Asia
The intention was, of course, to maintain Britain's
ascendancy over its richest colony, but the unintended
consequence was to weaken both India and the British
Empire vis-a-vis the rest of the world.
Also familiar is the theme of Indian powerlessness
vis-a-vis the government of India. This derived not so
much from the physical power of the British in India,
which was rather slight, but from the far more potent
aura of British superiority to which most Indians
subscribed until the very end of the nineteenth century.
Less well known is the evolution of Indian science.
In spite of British racism and bureaucratic obstacles, a
few Indians became interested in Western science in
the late nineteenth century, some as a means of
making a living, others inspired by nationalist aspirations, and yet others out of intellectual fascination. In
telling us about Indian scientists, Kumar dwells on the
obstacles they faced rather than their achievements.
Although some of these men-the biologist J. C. Bose,
the geologist P. N. Bose, the chemist P. C. Ray, and a
few others-were the founders of India's modern
scientific tradition, they are mentioned as rapidly and
with as little supporting detail as the dozens of others
who learned, taught, or practiced science in an unimportant way. But then, this is not really a history of
science so much as a history of science policy and
scientific organizations under colonial rule.
This book is a research agenda rather than a definitive work. It will, I hope, serve as inspiration to
historians of British India to write more comprehensive and well-rounded studies on so many topics that
are important to the history of India but are treated
here in far too succinct a manner.
DANIEL R. HEADRICK
Roosevelt University
SUDIPTA
KAVIRAJ.
The Unhappy Consciousness:
Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay and the Formation of
Nationalist Discourse in India. (SOAS Studies in South
Asia.) New York: Oxford University Press. 1995. Pp.
194. $19.95.
As the first great novelist in modern India, Bankim
Chandra Chattopadhyay or Chatterjee (1838-1894)
produced at least a dozen novels that have been
praised not only for their literary merit but for the
political, social, and historical questions they raise
about the period in which he lived. He also edited an
important intellectual journal called Bangadarshan.
Because Bankim was a career civil servant in the
British colonial system until his retirement in 1891, his
intellectual pursuits were extracurricular.
As a gifted and provocative writer, Bankim has been
the subject of countless articles and books. I am
puzzled as to how Sudipta Kaviraj could have been
oblivious to more than a century of historiographical
commentary on Bankim or the intelligentsia of which
he was a member. Kaviraj has written, to use his own
terminology, a discourse on Bankim's discourses. What
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873
this means is not entirely clear, except that he has been
provided with a license to be as subjective and as
ambiguous as he wishes. The first three chapters
bubble over with ideas on liminality (humor as applied
to Bankim's novels) and the myth of praxis as applied
to Krishna, but they are neither integrated nor, beyond
one page of acknowledgments, does the author state
the book's major questions or hypotheses.
Kaviraj addresses his main theme-Bankim's "unhappy consciousness"-in the final two chapters. He
believes Bankim was harshly critical and distrustful of
Western historical scholarship on India, primarily because the British "were constructing an essentialist
image of a subject people whose history destined them
for British conquest" (pp. 108-09). Bankim remained
a marginal man because "the colonial asymmetry
between the European and the Bengali made a simple
imitation of the European manner of doing history
impossible" (p. 108). In short, Bankim's "unhappy
consciousness" stemmed from his "subalternized"
state among a subject intelligentsia.
Because Kaviraj does not acknowledge the historical
writings of others, there is no debate on the merits of
his argument. The very word intelligentsia, which he
never defines, is derived from a Russian word denoting
a class created by Peter the Great in the early eighteenth century in response to the threat of radical
social change in Western Europe. To save Russia from
Western dominance, the intelligentsia invented ideologies of salvation. Soon a schism developed between
Westerners and Slavophiles-between those xenophiles who succumbed to the lure of the contemporary
West and those xenophobes who strongly defended
Russia's Slavic spirit and culture. This schism became
the prototype for all such subsequent divisions in the
ranks of the non-Western intelligentsia across Asia.
Arnold Toynbee, among world historians of a past
generation, saw this phenomenon as existing throughout the history of inter-civilizational encounter. It was
thus not a new development that arose in consequence
of Western expansion. The intelligentsia arises, according to Toynbee, "in any community that is attempting to solve the problem of adapting its life to the
rhythm of an exotic civilization to which it has been
forcibly annexed or freely converted"; to preserve their
culture from alien inroads, the intelligentsia serves as
"a class of liaison officers who have learnt the tricks of
an intrusive civilization's trade" (A Study of History, V
[1962], pp. 154-58). It was his role as cultural broker
that made Bankim a marginal man "born to be unhappy."
DAVID KOPF
University of Minnesota,
Minneapolis
B. R. NANDA. lawaharlal Nehru: Rebel and Statesman.
New York: Oxford University Press. 1995. Pp. 312.
$27.00.
