The following post was inspired by the news last week that the government of Maharashtra is planning to build a huge statue of Shivaji off the coast of Bombay (that’s right, I said Bombay), on the scale of the American statue of liberty. The statue will be built off-shore, on an artificial island constructed especially for the purpose.
I’m not actually opposed to the idea of the statue — as far as I’m concerned, it’s all part of the great, entertaining tamasha of modern Bombay — though obviously I think there could be some other figures from Indian culture and history who might also be worth considering (how about a 300 foot bust of a glowering Amitabh Bachchan, for instance?). But reading the news did make me curious to know some things about the historical Shivaji that go beyond the hagiographical myths and legends one sees on Wikipedia, so I went to the library and looked at a book I had been meaning to look at for a couple of years, James Laine’s Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India (Oxford, 2003).
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In 2004, James Laine became a target of the Hindu right after the publication of his book, Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India, but as is often the case the people burning down libraries, and destroying priceless works of India’s cultural heritage, clearly did not read the book. If one actually reads Laine’s work, one finds that Laine is quite careful not to frontally challenge the myth of Chatrapati Shivaji, the 17th century Maratha warrior. Indeed, there is much there that actually supports the pride that many Maharasthrians feel about Shivaji.
The conclusions Laine comes to after surveying the evidence on Shivaji were surprising to me. Though I obviously came to the book looking for objectivity as an antidote to the bloated mythology loudly propagated by the Shiv Sena, I presumed that “objectivity” and “secularism” would be more or less synonymous. The reality may be somewhat more complex in Shivaji’s case. Though he’s clearly not quite what his partisans believe he was, Shivaji’s story remains inspiring and heroic even after some scholarly scrutiny. And though he was more secular than many Hindu chauvinists will admit, Shivaji certainly did pointedly assert his identity as a Hindu and promote symbolic elements of Hindu religion and culture against the increasingly intolerant imposition of Islam during the Mughal empire under Aurangzeb and the final years of the Bijapur Sultanate (see Adil Shah). Here is how Laine describes his project near the beginning of the book:
The task I have set myself is not that of providing a more accurate account of Shivaji’s life by stripping away the legends attributed to him by worshipful myth makers or misguided ideologues, but rather to be a disturber of the tranquility with which synthetic accounts of Shivaji’s life are accepted, mindful that the recording and retaining of any memory of Shivaji is interested knowledge. . . . In the modern popular imagination, many of [the different strands of the Shivaji story] are woven together and reproduced in both bland textbooks and dramatic popular accounts as though the simple facts can be taken for granted. In other words, the dominance of a certain grand narrative of Shivaji’s life is so powerful that the particular concerns of its many authors have been largely erased. (8)
The scholarly debunker is sometimes a powerful ally in ascertaining the often complex and nuanced truth behind historical legends, but in this book Laine doesn’t see confrontational debunking as his primary task. Rather, he wants to get back to the fundamentals of the Shivaji story (i.e., what can be objectively known based on primary historical sources), before following the path of the revisionist, nationalist, patriotic remaking of that story through the 19th and 20th centuries.
Laine starts by looking directly at the 17th century sources (in Sanskrit and Marathi) written by those who were close to Shivaji himself.
The primary texts he works with were written in Marathi and Sanskrit, both of which are languages in which Laine is proficient. Afzal Khan Vadh (“The Killing of Afzal Khanâ€) is a series of Marathi heroic ballads, authored by a poet alternately known as Agrindas or Ajnandas in 1659 (while Shivaji was still alive). Two other primary sources cited by Laine are written in Sanskrit, by Brahmin authors who were commissioned directly by Shivaji himself: the Sivabharata (or Shivabharata), an epic poem written by Kavindra Paramananda in 1674 (at the time of Shivaji’s coronation as “Chatrapati” – Lord of the Umbrella/Umbralla-Lord), and the Srisivaprabhuce, a historical chronicle written by Krishnaji Anant Sabhasad, in 1697.
