Author: Assistant Professor
Vijay Prashad
URL: http://www.proxsa.org/history/shivaji.html
Our modern consciousness harbors
within itself rather peculiar ideas. We pride ourselves on our tremendous
advances from a pre-modern past which we almost universally see as depraved
(at the very least in economic and political terms). On the other hand,
we turn to the past for our heroes: and these heroes are absorbed without
criticism (in fact, criticism is tantamount to heresy in some circles).
Thus, America lauds its Founding Fathers (Jefferon, Madison, Hamilton,
Washington) even though these gentlemen practiced a form of slavery which
does not square with their genteel image. The Indian Republic has immortalized
Gandhi, which is one of the tragedies of our contemporary world: Gandhi,
the mischievous radical, is reduced to being a statue rather than a living
presence in our corrupt and battered body politic. The Pakistani state
has hallowed Jinnah, whose virulent criticisms of theocracy are now not
allowed to inform the citizens of a state wracked by avarice and hypocrisy.
The Rashtriya Sevak Sangh and its American kin, the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh
(HSS), have taken Shivaji as their icon (India West, 21 June 1996): that
adoption needs to be criticised for what it does to the historical record.
At their 16 June Hindu Sangathan
Diwas, the HSS hosted Shripati Shastry (RSS) who recounted the life of
Shivaji who (as India West reports) "fought Mughal emperor Aurangzeb."
"Hindu civilization," Shastry said, "had been battered by the constant
brutal assaults of foreigners. Shivaji challenged that attack." HSS also
presented a play by Bal Bihar students entitled 'Shivaji and Afzal Khan.'
Reading this story, I was startled by the ease with which our media allows
such presentations to pass by without comment. At the very least, the historical
record should be scoured to check if Shivaji indeed did fight Aurangzeb
to constitute 'Hindu civilization' and if he made it his purpose to cleanse
the subcontinent of 'foreigners.'
(1) Shivaji and Aurangzeb.
Shivaji Bhonsla (1627-1680) came
from a family of Maratha aristocrats and military bureaucrats. The first
half of his career (until 1660) as a fief-holder was consumed by his battle
with the rather powerless Sultanate of Bijapur. He was able to extend
his power by making alliances with Maratha hill chiefs and by ensuring
that the Mughal overlord was given a wide berth: Shivaji was not interested
in taking Delhi, only in forming a fiefdom in Aurangabad and Bijapur. In
November 1656, Aurangzeb and his amir, Mir Jumla, went ahead with an old
plan to take Bijapur at the death of the Sultan, Muhammad Adil Shah. Shivaji
was not a factor in the equation (for he was only one of many factious
nobles and zamindars). Shivaji was able to rout the Bijapur army and Afzal
Khan, commander of a Mughal force. of 10, 000. In Shivaji's second phase
(1660-1674), he extended his holding, notably by destroying Baharji Borah
who was reputed to be the world's richest merchant. At Purander in 1665,
Shivaji capitulated to Jai Singh and Aurangzeb. In 1668, Shivaji's repeated
petitions to Aurangzeb won him the title 'Raja' and Chakan fort. After
the Mughal treasury refused to reimburse him for a trip he took to Agra,
he took up arms again. With Aurangzeb the battle was over power and resources,
rather than on religious grounds. Shivaji very comfortably petitioned Aurangzeb
to recognize him as a 'Raja,' a feat which would not sit well with the
HSS rendition of the man as a fighter for Hinduism.
(2) Shivaji and 'Hindu civilization'
In June 1674, Shivaji was crowned
as a Hindu monarch. Since he came from Shudra stock, the chief sent for
Gagga Bhatta (the notable Brahmin from Benares) to declare that Shivaji's
ancestor's were truly Kshatriyas who descended from the solar line of the
Ranas of Mewar. He was invested with the janeau, with the Vedas and was
bathed in an abisheka. A Shudra became a Rajput, but the bulk of the other
dalits remained in their misbegotten position at the bottom of society.
