01-26-2004, 10:55 AM
Pioneer 27th January 2004
Demeaning Shivaji, denigrating dharma
By Sandhya Jain
Having purchased and read James Laine's Shivaji: Hindu King in
Islamic India only after it was officially withdrawn by the
publishers, I cannot view the events at the Bhandarkar Oriental
Research Institute (BORI) as totally unjustified. Certainly, attacks
on centres of learning have no place in Hindu ethos and must not
recur. Yet, having gone through 105 pages of shoddy polemics posing
as historical research, I am constrained to state that Oxford
University Press needs to re-examine its commissioning policy if it
hopes to retain credibility as a publishing house.
Moreover, the BORI scholars acknowledged by Laine must honestly
inform the nation of the extent to which they are responsible for the
unwarranted assertions â we cannot call them conclusions, as no
evidence has been adduced or offered â in the impugned book. Far from
being a meticulous scholar who has uncovered unpalatable truths about
a revered historical figure, Laine is an anti-Hindu hypocrite
determined to de-legitimize India's ancient civilizational ethos and
its grand rejuvenation by Shivaji in the adverse circumstances of the
seventeenth century. BORI is not generally associated with
substandard scholarship, and should explicitly declare its position
on the actual contents of the book.
Laine exposes his agenda when he foists the unnatural concept of
South Asia upon the geographical and cultural boundaries of India;
this is awkward because his discussion is India-centric and specific
to the Maharashtra region. He is also unable to disguise his
discomfort at the fact that Shivaji withstood the most bigoted Mughal
emperor, Aurangzeb, and established political agency for the
embattled Hindu community, amidst a sea of Islamic sultanates. This
has so unnerved Laine that he repeatedly makes inane remarks about
Hindus employed under Muslim rulers and vice versa, to claim that the
two communities lacked a modern sense of identity, and could not be
viewed as opposing entities. What he means, of course, is that Hindus
of the era cannot be ceded to have had a sense of `Hindu' identity.
Reading the book, I was struck by the fact that it did not once
mention Shivaji's famed ambition to establish a Hindu Pad Padshahi.
This is a strange omission in a work claiming to study how
contemporary authors viewed Shivaji's historic role, and the
assessment of his legacy by subsequent native and colonial writers.
The most notable omission is of the poet Bhushan, who wrote: "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
(converted)].
Bhushan's verse has immense historical value because the Kashi
Vishwanath temple was razed in 1669 and thus lost its splendour, and
the Krishna Janmabhoomi temple was destroyed and converted into a
mosque in 1670. Bhushan came to Shivaji's kingdom from the Mughal
capital in 1671, and within two years composed Shiv Bhooshan, a
biography of Shivaji. It clearly states that Shivaji wanted to set up
a Hindu Pad Padshahi.
Hence the view that Shivaji had no ideological quarrel with Aurangzeb
and was only an adventurer in search of power and resources is
juvenile. Laine obviously subscribes to the secularist school of
historiography that decrees that Hindus must forget the evil done to
them, a phenomenon Dr. Koenraad Elst calls negationism. But history
is about truth, and Hindu society's long and painful experience of
Islamic invasions and the subsequent Islamic polity has been so well
documented in standard works like Cambridge History of India, that it
is amazing a modern historian should claim there was no tension
between Muslim rulers and their Hindu subjects.
Shivaji strove consciously for political power as an instrument for
the resurrection of dharma (righteousness), a quest he termed
as "Hindavi Swarajya," a word having both geographical and spiritual-
cultural connotations. When still in his teens in 1645 CE, Shivaji
began administering his father's estate under a personalized seal of
authority in Sanskrit, an indication that he envisaged independence
and respected the Hindu tradition. A 1646 CE letter to Dadaji Naras
Prabhu refers to an oath that Shivaji, Prabhu, and others took in the
presence of the deity at Rayareshwar, to establish "Hindavi
Swarajya."
Shivaji was aware of the economic ruin and cultural annihilation of
Hindus under the various sultanates. He desired to end this
suffering, but was personally free from bigotry, as attested by
contemporary Muslim chroniclers, notably Khafi Khan. It is therefore
galling when Laine smugly proclaims: "I have no intention of showing
that he was unchivalrous, was a religious bigot, or oppressed the
peasants." A.S. Altekar (Position of Women in Ancient India) has
recorded how Shivaji, in stark contrast to Muslim kings and generals
of his era, ensured that Muslim women in forts captured by him were
not molested and were escorted to safety. It is inconceivable that
Shivaji would not know that Hindu women similarly situated would have
to commit jauhar. It is therefore incumbent upon Laine and BORI to
explain what "unchivalrous" and "bigot" mean.
