Nation, Reason and Religion: India's Independence in International Perspective
Author(s): Sugata Bose
Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 33, No. 31 (Aug. 1-7, 1998), pp. 2090-2097
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
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SPECIAL ARTICLES
Reason
and
Religion
India's Independencein InternationalPerspective
Nation,
Sugata Bose
Throughout the entire course of the history of Indian anti-colonialism, religion as faith within the limits
of morality, if not the limits of reasona, had rarely impeded the cause of national unity and may in fact
have assisted its realisatioin at key nmomentsof struggle. The variegated symbols of religion as culture had
enthused nationalists of many hues and colours but had seldom embittered relations between religious
comminities until they wereflauntetl to boast the power of majoritarian triumphalism. The conceits of unitary
nationalism may well have caused a deeper sense of alienation among those defined as minorities than
the attachmenet to diverse religions. The territorial claims of a minority-turned-nation heaped further
confusion on the firious contest over sovereignty i the dying ays of the raj. Having failed to share
sovereigntay in the manner of their pre-colonial forbears, late-colonial nationalist worshippers of the
centralised state ended up dividinig the land. Sulrely godless nationalism linked to the colonial categories
of religiouis majorities and minorities has much to answer for.
"APRIZEI got forgood workat school", reachthe shoresof Britain'scolonies where colonial period to unravelthe complex
JawaharlalNehru writes in his auto- this was a period of political denial and weave of nation,reasonand religionin
biography,"wasone of G M Trevelyan's repression. India was 'showing fight' for historicalanalyses. Decades of secular,
Garibaldibooks.This fascinatedme, and the first time since the revolt of 1857 and rationalistdiscomfortwith assessingthe
soon I obtainedthe othertwo volumesof was "seething with unrest and trouble". role of religion in modern political
the seriesandstudiedthewholeGaribaldi News reached Indian students in philosophyand practicehave given way
storyin themcarefully.Visionsof similar Cambridgeof swadeshi and boycott of the in morerecentyearsto culturalcritiques
deedsinIndiacamebeforeme,of a gallant activities and imprisonment of Tilak and of modernityand one of its key signs fight for freedom,and in my mindIndia Aurobindo Ghose. "Almost without nationalism- which tend to valorisean
and Italygot strangelymixed together." exception",Nehru recalled, "we were ahistoricalnotionof indigenousreligion
To the young Nehru"Harrowseemed a Tilakites or Extremists, as the new party whiledenouncingthecunningof universal
rathersmallaridrestrictedplacefor these was called in India". Yet looking back reason. In an essay entitled "Radical
ideas".So it was thatat the beginningof from the 1930s he also believed that in Historiesand the Questionof EnlightenOctober 1907, inspiredby the first of social terms "the Indian national renewal ment Rationalism",Dipesh Chakrabarty
Trevelyan'sGaribalditrilogy,he arrived in 1907 was definitely reactionary". hasberatedsecularandMarxisthistorians
at TrinityCollege, Cambridge,wherehe "Inevitably",Nehrucommented gloomily, fortheirlackof imaginationin addressing
with "a new nationalism in India, as elsewhere the question of religiously informed
"feltelatedatbeinganundergraduate
a greatdealof freedom".I Whenfreedom in the east, was a religious nationalism". identities in modern south Asia.
hecontends,"or
came to India at the famous midnight After graduating from Cambridge, he "[S]cientificrationalism",
hour of August 14-15, 1947 Trevelyan, visited Ireland in the summer of 1910 the spirit of scientific enquiry, was
thenMasterof TrinityCollege.'rejoiced'. where he was 'attracted' by "the early introducedinto colonial India from the
He had remained,his biographerDavid beginnings of Sinn Fein".3 What he very beginningas an antidoteto (Indian)
Cannadine tells us, "equivocal and neglected to note in Britain and Ireland religion, particularlyHinduism..."The
uncertain about the British Empire, was that a religious tinge to nationalism oppositionbetweenreasonand emotion,
which he always thought a far more was not a monopoly of the east. At the "characteristicof our colonial hyperformidableinstrumentof aggressionand end of the day the nationalist leaderships rationalism",is seen to have "generally
dominationthananyof Italy'scolonising in both India and Ireland, quite as much afflicted" the attemptby historiansto
the placeof the 'religious'in
endeavours,whichseemedsmall-scaleby as their departingcolonial masters, failed "understand
and political life".4 That
Indian
to
the
solution
a
to
public
satisfactory
negotiate
comparison".2
Nehru's Cambridge years, which problem of religious difference. If there may well be so, but is thereany reason
coincidedalmostexactlywiththeGaribaldi was cause to rejoice at the end of the raj to believe, if it is permissibleto use such
phase of Trevelyan's life in history, in India, the celebrations were certainly atur of thephrase,thathyper-rationalism
represented the climactic moment of marred by a tragic partition ostensibly was characteristicof modernityunder
triumphantLiberalismin the domestic along religious lines which took an colonial conditions?
One of the key empiricalpremisesof
politicsof Britain.In Europethese were unacceptable toll in human life and
BenedictAnderson'stheoryin Imagined
the lastdaysof liberalnationalismbefore suffering.
is that"in WesternEurope
Italylaunchedon itsimperialistexpedition CHURCH AND STATE IN EUROPE AND INDIA Comnmunities
the 18th centurymark[ed]not only the
in 1911 and the nation-states of the
The political failure at the moment of dawn of the age of nationalismbut the
continentas a whole moved recklessly
towardsthe precipiceof total war. The formal decolonisation has been matched duskof religiousmodesof thought",5"It
high tide of liberalismdid not, however, by a certain intellectual failure in the post- is a common error", Trevelyan had
~~~~~~~~~~~2090~~
~Economic
and Political Weekly August 1, 1998
observed in his English Social History,
"toregardthe 18thcenturyin Englandas
irreligious".Religioncontinuedto be in
his view "animposingfabric"of British
history in the 19th century until the
Darwinian
revolution
madeitsfullimpact.6
The views of the early Gladstoneand
Trevelyan's great uncle Lord Thomas.
BabingtonMacaulayprobablycoveredthe
fullspectrumof opinionamongtheBritish
rulingclasses in the mid-19thcenturyon
the place of religion in public life.
Gladstonehadargueda powerfulcase in
his book The State in Its Relations with
been applicable, it was according to
Macaulay the British empire in India.
Surely, if it be the duty of government
to use its power and its revenue in order
to bring seven millions of Irish Catholics
overto theProtestantChurch,itis afortiori
the duty of the government to use its
power and its revenue in order to make
seventy millions of idolaters Christians.
If it be a sin to suffer John Howard or
William Pennto hold any office in England,
because they are not in communion with
the established church, it must be a
crying sin indeedto admitto high situations
men who bow down, in temples covered
with emblems of vice, to the hideous
images of sensual or malevolent gods.
But no.
Orthodoxy, it seems, is more shocked
by the priests of Rome than by the priests
of Kalee. Macaulay's concise view
respecting the alliance of Churchand state
was that the latter could pursue religious
education as a secondary end of
government if it did not interfere with the
primary end of maintaining public order.
"No man in his senses would dream of
applying Mr Gladstone's theory to India",
Macaulay wrote, "because, if so applied,
it would inevitably destroy our empire,
and, with our empire, the best chance of
spreadingChristianityamong the natives".