The first surprise is that there’s little reason to doubt the best-known aspects of the Shivaji legend: the three works are surprisingly consistent with one another, especially regarding Shivaji’s childhood and upbringing, his emergence as a warrior with the killing of Afzal Khan, the punishment of Shaista Khan, the escape from Aurangzeb’s court at Agra, and the conquest of Simhagad in 1670. The most significant “humanizing†point Laine makes (and this is also one of the major sources of controversy) is his suggestion, late in his book, that Shivaji’s parents seem to have been estranged from one another –- Shivaji was brought up by his mother in one principality, while his father was a soldier for another, rival kingdom, who left before Shivaji was born. (Later hagiography would smooth over this aspect of the history, suggesting that Shivaji’s father sent him and his mother to Pune as part of a great plan.) The point of raising this is not to “take Shivaji down a notch” or find shame or scandal in the story. Rather, from my point of view at least, humanizing Shivaji in this way gives us a certain (modern) psychological explanation for why Shivaji was so driven as an adult: he had something to prove.
The second surprise for me is Laine’s acknowledgment that all the evidence supports the idea that Shivaji was assertive about Hindu religion and culture. It’s still wrong to use him symbolically as some kind of nationalist Hindu “freedom-fighter,” who devoted his life to killing mleccha invaders (for Laine, it’s more correct to say that Shivaji was a kingdom-builder). But it’s also not accurate to say that religion is somehow completely irrelevant to his story. This comes out first with reference to Shivaji’s coronation in 1674:
One important moment for the construction of an official biography was surely the grand event of Shivaji’s coronation. For the last decade of his life, he was relatively free of Mughal pressure, and in 1674, was enthroned chatrapati of an independent Hindu kingdom in an orthodox lustration ceremony (abhisheka). The ceremony, which had fallen out of use in Islamicate India, was seen as a revival of royal Hindu traditions. In other words, there is clear evidence that at the end of his career Shivaji began to think in new ways about his exercise of military and political power, ways that drew upon ancient symbols of Hindu kingship. He called upon a prominent pundit from Benares, Gaga Bhatta, to establish his genealogy and claim of true kshatriya status before investing him with the sacred thread, performing an orthodox wedding, and then a royal lustration ceremony of enthronement. At this time, Shivaji lavished great wealth on all the Brahmins who were gathered to confer legitimacy, and he employed two poets to write laudatory epic poems about him. On was Paramananda, whom we have mentioned as the author of the Sanskrit Sivabharata, a text that is clearly composed for the coronation though never finished . . . The second was Kavi Bhusan, who wrote the Sivarajabhusan in the Braj dialect of Hindi. (30)
And Laine expands upon the implications of his interpretation of the coronation a few pages later:
Shivaji himself, growing up in Pune, at that time a remote and insignifican town far away from the Bijapuri court, was unlike his father and grandfather in being not only less content to be in vassalage to a Muslim sultan but also concerned to extend the scope of Hindu culture. Moreover, he dealt with sultans who adopted a more rigorous religious policy than their predecessors. I would argue that his elaborate Sanskritic coronation, his choice of Sanskrit rather than Persian titles for his ministers, and his patronage of Brahmin pundits . . . are all signs that he wished to extend the boundaries in which his religion reigned, not so much geographically as socially and politically. These may have been gestures of legitimation, but he could very well have chosen better-known Persianate ways of achieving the same end.
In other words, Shivaji was raised at some distance from what Laine is describing as the “Islamicate” culture dominant in north and central India in the 17th century. He also clearly went out of his way to assert Hindu/Sanskritic symbols during his rule, when that was not the norm, even for other Hindu kings of the time.
