Makers of Modern India

by Ramachandra Guha

  The fifth point, then—that women are the storehouse of all guilt. In fact, it’s the other way round—when women go wrong it’s always because of you. See now. Many fathers marry off their daughters of ten or eleven, girls who shine like little stars, they marry them for a fat wad of rupees to some rich old man of eighty or ninety. They eye the old man’s wealth and say, ‘Well—it won’t really matter if he does die, will it? She’ll never want for money, after all. In a couple of days, she’ll be back to eating and drinking, putting on ornaments, dressing as usual and so on. What does it matter if there’s no husband?’ With words like that they hand her over shamelessly, like a goat to the tiger. Oh, but the husband has gone who would have been her real happiness and love, who would have taken pleasure in her ornamenting and dressing up, who would have praised her and cherished her more than life itself. With him gone, the whole world is just a wilderness to her. What’s the point of this empty ceremony for her? In the old days, a woman used to go as sati—that was good. She could turn herself to ashes along with him, and it was all over with.

  Apart from her mother, no one will ever love her as much as a husband, that’s certain. When she’s lost both, where’s she going to get strength to pull on through her days, with the flaming coals of youth burning in her breast? This is the position of girls given away just for money.

  Some people give away their daughters as second wives. But there’s no weapon that pierces a woman so painfully as the thorn of being given as second wife. A wife’s blood boils if her husband just looks a bit closely at another woman. And that’s just looking. So how can she bear it if he goes and marries someone else, or takes another woman on the side, whether it happens inside the house or not? You’ll never ever find two women living happily in the same house. You can treat them as equally as you like in things like jewellery and clothes. But how can you love two in the same way as one? Love isn’t like a mango or a guava—you can’t cut it up and share it out. Love is like milk. Once it’s gone sour, you can’t make it good again, no matter how much you stir it about. Once it’s separated, you can’t put it back together. Yes, it’s only natural for people to prefer new things over the old, it doesn’t matter who it is. But a man’s wife has only to look at someone else with a bit of interest and he’ll work himself up into the most furious rage. Then her family has to suffer in disgrace and she gets beaten, locked up and harassed. Why doesn’t any of this apply to you?

  If you can’t bear her just looking, will she stand it when it feels like a burning pan right on her chest? Why do people give their girls away as second wives? If someone has lots of daughters, often they’ll just give them to any husband that comes along. It doesn’t matter what he’s like—some push their daughters off onto a man who’ll quite plainly destroy his family. A man can be as ugly as you like, full of vices, pitiless and cruel, fond of beating and harassing, who’ll even keep his family short of food and drink. But people still give their girls to such bringers of misery, handing them over like cows to a butcher. A whole cartload of paper wouldn’t be enough if I tried to describe it all here. So whose fault is it then, if women run away because of it? The father’s or the daughter’s? …

  Now for the sixth point. Which of us is really soaked a hundred times over in deceit? You’re number one here. How can we describe your deceit? Every step and there’s an example. Look at all the disguises you get yourself up in—you could even paint your body black and yellow striped and change into a tiger. You turn yourselves into gosavis, fakirs, haridasas, brahmacharis, sadhus, dudharais, giripuris, bharatis, nanaks, kanphotas, jogis, jatadharis, nanges, you pretend you’ve renounced the whole world, smear ashes on your bodies, grow your hair matted and go off to live in the jungle—you go round deceiving all the world with your tricks. Who’s that, it’s a ramgiribuva, that one a shastribuva, another parades as Ganpatibuva Phaltankar the great sadu, another as a nanakpanthi. What qualities they all have! What can we say? They’ve got all the proper merits, they’re so detached, they hand out holy mantras. They only have to tell us and we believe them. As the buva’s fame spreads he takes to stuffing himself with rich delicacies and grows sleek and shiny like a tomcat, then somehow his religious duties get forgotten. He sits there as the women come to take his darshan and prays on very different beads. He picks out some specially who are young and freshly nubile, and there he sits, meditating and repeating to himself, this one’s nice, that one’s pretty! Not a word about your Shiva or Hari, they’re all forgotten! The only name on his lips is that girl’s who looks just like the milkmaid Radha. The only thing he’s got eyes for is that fresh young flower’s pretty laughing face, and inside it’s Mr Money he’s meditating on! He might look as though he’s crazy—but it’s crazy like a fox! …

  Oh yes, you put strings of sacred tulsi beads around your necks, you go round reciting the virtues of Vitthal, posing as servants of Hari, famous beggars, you take yourselves off to Kashi. But do you think you can wipe it all clean by going off there and shaving your beard and moustaches as penance?

  You can offer up your moustaches and throw them on the waters of the [Ganga], but do you think you can bundle up your vices and do the same with them? Of course you can’t—that way you only get more pride and bad desires. Outside you make as if you’re the holiest of holy men—but can even [the Ganga’s] waters put out the flaming torch of deceit inside you?