Gladstone must have sensed this and so
had engaged in a bit of "[i]naccurate
history" as "an admirable corrective of
unreasonable theory".7
It was at least a partial application of
Gladstoniantheorythatcreated the history
which in turn transformed the 'treaty' of
Gladstone's imagination into reality. The
defence of Indian faiths, both Hinduism
and Islam, against perceived threats from
evangelical religion, not enlightenment
reason, played a significant part in the
great revolt of 1857 which almost made
Macaulay's nightmare come true. After a
cataclysmic war, in which incidentally as
many as 10 Trevelyans lost their lives, the
colonial power solemnly announced in the
form of the queen's proclamation of 1858
that none of her subjects would be
"molested or disquieted by reason of their
religion, faithorobservances".This formal
separation of religion and politics in the
colonial stance was, however, breached
almost immediately as the British took the
momentous decision to deploy religious
enumeration to define 'majority' and
'minority' communities. In order to gain
the political attentionof the colonial state,
Indian publicists of the late 19th century
needed to dip their pens in the ink of
religious community. Far from being a
rationalism, colonial modernity was a
complex and concrete phenomenon: its
reasons of state were deeply enmeshed
with the communities of religion.
RATIONAL REFORM, RELIGIOUS REVIVAL
AND INTIMATIONSOF AN ANTI-COLONIAL
MODERNITY
"Somehow, from the very beginning",
writes Partha Chatterjee, "we have made
a shrewd guess that given the close
complicity between moder knowledges
and modern-regimes of power, we would
forever remain consumers of universal
modernity; never would we be taken
seriously as its producers. It is for this
reasonthatwe have tried,forover a hundred
years, to take our eyes away from this
chimera of universal modernity and clear
up a space where we might become the
creators of our own modernity".8 As an
example of the rejection of uncritical
imitation of English modernity he quotes
the following passage from Rajnarayan
Basu's 1873 tractSheKalaarEKal (Those
Days and These Days):
Two Bengali gentlemenwere once dining
at Wilson's hotel. One of them was
especially addictedto beef. He asked the
waiter, "Do you have veal?" The waiter
replied,"I'm afraidnot,sir".Thegentleman
asked again, "Do you have beef steak?"
The waiter replied, "Not that either, sir".
The gentleman asked again, "Do you
have ox tongue?"The waiterreplied,"Not
thateither,sir".Thegentlemanaskedagain,
"Do you have calf's foot jelly?" The
waiter replied, "Not thateither, sir".The
gentlemansaid, "Don'tyou haveanything
from a cow?" Hearing this, the second
gentleman,who was not so partialto beef,
said with some irritation,"Well, if you
have nothing else from a cow, why not
get him some dung?"9
Chatterjee goes on to argue that, while
"Western modernity" in the voice of
Immanuel Kant looked for the definition
of modernity "in the difference posed by
the present...as the site of one's escape
from the past", "it is precisely the present"
from which the colonised intellectual in
search of a national modernity had to
escape to find solace in an imagined past. 0
Whatremainsunderplayedin this argument
is thatRaj Narayan Basu's ruminationson
modernity were contested by his
contemporaries,not leastby his close friend
and frequent correspondent, the poet,
Michael MadhusudanDatta.The category
'we' contained a wide range of internal
variation which made certain that 'our'
modernity was never a monolith. While
Indianintellectuals often hadan awareness
that modern rational knowledge from its
the Church published in 1839 that
propagationof religioustruthshould be
one of the principal aims of paternal
government.He had no doubt that the
religionof the sovereignoughtto be the
only one to be propagatedandallegiance
to that religion must be an absolute
requirementfor holding politicaloffice.
Yet he was opposed to religious
persecutionof unbelievers among the
subjects as something unbecoming of
government's paternalistic function.
Macaulaylauncheda searing attackon
Gladstone'sadvocacyof politicalandcivil
disabilityon groundsof religiousbelief
which he saw as a sure recipe for
efficientgovernance.Hewas
undermining
alsounconvincedbytheGladstonianlogic
of stoppingshortof persecutionsince a
father'sduty was to crack the whip on
waywardchildren.
Whatevertheirdifferenceson political
theory,it wasthepositionsthatGladstone
and Macaulaytook on the practice of
governancein Indiathatprovideinsights
of colonial
intoreligionas a characteristic
modernity.'In BritishIndia', Gladstone
had written."a small numberof persons
advancedto a highergradeof civilisation,
exercisethe powersof governmentover
an immensely greater number of less
cultivatedpersons,not by coercion,but
underfree stipulationof the governed".
In a situationso plainlypeculiara theory
of paternalprinciples could not have
unrestricted play and the rights of
governmentwerebased"uponanexpress
and known treaty, matter of positive
The
agreement,notof naturalordinance".
MemberofBentinck's Council
formerLaw
pointedout thatthe treatyknownonly to
Gladstonewas in trutha 'nonentity'."It
isbycoercion,itisbythesword",Macaulay
thundered,"and not by free stipulation
withthegoverned,thatEnglandrulesIndia;
nor is Englandbound by any contract
whatevernot to deal with Bengal as she
deals with Ireland".If therewas a single
stateinthewholeworldwhereGladstone's
theoryof paternal
governmentshouldhave mirrorof the abstractionsof European very inceptionwas deeply implicatedin
Economic and Political Weekly
August 1, 19982091
modern regimes of power, that never
negated the possibility of selective
appropriation and effective resistance
within these fields of power. To put it in
another way, I would contend that
colonised intellectuals sought alternative
routes of escape from the oppressive
present, not all of which lay through
creating a 'mayajal' or web of illusions
about our past and denouncing their
modernity.
What is needed here is a dynamic and
historicised conception of religion that
might enable us to consider how the place
of the 'religious' in Indian public and
political life changed in the course of
India's colonial history. There is a certain
static quality to Dipesh Chakrabarty's
invocation of age-old Indian religion set
under siege by the modern forces of
scienwtific rationalism. ParthaChatterjee
concedes that the "idea that 'Indian
nationalism' is synonymous with 'Hindu
nationalism' is not the vestige of some
pre-modern religious conception but an
entirely modern, rationalist and historicist idea".'I But he explains away the apparentcontradiction between this rationalist
idea andthe religiously inspired emotional
attachment to the nation by resort to an
unsatisfactory dichotomy between the
materialandspiritualdomains thathe reads
into anti-colonial nationalism. 12In facing
up to the fundamental dilemma of having
to simultaneously resist colonial power
and appropriate elements from modern
European knowledge, colonised intellectuals of the late 19th and early 20th
century harnessed reason and religion in
multifariousways to the cause of the nation.
Religious sensibility could in the late
19thcentury be perfectly compatible with
a rational frame of mind, just as social
reformcalling upon practicalreasonalmost
invariably sought divine sanction of some
kind. Speaking at the Eleventh Social
Conference in Amraoti in 1897 Mahadev
Govind Ranade scored a debating point
against his 'revivalist' critics:
When my revivalist friend presses his
argumentuponme, he hasto seek recourse
in some subterfugewhich really furnishes
no reply to the question - what shall we
revive? Shall we revive the old habits of
our people when the most sacred of our
caste indulgedin all the abominationsas
we now understandthem of animal food
and drinkwhich exhaustedevery section
of our country's Zoology and Botany?