Shivaji's investiture was a political move which allowed him to exert his
power over hill chiefs who were not under his military control. One would
imagine that Shivaji would now eschew alliances with Muslims, however,
the first major alliance made by the monarch was with Abul Hasan, the Qutb
Shah Sultan. They began a campaign against the Bijapur Karanatak, including
the monarch's own half-brother, Vyankoji Bhonsla. The Mughal regime was
left untouched by this 'Hindu' king. The later Shivaji did not consolidate
'Hindus' to fight 'Muslims,' but he continued his trajectory of securing
power in the Konkan region. One might add that Shambhaji, Shivaji's son,
raped a Brahmin woman in December 1678: such facts often get lost in the
blind valorization of historical figures.
I have offered all these details
for the simple reason that one must not allow our contemporary politicians
(and the HSS/RSS are politicians) to define our historical record. There
is a tendency to simplify, which is tantamount to distortion. Shivaji claimed
to be a 'Hindu' king when it suited him, but he acted (most of the time)
as a rebellious zamindar and hill-chief. History must remain more than
propaganda. The tragedy of the communalization of history is that those
who write these false histories are less interested in the past and more
interested in organizing people into bigoted groups.
Vijay Prashad
---------------------------
Vijay Prashad
Assistant Assistant Professor,
International Studies
214 McCook Academic Building
Trinity College, Hartford, CT.
06106.
Ph: 860-297-2518!
===================================
RESPONSE
One could not agree more with Assistant
Professor Vijay Prashad's contention that turning to the past for our heroes,
and absorbing them without critical scrutiny, is in direct contrast to
our pride in having outgrown our presumably baneful pre-modern past. Indeed,
one may even say that it is tantamount to a blatant renunciation of the
much-vaunted spirit of objectivity - the presumed hallmark of our times!
It is perfectly in order, therefore, for one ostensibly as committed to
the importance of impartial inquiry as Assistant Professor Prashad, to
subject the life of Shivaji to the touchstone of thorough research and
logical inference. Needless to state, the exercise must not stop at Shivaji,
but must equally be extended to other eminent Indians that have been 'commandeered'
for seemingly political purposes.
Unfortunately for all of us, and
ever more so for him, his short article, "The Complexities of Shivaji",
<http://www.proxsa.org/history/shivaji.html>, cannot become his best
claim to have done either of those things.
His research on Shivaji, if indeed
he has done any, is far from thorough. For instance, when he mentions that,
"Shivaji was able to rout the Bijapur army and Afzal Khan, commander of
a Mughal force of 10,000", he is blissfully unaware that Afzal Khan was
commander NOT of the Mughal force, but the Adilshahi army from Bijapur!
Also, in 1656, at the time of the death of Muhammad Adilshah of Bijapur
(November 4), Shah Jehan and NOT Aurangzeb was on the throne of Delhi,
the latter ascending to it only in 1658 after neutralising the challenge
posed by his three brothers, and incarcerating his ailing father in the
Agra fort. He says further "Shivaji was not a factor in the equation".
