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Subject: Some Thoughts on James Laine's Controversial Book, Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India (New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2nd ed., 2003)
Some of the remarks made by James
Laine in his book, Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India, seem more like
willful, calculated sensationalism than honest scholarship. Despite his
apology (http://www.sulekha.com/chpost.asp?forum=books&cid=26438&show=0),
which as of now he has practically withdrawn (http://campcatatonia.org/index.php?itemid=1694),
there are certain issues that need both examination and comment. As Laine
himself admits in the book, he has cavalierly presented gossip and innuendo
without an iota of documentary substantiation, and then on that basis,
proceeded to construct his flawed thesis. Naturally, we must question
his motives in undertaking such an underhand exercise, especially since
next to nothing has appeared in the media by way of comment on the actual
contents of the book. Hence this communication.
At no time in history has India been Islamic. Indeed, how could it have been when it has always had a majority of non-Muslims, as it does even today? True, certain parts of the country in certain periods did have Muslim rulers who imposed Islamic law on the entire populace they governed, but that does not make India Islamic, since a non-Muslim majority continued to follow their own religious tenets, come what may. As for Hindu regimes, unlike Christian or Islamic ones, the king could have no religion according to time-honoured mores. As an individual, like any one of his subjects, he was free to profess and practise his version of any one of myriad indigenous doctrines that together constitute Hinduism. But as king, he necessarily had to be secular, regarding all forms of religious expression with due impartiality. This is borne out by Indian history that clearly shows how the Indian state had always not just tolerated, but allowed even antipodal doctrines to flourish. Therefore, with no king (including Shivaji) who was Hindu, and an India that was never Islamic, the astonishing title - 'Hindu King in Islamic India' - leaves one wondering whether Laine has at all understood the subject he addresses with such authority. The book seems to be more of a hasty hatchet job seeking to cash in on the post-9/11 global interest in Islam.
To suggest that Shahaji was not Shivaji's 'biological father' is implausible, incredible and outrageous! Unlike lax norms of familial or marital propriety that characterize 'civilized' Western societies, loose speculation about someone's ancestry is a very serious matter indeed even in contemporary Indian ethos, not to speak of conditions three centuries ago when societal sanctions must decidedly have been immensely more rigid and consequences of their transgression, all too tragic. A scandalous event like the one implied in the book could scarcely have escaped immediate detection, judgment and censure. Anybody indulging in such conduct would have courted severe social stigma, especially someone like Jijabai who both hailed from and was married into aristocracy. The progeny of an allegedly 'unholy' relationship would never have been accepted as king by a tradition-bound people who looked upon the monarch as an incarnation of Divinity! On page 93 of the book, Laine states what could be described as out-and-out hearsay: "Maharashtrians tell jokes naughtily suggesting that his guardian Dadaji Konddev was his (Shivaji's) biological father"! The ordinary reader may well wonder whether seemingly casual inclusion of naughty gossip is a convention in serious cross-cultural scholarship! As a matter of fact, love and adoration of Shivaji is the bottomline truth, and we have never come across such a motivated rumour until Laine's book was published!
It must be asserted that Shahaji, the "absentee father", was forced to lodge his expecting wife and yet-to-be-born child in the safe haven of Shivneri fort because of untold political uncertainty prevailing around the time Shivaji was born (and not, it must be mentioned, any estrangement between husband and wife as some writers with but skewed imagination attempt to portray). Shahaji, who was practically ruling Nizamshahi as Regent on behalf of the minor Murtaza Nizamshah, was actively engaged in fending off threats from Mughals and Adilshah. Immediately after the fall of the Nizamshahi in 1636, Shahaji's new service in the Adilshahi took him to Bangalore, but he continued holding and administering through Dadoji Konddev, his old land titles in the Pune region. According to the custom of the day, he took another wife in Bangalore who gave birth to Vyankoji the founder of the Thanjavur Bhosale dynasty, distinguished by its patronage of both Tamil and Marathi culture and arts. Shahajiraje thus bequeathed to India two distinct dynasties of visionary rulers. All these facts are well documented and should suffice to prevent irresponsible speculation on account of Shahaji's absence from the Pune region.
On page 91, Laine asks with an unnecessary soupçon of dramatization, "Can one imagine a narrative of Shivaji's life in which, for example: Shivaji had an unhappy family life? Shivaji had a harem? Shivaji was uninterested in the religion of bhakti saints? Shivaji's personal ambition was to build a kingdom, not liberate a nation? Shivaji lived in a cosmopolitan Islamicate world and did little to change that fact?" Had he really read and gleaned anything from the references listed at the end of the book, such perturbing questions would not have arisen. For instance, it was practically de rigeur for men of status in Shivaji's time to have more than one wife. To go much further back, let us recall that Lord Rama's father too had several queens. The custom had nothing whatsoever to do with practices prevailing in a "cosmopolitan Islamicate world". However, isn't having several legally wedded wives very different from keeping a harem? Surely, Laine appreciates the essential difference!