Laine continues:
This is to say that Shivaji was not only discontended with the idea of being Islamic, he was discontented with even being Islamicate, that is, he read his religion not as a strict constructionist or in purely theological or essentialist ways, but saw religion as broadly diffuse throughout culture. We might say that he saw ‘religion’ as dharma. Thus, although Richard Eaton has emphasized the new Islamic rigorism in the Adil Shahi regime after 1656, a rigorism that parallels the later policies of Aurangzeb (Eaton 1978), I would say that Shivaji was similarly disposed to see Hindu and Muslim subcultures —- not just theologies — as distinct. There would be constraints on Shivaji’s religious agenda, as there were for Aurangzeb of course, and there were ways in which Shivaji was not wholly consistent in his Hindu policy. For example, he wore Persian royal dress and used words such as faqir and salaam quite unself-consciously, as well s being qt times quite willing to accept vassalage to the Adil Shah or Mughal emperor. But I would have to disagree with Stewart Gordon, who has written: ‘Shivaji was not attempting to construct a universal Hindu rule. Over and over, he espoused tolerance and syncretism. He even called on Aurangzeb to act like Akbar in according respect to Hindu believes and places. Shivaji had no difficulty in allying with Muslim states which surrounded him… even against Hindu powers” (Gordon 1993). I do not think I am disputing the evidence Gordon adduces, but my interpretation depends on how one uses the word ‘Hindu.’ (39)
This is a more complicated set of academic arguments, relating to how one interprets the idea of “religion” in an earlier historic moment, outside of Abrahamic norms. Putting it quite simply: to see Hindu religion as “diffuse throughout culture” doesn’t necessarily weaken it; rather, it was one of the ways Shivaji could find a new way of asserting it against the dominant powers of the time.
Secondly, Laine is arguing that though it’s wrong to read Shivaji as a kind of proto-communalist, it’s also a mistake to see him as someone who primarily espoused “tolerance and syncretism.” He was actually somewhere in between.
The group that burnt books and vandalised was an offshoot of the Congress party…but you did not know that, did you?
M. Nam
MoorNam, as I understand it, the Sambhaji Brigade’s association with the Congress Party is arguable.
Anyway, how does it matter? I phrased it as “In 2004, James Laine became a target of the Hindu right.” Is that not correct?
(Would you have been happier if I had said, “the Hindu right and various other hardline Maratha partisans” …?)
The group that burnt books and vandalised was an offshoot of the Congress party…but you did not know that, did you?
But were they not Hindus?
N–0, no.
Excellent write-up Amardeep. Shivaji was a true hero…
Hi Amardeep,
There are at least a couple of places where you are wrong. You have wrongly attributed the protests against LAINES book to the Hindutva group. Infact the protests were carried out by SAMBHAJI BRIGADE , a distinct MARATHA group that is no way connected to the Hindutva movement. Please check the website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambhaji_Brigade for more information on the SAMBHAJI BRIGADE. Secondly what is wrong in asserting HINDU identity as long as one does not treat any minorities inappropriately. Shivaji consistently treated his Muslim and Christian employees fairly. His record of treating the captured wifes and children of enemy Muslim soldiers is also beyond compare. There is nothing wrong in asserting ones identity (Hindu in Shivaji’s case) as long one treats everybody fairly. This is true pluralism and therefore should be hailed.
Secondly what is wrong in asserting HINDU identity as long as one does not treat any minorities inappropriately. Shivaji consistently treated his Muslim and Christian employees fairly. His record of treating the captured wifes and children of enemy Muslim soldiers is also beyond compare.
Kalyan, well yes — and that was one of the surprises I encountered reading Laine’s book. He himself does not complain about Shivaji’s assertion of his Hindu identity. Laine’s point is to show that that pride was there, based on historical evidence.
In fact, other western scholars like Stewart Gordon had tried to create an image of Shivaji as a kind of proto-secularist. Laine argues that that image of Shivaji is incorrect.
Thanks for discussing this biography. I’ll be sure to check it out.
So it seems the discovery the book made was that although most of the “stories” of Shivaji are not incorrect, they might have been a bit exxagerated . What a rare find! If I am correct, that has never happened with any other historical figure, isnt it 😉
I dont know what purpose will be served by scrutinizing the relationship between his parents, except maybe to sell some books and generate some controversy. Communities glorify their heroes to boost their pride, be it in hindus in case of Shivaji or Ram, sikhs in case of their gurus, muslim in case of Saladin et al and christians in case of their crusaders. If its a news to somebody, then I guess inncoence is still alive somewhere!
“Shivaji was brought up by his mother in one principality, while his father was a soldier for another, rival kingdom, who left before Shivaji was born.”
Is that the only evidence Laine offers for thinking that the parents were estranged?
thanks for the review!