Apparently unbeknownst to the learned Assistant Professor, Shivaji had
become very much of that 'factor' way back in 1649, ever since he succeeded
in bringing indirect Mughal pressure to secure the release of his father
from Adilshahi imprisonment. Surely, the Mughals could not have been bothered
about Shivaji if he was "only one of many factious nobles and zamindars"
(even one of whom he conveniently omits to name)! He also says that Shivaji
sent "repeated petitions to Aurangzeb" for recognition as 'Raja'. The fact
is that Shivaji had so intensified his attacks on the Mughals after his
dramatic escape from Agra (August 17, 1666, or, according to researcher
Dr.Ajit Joshi, July 22), that it was the Governor in Aurangabad - and NOT
Shivaji - who, in utter desperation and as a measure of appeasement, pleaded
with Aurangzeb for that imperial 'favour'! The Assistant Professor introduces
Shivaji as hailing from "a family of Maratha aristocrats and military bureaucrats",
and then goes on to state "he came from Shudra stock"! Let us, only for
the sake of argument, assume that this palpable contradiction is not too
inane to be shunned out of hand, and that the Bhosala family was socially
one of the lowest-born. Even so, one is clueless at best to comprehend
why someone claiming descent from the preeminent Yadav dynasty of Devgiri
(Islamised to 'Daulatabad'), should have committed the hierarchical 'atrocity'
of giving his daughter, Jijabai (Shivaji's mother), in marriage to a lowly
born Shudra! The Assistant Professor seems to have rashly ignored the possibility
that social taboos were infinitely more tenacious three centuries ago than
they are today, and that Lakhuji Jadhavrao (Jijabai's father) might have
faced grave problems marrying off his other children! Hence, what the Assistant
Professor states about Gaga Bhatta being invited to declare the Shudra
as a Rajput is pure poppycock, and the result of motivated scholarship.
These are bloomers, and bloomers
hardly sit well with either honesty and sincerity on the one hand, or academic
excellence and professional reputation on the other!
The inferences drawn by reliance
on superficial research and incorrect information are doomed to be flawed,
illogical and undependable.
The writer wishes to bring home
his view that Shivaji had no real ideological quarrel with Aurangzeb; that
he was merely competing with him for power and resources; that he patched
up alliances with more proximate Muslim rulers even at the height of his
power only to undo other local rulers including his kith and kin, leaving
the Mughals unscathed; that his coronation as a Hindu monarch "was a political
move which allowed him to exert his power over hill chiefs who were not
under his military control"; that he had little or nothing to do with the
emancipation of 'Hindu Civilisation'; and finally that much of what the
rest of us consider as a fairly accurate estimate of the man is the result
of our incorrigible "tendency to simplify, which is tantamount to distortion"!
The wisdom of passing judgement
on someone's life work based solely on his nascent career and a few selected
policies and acts, is questionable. For instance, when Assistant Professor
Prashad decided to undertake the pursuit of academics as a profession,
he must necessarily have made a modest beginning at some unglamorous elementary
level in an obscure institution within his once limited reach. He can hardly
be expected to have sprung directly from the cradle into either a University
of Chicago doctorate in 1994 or an Assistant Professorship at Trinity College!
And, if one were to say at such early juncture that his aim was not Professorship
(Assistant though it is) at the Trinity College, but merely the attainment
of some non-descript inferior degree, one might be accused of silliness
and immature judgment. Given the time and circumstances, the good Assistant
Professor did eventually make it to the coveted position in which we happily
find him today! However, an estimate of his entire career, based completely
on his hardly spectacular or selectively-rendered early achievements, wouldn't
be short of gross absurdity. Indeed, it is hoped he may yet attain higher
positions demanding greater responsibility and thoroughness in his chosen
calling! Sadly, one is not privy to sufficient information about Assistant
Professor Prashad's aspirations in his formative years to say with any
degree of certainty whether or not a he aspired to something higher than
a comfortable and lucrative teaching job in the New World!
In the case of Shivaji, on the other
hand, we are more fortunate, for there is enough contemporary source material,
establishing unambiguously that he not only intended to rid the land of
intolerant governments arrogantly inimical to indigenous interests, but
also to re-establish a rule of righteousness, which he chose to identify
as "Hindavi Swarajya"!
As early as 1645 C.E., when Shivaji
was yet in his teens, he had begun the administration of his father's estate
under a pesonalised seal of authority in Sanskrit - a clear indication
of his envisaged independence and his reverence for the indigenous Hindu
tradition! In a letter written in 1646 to Dadaji Naras Prabhu (Deshpande
& Kulkarni of the Rohidkhore and Velvand sub-division), Shivaji refers
to a solemn oath they (Shivaji, Prabhu, and several others) had taken in
the presence of the presiding deity at Rayareshwar, whereby they had resolved
to found 'Hindavi Swarajya'. The word "Hindavi" connotes both 'Indian'
in a loose geographical sense (just as the word 'Ludhianvi' is used to
mean 'belonging to Ludhiana'), and 'Hindu' in a deeper religio-cultural
sense.