The men and the Gods of those old days
ate and drankforbiddenthings to excess
in a way no revivalist will now venture
to recommend.13
What Chatterjee presents as Rajnarayan
Basu's critique of English modernity
2092
appearsin Ranadeas a critiqueof ancient
Indiantradition.Evenmorefascinatingis
Ranade's expositionof reasonintheservice
of reform. In 'Our Modernity' Partha
Chatterjeeoffersus thisreadingof Kant's
essay on Aufklarung.
Accordingto Kant,to be enlightenedis
to become mature,reach adulthood,to
stop being dependenton the authorityof
others, to become free and assume
forone's ownactions.When
responsibility
manis notenlightened,hedoesnotemploy
his own powersof reasoningbut rather
accepts the guardianshipof others and
does as he is told.14
What lay at "theroot of our helplessness", Ranadedeclared,was "the sense
that we are always intendedto remain
children,to be subjectto outsidecontrol,
and never to rise to the dignity of selfcontrolby makingourconscienceandour
reasonthe supreme,if not the sole, guide
toourconduct...Wearechildren,nodoubt,
but the childrenof God, andnot of man,
andthevoice of Godis theonly voice [to]
which we are boundto listen...Withtoo
manyof us,athingistrueorfalse,righteous
or sinful,simplybecausesomebodyin the
past has said thatit is so...Now the new
ideawhichshouldtakeuptheplaceof this
helplessnessand dependenceis not the
idea of a rebellious overthrow of all
authority,butthatof freedomresponsible
to the voice of God in us".15Seven years
laterin a 1904articleentitled'Reformor
Revival'LalaLajpatRai soughtto argue
that,while the reformerswantedreform
on 'rational'lines, the revivalistswanted
reformon 'national'lines. Attemptingto
onitshead,Lajpat
turnRanade'sargument
Rai wrote:
Cannot a revivalist, arguing in the same
strain, ask the reformersinto what they
wish to reformus?....Whetherthey want
to reformus intoSundaydrinkersof brandy
and promiscuouseatersof beef? In short,
whether they want to revolutionise our
society by an outlandish imitation of
Europeancustoms and manners and an
undiminished adoption of European
vice?16
By this time Ranade was dead and he
could not reply that there need be no
necessary contradiction between the
rational and the national.
Yet it must be emphasised that the first
radical intellectual challenge to moderate
nationalism had been remarkably
discriminating,judicious and balanced in
its attitude to European modernity. As
Aurobindo Ghose put it in his sixth essay
'New Lamps for Old' published on
December 4, 1893:
We are to have whatthe west can give us,
because what the west can give us is just
the thing and the only thing that will
rescue us from our presentappalling
conditionof intellectual
andmoraldecay,
but we are not to takeit haphazard
and
in a lump;ratherwe shallfindit expedient
to selecttheverybestthatis thoughtand
knowninEurope,andto importeventhat
withthe changesandreservations
which
our diverseconditionsmay be foundto
dictate.Otherwiseinsteadof a simple
weshallhavechaos
influence,
ameliorating
annexedtochaos,thevicesandcalamities
of thewestsuperimposed
onthevicesand
calamitiesof the east.17
AurobindoGhose called the Congress
un-nationalin 1893 not because of its
imitationof the west or its inabilityto
attractMuslimsin sufficientnumbers,but
becauseit didnotreachoutto theworking
classes."Theproletariate
amongusis sunk
in ignorance and overwhelmed with
distress. But with that distressed and
- nowthatthemiddle
ignorantproletariate,
classis proveddeficientin sincerity,power
and judgment, - with that proletariate
resides...oursole assuranceof hope, our
sole chance in the future."He even saw
conflicts
somehopein thecommunitarian
overHindi-Urduandcow slaughterin the
early 1890s. "A few more taxes, a few
morerashinterferencesof government,a
few more stages of starvation,and the
turbulence that is now religious will
become social. I am speaking to that
class...calledthe thinkingportionof the
Indiancommunity:Well,letthesethinking
gentlemencarrytheirthoughtfulintellects
a hundredyearsback.Let themrecollect
whatcausesledfromthereligiousmadness
of St Bartholomewto the social madness
of the Reign of Terror".18
Did the version of Indiannationalism
authoredby Tilak and Aurobindoget
maroonedintheworldof religiousmadness
that failed to make the grade to social
madness?Onthekeyquestionsof relations
betweenthe overarchingIndiannationon
the one handand religiouscommunities
and linguisticregionson the other,anticolonial thought and politics of the
Swadeshiera left contradictorylegacies.
The anti-colonialismof bothHindusand
Muslimswas influencedin thisperiodby
theirreligioussensibilities.But since the
colonial state's scheme of enumeration
had transformedone into the 'majority'
and the other into the 'minority'
community,it became easier for Hindu
religioussymbolismsandcommunitarian
interests to be subsumed within the
emergingdiscourseon the Indiannation.
If the Irish nation in 1905 was, as D P
Moran insisted, "de facto a Catholic
nation",19the writingsand speeches of
most swadeshinationalistscertainlyleft
Economic and Political Weekly
August 1, 1998
the impressionthatthe Indiannationwas
permeatedby a Hinduethos.Thegranting
of 'communal' electorates in 1909
compoundedthe problemin India even
further.As MaulanaMohamedAli complainedtohisCongresscolleaguesin 1912,
the educatedHindu 'communalpatriot'
had turnedHinduisminto an effective
symbolof mass mobilisationand Indian
but'refuse[d]togive quarter
'nationality',
to the Muslim unless the latterquietly
shufflesoff his individualityandbecomes
completelyHinduised".20
If religiouslybasednotionsof majority
and minoritywere alreadybeginningto
pose problems for a unified Indian
nationalism,as yet thereappearedto be
little contradictionbetween Bengali or
Tamillinguisticcommunitiesor 'nations'
on the one hand and a broaderdiffuse
Indian'nation'on the other.Few, if any,
of thenationalistideologueswerethinking
at this stage of the acquisitionof power
in a centralisednation-state.India'stwo
most celebrated poet-philosophers RabindranathTagore and Mohammad
Iqbal- whose Bengali and Urdupoetry
celebratedpatrioticsentiment,were both
duringthefirsttwodecadesof thiscentury
impassionedcriticsof the westernmodel
of the territorialnation-state.21
REASON
GANDHI'S
ANDHINDU-MUSLIM
UNITY
It required Gandhi's genius to fuse the
love for a territorial homeland with the
extra-territorial
loyaltyof religionin the
mass nationalist movement of 1920.
Withoutdetractingfrom his distinctive
qualities,the Mahatma'sreasonneedsto
be rescuedby historiansfromthemystical
hazecreatedby latter-dayculturalcritics
flying the bannerof indigenousauthenticity. It is sometimes too easily supposed,
as ParthaChatterjeedoes, thatGandhi's
thoughtdid not accept "the conceptual
orthemodesof reasoningand
frameworks
inferenceadoptedby the nationalistsof
hisday"and"emphatically
reject[ed]their
rationalism, scientism and historicism".