I have been associated with Sangh Parivar for over 10 years … even in Sangh Parivar circle, Shivaji is hailed as a King who dared to stand up to the Islamic invaders. He didn’t hate Islam, but he saw them as foreigners and wanted to liberate his mother land. He believed in Hindu ethos, and as like any other Hindu, he respected all the religions and gave them equal respect, but not at the cost of Hinduism. Unlike today’s “secularists”.
Very interesting post!
A different perspective on the same.
Except that in many cases the people who act as leaders of the Sangh and its related organizations seem to have an incomplete or even wrong understanding of what the essence of Hinduism is and thus they end up acting contrary to the beliefs of Hindu philosophy. Not to mention that they presume that they speak for all Hindus.
Amardeep,
Quite an insightful post, there’s also a dedicated chapter in the book “Our Bones are scattered” by Andrew Ward which I think is a very reliable source. From what I remember Andrew Ward clearly mentions that Shivaji Bhosla forbade any of his soldiers from destroying mosques or killing ‘moslem’ ascetics to whom he turned for spiritual guidance. I do believe, that given the scenario at that time, Shivaji might have taken the task of revitalizing Hinduism and its traditions, however in my opinion that does not give his self-proclaimed followers the right to fanaticism in today’s world, and neither do they have the right to change his character to suit to their tastes and beliefs.
Is that the only evidence Laine offers for thinking that the parents were estranged?
Estranged, I would encourage you to read Laine’s book for yourself to evaluate all the evidence in detail. In a blog post I can only hint at & summarize a few things.
But for starters, here’s a couple of paragraphs from Laine’s controversial chapter 5:
“Shivaji’s parents were married under trying circumstances. They were children, and Jijabai’s parents opposed the match, considering themselves, as Jadhavs (Yadavas), to be too aristocratic to accept a groom from the Bhosles, a clan not accepted as one of ninety-six upper-class Maratha families. Because of Shahji’s rising status in the Nizam Shahi regime, however, the sultan forced the Jadhavs to accept the marriage. At the time of Shivaji’s birth, Jijabai’s father and brothers were allied with the Mughals and at war with her husband. Earlier hints of family discord are found in the Sivabharata, where Paramananda portrays an interfamily fight as similar to the warring cousins of the Mahabharata (SBH 3.8-3.57). And it is interesting that Paramananda, writing to establish Shivaji’s status at the time of his coronation, uses abundant solar imagery to emphasize Shivaji’s descent from the Solar dynasty, a line traced from his mother, not his father.
“Most important, Shivaji pursued a career path at odds with his father’s. Whereas Shahji thrived as a loyal servant first of the Nizam Shah and then of the Adil Shah, his son Shivaji was a rebel who strategically accepted feudatory status at times, but always pursued, we are led to believe, the dream of independent kingship. The traditional narrative does recognize this difference of father and son. Paramananda devotes a canto to a reflection on Shahji’s misplaced trust in his Muslim colleagues, and early chronicles have Jijabai feeling a mixture of pride and anguish over her son’s independent spirit. The story that Shivaji visited Bijapur as a boy but could not restrain his revulsion at the site of cow slaughter is most telling in this regard. This story reveals the differences between father and son, and also serves as an explanation for why Shivaji lived apart from Shahji. To quote the Sivadigvijay again, Shivaji declares: “I shall no longer tolerate any slight upon religion, or any act of Muhammedan injustice (yavani avichar). If my father abandons me on that account, I shall not mind.” (Laine, pages 91-92)
The evidence is not overwhelming, but the difference in family statuses, and the suggestion in the Shivabharata that the family was divided along the lines of the cousins in the Mahabharata seems important. All of the other bits and pieces add up to a pretty good circumstantial case based on primary materials from the time period. (Also important and not mentioned above: Shahji was not present at Shivaji’s birth, nor was he present at Shivaji’s first marriage.)
thanks for a great post!