The insinuation about "bigot" is especially objectionable in view of
Laine's insistence that Shivaji had no particular interest in Hindu
civilization and no proven relationship with the revered Samarth
Ramdas or sant Tukaram. A Maharashtrian friend suggests that Laine
has probably not read the references cited in his book! What the
reader needs to understand is that Ramdas' historical significance
lies in the fact that he openly exhorted the people to rise against
oppression and hinted in Dasbodh that Shivaji was an avatar who had
come to restore dharma. By denying that he was Shivaji's spiritual
mentor, Laine seeks to disprove that the great Maratha wanted to
establish a Hindu Pad Padshahi.
Ramdas, a devotee of Rama (Vaishnava sampradaya), visited the
Khandoba temple at Jejuri, Pune; apologized to the god (Shiva) for
boycotting the temple due to the practice of animal sacrifice there;
and built a Hanuman temple at its entrance. I mention this to debunk
Laine's pathetic insistence that devotion to a personal god divides
Hindu society. This is alien to our thinking; we see no conflict
between Ramdas and the Bhavani-worshipping Shivaji.
Then, there is Laine's tasteless allegation that Shivaji may possibly
(whatever that means) be illegitimate, simply because Jijabai, who
bore many children while living with her husband in the south, gave
birth to Shivaji on her husband's estate near Pune and continued to
live there. Maharashtrians point out that Shahaji had to send his
pregnant wife to safety in Shivneri due to political instability.
Shahaji was on the run with the boy king Murtaza Nizamshah, in whose
name he controlled the Nizamshahi. After its fall in 1636, service in
the Adilshahi took him to Bangalore (his remarriage produced the
distinguished Thanjavur-Bhonsle dynasty); he administered his Pune
lands through Dadaji Konddev.
My response to Laine's profound Freudian analysis is that he has
thanked his wife and children and dedicated his book to his mother; I
couldn't but notice the absence of a father. Is one to deduce
something from the omission? Laine can relax: since the Vedas, Hindus
have placed only proportionate emphasis on biological bloodlines;
there is no shame if a man cannot mention his father; a true b@st@rd
is one who does not know the name of his mother.
End of matter
Demeaning Shivaji, denigrating dharma
By Sandhya Jain
Having purchased and read James Laine's Shivaji: Hindu King in
Islamic India only after it was officially withdrawn by the
publishers, I cannot view the events at the Bhandarkar Oriental
Research Institute (BORI) as totally unjustified. Certainly, attacks
on centres of learning have no place in Hindu ethos and must not
recur. Yet, having gone through 105 pages of shoddy polemics posing
as historical research, I am constrained to state that Oxford
University Press needs to re-examine its commissioning policy if it
hopes to retain credibility as a publishing house.
Moreover, the BORI scholars acknowledged by Laine must honestly
inform the nation of the extent to which they are responsible for the
unwarranted assertions â we cannot call them conclusions, as no
evidence has been adduced or offered â in the impugned book. Far from
being a meticulous scholar who has uncovered unpalatable truths about
a revered historical figure, Laine is an anti-Hindu hypocrite
determined to de-legitimize India's ancient civilizational ethos and
its grand rejuvenation by Shivaji in the adverse circumstances of the
seventeenth century. BORI is not generally associated with
substandard scholarship, and should explicitly declare its position
on the actual contents of the book.
Laine exposes his agenda when he foists the unnatural concept of
South Asia upon the geographical and cultural boundaries of India;
this is awkward because his discussion is India-centric and specific
to the Maharashtra region. He is also unable to disguise his
discomfort at the fact that Shivaji withstood the most bigoted Mughal
emperor, Aurangzeb, and established political agency for the
embattled Hindu community, amidst a sea of Islamic sultanates. This
has so unnerved Laine that he repeatedly makes inane remarks about
Hindus employed under Muslim rulers and vice versa, to claim that the
two communities lacked a modern sense of identity, and could not be
viewed as opposing entities. What he means, of course, is that Hindus
of the era cannot be ceded to have had a sense of `Hindu' identity.
Reading the book, I was struck by the fact that it did not once
mention Shivaji's famed ambition to establish a Hindu Pad Padshahi.
This is a strange omission in a work claiming to study how
contemporary authors viewed Shivaji's historic role, and the
assessment of his legacy by subsequent native and colonial writers.
The most notable omission is of the poet Bhushan, who wrote: "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
(converted)].