Although Chatterjee provides some
brilliant insights into Gandhi's critique of
the westernconcept of civil society in
HindSwaraj,his extendeddiscussionof
Gandhi contains not one reference to
Muslims or Islam.22 Yet the classic
'moment of manoeuvre' in the history of
Indian nationalism, if ever there was one,
came with Gandhi's espousal of the cause
of the Khilafat which not only paved the
way for his rise to power but enabled him
to achieve a quite spectacular success in
popular mobilisation cutting across lines
of religiouscommunity.
Economic and Political Weekly
Urged by C FAndrews to publicly clarify
his position on the Khilafat, Gandhi wrote
in Young India on July 21, 1920:
I should clear the ground by stating that
I rejectany religiousdoctrinethatdoes not
appeal to reason and is in conflict with
morality.I tolerateunreasonablereligious
sentimentwhen it is not immoral. I hold
the Khilafat claim to be both just and
reasonableandthereforeit derivesgreater
forcebecause it has behindit the religious
sentiment of the Musulmanworld.23
Gandhi could "conceive the possibility of
a blind and fanatical religious sentiment
existing in opposition to pure justice".
Under those circumstances he would
"resist the former and fight for the
latter".24But since the Indian Muslims
had an issue that was first of all reasonable and just and on top of that supported
by scriptural authority, "then for the
Hindus not to support them to the utmost
would be a cowardly breach of brotherhood and they would forfeit all claim to
consideration from their Mahomedan
countrymen".25
The crux of Gandhi's case was Lloyd
George's 'broken pledge',26 the pledge to
respect the immunity of the holy places
in Arabiaand Mesopotamia and of Jeddah
and not to deprive Turkey of its capital
or of its lands in Asia Minor and Thrace.
In the event, Smyrna and Thrace had been
taken away 'dishonestly', mandates had
been establishedin SyriaandMesopotamia
'unscrupulously' and a British nominee
had been set up in the Hejaz "under the
protection of British guns". Gandhi
believed "the spirit of Islam" to be
"essentially republican in the truest sense
of the term" which would not stand in the
way of Arab and Armenian independence
from Turkey if the Arabs and Armenians
so wished. On this point he endorsed
Mohamed Ali's call for a mixed,
independent commission of Indian
Muslims, Hindus and Europeans "to
investigate the real wish of the Armenians
and the Arabs and then to come to amodtus
vivendi whereby the claims of the
nationality and those of Islam may be
adjustedandsatisfied".27The "mostthorny
part of the question", Gandhi recognised,
was Palestine. Promises had been made
by the British to the Zionists. But Palestine
was "not a stake in the war", and so he
maintained that by "no canon of ethics or
war"could Palestine be given to the Jews
"as a result of the war".28The Khilafat
question was to Gandhi "an imperial
question of the first magnitude"which he
wanted Hindusto realiseovershadowedthe
Montagu-Chelmsford "Reforms and
everythingelse".29If the Muslimclaim
August 1, 1998
were unjustapartfrom the scriptures,there
may have been cause for hesitation, but
an intrinsically just claim backed by
scriptural authority was irresistible.
Gandhi could not have been more
forthright in acknowledging the extraterritorialnatureof the Muslim sentiment:
Let Hindus not be frightened by PanIslamism, It is not - it need not be - antiIndian or anti-Hindu.Mussalmans must
wish well to every Mussalmanstate, and
even assist any such state. if it is
undeservedlyin peril.And Hindus,if they
aretruefriendsof Mussalmans,cannotbut
share the latter's feelings. We must,
therefore,co-operatewith ourMussalman
brethrenin theirattemptto save theTurkish
empire in Europe from extinction.30
Closer to home, Gandhi supported the
proposal of 'Brother Shaukat Ali' that
there should be three national cries 'Allaho Akbar', 'Bande Mataram' or
'Bharat Mataki Jai' and 'HinduMussalmanki Jai'. Gandhi called upon all
Hindus and Muslims to join in the first
cry "inreverence andprayer-fulness"since
Hindus"maynot fight shy of Arabicwords,
when their meaning is not only totally
inoffensive but even ennobling". He
preferred 'Bande Mataram' to 'Bharat
Mataki Jai', as "it would be a graceful
recognition of the intellectual and emotional superiority of Bengal". And since
India was nothing without "the union of
the Hindu and the Muslim heart",'HinduMussalmanki Jai' was a cry never to be
forgotten.31
Gandhi appeared to have devised the
perfect formula for harnessingthe emotive
power of nationalism in the linguistic
regions and forging Hindu-Muslim unity
based on a respectful attitude towards the
fact of religiously informed cultural
difference in an anti-colonial movement
on an all-India scale. Gandhi was not
using religious means for political ends;
nation and religion were precious ends in
themselves, religion perhapseven more so
than nation. For both Maulana Mohamed
Ali and him, he asserted, the Khilafat was
"the central fact", with the Maulana
because it was "his religion" and "with me
because, in laying down my life for the
Khilafat, I ensure the safety of the cow,
that is my religion, from the Mussalman
knife". "Both hold Swaraj equally dear",
he added, "because only by Swaraj is the
safety of our respective faiths possible".32
The entire movement of non-cooperation
was in his view "astrugglebetween religion
and irreligion"because the motive behind
every crime perpetrated by a Europe,
nominally Christian but beset by Satan,
was "not religious or spiritual,but grossly
2093
material"while the HindusandMuslims
had "religion and honour as their
motive".33
There were at least two points of
weaknessin theMahatma'sgrandscheme
of Hindu-Muslim
unityin his non-violent
holy war.First,as in his staunchdefence
of the caste system, Gandhi clung
dogmaticallyto socialclosurealong lines
of religiouscommunitywhen it came to
inter-diningandinter-marriage.
Likening
eating to the other privatelyperformed
sanitaryprocessesof life, he refusedto
dine even in the company of the Ali
brothers.And he gave the meaning of
Hindu-Muslim
brotherhood
an inimitable
Gandhiantwist in his oppositionto intermarriage."Ifbrothersandsisterscan live
on the friendliestfooting without ever
eachother",hewrote,
thinkingof marrying
"I can see no difficulty in my daughter
regardingevery Mahomedan[a] brother
and vice versa".34Gandhichanged his
views laterin life andattendedonly intercasteandinter-community
marriages,but
his attitudehadcausedhurtif notoffence,
despite his claim that the Ali brothers
"scrupulouslyrespect[edhis] bigotry, if
The
[his]self-denialmaybe so named".35
sec.ond weakness stemmed from his
determinationnot to countenance the
possibility of any legitimate class
dimensionin Muslimsubalternresistance
to Hindu economic power. When the
Mappillarebellionbrokeoutinthesummer
of 1921.he saw it as fanaticismpureand
simplefor which 'culturedMussalmans'
Theresponseto the 'Moplah
weresorry.36
madness'was cited by him as proof of
Hindu-Muslimsolidarity."As members
of a family",he assuredhimself,"weshall
sometimesfight,butwe shallalwayshave
leaderswho will composeourdifferences
and keep us undercheck".Besides, "in
the face of possibilitiesof such madness
in future", he asked, what was "the
alternativeto Hindu-Muslimunity? A
of slavery?"37
Evenwhenin
perpetuation
December1921LordReadinghad"flung
Ireland"in his face, Gandhiwas unfased.