  So, you take the sanyasi vow, do you? Then you should give up all your hopes and desires. There you are, with your saffron robes, your staff and water-pot in your hand, honouring all the world and its creatures like Narayan himself. But let’s look at what happens on the banks of the Ganges, when you’re washing and purifying yourself on the beautiful stone steps, smearing pound after pound of ashes on your body, sitting there repeating the name, Paramatma Sheshashayi Shrinarayan, and telling prayer beads with the gomukhi on your hand. When your ears catch the sound of feet on the first step of the ghat, your eyes dart up, the glove falls from your hand, our buva’s thrown into confusion and Narayan runs right out of his mouth. What sort of a Narayan is it coming now? It’s one in the form of a woman, and now it’s she who goes and sits in the buva’s gomukhi. ‘Outside they parade in saffron robes; inside the ulcer of evil thoughts’. Who really sees what’s going on? It’s collect money from alms and off to a whore with it—that’s what abandoning the world means here!

  The gods themselves bring destruction on women, so is it any wonder you do the same? When Krishna got Arjuna to disguise himself as a big holy man and steal Subhadra away, the Yadavas’ sons said to each other ‘A holy man’s carried Aunty off!’ But do you ever hear of the aunt carrying off the holy man? There was the time when no one could stand up against Ravana and he went about harassing all the three worlds. Everywhere people were crying and groaning, Indraput was deserted and the gods and rishis went running to Sheshashayi Bhagavan at Kshirasagar, shouting for pity, ‘Stop that devil tormenting us and making us his slaves’. That all-powerful god could raise the whole world or destroy it in an instant, just as he wished. What was Ravana worth against that infinite power? But that isn’t how people interpret it now. Ravana stole Sita away, so the monkey army had to go after them to his kingdom in the south and destroy it—that was what really happened. But now people say, ‘Oh, never mind all that other stuff; it was that whore who really ruined Ravana. See what these wretched women get up to, destroying homes and kingdoms’.

  What have we got, then? It’s all women’s fault again. Sita even took the fire ordeal, but people still went on blaming her. Did that make Ramchandra all the greater or something? What wonderful gods you’ve got! You’re the shadows of them: they show up once, but you really show up double. How can we tell about this deceit of yours? There’s one of you pretending to be just like a brother to someone, and all the time secretly hoping something bad will happen to him; another who pretends to be like a father, and really hopes his friend will suffer a loss; and another of you who makes as if he’s a true friend, a
nd all the while his eye’s on everything from his friend’s wife to his dog. Hardly any men are pure outside as well as in. Five or six of you characters get together and then what? ‘That chap, you know, he really flashes his money around, it’d be good to see his nose pulled down for once!’ Or: ‘That fellow’s done all right for himself, what a marvel! He never even used to get enough to eat, but now that son of a whore rides round in a two horse buggy!’ That’s work to you—you’re like a lot of crows, heads full of dirty tricks and you’re pecking holes in other people for their secret follies. Tell us then, go on—do women ever do that? Has a woman ever dressed up as a gosavi or sadhu and got a man to run away with her? Show us, then, if you can find even one single example? …

  Now for the seventh point, that women are the beginning of all wickedness. No—wickedness starts off with you and you alone. You desert your own dharma and carry on just as you please, getting drunk and rolling in the road, going round looking at young boys in tamashas, gambling, smoking ganja, keeping whores, all sorts of badness and filth. Tell me this now, what is a whore? Do you think she’s some form of life that wasn’t made in the same way as the rest of creation? Was it some other God who made her? In fact, whores are just some of those women you’ve seduced and lured away from their homes. Take any woman you like. Her home can be an agony, a danger to her very life, she can be trapped, one well in front of her and another behind, she can lose her life. But she can’t survive without someone to lean on—no matter how brave she is, she can’t stand on her own legs even in her own house’s courtyard. The reason is she’s always been locked up, strictly confined to the same house, never able to put even a foot outside. So however bold and shameless she may be, she’d never go chasing another man on her own. It’s you that starts it off, giving her little hints of your own bad desires, and once she’s tasted them it’s enough. After that, she doesn’t need a teacher to show her what wickedness is.

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  Part III

  Nurturing A Nation

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  Introduction to Part III

  The nineteenth century in Europe was a century of nationalisms large and small, defensive as well as assertive. Countries such as France, Italy, Germany and Great Britain consolidated their boundaries, standardized their official languages, and modernized their political systems and their armies. Among less populous peoples such as the Poles and Czechs, there arose a similar desire to create a nation of their own, whose citizens would adhere to a common flag and a common currency. In pursuit of this aim they fought valiantly, if not always successfully, against the empires that ruled over them.

  The ‘national’ in the Indian National Congress was clearly inspired by these European precedents. But it was inspired also by the development of self-governing institutions in British colonies such as Australia and Canada. These were not full-fledged nations but British ‘Dominions’. A formal connection with the Mother Country remained—the British monarch was still head of state and his (or her) representative served as Governor General. However, in day-to-day matters of governance and administration the British government rarely interfered. Australia and Canada were administered by Australians and Canadians, not by Englishmen.

  With regard to the white dominions, Indian aspirations presented a problem—that Indians were not white. Racial prejudice was rarely expressed openly, but it was nonetheless believed by a majority of the British in India that brown (and black) men could not be trusted to take care of their own affairs. Dominion status was all right for the whites in Canada and America, but not here. Or at least not yet. The more broad-minded colonial administrators of the nineteenth century were prepared to allow that, perhaps in a few hundred years, the Indians would have sufficiently matured under British tutelage to be trusted to run their own government.

