme in faring inrelations better with fellow human beings indivesting myself of or,indeed, thosegrossimperfections whichexistin me. What applies to individuals, must applyto peoples.A false history posesa realdanger to their moralfibre and capacity fordevelopment, whatever its immediate or short-term blandishments. Therecan therefore be no justification everfordoctored history.
*Formerly Professor ofHistory atthe Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh.

* "From address at the Vidyasagar University, 3rdConvocation, Midnapore, 27 March

1998.

Social Vol.25,Nos.7-8,July-August Scientist, 1997

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SOCIAL SCIENTIST

In 1938 in his We or Our NationhoodDefinedGuru Golwalkarof the are in powerin thiscountry RSS, whosefollowers today, praisedtheNazis fortheirrace theory. Such explicit invocation of "race" is now fulsomely difficult to make,butthesub-conscious desire to be "Aryan"and to claim Indiaas thehomeland ofthe"Aryans" is patent enough.One seesittodayin the writings of notablefigures of the archaeological establishment and in semi-official likethePuratattva, hometo someunbelievably journals fantasticpieces.It is time, to recapitulate whatreliable tellus therefore, researches on thisvexedquestion ofraceand thephysical of the Indian descent people. Two veryimportant books came out in 1994, analysing the resultsof massiveresearch acrossthe world.The UNESCO's Historyof Humanity, Vol.I,editedbyS.J.De Laet summed thearchaeological up mainly evidence, while theHistory and Geography oftheHumanGenesbyL.L. Cavalli-Sforza et al., laid out an analysisof the genetic material. Thoughthe worksare their independent, results are strikingly The speciesof Homo Sapisimilar. ens,on current evolvedin Africa, evidence, wherethefirst in greatdivision the humangeneafogical tree(between'black African'and otherpeoples) the earliest occurred, between 130,000 and 50,000 yearsago, i.e. between inWestAsia. As appearances ofthespecies inAfrica, and itsfirst appearance humandiffusion intoEurasiaproceeded, boththeEuropeanand Mongoloid features becamewell established in theirregions long before10,000 years have beenfound in India,butitis fair ago. No humanfossils to assumethat in Indiatoo had assumedtheir humans features aroundthe present physical same remote timeas in Europe and China. This is farbeyondthe period whenthefamilies ofIndo-European and Dravidianlanguages could possibly have originated. Thereis thusin India,at least,no established linkbetween 'race' and language. As Cavalli-Sforza's Tree'showsthespeakers 'Genetic of and Dravidianlanguagesare practically Aryan indistinguishable by genetic so are Iranians(speakingAryanlanguagesof the Iranicbranch) markers; and SouthWestAsians,speakingArabic,both of whichlatter groupsare distinct from genetically Indians,thoughperhapsonlytwo or three'splits' removed. We must, think interms then, ofIndo-European languages coming to India not through mass migrations, butthrough themovement of small influential, dominant groups, a pointwell emphasized by Colin Renfrew in and Language(1987). Archaeology Thesepoints areto be bornein mindwhileconsidering claimsthatcertain sections oftheIndianpopulation, comprising a number ofScheduled Tribes, are "indigenous", whiletheremaining Indianpopulation is descended from laterimmigrants. This notionis obviously an import from theNew World wherethe distinction between indigenous and immigrant is historically legitimate-a legitimacy not traceableforit in India. But theconverse claim thattheIndo-European languages are indigenous to India,along withtheir whichhistorians speakers, and archaeologists linkedto the SanghParivar are urging so loudlythesedays,is equallyfallacious. The separation of the Aryanbranchof thelarger Indo-European family, bythecanons of glottocannotgo beyondthe 4th millennium chronology, B.C.; and by thistime, India musthave beenpeopledforsomethousands ofyearsbyour ancestors