The shivaji movement is primarily a regional identity based movement. To link them with the hindutva movement is like linking the social conservative movement to the libertarian movement. (i.e. they may be loosely linked, but the actions of one group often do not do reflect the ideology of the other). Given that 1. The movement against the book started only after one reviewer pointed out that the book joked that Shivaji was a bastard 2. The author himself discussed that the “joke about Shivaji’s mother” and not his comments on the Hindu Muslim relations was the cause of the controversy 3. The govt that filed cases against the author and banned the book illegally was a p-sec Congress govt, it seems dishonest to blame this on the Hindu right.
Based on this review , I think I’ll pass on the book. (Esp since I will be getting the complete English translation of Ponniyan Selvam tomorrow, my appetite for historical fiction will be satisfied for the next few months 🙂 )
18 · DizzyDesi said
Exactly!
Shivaji is a hero primarily among the Marathi population, not all Hindus.
In Mumbai, Marathis form plurality of the population and are indigenous to the areas. However they are also one of the poorest and least educated segments of the Mumbai population.
The Marathi community has many grievances towards the economically dominant communities of Mumbai (primarily the Gujaratis). Many Marathis are understandably upset that other ethnic groups control the majority of businesses and form the social elite in the state they consider their homeland.
The Shivaji movement is much more about reasserting Marathi identity then it is about promoting Hinduism. Hinduism is promoted by the Shivaji movement because Hinduism forms one dimension of Marathi ethnic identity.
I think the statue should be seen in this context. In my opinion the statue’s message is “We Marathis may not be the richest community in Mumbai, but we are the majority and this city and it will be run on our terms.”
Not really. Shivaji love is a competitive sport in Maharashtra politics.
The last sentence of post #19 should read:
In my opinion the statue’s message is “We Marathis may not be the richest community in Mumbai, but we are the majority in this city and it will be run on our terms.”
“In Mumbai, Marathis form plurality of the population and are indigenous to the areas. However they are also one of the poorest and least educated segments of the Mumbai population”
Thats one stupid\insensitive\arrogant and baseless comment with no evidence or statistics to back your claim
Majority rules in every group/state/country. As long as they are not oppressing the minority they are entitled to their opinion.
JGandhi,
I am not sure if I agree with your assessment of Marathi’s. Anecdotally the people I hung out with were mostly well educated and mostly professionals, there were not many entrepreneurs but I don’t think you can label them poorest and least educated, do you have any data to back up your statement?
22 · jaisingh said
Sorry for causing offense and I didn’t mean to sound arrogant.
To clarify, I said that in Mumbai, Marathi community lags in education and income. I did not make any comments about Marathis in general or throughout India. Mumbai is concentrated with wealthy and educated people, so its entirely possible for Marathis of Mumbai to lag behind other Mumbai communities while the Marathi community at large can be ahead of other communities nationwide. But the disparity between Marathis and non-Marathi communities in Mumbai is well known.
I don’t have hard data but here are a few sources that discuss this issue:
Link to JSTOR article discussing tensions between Marathis and immigrant communities to Mumbai.
The ridiculous hype around Shivaji really only comes from the Maharashtrian politicians and their goons. This isn’t something most Bombayites care about. When the politicians run out of things to argue about, run out of excuses for their poor performances, and refuse to take on legitimate problems the city has — they run on the Shivaji bandwagon. I have lived in Bombay for about 20 years of my life, and I’ve seen the Shiv Sena, the Sangh, the MNS and other right Hindu parties use bullshit like this to create xenophobia and create a sense of the other. It gives them a political platform, it feeds into people’s fears and takes away from any of the real issues the city is crumbling under.
I think it is interesting that Shiv Sena can find new ways to exploit Shivaji to entrench itself into Bombay. Remember that, pre-independence, Bombay was never really part of Maharashtra. It was more or less independent, and might as well gone to Gujrat if it weren’t for Marathi fanatics.
Great post, Amardeep. I’ve been curious about the book for a long time: I’ll look for it.
Instead of a statue of Shivaji, they should build a mammoth Shiv linga at the site. That will be more in keeping with the Freudian subtext of the idea.
Some thoughts on various comments
It should be said that their politics has evolved into becoming more of Marathi manus (regional pride) one in recent years after they started getting branded as a communal party. Thus recent campaigns have been against Biharis and UP wallas, illegal Bangaladeshi immigrants, South Indians. Raj Thackeray’s MNS is but an offshoot of the Shiv Sena.
