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Maratha History as Polemic: Low Caste Ideology and Political Debate in Late Nineteenth-Century Western India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Rosalind O'Hanlon
Rosalind O'Hanlon
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Extract

A striking feature of Marathi vernacular literature towards the end of the nineteenth century lies in the sudden surge of interest in the Maratha warrior hero, Sivaji, and his feats of leadership in the great expansions of Maratha power that took place in the seventeenth century. Of all the work on Sivaji written at this time, the most familiar is probably Mahadev Govind Ranade's Rise of the Maratha Power, published in 1900, in English. Besides this, there appeared in the last three decades of the century an unusually large number of Marathi works celebrating Sivaji's exploits.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , February 1983 , pp. 1 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

1 Other examples of Marathi works on Sivaji published towards the end of the century were: (titles given in translation) Hardikar, Antaji Ramchandra, The Triumph of Sivaji (Bombay, 1891)Google Scholar; Dhavale, Sitaram Narahara, A Play about the Child Sivaji (Ratnagiri, 1884)Google Scholar; Sane, Kasinatha Narayan (ed.), Sabhasad's Life of Sivaji (Poona, 1889)Google Scholar; Keluskar, Krishnarao Arjuna, The Life of Sivaji, of the Kshatriya Line (Bombay, 1907)Google Scholar; Dattadasa, , Ballads on the Life and Exploits of Sivaji (Nagpur, 1908)Google Scholar; Dattar, Govind Narayan, The Life of Sivachhalrapati (Bombay, 1906).Google Scholar Not all of these are written from the overtly polemical standpoint of the three works discussed here, but their existence is an indication of the intensity of interest in this period of Maratha history.

2 For accounts of the more nationalist oriented of these, see Cashman, Richard, The Myth of the Lokamanya: Tilak and Mass Politics in Maharashtra (University of California Press, 1975)Google Scholar; The essays by Chicherov, A. I. and Reisner, I. M. in Reisner, I. M. and Goldberg, N. M. (Eds), Tilak and the Struggle for Indian Freedom (Delhi, 1966)Google Scholar; and Samarth, Anil, Sivaji and the Indian National Movement (Bombay, 1975).Google Scholar

3 Acworth, H. A., Ballads of the Marathas (Bombay, 1890).Google Scholar It should of course be borne in mind that no precise date can be given to these, as the products of an exclusively oral tradition. Acworth argues that the rise to popularity of pavada singing can be dated to the early seventeenth century A.D., with the spread of the cult of Amba Bhavani of Tuljapur.

4 Here, in the idea that the symbols and images contained in Maharashtra's oral traditions served purposes of social and political integration, I am following Richard Fox's analysis of Rajput society in Kin, Clan, Raja and Rule (University of California Press, 1971), pp. 164–73.Google Scholar Fox's work contains many insights that seem applicable to Maratha society.

5 See, for example, the proceedings of the Kshatradharma Pratipadak Sabha, ed. Angane, H. (Bombay, 1884)Google Scholar; also Samarth, , Sivaji and the Indian National Movement, p. 13.Google Scholar

6 The best account of the dispute is in Sarkar, Jadunath, Sivaji and his Times (Bombay, 1920), pp. 204–14.Google Scholar It is significant that Phule does not mention this episode in his own account of Sivaji. Sivaji's seventeenth-century claims to kshatriya status would have been of a much more conventional kind than the sort of identity that Phule projected for all lower castes. Sivaji employed Brahmans, both to declare him a kshatriya in genealogical terms, and to perform the actual ceremonies. Hence, a reference to Sivaji's own mode of claiming kshatriya status would have tended to cast doubt on Phule's assertion that the kshatriya identity of the lower castes had preceded all the social stratifications of Brahmanic religion, and might hence be used as a ground for their complete rejection.

7 There is a very large Marathi literature, dating from the 1880s, claiming a conventional kshatriya status for Marathas, although of course both terms are subject to quite different interpretations in the different works. There is also evidence of a lot of activity amongst these non-Brahman groups aimed at supporting these claims; see, for example, the proceedings of the Kshatradharma Pratipadak Sabha, a Maratha society active in Bombay in the 1880s and 1890s, which set out to restore to all Marathas what it saw as their rightful position as the leaders and protectors of the land and people of Maharashtra.