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The Formation of India

extinct speakingother, is to be taken tongues.Even if glotto-chronology withsomereserve as to theprecise itsuggests, thetime-limits setbyit dating cannotbe stretched muchfarther back.Nor is thefactthatHittite very and Albanian are linguistically theoldestlanguages intheIndo-European group, congenialto the thesisof an Indianhome forProto-Indo-European. Our ourancestors thatas humanbeings recognizing camefrom probably Africa, and that mostofus speakaredescended thelanguages from languages origiin Eurasia,neednot imperil nallyspokenelsewhere our self-respect in any way whatsoever. and our present Human history, after a unity; all, forms limits territorial are of relatively recent so thatwhenspeakersof creation, external movedoverthem in bygone languages could hardly ages they have felt thatthey wereviolating anysacrosanct boundaries. When'theideaofIndia',to borrow from thetitle ofSunilKhilnani's book, aroseis,again,a historical ofsomeimportance, question foronlythencould have arisena consciousness of what is Indian and foreign. Such 'Indian' is aliento theRigveda consciousness and other Vedic texts whosegeographical and cultural worldsintersect so muchwiththoseoftheAvesta. The listing of the sixteen Mahajanapadasthatexistedin the 6th century B.C., in earlyPali texts, to suggest thenotionof a country begins to whichall these principalities In thecelebrated belonged. Mauryanemperor Asoka'sMinor Rock Edict I (c.260 B.C.), thereoccursone of the earlynames of India, wheremenhad now been"mixed"withgods.The landsof the Jambudipa, "Yaunas" (Greeks)appear dulyas foreign lands in his Rock Edict XIIII, whereit is said thattheselackedboththeBrahmanas and Sramanas(Buddhist andJainmonks). Atthattime theentire Iranian worldbordering India was underpost-Alexandrian Greekrulers, and it is, therefore, likelythat Asoka's"Yaunas" comprehended bothGreeks and Iranianas. He musthave knownthemwellenough, becausehe had Greekand Iranianofficials who rendered his edictsin literary Greekand Aramaicand carvedthemin inscriptions thathave beendiscovered within thelastforty years.His distinction between Indiansand foreigners was, then,one essentially of culture: foreigners do nothavethesamepriesthoods. One is reminded ofthesaying attributed to theBuddhain early texts to theeffect thatthere are no castes amongtheYaunas,butonlymasters and slaves.We haveintheManusmriti, theBrahmanical legaltext composed probably inthe2ndcentury B.C. or so, a loosedefinition oftheboundaries ofpresent dayNorthIndiaas Aryavarta, "wherethe black antelopenaturally roams",contrasted withthe lands of the"Mlecchas"whereBrahmans couldnotperform sacrifices or the'twiceborn' dwell (II, 22-24). The hostility to Mlecchasis shownby theirbeing classedas Dasyus,having notbeencreated out of Brahman (X, 48). Suchstatements showthattheperception ofIndiaas a country marked by certain social and religious institutions begins to be present onlybythetime thatthe Mauryanempire(c.320-185 B.C.) was established. That empire mostof India,doubtless embracing reinforced theprocessof cultural inteat least in the upperstrataof the country. gration The recognition of the in friendly "foreigner" in Asoka,and hostile terms in theManu, was a necessarycomplement of thisvisionof India as a country. To achievesuch a