"[I]tis notthebloodthattheIrishmenhave
taken",he contended,"whichhas given
themwhatappearsto be theirliberty.But
it is the gallons of blood that they have
willingly given themselves".So Indians
hadto learn"theartof spillingtheirown
blood without spilling that of their
opponents".38
ForGandhi's closestcomradeMohamed
Ali it was the Britishcall to Muslimsto
spill the blood of their own which, as
Ayesha Jalal has shown, constitutedan
intolerable infringement of religious
freedom.39On the charge of making
2094
seditious speeches at the Khilafat
Conferencein Karachion July 9, 1921,
MohamedAli andsix otherswereputon
trial.Stagedin a colonial law court,the
defendants'case of necessity took the
formof aninterrogation
of powerinwhich
the memoryof pastBritishpromisesand
present British perfidy loomed large.
Mohamed Ali took two long days to
addressthejury.He did not hopeto sway
themin orderto be foundnot guilty.His
greatestsuccesswas in tryingthepatience
of theBritishjudge,all of whoseattempts
to rule his lengthytreatiseson religious
law to be irrelevantprovedutterlyfutile.
Thejudgeexercisedhispowerto sentence
Mohamed Ali to two years' rigorous
imprisonment,but the defendant had
successfullycommunicatedhis argument
to his audienceof Islamic universalists
and Indian anti-colonialistsand, in the
process,madethecolonialmasterssquirm.
MohamedAli remindedthe courtof the
promisein the queen's proclamationof
1858, a promise re-affirmed by two
subsequent British sovereigns: 'The
Sepoys' Mutinyafterwhich the queen's
proclamationwas issued had originated
with greasedcartridgesin which cow's
and swine's grease was believed to be
mixed". But Islamic law, the learned
Maulanainsisted,permitteda Muslimto
eat porkif facedwith starvationbut laid
downanabsoluteinjunction
againstkilling
anotherMuslim."Andyet a government
whichis so tenderas to asksoldiersbefore
enlistmentwhetherthey object to vaccinationor re-vaccination",
he concluded,
"wouldcompela Muslimto do something
worsethanapostasiseoreat pork.If there
is anyvaluein the boastof tolerationand
in the proclamationsof threesovereigns,
then we have performeda religiousand
legaldutyin callinguponMuslimsoldiers
in these circumstancesto withdrawfrom
the army, and are neither sinners nor
criminals."40
UNITARYNATIONALISM:
DISUNITY
HINDU-MUSLIM
Mohamed Ali emerged from prison as
presidentof the IndianNational Congress.
JawaharlalNehru was presentat the annual
session of the Congress in Coconada in
December 1923 where the Maulana, "as
was his wont", "delivered an enormously
long presidential address". But Nehru
thought it was "an interesting one",
largely because it showed the historic
Muslim deputation demanding separate
electorates to have been "a command
performance...engineered by the government itself'. Nehru considered Mohamed
a "bond of affection" tied together the
Congress president and the young man he
appointed secretary of the All-India
CongressCommittee. One frequentsubject
of argument between the two was "the
Almighty". The Maulana liked to refer to
God in Congress resolutions by way of
thanksgiving and when Nehru protested
he was shouted at for his irreligion. But
Mohamed Ali forgave his younger colleague, believing him to be "fundamentally
religious" in spite of his "superficial
behaviour". 'Perhaps', Nehru mused, "it
depends on what is meant by religion and
religious".41
Mohamed Ali's stirring call for 'a
federation of faiths' notwithstanding, the
Coconada Congress failed to ratify C R
Das's Bengal Pact for an equitable powersharing arrangementbetween Hindus and
Muslims. As Das's political disciple
Subhas Chandra Bose noted ruefully, it
was "rejected on the alleged ground that
it showed partiality for the Moslems and
violated the principles of Nationalism". It
was adopted by a large majority at the
Bengal Provincial Conference at Sirajganj
in May 1924 overcoming the opposition
of "some reactionary Hindus".42 But at
the all-India level the Punjab line
articulated by Lala Lajpat Rai had won
out over the Bengal line advocated by
C R Das. When Das died in 1925. Subhas
Bose, who deploredthe absenceof 'cultural
intimacy' between India's two great
religious communities. wrote from
Mandalay prison:
Ido notthinkthatamongthe Hinduleaders
of India, Islam had a greaterfriend than
in the Deshbandhu...Hinduism was
extremelydearto his heart;he could even
lay down his life for his religion, but at
the same time he was absolutelyfree from
dogmatism of any kind. That explains
how it was possibleforhimto love Islam.43
The mid-1920s, most contemporary
observers and historians agree, were a
periodof Hindu-Muslimstrife.Nehrutitles
the chapter in his autobiography dealing
with this phase of riots 'Communalism
Rampant' in which he concludes: "Surely
religion and the spirit of religion have
much to answer for. What killjoys they
have been."44 This Nehruvian misdiagnosis of the cause of Hindu-Muslim
disunity was to have large implications
for the history of Indian anti-colonial
nationalism in the last two decades of the
British raj.As the discourse of mainstream
Indian nationalism turned more strident
in its insistence on singularity, a sense
of unease among those condemned to
'minority' status at the all-India level led
Ali to be "mostirrationallyreligious"but themto call forsafeguardsandeventually
Economic and Political Weekly
August 1, 1998
tocouchtheirowndemandsinthelanguage
of nationalism. What infuriated
MohammedAli Jinnahin early 1938was
Nehru'sstatementreportedin the press:
"Ihaveexaminedthisso-calledcommunal
questionthroughthetelescope,andif there
is nothing, what can you see."45
itwaspreciselythismyopic
Paradoxically,
vision of non-communal nationalism
towards the Muslim question which
enabledthe politics of religiouslybased
Hindu identity to occupy comfortable
spaces withinthe regionaloutfits of the
Indian National Congress. The "moral
conceptionof Gandhianpolitics",it has
.been suggested, was in this period
incompatiblewith "therealitiesof power
withina bourgeoisconstitutionalorder".
But Gandhihadnot only "accededto the
political compulsions of bourgeois
politics",as ParthaChatterjeesees it,46
but had succumbedfrom the mid-1920s
to the political compulsions of Hindu
in the United Provinces
majoritarianism
in thePunjab.
andHinduminoritarianism
By the time Gandhi rediscovered the
imperativeof Hindu-Muslimaccommodation in the mid-1940s he had already
ceded too much political groundto the
forces of unitarynationalismand Hindu
which were bound in a
majoritarianism
tense but symbioticrelationship.
The colonial rulesof representation
in
the formal arenas of politics based on
religiousenumerationwere undoubtedly
tailor-madefor communitarianrivalry.
But there was also a significantshift in
nationalist ideology on the issue of
religiousdifferencewhich made certain
that the Muslim masses were never
enthusedin the same way by the civil
disobedience and Quit India movementsof the 1930s and 1940s as they
hadbeen in the yearsof non-cooperation
and Khilafat.At the height of the 1942
move-mentLeonardWoolf wrote in his
prefaceto MulkRaj Anand's Letterson
India:
of theIrish- largelydue
Thenationalism
to Britishimperialism- has startedan
insolubleUlsterprobleminwhichreligion
and nationalismhave intertwinedto
produceincalculableharm.You andthe
CongressPartyarebeginningto treatthe
asMrdeValeratreated
MuslimsandJinnah
Ulster.YoumaysucceedindeludingTom
Brownon this point,but do you really
wish to turnJinnahinto an IndianLord
Craigavon?For that is what you will
certainlydo.47
The transformation of the would-be
CharlesParnellof Indianpoliticsto anunlikelyJamesCraig- suchwasthemeasure
of successof inclusionarynationalismof
the Congressvariety.