  With regard to the European nations, Indian aspirations presented an even greater problem—that Indians were very diverse and divided. The nations of the West had been forged—or sought to be forged—on the basis of a common language and a shared faith. A tongue other than the national language was permitted in the home and in private conversations, but could not intrude into the public domain and certainly not in the business of the state. Minority religions were likewise permitted in small doses and behind closed doors. Thus, Britain was united on the basis that its citizens all spoke English, while the marriage between faith and state was made formal by the monarch also acting as the head of the Church of England. Similarly, to be a citizen of the existing or putative nation of Poland you had to speak Polish. It also helped enormously if you were simultaneously a member of the Catholic Church. France and Germany were equally insistent on linguistic uniformity, if slightly more lax on the question of religion.

  The representativeness in this respect of the Indian National Congress was challenged very early in its existence. As we have seen, Syed Ahmad Khan did not believe that the Congress could or should speak for Muslims. Although every Congress meeting had a sprinkling of Muslims attending, on the whole the Muslim elite followed Syed Ahmad’s advice and stayed away from it. But among the Hindus the organization continued to gain ground. Its leaders were intelligent and articulate, and they had a programme. The status of the Congress grew as a result of the Swadeshi movement of 1905 onwards. The boycott of foreign cloth was seen, by the young especially, as a prelude to the attainment of self-government itself.

  The rise of the Congress was not welcomed by the British rulers. Their misgivings were shared by Muslim notables, a group of whom met the viceroy, Lord Minto, in October 1906, to ask for greater representation for their co-religionists in government and for separate electorates as well. The viceroy and his advisers viewed these demands with sympathy, seeing them as a means of stemming the advance of the Congress. In December 1906 the All-India Muslim League was formed, to provide a separate and distinct platform for Muslim interests and aspirations.

  Religious divisions existed in Europe as well. Germany had both Protestants and Catholics, but by the late nineteenth century, reconciling the two seemed within the bounds of possibility. Hindu—Muslim unity in India was a greater challenge. Adding to the difficulty were the existence of other robust religious communities in British India, such as the Sikhs, the Christians, the Parsis and the Jains.

  An equally great challenge to a single Indian nationality was divisions by language. The English had, within their national borders, successfully promoted their own language at the expense of Welsh and Celtic. But the major Indian languages were spoken by tens of millions of people. Each was written in a different script; each had a very old and very rich literary tradition. How could a single common language be made acceptable to all?

  Adding to the diversities of faith and language were the divisions of caste, class and gender. And yet the movement for a common nation persisted. By the time of the First World War, there had been thirty annual meetings of the Indian National Congress. The organization remained largely male, largely Hindu and largely upper-caste. On the other hand, it had some exceptional individuals, as well as institutional staying power. And it was active in most cities and towns of British India.

  Three events outside India helped energize the Congress further—the Irish Home Rule Bill of 1914, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917, and the Versailles Conference of 1919. Since the Irish were conceded self-government by the British, Indians demanded the same from the British. (Unsurprisingly, various Home Rule Leagues sprang up in the subcontinent soon afterwards.) The victory of the Bolsheviks was widely seen as a victory for the underdog, which naturally included subject peoples. And in Versailles in 1919 the American president, Woodrow Wilson, had spoken sympathetically of the rights of those who lived in colonies, even if he used the euphemism ‘autonomous development’ rather than ‘independence’ or ‘national sovereignty’.

  By the end of the First World War, the Indian National Congress was no longer a gentleman’s debating club but a genuine mass movement. Less than a hundred delegates h
ad attended the first Congress in Bombay in 1885; over 7,000 attended the Amritsar Congress of 1919, while more than 14,000 came to the Nagpur Congress the next year. Each delegate represented or spoke for thousands of ordinary party workers. The historian Gopal Krishna has estimated that by 1921, the Congress had more than 1.5 million members, who came from all parts of India.

  The Congress had reached beyond the anglicized elite to the vernacular middle class; and it was soon to penetrate even deeper. The popular campaigns it organized in the 1920s and 1930s resonated deeply with peasants across the country, who participated in large numbers in these movements. (Admittedly, they were attracted not so much by abstract ideals such as ‘nationalism’ and ‘freedom’ but by the opportunity to demand concrete concessions from the rulers, such as lower taxes and the freedom of the forest.)

  The British now realized that they had to progressively devolve power to Indians. The more die-hard imperialists (such as Winston Churchill), who thought that the sun would never set on the British Empire, found themselves in a minority. The climate of the time, within and outside India, was in favour of self-government. To be sure, the rulers could still delay and dilute the process. Thus, Indian representation in government bodies was increased in small doses and with special provisions for minorities. The intention was to maintain British control at the higher levels of government for as long as possible. Through a series of reforms in the 1920s and 1930s, Indians were elected to legislative councils and allowed to form ministries in the provinces, these working under the close supervision of British governors and with the implementation of their policies in the hands of British civil servants.