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SOCIAL SCIENTIST

visionon thepartofitsown inhabitants (or theupperpartofthem)was an in itself. important achievement For India was notnaturally a country from it evolvedby cultural and social developments, "timesimmemorial"; and closerinteraction in whichgeographical amongits inhabitants, configurationhelped,butwas notnecessarily decisive. In thenextthousand literature richin allusions yearsSanskrit becomes to thegeographical terrain of India,suchas in thelisting of theconquestsby of thecloud'sjourney Samudragupta (c.350) or in Kalidasa'sdescription in Meghaduta. The stress on India is underlined further bya curiouslacuna in ancient Indianwriting: there is so little aboutwhatliesoutsidethe curiosity limits oftheIndianworld.On thisAlberuni, theKhwarizmian was scientist, to comment in his remarkable book on India (1035). "The unfavourably Hindus",he said, in an oft-quoted sentence (as translated by Sachau), "beno nationliketheirs, lievethatthere is no country liketheirs, no kingslike no religion liketheirs, no scienceliketheirs". theirs, He did, however, add werenotas narrow-minded that"their ancestors as thepresent generation" Varahamihira andquotedfrom that"theGreeks, (c.550) theassertion though in sciences, impure, be honoured, sincetheyweretrained and therein excelled others."The present-day to deriveIndian heritage tendency from "Hindu" civilization, bereft ofextraneous thusaccords, withonly elements, inthedevelopment onephaseofinsularity ofancient Indianculture, inwhich too therejection oftheexternal worldwas byno meanssharedbysome of itsgreatminds. Indeed,there can hardly have-been a culture in anypartof theworldwhich grewto anystature thathas notimbibed elements from the outsidein constructing itsown essential parts. EvenwhenAlberuni was writing his book a new wave of cultural diffusion intoIndia was underway. It had its violentside,whichthe scientist recognized as he spokeof "thewonderful exploits"of Mahmudof Ghazni (1000-30) "by whichtheHindusbecamelikeatomsof dustscattered in all directions and likea taleof old in themouth ofthepeople". Buttheexpansion of knowledge yetproceeded. Alberuni goes on to tellus thatwhen at Lahore,in his conversations withHindu scholars, he himself beganto expoundtheprinciples of scienceand logic(derived from theHellenistic-Arabic tradition), "theyflocked together roundme from all parts,wondering and mosteagerto learnfrom me." Suchinteraction, theexpansion in due courseof Muslimcommunities in India, the rise of Sultanates established on the basis of different levelsof compromise between thecourts and thelocal aristocracies, gavenewenrichment to theconcept of India. As is well knowntheancient Iranianuse of theconsonant'h' forIndoAryan 's', ledto theIranian form of'Hind(u)' for theSanskrit 'Sindhu';thereto theuseoftheformer after, namefor theentire trans-Indus country, whence has cometheform 'India' through theGreek'Indos'; and,finally, to thelater Persian name'Hindu' fortheinhabitant ofIndia,and 'Hindustan'forIndia withtheusual Iranianterritorial itself, suffix -stanadded to 'Hind(u)'. The suffix -stan, bytheway, isgeneral inPersian, e.g.Seistan, Gurjistan, Khuzistan, and Hindustanmeanssimply 'Indian land' not 'the land of (the religious

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The Formation of India

community of) the Hindus',as was construed by the leadersof the Hindu to giveita Sanskrit form Mahasabha,who also tried Hindu-sthan, although such a word neverexistedin thatlanguage.To the medievalPersianand Arabicusers, was one country, Hind/Hindustan and they attributed then, to itspeoplea singlefaith and culture itsvariety. overlooking The Hindus,to them, wereall followers of a religion thatwas peculiar to 'Hind'; and there was an almost natural from thesense foundin Alberuni transition, already ofHindu,as an inhabitant ofIndia,to a follower of a particular religion. It was onlyby the 14thor 15thcentury alien name was thatthisabsolutely being adoptedbythepeopleso designated. In a Jaininscription of 1438-39, Rana Kumbhais flatteringly described as theHindu-suratrana ('the Hindu Sultan').Butalmostsimultaneously, a new from the14thcentury onwards, word'Hindi'(also 'Hindustani') beganto be usedfor thegeneral of category Indians, irrespective ofreligion, fornow Muslimstoo werenatives ofIndia, and theterm Hinduwithitsreligious connotation to include wouldnotserve them. So Amir Khusrau(d.1324), thefamous Persian poet,would say with pridethathe was "a Hindustani Turk",and thatHind was his "home and nativeland". In his Nuh Sipihrhe speaks of India's contributions to the world(thenumerals, the Panchatantra and chess!),and of the severalregional (Hindawi) languages, of the learnedand the common the Sanskrit 'Hindi' tongue;but thenPersian, he claimed,was now also a part of the Indian language-stock, having beenbrought hither bytheGhorians andTurks. Weseehere a conception, for perhaps, thefirst time, so explicitly propounded of a composite culture beingthedistinguishing of India. That relifeature giousbarriers continued to existis hardly all cultures to be contested: in the worldhave had internal tensions. Yet Kabir,the Muslimweaver(c.1510), was allowedin his strongly monotheistic verses to condemn bothHinduism andIslamandtheir sacred ritual inthesharpest terms; andNanak,hisyounger contemporary, allowed to forma religion independent of both Hinduism and Islam.These are facts surely indicative ofconditions in whichreligious freedom too was seenas partof thecultural milieu of India. WithAkbar(1556-1605), the greatMughal emperor, the perception of India as home to different traditions interacting and adjusting witheach other, received a fresh reinforcement, notably under thedual impetus ofpantheism and a revivedrationalism. The officially organised translations of Sanskrit worksintoPersian werefollowed bya detailed accountofthesocietyand culture of India (inclusive ofitsMuslimcomponent) in Abu'l Fazl's official record ofAkbar's empire, theA'in-i Akbari. Akbar's attitude towards thiscultural heritage is not,however, one of uncritical sympathy. He could notaccepttheinequities thathe felt werebuiltintothetraditions ofHinduismand Islam,notably in thetreatment ofwomen(childmarriage, sati,unequal inheritance) and slaves (especially, slave trade).Moreover, the influenceoftradition (taqlid)was too strong, and thishe thoroughly disapproved of.He therefore eventried to frame a secularand scientific syllabus foreducationin bothPersian and Sanskrit. Suchgroping towards a combination of patriotism withreform seemsto anticipate strikingly thecore of the 19thcentury Renaissance thatwas to spreadout from Bengal.Despitethe later