Bhushan's verse has immense historical value because the Kashi
Vishwanath temple was razed in 1669 and thus lost its splendour, and
the Krishna Janmabhoomi temple was destroyed and converted into a
mosque in 1670. Bhushan came to Shivaji's kingdom from the Mughal
capital in 1671, and within two years composed Shiv Bhooshan, a
biography of Shivaji. It clearly states that Shivaji wanted to set up
a Hindu Pad Padshahi.
Hence the view that Shivaji had no ideological quarrel with Aurangzeb
and was only an adventurer in search of power and resources is
juvenile. Laine obviously subscribes to the secularist school of
historiography that decrees that Hindus must forget the evil done to
them, a phenomenon Dr. Koenraad Elst calls negationism. But history
is about truth, and Hindu society's long and painful experience of
Islamic invasions and the subsequent Islamic polity has been so well
documented in standard works like Cambridge History of India, that it
is amazing a modern historian should claim there was no tension
between Muslim rulers and their Hindu subjects.
Shivaji strove consciously for political power as an instrument for
the resurrection of dharma (righteousness), a quest he termed
as "Hindavi Swarajya," a word having both geographical and spiritual-
cultural connotations. When still in his teens in 1645 CE, Shivaji
began administering his father's estate under a personalized seal of
authority in Sanskrit, an indication that he envisaged independence
and respected the Hindu tradition. A 1646 CE letter to Dadaji Naras
Prabhu refers to an oath that Shivaji, Prabhu, and others took in the
presence of the deity at Rayareshwar, to establish "Hindavi
Swarajya."
Shivaji was aware of the economic ruin and cultural annihilation of
Hindus under the various sultanates. He desired to end this
suffering, but was personally free from bigotry, as attested by
contemporary Muslim chroniclers, notably Khafi Khan. It is therefore
galling when Laine smugly proclaims: "I have no intention of showing
that he was unchivalrous, was a religious bigot, or oppressed the
peasants." A.S. Altekar (Position of Women in Ancient India) has
recorded how Shivaji, in stark contrast to Muslim kings and generals
of his era, ensured that Muslim women in forts captured by him were
not molested and were escorted to safety. It is inconceivable that
Shivaji would not know that Hindu women similarly situated would have
to commit jauhar. It is therefore incumbent upon Laine and BORI to
explain what "unchivalrous" and "bigot" mean.
The insinuation about "bigot" is especially objectionable in view of
Laine's insistence that Shivaji had no particular interest in Hindu
civilization and no proven relationship with the revered Samarth
Ramdas or sant Tukaram. A Maharashtrian friend suggests that Laine
has probably not read the references cited in his book! What the
reader needs to understand is that Ramdas' historical significance
lies in the fact that he openly exhorted the people to rise against
oppression and hinted in Dasbodh that Shivaji was an avatar who had
come to restore dharma. By denying that he was Shivaji's spiritual
mentor, Laine seeks to disprove that the great Maratha wanted to
establish a Hindu Pad Padshahi.
Ramdas, a devotee of Rama (Vaishnava sampradaya), visited the
Khandoba temple at Jejuri, Pune; apologized to the god (Shiva) for
boycotting the temple due to the practice of animal sacrifice there;
and built a Hanuman temple at its entrance. I mention this to debunk
Laine's pathetic insistence that devotion to a personal god divides
Hindu society. This is alien to our thinking; we see no conflict
between Ramdas and the Bhavani-worshipping Shivaji.
Then, there is Laine's tasteless allegation that Shivaji may possibly
(whatever that means) be illegitimate, simply because Jijabai, who
bore many children while living with her husband in the south, gave
birth to Shivaji on her husband's estate near Pune and continued to
live there. Maharashtrians point out that Shahaji had to send his
pregnant wife to safety in Shivneri due to political instability.
Shahaji was on the run with the boy king Murtaza Nizamshah, in whose
name he controlled the Nizamshahi. After its fall in 1636, service in
the Adilshahi took him to Bangalore (his remarriage produced the
distinguished Thanjavur-Bhonsle dynasty); he administered his Pune
lands through Dadaji Konddev.
My response to Laine's profound Freudian analysis is that he has
thanked his wife and children and dedicated his book to his mother; I
couldn't but notice the absence of a father. Is one to deduce
something from the omission? Laine can relax: since the Vedas, Hindus
have placed only proportionate emphasis on biological bloodlines;
there is no shame if a man cannot mention his father; a true b@st@rd
is one who does not know the name of his mother.
End of matter