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1997
874
Reviews of Books
Although Jawaharlal Nehru's views and policies were
widely contested during his public career, the critical
nature of much recent commentary reflects a major
challenge to his political legacy. Nonalignment in
foreign policy, a dominant union government, centralized economic planning, import substitution, and secularism are all under siege. In response, B. R. Nanda
presents a spirited defense of the record and achievements of India's first prime minister. He reviews the
highlights of this extraordinary life in sixteen essays
concerning major events, issues, and relationships.
Together, they provide arguments and brief factual
accounts in support of two central themes: Nehru's
ability to accommodate his idealism to the complex
realities of the Indian situation, and the need for his
critics to root judgments regarding his failures and
accomplishments in the context of Nehru's own time.
The mix of conflict and accommodation is reflected
in essays concerning Nehru's associations with other
nationalist leaders and his evolving political and social
philosophy. The tension in his relationship with Mohand as K. Gandhi in particular becomes a metaphor
for his relationship with India: his colleagues on the
right and left in the nationalist movement and, after
1947, other politicians in the government of India,
rural landed elites, and the vast population he sought
to serve and to change. He was an outsider on the
inside and Nanda's adept use of quotation and choice
of situation evokes both the significance of this paradox and Nehru's awareness of it.
In a lengthy essay on the partition, Nanda responds
to critics who argue for Nehru's complicity in undermining the formation of a Congress-Muslim League
coalition in Uttar Pradesh after the elections of 1937
and accepting of the Cabinet Mission Plan in 1946. In
both cases, he insists that cooperation with the Muslim
League was doubtful and that Mohammed Ali Jinnah's
aggressive and separatist response was influenced far
more by the League electoral losses in 1937 and the
continuing need for extreme communal rhetoric to
mobilize a large following after the war. In a subsequent essay, Nanda's impatience with the critique of
Nehru's handling of the Pakistan issue is reflected in
his description of Abul Kalam Azad's famous thirtypage attack and lament in India Wins Freedom (1959)
as the product of old age and failing memory.
Nanda presents a largely uncritical portrayal of
Nehru's unwillingness, before 1947, to make any concession to the significance of Muslim religious identity
beyond the newly politicized construction of a populist
leader. He notes critically, however, Nehru's subsequent accommodation with distinctive minority rights
and institutions and laments the resulting stimulus to
both Muslim and Hindu fundamentalism. In an essay
concerning Nehru's views on religion and another
concerning socialism, Nanda perceptively discusses the
problems of incorporating a secular state ideal in a
religious country. Nehru's concentration on the immediate needs of the complex world in which he labored
is clear both in his attitudes toward Hinduism and in
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
the conviction that informed his embrace of socialism
as a secular theology.
Nanda's essay on Nehru's Letters to Chief Ministers
(1985-1989) emphasizes his major concern in the early
years of independence with economic planning and
communal struggle. The ideas and ideals were in place,
but implementation was in the hands of others in the
states, and they generally did not share Nehru's democratic and socialist convictions. Here again we see
Nehru's paradoxical sense of being an outsider struggling from the top of the system. Nanda suggests that
part of the problem was Nehru's poor judgment regarding his associates, his failure to build a younger
corps of future leaders, and his unwillingness to use
sufficient ruthlessness. It is difficult to argue exactly
where the line should have been drawn between
association with landed elites and members of dominant castes on the one hand and the larger effort to
mitigate the poverty and inequity in the system on the
other hand. But this mutually beneficial relationship
between traditional elites and the state survived the
transfer of power remarkably unscathed. Nanda's assertion that the problems that slowed India's development resulted from the policies of successors who
failed to modify Nehru's work to suit changed economic realities seems far too sweeping.
This collection of essays effectively evokes this extraordinary man and his times: the breadth of his
intellect, the distinctiveness of his leadership, and his
recognition of the need to work with situations and
colleagues even when that required compromise of
principles. Nehru was both an idealist and a pragmatist, willing to work the system and steer it toward
something closer to his goals. The current situation, in
which the poor are on the verge of achieving some
significant political power as a result of the institutions
and value of parliamentary democracy in a united
India, is not a bad legacy. Nanda's essays will provide
little new information or argument for the expert, but
they are meant for a more general audience. The book
is a good introduction for students and anyone interested in the construction of modern India by one of its
master builders.
MILTON ISRAEL
University of Toronto
AYESHA JALAL. Democracy and Authoritarianism in
South Asia: A Comparative and Historical Perspective.
(Contemporary South Asia, number 1.) New York:
Cambridge University Press. 1995. Pp. xiii, 295. Cloth
$59.95, paper $19.95.
Ayesha Jalal begins her work with the statement that
"studies of democratic politics in India and military
authoritarian states in Pakistan and Bangladesh have
rarely addressed, far less explained, why a common
British colonial legacy led to apparently contrasting
patterns of political development in post-independence South Asia," (p. 1). Although the statement is
far from correct, she refers to this as a "lacuna" that is
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