That an independent 'Hindavi' state
should be established, was regarded by him almost as a divine cause - a
conviction reflected much too often in his letters and records to be dismissed
as mere coincidence. So, there ought really to be no doubt that swarajya
or self-determination, qualified by the adjective 'Hindavi' (unequivocally
testifying to his firm conviction about the beneficial effects of inclusivist,
humane and tolerant characteristics of pristine Indian thought), was one
of his principal aims.
On the backdrop of this indisputable
evidence, which has obviously escaped the 'research' conducted by the Assistant
Professor, his claim that Shivaji was only interested in carving out a
fiefdom for himself at Aurangabad and Bijapur, becomes untenable. On the
contrary, Shivaji emerges as one of the greatest sons of India, benevolently
nationalistic to the core, and endowed with a vision conspicuous only by
its absence among all of his contemporaries! Unlike them, he was moved
by the prevailing pathetic state of the polity very early in his career,
and did everything within his power to provide the necessary corrective.
He evinced both the desire and the ability to lead the Nation to finally
come into its own!
If Shivaji began his exploits first
against the "rather powerless Sultanate of Bijapur" it was perhaps because
the latter was his immediate neighbour! Whether that Sultanate was indeed
as powerless as the good Assistant Professor attempts to make out, is a
debatable point, especially when it is observed that it took the powerful
Mughals all of thirty years from 1656 C.E., as well as Aurangzeb's personal
campaigning, to finally relegate it to oblivion! The Assistant Professor
also forgets that it was the Adilshah at Bijapur who held possession of
much of the western coastline, the control of which would secure logistic
support for the first indigenous Navy that Shivaji was to commission not
too much later.
At one stage in his article, the
Assistant Professor falsely infers from Shripati Shastri's remarks that
'Shivaji made it his purpose to cleanse the subcontinent of 'foreigners'.
What that ideologue of the RSS had actually said, as quoted in the article
itself, was 'Hindu civilization had been battered by the constant brutal
assaults of foreigners. Shivaji challenged that attack.' Challenging attacks
by foreigners and evicting them are two qualitatively distinct matters,
and one is astonished at the relative ease and audacity with which the
author attempts to confound the two! As can be seen from the many 'foreigners'
employed by Shivaji to serve even in responsible positions, he seems to
have had the least intention to undertake any form of 'ethnic cleansing'.
Indeed, his unremitting commitment to the tolerance and inclusivism of
Hinduism would have prevented any such act even if the thought had occurred
to him. For centuries before Shivaji, these intolerant and hostile foreign
elements, in the form of one Sultanate or the other, had subjected the
indigenous population to cultural humiliation and economic ruin by their
religio-cultural, economic and political policies. All Shivaji aspired
to do, and seemed to have been eminently successful in initiating, was
to put an end to this. And in doing so, it must be emphasized, he was free
from even the slightest bigotry (for which most of the Sultans, particularly
his arch-adversary, Aurangzeb, are perhaps best known); even contemporary
Muslim records (notably Khafi Khan) bear testimony to this unique quality.
In any case, one wonders why the
Asstt.Professor dwells so emphatically on Shripati Shastri's first claim
that Shivaji "fought Mughal emperor Aurangzeb"? Whether he fought the relatively
distant Mughals, the proximate Deccan sultans, or his own folk is a point
that should interest historiographers. For the rest of us - and that does
not exclude Assistant Professor Prashad - interested in understanding Shivaji's
motives without unnecessarily being weighed down with intricate and cumbersome
details, it is enough to appreciate the fact that he fought anybody and
everybody who came between him and his declared objective of self-determination.