Economic and Political Weekly
for the purposeof fighting against the
foreign rule of our country".50In 1943
Yet duringthe secondworldwarthere Kiani was the top Muslimofficer flankwasamovement,ledbyanother
Cambridge ing SubhasChandraBose at a "national
manandavidadmirerof Garibaldi.which demonstration"and fund-raiserat the
sought to forge unity in anti-colonial Chettiartemple in Singapore.Bose had
politics based on respect for and refusedto set foot in the templeunlesshis
of religiousdifference.In colleagues belonging to all castes and
accommodation
his speechas Congresspresidentin 1938 communitiescould come with him.51
SubhasBosehadwarnedagainstaccepting
"Whenwe cameto thetemple",Bose's
colonial constitutionaldevices designed closest political aide Abid Hasan, a
to divide and deflect the anti-colonial Hyderabadi
Muslim,haswritten,"Ifound
movement,but felt that "the policy of it filled to capacitywith the uniformsof
divide and rule"was "by no means an the INA officers and men and the black
unmixedblessing for the rulingpower". capsof theSouthIndianMuslimsglaringly
He could see Britaingetting "caughtin evident".52 When Hasan, a civilian,
the meshesof herown politicaldualism" volunteered
to go to thewarfront,he found
resultingfromdivisive policies, whether himselfin an armywhich hadalteredall
inIndia,Palestine,Egypt,IraqorIreland.48 therulesof Britain'sIndianArmyas these
After war brokeout in 1939 he likened had applied to religious and linguistic
the Congressproposalof 'a Constituent communities,caste andgender.And yes,
Assemblyundertheaegisof anImperialist theydinedtogetherbeforetheywentinto
government'to the Irish Conventionof battletogether.'No one hadaskedus",he
Lloyd George. During 1940 as Britain writes,"toceasetobeaTamilianorDogra,
sufferedreversesinthe"warbetweenrival PunjabiMuslim or Bengali Brahmin,a
imperialisms"and the Muslim League Sikh or an Adivasi.We were all thatand
passedits Lahore,resolutionBose noted perhapsfiercelymoreso thanbefore,but
that the problem of "fighting British these mattersbecame personalaffairs".
was likelyto give wayto the WhentheirNetajicametoseetheretreating
imperialism"
morepressingproblemof "internalunity menfromImphalatMandalay,the"Sikhs
and consolidation",which, in order to oiled theirbeards,the PunjabiMuslims,
succeed, would have to include unity Dograsand Rajputstwirledtheirmoustbetween the Congress and the Muslim aches and we the indiscriminatesput on
demand as good a face as we could manage".53
Leagueon ajoint Hindu-Muslim
for a provisionalnationalgovernment.49 Facedwith militarydefeat,therecould
Between 1943 and 1945 SubhasBose be twosourcesof solace-one wasrational
madea verydeliberateeffortto buildunity analogywiththe Irishexample,the other
among India'sreligiouscommunitiesin was religious faith drawn from India's
the movementhe led in SoutheastAsia. own history."Itis a strangephenomenon
Interestingly,the man who became the in history",SubhasBose said in a speech
seniormostfield commanderin Bose's on May 21, 1945, "thatwhile the British
IndianNationalArmy had early in his could easily crush the Irish rebellionof
careerbeen the victimof exactlythe sort 1916 at a time when they were engaged
of biasthatstoked'communal'animosity. in a life and deathstruggle,they had to
In 1931 MohammedZamanKiani had acknowledgedefeat at the handsof the
facedachoice-eithertogo totheOlympic same Irishrevolutionariesafterthey (the
hockeytrialsbeing heldin Calcuttaor to British)emergedvictoriousfromtheworld
appearin the examinationfor admission war".54But he had alreadyobservedin
into the new MilitaryAcademyat Dehra hisreplyof November2, 1943toamessage
Dun. He passedthe examinationbut the of felicitationsfrom de Valeraupon the
of a provisionalgovernment
medicalofficerruledhimout frombeing proclamation
admittedto thefirsttermof theAcademy. in SingaporethatBritishimperialismhad
The medicalofficerwas a Hinduandthe "broughtaboutthe partitionof Irelandin
next manto be selectedwas a Sikh.This the past and if BritishImperialismwere
enragedall the Muslimsof the battalion to survivethis war, a sirnilarfate would
who believed"thewhole thinghad been be in store for India".55
In an attemptto forestallsucha fatethe
manoeuvred with a communal bias".
Zamanwas laterselectedand INA's marchto Delhi had commenced
Fortunately
joinedtheAcademyin its secondtermthat with a ceremonialparadeon September
startedaftersix months."Littledid I then 26, 1943 at the tomb of the last Mughal
realise",writesKianiin hismemoirs,"that emperorBahadurShahZafarin Burma.
in timeto come, in a revolutionary
move- At the ceremony Subhas Bose handed
ment...Iwouldbeoneof thestrongestadvo- overa 'nazar'of two anda halflakhrupees
catesofinter-communal
unityandharmony to the Burmesegovernment"as a very
BLOOD BROTHERSIN A WAR OF LIBERATION
August 1. 19982095
andBengalandtheprovinceof Ulsterhad
to be divided by tottingup numbersin
districtsand counties.
Thespiritof religionhadlittleto do with
thesetemporalsins.Throughout
theentire
course of the history of Indian anticolonialism,religion as faith within the
limits of morality,if not the limits of
reason,had rarelyimpededthe cause of
nationalunityandmayinfacthaveassisted
its realisationat key momentsof struggle.
The variegatedsymbols of religion as
culturehadenthusednationalistsof many
huesandcoloursbuthadseldomembittered
relationsbetweenreligiouscommunities
untiltheywereflauntedto boastthepower
of majoritarian
Theconceits
triumphalism.
of unitary nationalismmay well have
causeda deepersenseof alienationamong
thosedefinedas minoritiesthantheattachFROMUNIONOFHEARTSTO AMPUTATION mentsto diversereligions.The territorial
claimsof a minorityturnednationheaped
OFLIMBS
furtherconfusionon the furiouscontest
Whetherdue to a British errorin rational
over sovereigntyin the dyingdays of the
decision-makingor in answerto the prayers
failedto sharesovereigntyin
offered at Bahadur Shah's tomb. India's raj.Having
the mannerof theirpre-colonialforbears,
anti-imperialists were given a last oppor- late-colonialnationalist
worshippersof
tunity to reach an honourable settlement thecentralisedstateended
updividingthe
of the problemof religious difference when
land. SurelyGodless nationalismlinked
threePunjabiofficers of the INA-a Hindu,
to the colonial categories of religious
a Muslim and a Sikh - were put on public
and minoritieshas much to
trialat the Red Fort for waging war against majorities
answerfor. What a killer it has been!