Marathis in Mumbai are education wise decent, probably more than the average Gujju small businessman. They are quite culturally proud and even accomplished (Hindustani classical music, theater, etc). However, traditionally they have been mostly employed in the jobs and industries and thus business in Mumbai is dominated by the Gujjus, Marus and Parsis.
The statue is an attempt by the Deshmukh Govt. to counter the MNS campaign as the new voice of the Marathis. Its pure politics.
While the educated Marathi wont care as much about these issues, the Sena(s) do derive a decent amount of support from the less educated and poorer sections of the Marathi populace. So far it has not been sufficient to oust the Deshmukh Govt. despite a horrible record in office, but the recent MNS campaign did generate a lot of support and who knows what may happen in the next election.
As far as education levels are concerned I think you are wrong even for Mumbai. Go to any college in Mumbai there will be more Maharashtians pursuing an Bachelors or Masters degree than any other community, even Gujarati. The community is not entrepreneurial and hence don’t have the strong financial background as Gujaratis or Marwaris. Even most Gujaratis, I lived in Ghatkopar (a Gujarati majority suburb in Bombay) for 20+ years, run small retail based businesses.
In a knowledge backed economy and an increasingly organaised retail sector dominated by large corporations, I have doubts over the future of the Gujarati dominated small retail sector.
30 · Samir said
Hmmm.. Ghatkopar is probably Marathi majority, unless you exclude Ghatkopar west.
Anyway, a statue of Shivaji is a good idea, there is little for a tourist to see in mumbai.
Thanks for #16.
Contrary to popular belief, not all of us drink saffron Kool-Aid. Sena’s harshest critics happen to be those supposedly rare creatures — well-educated Marathi Mumbaikars.
Back to history. What irritates me most about flavour of the month desi history books is how often they get away w/ shoddy writing. Theories based on anecdotes, factual errors, random omissions etc. get outed fairly quickly in western history world. I wish we had less book burning and more analyses.
Amardeep, I really enjoy your posts on desi history. Curious about your take on Yasmin Khan’s The Great Partition and Arthur Herman’s Gandhi & Churchill. The latter has some of my pet peeves.
it is hilariously ironic how the rallying cry for maratha nationalism are based on claims of pervasive maratha failure – at least according to the illustrious jgandhi. i believe that taking pride in maratha achievements will do more for their manus than nursing this exhaustive catalog of grievances.
somebody should sit jgandhi down with bal thackeray the next time that loon goes off on the uneducated bihari and bangladeshi migrants leeching off of bombay. that way, jgandhi can explain to him that it is really the native marathas who are the leechers.
but maybe chauvinism doesn’t need logic? who woulda thunk?
Amardeep, very nice post.
I don’t think I expressed myself well in my comments. I in no way consider Marathis to be “failures” or “leechers”. My point is that the Shivaji statue is not meant to assert Hindu identity, rather it is a way for Marathis to mark Mumbai as a Marathi city.
Amardeep:
This is incorrect. The controversy was raised by a Maratha organization (Marathas are a caste while Marathi is a language and not all Marathis/ Maharashtrians are Marathas) Sambhaji Brigade. Their grievance was caste based and had nothing whatsoever to do with Hinduism or Hindutva or Laine’s claims about Shivaji’s secularism or assertive Hinduism.
Laine, according to many even in the academic circles played mischief by reproducing rumours in his book from his sources who worked in Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute. All his sources were Pune Brahmins, who are considered notorious and cunning (fairly or unfairly) by other groups in Mahrashtra. Quoting their gossip, he suggested that Dadoji Kondev, who was Shivaji’s teacher, could probably have been the father or Shivaji. What got the goat of these Sambhaji Brigade types was that Dadoji himself was a Brahmin. This was interpreted as appropriation of Maratha history and heroes by Brahmins since the suggestion implies that Shivaji was a Brahmin and not a Maratha. The Marathas are a warrier caste and proud of their history and lineage and the suggestion by a cabal of Brahmin academics that Shivaji might not have been a Maratha really riled them. Even before this, there always has been prickly issues about Brahmins’ dominance in history writing of the Maratha empire. Marathas are of the opinion that the Peshwa (Brahmin) rule in Pune was given more importance historically at the expense of the Maratha ruilers of Maharastra. Also, some of the Brahmin saints such as Ramdas Swami Maharaj, whom historians refer to as Shivaji’s spiritual guide, were given more importance in Shivaji’s history than was their due. The Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute houses most scholars on history in Maharashtra and most of them happen to be Brahmins. This was the reason for Sambhaji Brigade’s attack on Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute.