In one of the more amusing statements
in the article, the author cites the case of a certain merchant, Bahirji
Bohra, who he claims was 'destroyed' by Shivaji enabling the latter to
'extend his holding'! The Assistant Professor's sense of proportion makes
the lamented Bahirji, richest merchant in the world et al, into something
of a powerful adversary, singled out for 'destruction' by Shivaji! He was
nothing of the sort. Bahirji was just one of the many prosperous traders
in Surat who were subjected to a levy by Shivaji (the names of some of
the other merchants were: Haji Sayyad Beg, Haji Kasam, Sayyad Shahid Beg,
Mulla Abdul Jafar, etc.). This levy, incidentally, would otherwise have
been credited to the Mughal treasury - more specifically to the paan and
tobacco expenses of Aurangzeb's pampered and profligate sister. (It is
more than likely that these worthies, with their keen business acumen,
made up for the levy before the year was out!) For Shivaji, however, it
meant a substantial compensation from Mughal territory for the economic
devastation that Shaista Khan's three-year campaign (March 3, 1660 to April
8, 1663) had visited upon the Maratha hinterland.
One wonders how Shivaji's lofty
ideals and noble deeds are in any way eclipsed or compromised if his son,
Sambhaji, raped a woman, unless the Assistant Professor has uncovered some
new evidence in his 'research' which implicates Shivaji in the heinous
act as an instigator or accomplice! That Sambhaji was given a trial and
sentenced to imprisonment has been conveniently ignored. (Fortunately,
the woman in question was not of Shudra stock, otherwise the article might
easily have assumed the length of a tome!)
Perhaps, it would do all of us a
great deal of good to consider the careers of some other warrior-patriots.
Maharana Pratap, preceded Shivaji by a hundred years and Rani Laxmibai
of Jhansi, followed two centuries later: both opposed the foreign ruler
- the Mughals in the first case and the British in the second. Their exemplary
resolve and indefatigable courage set a lofty precedent for many generations
of freedom fighters to emulate. Dispossession of their respective kingdoms
and holdings supplied the chief motive for a recourse to armed struggle.
On the other hand, Shivaji lacked like provocation for his initiative -
a feature that sets him apart from most. He was put in charge by his father
of the jagirs of Pune and Supe which yielded sufficient revenue to assure
him a life of opulence and ease, like almost all of his peers, needing
only occasionally to render military service to the Sultan. With the exceptional
qualities of head and heart with which he was amply endowed, it would not
have been long before he rose to eminence in such service and effortlessly
seized himself of 'fiefdoms in Aurangabad and Bijapur', or for that matter,
any other places he may have been eyeing with avaricious interest, if that
was his sole aim as propounded by the Assistant Professor! There was no
earthly need for him to ceaselessly risk his life and fortunes for almost
four decades for something he already had in sufficient measure, and could
have rejoiced in the certain prospect of getting more! One wonders if either
the Assistant Professor or such others as have had a significant part to
play in 'setting the historical record right' have ever been perturbed
by considerations like this!
It is more than apparent from his
article that the Assistant Professor's knowledge of Maratha history of
Shivaji's time is sketchy at best and appallingly inaccurate at worst.
One is forced to feel that the author has only used the occasion of the
news item of the 16 June Hindu Sangathan Divas to vent his spleen against
a developing cultural awareness among an increasing number of thinking
people. Why the Assistant Professor should regard this phenomenon with
indignant apprehension, as he obviously seems to, is unfathomable. However,
he is not the only one to be thus shaken. There are large numbers among
our respected intelligentsia who have begun to see the writing on the wall!