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SOCIAL SCIENTIST

and partialdisavowals, inevitable theMughalEmpire meanderings fostered a Persianand, in the 18thcentury, an Urdu literature in whichthe shared culture of India foundrecurring One mayremember thatone expression. productof thatculture was Ram Mohun Roy,bornand brought up in a of former family Nazimatebureaucrats. Ram MohunRoy'svery first book, theTuhfatu'l Muwabbidin ofMonotheists) (Gift (1803-4),in itsrejection of imageworship and itscase forproximity between monotheistic Hindusand drew upon a tradition, Muslims,clearly to whichAkbar,Abu'l Fazl and Dara Shukohhad already contributed. greatly If by now India achieveda transformation whereits culture was multi religious or supra-religious, one couldindeed consider itas analogousto the of Christiandom transformation into Europe in the twilight of feudalism. Thiswas an important fortheevolution prerequisite ofIndia intoa modern nation.A secondpre-requisite was also possibly secured whenthecentralizingtendencies of the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empirerepeatedly projectedthe sightof a politically unified India. As Tara Chand put it in his Influence ofIslam on IndianCulture (1928), thishelped"to createa political uniformity and a senseof larger allegiance".He might have added that thesenseof political unity, actualor potential, was evidenced in clearterms by the writing of politicalhistories of India as a country such as those of Nizamuddin Ahmad,in Akbar'sreign(1592), followed by Firishta (1607) and Sujan Rai (1695). Written in Persian, theyhad no predecessors in any language. Some pre-requisites of nationhood had thusseemingly been achievedby thetimethattheBritish conquests began:in 1757, theyearof Plassey, India was notonlya geographical expression, it was also seenas a cultural entity and a political It is,however, unit. important to realise that, notableas these advances wereinthelongprocess oftheformation ofIndia,these did notyet makeIndia a nation.Different as variousdefinitions of theterm"nation" are, theyemphasize thatconsciousness of identity mustbe widelyspread. Stalinonce described thenationalquestionessentially as a "peasantquestion",which implied a massdiffusion ofthesenseofbelonging to one'scountry, pervasive overotherloyalties. Thenthere was thefurther condition set byJohn Stuart Mill oftheexistence ofa feeling widely shared thatthecountrymustbe governed by thosebelonging to it. Whatperception existedof India as a country, a cultural and politicalunit,until the 19thcentury was one largely confined to theupperstrata, thetownsmen, traders, scholars and thelike.It did not,moreover, override a seriesof parochial identities. With hisgreatinsight Ram MohunRoy notedin a letter in 1830 thatIndia could notyetbe calleda nation, becauseitspeoplewere"dividedamongcastes". Fromtheoutside too,KarlMarx in 1853 identified castesas "thosedecisive impediments to Indianprogress and Indianpower." It is inthislight that thesocialreform movements which emanated primarilyfromBengal,and withwhichthe namesof Ram Mohun Roy,Ishwar ChandraVidyasagar and KeshavChandraSenareso indissolubly connected, mustbe viewed.To varying degreesthe reformers expandedthe realmof reason, spokeofinter-religious unity under thebanner ofmonotheism (e.g.,