The political side of it is that the Maratha votes in Maharashtra have been captured by the Congress and the NCP (an offshoot of the Congress). The Sambhaji Brigade was a fledging organization who needed an incendiary issue to capture the imagination of the Marathas and wean them away from the Congress.
Another misconception is that Shivaji Maharaj has been used by Shiv Sena as an Hindutva icon. This is incorrect since Shivaji resonates with most Maharashtrians not on account of Hinduism but on account of his having established the Maratha empire, as has been pointed out by other commenters. Also, he has been the Sena’s idol even before they went into Hindutva politics. Sena joined the Hindutva bandwagon much later. It started out as an organization fighting for the rights of ethnic Maharashtrians in Mumbai.
Contrary to what has been said by a commenter here about education levels of Maharashtrians, the Shiv Sena could become a force in Mumbai only because of educated (mostly graduate) Maharashtrians who were denied government and banking jobs because of mandatory English requirement. This was interpreted in Maharashtra as dominance of the Tamilian lobby who created the rule so that only Tamilians, who were traditionally familiar with English, trying to usurp all jobs for their own kin. Shiv Sena, which was formed during the Samyukta Maharashtra (United Maharashtra) Movement was in full swing, (The movement was fighting for inclusion of Bombay in the linguistically carved state of Maharashtra as against Gujarat. Morarji Desai, then a prominent minister was in favour of including Bombay in Gujarat) became a force to reckon with in Mahrashtra politics because of the anti-South India stance in late 60s. Espousing of Hindutva was another reactionary attempt to gather votes by using any incendiary issue that can capture the imagination of most voters at a given time.
Hopefully this clarifies some confusion about linking the James Laine controversy with Hindutva. Also, despite the casteist sounding references here please do not ascribe any motive about furtherance of any caste’s agenda to me. While explaining this I might have sounded as if I am being sympathetic to Sambhaji Brigade. I wish to explicitly state that I abhor their actions and believe that no slight howsoever big justifies destroying rare historical works and calls for banning of books. I was only trying to explain their motives and not to condone them.
So Shivaji is just a Maratha(i) icon? No one outside Maharasthra cares for him? OK let’s forget Kavi Bhushan who wrote about him in Hindi, that was quite some time ago. Over 55 years ago in present day Tamizh Nadu, an actor who would become v.v. famous, and much praised as an actor’s actor, played the protagonist in a play titled, Shivaji Kanda Hindu Samrajyam. or The Hindu Empire Shivaji Envisioned. A fiery radical iconoclast and selective atheist from the audience conferred a title on the lead actor, in the felictiation that followed hte performace. Any idea whom I am talking about?
Hmm… “Major” Sundararajan? “Typist” Gopu? “Venniraadai” Moorthy? “Disco” Shanthi? Who could it be?
39 · jyotsana said
Absolutely. Just because some intellectual/artist writes about some icon doesn’t mean that icon is eulogised across the entire country. I think the concept of universal/monolithic loyalty or appeal in the subcontinent vis-a-vis everything (even wrt to hindusims, its icons ) is a misnomer and made primarily by outsiders. Though the work of the intellectual/artist can popularise that icon across regions depending on the works reach. Note many westerners also make the mistake of associating Indian movies with Bollywood.
Just to add what Chetan has said, Sambhaji Brigade is one of the many faces of NCP & Maratha Seva Sangh.
39 · jyotsana said
M Karunanidhi to Sivaji Ganesan 🙂
Great post Amardeep; your style is non-judgemental and nice.