the king-emperor.The venue was the same
I candonobetterthanclosewithafew lines
as on the occasion of the historic trial of
apoemthatthe'greatsentinel'Rabindraof
BahadurShah,so was the sentence- depornathTagore,ajealousguardianof reason
tation for life. But on this occasion the senunreason,printedin his littlebook
tence could not be carriedout and the Red against
on nationalismin 1917.It was an English
Fortthe threeofficers were released almost
renderingof a Bengali poem he had
immediately by the commander-in-chief
onthelastdayof thelastcentury:
composed
Claude Auchinleck under intense public
The
sun
of thecenturysetsamidstthe
last
pressure.59Yet the union of hearts in the
blood-redclouds of the West and the
winterof 1945-46couldnotpreventtheampuwhirlwindof hatred.
tation of limbs in the summer of 1947.
nakedpassionof self-loveof Nations,
The
The all-importantquestion as to why at
initsdrunken
delirium
ofgreed,isdancing
the end of the day the Punjab pushed the
to
of
steel
and
thehowlingverses
the
clash
subcontinent towards partitionratherthan
of
vengeance...
more
union has been addressed
fully by
yourcrownbe of
Keepwatch,India...Let
Ayesha Jalal.60What needs emphasising
freedomof the
freedom
the
your
humility,
in conclusion today is that division was
soul.
not aforegone conclusion untilthe moment
BuildGod'sthronedailyupontheample
of the actual wielding of the partitioner's
of yourpoverty
bareness
axe. The principle of Ausgleich was alive
Andknowthatwhatis hugeis notgreat
in the cabinet mission's proposal of a
and prideIs not everlasting.62
three-tiered federal structure for India in
small token of...love and admiration for
Burma".56Accepting the gift the Burmese
leader Ba Maw said: "We Burmans also
attacha great deal of importanceto certain
sacred spots, to certain victory-bearing
earthas in Shwebo."57Once the march to
Delhi had been halted at Imphal, the
defeated wamors and their leadergathered
once more at Bahadur Shah's tomb on
July 11, 1944. On that sombre occasion
Subhas Chandra Bose closed his speech
with a couplet composed by BahadurShah
after the collapse of the 1857 revolt:
Ghazion me bu rahegijab talak iman ki
TakhtLondontakchalegi, tegh Hindustan
ki.
(So long as Ghazis are imbued with the
spirit of faith
The sword of Hindustan will reach
London's throne.)58
1946 as it had been in the ideas for a
council of Ireland in 1920 and perhaps
even as late as the James Craig-Michael
Collins pact of March 1922 and also in
the plans for a binational state in Palestine
in 1948.61Whatmadepartition-a decision
born of short-termexpediency - into such
a long-term feature of the political
landscapes of both India and I reland was
thatin orderto ensureruleby religiously
definedmajoritiestheprovincesof Punjab
2096
Notes
[G M Trevelyan Lecture, University of Cambridge,November26, 1997. I would like to thank
Ayesha Jalal for inspiring the ideas that inform
this lecture even though she does not share my
starry-eyedadmirationof Gandhi.]
I JawaharlalNehru,TowardsFreedom.Beacon
Press, Boston, 1958. p 32.
2 David Cannadine,G M Trevelyan:A Life in
History, FontanaPress, London, 1993, p 92.
3 Nehru, Towards Freedom.,pp 34-36, 38.
4 Dipesh Chakrabarty,'Radical Histores and
the Question of EnlightenmentRationalism'
in Economic and Political Weekly,April 8,
1995.
5 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities:
Reflections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism, Verso, London, 1991, p I1.
6 G M Trevelyan,EnglishSocial History,p 353
andBritishHistoryin the NineteenthCentury,
p vii, cited in Cannadine, ibid, p 202.
7 Thomas BabingtonMacaulay, 'Gladstoneon
Church and State' in G M Young (ed),
Macaulay: Prose and Poetry, Harvard
University Press, Cambridge,Massachusetts,
1952, pp 609-60, quotationsfrom pp 636-38.
8 ParthaChatterjee,'Our Modernity' in The
Present History of West Bengal, Oxford
University Press, Delhi, 1997, p 204.
9 Rajnarayan Basu, She Kal aar E Kal,
and
Brajendranath Bandyopadhyay
Sajanikanta Das (eds), Bangiya Sahitya
Parishad,Calcutta, 1956, cited in Chatterjee,
'Our Modernity'in Present History, p 198.
10 Chatterjee,ibid, pp 200, 210.
11 Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its
Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial
Histories, Oxford University Press, Delhi,
1994, p 110.
12 1have undertakenan elaboratecritiqueof this
positionelsewhere.See my 'Nationas Mother:
Representationsand Contestationsof "India"
in Bengali Literatureand Culture'in Sugata
Bose and Ayesha Jalal (eds), Nationalism,
Democracy and Development: State and
Politics inl India, Oxford University Press,
Delhi, 1997, pp 50-75.
13 Ramabai Ranade (ed), Miscellaneous
Writings of the Late Hon'ble Mr Justice
M G Ranade, SahityaAkademi, Delhi, 1992,
p 190.
14 Chatterjee, 'Our Modernity' in Present
History, p 199.
15 Ranade (ed), Miscellaneous Writings of
the Late Horible Mr Justice M G Ranade,
pp 193-94.
16 Lala Lajpat Rai, Writings and Speeches,
Vol 1, University Publishers, Delhi, 1966.
17 AurobindoGhose, 'New Lamps for Old' in
HaridasMukherjeeandUmaMukherjee(eds),
Sri Aurobindo's Political Thought (18931908), Firma K L Mukhopadhyay,Calcutta,
1958, pp 103-04.
18 Ibid, pp 108-09.
19 Cited in R F Foster, Modern Ireland, 16001972, Allen Lane, London, 1988, p 454.
20 Cited in Ayesha Jalal, 'Exploding
Communalism: The Politics of Muslim
Identity in South Asia' in Bose and Jalal
(eds), Nationalism, Democracy and
Developmenet,p 87.
21 For a fuller treatmentof the history of this
period see the relevant chapters in Sugata
Bose and Ayesha Jalal (eds), Modern South
Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy,
Routledge, London and Oxford University
Press, Delhi, 1997,
22 See the chapter'The Momentof Manoeuvre:
Gandhi and the Critiqueof Civil Society' in
ParthaChatterjee(ed), Nationalist Thought
and the Colonial World: A Derivative
Discourse, University of Minnesota Press,
Minneapolis, 1993, pp 85-130. The quoted
phrases appear on p. 9323 MahatmaGandhi, 'Mr Andrews' Difficulty',
in Young India 1919-1922. (Young India,
July 21, 1920), S Ganesan, Madras, 1922,
pp 51-52.
Economicand Political Weekly August 1, 1998
24 'Khilafat',YoungIndia, May 12, 1920 (ibid),
p 158.
25 'Why I HaveJoinedthe KhilafatMovement',
Young India, April 28, 1920 (ibid), p 154.
26 Ibid,p 153. See also 'Pledges Broken',Young
India, May 19, 1920 (ibid), pp 159-62.
27 'Mr Andrews' Difficulty', ibid, pp 152-53.
28 'The Khilafat', YoungIndia, March23, 1921
(ibid), pp 178-79.