Also, as Shivaji's biography reveals, he was surrendered to sages like Ramdas and the pre-eminent bhakti poet, Tukaram, of which well documented fact Laine feigns such complete ignorance!
With adequate answers to each one of Laine's questions easily obtainable in his references, is his pretence indicative of a deeper, sinister motive to compromise, restrain and perhaps even destroy the extraordinary reverence in which Shivaji is held?
For a presumably accomplished scholar (ref: his curriculum vitae at http://www.indiana.edu/~easc/taa_seminar/taa2003/minneapolis/Lainecv.htm) who has spent several decades in close contact with Maharashtra, it is amazing - even distressing - that Laine has understood almost nothing about the veneration Shivaji commands in 'native' consciousness. In that sense, his scholarship may well have been wasted! For him to say now that he had "foolishly misread the situation in India and figured the book would receive scholarly criticism, not censorship and condemnation" is appalling, at the very least. You can hardly foolishly misread a situation that has existed for over three centuries, the study of which is the declared intention of your scholarship, not to mention the "love of the Shivaji story" you avowedly evince! A similar exercise, as confessed by Laine (http://www.sulekha.com/chpost.asp?forum=books&cid=26438&show=0), in the case of a Jesus Christ or a Thomas Jefferson is entirely incapable of provoking as vehement a reaction because these characters do not command the supreme reverence in their specific locales that Shivaji does in his.
No doubt Laine is aware how Christ has virtually no following as a religious teacher in the West, what with Church attendances falling alarmingly, and the paucity of preachers needing imports from 'third world' countries to supplant the dwindling numbers of octogenarian clergymen! In an exercise very reminiscent of the present one, Jefferson's greatness as a rationalist, especially his radically piercing views like "The Christian God is a being of terrific character -- cruel, vindictive, capricious, and unjust" (Jefferson, Bible) about Christianity and its Church, was sought by disadvantaged parties to be compromised by the exposition of some tenuous incident in the statesman's life, which few seem to have bought anyway. But it is necessary to ascertain whether genuine scholars or detractors authored the "widely varying accounts" about Jefferson and Christ that Laine claims to have "seen". Since a true scholar would hardly countenance rumour or gossip as evidence, detractors with no compunctions about relying on tittle-tattle to score a point most probably penned them.
Because Laine has indirectly questioned Shivaji's paternity without a shard of documentary evidence, he sadly gets categorized in the latter class and his claim to a "love for the Shivaji story" falls to pieces! Incidentally, there are certain to be "other ways of reading the historical evidence", but only if historical evidence, and not malicious fabrication, is offered in the first place.
Laine ought to have grasped the reality that there just can be no comparison between Shivaji and the likes of those two others from the Indian, especially Maharashtrian, point of view! The learned author, in spite of his protracted contact with the region since 1977, failed to realise that the "Shivaji story", as narrated in every Maharashtrian home, has far more significance and enjoys immensely greater credibility than all the 'history' taught in academia. And, by his own admission, was it not the development of this "Shivaji story" that he had set out to study? Moreover, the growth in recent years of a strong and eminently justifiable public perception that a vast majority of academics have been indulging in wanton politicization of scholarship at the expense of truth bolsters this awareness.
Secondly, Shivaji is not merely a "Maharashtrian" hero, as Laine not so subtly avers in his facetious apology. Shivaji was the first Indian leader in relatively recent history to contemplate political self-determination and successfully put it into practice at a time when all others were blissfully unaware of both the existence and possibility of such a thing! Such visionary quality alone elevates Shivaji to a pioneering 'national' stature, head and shoulders above all his peers and contemporaries. His exploits had obviously become common knowledge even during his lifetime. Bhooshan, hailing from the environs of the Mughal capital wrote epic poetry about him, while Chhatrasal who traveled from Bundelkhand to seek employment with him was bade to return to his territories and there establish his own independence. The slant in Laine's apology to localize and thus limit Shivaji's influence is not as innocuous as it appears - something not likely to be overlooked by discerning readers! Indeed, since it takes a foreigner to convince us of the greatness of things indigenous, it would be pertinent to quote Bamber Gascoigne: "He (Shivaji) taught the modern Hindus to rise to the full stature of their growth. So, when viewed with hindsight through twentieth century glasses, Aurangzeb on the one side and Shivaji on the other come to be seen as key figures in the development of India. What Shivaji began Gandhi could complete ..and what Aurangzeb stood for would lead to the establishment of the separate state of Pakistan." (The Great Moghuls, London: Constable) (Emphasis mine) It is sad to see how all the years Laine spent in India were so utterly in vain, if he has failed to note and appreciate this, the most distinguishing and vital aspect of the "Shivaji story"!