Incidentally, Assistant Professor
Prashad is not the first to point accusing fingers or downplay the unparalleled
achievements of one of the greatest men who walked the earth. He is in
august company, ranging from those who, in sheer helpless exasperation
called him a 'mountain rat', to those who, either from ignorance or plain
malice, had the effrontery to evaluate him as a 'misguided patriot' (as
if the 'rightly-guided' variety was their inherited monopoly!) There is
also a disturbing but distinct tendency to conjure up a truism that disproportionate,
'larger-than-life' statures are accorded to historical personalities to
create a 'nationalist mythology'! In the April 10-16, 1993 issue of The
Illustrated Weekly of India, Nancy Adjania, in her article, 'Myths and
Supermyths', refers to Maharana Pratap, Shivaji and Rani Lakshmibai of
Jhansi. Quite predictably, she toes just such a line like the adept in
contemporary 'intellectualism' she believes herself to be! She writes,
"History is a luxury that a colonised population on the threshold of freedom
cannot afford. It thus becomes imperative for a nascent nation to produce
a costume drama for itself, in lieu of the past. The nation's origins and
antecedents are explained away by means of a series of tableaux vivants,
splendidly mounted by adept ideologues within the proscenium of mythology.
The first function of this nationalist mythology is the creation of exemplars,
role models. For this purpose, cultural heroes and heroines are abstracted
from the intricate cross-weave of their original context. Deprived of the
political and cultural specificities of which they were actually the creatures,
they are converted into larger-than-life figures."
However, the overwhelming mass of
contemporaneous evidence - as much from hostile as from friendly sources
- leaves little room for presuming the creation of any such 'costume drama'.
History, to one like the Hindu who needs to measure it not in centuries
but in unbroken millennia, far from being a luxury, is but a re-statement
of the sublime cause that make his cultural moorings fast and unique in
the world. The tableau vivant, to which she so disparagingly refers, in
the case at least of Shivaji, was actually played out three centuries ago
amid vibrant, vivid, hard adversity - with real weapons honed on the noble
aspirations and untold suffering of millions of sons-of-the-soil. The more
than scintillating results broke forth from within the confines of the
proscenium to leave a lasting impression on the stage of the world! Real
Indian history, it needs to be appreciated, does not require stage props
to be inspiring!
Shivaji thought way ahead of his
times. His hand was guided by justice and his heart was expanded by benevolence;
his actions resulted from an inspiration of which none of his peers knew
even by hearsay!
The uniqueness of this great Hindu
has been aptly summed up in the following:
"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"
No, this isn't part of the unrepentant
Sangh Parivaar's communal propaganda. It is a statement made by Bamber
Gascoigne, author of "THE GREAT MOGHULS", (Constable & Co. Ltd., 3,
The Lanchesters, 162 Fulham Palace Road, London W6 9ER)!
Since there is no known link between
Gascoigne and the RSS, a serious reflection upon his remarkable statement
by the likes of Asstt.Prof. Prashad should not prove too detrimental to
their much-vaunted secular, progressive and modernist credentials!
An honest, unmotivated appraisal
of history, might just convince the Assistant Professor that few, if any,
in India's recent history could measure up to the stature of Shivaji. Far
from lauding the RSS/HSS, therefore, for its excellent judgment in seeking
inspiration from so stimulating an emancipator, the Assistant Professor
goes to the preposterous extent of saying that the move should 'be criticised
for what it does to the historical record'. Mere adoption as an icon cannot
do anything whatsoever to the historical record. Neither, for that matter,
can a play dramatising the momentous meeting between Shivaji and Afzal
Khan, unless of course the Khan gets to be portrayed in it as a Mughal
general, a la Prashad!
If Asstt.Prof. Prashad is as justly
proud and comfortable with his Hindu name as I am with mine, he might perhaps
be able to appreciate the tremendous significance that the following couplet
by the poet, Bhooshan (a contemporary of Shivaji), has for most of us:
"Kasihki Kala Gayee, Mathura Masid
Bhaee;
Gar Shivaji Na Hoto, To Sunati
Hot Sabaki!
[Kashi has lost its splendour, Mathura
has become a mosque; If Shivaji had not been, All would have been circumcised
(islamised)!]
If that significance is not lost
on the learned Asstt. Professor, Shivaji would forthwith cease to be so
replete in complexities!
==================
Bhalchandrarao C Patwardhan