8 All references to Phule's Sivaji pavada are taken from the collection of his works made by Keer, D. and Malshe, S. M., Mahatma Phule Samagra Vanamaya (Bombay, 1969).Google Scholar

9 Phule, Jotirao, Gulamgiri, Keer and Malshe, pp. 114–15.Google Scholar

10 Information from Rajini Pavar, 3 March 1979. See also Katzenstein, Mary Fainsod, Ethnicity and Equality: the Shiv Sena Party and Preferential Politics in Bombay (Cornell, 1979).Google Scholar Although this is a study of a particular political party, it conveys a good idea of the immense and continuing appeal of the warrior traditions of Maharashtra and their symbol in the figure of Sivaji. It also shows how such traditions can still retain immense meaning and power even in an urban environment far removed from their origins.

11 Atre, T. N., Gavagada (1915), p. 5.Google Scholar

12 A more complete account of the evidence available about social divisions and processes of upward mobility in this area of western Indian society forms one of the chapters of my Ph.D. thesis.

13 Here, in this suggestion of the way in which all-India varna categories articulated with local social structures and cultural traditions, I have found very helpful Richard Fox's work in Kin, Clan, Raja, Rule, esp. the chapter ‘“Clan”, Raja and State’.

14 Phule, Jotirao, Chhatrapati Sivaji Raje Bhosale yaca Pavada, Keer and Malshe, p. 6.Google Scholar

15 Ibid., p. 7.

16 Ibid., pp. 7–8.

17 Ibid., p. 9. Here, I would like to differ with Dhananjay Keer's translation of the first two lines of the poem, in which Phule is taken to be referring to himself as ‘the jewel of the kulavadis’. Keer, Dhananjay, Mahatma Jotirao Phooley, Father of the Indian Social Revolution (Bombay, 1974), p. 102.Google Scholar

18 Molesworth's English–Marathi Dictionary, p. 177.Google Scholar

19 Phule, , Chhatrapati Sivaji, Keer and Malshe, p. 9.Google Scholar

20 See for example, Dharekar, Jaysinharav Ramchandra, Shahanavakuli urpha kshatriya ramsavali (Bombay, 1894)Google Scholar; Birje, Vasudevarav Langoji, Kshatriya ani tyance astitva (Baroda, 1903)Google Scholar; Vankade, Govind Balavant, Kshatriya Mahatmya Grantha (Sholapur, 1920)Google Scholar; Salunkhe, N. S., Kshatriya Marathyanca itihas (Bombay, 1925)Google Scholar; Saraswati, Sriswami Narottamanda, Maratha-kshatriyaci Shahanavakuli (Belgaum, 1927)Google Scholar; Desmukha, Kasirava Bapuji, Kshatriyaca Itihasa (Amaravati, 1927)Google Scholar; Tarkunde, Sitaram Raghunath, Kshatriya Gharanyaca Itihas (Poona, 1928).Google Scholar

21 Phule, , Chhatrapati Sivaji, Keer and Malshe pp. 12–13. Here, Phule derives the term Veda, the earliest religious books of the Hindus, from the Marathi term bheda, meaning ‘a division’. In this way he tries to add to the evidence that religious writings have always been used as a means of dividing and oppressing the lower castes.Google Scholar

22 This refers to the popular story whereby Khandoba's idol was protected from the depredations of the Muslims by a swarm of wild bees.

23 Phule, , Chhatrapati Sivaji, Keer and Malshe, p. 14.Google Scholar

24 Idem.

25 Ibid., p. 15.

26 Ibid., pp. 16–17. Note here Phule's deliberately off-hand reference to the first delegation of his authority to the Brahman peshwa of Pratapgad.