There seems to be more to the book than mere scholarship. One is reminded of what Thomas Paine wrote, in a slightly different context perhaps, in the opening lines of his The Rights of Man about Edmund Burke's unwarranted interest in French affairs. It amply illustrates a tendency to dabble that Laine evidently shares with Burke: "Among the incivilities by which nations or individuals provoke and irritate each other, Mr.Burke's pamphlet on the French Revolution is an extraordinary instance. Neither the people of France, nor the National Assembly, were troubling themselves about the affairs of England, or the English Parliament; and why Mr. Burke should commence an unprovoked attack upon them, both in Parliament and in public, is a conduct that cannot be pardoned on the score of manners, nor justified on that of policy." (London: J.M.Dent, 1993, p. 7)
With suitable substitutions, the sentiments expressed by Paine could apply rather well to Laine's avoidable blundering foray into Indian culture and history. If, "as an American and a Christian", Laine had, for instance, devoted more time to finding out why enthusiasm for Christ is petering out so rapidly in his home country, he might have been spared the pain of living through "the saddest day" in his career! But, prudent apprehension of censorship and cessation of grants by the current American ruling class hailing from the Southern Christian Moral Majority might perhaps have served as an important deterrent in the case of similar misadventures closer home!
It is the "Shivaji story" that transcends every conceivable faction of Maharashtrian society and has always served as an efficacious uniting factor, the demolition of which can be perceived to serve powerful interests in present times. India in general and its Maharashtrian Hindu population in particular have traditionally been ultra-soft targets for a sundry assortment of deluded Indophiles anyway, and the once-correct belief that one can get away with almost murder has motivated several similar 'research' exercises in the past. But, apparently, not any more! Constituents of the more impulsive but perhaps less informed majority in Maharashtra are more likely than not to smell in Laine's dissertation the same intellectual chicanery attempted through the purchase by British colonizers (for a princely sum of £3000, paid in easy installments, may it be noted!) of Max Muller's erudition a century ago with the studied intention of demoralizing a whole nation by denigration of its antiquity, pre-eminence, culture, religion and history. It might be perceived by the populace that one of its greatest heroes is being put under an iniquitous microscope with precisely that same objective. Such heinous strategies may have worked beautifully under colonial rule, but are less than likely to work now - a reality Laine appears to have dangerously overlooked. A significantly large proportion of the Indian polity has begun 'thinking independently', albeit to the detriment of brokers of international geopolitical stakes. In this sense, the book might well qualify as yet another attempt at fragmentation of the steadily developing strength of a society that is waking up to a realization of the many historical frauds perpetrated on itself for centuries.
If, unfortunately, promoting social discord was indeed a purpose of the book, the attempt may have partially succeeded with what happened at the Bhandarkar Institute; the first salvo has been fired by pitting Maratha against Brahmin. Unless we desire lumpen elements to take undue advantage of the fallout of the regrettable BORI incident, concerted and well informed public opinion needs to be nurtured to arrest and neutralize machinations of a wildly proliferating class of pliable political paid pipers! Because Laine has blatantly used, in the matter of Shivaji's parentage at least, sources that cannot pass the test of reliability even by a long shot, it is necessary for scholars to scrutinize the entire work for its truthfulness, especially the development of communalised identities upon which he dwells at great length. All frivolous 'scholarship' needs to be unequivocally discredited and disowned by intellectuals in the interests of veracity and probity in academia.
While undeniably condemning the attack on the Bhandarkar Institute archives, with the plea that the guilty should not go unpunished, should we not also examine the role of the so-called 'thinkers' who might perhaps unwittingly have assisted if not actually set up Laine's mischief in the first place? Laine mentions in the Acknowledgments (p. viii) that his "scholarly home has been the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune" where he "profited from advice and assistance". Once the BORI administration realised the explosive nature of the book's contents, and how they were sitting on a time bomb for all these months, it might have been appropriate for them to issue a strong public denial and condemnation of the author, in no uncertain terms, for his highly objectionable effort to convert innuendo and gossip into a matter of documentary record.
It is up to Laine to inform his readers as to how and where he dug up this disgusting rumour casting aspersions upon the character of Shivaji's mother, who is herself a figure of great veneration to all. She was a single mother of great character and substance: the fountainhead of inspiration of Shivaji's life's work.
Needless to state, all this only applies if the real intention behind the book was more than what Laine declares. But from even its very title, the book comes through more like an exercise in skullduggery, which is unfortunate!
If research is undertaken with the ultimate aim of benefiting humanity, one wonders how the present book can achieve that end! Scholars ought not to forget that institutions supporting them are rooted in their particular indigenous ethos to which they must be accountable, especially when the results are sought to be commercially exploited through book sales.
The body fabric of a resurgent India, and particularly that of a progressive state like Maharashtra, can well do without such vicious 'scholarship' inflicting upon it further damage. We hope that saner counsel will prevail, as a fitting tribute to its chief architect, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.
-- Bhalchandrarao C. Patvardhan
& Amodini Bagwe
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