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The Formation of India

theBrahmo and condemned ofwomenand thebarmovement), oppression ofcaste.Theseideas,as they riers weredisseminated, thebuilding provided blocksforIndia'snationhood. Whilethere weresomeanticipations of these notions in ourpast,themainsourceofignition was surely theWest.Already in 1789, theFrench had made thesloganof "Liberty, Revolution Equality, resound Fraternity" theworld;othermodern throughout ideas,necessarily reshapedto suit religious came through Christian polemics, missionaries; butitwas theEnglish essential as itslearning was forthemaintelanguage, nanceofBritish thatopenedthedoorsto theentire rule, modern humanistic thought ofEurope. Thisis thesumand substance ofMarx'sthesis ofIndian "regeneration" undercolonialrule("a new class is springing up, endowed withtherequirements ofgovernment and imbued withEuropeanscience"). Current of thisthesisfroman outspokenanti-colonial questioning viewpointseemsto me to be largely however muchwe maylikeEdmisplaced, wardSaid's Orientalism or theplayon "colonialknowledge" and "colonial discourse" so fashionable these days.Marxhimself had insisted, whilespeakingof colonialBritain's 'regenerating mission', thatherrolewas blindand unintended, creating "thematerial conditions forthenewworldin thesame way as geologicalrevolutions have createdthe surface of the earth".This shouldanswermostofhiscritics. India'sopening tothemodern world was as momentous for itsowngrowth as a nationas was thediffusion of modern ideas and social values among widerand widersections ofthepeople,giving an accelerating sweepto national consciousness. The two processeswent hand in hand, whether in Gandhi'srurally oriented Constructive Programme (forGandhi'sideas too, despitehis own subjective views on the matter, had impeccableWestern sources) or in theKisanMovement led bytheLeft(where Marxism provided the impulse). But there was yetthesecondaspectto India's evolution into ofwhichMill had spoken, nationhood, and to whichI havereferred earlier: theurgeofthepeopleofa country to be governed bypersons from amongst themselves. It was thisthattheNationalMovement was about. The criticism of the economic policiesoftheBritish Government, theprotest at theexclusionof Indiansfrom theadministrative apparatus and theaspirations forrepresentationof theeducatedclasses,formed themainelements of theIndianNationalCongress programme immediately after itsfoundation (1885). These in timegrewintoa visionof an independent stateby 1931, whentheCongress passedthecrucialFundamental Rights resolution, promising a secular withuniversal democracy adultsuffrage, equality ofwomen, statecontrol of keyindustries, protection of nationalindustry, workers' rights, and land to the tiller. The struggle againstcolonial rule thusinvolved the mass of the peasantsand workers; and it was their entry intotheNational Movement thatfinally won India itsfreedom. Clearly, it was whenthemass of theIndian people recognized in theprocessof the Freedom Struggle thatBritish rulehad to go, thatMill's final condition fora nationwas met. The Indiannationhas thusemerged a long processof creation, after in which consciousness orthemental orientation ofitsinhabitants has playeda

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10

SOCIAL SCIENTIST

vitalrole.But a nation be also erodedand destroyed thesameway can,then, ithas evolvedor beenbuilt.In modern times, justas nationalconsciousness has grown, thesamefactors foritsgrowth suchas thepressand communications,have also intensified of religious identities over ever larger feelings in India inevitably spaces. Communalism nationalism. developed alongside In Hind Swaraj(1909) Gandhibad warned thatthe"nation"could have no association withanyreligion, and people of different communities in India must live "in unity". Itwas for this thathe struggled without and anyrespite finally laid down his life:Secularism has been at the heartof our nationhood. As Jawaharlal Nehrunoted,once the majority religious incommunity sistedon associating its religion withthe nation,its communalism could itself as nationalism, masquerade theminority's whereas communalism could alwaysbe identified for whatitwas. It happened that theTwo-Nation theory on bothsides:The "Hindu-Hindi-Hindustan" developed sloganoftheHindu Mahasabha and RSS was as subversive of nationalunity as thatof "Pakistan" adoptedbytheMuslimLeague after theLahoreResolution of 1940. Overfifty yearsago theIndianpeopletook a historic decisionof rejecting a religious colourfor their nation amidst theprovocation ofpartition, thecommunalmassacres, and themartyrdom of Gandhiji. Today,it seemsthatthe decision is to be subjected to review bya constitutional commission or under someother colour. Thisis all themorereason, I submit, for centres ofeducation and enlightenment, and all thinking people in general, to take up the cause of thenation's trueinterests, and speakup foritstruehistoric legacy.

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