27 Ibid., p. 21.

28 Ibid., p. 7.

29 Ibid., pp. 21–2.

30 The issues raised by Phule's religious position are discussed in more detail in a separate section of my thesis.

31 Phule, , Chhatrapati Sivaji, Keer and Malshe, pp. 28–30.Google Scholar

32 Ibid., p. 30.

33 Ibid., p. 37.

34 Ibid., p. 38.

35 Idem.

36 Vividhadnyan Vistar (July 1869).Google Scholar

37 Prabhakar (28 05 1848), republished in Sahasrabudda, P. G. (ed.), Lokahilavadici Shatapatre (Poona, 1977).Google Scholar

38 Gunjikar, R. B., Mocangad (Poona, 1871)Google Scholar; Lele, Ganesh Sastri, Sivaji Caritra (Bombay, 1873)Google Scholar; Jorvekar, Kesav Laksman, Sivajilila (Bombay, 1874).Google Scholar

39 Kohn, Hans, The Idea of Nationalism (New York, 1957), pp. 3–4.Google Scholar

40 For an account of his life, see Bhagavat, Durga, Rajaramsastri (Bombay, 1947).Google Scholar

41 Bhagavat, Rajaramsastri, Sivaji Caritra (Bombay, 1889), p. 8.Google Scholar

42 Ibid., p. 9.

43 Ibid., p. 14.

44 Ibid., pp. 14–15.

45 Ibid., p. 19.

46 Ibid., p. 34.

47 Ibid., p. 41.

48 Ibid., p. 53.

49 Ranade, Mahadev Govind, Rise of the Maratha Power (Bombay, 1900).Google Scholar Ranade's more general argument was that the rise of the Maratha power represented a genuine effort on the part of a Hindu nationality to achieve ‘a Confederacy of States animated by a common patriotism’. This sense of unity derived from the social and religious culture that was shared by all classes in Maharashtra.

50 Phule, Jotirao, Mama Paramananda yas patra, Keer and Malshe, p. 325.Google Scholar

51 Bhate, G. C., A History of Modern Marathi Literature, 1880–1938 (Poona, 1939), p. 228.Google Scholar See also the Introduction to the poem, which mentions the part which he took in a society for the Study of History in Indore.

52 Muktesvara was one of the eighteenth-century pandit poets, writing puranic stories in highly sanskritic Marathi.

53 Molesworth describes the popular conception of Ramraja: ‘A term for a kingdom in which the people are protected from all enemies and are governed in equity and goodness’. Molesworth, , English–Marathi Dictionary, p. 694.Google Scholar The term originates, of course, in the rule of Rama described in the Ramayana. It still has significance in twentieth-century Maharashtra. Thus the Rama Raja Parishad, a right-wing Hindu communalist party founded in 1948, campaigned for a return to the rectitude of the age of Rama.

54 Dadoji Kondadev was the Brahman governor of Poona district appointed by Sivaji's father Shahaji. As the latter's factor, he was supposed always to have been very timid about Sivaji's schemes of expansion, but on his deathbed gave his blessing to the re-establishment of an independent Hindu power.

55 Josi, Ekanatha Annaji, Dadoji Kondadev yaca Upadesa (Bombay, 1877), p. 7.Google Scholar

56 Ibid., p. 13.

57 Ibid., pp. 15–16.

58 Ibid., p. 16.

59 Idem.

60 Ibid., p. 17.

61 Ibid., p. 21.

62 Ibid., pp. 21–22.

63 Ibid., p. 25.

64 Idem.

65 Ibid., p. 27.

66 Ibid., p. 29.

67 Ranade, , Rise of the Maratha Power, ch. 7, ‘Sivaji as a civil ruler’. Phule says very little about this aspect of Sivaji's rule.Google Scholar

68 Josi, , Dadoji Kondadeve yaca Upadesa, p. 31.Google Scholar

69 The most important of these were the Sinde family of Gwalior, the Gaikwads of Baroda, the Pavars of Devas and the Bhosles of Nagpur. The powerful Holkar family of Indore were, of course, dhangar in jati terms, but might also have claimed to belong to the broader Maratha community as Maratha dhangars. This claim was certainly advanced by some dhangar groups in the early decades of this century. The ambiguity of the social position of the Holkar family points to the more general tensions in this area of non-Brahman social structure, between a local tradition which could have accommodated such groups within the Maratha community, and a more conventional, varna-oriented interpretation, which would have stressed that élite Marathas should be regarded as kshatriya, and excluded dhangars from the Maratha community. This latter interpretation would have been most common among elite non-Brahmans; the most orthodox opinion would have held that all Marathas were sudra anyway, since no true kshatriyas remained in nineteenth-century India.