29 'The Question of Questions', Young India,
March 10, 1920 (ibid), p 145.
30 'The TurkishQuestion', Young India, June
29, 1921 (ibid), pp 180-81.
31 'Three National Cries', Young India,
September 8, 1920 (ibid), pp 442-43.
32 'Hindu-MuslimUnity a Camouflage', Young
India, October 20, 1921, in ibid, p. 419.
Gandhi had not, however, wanted to make
the stoppingof cow-slanghtera condition for
lending Hindu supportto the Khilafatclaim.
See 'Khilafatand the Cow Question', Young
India, December 10, 1919 (ibid), pp 141-43.
33 'The Inwardness of Non-Co-Operation',
YoungIndia,September8. 1920, (ibid),p 237.
34 'Hindu-MahomedanUnity', Young India,
February25, 1920 (ibid), pp 397-400.
35 'Hindu-MuslimUnity a Camouflage', Young
India, October 20, 1921 (ibid), p 421.
36 'The Meaningof the Moplah Rising', Young
India, October 20, 1921 (ibid), pp 675-78.
37 'Hindu-MuslimUnity', YoungIndia, July 28,
1921 (ibid), p 417.
38 'Irelandand India', Young India, December
15, 1921 (ibid), pp 621-22.
39 Ayesha Jalal, 'Territorial Nationalism and
Islamic Universalism:South Asian Critiques
of theEuropeanNation-State',paperpresented
at the Institute of Advanced Study, Berlin.
June 1997. 1 owe the insights into religion
and rights to her latest work Self and
Sovereignty:The Muslim Individualand the
Communityof Islam in South Asia, c 1850the Present (forthcoming).
40 See MohamedAli's statementin R M Thadani
(eds), The Historic State Trial of the Ali
Brothers, Karachi, 1921, pp 63-87. I am
gratefulto AyeshaJalalforbringingMohalned
Ali's line of contestationto my attention.For
a muchmoredetailedanalysiswhich does full
justice to Muslim conceptions of rights as
well as sovereignty during the Khilafat
movement, see ibid (Ch 5).
41 Nehru, Towards Freedom, pp 104-05.
42 Subhas ChandraBose, The Indian Struggle,
1920-1942, Sisir Kumar Bose and Sugata
Bose (eds), Netaji ResearchBureau,Calcutta
and Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1997,
pp 102, 112.
43 Sisir Kumar Bose and Sugata Bose (eds).
The Essential Writings of Netaji Subhas
Chandra Bose, Netaji Research Bureau,
Calcuttaand OxfordUniversity Press, Delhi,
1997, pp 3-4, 67-68, 86.
44 Nehru, Towards Freedom, p 117.
45 M A Jinnahto JawaharlalNehru, March 17,
1938 in Jawaharlal Nehru, A Bunch of Old
Letters,OxfordUniversityPress,Delhi, 1986,
p 278.
46 Chatterjee,Nationalist Thought,pp 113, 115.
47 Mulk Raj Anand, Letters on India, Labour
Book Service, London, 1942, p 9.
48 Bose and Bose (eds), Essential Writingsof
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, pp 11-12.
199-200.
49 Sisir KumarBose and SugataBose (eds), The
AlternativeLeadership:the Collected Works
of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, May 1939January1941,Vol 10,NetajiResearchBureau.
Economic and Political Weekly
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
Calcuttaand Oxford UniversityPress, Delhi,
(forthcoming).
Ibid, pp xiii-xiv.
Ibid, p 216.
Abid Hasan, The Men from Imphal, Netaji
Research Bureau, Calcutta 1995, p 11.
Abid Hasan Safrani, The Men from Imphal,
pp 7-9.
Manuscript(archives of the Netaji Research
Bureau, Calcutta).
'India and Ireland'in NarayanaMenon (ed),
On to Delhi or Speeches and Writings of
Subhas Chandra Bose, Bangkok, 1944, p
117. Bose had visited Irelandin early 1936
and knew Irish nationalists including De
Valera.He had also met De Valerain London
in January 1938.
'At Bahadur Shah's Tomb', ibid, p 90.
'Text of Speech delivered by His Excellency
Dr Ba Maw', ibid, p 128.
SubhasChandraBose, 'The GreatPatriotand
Leader', Blood Bath, Hero Publications,
Lahore, 1947, p 65.
See MotiRain,'TwoHistoricTrialsin RedFort:
An AuthenticAccountof theTrialby a General
Court Martialof CaptainShah Nawaz Khan,
CaptainP K Sahgal and Lt G S Dhillon and
the Trialby a EuropeanMilitaryCommission
of EmperorBahadurShah', New Delhi, 1946.
60 See Ayesha Jalal's G M TrevelyanSeminar,
November 27, 1997, 'Nation, Reason and
Religion: the Punjab's Role in the Partition
of India' in next weeks issue of EPW.
61 See the use of the concept of Ausgleich by
the founderof SinnFein, ArthurGriffith,in his
TheResurrectionof Hungary,London, 1904.
62 RabindranathTagore, 'The Sunset of the
Century'in Nationalism, Greenwood Press,
Westport, Connecticut, 1973, originally
published, Macmillan, New York, 1917, pp
157-59. In 1921 Tagore was sharplycritical
of the unreason inherent in the Gandhian
ritual of spinning in 'The Call of Truth',
Modern Review, 30, 4 (1921). For Gandhi's
defence of his own position and his tribute
to Tagore see 'The Great Sentinel', Young
India, October 13. 1921 (ibid), YoungIndia,
pp 668-75.
CALL FOR PAPERS
The Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), New
Delhi, announces a new biannual journal, Indian Social Science Review
(ISSR), to be launched in 1999 in collaboration with SAGE Publications
Indian Private Ltd. The principal objective is to bring multidisciplinaryand
interdisciplinary approaches to bear upon the study of social, economic,
and political problems of contemporary concern. It is proposed to publish
articles of a general nature as well as those focused on particularthemes.
There will also be a book review section. To ensure high standards, only
refereed materialwill be included in the journal.
The ISSR will be edited by a board consisting of Professor T.N.
Madan (Social Anthropology) as Editor-in-Chief and Professors Amiya K.
Bagchi (Economic History), Sabyasachi Bhattacharya (History), Ashish
Bose (Demography), Suma Chitnis (Education), Sudhir Kakkar
(Psychology), Kuldip Mathur (Political Science), Deepak Nayyar
(Economics), T.K. Oommen (Sociology) and Dr. K.V. Sundaram
(Geography), as members.
Among the themes that will be addressed in the first few issues of
the ISSR are (a) the emergence and erosion of institutions, (b) centre and
periphery in economic and political development, (c) aspects of violence in
society, (d) civil society.
The ISSR invites papers (in duplicate) on the above themes as well
as articles of a general nature that follow the interdisciplinary approach.
The length of papers should be between 5000 and 8000 words. Shorter
communications and research notes may also be considered.
August 1, 1998
For correspondenceand furtherinformation contact:
Dr. ParthaS. Ghosh
Managing Editor,Indian Social Science Review
ICSSR, P.O. Box No. 10528
Aruna Asaf Ali Marg
New Delhi-1 10067.
Tel- (011)617-9843
Fax -(011)617-9836
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