Shivaji asserting hindu culture may just have been a response to the Islamisation of the day. The test of his secularism is in evidence of him victimising muslims in his kingdom. Does Laine give any such evidence in his book?
I dont understand the words hindu right. So then, what is hindu left? I would like to know your definition of these groups. May be you should have said, aggressively relegious maharashtrians?
The demonym is “Maharashtrian” and not Marathis. I would like others commenting here to know that. You would call some one from Pakistan a Pakistani and not the other shorter word.
Mumbai is the capital of the state of Maharashtra. The States Reorganisation Act of 1956 adopted a linguistic formula to divide the provinces and presidencies of the erstwhile British India. Maharastrians are the largest demographic group in the city and most of them are non-native to Bombay in the first place.
I never see any one complain about Chennai being a Tamil city or Kolkatta being a Bengali city or Hyderabad an Andaraite city or any other capital city in India to be a city of natives to that state. The level of parochialism is much less in Bombay than in any other city in India.
i think chetan summed up a lot of important points and describes a lot of what was going through the minds of the people who mobilized the attack. caste/community politics anywhere in india is going to be confusing. the maratha/kunbi resentment to brahmins is well represented in the writing of Jyotiba Phule. the accusation by thm that deshasta and konkanastha brahmins have always been trying to co-opt maratha accomplishments is an theme. deshasta brahmins have typically been the go to administrative class to the various regimes in the deccan from adl shahi times, the peshwa interlude, and throughout the britsh raj. through their service many even became significant landholders, so their influence was not just ecclesiastical. Since the establishment of modern universities in india, they have been well entrenched in academia. it is not wholly unfair to suggest that their biases have mutated the scholarly Shivaji narrative over time. the thackeray family are kayastha prabhus which is another well educated administrative class. everybody seems to agree that Shivaji was a great man, and everyone wants to own that heritage somehow. Prabhus make their own historical claims to having been critical participants in the campaigns of Shivaji. the communities that probably get the least credit are the mavali hill tribes and other now scheduled communities that made up the bulk of the soldiers in his early campaigns. another good point is that marathi/maratha/maharashtrian are three distict identity classes. all of these identity classes have their own claim on him. There were Bhosale kingdoms in thanjavur, kolhapur, and nagpur. his descendants sambhaji, rajaram, and shivajiII, like their progenitors, play large roles in the regional politics of the deccan for a couple generations. hence Shivaji’s significance extends well beyond the boundaries of maharashtra. as far as shivaji wanting to revive a hindu tradition of kingship, there is the anecdote that he was inspired by the relatively recent collapse of the Vijaynagar empire, of which the legend would still have been widespread in the deccan. The adil shahis were the leaders of the coalition that defeated vijaynagar sixty years before his birth, and the battle of talikota was the most famous battle of that period. the newly fragmented hindu polity in the pennisula would have possibly contributed to a more aggressive religious policy on the part of the deccan sultans.he grew up in the first few generations after those cataclysmic events, and it wouldnt surprise me to discover that there was a social climate that encouraged hindu revivalism.
38 Chetan and #47 rar :
Very insightful comments. I can side with Chetan’s view. Generally history as people say is written by the victors, and in modern days is associated with whoever dominates the academia. As rar says, Shivaji or Marathi/Maratha influence can be found in various regions. They ruled even parts of Tamilnadu.
Moreover this idea of a “Sivaji statue” by the Congress/NCP government is to out-Sena the Shiv Sena/MNS before the important on-coming elections of 2009. I’d welcome this as a good tourist attraction.
All these years we have been visiting the Gateway of India in Bombay / India gate in Delhi erected by the Brits to respect either their king or their dead soldiers. It is better to have one dedicated to a local hero.
I have heard local (as in local in Maharashtra, not US, LOL) speak dismissively of Laine as being lame, not particularly insightful, nor particularly understanding of local contexts. If you recall, this is the sort of criticism that is often made (quite accurately) of American (and American Indian, I take no names) academics.
In this summary that Amardeep Singh has made, there is nothing that I haven’t heard before. American scholarship is often of this nature – a rehashing of local Indian scholarship for an American audience.